Book Review: The Lost Art of Scripture by Karen Armstrong

4*. As with her previous books, Armstrong paints a broad canvas and treats her subjects with admirable depth and clarity. The Lost Art of Scripture is an erudite survey of religious attitudes and approaches to scripture. Armstrong bemoans the modern shift to literalist and pseudo-scientific interpretations of scripture and argues that this reflects a fatal confusion of genres. Scripture’s purpose is not to provide us with historical or scientific facts about history and the cosmos; instead, scripture, properly conceived, is an art form that is designed to bring about a moral and spiritual transformation of readers. Armstrong reminds us of Augustine’s teaching that the whole purpose of scripture is inculcate a charitable disposition within readers: if scripture does not inspire ethical or altruistic behaviour, it remains incomplete. Armstrong is particularly strong in demonstrating the ritually-embodied nature of scripture: she notes that scripture was always heard in the solemn context of ritual and so helped participants gain insight into the ineffable and mysterious dimension of ultimate reality. The ineffable nature of the Supreme is scripture’s primary message: this is why the author laments modern attempts to force scripture to yield clear, univocal messages. Exploring the formation of scriptural canons, Armstrong uses this as evidence that scriptures were never regarded historically as the Last Word: instead, they were always seen as a work in progress allowing later texts to draw on older texts to give meaning to contemporary challenges and contexts. The book would have benefited from some closer editing: there are a number of spelling inaccuracies that mar the text but overall this is a wonderful achievement and an excellent contribution to the ever evolving body of scholarship on the role and reception of scripture in world religions.

The Supreme Court's Sabarimala Judgment

The temple town of Sabarimala, nestled in the forests and hills of Pathanamthitta District in Kerala, is home to one of the most popular and most frequented sites of Ayyappan worship in South India. The popularity of the Ayyappan tradition has spread in recent years but continues to remain a mostly South Indian affair; the tradition identifies Ayyappan, also known as Hariharaputra, as the son of Shiva and Vishnu’s incarnation as Mohini but as recent scholarship points out, Ayyappan most likely emerged as an important tribal god was who was gradually incorporated into the Sansktritic, Puranic pantheon.

Ayyappan is worshipped by devotees as a celibate deity (naisthik brahmachari) and on this basis women of menstruating age have been prohibited from entering the temple for centuries.  The legends vary but most devotees agree that these restrictions were put in place by Ayyappan himself. An important point here is that one does not need to accept the veracity of these legends to note that Ayyappa’s celibacy and the accompanying restrictions on women of reproductive age entering the temple form an important of the temple tradition and devotees’ faith in Ayyappan.

As most readers will be aware, on 28 September 2018, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India ruled that the centuries-old custom of preventing women of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple violated the equality and freedom of religion provisions of the Indian Constitution. The Court ruled that: “such an exclusionary practice violates the right of women to visit and enter a temple to freely practice Hindu religion and to exhibit her devotion towards Lord Ayyappa. The denial of this right to women significantly denudes them of their right to worship”. The Court added that: “any exception placed on women because of biological differences violates the Constitution”. Justice Indu Malhotra, the only woman on the bench, offered a dissenting judgment noting that issues of deep religious sentiments should not see the Court’s interference.

I think that the Supreme Court’s judgment in this case is flawed and deeply problematic. While liberals champion the verdict as an important step forward in the fight against gender discrimination, they lose sight of the proper role that court’s ought to play in adjudicating issues of faith and belief. This judgment opens up a pandora’s box for the Court and it will be interesting to see what the road the Court takes in future rights-based challenges to gender discrimination in religion.

Why do I think the Court is wrong? The Court’s judgment, a naked act of social engineering, seeks to mould faith and custom to the demands of modernity but by doing so pays insufficient regard to the right for religious communities to shape their own norms and religious practices in ways that are otherwise not inconsistent with the spirit of the Indian constitution. Viewing Sabarimala through the prism of gender discrimination is problematic; there are hundreds of Ayyappa temples where restrictions on women entry do not apply. That the vast majority of women devotees of Ayyappan do not agree with the Supreme Court verdict (as evidenced in the widespread #PreparedToWait campaign) speaks volumes.

