Re-Post From Facebook: Notes On Robert Wright's THE EVOLUTION OF GOD

Part 1
Im now about 1/4th the way through the book. There is a lot to like about it. I like the interplay of reductionist and non-reductionist approaches, I really think Wright is a holistic thinker. As a history of religion it is top notch, as well, superior to Armstrong's A HISTORY OF GOD. I enjoy the arguments for moral progress and its relationship to religion, and it is well written. On the downside, I think Wright relies too heavily on evolutionary psychology. I read an a priori attack on EP that to me was rather devastating. Some of what Wright things evolutionary psyche has 'proven' has not only not really BEEN proven, but is suspect from the beginning because of massive category mistakes. I think Wright's examination of early Israelite history is too narrow. He makes too many sweeping statements based on tangential research. He needs to read, for instance, SLAYING THE DRAGON: MYTHMAKING IN THE BIBLICAL TRADITION. He extensively talks about the relationship between Baalism and Yahwism but knows nothing about the debt both traditions owe to the Sumerian myths he talks about earlier on. I also think his scholarship leaves something to be desired here. He gives theory A and explains how it accounts for data B and C in the Biblical tradition. What he doesn't give is competing theories of equal interest that may actually account for the same data. For instance, I think it is absolutely true that monotheism evolved out of polytheism among the Hebrews, however, I think his account of how this happen is off a might. He asks unanswered questions as to why El and Yahweh became related conceptually. He may have had an answer to this if he'd known a little bit more contemporary theories in Biblical history. He discounts anything like a real exodus, but rather thinks the Hebrews were always a Canaanite tribe. The truth is both may be true. There is a theory that the indigenous Canaanite Hebrews absorbed a group that had escaped from Egypt, and that this event is what caused so much upheaval in the area. The Yahweh of the incoming group (which may or may not have been actually descended from the Canaanite tribe) then merged with the El of the indigenous group. I actually think this theory accounts for more information than Wrights' does. There are other competing theories, all with pretty good backing. Wright implies too strongly that his position has the most support, even as he tangentially mentions he is using peripheral resources. Finally, he relies too heavily on archaeological evidence that has many possible interpretations. Besides these quibbles, I agree that there was evolution rather than revolution in the development of the Yahwist religion, and in general I've really enjoyed the book. His argument against a purely reductionist approach to neurotheology, for instance, is the best I've ever read.

Part 2
Let me begin by making a clarifying point about my last note: I think that the earliest strands of text in the first books of the Bible point to Egyptian influences AND point to an attempt to counter Egyptian influences. I also accept, a la Richard Coggins, that you have to look to Canaan itself to make sense of some other strands and to understand the Hebrew beginnings fully. The best way to reconcile this, I think is Coggins: that some small group of "Canaanite Hebrews" or some group the early Canaanite Hebrews absorbed had indeed escaped from Egypt.


Now on to the section leading up to the Greeks and Philo. First a word on writing style. Robert Wright is an incredible author, as good an author as he is an interviewer. The only quibble I have is his tendency to say 'zero-sum' and 'non-zero-sum' and 'non-zero-sumness' over and over again. I wish he would've traded the words for symbols (ZS and NZS). It gets annoying. But that is a minor complaint in an overall very well written book. On to substance. I think Robert Wright's thrust is correct. I think his case that NZS relationships foster moral progress is right, and I think that evolution does indeed create these relationships more and more. I agree it has an important influence on religious evolution. However, I think he overstates the explanatory power of his case. Wright is wrong, for instance, that Second Isaiah was written during the Babylonian exile. It is almost certain that it is at least organized (and most of it was probably written) AFTER Babylon had been taken over by Persia and just before the journey back to Israel for the exiles in the now-Persian empire. Isaiah 40 and 41 are celebratory in tone and are announcing that the return has started, Isaiah, as Wright pointed out, lauds Cyrus. But how could it Isaiah have known about Cyrus but that he's writing under Cyrus' rule? Wright is correct, however, that Second Isaiah is not simply universalst, nor that there is a simple evolution towards universalism, but that the movment is up and down depending on circumstances, generally. Normal Podhoretz makes a similar case in THE PROPHETS, and argues the case persuasively. Wright is also wrong about the Priestly writer. I think SLAYING THE DRAGON gets closer to the actual Priestly writer's project. I think P was writing during the exile, before Persian rule, and I think the attempt to make the use of the term Elohim mean what Wright tries to make it means is a big, big stretch. From what I've read and studied, and making my own best judgment, it seems to me that Egypt is more a metaphor for Babylon, and the mythologizing of the exodus is more about hope. I see P more as a guerilla writing project, underground and in revolt against the Baylonian leadership. The attempt to make ALL universalism the result of NZS relationships is also suspect. He ignores completely, for instance, the Persian-era Tritio-Isaiac Isaiah 56, which is clearly a universalist text written by foreigners and eunuchs and others who were living within Israel but had been rejected by the wider Jewish society. The ability of those who are oppressed to attain moral insight due simply to the fact that they ARE oppressed is impressive in its own right, and I think there are examples of that in the Bible, such as Isaiah 56. I think Isaiah 56 enlightens some of Wrights over reaching. Though, indeed, I think that generally speaking, Wright is correct: it is NZS relationships that foster the moral growth of religion. Finally, I found the exposition of the Greek and Roman eras very fascinating, and his NZS interpretation make a lot of sense of those relationships. I had wanted to learn more about Philo since Sandmel's THE GENIUS OF PAUL, and was glad to get the chance to. Overally, the middle of the book has been top notch, but Wright certainly has a bad tendency to overstate is case.


