Interesting read. The emphasis on the historicity of Jesus seems to miss that McGilchrist is trying to move us away from thinking in terms of propositional truth claims of this sort, especially when contemplating the divine. Would love to see a response from Iain.
Interesting tussle with The Matter of Things. I write as one between the human judges you mention that condemned the G-d/Human to the cross and the judgment you don’t mention, but speak from, that judges the Word of G-d as distillable and static as creed. From between the two refusals you mention I find McGhilchrist’s theories compatible with a Yeshua as a unique Word of G-d-ness, even if Ian as person rejects this. More compatible, by far, than I find Classic Theism with the realities of G-d revealed in events like the Shoah. With respect to the author’s obvious depth in both subjects in juxtaposition here, I struggle not to read this as the accused, the litero-certain, reapproaching its seat as the arbiter between itself and the plaintiff. I say that while underlining that the writer himself seems both fair-minded and a good one in general. Yeshua as Word, as Way, Truth, and Life seems to me as wholly Other to Classic Theisms take of those three words as Ein Sof is to the animal of us. Two wholly Otherings that seem incongruous with litmus-testy way that creed seems to be worked here. But I way just be reading my own monster into the knocking from outside the mead hall. I mistrust this sort of text these days to be taken as fighting words of some sort. I hope they read as question. Thanks for the work and the wondering.
I feel somewhat of a sensation of frustration. A lot of what I read here in the body (rather than in the helpful prologue) seems to be doing little more than pointing out where McGilchrist differs from classical Christian theology — as if there is an agreed position on what is "correct" from that point of view. The conclusion rebalances this somewhat, for which I am grateful. And, hopefully not to labour a point, but any insistence on what is the "correct" view of Christian theology seems to miss the point that it is a rather Left Hemisphere concern. As I follow a Quaker tradition on this, I appreciate their emphasis on "the letter killeth" etc. and their resolute abstinence from fixed credal forms. Surely, the question is not what McGilchrist "gets wrong" about Christian theology, but what extra light he sheds. If the analysis of hemispheric differentiation and specialisation bears on the matter of how we tend to see the divine, all well and good, we can bear that in mind and take that into account. Thus, this does not strike me as a helpful critique for any except a staunch traditionalist trying to uphold their position and close off from "new light". I quote directly from Iain in published spoken conversation: “The left hemisphere closes down to a certainty; the right hemisphere opens up to a possibility. ” And this piece seems to me to be trying to close down to certainty. What a missed opportunity!
As someone culturally, ancestrally downstream from New England Christian attitudes, and further someone who likes to read technical discussions, I'm a bit at a loss as to how the technical discussion at hand here, extraordinarily well-written and friendly in tone as it is, should matter to those of us with no investment in Trinitarian myth. McGilchrist's view of the Creative in the Nature of things, at least as I read him, parallels what's always, to me, looked obvious. But to personify the Creative as the Christian "Creator" ... why? To the degree personification is a good move, wouldn't the better use of it be to multiply personifications, as the Greeks, Romans did, as Hindus do, as the Catholic Church and Shia Muslims do with the Saints? Limiting the Creative to a single (or even trinary) persona, as in putting forward a single mask or ego on the self, in Jungian terms should block individuation, preventing the emergence of wholeness from the Creative collective unconscious.
To identify the Creative with a single Creator is surely a convenience for kings and dictators, who claim "Only I can fix it," as if they are the appointed emissaries of that God. Here in the States now we see many who claim themselves Christians falling in behind someone (despite his showing distinct signs of organic brain failure, e.g. repeated failure to retrieve common words during speech) making many wildly crazy claims, that forefront among them. These people are also generally against the arts -- the very area where the Creative is most often directly expressed, now some centuries beyond a prior devotion to building great cathedrals and furnishing them with numinous imagery of the Saints. But then, the arts have often contributed more to real religious influence than the technical theologies, which tended to be hidden away in ancient languages and texts, obscured from the larger populations' worship and pilgrimage. It is the Creative which inspires, regardless of theological disputes about Gods.