Those defending the Court’s judgment draw analogies with efforts to eradicate restrictions on Dalit entry into temples. The analogy, as Justice Indu Malhotra noted, is misconceived and inappropriate: first, there was widespread support amongst Dalits for entry into temples; second, there was a growing consensus amongst the upper-caste (thanks to Gandhi and other Hindu reformers) that restrictions on Dalit entry into temples were wrong and ought to be removed. We have no similar consensus here; millions of devotees of the Ayyappa tradition, including women, do not support unrestricted entry to the shrine.

 The Court’s ‘essential practices’ doctrine holds that courts should identify essential and thus constitutionally protected religious practices with reference to the internal prescriptions of the religions themselves. Justice Malhotra, in her dissenting judgment, noted that the restriction on women of reproductive age entering the Sabarimala temple ‘was in pursuance of an essential religious practice’ and therefore constitutionally protected. In its majority judgment, the Court failed to address the issue of whether the restriction on entry formed an essential religious practice; in doing so, it treated as peripheral and trivial an issue that the Ayyappan tradition regards as central and to their faith and belief.

Shashi Tharoor’s recent piece on Sabarimala brings to attention the cynical role played by the Communist state government in Kerala. By smuggling two women into the shrine through a side-entrance, the state government is actively fomenting religious tension with the view to securing support in the upcoming elections. Tharoor is alive to the role faith plays in the lives of his constituents and to his duty as a parliamentarian in representing them.

The Supreme Court’s verdict has opened up a pandora’s box which will now be hard to close. Will the Court now rule that the gender equality provisions of the Indian Constitution require that the Catholic Church ordain women as priests and bishops? Or that restrictions on women entering Mosques should be removed? What about restrictions on men worshipping the Goddess at the Kumari Amman Temple in Kanyakumari? Should these restrictions also be removed in the name of gender equality. Sooner or later, the Court will have to address these questions and it will be interesting to see how the Court navigates its way out of this mess.

  

Review: Gandhi 1914-1948: The Years That Changed the World

Gandhi 1914-1948: The Years That Changed the World by Ramachandra Guha
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Guha’s book serves as a magisterial and highly readable account of Gandhi’s years in India and will likely remain the definitive Gandhi biography for many years to come. Guha offers readers a nuanced portrait of Gandhi’s personal and social life, contextualizing the latter’s achievements in ways that bring out the important contributions made by others, both allies and adversaries, to India’s revolutionary struggle for Independence. We learn of the multiple influences on Gandhi’s social and political philosophy and the ways in which Gandhi was willing to develop his position on certain matters in light of changing social conditions. Previous biographical accounts of Gandhi have been criticized for their overly hagiographical treatment of their subject; Guha doesn’t shy away from legitimate criticism and probes some of Gandhi’s more controversial experiments and commitments. This warts-and-all approach provides us with a fuller, more human portrait of Gandhi. Guha’s epilogue reflects on Gandhi’s contemporary relevance and suggests that the latter’s commitment to religious pluralism, eradication of caste oppression, and environmental sustainability means that he has as much to contribute today as he did during India’s freedom struggle.

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Developing a comparative theology of the sacred image: a reflection on Visnu's presence in the sacred image and Christ's presence in the Eucharistic Sacrament

Hindu ritual activities tend to revolve around the worship and veneration of images of deities, present either in the temple setting or a home shrine. According to Hindu tradition, seeing (darsana) the deity (or more importantly, being seen by the deity) is one of the most effective ways to obtain the blessings and grace of God. Worship of the sacred image (puja) involves honoring the deity with flowers, garlands, fruit and offerings of ghee lamps and incense.  The liturgy performed in Hindu temples ensures that the sacred image is given all of the care of a royal personage: the sacred image is bathed, fed, clothed, put to rest for the night, and ceremonially awakened in the early morning. Students of Hinduism will know that some of the most moving and passionate devotional poetry composed by Hindu poets and saints is directed to God as present in the sacred image.

