Bishop Barron on Atheism and Philosophy

well Daniel Dennett was one of the Four Horsemen of the new atheist movement said back in 2003 that those who hold to a purely naturalist atheist view should call themselves the brights thereby distinguish themselves clearly from the poor dim the knighted souls that hold to a supernaturalists view of the world so the smart people are just you know claim this title where the were the bright people now in support of this faces lots of atheists bring forward all the time I see it on the web all the time these statistics about scientists who I guess are the smartest people in our society and it's some very small percentage you know believe in God is like seven percent of scientists believe in God so I've been hearing that for a long time just recently there appeared in the online journal salon this article by John masterly who's a professor of philosophy at the University of Seattle and he's adding to this by saying not only there's a small percentage of scientists believe in God but a very small percentage of professional academic philosophers believe in God I think it was 14 percent so he's saying now I know that just bringing forth statistics you know don't doesn't say much about veracity of an argument nevertheless naturally you know solemnly warns it should give pause to religious people that all these smart folks you know don't believe in God well professor masterly consider me unpause I've written a lot about the scientific side of his thing so I'll just say a few simple things about it scientists in my experience reading all these critiques scientists rarely know what serious people mean when they use the word God almost invariably when I read these you know scientific critiques they assume that God is some item in the universe some big being who may or may not exist and let's look and find out let's try to see if there's any evidence meaning physical traces of this being is their experiment evidence etc see this is precisely what religious people do not mean by God serious religious people it doesn't mean by God some item of the universe some gap in an ordinary causal Nexus well then I am an atheist and so was Thomas Aquinas what serious people believe about God is not that he's an item in the universe that could be discovered through scientific investigation whether God is that non-contingent ground of contingent existence the condition for the possibility of the existence of the universe as such which means the science is even in principle cannot adjudicate the question of God this why see when scientists come forward and say oh I don't believe in God because I have no scientific evidence for God my answer honestly is who cares it makes that the slightest difference to adjudicating the question of whether God the true God exists okay so 7% of scientists don't believe it God who cares is my honest answer to that now what about a masterly suggestion that well but 86% of philosophers professional philosophers don't believe in God presumably they know what serious religious people mean when they use the word God well here's my first observation not necessarily there are a lot of different areas of philosophy the philosophy religion is a particular branch of philosophy and a lot of professional philosophers don't know much about it have not looked seriously into that corner in fact I discovered something through one of my researchers that behind this poll of philosophers that only 5% of the Philosopher's interrogated specialized in the philosophy of religion the vast majority of the Philosopher's of that were surveyed don't specialize in these areas so they don't really have any particular expertise in adjudicating these complex questions of the nature and existence of God turn this thing around by the way if you do survey those who specialize in philosophy of religion the vast majority of them are theists rather interesting so watch how these statistics present a very skewed view just on the service of things more to it they will they will crush you with the observation that the traditional arguments for God's existence have been refuted they've been dismissed by serious philosophers something I found in my years of studying philosophy formerly and then doing my work in apologetics is when they actually bring out their arguments that supposedly refute these classical approaches I find them remarkably weak many philosophers just kind of take on faith almost oh yeah those have been dealt with a long time ago but when they bring forward the actual presentation I find them remarkably weak a very good example of that by the way is Bertrand Russell one of most famous philosophers of the twentieth century famous atheist read his treatment of Thomas Aquinas in my judgment remarkably uninformed when he rejects Thomas's treatment of infinite causal series it betrays a profound misunderstanding of what Thomas is about this is coming from one of the most famous philosophical atheist of the 20th century a fortiori in many of Russell's of lesser disciples so I don't find this the least bit persuasive that the philosophical establishment has rejected these arguments but let's press a little bit further looking at these statistics 86% of philosophers disagree a lot of this has to do I think with academic politics all you have to do to control of philosophical Department is get control of the chairmanship if you get the chair member department who's an atheist and then perhaps a critical mass of professors in a department who have atheist convictions in very short order you can change the whole character of that department think of this little coterie now the chairman and some of his followers who are in charge of hiring and firing and tenure who gets in the department who's given tenure in departments up to this coterie in very short order they can change the whole nature of a philosophical department more to it now you've got an atheist group in charge of a philosophy department whose papers are accepted whose theses are accepted who doctoral proposals are accepted well if you come forward as a young person hey I want to write on Thomas Aquinas I want to write on philosophy of God well the faculty might say what we're not going to accept that proposal so before you know it this philosophy this atheist philosophy Department has now produced a whole of successor generation of atheist thinkers who then perpetuate the process now if you find this incredible I might suggest looking very closely and honestly at the philosophy departments in many Catholic universities go back 50 60 years ago they were overwhelmingly theists but look at them at the philosophy departments of many Catholic universities where you'd expect a prejudice in favor of theism many of those departments if not most have become largely atheist is this because all sorts of great new arguments have come forward against theism give me a break it's academic politics have changed the department's into largely atheist departments therefore are we surprised that 86% of the professional philosophers claimed to be atheist I'm not surprised given the political reality here's a final reflection on this there's a prejudice in our seyh board of our scientism which as I've explained is the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge a prejudice that says newer is better newer is truer well is it the case in the sciences yeah I think that's you could argue the sciences tend to move upward in a sort of steady predictable way where contemporary science is better and truer than what came before so nobody's going to read of des cartes physics or Ptolemies of astronomy except out of historical interest no one's going to go back and read them for the latest insights into science by the way my very language they're betrayed the problem as though the latest is always better it does tend to be true in the sciences however it is not true in other areas of knowledge take for example a poetry would you say automatically Robert Frost is a better poet than Dante okay Robert Frost the better poet than Homer of course now I told you doesn't progress that way but rather goes through all sorts of ups and down playwrights today they're necessarily better than Shakespeare any point hold that they don't move upward the same way the scientists do philosophy I would suggest is much more akin there to literature and poetry than it is to the sciences would you say for example necessarily Michel Foucault is a better philosopher than comes then Hegel then Aristotle or Plato well of course not no one would think that because philosophy doesn't move in this steadily upward direction now lets it press it even a little bit further the denizens of philosophy department faculty lounges today who are responding to this survey saying that you know most of us are a theist was that show I would say next to nothing compared the denizens of philosophy lounges today twenty you know fifteen to John Luke Mariana to Ludwig Wittgenstein to Edmund Husserl to Alfred North Whitehead to Jacques Mary tan there's a whole slew of very prominent contemporary philosophers thoroughly trained in philosophy and completely cognizant of all the developments in modern sciences who are fierce of firmers of the existence of God to claim somehow that the responders to this survey in faculty lounges today in philosophy departments have better arguments they've seen something that these great figures in contemporary philosophy didn't see come on give me a break I hate the arrogance of a Daniel Dennett that simply wraps himself in the mantle of a bright but I furthermore hate this appeal to statistics to adjudicate the most important question in life namely the use of God I would much prefer that all of us return to argument

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 177,886

Keywords: Atheism, philosophy, science, Daniel Dennett, John Messerly, father barron, fr barron

Id: lGQ-nWOZrok

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 22 2015