Part 3

This reviews the section beginning with Wright's own vision of a Logos theology through the Christian era. Let me begin by saying that I have a lot of sympathies for Wright's Logos theology, I think his vision of a scientifically compatible theology, pulled from Philo's work, is impressive. I would say that I prefer the abstract theology of Whithead, which I think retains the best of Wright's own worldview but adds an intimacy between God and the universe that Wright lacks. Whithead's provision for a God who is intimately involved in the universe without being coercively intervening, and a God who indeed becomes incarnate through creation, has the same effect as the imminent Logos without removing the transcendence of the universe itself. Wright has a trancendent God and an imminent Logos, Whitehead has a God that transcends the universe AND a universe that transcends God, to some extant. This will reveal another weakness for Wright I'll come to later. But in the overall, Wright's Logos theology is very, very impressive, and a good read.

Wright's views on Jesus and Paul are both in broad strokes correct. Jesus was far more Judeo-centric than we normall are taught or we seen in most of the gospels. Paul is the genius of universal lover Wright makes him out to be. A person could read Wright as a part of an overall new testament education and get a lot out of it, I would always caveat that it needs to be one part of a greater education. However, Wright seems to take each thinker and believe he can somehow 'distill' his core beliefs and insights. Lacking in Wright's analaysis is any nuanced discussion of the fact that thinkers' views change over time. Paul's thinking on various matters changed over a 30 year or so period, and I think even Jesus' views changed on various matters over time. This strikes me as odd. That such an evolutionary thinker could treat individuals as themselves so static is odd. And so what we get is Jesus and Paul as each having one overarching vision and project that was stuck in one place for all time. I think in both individuals a lot of changes took place. Jesus, for instance, I think lacked an emphasis on redemptive suffering until John is beheaded, and rather originally focused on a 'remnant theology' and creating a moral community to fulfill scripture, later adding in the possibility of his own imprisonment and death after John's execution. I think Paul's views on Christian human nature change over time. And I think Jesus' ideas about inclusivity evolve. I think Jesus' end position was probably the general pharasaic position: that Jews could be recieved into God's kingdom by following the Mosaic covenant, and that gentiles could be recieved into God's kingdom by following the Noahdic covenant.

Wright overestimates his ability to discern which parts of the gospel are historical are which are not. His heavy reliance on Mark has less basis in fact than he thinks. Sammy Sandmel argues persuasively that Mark is not as historical as some might think, though I agree with Wright that it is more historical than the other gospels. Wright also puts way, way too much historical stock in the Book of Acts, and while I think Acts has some grounding in history, it is far more apocryphal than Wright realizes. A much broader skepticism is called for here, and thus historical reconstructions must allow for more pluralism. I think, for instance, a la Russell Pregeant, that the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke probably harkens back to Jesus' time, because the story doesn't make much sense told to a Gentile or Samaritan crowd, it only really has the impact it does put into a 1st century Jewish context, and I think Wright gets that story all wrong. Wright is not as able to separate the 'sheep from the goats' when it comes to the gospels as much as he thinks he is, and the result becomes some circular reasoning, interpreting passages that challenge his thesis in such a way that they mean what he wants them to mean. But I think Jesus was a less consistent thinker than Wright believes he was, and that more or less universalism was present in Jesus' thinking at different times. A lot of Wright's interpretations of texts actually miss the point, I think (the Samaritan example is one).