 

While the worship of sacred images is common to many Hindu religious traditions, the theological justification offered for the practice differs amongst theological traditions. For example, in some Hindu philosophical schools, the significance of the sacred image is viewed in functional terms: the sacred image, on this view, functions primarily as a focus for meditation and worship, i.e. as a symbol of the divine and as a useful pointer to the ultimate Reality to which it points and represents. The Hindu theological school that I will probe in this essay takes as its point of departure the ontological oneness of Deity and sacred image: on this view, the sacred image is regarded as the very embodiment of the Deity.

In this short blog post, I will take a comparative approach to the study of sacred images. Before exploring the theological and devotional foundations for image-worship as it developed in Hindu Vaishnava theology, I will offer an overview of Christian sacramental theology as it pertains to the sacrament of the Eucharist. I believe that the insights developed by Christian theologians in thinking through the problem of how Christ is present in and through the Eucharistic sacrament can be brought to bear in our appreciation for Hindu theology as it relates to the worship of sacred images. 

Vaisnava theologizing of the sacred image takes place in a conceptual and theological framework that has as its central core the personality of Lord Visnu. According to Vaisnava theology, there is only one Supreme God, Lord Visnu, who is sole creator, ruler, protector and dissolver of the universe. All of creation, including the multiplicity of souls that inhabit it, exist in a state of eternal subservience to God. Although they may have extraordinary powers, all other ‘gods’ , such as Brahma and Ganesa, are viewed as subsidiary divinities that derive their power and godliness from Visnu himself. Vaisnava theologians describe Visnu as possessing a body that is the abode of innumerable auspicious qualities, wholly pure and taintless, and entirely different in nature from all others.

Vaisnava theology understands God to exist in five primary forms: 1) the Transcendent God Visnu (para) who is wholly beyond the range of speech and mind and dwells eternally in the highest heaven surrounded by liberated souls who serve and praise him endlessly; 2) the four-fold aggregate of his creative cosmic emanations (vuyahavatara); 3) Visnu’s periodic incarnations on earth (vibhavatara) (such as Rama and Krishna); 4) the Immanent Visnu who indwells in all of creation and in the human heart as antaryamin; and 5) God’s worshippable incarnation in the properly consecrated sacred images. It is the last of these forms, Visnu’s incarnation in the sacred image that forms the focus of this blog post.

The Yatindramatadipika, an important Srivaisnava theological handbook, describes Visnu’s incarnation in the sacred image in the following way:

“The Lord’s iconic incarnation is that special form which, without remoteness of space and time, accepts for its body any material chosen by the devotees, and “descends” into it with a non-material body; The Lord thus becomes dependent on the worshipper for bath, food, sitting, sleeping, and so forth; The Lord’s iconic-incarnation bears everything and is replete with all auspicious qualities; in it, He is present in houses, villages, towns, sacred places, hills, and so forth.”

 

For those outside the Vaisnava tradition, it may be tempting to see the construction of sacred images as an attempt to project God in the human image, especially given that sacred images oftentimes reflect divine persons with human-like forms. Vaisnava theology anticipates such objections but notes in response that such criticisms ignores the subtle theology underpinning the construction of sacred images and the accompanying emphasis on the divine intention to conform to human expectations (given the human predilection for the familiar and comprehensible): as we imagine God, so God becomes apparent to us. Writing in the early centuries of the CE, Poykai Alvar, a poet-saint from the Alvar tradition, sings passionately of Visnu’s divine accommodation to human preferences:

 

“Whichever form pleases his people, that is his form;

Whichever name pleases his people, that is his name;

Whichever way pleases his people who meditate without ceasing, that is his way –

The One who holds the cakra.”

