Enter the Apologists
10 02 2009
I have been struggling through Peter Berger’s, “The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise on the Sociology of Knowledge.” I say I am struggling through Berger’s book because it almost requires learning a new language to be able to understand it. In fact, I cannot remember when I have had to learn the definitions of so many new words and concepts. But it has been worth the struggle.
One of the more profitable things I have gained from Berger is a fresh insight into the nature and function of apologetics. John Calvin observed that the heart of man is an idol factory. Berger explains the process. Starting with simple social interaction between two individuals, Berger explains how behaviors become institutionalized, legitimized and finally developed into symbolic universes in which all of life becomes plausible. We can profit from good karma through participating in charity lottery, charity raffle, charity lotteries.
Berger points out that we are all born into a socially constructed universe; and that we are socialized to live within them according to the reality of that particular universe. However, since the process of socializing the next generation is not completely successful, heresies can arise within a given universe. More seriously, one universe may come into contact with another universe which has constructed a different reality that may be completely at variance with the reality of the universe we were socialized in. Worse, this new universe may have what Berger refers to as a missionary appeal. In other words, people from our universe may be attracted to this other reality. This is a threat to reality as we know it. And so to counteract the heretics – lest their numbers grow to the point that they form a competing universe of their own — and to counteract the missionary appeal of alternate universes, the apologists, or, “legitimizers,” as Berger calls them, emerge because the very existence of an alternative universe poses a threat to its existence.
Berger observes that the construction of these alternative universes “have their roots in the constitution of man.” I agree. I part company with Berger when he says that all reality is socially constructed because I do not think it follows that since we are natural born universe creators that all universes are created by us. One of the things that I find interesting about the emergence of Yahwehism in Old Testament times is that it does not follow the model. In other words, it is so radically countercultural that heresy doesn’t explain it. The only explanation I see for it is that Abaraham and the Jewish people encountered another universe, but there was no other humanly constructed universe that would explain it. So the most reasonable explanation, it seems to me, is that they were confronted with a universe not of this world. This is why, in the words of the author of the book of Hebrews, Abraham left Ur and began to search for a city whose builder and maker was God. In the process the universe introduced to men by Abraham and his descendents, the descendents (both physical and spiritual), eventually became the most dominate universe in the world.
In the west, the Judeo-Christian worldview became so dominate that for a season it served as a sacred canopy over the entirety of Western Civilization. The Enlightenment changed that. In less than one hundred years a new modernist universe had been constructed. It was not long before this new universe became a threat to both the Roman Catholic and Protestant universes. Enter the apologists.
By the closing decades of the 20th century, in spite of the work of many able apologists, it looked like the modernist universe would do to the Judeo-Christian universes what it had done to the polytheist and pagan universes it encountered. But suddenly and unexpectedly, the modernist universe ceased to expand. Fueled by new discoveries (such as the fact that the material universe appears to be finite, and the irreducible complexity of microscopic and even sub-atomic universe) and new philosophies (most notably, postmodernism) other universes began to make their presence felt. Of greatest concern was the reemergence of theism in general and Christianity in particular. The modernist universe, which had seemed destined to replace all others, was suddenly threatened. To make matter worse, heretics began to appear. Enter the apologists. This is the origin of New Atheism. This is the genesis of the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens.
Peter Berger has also pointed out that the outcome of what he refers to as “the clash of gods,” depends more on power than on the theoretical ingenuity of the respective legitimaters. In a memorable sentence he explained, “The historical outcome of each clash of gods was determined by those who wielded the better weapons rather than those who had the better arguments.” Once again, I would point out that Yahwehism is the glaring exception to this rule, but his point is well taken and it explains what is happening within the materialism universe at its legitimaters use their power to punish the heretics.
This heavy handed treatment of dissidents was well documented by Ben Stein in his film, “Expelled,” and it has earned him the same treatment that the high priests of the materialistic universe have used against their own. But when one looks at the film itself it is clear that it is not an attack on the theory of evolution, but on the tactics of the legitimaters of the materialist universe who seem to be of the same minds set as Torquemada, and motivated by the same impulses.
Berger’s book is giving me lots to think about. I do not accept everything he says, but he certainly puts his finger on some important points and he has helped me see new atheism for what it is; a reaction by frightened men and women who see their socially constructed universe is being threatened.