Secular Theology as a Challenge for Jewish Atheists

Abstract

This paper uses the term “secular theology” to criticize Jewish-religious approaches on the one hand and atheism on the other hand. It shows that the assumption of many that atheism stands at the centre of secular thought is baseless. The first part, largely assuming an Israeli context, claims that this assumption is problematic from a sociological and historical perspective. The second part follows Jewish philosophers who use theological ideas at the centre of their thought, and at the same time do not fit into the realm of Jewish religious writing of the 20th century. The distinction between the ontological and the ethical “role” of God in the theology of Hans Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber, is used to create new borderlines between the secular and the religious – “soft” borders that do not exclude God from secular world-views. This paper is a critique of a common secular approach that is based, I argue, on a misunderstanding of religion in general and Jewish religion in particular. This approach, which I call “naïve atheism,” claims that atheism is the main pillar of secular world-views, and that through modern science we can see how ridiculous religious doctrines are, understand that God does not exist, and thus recognize that we should struggle to push religion into a dark corner of society. A deeper understanding of Jewish religion and culture, I argue, will enable us to find a place for the belief in God within Jewish secular world-views, and hence will promote a “secular theology.” This line of thinking is based on the one hand on a strong critique of central religious beliefs, but on the other hand, aspires to promote a better society on the basis of theological ideas that are inseparable from Jewish thought throughout the generations. The discussion, and a few of the definitions I will use for terms like “Jewish-secular identity” (Zehut Yehudit Chilonit תינוליח תידוהי תוהז), or “Traditional Jews” (Mesorati’im – םייתרוסמ), is in general an Israeli one, and it builds upon the unique definitions of secularism and religiousness found in Israel,1 but the thinkers I draw from, Hans Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Buber and others, are not necessarily Israeli, and the conclusions, I hope, can be relevant for other readers – Jews in the diaspora, secular nonJews, and others. My suggestion is to read the Jewish philosophy of these thinkers under the umbrella term “secular-theology,” and to use this concept as an analytical category by * Lecturer of Jewish Studies at Sapir College and Seminar-Hakibbutzim. Email: avnerdinur@gmail.com A previous version of this paper appeared in Hebrew in Akdamot 30 (2015): 65-76. 1 Many studies on this uniqueness can be found, including the studies in the following three collections: Yossi Yonah and Yehuda Goodman, eds., Maelstrom of Identities: A Critical look at religion and Secularity in Israel [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Van Leer & Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2004); Gideon Kats, Shlalom Ratzabi and Yaacov Yadgar, eds., Beyond Halacha: Secularism, Traditionalism and ‘New Age’ culture in Israel [Hebrew] (Sede Boker: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2014); and the recent: Yochi Fischer, ed., Secularization and Secularism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Van Leer & Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2015). MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES 12 (2015) 132 which one can offer observations on the limits of atheist-secular Jewish identity on the one hand and religious identity (both orthodox and reform) on the other. Understanding secular identity as if it is based on atheism is very common and seems obvious for many. Religion, they claim, means the belief in God, and if one is secular, one should not believe in God or in the stories that religions present. In the English speaking world one can hear this line of thinking from the well-known biologist Richard Dawkins, who is sometimes referred to as “Darwin’s Rottweiler,” 2 for his aggressive attack on “Creationist” religious thinking. In the Jewish world strong atheist statements are rarely used by Jews in the diaspora, but in Israel they are quite common. In the Israeli context one can hear them from atheists like Dan Meler, Yaron Yad’an, and others. One of them, Dan Boneh, in his popular book The God Fallacy [Hebrew],5 refers to a poem by Yehuda Amichai called “The Destiny of God,” in which the poet says that “God is destined to stay with us.” Boneh, who seems not to understand the metaphoric and ironic depth of the poem, presents a harsh critique which is worth reproducing here at length as a representative example for naïve-atheist polemic: This kind of Pilpul (empty talk לופלפ) is an example of the way secular people fall into the trap that prolongs the concept of God – they insist on keeping it and using the concept for their own benefit. “God is love,” “God is me,” “God is nature,” “God is eternity,” “God is the