Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

In “The Outsider Test for Faith” John Loftus exhorts us to step outside our faith and examine it with the skeptical eyes of a foreigner. His argument is that an average person’s coming to have the particular faith that they have does not depend on the virtues of the faith itself but on factors that condition and brainwash the person. His culture, in effect, determines his faith: “if we were born in Saudi Arabia, we would be Sunni Muslims right now. If we were born in Iran, we’d be Shi’a Muslims. If we were born in India, we’d be a Hindus. If we were born in Japan, we’d be Shintoists. If we were born in Mongolia, we’d be Buddhists. If we were born in the first century BCE in Israel, we’d adhere to the Jewish faith at that time, and if we were born in Europe in 1000 CE, we’d be Roman Catholics.” Now I have to point out that Loftus was not the first to come up with the “outsider test”: I used it myself in a 2005 LRC article: “I contend that the support of the U.S. empire on the part of many conservatives is entirely arbitrary. If our average conservative happened to be an Iraqi, he would be a cheerleader for Saddam Hussein. If he had been born in the Soviet Union at the right time, he would have been a fanatical Stalinist. If in China, he would have lied and churned out propaganda for Mao. As things actually are, conservatives have ended up as apologists for the American leviathan. But it is merely an accident of birth, and it is because of them or rather their totalitarian counterparts that both socialism and fascism of the 20th century endured for as long as they did.” This is a bitter argument but reasonable as arguments go.

In developing his doctrine Loftus follows Richard Weaver who described himself as a “doctor of culture.” Such a person is “a member of a culture who has to some degree estranged himself from it through study and reflection. He is like the savant of society; though in it, he is not wholly of it; he has acquired knowledge and developed habits of thought which enable him to see it in perspective and to gauge it. … A temporary alienation from his culture may be followed by an intense preoccupation with it, but on a more reflective level than that of the typical member.” (Visions of Order, 7) And he reminds me of Chesterton who also wanted to undertake an exploration similar to the one Loftus has made, though Chesterton’s conclusion was quite different: “I shall try to show,” Chesterton wrote about Christianity, “that when we do make this imaginative effort to see the whole thing from the outside, we find that it really looks like what is traditionally said about it from the inside.” (The Everlasting Man, vi) It is healthy to regain “that simple and unspoiled realism that is a part of innocence.” (9)

Moreover, Loftus’s view that the masses do not create ideas of their own is entirely true. Mises has argued that “The masses, the hosts of common men, do not conceive any ideas, sound or unsound. They only choose between the ideologies developed by the intellectual leaders of mankind.” (Human Action, 864) This phenomenon is fully explained by the theory of human temperaments, as developed by a host of thinkers from Plato to David Keirsey, a theory which I regard as one of the most important achievements of psychology. The people with the inborn temperament to discover truth, called by Keirsey “NT Rationals” (this is just the name of the temperament, not a compliment) compose 5-10% of the population. Of them maybe 5% are sufficiently extraordinary to contribute to some science. (Just as very few of SP Artisans are great artists and entrepreneurs.) Even fewer NTs are truly independent thinkers, for whom both study and teaching are passions. The SJ Guardians, the temperament fully opposite to NTs, compose 40-50% of the population, and these folks are natural “conservatives,” the “pillars of society” who trust not in reason, as NTs do, but in authority. They indeed subscribe to the mainstream positions without giving them any thought. That’s OK; Guardians have other virtues. But they are not important in the battle of ideas. They are, indeed, spoils of war, prizes to be claimed by the victor. Their allegiance is what’s at stake in the contest of intellectuals.

I also have no quarrel with an admonition that we should build our faith on a strong foundation of natural theology and our supernatural holiness on natural virtue. Nor do I object to any project to purge the articles of faith of all inconsistencies. Nor, finally, do I find anything wrong with attempts to shed light on religious mysteries (1, 2).

So, I grant Loftus’s point that for the vast majority of the population their religion is a matter of chance. But what of it? For chance and luck are pervasive in human life. You are lucky if are born into a wealthy country and family; unlucky otherwise. You are lucky if you are born with a high IQ; unlucky if not. You are lucky if your parents bring you up well and give you a solid education; unlucky if your parents neglect you. What’s so special about religion? Why does it offend our author that for many people that, too, is partly randomly assigned by chance? Loftus does not answer this question in his essay, but perhaps he will argue that it is unjust of God to let so many people be mistaken about the ultimate things or even send them to hell for circumstances beyond their control. Well, suppose so. All this means is that the strict form of Christian particularism is false. Maybe we must clarify that salvation is through Christ not Christianity. Surely, Socrates and Abraham are not in hell. Moreover, it is not necessary for salvation to be a scholar in theology. And even scholars disagree widely on numerous theological issues. So what? Must it really matter that much to God if you have the correct opinion about Molinism or the simplicity of God? I think the doctrine of the Trinity is true for a number of reasons; whether I would have held a different view had I been born in Saudi Arabia, I scarcely know. But my salvation would not necessarily have been imperiled.

Thus, Loftus’s argument, while true, is toothless. It impels people to go to the beginning in justifying their faith, and in that it has merit. But it fails, if its purpose is to condemn all religions merely for the undisputed fact that “now we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor 13:12).