 

Commenting on this verse, Appillai, an important 12th century Sri Vaisnava theologian writes that:

 

“Thus the Lord does not consider his own greatness, but holds as his own forms, names, deeds, etc., those that please people who take refuge in him. Thus Poykai Alvar reflects on and makes known the excellence of the nature of the sacred image with which the Lord serves those who take refuge in him”.

 

Vaisnava theologians emphasise the significance of the radical accessibility of Visnu in his sacred images: the Transcendent Lord, who dwells in the highest heaven and is otherwise inaccessible, becomes accessible, in a tangible and material way, through his divine presence in the sacred image. Visnu’s presence in the sacred image is an expression of his gracious condescension and radical accessibility- qualities which reveal his deep and enduring love for and desire to be intimately connected with his devotees.  Vaisnava theologians argue that Visnu’s willingness to become dependent on his worshippers (to the extent of limiting himself) is for the sole purpose of facilitating intimate communion with his devotees. This argument is not dissimilar to Kenotic approaches to Christology which emphasise that God the Son must have divested himself of certain divine properties or functions, or even limited his divine being, for the purpose of existing in human form.

 

The ritual and devotional significance of the sacred image is hard to overstate; for Vaisnava theologians, the sacred image occupies a foundational role in the ritual and spiritual life of a devotee, no matter how advanced his or her spiritual development. This approach stands in contrast to the arguments advanced by some Hindu schools of thought that the sacred image is a useful ritual tool for neophyte practitioners to aid in their meditation and spiritual discipline but can otherwise be relinquished at mature stages of spiritual realization. In contrast, for the Vaisnava theologian, the sacred image is a source of delight and rapture to those already devoted to God while also serving to elicit self-surrender to God on the part of the neophyte devotee. Pillai Lokacarya, a highly influential 12th century Sri Vaisnava theologian, writing in his Srivacana Bhusana, notes that:

 

“[t]o the soul uncorrected by the scriptures, distracted by other objects and continuing in aversion to God, the sacred image produces an attraction or taste which converts his aversion. Having produced a taste it becomes a means (upaya) and after the means has been grasped, it stands as an enjoyment”.

 

The charge often ascribed to idolators then, i.e. that they are guilty of making God in their own image, appears less threatening in the context of a theology that emphasizes the accommodating intent of a God who chooses to be like us. Further, the charge of idolatry makes little sense in the context of a theology that recognizes both the transcendence and immanence of God; while God is present in the sacred image, the sacred image is not considered to exhaust God’s presence. In other words, while God may be present in the sacred image, God’s presence is not limited to the sacred image.

 

A Vaishnava theology of the sacred image must engage phenomenologically with the practice of image worship as it is experienced by Vaisnava devotees. Accessing the subjective religious experiences of Vaisnava theologians is difficult however as the literary genres of biography or devotional works relating personal religious experience (such as Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love) is largely foreign to Hindu literature. That said, devotional compositions, such as stotras, offer useful and personal insights into their author’s religious experiences and so exploring such compositions can serve as a useful substitute for biographies and other such first-person accounts. In Vaisnavism, the self-manifestation of God is intimately associated with his presence in the sacred image. The extraordinary and profound sense of wonder that this presence elicits in the devotee is a theme to which poets return again and again. Advanced devotees perceive the sacred image as mystically active and alive, responsive to prayers and keen to bestow blessings and grace. In his Varadaraja Stava, a poem of praise to the deity of Vishnu enshrined in the Varadaraja temple in Kancipuram, Kuresa writes:

 

“[a] sidelong glance from your eyes, O Lord,

Manifests your majesty

Spreads forth radiance

Reveals your boundless compassion

Rains down raptureAnd melts the hearts of your devotees.”