unity of being” – and other definitions that secular people accept so they can create a God of their own. [...] My approach in this book criticizes this tendency. God is a well-defined monotheistic concept. For religious believers he is tangible and clear. Most of them will accept the definition that we used, common to all monotheistic religions – “a super-natural being, wilful, creator of the world and manager of the universe”. It is preferable that this definition will be used in the public discourse as the basic definition of the concept, just like a dictionary definition and like the definition that religious believers use. Boneh claims that secular Jews, who define the term “God” differently to him, are cooperating with religious people and giving religion authority in a time when it should have lost all its powers long ago. He thinks that if we persuade the multitudes that God never existed (Lo Haia Velo Nivra ארבנ אלו היה אל), as the title of his book in Hebrew shows, we will promote a better society that is not worsened by the burden of religion. The difficulty that Boneh encounters, and is evident in this quote, is that for many Jews (Amichai among them), God does not conform to the easy-to-use definition that Boneh suggests. For many Jews, both religious and secular, God is not the manager of the universe and hence for them, the “scientific” and modern understanding of the world does not lead to disbelief in God. 2 See Stephen S. Hall, “Darwin’s Rottweiler,” accessed 22 December 2015, http://discovermagazine.com/2005/sep /darwins-rottweiler. 3 See many of Dan Meler’s articles, and other writers who use similar jargon, in the journal “תישפוח תודהי”(Yahadut Hofshit free Judaism), and “שפוח” (Hofesh – freedom) website, accessed 22 December 2015, http://www.hofesh.org.il. 4 See website Daat-Emet (true knowledge, תמא תעד), accessed 22 December 2015, http://www.daatemet.org.il. See also Yaron Yadan’s blog, accessed 22 December 2015, http://www.orr.org.il/wordpress. 5 Dan Boneh, The God Fallacy [Hebrew] (Bney Brak: Hakibutz Hameuhad, 2011). The title in Hebrew reads: “הרודס תיטסיאתא הנשמ :ארבנ אלו היה אל” (Lo haia velo nivra Never Existed – A Well-Structured Atheist Doctrine). According to the publishing house it is a best seller. The first two editions were each sold out in a month. 6 Yehudah Amichai, Achshav Bera’ash: Poems 1963-1968 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Shoken, 1968), 36. 7 Boneh, The God Fallacy, 265. Emphasis added. SECULAR THEOLOGY AS A CHALLENGE FOR JEWISH ATHEISTS (DINUR) 133 Secularism is not Atheism a sociological-historical perspective The almost automatic identification that many make between secularism and atheism is baseless. It is problematic from a theological-philosophical perspective as I will show later, and it is just false if one looks at it from a sociological or historical perspective as I will show now. Most surveys that articulate approaches to tradition and self-definition in Israel during the last 30 years show that while about 50% of the Jews in Israel identify themselves as “secular,” about 80% say that they believe in God, and an even larger percentage say they participate in central practices of Jewish tradition – for example, 94% circumcise their children, 91% have Bar or Bat Mitzva, 90% celebrate Seder-Pesach, and 82% light Chanukah candles.8 From these numbers we can deduce that most secular Israeli Jews (and here the focus is on Israeli society because away from Israel far fewer Jews define themselves as secular) do believe in God and are committed to the ongoing survival of Jewish tradition, and thus, at least according to self-definition, it is clear that for a great majority of these secular Jews atheism and secularism are fundamentally distinct. It is worth noting that the Gutman surveys that I draw upon, although they are very extensive and seem to be well structured, are not consistent enough in their use of the term “secular” – a few of these polls use the term “not religious” or even “anti-religious,” but parallel polls, a few years later, use “traditional-secular,” and others “not observing the Mitzvot.” These inconsistencies should not be seen simply as a sign of unprofessional surveys – rather, they are a symptom of the inherent difficulty of pinning down Jewish secular identity, and of finding unambiguous definitions for secular and religious in the Jewish world in general and for Israeli-Jews in particular. This difficulty is unique to the Jewish culture and it builds on the problematic combination of religion and nationhood. Clear-cut definitions are indeed very hard to find, and even though in what follows I will suggest a few new guidelines to differentiate between a religious and a secular approach, I do not believe in the utility of such distinctions for future surveys. Here they serve a different purpose. Boneh and his atheist colleagues might claim that the majority of “secular believers” who said in the polls that they are secular but do believe in God, have false ideas about religion – for these people, who in most cases come from Mizrahi