Tre böcker om Ingemar Hedenius

Abstract

This is a review article about three new books conserning the Swedish philosopher Ingemar Hedenius book, Tro och vetande, which was published in 1949, and the discussion that followed about the relationship between faith (tro) and knowledge (vetande). Hedenius invites every one to consider four assumptions that will guide the debate between him and the theologians and set down the rules for the pursuit of a scientific theology. The first says that no other sources of knowledge are acceptable than common human experience and ordinary human reasoning. The second demands that when a Christian believer claims that the Christian dogmas are «true», they are so in the ordinary sense of that word. The third states that the Christian dogmas can be understood without belief in them. The fourth assumption demands that all reasoning should follow the rules of bivalent logic. Thus is the stage set and Hedenius proceeds to present the difficulties any defender of the truth of the main Christian dogmas has had to face since the beginning of the Enlightenment.

Considering the fact that Hedenius did not present any new arguments against Christianity, it is surprising how strong a reaction his attacks on religion in general and on Swedish Protestantism in particular created. Instead of following the principle of «blind faith» Hedenius suggested that all our beliefs should live up to the standards of «the maxim of intellectual morality», which simply states that we ought to base all our beliefs on good reasons. Hedenius thought that the Swedish theologians in particular lacked good reasons for their religious beliefs and that they therefore should abandon them. He also thought that the theological faculty should disappear and that the theologians should move over to the humanistic faculty and be obliged to follow the ordinary rules of humanistic research.

Rainer Carls is a Catholic who thinks that if Hedenius had known more about Catholic theology, he would have understood how superficial and misguided his understanding of true Christianity was. Sebastian Rehnman is a young philosopher of religion, who tries to defend a traditional Protestant position against Hedenius’ attacks on belief in miracles. Johan Lundborg tries to take an outsider’s position and look at the debate between Hedenius and the Swedish theologians from an objective point of view and find out who came up with the best arguments. He claims to be able to do this without having any opinion about the question if we have any good reasons to believe in the existence of the Christian God to start with.

I agree with Hedenius usage of «good reasons» and according to this usage, we do not have good reasons to believe in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Ascension or any other miraculous events of any kind. My only criticism against Hedenius is that he overstates the claims of natural science. Rather than saying that the belief in the resurrection goes against well established knowledge, he could be content to say that it goes beyond the business of natural science which takes an agnostic attitude to all claims that can not be investigated with normal scientific methods. I also agree with Hedenius that the belief that some people will spend eternity in Heaven and some in Hell depending on what they believed about Jesus makes God infinitely cruel rather than infinitely good.