I'm glad to see this type of engagement with Iain's work. But it seems to me that, just as modern atheism needs to be saved from human hubris, and postmodern agnosticism from human humiliation, classical theism in most of its expressions has not overcome and must be saved from the idolatrous premodern imagination of God as an imperial ruler. Open and process-relational theisms (or Hartshorne's neo-classical theism) are more credible, more inspiring, more incarnational, and more effective for recovering some sense of a divine ground of the world. I think process theologian Catherine Keller hits the right note for our times: https://youtu.be/dbYfFgX-kaI
On the other hand, Ian's chapter on the resistance of the solid form making beauty through eddying of the flow suggests a place for uniqueness, the never-before, and the immutable (maybe?) that I could see in relation to creed if creed could dress in story rather than hubris, more unflinching juror among jurors than yardstick, chief of measurements. I say that because I think the shank of the Emissary isn't monotheism but the litero-certain. Abraham looks as good dressed by the Master as anything in eight-armed blue or many headed sibilance.
David’s piece is a generous, sincere and thorough engagement with Iain’s writing and an elegant and clear statement of the foundational elements of Christian theism.
And yet this theism feels over-confident in its authoritative propositional truths and it overlooks and distrusts the domain of the right hemisphere, the insights of the heart and the mystical intuition.
It’s important that readers not familiar with Christianity realise that there are many Christianities and the theological landscape is diverse. To quote theologian Raimon Panikkar, who like Iain was a polymath with doctorates in chemistry, philosophy and religion: “theisms do not exhaust the human ways to encounter the divine Mystery. …. The world of theism is a universe in itself which selects its own criteria for judging what is right and wrong. Yet theisms no longer seem able to satisfy the most profound urges of the contemporary sensibilities both in the civilisations that first nurtured these theisms, and in others as well. The world of theism is not alone in facing religious problems as well as metaphysical issues. In short, the divine Mystery, remains a mystery”. (pxxii, The Rhythm of Being, The Unbroken Trinity).
For those interested in a contrasting Christian spirituality, one in tune with both Iain’s writings and Whitehead’s process theology, you might wish to explore the writing of scientist-theologian, Ilia Delio ( e.g. The Emergent Christ, Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe) and for a radically different understanding of who Jesus is and the nature of birth, death and resurrection read the Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault.
There is evolutionary precedent for hemispheric shifts and latencies, as fully aquatic marine mammals sleep one hemisphere at a time https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/the-sleep-of-seals?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fthe%2520sleep%2520of%2520seals&utm_medium=reader2, and most people actively engaged in any kind of creative endeavor, if not crushed by current ideological requirements (students at the Dodge Poetry Festival asked "how do you write poems and be sure they'll be politically correct and you won't get attacked?), recognize intuitively the thesis in The Master and his Emissary. Many writing exercises involve what are called "constraints," and these are T.S. Eliot's bone thrown to the dog in order to rob the house, and they work just as well as a sort of divination, and as a way of experiencing the difference between your left and right hemisphere attention and perception. Go for a walk in a totally familiar place and notice only one color and keep track of that, write it down in a notebook. Immediately the place is "changed utterly" as the right hemisphere begins paying attention. Or, sit down and write (or paint or draw) the last work you will ever make, essay, email, letter, note, drawing etc. The last one of your life. Halts the predictive watchful left hemisphere in its incessant tracking. (That one's from the writer's workshop at U Iowa)
I have had this same theological discussion regarding The Matter with Things with a very old friend who is an evangelical Christian minister and writer. I asked (I am theologically illiterate mostly) if Christianity might be a metaphoric truth. Dr. MacGilchrist spoke about metaphoric truth being more important than literal truth in a podcast, and Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist, joining David Sloan Wilson (Darwin's Cathedral) has been advocating for a return to faith because it is adaptive and we are going civilizationally whacko without it, though he calls faith a metaphoric truth. My friend the minister said the crucial (no etymological pun intended) aspect of Christianity is Jesus' incarnation, literal and historical, and crucifixion and resurrection, and the redemptive power of that for humanity, so metaphoric truth can only bring one so close to "the sea of faith".
