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Scott · #2 (**permalink**) 05-20-2006, 02:33 PM

Nobody here is able to defeat paganism / animism?

What do you guys think about this critique from Norm Geisler?

Quote:

AN EVALUATION OF NEOPAGAN POLYTHEISM AND FEMINISM

There are many obvious condemnations of neopagan polytheism in the Bible, but my evaluation here will be strictly philosophical. In the interest of fairness I will limit my criticisms to questions of coherence or internal consistency. The first four criticisms apply to polytheism in general. The rest are directed at the neopagan feminist forms.

The Denial of Rationality. In keeping with their mystical orientation, many neopolytheists are at root irrationalists. Miller's dismissal of any system that operates "according to fixed concepts and categories" and is controlled by an either/or kind of logic is a case in point. He rejects the idea that something is "either true or false, either this or that, either beautiful or ugly, either good or evil."[52] What he fails to notice, however, is that in contending that his own polytheism is true as opposed to false he has engaged in an either/or type of thinking. Everything cannot be true, including opposites. So, if it is either polytheism or monotheism, then one cannot deny the validity of either/or type thinking. In fact, the polytheist cannot avoid such thinking, otherwise his or her position cannot be made intelligible.

The Denial of Ultimate Unity. There is also a self-defeating nature to the polytheistic denial of ultimate unity. Everything cannot be radically pluralistic. We live in a uni-verse not a multi-verse. Indeed, the polytheistic position is offered as a unified system of thought. But in presenting a unified thought about ultimate reality, they deny the very philosophy they are advocating. If reality were radically polytheistic we could not even know it. Any claim to know ultimate reality betrays a more basic commitment to a unity of thought that denies the polytheistic view.

Failure to Ask the Ultimate Question. While some pagan religions speak of origins, few ask the ultimate question. There are gods acting, but -- as C. S. Lewis noted -- they fail to ask: "How does a play originate? Does it write itself? Do the actors make it up as they go along? Or is there someone -- not on the stage, not like the people on stage -- someone we don't see -- who invented it all and caused it to be? -- this is rarely asked or answered." If they did, they would see that nature is created. And, Lewis adds, "to say that God created Nature, while it brings God and Nature into relation, also separates them. What makes and what is made must be two, not one. Thus the doctrine of Creation in one sense empties Nature of divinity"[53] and thereby destroys paganism.

Failure to Submit to the Ultimate God. Furthermore, if the pagan realized that "Nature and God were distinct; the One had made the other; the One ruled and the other obeyed," then he or she would not worship the gods but rather the God. As Lewis observed, "the difference between believing in God and in many gods is not one of arithmetic. [For] 'gods' is not really the plural of God; God has no plural."[54] But herein is revealed the depravity of polytheism. For they prefer to worship a god they make, rather than the God who made them. As one neopagan concluded: "I realized it wasn't so outrageous, and that we could choose what deities to follow....[For] the element of Christianity that bothered...[me] was its requirement to be submissive to the deity." He adds, "Gods have similar characteristics to humans....To some extent they are flawed and that makes them more approachable."[55] In biblical language this is a vivid confession of the fact that they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness....and change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man...." (Rom. 1:18, 23).