Critique of Religion and Philosophy by Walter A. Kaufmann

Critique of Religion and Philosophy by Walter A. Kaufmann

Author:Walter A. Kaufmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00


56. GERRYMANDERING. This is a political term, but unfortunately, politicians have no monopoly on dividing districts in an unnatural and unfair way to give one party an advantage over its opponent. Many theologians are masters of this art. Out of the New Testament they pick appropriate verses and connect them to fashion an intellectual and moral self-portrait which they solemnly call “the message of the New Testament” or “the Christian view”; and out of other Scriptures they carve all kinds of inferior straw men.

Theologians do not just do this incidentally: this is theology. Doing theology is like doing a jigsaw puzzle in which the verses of Scripture are the pieces: the finished picture is prescribed by each denomination, with a certain latitude allowed. What makes the game so pointless is that you do not have to use all the pieces, and that pieces which do not fit may be reshaped after pronouncing the words “this means.” That is called exegesis.

In fashioning straw men to represent other religions, theologians do not always find it necessary to use the pieces provided by rival Scriptures. Protestant theologians frequently rely on what Luther said about Catholicism, and both Protestants and Catholics get the major pieces for their portraits of Judaism from the New Testament. Those with scholarly pretensions go on to seek some corroboration from the primary sources. But obviously

Quotations can be slander

if you gerrymander.



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