That conversation, and this far more erudite dialogue, seems a seed, a tendril poking up, an unfurling, or a whirlwind, or a "great song" (Rilke) Martin Shaw is another recent convert, who says he wishes Genesis began "In the beginning was the mythos," and he's starting a sort of Christian mystery school in Devon, a Christian "dreaming".
So something is afoot. Perhaps it is Holderlin's poetic idea (whom Dr. MacGilchrist quotes) “But where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” Or Rilke's "Inside human beings is where God learns" Though we all desperately want to predict things in this dark age, it may be that we just have to give it up, if just for minutes at a time, as forces are at work in the cosmos (perhaps God, perhaps Christ, perhaps ??) that are just beyond our power to predict. Like people coming to Christianity through Dawkins. Who could've guessed that?
Coming to Faith Through Dawkins: 12 Essays on the Pathway from New Atheism to Christianity Paperback – August 29, 2023
by Denis Alexander (Editor), Alister McGrath (Editor), Sarah Irving-Stonebraker (Contributor), & 11 mo
Richard Dawkins = Christian evangelist?
Editors Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath gather other intelligent minds from around the world to share their startling commonality: Richard Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists were instrumental in their conversions to Christianity.
Anyway, thank you for this clear enunciation of the thought processes surfacing and calling us.
The difference that makes a difference between Christian classical theism and Iain’s understanding of the sacred is the primacy of relationships.
David makes this distinction clear: “Classical theism claims that however much it is true that God is present in creation, God is wholly other than creation.” In theism there is a fundamental separation of God from human nature, from more-than human nature, from the universe. In the oft-used phrase associated with theism, “God is the Unmoved Mover”. Whereas in panentheism and process theology, God is perceived to be intimately involved in the created universe from the beginning.
As Jesuit theologian, Teilhard de Chardin observed in the early part of the 20th century: ‘the Divine is found in the heart of the tiniest atom’. We humans, the earth and the universe are in a process of perpetual becoming, a process of continual creation: birth, death and resurrection are processes that are foundational to the universe. Revelation is ongoing, present in the Supernova, that glorious event that birthed life in our universe. And yes from a Christian perspective, Jesus exemplifies the meeting of the human and the divine, and through his life, death and resurrection we encounter these eternal mysteries in the form of a human life. Process theology asserts that these were not one-off events, but are revelations across time of how life works. In process theology nature and scripture are both seen as sources of revelation, but nature is primary because it came first.
These can seem like abstruse and complicated theological points, but they matter because faith has shaped and continues to shape how humans perceive, relate to and act in the world. As a species our felt separation from the rest of the created world also has theological roots and this alienation from the rest of nature has been and remains a major contributor to human-driven climate change.
We need to recover the luminosity, the sacredness of the universe, the fundamental relatedness of humans with all living beings and with the larger whole of which we are part, however we name that Ultimate Reality. Our future depends on it.
Thank you. I appreciate the thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit that infuse each of the layers of this exchange. To Iain for your foundational work, to David for your positive summary and critique, and Jonathan for your proper introduction. This is a timely gift and a gift for this time.
When we look to creative persons, to those most valued as artists, craftspeople, artists, engineers, scientists, their production typically shows their individual character, their "signature". The Creative, in its most evident, is most particular, even where what's created is treasured by broad numbers of people. Whether at the vanguard or working in traditional forms, the Creative makes something new and fresh. If this is so when individual persons are most highly creative, should it not be even more so when those creating are Gods?
The Old Testament books were not originally about a single YHWH. It was later compilers and translators who reduced the multiple Gods named in the original stories to a single "Jehovah". It's one thing to have a God speak to you. It's quite another to conclude that She or He is the only God who is. We might be far better with an ecology rather than a monoculture of Spirits, just as we are with the rest of Nature. If three is better than one, being open to -- and discerning among -- many may be best.
Jung, creative psychologist as he was, would have us encounter and respect the archetypes in both their power and multiplicity, but avoid inflation by them. But then he also said, late in life, "Thank God I'm not a Jungian." If Jesus were to return, would He be a Christian?
Interesting read. The emphasis on the historicity of Jesus seems to miss that McGilchrist is trying to move us away from thinking in terms of propositional truth claims of this sort, especially when contemplating the divine. Would love to see a response from Iain.
