Why Religion Matters: 

HarperCollins Publishers:  December, 2000.  288 pages.

Comments by 

John Baldwin, Lael Caesar, 

Robert Mendenhall 

and Ervin Taylor

John Baldwin:

  It seems to me that Huston Smith’s respectful use of names like Behe and Wells who are leaders in the Intelligent Design movement is very encouraging and significant. Now Smith himself will begin to feel the unwarranted heat from secular colleagues who dislike ID concepts for no good reasons. This may be a new experience for him—an eye opening one.

Lael Caesar:

It’s interesting that I should read your note today just after discovering Huston Smith’s book yesterday. What is also interesting, for me, is that the floor and sides of the tunnel he says we live in are: (1) scientism, (2) higher education, (3) the media and (4) the law. My recent piece in the Adventist Review identified the four elements to which our society has sought to anchor itself as: (1) the assured results of evolutionary science, (2) the superiority of American free enterprise, (3) higher education and (4) the judiciary. Not quite the same, but significantly close.  I’d be willing to accept a copy [of Smith’s book] with its attendant responsibility of further comment. You may, of course, post this note as well.

Robert Mendenhall:

 Wow!  What a terrific book!  I bought it Friday [January 5, 2001], and I'm just through Chapter 2, but I'm really enjoying every aspect of the book--from the writing to the level and logic of his argument.  Thanks again for a fine suggestion.

John B. Wong:

 Smith asserts (page 31) that "'God became man that man might become God' is the way Christians put the matter."  Because I was at that time getting ready to leave for a mission trip to China, I omitted these remarks to give me time for further reflection.  During my travels and since then, I have come to realize that these additional comments might be helpful for some readers. 

 (1) Note that Smith uses capital G when he writes that "'man might become God.'"  He gives no reference for this quotation, neither does he identify the basis upon which he asserts that  it reflects general Christian theology.  The Greek Orthodox Athanasius (c. 296-373) with his concept of theosis and Mormons would say something like that, but not mainstream Western Christian theologians.

 (2)  The Greek Orthodox theology of salvation as deification was laid down by Athanasius.  But what did he really mean when he said, "He (God, Christ), assumed humanity that we might become God,"' or as another translation puts it, "God became man that we might be made God?"  Did not he or his exponent Maximus Confessor state that "All that God is, except for an identity in nature, one becomes when one is deified by grace"? In light of this,  according to Athanasius, does the human become a created god or the uncreated God?  The noted Yale ecclesiastical historian Williston Walker comments, "With Arius, Athanasius accepted the view that there can be no halfway house between Creator and creature. Unlike Arius, however, he was convinced that creation and redemption alike imply and entail a direct presence of the Uncreated God in and for creatures—an immanence of the transcendent."  "[It is] through the gracious presence of One who is Himself God that human nature can be divinized—elevated to fellowship with, and likeness to, its Creator." Williston Walker, et al.,  A History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1985) pp. 140 and 163. Emphasis supplied.

 (3)  Greek Orthodox Christian theology often has a different way of describing salvation from that of Latin or Western Christianity which argues that salvation is dependent on the grace of God.  According to Western theology, salvation is not accomplished through deification.  It is effected through the action of Jesus Christ whose incarnation and atoning death took place in order that He might save sinners.  It becomes effective for individuals through the preaching of the gospel provided that they respond to its message with faith and repentance. It implies action on the part of God in rescuing people from their sins and their consequences and in bringing them into a situation where they experience His blessings.  Salvation is the sum-total of the benefits bestowed on believers by God. These blessings can be experienced here and now and will be fully realized upon consummation of the new age. Please see I. H. Marshall's remarks on this matter on page 610 of The New Dictionary of Theology (Downer's Grove, Illinois:  Intervarsity Press, 1988).

 (4) To state that "'God became man that man might become God' is the way Christians [generic] put the matter" without specifying that this expression is characteristic of Greek Orthodoxy but not of all Christian theology, or without qualifying the statement with an explanation, might pose obstacles to understanding for some readers. The explanation could have included the statement that "becoming God" does not mean "becoming God ontologically."

  (5) On casual reading, some readers might confuse Smith’s statement as bordering on New Age philosophy, or the Mormon type of theology.  "As man is, God once was: as God is, man may become" is what Mormonism teaches.  But Mormonism is not in the mainstream of Christianity, if indeed it belongs to traditional Christendom at all.

 (6) In Western Christianity, in the context of the doctrine of Creation, most Christians believe in the unbridgeable gap between the Creator and creature.  Biblical Christianity asserts that God became human that humans might be saved, might be reconciled to God, might be remade in the image of God, might be restored to Edenic perfection and beyond.  The greatest latitude in interpretation might stretch the scenario to mean that humans experiencing salvation will develop God-like qualities, albeit lower in degrees and limited in extent, but surely not that they "become God,"-- the uncreated, self-made, transcendent, infinite God.

Ervin Taylor:

Smith’s central thesis seems to be that modernity is characterized by a loss of faith in transcendence and this is very bad. "We have dropped Transcendence [Smith uses a capital "T"] not because we have discovered something that proves it nonexistent. We have merely lowered our gaze." (p. 217). In Smith’s opinion, one of the principal reasons that we have "lowered our gaze" is "scientism." He views himself as the "self-appointed watchdog on scientism" (p. 66) and conducts all day seminars on the subject (p.69). Apparently, what really bothers Smith is reading that  "theology . . .suffers from being about words only, whereas science is about things" (p. 66) and science counts with numbers and theology does not. (p. 67).

His response is to state that "theology takes God to be the only completely real ‘thing` there is, all else being like shadows in Plato’s cave" (p. 66). To him, scientism adds to science two corollaries: (1) that science is, if not the only method at getting at truth, then at least the most reliable method and (2) the things that science deals with–material entities–are the most fundamental things that exist. Smith views scientism as an "oppressive force" (p. 63). Smith seems to agree with post-modern extremists and many fundamentalists (including members of the Adventist Theological Society) in calling for the postmodern world to renounce the epistemological privilege of science. While he attempts to protect himself from the charge of being anti-science by distinguishing in theory between "science" and "scientism," he insists that in practice the "separation is impossible" (p. 69).

Smith quotes Stephen Jay Gould’s suggestion that "Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world, and to develop theories that coordinate and explain the facts. Religion, on the other hand, operates in the equally important, but utterly different, realm of human purposes, meanings, and values" (p. 70-71). Smith, for whom this is an unacceptable distinction, responds with: "the deeper issue is who . . . is to deal with the factual character of the nonnatural, supernatural world." 

One wonders if Smith would agree that all that humans are able to do is report individual "facts" about their subjective, individual perceptions and projections about the supernatural world as their world view defines it. Science by definition does not deal with the nonnatural, supernatural world.  Its success in dealing with facts in the natural world has been in large part due to its withdrawal more than a century ago from trying to deal with the supernatural world.

Smith’s approach to solving the "problem of modernity" is to insist that we must recognize that consciousness, not material entities, is the ultimate foundation of the universe. This solution is fundamentally a personal confession of an individual with a profound knowledge of many systems of religious thought and a personal connection to several. The cynic would perhaps suggest that Smith’s real problem is that he is unhappy about the fact that in the modern Western world, theology has permanently lost its privileged position in terms of power, authority, and, above all, respect among the educated segments of the population. Smith wants it back.