Review: A History of God by Karen Armstrong
The name of this blog should give you a clue that I am interested in religion. Some of that is definitely a morbid attraction, but otherwise the experience of religious belief has affected history for centuries, and I find understanding the history of religion to be important (but not centrally so) in thinking about how we got here.
To that end, I recently bought and read Karen Armstrong’s book The History of God
It begins with a description of how monotheism came about, based mainly on a critical reading of the bible and how a middle eastern tribe moved from the belief that their god wanted no other gods before him to the belief that there were no other gods. Once this monotheism is set up, the action moves to the god of early Christianity, and then to the god of Muhammed and early Islam, before continuing to the present day comparing and contrasting beliefs about god in all three traditions.
The over-riding principle of Armstrong seems to be that there are essentially three main views that the Abrahamic religions have held about god - the personal god, the philosophers’ god and the mystics’ god. Towards the end of the book she argues that the reason that western Christianity has problems is that it has been too heavily focussed on the personal god, at the expense of the other views (she suggests that the problems existing in Islam and Judaism are linked to external causes rather than theological ones).
The personal god, Armstrong suggests, is the god that atheists reject (and with good reason) as contradictory. This is the sky daddy god, the god of the Simpsons, and I think the one that Dawkins attacks the most in The God Delusion. It’s the first conception of god that the Israelites had and it remains popular.
The philosophers view of god, is the argued, rational logical one. In Armstrong’s view this is the god of Newton and the enlightenment, Aristotle and the Greeks, Pascal’s wager and the Deists. Unfortunately for people who might think that proving that god exists using logic and reason is a good idea, the more thought that goes into this Armstrong contends, the more it becomes unworkable. The rational god is the one that Nietzsche proclaimed is dead.
Armstrong feels on stronger ground with the god of the mystics. This is the god that has been most commonly described or experienced in Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This is the god of Buddha, the Kabbalah, Sufi and Hasidic thought. Contemplation of the paradoxes in creation and hard spiritual work lead to glimpses of the divine. Armstrong is keen to stress that the mystical god is not the emotional outburst of the conversion experience, but requires study and brings calm and peace, saying:
A sense of peace, serenity and loving-kindness are the hallmarks of all true religious insight.
The implication in the book is that the god of the mystics may be the god that modern society creates for itself and that is certainly plausible. But this is clearly the god that Armstrong herself believes in, of course she thinks it’s right but it doesn’t make it any more real as far as I’m concerned - mystical experiences can be real without being supernatural.
A History of God is a good book if you are interested in religious thought. The beginning of the book is an excellent introduction to what modern scholars think is most likely to be the origin of the bible and Judaism. It also contains an introduction to Islam which is equally as fascinating. On the other hand, it is long and I often got the sense that these theists were all equally deluded but in their own unique ways, which was slightly frustrating.
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23 Responses to “Review: A History of God by Karen Armstrong”
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Might have more interest for we non-believers if she had titled it
“The History of the Judeo-Christian gods” instead..
Well, misnaming aside, it’s an interesting book if you are interested in the history of the Abrahamic concepts of god. If you are not, then not so much.
The god of the mystics is every bit as absurd as the personal god, and a great deal more absurd than the god of Aristotle. She embraces it, I suspect, because it makes her feel all warm and fuzzy. Horses for courses, I suppose, but it does rather disqualify her as a serious critic of other religious systems.
The woman has been a nun, an atheist, and now she has basically invented her own religion which she claims to find in virtually all religions (while simultaneously repudiating almost all of the actual content of those religions). It’s very hard to take her too seriously.
She’s very quotable.
Her personal beliefs do underlie the book, but then it’s hard to imagine how someone could write a book on the history of a particular god concept without their own belief (or lack of it) coming through.
I think that it’s likely that at least some mystics do experience something when they claim to, I just don’t think it’s anything supernatural, merely a normal human response to whatever practice they’re doing. They probably aren’t making it up, just misinterpreting things.
I think the god of the mystics is marginally less absurd than the personal or philosophical god. But then, I find vampires marginally more realistic than werewolves, doesn’t mean that I think either exist.
I disagree, werewolves are far more realistic than vampires.
I have to agree with Tim. Werewolves are clearly more realistic than vampires.
My father was a schizophrenic from the time I was six until the time we had to have him committed when I was eleven. He had mystical experiences all the time and God talked to him frequently. Forgive me if I don’t take mystical experiences too terribly seriously. You fast for long enough, you’re going to have hallucinations.
Heretics, the pair of you.
@Andrew:
If you go without sleep for 3 days you can induce hallucinations too, which seems slightly more fun to me than fasting.
I can see why you don’t take mystical experiences seriously, I find it interesting that more religious people fail to notice the relation to mental illness.
When I was very young, I had a a very high fever and hallucinated seeing little devils crawling all over the furniture.
I thought it was funny - no thought at all that I was seeing anything real.
In my teens I had another fever and heard voices - very loud, very distinct. As I was quite sure there was no one in the house at the time, I again didn’t attribute this to anything but the fever.
THAT is what I don’t understand about people who have these “mystical” experiences. Why aren’t they smart enough to see them for what they really are?
Armstrong is a polished writer, but her beliefs are nonsensical. How does one go from being and atheist to being a mystic? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I heard her interviewed on NPR the other day.
She’s one of those fruitcakes who “set out to debunk Christianity and found God”.
For crying out loud: she was in a convent for years, was miserably unhappy, suffered from mental illness: she’s the typical “and then I found Jeeeeeesus” type.
Except with a British accent. I’m more used to hearing this kind with a drawl.