Interesting tussle with The Matter of Things. I write as one between the human judges you mention that condemned the G-d/Human to the cross and the judgment you don’t mention, but speak from, that judges the Word of G-d as distillable and static as creed. From between the two refusals you mention I find McGhilchrist’s theories compatible with a Yeshua as a unique Word of G-d-ness, even if Ian as person rejects this. More compatible, by far, than I find Classic Theism with the realities of G-d revealed in events like the Shoah. With respect to the author’s obvious depth in both subjects in juxtaposition here, I struggle not to read this as the accused, the litero-certain, reapproaching its seat as the arbiter between itself and the plaintiff. I say that while underlining that the writer himself seems both fair-minded and a good one in general. Yeshua as Word, as Way, Truth, and Life seems to me as wholly Other to Classic Theisms take of those three words as Ein Sof is to the animal of us. Two wholly Otherings that seem incongruous with litmus-testy way that creed seems to be worked here. But I way just be reading my own monster into the knocking from outside the mead hall. I mistrust this sort of text these days to be taken as fighting words of some sort. I hope they read as question. Thanks for the work and the wondering.
I feel somewhat of a sensation of frustration. A lot of what I read here in the body (rather than in the helpful prologue) seems to be doing little more than pointing out where McGilchrist differs from classical Christian theology — as if there is an agreed position on what is "correct" from that point of view. The conclusion rebalances this somewhat, for which I am grateful. And, hopefully not to labour a point, but any insistence on what is the "correct" view of Christian theology seems to miss the point that it is a rather Left Hemisphere concern. As I follow a Quaker tradition on this, I appreciate their emphasis on "the letter killeth" etc. and their resolute abstinence from fixed credal forms. Surely, the question is not what McGilchrist "gets wrong" about Christian theology, but what extra light he sheds. If the analysis of hemispheric differentiation and specialisation bears on the matter of how we tend to see the divine, all well and good, we can bear that in mind and take that into account. Thus, this does not strike me as a helpful critique for any except a staunch traditionalist trying to uphold their position and close off from "new light". I quote directly from Iain in published spoken conversation: “The left hemisphere closes down to a certainty; the right hemisphere opens up to a possibility. ” And this piece seems to me to be trying to close down to certainty. What a missed opportunity!
As someone culturally, ancestrally downstream from New England Christian attitudes, and further someone who likes to read technical discussions, I'm a bit at a loss as to how the technical discussion at hand here, extraordinarily well-written and friendly in tone as it is, should matter to those of us with no investment in Trinitarian myth. McGilchrist's view of the Creative in the Nature of things, at least as I read him, parallels what's always, to me, looked obvious. But to personify the Creative as the Christian "Creator" ... why? To the degree personification is a good move, wouldn't the better use of it be to multiply personifications, as the Greeks, Romans did, as Hindus do, as the Catholic Church and Shia Muslims do with the Saints? Limiting the Creative to a single (or even trinary) persona, as in putting forward a single mask or ego on the self, in Jungian terms should block individuation, preventing the emergence of wholeness from the Creative collective unconscious.
To identify the Creative with a single Creator is surely a convenience for kings and dictators, who claim "Only I can fix it," as if they are the appointed emissaries of that God. Here in the States now we see many who claim themselves Christians falling in behind someone (despite his showing distinct signs of organic brain failure, e.g. repeated failure to retrieve common words during speech) making many wildly crazy claims, that forefront among them. These people are also generally against the arts -- the very area where the Creative is most often directly expressed, now some centuries beyond a prior devotion to building great cathedrals and furnishing them with numinous imagery of the Saints. But then, the arts have often contributed more to real religious influence than the technical theologies, which tended to be hidden away in ancient languages and texts, obscured from the larger populations' worship and pilgrimage. It is the Creative which inspires, regardless of theological disputes about Gods.