 

The devotional rapture experienced by devotees at being in the presence of the sacred image is matched, Vaisnava theology argues, by the bliss which God himself experiences at being in the presence of and dependent upon his people. This mutuality of the relationship between Visnu and his devotees is a distinctive element of the Vaisnava understanding of God and is frequently alluded to in the devotional poetry of the tradition. In his commentary to the Bhagavad Gita, Ramanuja argues that Visnu’s inability to bear separation from his devotees is the cause of his choosing to reveal himself in any form his devotees desire. Kuresa and Parasara Bhattar bring out this theme beautifully in the following verses:

 

“O Lord at Srirangam!

You delight in being worshipped in this world

In temples, homes and hermitages…

Completely dependent upon the temple priests.” (Parasara Bhattar in his Srirangaraja Stava)

 

“O bestow of boons!

Unable to suffer delay in embracing your devotees

And not even allowing them enough time to be purified

You, most patient one,

Were so eager to take them immediately

To your own abode in the highest heaven

That you descended here!

But what is this?

You woo even those who haven’t taken shelter with You!

Yielding the sight of your auspicious and holy body to them!” (Kuresa in his Varadaraja Stava)

 

The preceding paragraphs provide a rough overview of the Vaisnava theology of sacred images. Students of comparative religion that focus on Hindu worship of the sacred image tend to compare the practice to Christian (more specifically, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) veneration of statues and icons. Whilst this approach is understandable, it runs the risk of conflating two sets of devotional practices that ascribe radically different ontological and ritual significance to the sacred image: to be sure, whilst both sets of traditions view the sacred image or icon as ‘ritually significant’, they differ enormously on the question of the extent to which the image embodies God and/or mediates his presence.

 

Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist: A Catholic Perspective

 

“[I]n the august sacrament of the holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things” (The Council of Trent)

 

“If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema” (Canon I, On the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, The Council of Trent).

 

“And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me." And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.” (Luke 22:19 – 20)

 

In the next few paragraphs I will try to show that the Catholic understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist bears some theological similarities to the Vaisnava understanding of the divine presence in the sacred image. At the Council of Trent, Catholic Christianity affirmed that “in the august sacrament of the holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things”. As we try to unpack what this affirmation means in the context of Christian theology, we will discover how Catholic theologians have evolved their understanding of how Christ comes to be present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and have thought through and have sought to respond to problems associated with the doctrine. This exercise, I hope, will allow us to develop a comparative perspective in thinking through the issue of God’s sacramental presence and the effect and role that such a presence plays in the lives of religious believers. 

 

The Catholic tradition regards Christ’s presence in the Eucharistic Sacrament to be true, real and substantial. These terms serve to distinguish the Catholic conception of the Eucharist from competing approaches which consider that Christ is only ‘representationally’ or ‘symbolically’ present in the bread and wine of the Sacrament. We noted earlier that a similar tension exists in Hinduism where a distinction is usually drawn between traditions that view God’s presence in the sacred image in ‘representational’ terms and those that consider the sacred image to be an actual and real embodiment of the deity. The fullness of Christ’s presence in the Sacrament is reflected in highly elaborate Catholic liturgies that purport to treat the Eucharistic Sacrament as the Church would treat Christ himself. In developing its sacramental theology, the Catholic Church drew a distinction between the different ways in which Christ is present in the Church; while the Church accepts that Christ is present in the Church when, e.g., (i) it prays, (ii) when it performs acts of mercy, (iii) in its preaching of the Gospel, etc., the Church affirms that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is different from the above-mentioned ways of presence: Christ’s is substantially present in the Eucharist as truly as he is present at the right hand of the Father.  During the Second Vatican Council, reflecting on the fullness and truth of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, Pope Paul VI delivered an important doctrinal encyclical in which he noted that describing Christ’s presence in the Eucharist as a ‘real’ presence does not imply that other types of Christ’s presence are ‘unreal’ but that Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist is presence in its fullest sense, “a substantial presence by which Christ [is] wholly and entirely present”.

