Letter #37: Ultracrepidarianism

It’s Not Just for Astrophysicists

Dear Spencer,

How quickly we have swirled down from heaven into the toilet, dropping from the zenith like a falling star. I’m eager to respond, if only to get that picture of a golden urinal off the front of the stack!

The issue you have flushed out is Ultracrepidarianism, which is derived from the original Munchkinese meaning: Speaking outside your area of expertise — or believing that being an expert in one subject makes you expert in another.

Nowhere have I noticed this more often than when scientists and, even worse, social scientists, speak as if their knowledge about astrophysics or, even worse, psychology, gives them some sort of authority when they start discussing the reality of God. Psychologist Steven Pinker, in one of his entertaining pieces of claptrappery, goes to great lengths to debunk the soul as “a ghost in the machine,” when that idea hasn’t had any credence among theologians since Descartes stopped thinking and therefore being. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, one of the so-called Four Horsemen of the New Atheism, has sometimes argued with Aquinas without having understood, or possibly even read him. Dawkins also likes to rattle on about how the randomness of evolution disproves God’s existence. Leaving the open questions about evolution aside, even I, a mere barefoot teller of tales, know that you can’t judge whether a system is ultimately random when you are inside it. The mouse who got fried in my electronic mousetrap the other day may well have shuffled off his mortal coil with the thought, “Well, that was random,” never realizing he had, in fact, fallen victim to a vast and, to him, unknowable Klavany design. Such is our life.

But more to the point, when it comes to true religion, there are no experts. There are excellent theologians, consistent readings of scripture, and deep traditions that have led men to sainthood. But in the end, whenever we feel too certain of our positions, we should hear the voice of God saying to us as he said to Job: “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?”

I am myself no fan of religious certainty, either through the “literal” reading of scripture — because all reading is interpretative and valid interpretations can differ — or the infallibility of any one church’s doctrine. Instead, I try to practice deep reading, deeper humility, respect for tradition without hidebound reverence, and a steady focus on the plank in my own eye rather than the mote in anyone else’s.

That said, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,” and each and every one of us, whatever his level of learning, has not only the right but also the duty, listening to the still small voice within, to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

The experts, so to speak, be damned.

Love, Dad