Schellenberg is one of the world’s most widely read philosophers. His Argument from Hiddenness is discussed in every introductory course on the philosophy of religion. Moreover, his books like Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason (Cornell University Press, 1993), Evolutionary Religion (Oxford University Press, 2014), or Religion After Science (Cambridge University Press, 2019) are the subject of numerous dissertations, academic articles, and anthologies. In the upcoming summer semester, Schellenberg will come to Eichstätt and give a lecture for the first time at a German university. Beforehand, he was available for a short interview.
Professor Schellenberg, you will be on campus in Eichstätt in May and, together with Klaus Viertbauer, hold a lecture on the topic of “Rethinking Religion”. Can you tell our readers a few sentences about your career?
A: Yes, certainly. After obtaining a doctorate in philosophy at Oxford in 1990 I returned to a post in western Canada, at the University of Calgary in Alberta, and worked to turn my thesis into a book. This book, Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason, published by Cornell University Press in 1993, explored a new argument against belief in God, the hiddenness argument, which went on to receive a great deal of discussion. In the early days of my career, I was kept on my toes responding to all the reactions generated by the book. Meanwhile, having started a new job, which I still retain, on the east coast of Canada, at Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia (it’s a shorter flight to Germany and the UK from here!), my own interests had started to change. I began to address more fundamental questions in the philosophy of religion, with the result a trilogy of academic books published by Cornell in 2005, 2007, and 2009. These too have generated discussion, including the upcoming workshop in Eichstätt, and also more writing for me, as in a series of later books I have sought to work out the details of my ideas and also their broader implications for areas of philosophy other than the philosophy of religion.
What are your expectations of the students in Eichstätt and what can the students in Eichstätt in turn expect from you as a guest professor?
A: I’d like to hear about the ideas that move your students and to have their honest reactions to those I’ll be presenting. I will do what I can to make the subject matter stimulating and to offer clear, well structured input. Some of this may be challenging; I hope it will also be very interesting. As I am quite a calm and friendly, easygoing sort -- contrary to popular belief this isn’t true of all Canadians! -- the interaction will never be difficult or adversarial.
I would add that it is often what one cannot expect in advance that makes the student-teacher encounter interesting. I am excited to discover the unique slant(s) on religious matters that life in Germany and the traditions by which their education so far has been informed will no doubt have given your students.
While you are one of the internationally most renowned philosophers of religion, your writings are still considered an insider’s tip in Germany. Have you ever been to Germany before, and do you maintain relationships with German colleagues?
A: Yes, I have been to Germany several times before, though not for this sort of engagement (I did have a discussion with some of your students virtually last year). Klaus Viertbauer is a valued colleague, with whom I am regularly in correspondence. From time to time I have had significant interaction with other German or German-speaking colleagues, such as Veronika Weidner and Ingolf Dalferth. I have just agreed to participate in a workshop Georg Gasser is helping to organize in Austria for next summer, so I expect my visits to your part of the world will continue!
Your name is especially associated with the Hiddenness Argument. Can you outline the core idea of the argument to our readers in a few words?
A: Sure. The basic idea is quite simple, which is often the case for overlooked thoughts that arouse discussion once noticed. Given what we have learned to associate with real love, a loving God would never be hidden in a manner that involved preventing someone capable of a relationship with God and not resistant to it from being in a position to participate in such relationship. But that’s just what we have if any person ever fails to believe in God when the cause of their nonbelief is not their own resistance of relationship with God. (The central and obvious overlooked idea is lurking here: to choose at some time to enter into relationship with God or to avoid doing so, you have to believe that there is a God.) So if a loving God exists, there shouldn’t ever be anyone like that – there shouldn’t ever be nonresistant nonbelievers, people who fail to believe in God but not because of their resistance to a relationship with God. However there are, and have often been, lots of people like this – and in lots of different ways (we shouldn’t forget all the people in evolutionary history who never so much as had our idea of a loving God squarely before their minds – they were nonresistant nonbelievers too).
A glance at your latest books reveals that you are increasingly dealing with the complex relations between religion and evolution. How did you come to this topic and do you see the evolution theory as a challenge for religion?
A: I came to this when, late in the ‘90s, I started thinking about the various forms that a broader religious skepticism can take. One I saw to be grounded in our relatively brief evolutionary history. On reflection, however, it seemed to me that there was new fuel here for both religious skepticism and what one might call skeptical religion.
The point is that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is part of a broader complex of ideas, including geological time, which do challenge religion as we see it today, but not as people often think. It’s not the familiar worry involving evolution versus creationism that I have in mind, and the challenge is only threatening on one side. Yes, some treasured religious ideas of the past will probably need to be relinquished as we absorb cultural changes. But what evolution in the context of geological time, together with the manifest and multiple forms of human cultural immaturity, suggests to me is that our species may still be at a relatively early stage of religious development. There may be many new religious ideas in our future, and some of them might prove more stable and illuminating than, say, belief in a personal God. Nor can one rule out new insights from old ideas that have, so far, been less than adequately understood or mobilized. Of course neither biological nor cultural evolution is inherently progressive, but if we notice our early stage of development and start working in ways appropriate to a pioneer status on a ‘religion project’ analogous to the science project we’ve had for centuries, who knows what may emerge?
In Eichstätt, in addition to teaching, you will also participate in a workshop at which philosophers of religion from Germany will discuss larger parts of your work. What do you hope to gain from this event?
A: As always, I am interested in gaining new perspectives on the difficult questions I am seeking to address. The cultural milieu of philosophers from Germany is just different enough from my own to promise stimulating discussion. In addition, I hope and expect to more fully clarify the content of my own thinking, as published in those books you mention, to those with whom I will be interacting and perhaps also to myself. Many thanks to everyone involved for this opportunity. I am looking forward to it!
In the upcoming summer term, Professor Schellenberg will hold a block seminar on “Rethinking Religion” (May, 23rd – 24th) together with Klaus Viertbauer. In addition, he will participate in a conference (May 25th) and discuss among others with Godehard Brüntrup, Sebastian Gäb, Georg Gasser or Veronika Weidner about his recent publications on the relationship between religion and evolution at the ZRKG. For further information check his website (www.jlschellenberg.com) or contact Klaus Viertbauer (klaus.viertbauer(at)ku.de).