That God doesn't exist

Charles Murray's new book is an enjoyable read, but many of its arguments are unpersuasive.

Written by Bo Winegard.

Concise and engaging, Charles Murray’s Taking Religion Seriously manages to be at once endearingly humble and impressively ambitious. Humble, because it is brief and tempered by the author’s self-aware confessions of limited expertise and spiritual authority. Ambitious, because it attempts an intellectual defense of a literalist Christianity¹, rather than a poetic or moral one. For Murray, Christianity is more than metaphor or ethical inspiration. It is true.

As Shakespeare’s famous Dane said, Aye, there’s the rub.

In my review of Ross Douthat’s Believe, I argued that a literalist Christianity is no longer tenable for intellectuals in a post-Enlightenment world. The faith of Aquinas or Luther, however inspiring, must remain foreign to us. Murray has not changed my view, though he, like Douthat, undertakes a bold (and in my judgement, misguided) defense of several metaphysical claims of Christianity: that the world was created by a transcendent God; that materialism is incomplete; that the moral law is divine and objective; that Jesus has a special relationship to God and may have been resurrected.

I claim this defense is misguided not because I’m a fire-breathing atheist. Quite the contrary. Like Murray, I revere Christianity. Rather, I claim this defense is misguided because Christianity is better understood as a mythopoetic vision than as a literal description of the universe. More Wordsworth² than Aquinas or Calvin. Many of Murray’s arguments are unpersuasive and thus highlight the futility of defending a literalist Christianity. Since I not only find his arguments unconvincing but also counterproductive, much of this review will be critical, but that should not be mistaken for a negative judgment of the book.

Take Religion Seriously is written with admirable clarity, so its arguments are easy to follow and assess. One can disagree with them without disliking the work; and though I found myself disputing Murray throughout, I also found myself eager for each new chapter. What is more, the book is not just a collection of academic arguments. It is also the story of an honest and intelligent man’s journey from agnosticism to faith. Even if one cannot accept the particulars of that faith, one can enjoy reading about it.