 

To what extent can this distinction between types of presence be utilized by Vaisnava theologians in thinking through the theology of the sacred image? This distinction between types of presence captures, I think, an important tension that exists in both traditions between on the one hand affirming the ontological oneness and unicity of all of God’s presences and on the other in drawing meaningful distinctions between types of divine presence that reflect the lived experience and religious phenenomology of believers. A theological commitment to Visnu’s unicity and the fullness and completeness of all of Visnu’s manifestations would problematize a theological strategy that sought to draw a distinction between types of Visnu’s presence. However, that there is a typology or hierarchy of sorts amongst Visnu’s manifestations is clear; the difference only is that while Catholic sacramental theology draws a distinction between types of presence, Vaisnava theologians argue for a difference in the relative accessibility of each of Visnu’s manifestations. We drew attention earlier to devotional poetry in which the poet-devotee emphasizes the extraordinarily accessible nature of Visnu’s presence in the sacred image. While Visnu is equally present in each of his manifestations, he is far more accessible in the sacred image: this is what bestows special significance to the practice of image worship in Hinduism: while Visnu is present in the ritual sacrifice (yajna), in his sacred name, in his supreme abode, he is present most accessibly in his sacred image.

 

The poet-devotee’s celebration of Visnu’s willingness to render himself more accessible by becoming present in the sacred image has parallels in the Catholic tradition through the development of private Eucharistic devotions which allowed the laity to view the consecrated Host (the Eucharistic bread that had been appropriately consecrated) and to marvel in awe at the self-effacing humility of Christ. There is a deeper point here which relates to the experience that the divine presences engender in the life of the religious believer. We noted earlier that for the Sri Vaisnava, the sacred image communicates something essential about the inherent nature of Visnu: the Lord, out of his merciful condescension, manifests and is fully (and most accessibly) present in the sacred image in order to achieve a more intimate communion with his devotees. The Catholic would say, in not too dissimilar vein, that the risen Christ, in his great humility, invites his devotees to participate in the sacrament of the Eucharist in which his salvific sacrifice on the Cross is re-enacted by his real presence in the Eucharistic sacrament.

 

We have seen that the Vaisnava understanding of God’s presence in the sacred image is based on a sophisticated theology that emphasizes and celebrates divine accessibility. So as to be tangibly present before his devotees, Visnu manifests himself in the temples and home shrines, incarnating in whichever approrpriately consecrated form is offered to him. We have also seen how the Vaisnava concept of sacred image bears a close resemblance to the Catholic understanding of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharistic Sacrament. Both traditions consider such divine presences to be real, full and complete, and to some extent, different from all of the other ways in which God is present to his devotees. Both Vaisnavas and Catholics agree that the divine presence in the sacred image and (for Catholics) the Eucharist is an expression of divine humility and a channel for divine grace.

 

Review: Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyasatirtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court

Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory: Vyasatirtha, Hindu Sectarianism, and the Sixteenth-Century Vijayanagara Court by Valerie Stoker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Valerie Stoker’s Polemics and Patronage in the City of Victory is a deeply informed and highly readable study of the politics of religious patronage in the 16th century Vijayanagara Court. The book’s focus is on Vyasatirtha, a virtuoso intellectual of the Madhva school, who used Vijaynagara patronage and his own expertise in polemics to transform Madhva Brahmanism into a major intellectual, social and political force throughout South India.

While acknowledging the religiously diverse nature of the Vijaynagara court and polity, Stoker’s study of the inscriptional and narrative evidence demonstrates that the Vijayanagara court was, in fact, selective in its patronage of primarily Hindu religious institutions. Importantly, the motivations behind this selectivity, Stoker argues, were not always religious. Rather, Vijayanagara patronage of Hindu sectarian groups responded creatively to a variety of incentives in ways that reflected the particular circumstances of specific locations. This opportunistic flexibility of Vijayanagara patronage, coupled with its generosity, galvanized Hindu sectarian leaders to pursue certain kinds of intellectual projects as well as to form different intersectarian alliances and rivalries. The overlapping nature of these alliances and rivalries coupled with distinctions in doctrinal and practical matters had the effect of creating, simultaneously, a shared religious sensibility and significant sectarian divisions. One of the most rewarding aspects of the book is its focus not just on how specific socio-political factors implicated Hindu religious traditions but equally importantly on how theological argumentation and religious practice shaped social and political reality.


