Dominic Erdozain\u2019s, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx was one of the books I was most excited to read when I first saw the reading list for this semester. Anything that helps engage Christians to be more critically minded and to embrace difficulties in faith, is right up my alley. But I became even more excited when I learned he was the same Dominic that was with us in Capetown, and more excited again when I found out he would be joining us for our Chat this coming Monday. (The skeptic in me asks are we reading his book because he is an advisor, or is he an advisor because of this exemplary book?) I immediately notice that the topic of this book is very relevant our cohort and our Leadership with a Global Perspective program. I became worried however when I dove into the subject and tried to grasp all that was being presented. The language from this book, and the videos I found of the author being interviewed, were difficult for me to grasp originally. It is a commentary on a shifting of a worldview that seems to have (possibly) happened hundreds of years ago. I found myself struggling to keep up. However, this author was not speaking on things so far out in left field that made me say, \u201cwhat is the point of all this?\u201d The claims of the secularism being caused by Christians is provocative and, if true, very important.<\/p>\n
The presented division of secularism vs Christianity has given the assumption to generations of non-believers that Christians are superstitious and afraid of progress. Dominic Erdozain shifts the origin of doubt away from scientist and back into the hands and minds of the faith-philosophers. This is a significant work in that it redeems some of the integrity and credibility of Christianity. To lay claim that the doubt and deconstruction we find ourselves surrounded by is not from an onslaught of secular scientists is a paradigm-shifting idea. Our mindset shifts significantly if we can attribute our doubt to actually Christianity\u2019s own desire to find the superior and accurate truths. This also changes the assumption that science is aggressively attacking and tearing down the \u201csuperstitions\u201d of Christians. Rather it is the religious who are being critical of themselves. It is actually out of a devotion to God, and to honor him with the must true truth.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m reminded of Galileo who was (as popularly believed, although not entirely true) was condemned by the church for promoting that the sun was the center of the universe (solar system more accurately). The story goes, that the church was outraged by this because Galileo was attacking God\u2019s universe and attempting to tear down the authority of the church, and thus he was excommunicated as a heretic. (This again is not completely accurate, there was a lot of other drama going on in Galileo\u2019s life with the church.) But the truth is that Galileo was a devoutly Christian man and was embarrassed by his own church\u2019s inability to accurately report the lunar and solar calendars. This put the church in the awkward position of being wrong on a yearly basis, which Galileo felt hurt the credibility of the church and its salvific claims. And so Galileo out of a heart to find the real truth, and to strengthens Christianity\u2019s authority, sought out to find a superior model of the universe. I see in many ways that this is analogous to what Dominic Erdozain is pointing out that Spinoza did. Spinoza\u2019s deconstruction was not an attempt to deconstruction Christ, but to find superior explanations for the real truth. Many back then in Spinoza\u2019s day might have accused him of heresy against Christianity. Likewise, many Christians today blame this lack of blind following as a secular attack against Christianity. but I believe, as Erdozian persuades, that inquiring actually adds credibility, trust, and strength to the Christian worldview.<\/p>\n
Spinoza\u2019s early deconstruction of some of Christianity\u2019s assumptions is just a prelude to the deconstruction that is prevalent in all of postmodernism today. It’s actually quite a surprise to hear so much of postmodern thought from Spinoza who lived hundreds of years before it became prevalent in the world. But perhaps this makes sense, being that Spinoza was of Portuguese\/Spanish descent and many have said that Spain has actually been postmodern for centuries. Perhaps Spinoza was a catalyst that moved that region of the world into postmodernism quicker than the rest.<\/p>\n
Lastly, what I would have liked to see, although granted the author defined his scope in the Title, From Luther to Marx, more interaction with this \u201csoul of doubt\u201d throughout early Christianity, the early church and perhaps even ancient Judaism. For example, Abelard\u2019s quote seems to fit perfectly with what Erdozain is saying in 1120 A.D., \u201cthrough doubting we are led to\u00a0inquire<\/strong>, and by\u00a0inquiry<\/strong>, we perceive the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Erdozian, Dominic.\u00a0The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx.\u00a0<\/em>Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2016.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dominic Erdozain\u2019s, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx was one of the books I was most excited to read when I first saw the reading list for this semester. Anything that helps engage Christians to be more critically minded and to embrace difficulties in faith, is right up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1111,1017,1120,1113],"class_list":["post-16154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-erdozain","tag-lgp8","tag-soul-of-doubt","tag-the-soul-of-doubt","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16155,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16154\/revisions\/16155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}