One thing that kind of showed Wright's less than perfect expertise in this field was his complete lack of mention of the connection between Philo and Paul. He spends copious amounts of time on both thinkers and the themes of universal ethics in both thinkers, he compares and contrasts them and never brings up the fact that Paul studied Philo, almost certainly. Sammy Sandmel establishes this fact conclusively, Paul paraphrases Philo in a couple of places. That oversight betrays the fact that some of Wright's details are off, and I think justifies some of my criticism. However, Wright's OVERALL appraisal of Paul is top-notch, I think that Paul is playing many of the roles Wright thinks he is, and that these roles influenced his theology. Wright's attempt to flesh out the details on how it all worked leaves a bit to be desired, some of his stuff really seems to be stretching a point. And I think Wright, as he discusses social forces' influence on ideas, underestimates the power of ideas themselves, and this gets him into trouble sometimes.

I think that much of Wright's analysis of an evolutionary process within early Christianity is so, freaking, good. His recognition of the complexity of religious belief systems is second to none, and he gives good natural selection analyses of why the various strands developed, and stopped developing, the way they did. Again, a great history of early Christianity, a good source for some general historical info. But Wright is too 'inevitablist' and deterministic. He lacks a clear vision of free will. His claim that someone fulfilling the various roles in history is inevitable rings no truth with me. And it contradicts something he says earlier. Wright claims at one point that the Logos creates opportunities for growth, but does not guarantee growth, but in his discussion of Christianity he claims that Jesus and Paul were really interchangeable, that SOMEone would've done what they did, because of the Logos' activity in history. But that doesn't seem right to me. Some opportunities to do something like what they did, may have come up, but it takes certain people at certain times to respond to those opportunities. And this reveals the superiority of Whithead. Whitehead's God gives options, and calls people to new ideal possibilities, and retains the consequences, in this way, a possible progressivism is retained without some absolute faith in the progressive directionality of history. History CAN be directional, because of God's influence, but it need not be. Whitehead says that every decision made leaves the world with a greater or lesser imprint of God. Wright's implicity determinism clouds this (to me clear) insight: the world trancends God as God transcends the world, and so nothing is inevitable. Jesus and Paul were special because they responded to the call, the call may have come anyways, but that is no guarantee that these men would've fuliflled that role.

Part 4
This review of the section on Islam will be shorter than the rest for the simple reason that I know less about Islam, and so have less to review.

Wright's exposition of Islam is top notch, he takes a fresh approach that is lacking in many historians: a source critical approach. Wright is correct that the Koran is inconsistent because it is written at different times in Muhammed's life, and that because Muhammed's position changed, you can coherently create many different "Islams" from the substance of the book. I found it disconcerting, however, that Wright would see Muhammed in such an 'evolutionary' way, but lacked the ability to apply the same principle to Jesus or Paul, who while not AS fluid as Muhammed, changed in their perpsectives as well. I was also very satisfied that Wright was willing to quesiton if as much of the Quran was written by Muhammed as traditionally thought. However, he's inconsistent on this point. Sometimes his argument appeals to the 'fact' that the Quran likely reflects Muhammed's actual words, and sometimes it appeals to the likelihood of an edited oral tradition. There's some inconsistency in his method, on this point, and he never clarifies it. Some of his historical reconstructions, again, strike me as reaching. I don't think he can with any confidence say, for instance, that Islam began as a Judaistic movement, and I'm not impressed by his arguments on that account. He may well be right, but his evidence is suspect. In fact, Wright admits that he is using a source that has been rejected by the general society of historical scholarship. In other words, most historians think the people he is citing are wrong, but he holds to the evidence anyway. This again enlightens something: Wright is really bending a lot of evidence to his will in order to make his case. He stretches, a lot, to make the evidence fit his theory. This bothers me. It's slightly intellectually dishonest. But in the end, his history of early Islam may be the best I've ever read. It is about time a popular writer took a source critical eye to the Quran, and Wright did, for that alone the section is worth the read, and in the end I'm more informed for having read it.