I'm glad to see this type of engagement with Iain's work. But it seems to me that, just as modern atheism needs to be saved from human hubris, and postmodern agnosticism from human humiliation, classical theism in most of its expressions has not overcome and must be saved from the idolatrous premodern imagination of God as an imperial ruler. Open and process-relational theisms (or Hartshorne's neo-classical theism) are more credible, more inspiring, more incarnational, and more effective for recovering some sense of a divine ground of the world. I think process theologian Catherine Keller hits the right note for our times: https://youtu.be/dbYfFgX-kaI
Great video, Mathew. I needed a kick to return to Keller after a mutation of my own and see what I would have missed as an earlier self.
On the other hand, Ian's chapter on the resistance of the solid form making beauty through eddying of the flow suggests a place for uniqueness, the never-before, and the immutable (maybe?) that I could see in relation to creed if creed could dress in story rather than hubris, more unflinching juror among jurors than yardstick, chief of measurements. I say that because I think the shank of the Emissary isn't monotheism but the litero-certain. Abraham looks as good dressed by the Master as anything in eight-armed blue or many headed sibilance.
David’s piece is a generous, sincere and thorough engagement with Iain’s writing and an elegant and clear statement of the foundational elements of Christian theism.
And yet this theism feels over-confident in its authoritative propositional truths and it overlooks and distrusts the domain of the right hemisphere, the insights of the heart and the mystical intuition.
It’s important that readers not familiar with Christianity realise that there are many Christianities and the theological landscape is diverse. To quote theologian Raimon Panikkar, who like Iain was a polymath with doctorates in chemistry, philosophy and religion: “theisms do not exhaust the human ways to encounter the divine Mystery. …. The world of theism is a universe in itself which selects its own criteria for judging what is right and wrong. Yet theisms no longer seem able to satisfy the most profound urges of the contemporary sensibilities both in the civilisations that first nurtured these theisms, and in others as well. The world of theism is not alone in facing religious problems as well as metaphysical issues. In short, the divine Mystery, remains a mystery”. (pxxii, The Rhythm of Being, The Unbroken Trinity).
For those interested in a contrasting Christian spirituality, one in tune with both Iain’s writings and Whitehead’s process theology, you might wish to explore the writing of scientist-theologian, Ilia Delio ( e.g. The Emergent Christ, Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe) and for a radically different understanding of who Jesus is and the nature of birth, death and resurrection read the Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault.
There is evolutionary precedent for hemispheric shifts and latencies, as fully aquatic marine mammals sleep one hemisphere at a time https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/the-sleep-of-seals?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fthe%2520sleep%2520of%2520seals&utm_medium=reader2, and most people actively engaged in any kind of creative endeavor, if not crushed by current ideological requirements (students at the Dodge Poetry Festival asked "how do you write poems and be sure they'll be politically correct and you won't get attacked?), recognize intuitively the thesis in The Master and his Emissary. Many writing exercises involve what are called "constraints," and these are T.S. Eliot's bone thrown to the dog in order to rob the house, and they work just as well as a sort of divination, and as a way of experiencing the difference between your left and right hemisphere attention and perception. Go for a walk in a totally familiar place and notice only one color and keep track of that, write it down in a notebook. Immediately the place is "changed utterly" as the right hemisphere begins paying attention. Or, sit down and write (or paint or draw) the last work you will ever make, essay, email, letter, note, drawing etc. The last one of your life. Halts the predictive watchful left hemisphere in its incessant tracking. (That one's from the writer's workshop at U Iowa)
I have had this same theological discussion regarding The Matter with Things with a very old friend who is an evangelical Christian minister and writer. I asked (I am theologically illiterate mostly) if Christianity might be a metaphoric truth. Dr. MacGilchrist spoke about metaphoric truth being more important than literal truth in a podcast, and Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist, joining David Sloan Wilson (Darwin's Cathedral) has been advocating for a return to faith because it is adaptive and we are going civilizationally whacko without it, though he calls faith a metaphoric truth. My friend the minister said the crucial (no etymological pun intended) aspect of Christianity is Jesus' incarnation, literal and historical, and crucifixion and resurrection, and the redemptive power of that for humanity, so metaphoric truth can only bring one so close to "the sea of faith".
That conversation, and this far more erudite dialogue, seems a seed, a tendril poking up, an unfurling, or a whirlwind, or a "great song" (Rilke) Martin Shaw is another recent convert, who says he wishes Genesis began "In the beginning was the mythos," and he's starting a sort of Christian mystery school in Devon, a Christian "dreaming".
