animism / paganism

[Scott]

Is anyone aware of any online presuppositional critiques of animism or paganism?

Also, how would you guys go about critiquing animism? For purposes of this discussion, let's define Animism (from this source) as the belief that all natural life is inhabited by souls of spirits, i.e. trees, rivers, animals, stones, and men. These spirits can exist in a separate state. Animists believe that the spirit is the sole organizing principle of the physical universe.

Animists believe that reality is all one piece. There is no clear-cut distinction between human beings and animals, between animate and inanimate matter, or spirit and matter. Ultimately, there is a unity to all of life. The cosmos is but a continuum of spirit and matter. Animals may be ancestors of men, people may change into animals, trees and stones may possess souls. The universe is a symbiotic (interdependent) system. Seeing this inter-connectedness, or oneness in nature, is the ultimate religious experience. It may come while meditating alone in the wild, in a dream, or in a religious ceremony.


The natural universe is inhabited by countless spiritual beings. These spiritual beings are manifestations of a general life-force. Without this life-force nothing could exist. The true character and power of any object is found in this non-material substance. This includes inanimate objects as well as animate objects. This "spirit stuff" or life-force, can exist in varying concentrations. A great man is said to have a greater concentration of it. The stronger gods (or spirits) have more of it; a strong charm or revered fetish may have more of it. The secret to success, fame, or victory, is to acquire more of this force. This is done by magic of various means.

[Edited on 5-19-2006 by Scott]

 

[Scott]

Nobody here is able to defeat paganism / animism?

What do you guys think about this critique from Norm Geisler?

AN EVALUATION OF NEOPAGAN POLYTHEISM AND FEMINISM

There are many obvious condemnations of neopagan polytheism in the Bible, but my evaluation here will be strictly philosophical. In the interest of fairness I will limit my criticisms to questions of coherence or internal consistency. The first four criticisms apply to polytheism in general. The rest are directed at the neopagan feminist forms.

The Denial of Rationality. In keeping with their mystical orientation, many neopolytheists are at root irrationalists. Miller's dismissal of any system that operates "according to fixed concepts and categories" and is controlled by an either/or kind of logic is a case in point. He rejects the idea that something is "either true or false, either this or that, either beautiful or ugly, either good or evil."[52] What he fails to notice, however, is that in contending that his own polytheism is true as opposed to false he has engaged in an either/or type of thinking. Everything cannot be true, including opposites. So, if it is either polytheism or monotheism, then one cannot deny the validity of either/or type thinking. In fact, the polytheist cannot avoid such thinking, otherwise his or her position cannot be made intelligible.

The Denial of Ultimate Unity. There is also a self-defeating nature to the polytheistic denial of ultimate unity. Everything cannot be radically pluralistic. We live in a uni-verse not a multi-verse. Indeed, the polytheistic position is offered as a unified system of thought. But in presenting a unified thought about ultimate reality, they deny the very philosophy they are advocating. If reality were radically polytheistic we could not even know it. Any claim to know ultimate reality betrays a more basic commitment to a unity of thought that denies the polytheistic view.

Failure to Ask the Ultimate Question. While some pagan religions speak of origins, few ask the ultimate question. There are gods acting, but -- as C. S. Lewis noted -- they fail to ask: "How does a play originate? Does it write itself? Do the actors make it up as they go along? Or is there someone -- not on the stage, not like the people on stage -- someone we don't see -- who invented it all and caused it to be? -- this is rarely asked or answered." If they did, they would see that nature is created. And, Lewis adds, "to say that God created Nature, while it brings God and Nature into relation, also separates them. What makes and what is made must be two, not one. Thus the doctrine of Creation in one sense empties Nature of divinity"[53] and thereby destroys paganism.

Failure to Submit to the Ultimate God. Furthermore, if the pagan realized that "Nature and God were distinct; the One had made the other; the One ruled and the other obeyed," then he or she would not worship the gods but rather the God. As Lewis observed, "the difference between believing in God and in many gods is not one of arithmetic. [For] 'gods' is not really the plural of God; God has no plural."[54] But herein is revealed the depravity of polytheism. For they prefer to worship a god they make, rather than the God who made them. As one neopagan concluded: "I realized it wasn't so outrageous, and that we could choose what deities to follow....[For] the element of Christianity that bothered...[me] was its requirement to be submissive to the deity." He adds, "Gods have similar characteristics to humans....To some extent they are flawed and that makes them more approachable."[55] In biblical language this is a vivid confession of the fact that they "suppress the truth in unrighteousness....and change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man...." (Rom. 1:18, 23).

 

[Vytautas]

The Denial of Ultimate Unity. There is also a self-defeating nature to the polytheistic denial of ultimate unity. Everything cannot be radically pluralistic. We live in a uni-verse not a multi-verse. Indeed, the polytheistic position is offered as a unified system of thought. But in presenting a unified thought about ultimate reality, they deny the very philosophy they are advocating. If reality were radically polytheistic we could not even know it. Any claim to know ultimate reality betrays a more basic commitment to a unity of thought that denies the polytheistic view.

The form of polytheism evaluated here is that nature is made up of divinities because this would define pluralism. However, it is asserted that a pluralistic view cannot be known because it denies unity in thought. If it is self-defeating to deny ultimate unity, then ultimate unity of nature is axiomatic because it is self-evident. In other words, if the indirect proof of ultimate unity assumes the denial of ultimate unity and concludes with a contradiction, then the opposite is true which would occur because it is self-defeating to deny ultimate unity. By advancing that everything cannot be radically pluralistic, it is not the case that some things are radically pluralistic. The ultimate unity of nature is another way of presenting pantheism or monism because unity means that everything is made of the same thing.