D. B. Hart on materialism.

David Bentley Hart’s denunciation of materialism (in his highly readable, humble and yet compelling book Atheist Delusions) is cutting. In much of the first half of the book, he examines accepted historical accounts of the nature and influence of early Christianity and the church. For instance, it was refreshing, in a culture which considers religion and reason diametrically opposed, to read that “What distinguishes modernity from the age of Christendom is not that the former is more devoted to rationality than was the latter, but that its rationality serves different primary convictions.”  Shortly after this, Hart provides a wonderful and exposing description of the faith required to hold a strictly materialist view of the cosmos. I was reminded of the culturally conditioned nature of my own reasoning and the necessity for critical reflection on all the things I hold to be true:  “All reasoning presumes premises or intuitions or ultimate convictions that cannot be proved by any foundations or facts more basic than themselves, and hence there are irreducible convictions present wherever one attempts to apply logic to experience.”

An author’s ability to make sober observations of this nature inspires confidence in the reliability of his or her perspective, I think. Not that this post is intended as a cheap hit at Dawkins and the new atheists (nor, really,  is the book, despite the suggestion of the title), but there is a marked difference between the bombastic and presumptuous arrogance of Dawkins in The God Delusion and the thorough, thoughtfully-presented case made by Hart. I could say much more about Hart’s brilliance as a writer (though I believe this will be plain to his reader), but I won’t. Here is the passage about materialism that struck me. I was grateful to read such a strong and intelligible denunciation of a metaphysical prejudice which is so elevated in today’s academic (and even popular!) climate. Hope this is food for thought!

“There is, after all, nothing inherently reasonable in the conviction that all of reality is simply an accidental confluence of physical causes, without any transcendent source or end. Materialism is not a fact of experience or a deduction of logic; it is a metaphysical prejudice, nothing more, and one that is arguably more irrational than almost any other. In general, the unalterably convinced materialist is a kind of childishly complacent fundamentalist, so fervently, unreflectively, and rapturously committed to the materialist vision of reality that if he or she should encounter any problem – logical or experiential – that might call its premises into question, or even merely encounter a limit beyond which those premises lose their explanatory power, he or she is simply unable to recognise it.” (from page 103)

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