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Review: Embodiment: A History

Embodiment: A History by Justin E.H. Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

'Embodiment, A History' is a new addition to the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series. In common with other members of the series, this book offers a multidisciplinary and historical study of its subject, the problem of embodiment. The book offers a useful survey of the various problems that embodiment is thought to engender and reviews various solutions that have been offered as responses. The close attention to historical context and the willingness to look beyond the philosophical canon and to a wider intellectual landscape are useful and commendable features of the various articles that make up this book. That said, the book would have benefitted from a closer engagement with South Asian and Middle Eastern philosophical contributions to the problem of embodiment; a more comparative approach to the articles would have also been desirable.

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Review: Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In 1935, Martin Heidegger delivered a series of lectures at the University of Freiburg. In return for proclaiming his allegiance to Hitler’s national socialism, Heidegger, arguably the most influential of 20th century philosophers, was given the job and title of rector at the University of Freiburg. As he commenced his lectures, Heidegger declared “Why is there being rather than nothing at all” to be the deepest, the most far-reaching and most fundamental of all questions. Indeed, ever since Leibniz first posed the question of ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ in the early 18th century, philosophers, theologians and physicists have expended much intellectual energy in thinking about the question and possible solutions to it. In ‘Why Does the World Exist’, Jim Holt sets out on a personal philosophical quest to explore the various scientific and philosophical theories that have been advanced in recent years in an attempt to penetrate the enigma of existence. Holt’s quest makes for a tremendously exciting and rewarding read: profound yet humorous, erudite and yet accessible, Holt’s work is a veritable tour de force of philosophical and scientific writing.

The book is structured around interviews and conversations with the following eight thinkers: David Deutsch, Adolf Grünbaum, John Leslie, Derek Parfit, Roger Penrose, Richard Swinburne, Steven Weinberg and John Updike. Holt’s interviews with these thinkers and reflections more generally on contemporary debates in cosmology and philosophy makes clear that there remains profound intellectual disagreement regarding the question of the universe’s origin and the purpose of its existence. The philosopher Robert Nozick suggested that anybody who proposed a non-strange answer to the question of ‘why something exists rather than nothing’ shows that he or she doesn’t understand the question. Nozick had a point and it is worth reflecting on some of the theories that Holt’s interlocutors have proposed by way of an explanation of the origins of the universe. Before we do, it is worth reflecting, if only very briefly, on why it is that Leibniz’s question, as he initially formulated it, provokes such existential angst among thinkers.

Leibniz’s question of ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ derives its force from a seemingly obvious fact about the world and the objects that populate it. The world and the objects in it strike us as being contingent. That is to say, it is entirely coherent that the world or any object within it might not have existed. Mahatma Gandhi existed; but it is entirely possible that he might not have existed. Indeed, if his parents had not engaged in sexual congress, India would not have had a Gandhi to shepherd the country through its movement for independence. Reflect on the world around you and you will notice the frighteningly fragile grip that things have on existence; things come into existence and go out of existence and therefore, Leibniz argues, it makes sense to ask why it is that the world exists, especially because its non-existence seems simpler. This last point is not with controversy. The suggestion that non-existence is simpler derives from what Robert Nozick called ‘the presumption in favour of nothingness’. The argument is that worlds that contain things pose explanatory questions that are not posed by ‘empty’ worlds (that is, words containing nothing). Given the presumption of nothingness, the existence of the actual world cries out for explanation. Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason holds that there must be an explanation for every fact, an answer for every question. What then can be explanation for the world? Importantly, Leibniz argues that the existence of contingent entities (and the world is such an entity) can be explained only by appeal to a necessary being. A necessary being is an entity whose existence is not contingent. Leibniz argues that God is such an entity because he contains within himself the reason for his own existence. Leibniz’s response to the question of ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ is therefore clear and decisive: the world exists because of God; only God can furnish the ultimate resolution to the mystery and enigma of existence.

