Re: Stereotypes and reputations

Echoing James Mahaffy, I am writing in defense of Nancy Pearcey. I've been
bothered by the title of the thread under which most of the discussion has
taken place, and I'm concerned that a stereotype might be misapplied to
Nancy in this case. I know her fairly well, and have had her speak on my
campus--she gave two excellent talks, including one based on "Total Truth."
I'd be happy to have her back again in a few years, if circumstances work
toward that.

Nancy does two things that scholars typically do, and I include myself in
that group. (Technically Nancy is not a scholar, in that she lacks a
doctorate and does not publish in research venues; but one could say the
same thing about someone like David McCullough and who would care?) Nancy
does her homework--she does her best to read the relevant scholarship--and
she brings her own intepretation to the evidence she gleans. She also does
something that other scholars do, including me: she sometimes doesn't cite
the best evidence available, despite her honest effort to do so. I don't
know anything about Stalin scholarship and I can't offer an opinion on
whether or not she cited reliable information in her book.

She's a lot more careful, IMO, than many people I could name but won't.

Where I tend to differ with Nancy, and I do often differ with her, is on
matters of interpretation. Nancy writes Francis Schaeffer-style,
"intellectual history." I use that term in quotes, b/c I hesitate to use it
for Schaeffer, who was often quite unhistorical, not for Nancy, who is much
more historical. She is Schaefferian in her view that theological beliefs
have *necessary* consequences; at least this is how I interpret her overall
view. I share that view to some extent, but not as strongly as she seems
to. I focus more on individual thinkers, one at a time, in their own
contexts, and the complications one finds often give me some hesitation
about seeing *necessary* consequences for any given idea. At the same time,
I think we would all agree (for example) that a certain type of Islamic
thinking (and similar things can also be found in some other religious
communities at other times and places) is directly linked with a lot of bad
events in the world right now--at least I hope we would all agree with this,
b/c it's true. Ideas can and do have consequences, and that's the thread
that Nancy might sometimes push further than I would in a given case.

One specific case in which I differ with Nancy's interpretation is the role
that Christianity played in fostering the scientific revolution. Nancy
appears to think it was a very strong causal role, whereas I think it was an
important secondary role in shaping a scientific revolution that was already
under way for other reasons. This is of course the type of thing that
scholars differ over all of the time, and I'm not bothered by it. I *am*
somewhat bothered by the way in which Rodney Stark (in his recent book, "For
the Glory of God") gives the reader the false impression that most
historians of science agree with the kind of stronger claim that I think
Nancy makes--Stark misstates David Lindberg's view, for example, and does
not come close to offering the more nuanced picture that most historians of
early modern science would agree with. (At the same time, Stark does very
nicely debunk the old warfare myth, and there he very accurately conveys
what historians of science think about that myth.)

I disagree more strongly with Nancy's views on origins, and she of course
disagrees pretty strongly with mine. I'll offer just one example to
illustrate this. The most important American theistic evolutionist of the
19th century, Asa Gray, gets just part of a paragraph in her book, and he is
I believe mischaracterized as simply someone who "failed to understand
Darwin's intention was to replace [the older theistic cosmology] with a
naturalistic one." (309) Gray, like Hodge, understood very well what Darwin
wanted to accomplish; he simply insisted (as he properly should have) that a
scientific theory does not come with any specific metaphysical
interpretation tied to it necessarily. Not Newton, not Dalton, not Darwin,
not Einstein. Gray constructed his own metaphysical interpretation, drawing
on the high Augustinian/Calvinistic view that mechanisms do not rule out
design. Darwin insisted that they do. Gray insisted that they do not.
Gray also very carefully limited the *meaning* of evolution to secondary
causation in the history of nature, so that there was nothing inconsistent
in him affirming the literal resurrection, other biblical miracles, and the
Nicene Creed. That is, he understood naturalism differently than Darwin
did--and differntly (apparently) than Nancy does. I think that placing
appropriate limits on naturalism, at the level of worldview and ultimate
meaning, is the best way to respond to Dawkins; Nancy thinks we would do
better to attack the science produced by naturalism. The popularity of ID
and YEC are largely driven by the apparent fact that many American
Chrisitians agree more with Nancy than they do with me. We can't blame her
for that, or for writing books in which she tries further to convince them
of her view.

What would be lovely is, if someone with deep pockets would come along and
give some of us TEs lots and lots of time to write books for ordinary people
that would be able to compete better with Nancy's book, and with many others
carrying a similar message about science and religion. Our views are
subtler than most others, more difficult to explain clearly and accurately
to people who really know nothing about science (at least nothing they
haven't read in ID or YEC publications), and to many people less spiritually
satisfying for reaons too complicated to go into here. I don't expect any
such sugar daddy to come along--some would argue that John Templeton has
that role, but Templeton is not dedicated to promoting a theologically
conservative type of TE in the way that others are dedicated to promoting ID
or YEC. Potentially the possibility is there for some writers to be given
years of time just to write; but this is still not the same thing as having
the Discovery Institute or Answers In Genesis effectively at one's side,
more or less permanently. John Polkinghorne is undoubtedly the best writer
on Christianity and science who is out there today--and his books apparently
outsell anyone else's, and I am very grateful for it. There might perhaps
be more like him, if the right people could be suddenly freed up to write
good books, but I'm not holding my breath. For most of us, it's tough
enough to teach/work our jobs and occasionally publish things in scholarly
venues to help shape the scholarly conversation. Writing for real people is
a lot different and would likely displace continued scholarly activity--a
tough choice when both are important.

Any takers, esp on the sugar daddy end?

ted
Received on Fri Jul 29 12:19:50 2005