IMITATION IN ITS SINCEREST FORM:

A humanist take on the Bible? Not such a Good Book: a review of The Good Book: A Secular Bible By AC Grayling (HELEN COONEY, 5/01/11, Irish Times)

The fact that this secular bible imitates the original in numerous ways is revealing. The first book of the volume is called “Genesis”. Moreover, every single one of its 500-plus pages is set out in a form unique, until now, to the Bible – that is, chapter and verse. Finally, Grayling “quietly slips in” a secular version of both the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer in the closing pages of his final book, “The Good”. By such means does he assert the “high seriousness” of his intention, and that his secular scripture is the equal (at least!) of that which it mimics, in authority, wisdom and truth.

Christians through the ages have used the term the Good Book to refer, with affectionate familiarity, to the Bible. It is, for them, a sacred book that contains the word of God. But Grayling’s choice of the term as his title is no gratuitous jibe against the Christian religion. Rather, the title encapsulates precisely the ethos and purpose of this book.... [...]

One is bound to ask how on earth a volume that represents a gathering together of a lifetime’s learning by a philosopher of immense distinction can be seen to fail in this way. Grayling says his primary goal is that this book has as its “unifying theme . . . the considered and well-lived life”. He is equally emphatic, however, that “there is scarcely anything in the Bible which does not have its parallel in The Good Book ”. It may be that the author’s near fixation on a comprehensive imitation of the Bible, even for the purpose of refutation, led him to become distracted from his primary humanist purpose and is responsible for the unexpected shortcomings of his book.

Finally, one must acknowledge that Grayling’s claims of universality for The Good Book are belied by the fact that it is very culturally specific. More to the point, one ought to ask whether it was wise of him to use as his exemplar, and to imitate with such determination, a book that he believes to be false and even invidious. Anti-Christian polemic makes only a brief appearance, in the epistle that prefaces The Good Book , but such polemic is central to Grayling’s identity as humanist, atheist and secularist, and to a goodly number of his other books.

How could any philosopher not understand that a “self-standing humanist bible” is a contradiction in terms? To attempt such a thing is a regrettable act of folly on the part of Grayling, a distinguished lover of wisdom. But then even Homer nods.

In defense of Mr. Grayling, no one else has fared any better at the philosophical project, which consists in its entirety of trying to arrive at the ends of the Bible (Christianity) via other means (than God), but which has proven impossible

Posted by oj at May 1, 2011 5:57 AM
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