Thin gruel for theists

The Evolution of God

By Robert Wright

Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2009

Paperback, 568 pages

Available at Kinokuniya Books, Bt571

Reviewed by William Page

Recent years have given us several books on the history of Western religion: Karen Armstrong's "A History of God", Jack Miles's "God: A B3iography", and now Robert Wright's "The Evolution of God". Armstrong is a former nun, Miles a former priest, and it is evident they are trying to salvage something from the wreckage of religious belief inflicted by the ongoing onslaught of scientific materialism.

Wright is a self-proclaimed materialist who is trying to understand religion as a product of political and economic forces, but he too seems interested in salvaging something from the wreckage. He portrays the Hebrew god Yahweh as originally a storm deity, one god among many in the Middle East, who took on the characteristics of some of his competitors and eventually sought to displace them all. His evolution was conditioned by the political dynamics of the region, in which the confederated tribes of Israel were a minor player and the predominant powers were Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, and later Persia.

Among other theories, Wright speculates that the Israelites were never slaves in Egypt. They were actually Canaanite hill tribes who clashed with their coastal and plains-dwelling cousins. Goodbye to Moses, the exodus from Egypt, the Ten Commandments and the forty years wandering in the wilderness! One wonders how this stupendous epic managed to emerge if the Israelites were living in the hills of Canaan all the while. Cecil B DeMille would surely be upset.

Wright theorises that Jesus was a chauvinist whose doctrine of love was limited to the Jews, as evidenced by his frequent remarks disparaging the Gentiles (pagans). Anecdotes showing his regard for Gentiles, such as his healing of the centurion's servant, and the parable of the Good Samaritan, were added later. It was the apostle Paul who idealised Jesus and broadened his doctrine of love to include all humankind. Paul's motivation was not entirely altruistic. He wanted to convert the pagan world to Christianity, and he could hardly have done that if Jesus' doctrine of love had remained limited to the Jews.

Wright sees in Muhammad a synthesis of Moses and the idealised Jesus. Muhammad is like Moses because he led his people from a place of oppression (Mecca) to a place of freedom (Medina), and because he was a political leader and lawgiver. He is like the idealised Jesus because he taught love and brotherhood.

Wright downplays the frequent imprecations against infidels in the Qur'an. He notes that you can cherry-pick the Qur'an to prove a variety of viewpoints, but maintains that the weight of Qur'anic verses suggest that it is for God to punish infidels in the next life and for Muslims to practice forbearance in this one. Somebody should tell this to our contemporary Islamic terrorists.

Wright's central thesis is that the idea of God has evolved from multiple primitive, localised, often savage supernatural powers, into a single invisible, universal overlord with a deep concern for morality. Insofar as that belief civilises us and makes us moral, it takes on a creative reality of its own. The impulse to morality that evolves from it (Wright calls it moral order, moral direction, even moral truth) is the closest thing we have to God.

Theists will find this pretty thin gruel. The impulse to morality is an admirable thing, but pales beside the vigour of the feisty, interventionist, sometimes-anthropomorphic god depicted in the Abrahamic religions. Theists want a god with personality, a god they can worship, love and pray to. You can't pray to an impulse.

But maybe theists need to grow up. A morality that springs from within is obviously superior to a morality imposed from without. You can't worship it, but who ever claimed that the sole object of religion is to have something to worship? A higher object would be an inner transformation for the better, regardless of external realities. Wright seems to be saying that if there is anything, however subtle and beyond our range of knowing, that impels such transformation, although we may not call it God, it's the closest thing to God we've got.