An Invitation to a Spiritual Smorgasbord

Ross Douthat’s Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious is a most unusual work of apologetics. You might assume that because Douthat is a Catholic this would be a work of Catholic apologetics, or at least Christian apologetics. You would be wrong. Take a closer look at the subtitle. You could be forgiven for assuming that in a book written by an upper-middle-class American Catholic, the word religious would be a synonym for Christian. Not so. Christianity generally and Catholicism more specifically are almost incidental to the effort.

What Douthat does in his ponderous, meandering style is simply to urge readers to move away from pure atheistic naturalism and contemplate the possibility that there is something out there beyond the material universe.

Douthat does a thorough job of reviewing data from many fields that show the inadequacies of the materialist worldview. The first chapter outlines the different ways humans have thought about their world, from ancient pre-scientific times to the present, commenting on how scientific advances changed perspectives. He covers the evidence for a definite origin to the universe and the remarkable fine-tuning of many physical constants without which life and the universe would not exist. He analyzes the various arguments with which materialists have countered, particularly the multiverse theory, which Douthat correctly views as a desperate attempt to spin an irrefutable alternative. Along the way, he considers why scientists in America tend to be less religious than the general public, while the reverse is true in some other cultures.

In the second chapter, Douthat covers the significant problem that consciousness plays for the naturalist view, but he does so at mind-numbing length. The essence of the issue is that scientists have gained considerable knowledge showing that a particular experience is associated with a particular area of the brain, but they have no idea what it actually means in terms of consciousness or perception. All the while, Douthat nevertheless makes some valid observations.

Materialists have claimed that we will never understand consciousness, simply because we are accidents and have reached the limits of our ability to understand. But Douthat asks why we evolved to avoid predators and use fire but didn’t stop there. We went on to understand the intricacies of biology, chemistry, and physics, and to contemplate abstract ideas. There was no evolutionary pressure to do those things. Something (or Someone) else was at work. In short, Douthat says, the universe “is written in a language we can understand, as though its authors knew that we’d be opening its pages one day.”

The third chapter analyzes a wide variety of spiritual and supernatural experiences, covering out-of-body experiences, dreams, encounters with spiritual beings, miraculous healings, and material anomalies such as broken radios that mysteriously play appropriate music at weddings. Douthat discusses at great length the many aspects of and possible explanations for these phenomena. He compares and contrasts dreams, drug-induced visions, near-death experiences, and more. How would the materialist explain near-death experiences? What could possibly drive selection for them? They couldn’t offer an evolutionary advantage because they became prevalent only with 20th-century medicine, which occasionally was able to revive dying people. As in the preceding chapter, the points are relevant but the author could have spared a lot of ink.

Next, Douthat begins to put it all together. He writes, “I’m trying to emphasize the convergence of different forms of evidence, not a single line of argument alone.” This recalls a comment from G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy: “The evidence in my case…is not really in this or that alleged demonstration; it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimous facts.” And to give Douthat credit where it is due, he smuggles in illustrations and principles from the Bible, sometimes quoting it directly, and other times alluding to it. One example reads, “If a vision of transcendent goodness and mercy appears to you, a sinner, and you don’t understand what it means, the most obvious interpretation is that you gotta change your life.” And in what I take to be a restatement of Romans 1:20, he writes that “the basic justifications for a religious worldview are readily accessible to a reasonable human being — the universe isn’t really hiding the ball from us when it comes to cosmic order and human exceptionalism.”

It is at this point in the book that many Christians will begin to get uncomfortable. In essence, what Douthat says at this juncture is that any religion is better than no religion, and, most unsettling, that all the major world religions are, at root, versions of the truth, and which religion you choose to follow is not that important. Perhaps a few selected quotes will illustrate his thinking.

•  “The [pre-Christian] pagans…were participating in actual spiritual realities, performing acts that had real spiritual effects.” What were these effects? Building community and patriotism? Making people feel good? Douthat doesn’t say.
•  “If this sounds like an argument that the more popular, enduring, and successful world religions are more likely than others to be true — yes, that’s exactly what I’m arguing.” What about those imposed at the point of the sword? No comment from Douthat about that.
•  “It’s always possible that the truest faith in the year 2034 is held by a handful of disciples gathered in a barn outside Toledo.” Really? Can a faithful Christian hold that view?

In another place, Douthat tells us that spiritual experiences “are too individual and personal and culturally mediated” to vindicate any particular religious system. Furthermore, “I’m not saying that you should ignore the divine call if you have a radical experience of the divine through a start-up California religion or an obscure sect from Dagestan; if you find God somewhere, it’s only reasonable to assume that’s the place God wants you to begin.”

Not to belabor the point, but Douthat also outlines what he thinks is an evolutionary process of religious development, whereby after humble beginnings, “various leaders and visionaries and religious geniuses emerge to take these movements further…creating what we now think of as the major world religions.” This seems to be a complete rejection of traditional Judaism and Christianity, which see God as abruptly intervening in human affairs to call Abraham, Moses, and Paul, and, above all, with the Incarnation.

Douthat partially redeems himself with an excellent chapter that answers common objections raised by atheists and agnostics. These include the problem of evil, why churches sometimes do bad things, and why traditional religions seem so hung up on sex. His discussion of the latter is insightful, but he finishes by saying you shouldn’t let the traditional Christian or Jewish teachings bother you because you can always find a church or synagogue that will affirm whatever you want to do. So much for traditional religion.

The penultimate chapter deals with the ways people who feel the call of faith settle on a religious home. Douthat is correct that, as a practical matter, virtually no one undertakes an exhaustive study of all the world’s religions or even all the Christian churches in their community. We tend to follow our parents, friends, spouses, or other significant people in our lives. Sometimes cultural or even political forces come into play. He cites the testimony of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who, in her initial essay on why she converted to Christianity (“Why I Am Now a Christian,” Nov. 11, 2023), seems to indicate that what first drew her to Christianity was that it forms the basis for the Western principles of freedom and regard for human life and dignity. So, Douthat is correct that people come to faith in various ways and with various ideas about what it means. But his message is that Christianity is simply one path among many, all of which are suitable. He suggests that because people of other cultures experience visions of past lives, ghosts of ancestors, and of Krishna, religious truth might be regional.

The final chapter, entitled “Why I Am a Christian,” outlines Douthat’s own path to faith, specifically to the Catholic Church. Though he cites sound evidence for the truth of Christianity, it is partially obscured and diluted by statements such as this: “If we assume…that religious experience is a crucial source of religious belief, if we take the mystical and supernatural and miraculous seriously in a comprehensive way, what we find are broad patterns that point toward a general architecture of the universe. But we also find a real diversity, in both positive and negative experiences but especially the positive ones, that seems personally and culturally mediated rather than vindicating a universal vision of the truth.”

In summary, Believe is a lumbering trek over the religious landscape that only a limited number of exceedingly curious seekers would undertake. Those who are committed to Christ and His capital-T Truth might have an occasional acquaintance of that sort for whom this book might stimulate thought and discussion before they move on to the ultimate answer. But for the average open-minded inquirer, this book does not compare in power and economy to classics such as Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis or The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Tim Keller.

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