Faith, Fallibility, and the Virtue of Anxiety: An Essay in Religion and Political Liberalism

190 Pages·2012·5.03 MB·English

by  Derek Malone-France (auth.)

Faith, Fallibility, and
the Virtue of Anxiety
Faith, Fallibility, and
the Virtue of Anxiety
An Essay in Religion and
Political Liberalism
Derek Malone- France
palgrave
macmillan
faith, fallibility, and the virtue of anxiety
Copyright © Derek Malone- France, 2012.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-11071-7
All rights reserved.
First published in 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-29319-3 ISBN 978-1-137-03912-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137039125
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malone-France, Derek, 1972–
Faith, fallibility, and the virtue of anxiety : an essay in religion and political liberalism /
Derek Malone-France.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Religion and politics. I. Title.
BL65.P7M344 2012
201'.72—dc23 2011045314
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: May 2012
In memory of my father Ronald Charles France 1945– 1992
Contents
Preface ix
1 Introduction: Context, Terminology,
and Structure 1
2 Anxiety: From Problem to Virtue 21
3 Anxiety, Secrecy, and Authority in the
Abrahamic and Liberal Traditions 51
4 Faith, Freedom, Reason, and Responsibility 77
5 Divine Anxiety and the Metaphysics of Freedom 99
6 Process Metaphysics and Democratic Deliberation 137
Notes 157
Index 177
Preface
The seed of this project was planted more than a decade ago, when I
was a beginning student in the Philosophy of Religion and Theology
program at Claremont Graduate University. I had the opportunity to
take a contemporary theology course with the great process theologian
John Cobb, Jr., at CGU’s partner institution, the Claremont School
of Theology. While commenting on the pervasive impact of existen-
tialism on late-t wentieth century theology, Cobb observed that the
“problem of anxiety” was widely recognized as the central issue con-
cerning contemporary theology. Over the years since, my own reading
of contemporary theology has largely confirmed that characterization.
Though I feel sure, now, that if I had pushed Cobb to clarify his mean-
ing further, he’d have qualified his statement in something like the fol-
lowing way: The questions raised by the ontic and epistemic dynamics
analyzed under the label of ‘anxiety’ by existentialist philosophers and
theologians have fundamentally shaped the contemporary conversa-
tions within philosophical and systematic theology, even where the
conceptual framework of the existentialist analysis is merely implicit
(or covert) and the specific terminology of existentialism is absent. At
the time, however, my response to his observation was entirely domi-
nated by one clarion thought: “It’s not the people who feel this sort of
anxiety who worry me. It’s the people who don’t.”
That thought festered, as the subsequent years brought ever more
reason for concern with the threat that is posed by the kind of dog-
matic certainty that allows some people to override or suppress their
own existential anxiety in ways that lead to the aggressive assertion of
particularistic moral, social, and political values. Whenever I could
set aside brief moments between working on other projects that I had
already under way, I began to outline a kind of neo- Kierkegaardian
analysis of the dynamics of anxiety and faith in which I inverted cer-
tain central claims of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous personae, such as
Johannes de Silentio, Johannes Climacus, and Vigilius Haufniensis,
resulting in a conceptual transvaluation of anxiety, from problem to
solution— or, as indicated in my title, to virtue. At the same time, much
x preface
of my other work, both in terms of my research and my teaching
responsibilities, was pulling me in the direction of political philosophy
and theory. And I began to have the unexpected but, again, internally
compelling sense that there was an important, even foundational, con-
nection to be made between the epistemic dynamics associated with
Kierkegaardian anxiety and the moral and political norms associated
with classic liberal political theory, in its Lockean- Millian mode.
Over the last several years, I have had the opportunity gradually
to develop my understanding of this connection and the main argu-
ments of the present work in dialogue with a diverse set of interlocu-
tors, including, first, my colleagues in the Human Rights Challenges at