So something is afoot. Perhaps it is Holderlin's poetic idea (whom Dr. MacGilchrist quotes) “But where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” Or Rilke's "Inside human beings is where God learns" Though we all desperately want to predict things in this dark age, it may be that we just have to give it up, if just for minutes at a time, as forces are at work in the cosmos (perhaps God, perhaps Christ, perhaps ??) that are just beyond our power to predict. Like people coming to Christianity through Dawkins. Who could've guessed that?
Coming to Faith Through Dawkins: 12 Essays on the Pathway from New Atheism to Christianity Paperback – August 29, 2023
by Denis Alexander (Editor), Alister McGrath (Editor), Sarah Irving-Stonebraker (Contributor), & 11 mo
Richard Dawkins = Christian evangelist?
Editors Denis Alexander and Alister McGrath gather other intelligent minds from around the world to share their startling commonality: Richard Dawkins and his fellow New Atheists were instrumental in their conversions to Christianity.
Anyway, thank you for this clear enunciation of the thought processes surfacing and calling us.
God in peril? I don’t see it. God is a Love factory with ineluctable machinery.
Classical theism is not beautiful. It doesn’t pass the ugly test. It may not be helpful or true either
Another Christian
Pittig, maar interessant leesvoer!
The difference that makes a difference between Christian classical theism and Iain’s understanding of the sacred is the primacy of relationships.
David makes this distinction clear: “Classical theism claims that however much it is true that God is present in creation, God is wholly other than creation.” In theism there is a fundamental separation of God from human nature, from more-than human nature, from the universe. In the oft-used phrase associated with theism, “God is the Unmoved Mover”. Whereas in panentheism and process theology, God is perceived to be intimately involved in the created universe from the beginning.
As Jesuit theologian, Teilhard de Chardin observed in the early part of the 20th century: ‘the Divine is found in the heart of the tiniest atom’. We humans, the earth and the universe are in a process of perpetual becoming, a process of continual creation: birth, death and resurrection are processes that are foundational to the universe. Revelation is ongoing, present in the Supernova, that glorious event that birthed life in our universe. And yes from a Christian perspective, Jesus exemplifies the meeting of the human and the divine, and through his life, death and resurrection we encounter these eternal mysteries in the form of a human life. Process theology asserts that these were not one-off events, but are revelations across time of how life works. In process theology nature and scripture are both seen as sources of revelation, but nature is primary because it came first.
These can seem like abstruse and complicated theological points, but they matter because faith has shaped and continues to shape how humans perceive, relate to and act in the world. As a species our felt separation from the rest of the created world also has theological roots and this alienation from the rest of nature has been and remains a major contributor to human-driven climate change.
We need to recover the luminosity, the sacredness of the universe, the fundamental relatedness of humans with all living beings and with the larger whole of which we are part, however we name that Ultimate Reality. Our future depends on it.
Thank you. I appreciate the thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit that infuse each of the layers of this exchange. To Iain for your foundational work, to David for your positive summary and critique, and Jonathan for your proper introduction. This is a timely gift and a gift for this time.
When we look to creative persons, to those most valued as artists, craftspeople, artists, engineers, scientists, their production typically shows their individual character, their "signature". The Creative, in its most evident, is most particular, even where what's created is treasured by broad numbers of people. Whether at the vanguard or working in traditional forms, the Creative makes something new and fresh. If this is so when individual persons are most highly creative, should it not be even more so when those creating are Gods?
The Old Testament books were not originally about a single YHWH. It was later compilers and translators who reduced the multiple Gods named in the original stories to a single "Jehovah". It's one thing to have a God speak to you. It's quite another to conclude that She or He is the only God who is. We might be far better with an ecology rather than a monoculture of Spirits, just as we are with the rest of Nature. If three is better than one, being open to -- and discerning among -- many may be best.
Jung, creative psychologist as he was, would have us encounter and respect the archetypes in both their power and multiplicity, but avoid inflation by them. But then he also said, late in life, "Thank God I'm not a Jungian." If Jesus were to return, would He be a Christian?