Part 5
Wright's overall vision is one I have a lot of agreement with: that there are good reasons to believe in God, but not the God of traditional theism. I'm not sure HIS vision of God I am in total agreement with, but I think I have a lot of sympathy for it. His section on "God as Love" is particularly interesting. The final section of the book involves way, way too much evolutionary psychology, and none of his sweeping statements about how we evolved what psychological features has anything close to a lot of credence with me. Every time I read an account by him, that old article just started popping in my mind. To state it briefly: Wright overestimates our ability to have a clear picture of the environment within which our brain evolved, he underestimates how quickly evolution can take place and so can't really say connect the conjectures of the original environment with WHY this or that psychological state continues to exist TODAY, and the methodologies of evolutionary psychology violage the methodologies of other branches of evolutionary biology. In short, there is reason to be very skeptical of everything he says on this matter. Also missing from Wright is the perspective of the thinking, feeling, DECIDING, individual. There is no existential or phenomenological element. I agree with his conclusion that the history of God is the history of a projection, and that the history of that projection itself gives us some reason to think that God may be a projection AND yet still more than a projection, but I prefer, say, Peter Berger's arguments in A RUMOR OF ANGELS for why we should think this, than Wright's. This brings up a contradiction I pointed to earlier, that comes up again at the end of the book. I think Wright's 'diagnosis' of the modern problems for religion and the world is largely correct, I think his 'solution' is less correct but still possesses some good insights, however, Wright's caution about the dangers of the current world situation begs an important question. Wright's description is largely materialist, and earlier in the book he claims that the niches that developed at different points in the history of religion would've been inevitably filled by SOME evolving cultural phenomenon. But he claims at the end that just because religions COULD evolve into something world-saving, they won't necessarily do so. It is like an opportunity has evolved, but that we can DECIDE to take it, or decide not to take it. But it is just this vision of a deciding individual (or society) that is completely lacking in his account. And this contradicts the earlier claims of inevitability in religious evolution earlier on. I also think that Wright's writing got a little dryer and less dynamic towards the end of the book, I wasn't as engaged as I was when he was playing the role of the historian. He is a better historical writer than philosophical writer.

In the end, I think Wright's book is quite good. It challenges assumptions, and gives a good overview of the history of the idea of God, seen from the point of view of the social forces 'on the ground'. In that sense, though, it is only half the story. I was kind of let down to see, at the end, Wright wasn't AS holistic a thinker as I gathered from the beginning of the book, or at least the end of the book didn't reflect that. (I still think Wright does a better job than most at bringing in both reductionist and non-reductionist points of view, though). Wright's thesis in the final analysis over reaches. Wright admits that the power of ideas plays some role in the evolution of the concept of God, but severely subjugates that story to the one about social forces. In order to make his case, Wright over reaches on the data as well. He cherry picks historical data, misrepresents many facts, chooses to side with severely minority views when it suits his purposes, and winds up with some circular arguments, gentle sophisms, unintential misdirections and mild contradictions. The historical reconstruction he comes up with he then insists is the correct one, and he is able to do this effectively because he's a good writer, but the historical picture he comes up with is rather controversial, to say the least, and there's no recognition of that fact. Contrast this with Podhoretz's book on the prophets. Podhoretz deals directly with historical thinkers that contradict his own view, he admits that his position is a minority position but points out, rightly, that there really IS no 'majority position' on all but a few points, and that ultimately, a plurality of historical reconstructions can probably be made that are reasonable. Because Wright fails to do that, he violates some of his intellectual duties, and so when he gets the details wrong, and I think he does enough of the time to be concerned about it, it comes off has less forgivable (but not unforgivable). In he end, the history of the power of an idea and the history of the facts on the ground are inevitably intertwined, and you cannot tell where one begins and the other ends, or which was primary and when and to what degree. Becuase of Wright's skill as a writer and because of the truth of his overall vision, I would highly recommend the book, but ONLY to those who already had enough of a background in Biblical history and philosophy to put a critical eye to the book. Without that background, the book would misdirect too much, and in a convincing way. In that sense, the book is wonderful, and dangerous, all at the same time.