Home and Abroad program, the Thompson Writing Program, and the
Departments of Philosophy and Political Science at Duke University,
with whom I had the pleasure of working as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fel-
low; and, now, my fellow faculty in the Department of Religion and
the University Writing Program and my colleagues in the Department
of Political Science at George Washington University. I have also ben-
efited tremendously from feedback I have received during presentations
of draft portions of this work at meetings of the American Academy of
Religion, the American Philosophical Association, the Society for Philos-
ophy of Religion, and the Society for the Study of Process Philosophies,
as well as at a special symposium on process philosophy and political
theory hosted by the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of
Religion at the University of Chicago, and cosponsored by the Center
for Process Studies at Claremont, in October 2010. More specifically, I
would like to thank the following individuals who have provided espe-
cially formative, substantive, and/or sustained feedback on the project
(in no particular order): Elizabeth Kiss, Claudia Koonz, Troy Dostert,
James A. Keller, Joseph Harris, Simon J. Cook, Van Hillard, Charles
Larmore, John Woell, Richard Amesbury, Kevin Schillbrack, William
Power, Catherine Keller, Franklin Gamwell, George Lucas, Donald
Viney, William Hasker, Patrick Horn, George Shields, Ingrid Creppel,
Bill Winstead, Steven Kelts, Robert Adcock, Dan Dombrowski, Brian
Henning, Jude Jones, John Quiring, Ronald Hall, George Mavrodes,
Terrence Tilley, Michael S. Jones, Samuel Fleischacker, and William
Schweiker. And last but by no means least, in terms of interlocutors,
I would like to thank my wife Katherine Malone-F rance, who spent
many hours listening to me begin to outline my ideas while we ran the
trails beside the Eno River outside of Durham and has continued to
preface xi
be my primary sounding board and an incisive friendly critic as I have
worked them out more fully since then.
I am indebted to my editor, Burke Gerstenschlager, who saw the
potential in the preliminary material I’d worked up through these pre-
sentations and conversations, signed the project with Palgrave Mac-
Millan, and, then, gave me the time I needed to complete it, even
when unexpected administrative duties slowed me down a bit along
the way. I’m also grateful to his assistant, Kaylan Connally, who has
done much of the work of shepherding the project.
Finally, thanks, also, to the journals Faith and Philosophy and Process
Studies. Portions of Chapters One and Two of the present work first
appeared in FP under the title: “Liberalism, Faith, and the Virtue of
‘Anxiety’” (Vol. 24, No. 24 [October 2007], 385–4 12). Portions of
Chapters Five and Six first appeared in PS under the titles: “Between
Hartshorne and Molina: A Whiteheadian Conception of Divine Fore-
knowledge” (Vol. 39, No. 1 [Spring- Summer 2010], 129– 48); and
“Process and Deliberation” (Vol. 35, No. 1 [August 2006], 108– 33).
Derek Malone- France
Washington, DC
C 1
HAPTER
Introduction
Context, Terminology, and
Structure
The liberal personality thrives not on a harmonious inner life, but on
both ‘internal’ and ‘external’ value plurality, and a consequent unease
or dissatisfaction.
— Stephen Macedo, “Charting Liberal Virtues”1
And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.
— 2 Pt 1:5 (AV)
The first decade of the twenty-f irst century brought renewed
energy, and urgency, to the study of religion and politics. In particular,
there is great interest at the moment, both within and beyond the
academy, regarding the interaction between religious consciousness
and liberal- democratic citizenship.
Is it possible for those who are fully, existentially committed to
particular religious perspectives on reality, human nature, and the
moral good to be equally committed to classic liberal political norms
of tolerance; noncoercion; democratic decision making; guaran-
teed individual liberties of conscience, expression, and action; and
equality of rights? Conversely, is it possible for liberal-d emocratic
political societies to accommodate religious citizens in a way that
does not threaten the integrity of their religious commitments and
allows for at least some substantive forms of public expression of
those commitments? Must one choose between living out one’s reli-
gious faith in a fully authentic way and genuinely embracing the