On May 22, one of America's most interesting minds and engaging writers passed. Martin Gardner possessed a unique combination of literary breadth, rigorous logic, mathematical intuition, and lively, engaging writing.
I never met Gardner, but I know him well -- and so do the students who take my freshman honors seminar at Eastern Nazarene College, "Contemporary Questions." Like many great writers, Gardner has put his soul in print, allowing us to peek in and see what a true genius thinks about the great questions of life -- free will, God, immortality, evil, prayer, politics, markets.
In about eight weeks 30 incoming freshman honors students will get a letter from me and their first reading for college -- Gardner's opening essay from The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener. Titled "Why I Am Not a Solipsist," the essay jump-starts the academic juices and derails any student who thinks he has college all figured out. (I use the male pronoun here because women don't come to college with such unrealistic assessments of themselves.)
A solipsist, in case you are wondering, is someone who believes that he or she is the only person in the world. The apparent "external" world is just a projection of our minds. Solipsism is a great way to start engaging the mystery of the world, for it is both absurd and irrefutable. There is simply no way to prove that the external world is not your own fantastic construction -- which sort of establishes from the get-go that pretty much everything is up for grabs. On the first class I wear a shirt that my students gave me two years ago that says "Is it solipsistic in here or is that just me?"
Gardner is a delightful paradox. Best known as a hard-nosed, card-carrying, take-no-prisoners skeptic, he cleverly and ruthlessly exposed the fakery of faith healing, spoon-bending, alien abducting, mind-palm-tarot-card reading, holocaust denying, and every other imaginable pseudoscience. But, almost alone among skeptics, he believed passionately in God, prayer, and eternal life. He called himself a "fideist" -- someone who embraces belief in God without having a rational foundation to do so. I can't quote him directly on this, since I am in Barcelona now and my library is in Boston, but he says something to the effect that he believes passionately in a God that is in and through everything because "the God that is outside of me calls to the God that is within me." This God, says Gardner, hears prayers and may even reward us with eternal life when we die.
In reading Gardner my students discover for the first time that the world is full of mystery of the deep philosophical kind. Free will, evil, and God are intertwined mysteries that Gardner doubts we can unravel. But this does not mean they are not real. Gardner was genuinely skeptical about paranormal claims that went against science but, paradoxically, he affirmed and celebrated a world that went beyond science. We can believe, says Gardner, when our will compels us to believe. We are not constrained by science to accept only whatever is on the right-hand side of the equal sign.
Gardner's essays in The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener are a tour de force of mature, honest thinking expressed in golden and often witty prose. In fact, Gardner's wit is enough to justify reading him, and he loved to play tricks on his readers. Once, in collusion with the editor, Gardner wrote a hostile review of The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener for the New York Review of Books!
In an age when science claims to be all-encompassing and skepticism seems corrosive to faith, Gardner was a breath of fresh air. He could "out-skeptic" the harshest of the New Atheists and yet his imagination was so much more robust that he could intuit a world beyond science. He will be missed.
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I've never heard that science claims to be all-encompassing. This is simply false.
I will accept that skepticism is corrosive to faith. But why shouldn't it be? Should we not subject all unsubstantiated beliefs to the same level of scrutiny? Why should religious beliefs be granted an exclusion?
If you theists would just accept the fact that some people don't believe in what you do, and let it go at that, we would all get along fine together. Most of us non believers have no interest in "converting" the believers. We're fine with what they do, as long as they don't push it in our faces.
I could trot out Mother Theresa and thousands of others who in the end had a crisis of faith and never heard God in their prayers. It proves nothing. What is proof is that theism--that God interacts with the world by answering prayers, conducting miracles, etc--is completely testable and IT HAS FAILED THE TEST! Yes the new athiesm is particularly corrosive to faith but it always makes me smile when authors such as this one feel the burn and pine for older scientists who alas could not quite shake off the Skydaddy propaganda of their youth.
I would trot out John Calvin in answer to your requirements of proof of GOD's existence. Calvin believed that every man is born with the knowledge of GOD's existence, only a liar denies what he inherently knows is true. This is why Calvin never bothered with a proof of GOD's existence. If you could prove GOD, faith would not be required, it would just be the acceptance of fact.
