Terry Eagleton has come out with a new book, called "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate", that's already getting glowing reviews from publications like Salon.
And I was having a discussion with an atheist, who claimed that Terry Eagleton God concept is a conception shared only by a marginal amount of theist, even though Eagleton claims it as the mainstream conception. I agree with Eagleton, that the mainstream understanding of God is along his lines, but perhaps I'm wrong. SO I snipped out the relevant portions of his review of the God Delusion, and was curious to know how TEs (who I say are fair reps of mainline theism) and Creationisit (who I say are fair reps of fundementalist, and many evangelical circles), thought of Eagleton's snipped out thoughts here, if they take gripes with it, or find it to be a good representative of their own conception:
"Dawkins holds that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific hypothesis which is open to rational demonstration. Christianity teaches that to claim that there is a God must be reasonable, but that this is not at all the same thing as faith. Believing in God, whatever Dawkins might think, is not like concluding that aliens or the tooth fairy exist. God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in." [...]
His transcendence and invisibility are part of what he is, which is not the case with the Loch Ness monster. This is not to say that religious people believe in a black hole, because they also consider that God has revealed himself: not, as Dawkins thinks, in the guise of a cosmic manufacturer even smarter than Dawkins himself, but for Christians at least, in the form of" Jesus Christ [...]
"This, not some super-manufacturing, is what is traditionally meant by the claim that God is Creator. He is what sustains all things in being by his love; and this would still be the case even if the universe had no beginning. To say that he brought it into being ex nihilo is not a measure of how very clever he is, but to suggest that he did it out of love rather than need...."
"The Creation is the original acte gratuit. God is an artist who did it for the sheer love or hell of it, not a scientist at work on a magnificently rational design that will impress his research grant body no end.
Because the universe is God’s, it shares in his life, which is the life of freedom. This is why it works all by itself, and why science and Richard Dawkins are therefore both possible. The same is true of human beings: God is not an obstacle to our autonomy and enjoyment but, as Aquinas argues, the power that allows us to be ourselves. Like the unconscious, he is closer to us than we are to ourselves. He is the source of our self-determination, not the erasure of it. To be dependent on him, as to be dependent on our friends, is a matter of freedom and fulfilment. Indeed, friendship is the word Aquinas uses to characterise the relation between God and humanity."
And I was having a discussion with an atheist, who claimed that Terry Eagleton God concept is a conception shared only by a marginal amount of theist, even though Eagleton claims it as the mainstream conception. I agree with Eagleton, that the mainstream understanding of God is along his lines, but perhaps I'm wrong. SO I snipped out the relevant portions of his review of the God Delusion, and was curious to know how TEs (who I say are fair reps of mainline theism) and Creationisit (who I say are fair reps of fundementalist, and many evangelical circles), thought of Eagleton's snipped out thoughts here, if they take gripes with it, or find it to be a good representative of their own conception:
"Dawkins holds that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific hypothesis which is open to rational demonstration. Christianity teaches that to claim that there is a God must be reasonable, but that this is not at all the same thing as faith. Believing in God, whatever Dawkins might think, is not like concluding that aliens or the tooth fairy exist. God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in." [...]
His transcendence and invisibility are part of what he is, which is not the case with the Loch Ness monster. This is not to say that religious people believe in a black hole, because they also consider that God has revealed himself: not, as Dawkins thinks, in the guise of a cosmic manufacturer even smarter than Dawkins himself, but for Christians at least, in the form of" Jesus Christ [...]
"This, not some super-manufacturing, is what is traditionally meant by the claim that God is Creator. He is what sustains all things in being by his love; and this would still be the case even if the universe had no beginning. To say that he brought it into being ex nihilo is not a measure of how very clever he is, but to suggest that he did it out of love rather than need...."
"The Creation is the original acte gratuit. God is an artist who did it for the sheer love or hell of it, not a scientist at work on a magnificently rational design that will impress his research grant body no end.
Because the universe is God’s, it shares in his life, which is the life of freedom. This is why it works all by itself, and why science and Richard Dawkins are therefore both possible. The same is true of human beings: God is not an obstacle to our autonomy and enjoyment but, as Aquinas argues, the power that allows us to be ourselves. Like the unconscious, he is closer to us than we are to ourselves. He is the source of our self-determination, not the erasure of it. To be dependent on him, as to be dependent on our friends, is a matter of freedom and fulfilment. Indeed, friendship is the word Aquinas uses to characterise the relation between God and humanity."
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