Clearly, after Eric Hoffer’s popular dissection of the true believer, who would want to be a “true believer”? And if one were a “true believer,” the likelihood that he would be reading The Faith of a Heretic is rather remote. Professor Kaufmann’s obviously loaded oppositions are unpersuasive-the terms are too crucial to be so arbitrarily dealt with. Unlike the “true believer,” the open believer is dissatisfied with a merely “intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person.” Rather he possesses “sufficient interest to concern himself with issues, facts, and arguments that have a vital bearing on what he believes.” It follows that there are two types of faith (although Professor Kaufmann adds to the number a modest “at least”): “the faith of the true believer and the faith of a heretic.” Scrutinizing the dictionary definition of “heresy,” Professor Kaufmann peels off the various layers of meaning: the theological definition (“any opinion that is contrary to the fundamental doctrines or creed of any particular church”) he rejects as absurdly loose the legal definition (“an offense against Christianity consisting in a denial of some of its essential doctrines, publicly avowed and obstinately maintained”) he shows to be the predicament of practically every Christian finally, the general definition (encompassing any set of opinions “at variance with established or generally received principles”) suggests to him that heresy is therefore “the price of all originality and innovation.” As to “faith,” Professor Kaufmann shows his own to be that of the open believer.
Walter Kaufmann’s latest book, The Faith of a Heretic, rests upon two terms much too casually defined by him.
0 kommentar(er)