Finally, to call Dawkins a great scientist is a bit over the top. A great publicity hound and demagogue absolutely!
Your second paragraph is circular and nonsensical.
Look, if you want to believe in this God of yours, fine, but leave out the mumbo-jumbo and just admit it is nothing more than a comforting belief that sustains you. Not everyone needs this God, and you ought to respect that fact.
Let's cut to the chase. Do you believe that God answers prayers? Yes or no. If he does not, you've become a deist for which I have no problem. If yes, explain one that you're familiar with. Know this: if God does answer prayers, he would leave evidence which would be trivial to reveal using statistical analysis. We've looked at intercessory prayer and it failed. No difference.
I call Dawkins a great scientist in the same vein as Carl Sagan was as well--an invaluable public spokeman for science and science education. Sorely needed when school boards are under constant assualt from crackpot Biblical literalists like we find in Texas.
One realizes that there are things that one cannot rationally deduce. Even the things we do understand, the marvelous complexity seems to call for amazement. One may understand that random interactions along with the laws of physics eventually produce certain phenomena, but our emotions do not allow us to simply look at the world in a disconnected analytical fashion. Somehow or another, we are a part of the world, including our free will, our inconsistencies, and our understanding of ethos.
The skeptical part always strives for a natural understanding. The spiritual part recognizes we won't always get it -- or even if we do, that we are too personally involved in it to accept a mechanistic systems approach.
Still, it seems to be quite a big jump to go from amazement -> therefore supernatural dieties exist.
But then on the other hand, I'm often amazed that people have to dream up supernatural things with which to slap a coat of cheap paint on top of a perfectly lovely and natural flower.
Michael
To me there is only one "miracle" -- that anything whatsoever exists. If that is because of God, fine, if for some other reason, fine. The truth of the matter is seemingly forever beyond the reach of human minds.
It seems that anyone who simply "believes" because of faith alone has discarded any rationale for further discussion. I think this skeptic "believes such things" merely to provoke everyone's minds.
As for flying saucers, I like what Robert Anton Wilson (the ultimate agnostic) said about UFOs. (paraphrasing here) "I've seen plenty of Unidentified Flying Objects. I've also seen plenty of Unidentified Stationary Objects."
I could invent and describe a hundred new kinds of supernatural beings in a single morning. Does that mean they exist, because no one has proven that they don't?
We all believe in something. To be self-aware is to believe.
Therefore, the question is not "Do you believe in God?" but rather, "How do you define God?" How you choose to define God determines whether or not you believe in it.
Plus, no two people define God exactly the same. So at best you can say "I believe in my God, but not in yours."
Effectively, he suspended his normal rational skepticism because believing satisfied some emotional need.
That still leaves the tally for evidence for supernatural dieties sitting on zero. Gardner could have just as easily said "I'm going to suspend my skepticism because believing in the FSM, Thor, Horus and fairies at the bottom of my garden satisfies an emotional need."
If he'd done that, I suspect that Giberson would not be trying to hold Gardner up as a shining example of "see what happens when you set aside your rational skepticism."
Michael
We all set aside our "rational skepticism" when we get up in the morning. As someone who has suffered from OCD, I know that we all need to take some things on faith. Otherwise we'd stay in bed worrying that the sun could explode tomorrow.
General deism or Gardener's "philosophical theism" are a far cry from the Christianity you practice and believe in. To not acknowledge this clear distinction is misleading your readers with the intention to connect Gardener's belief system to your own.
Realizing the flaws in the idea of an absolute truth can lead to a crisis in an individual's faith. Statistics suggest that my generation is far less religious than previous generations, and some Christians identify college as the time when many abandon their faith. I was fortunate to have the idea of relativism brought up by Gardner, a "Fideist," and Giberson, a Christian. I learned that reason and religion were indeed compatible0-- lesson that has allowed me to grow mentally and spiritually. I may not shed nearly as many tears for Mr. Gardner as Karl Giberson will, however I do appreciate Gardner's commitment to reason, which has helped shape me in my transition into adulthood.
That seems to be a tall order to me, but I guess it depends how you define the christian belief.