“How does one go from being and atheist to being a mystic? It just doesn’t make sense to me.” — Because you’re trying to rationalize the experience. A truly mystical experience is not rational, nor can it be achieved with rational thought.
“You fast for long enough, you’re going to have hallucinations.” - if what you experience you define as hallucination. If we can accept that we can move beyond temporal reality, as people like John Lilly (THE CENTRE OF THE CYCLONE) experienced with sensory deprivation …or Carlos Castaneda (JOURNEY TO IXTLAN) experienced in his travels, then we might conclude there is a higher order of consciousness - of “spiritual” awareness. Fasting is a major component of spiritual awakening, of cleansing, that even men like Ghandi embraced. The native American indians also practice this as part of their religious rites.
Karen Armstrong has written a clear and concise academic treatise on the origins and evolution of monotheism, which I consider as significant a work as Robin Lane Fox’s “Pagans and Christians.”
I do not, in fact, accept that we can move beyond temporal reality. I believe Lilly, Castaneda, Gandhi, and native Americans were or are just as mistaken as Christians, Muslims, etc.
“Higher order of consciousness”
Actually, it’s just the opposite. Fasting, drugs, etc. just throw a monkey wrench into the workings of your brain and cause it to malfunction.
thank god then that our experiences are innately personal, as is spiritual awareness.
individual experiences being what they are, i’m sure that those who are grounded to a diminishing time-space-continuum must believe that when the planet disappears, as it must, so too will the essence of who we are.
it’s sad to think that we only exist in this time and space — that our mind, body and soul are all so intrinsically united that when one dies, so too does our eternal life.
What’s really sad is that your desperate need to believe in nonsense.
I don’t think it is a desperate need. I have been studying what lies beneath our skin for over 35 years. We appear to be much more than the disintegrating mass of cellular structure we appear to be. We appear to be much more than the thoughts and feelings that make up our personality. Something, call it what you would like, seems to power our machine. Is that power, and/or the power cell, infinite in nature? I don’t know and you don’t know. It is all conjecture, in either case. I search. I seek. I look for the answers to my questions. Is there a “GOD?” I don’t know. You don’t know. It’s all conjecture. There is no empirical proof to either position. That’s not desperate - that is nature of a scientist and the philosopher both - to seek answers to the mysteries of life.
There’s an atom smasher in Europe that is feared because it might open up other dimensions we don’t want encroaching on our own. Is the mystery of who we are and where we came from hidden in that? I don’t know. You don’t know. But the question is interesting nonetheless.
There is NOTHING to indicate that we are anything more than complex machines.
It’s not “conjecture”, it’s reality: you and I are just biological machines. There’s nothing that drives us but the energy claimed from foods we eat.
“God” is a dumb answer to any of your questions.
I agree. There is NOTHING to indicate that we are anything more than complex machines. This machine has many parts, both physical in nature, and non-physical in nature. Do those who have serious brain damage still think? Do those who are comatose still exist? There are many unanswered questions about the nature of who and what we really are. There are many unanswered questions about where we came from, how we came to be, and where we go. It is equally as absurb to believe in “heaven” as to believe that our being simply “dies” and goes nowhere. The reason both positions are absurb is that they rely on personal subjective belief structures that are not founded by scientific evidence. We can remove the word “GOD” from the debate, and the questions still remain.
I will have to make a few simple assumptions, one of which is that you’re not a bio-chemist, physicist, or physical scientist — I’ll further have to make an assumption that you believe in the supremacy of your own thought processes, that you believe in the infallability of the individual consciousness.
I am simply a seeker in this world, with an open mind. I am not likely to find the answers in my lifetime, if for no other reason than I have limited time left on this planet — I look forward to perhaps finding answers on the other side, though I am in no hurry to get there, by any means.
Peace to you my friend. We are both travelers on the same road. Where this road takes us, neither of us knows. I will say that it is apparent that neither of us are theists. Perhaps we came here from a distant planet in a time long lost to our consciousness … again .. neither of us knows, experientially or from empirically provable scientific fact.
I don’t believe in “consciousness” at all. It’s nothing mysterious, just normal feedback.
Everything else you said is nonsense mumbo-jumbo. There’s nothing absurd about seeing reality for what it is.
I don’t believe in “consciousness” at all.
Well, then to that I say you must be a terribly uneducated person. Since you are aware of yourself as a person living in this time-space continuum, you most certainly do “believe” in your conscious self, or your consciousness. You might even be aware THAT you’re aware. This higher level of cognitive awareness is what leads you to “realize” that you exist at all. Since you’re typing, you’re thinking. Since you’re thinking, you are aware. Since you are aware, you are conscious. Since you are conscious you have no choice but to accept your own consciousness.
In order that we, as humanity, find any answers at all, it is critical that we focus first and foremost on the subject of origins.
Now, there are only 2 options out there: creation or evolution. If there is a third, i implore anyone out there to rationally elaborate on it …
Either we assembled ourselves from a promordial soup, with no intelligence as a cause (flying against the proven concept of “cause and efect”), or we were created by an infinite and incomprehensible intelligence.
Do the math…!
For me, Pascals wager has merit.
I’ve read this book and seen/heard Armstrong interviewed many times–and nowhere has she said she subscribes to a personal belief in God, mystical, rational, or otherwise.
She is a lover of thought and analysis, and she has said time and again that study is what she loves, what makes her feel centered. Tracing the history of ideas is her passion, and I can relate to this.
An interest in comparative religion doesn’t predispose one to any particular faith–and Armstrong hasn’t “invented” her own. She has merely pulled together the facts of history and, through the rigor of conventional academic analysis, made her thoughtful connections, well defended and well within academic tradition.
As an agnosto-atheist, I admire her work and share her interest in this subject.
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