This Leibnizian resolution to the mystery of existence has been subject to philosophical attack from all quarters. Most have sought to challenge the ontological coherence of ‘necessary beings’. One thinker who also reasons from the apparent contingency of the world to God but who adopts a somewhat different approach to that of Leibniz in getting there is Richard Swinburne. Swinburne also views God as the terminus of the explanatory chain and considers that one cannot go beyond God in the quest to resolve the mystery of existence. However, Swinburne does not believe in the Principle of Sufficient Reason; he considers that there does not need to be an explanation for everything (this allows him to avoid the question of why God exists). Swinburne, in contrast to many contemporary philosophical theists, does not believe that God’s existence is logically necessary. The important point for Swinburne is that God’s simplicity renders him the most likely and probable cause of the world. For Swinburne, God’s existence is just a ‘brute fact’ and there is no point in asking why it is that God exists.

Holt’s fifth chapter deals with what he describes as the ‘hotly contested’ issue of the world’s temporal nature: is the world finite or infinite? In the thirteenth century,up the Catholic Church declared it to be an article of faith that the world had a beginning in time. This of course was many centuries before scientists discovered evidence of the so-called Big Bang and so it is worth asking why the Catholic Church committed itself to such a position even though Aquinas, ever the loyal Aristotelian, insisted that the point could never be proved philosophically. Of course, the account of Genesis has been read by many Christians as suggesting that the world was created at a point in time and therefore is not eternal. Additionally, some theologians, including Aquinas’ contemporary St. Bonaventure, argued that the universe could not have an infinite past. Bonaventure considered that the eternality of the universe was logically impossible. This argument has been developed by the contemporary Christian philosopher of religion, William Lane Craig. Craig argues that the universe must have had a beginning and that this conclusion is supported on both philosophical and scientific grounds. Let’s consider his argument from philosophy. Craig argues that the notion of an actual infinity does not make any logical sense and that there could be no such thing in the real world. Following al-Ghazali, Craig argues that if past time were infinite then Saturn and Jupiter would have completed the same number of revolutions. But, Saturn and Jupiter obviously wouldn’t complete the same number of revolutions in any given period of time for Jupiter completes a revolution in twelve years whereas it takes Saturn thirty years to complete a revolution. On this basis, past time cannot be infinite.

Holt suggests that there is nothing absurd about an infinite past and points to the examples of Galileo, Newton and Einstein, all of whom had no problem conceiving of the universe as being infinite in time. Even the Big Bang, Holt argues, may not necessarily be evidence of the finite nature of the past. Holt argues that the current theory that best explains the Big Bang is called the ‘new inflationary cosmology’. The theory predicts that the universe-engendering explosions like the Big Bang should be a fairly routine occurrence and that our universe is likely to have emerged from the space-time of a pre-existing universe. Our universe then is just an infinitesimal part of an ever-reproducing multiverse. Although each of the bubble universes within this multiverse had a definite beginning in time, the entire self-replicating ensemble may be infinitely old.

One of the most interesting chapters of the book includes Holt’s interview with the speculative cosmologist, John Leslie. Leslie’s solution to the mystery of existence is distinctly Platonic in nature and holds that reality is ruled by abstract value. Following Plato, Leslie believes that the ethical requirement that a good universe exist was itself enough to create the universe. In Plato’s Republic, the Form of the Good is said to ‘bestow existence upon things’. Leslie’s view requires belief in goodness as an objective value (i.e. that there are facts about what is good and evil and that these facts are timelessly and necessarily true, independent of human concerns). More controversially, Leslie’s account requires that we believe that the ethical needs that arise from such facts about goodness can be creatively effective – that they can bring things into existence. It is this claim that most would reject as too implausible. How, Holt writes, could objective truths about goodness summon up a world out of sheer nothingness?




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