A Violent God? 173 a Violent God? Philosophical Reflections on Monotheism and Genesis 22

A Violent God? 173 A Violent God? Philosophical Reflections on Monotheism and Genesis 22

Renée van Riessen

Part of what has happened in our time is that God has shifted over from the side of civilization to the side of barbarism Terry Eagleton1 ⸪ Religion in today’s society is sometimes seen as a positive force, but the nega- tive aspects are underlined too, because, as philosopher and declared atheist A.C. Grayling argues, religious faith is neither kind nor attractive:

Religions have often been cruel in their effects, and remain so today: homosexuals are hanged in Iran, adulterous women are beheaded in Afghanistan and stoned to death in Saudi Arabia, ‘witches’ are murdered in Africa, women and children are subordinated in fundamentalist households in the Bible Belt of the United States and in many parts of the Islamic world.2

Among the types of religion that are criticized for their detrimental effects on civilization, monotheism has a special place. Traditionally it was seen as the most rationally defendable and civilized form of religion by Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians and philosophers alike. However, as Terry Eagleton points out: in present times, God has shifted over from the side of civilization to the side of barbarism. By ‘civilization’ Eagleton means the ability to reason, participation in universality and autonomy, the faculty of rational speculation and, even more important, a capacity for irony. Opposed to civilization is the notion of ‘culture,’ alongside ‘barbarism’; culture thus understood refers to “the

1 Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith and Revolution, Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2009), 154. 2 A.C. Grayling, The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism (London/New York: Bloomsbury, 2013).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/9789004281844_010 174 Van Riessen customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective, un-ironic and a- rational.”3 Shifting from civilization to culture and barbarism, theism (or monotheism) indeed has a double face in our time. On the one hand, it can still be seen as a type of religion that admits of rational justification, and thus understood monotheism is defended by philosophers of religion like Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plantinga.4 On the other hand, monotheism is criticized for its ir- rational and even violent character, which paves the way for religious intolerance. This line of criticism started with David Hume’s verdict on the “intolerance of almost all religions which have maintained the unity of God,” which he ob- serves to be just as remarkable as the contrary principle of polytheists.5 Fol- lowing David Hume, (mono)theism must be criticized for the intolerance inherent in its very character, as well as for the subsequent tendency to be- come violent towards others who uphold a different set of beliefs. The biblical God is not only imagined and portrayed as ‘One,’ but also as jealous of his one- ness. As He asks to be worshipped as a unique God, He also inspires a typical zeal that is often difficult to temper.6 In addition, the biblical God is repeat- edly presented as acting in passion. His behavior and attitude towards man- kind is not rational, but full of pathos; and his reaction to idolatry can be compared with that of a passionate lover, so that idolatry (not surprisingly) is often seen as a form of adultery.7 Therefore, the biblical God is not a God of reason, but rather a God of pathos. The changing political situation after the 9/11 attacks has put monotheism under even more pressure. The resulting ‘clash of civilizations’ (Huntington) has given rise to new forms of religion critique that are not only philosophi-

3 Eagleton, Reason, Faith and Revolution, 155. 4 Swinburne defended theism as being a simpler hypothesis than polytheism, since simpler hypotheses turn out more often to be true. Moreover, the universe exhibits a unity, in its universal natural laws for example. This unity argues for one deity as its originator (Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 141 f). This thesis is complicated by the outcome of Assmann’s research into the development of biblical monotheism, see below. 5 David Hume, The Natural History of Religion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), 48–51. 6 Peter Sloterdijk, God’s Zeal: The Battle of the Three Monotheisms (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009), 3, 160. (first published in German as: Gottes Eifer: Vom Kampf der drei Monotheismen (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 2007)). 7 As Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit point out in their study of idolatry: the prohibition of idolatry can be seen as the fundamental difference between pagan and non-pagan (i.e. monotheist) religions (Moshe Halbertal & Avishai Margalit, Idolatry (Cambridge/ London: Harvard University Press, 1992), 10–14, 25–30).