The Psycho-Epistemology of Fundamentalism

[studiodekadent]

AUTHORS NOTE: This article is part of a series of articles I am planning on writing about the situation with religious fundamentalism. These articles are written for both Objectivists and the general intellectual community, and as such are written in a somewhat 'ecumenical' spirit. I am attempting with this article to influence all pro-reason people, including religious persons who are in the pro-reason theological segment of their religions.

The Psycho-Epistemology of Fundamentalism

by Andrew Russell

Given the horrors we Objectivists are confronted with when dealing with religious fundamentalists, we naturally wonder what kind of cognitive malfunction could possibly create such a monstrous creature as, for example, Fred Phelps of Westboro "God Hates Fags" Baptist Church. It is the goal of this article to offer a few thoughts towards this question.

Although, needless to say, this author disagrees with all branches of Christianity, it must be stated that this article does not apply to all branches of Christianity. The pro-reason tradition within Christianity is not under attack here. What is under attack is fundamentalism, which the pro-reason tradition within Christianity also despises. In addition, although this article is written about Christianity (since this religion is the most well-known by the author), the author would allege that the basic psycho-epistemological cause of Christian fundamentalism would also be the same cause of, for example, Islamic fundamentalism or fundamentalism of any religion.

The first issue is of course definition. Psycho-Epistemology refers to how an individual comprehends and processes information, or how their mind deals with abstract concepts. Fundamentalism is the idea that every single verse within a religion's scriptures is acontextual, literal and inerrant (i.e. to be taken literally, without context, with each verse as equally important as the other). In other words, fundamentalism requires abandoment of allegorical readings of scripture, an abandonment of assessing "core themes" of scripture, and more or less an abandonment of the role of reason in biblical scholarship.

For any Objectivist reading this, it should be obvious that the author considers religious fundamentalism to be product of a concrete-bound psycho-epistemology. However, this article is intended to reach a broad audience, including those people who are of the pro-reason arms of their faiths. Therefore, for the benefit of non-Objectivists and those unfamiliar with Objectivism, the author will explain concrete-boundedness.

To be concrete-bound is to be unable to properly deal with abstract information. As both the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand and the Catholic theologian Pierre Abelard realized, the human mind deals with concepts; which are open-ended categories of things developed by using a process of abstraction to focus on the relative similarities between these things whilst ignoring the relatively minor differences between these things. These concepts are abstract, they are not material things, and hence they cannot be treated as material things.

To be concrete-bound is to treat this abstract information as a material thing. More correctly, a concrete-bound mind cannot ignore slight differentiation ("omit measurements" in Objectivist terminology), even in the face of blatantly obvious similarities, and hence they cannot properly form an abstract concept by themselves. All abstract concepts they have are acquired from other people. However, the concrete-bound mind does not use abstract concepts properly, rather it treats the concept as if it were an immediately given concrete thing. Hence, the notion of diversity within a group does not occur to this mind. The most debilitating effect, however, is that since the distinction between the concrete and the abstract is wiped out, as is the distinction between higher and lower levels of abstraction, meaning all concepts held in such mind are equally 'real.' As such, all concepts seem equally relevant and important.

The scriptures of Christianity are writings, and as such convey many abstract concepts. Fundamentalism is what happens when the concrete-bound mind encounters the scriptures. Since all the principles contained within the scriptures are, to the concrete-bound mind, equally important, to challenge one is to challenge all the rest. To consider one allegorical is to say that of all the rest. To specify the context of one is to specify context ("deny the absolute truth of" in fundamentalist language) of all the rest. For example, to dispute the contemporary relevance of Leviticus is seen as no less treasonous than to deny the resurrection.

Many branches of the Christian faith speak of the "true message" of Jesus Christ, they speak of the "themes" of the Gospel, and when these branches speak in these words they speak of the abstract principles derived from Christian scripture. These branches are inherently non-Fundamentalist. The Fundamentalist however, cannot see any "themes" in the Gospels, they can only see equally real and equally "fundamental" assertions. When a conceptual thinker reads Christian scripture, they see how so many of the abstract principles advanced by Christ focus on love, acceptance, benevolence, and tolerance, and they adopt those principles, applying them to the context of their own lives. When a concrete-bound thinker reads Christian scripture, they take orders, give up their minds, and utilize clobber-verse "theology," ignoring context, following the "word of God" whilst rejecting the "spirit of the Word."

In short, I am saying that to the conceptual thinker, Christianity becomes an abstract worldview that the individual Christian applies to their context, and scripture functions as the resource for abstract principles. To the concrete-bound thinker, Christianity and scripture are lists of orders to be obeyed.

The consequences are obvious. The conceptual thinkers within Christianity produce scholarly discourse. The concrete-bound produce venomous screeching from the mouths of those like Jerry Falwell. The conceptual thinkers produce benevolent understandings of the gospel. The concrete-bound produce detailed descriptions of hellfire that would make Clive Barker feel sick. The conceptual thinkers produce deep and diverse intellectual traditions, filled with debate, that benefit all philosophy and society (for example, Thomism) wheras the concrete-bound produce slackjawed Evangelicals which no knowlege of theology, whose "argument" that homosexuality is immoral consists of "but if it says in the Bible that homosexuality is wrong..." (and every clobber verse they cite does not automatically grant itself to that interpretation in the first place). Historically, the consequences matter deeply. Conceptual thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas ignited discussion and debate, stimulating European philosophy in a pro-reason direction, advancing natural theology, eventually climaxing in the Enlightenment, whose greatest political consequences included the establishment, by Deists (who are advocates of reason and natural theology), of the USA and it's incredible tradition of religious freedom. In the same country, a few centuries later, it is the concrete-bound who are working to destroy that very tradition.

Although, as an Objectivist, I am not a Christian, it saddens me to see how the pro-reason tradition within Christianity is being attacked. The fundamentalist threat must not be underestimated. However, in order to be fought, it must be understood. The concrete-boundedness of fundamentalism, as described above, provides a theory about the "etiology" of fundamentalism, and a theory that I offer for discussion.