Merold Westphal and the Adversary's Suspicion

HeyJ LXIII (2022), pp. 301–314 ARTICLE MEROLD WESTPHAL AND THE ADVERSARY’S SUSPICION TREVOR B. WILLIAMS Villanova University Merold Westphal wrote the book Suspicion & Faith (1998) to explain that although modern atheists used the hermeneutics of suspicion to critique religious motives, their arguments can aid Christians in a devotional form of self-examination. Westphal claimed that the ‘masters of suspicion’ often utilized a deeply biblical logic that is reminiscent of the prophetic polemics against false religion. In this article, the author adds to these reflections by pointing to the Adversary from the Book of Job as one who embodies the hermeneutics of suspicion. The author contends that, like the critiques of modern atheists, the Adversary’s question ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’ (1:9b) can serve as a tool for self-examination and moral development. The Book of Job shows how he asks critical questions about Job’s motives for religious piety by taking advantage of the logical groundwork of the prologue. This dialogue highlights the significance of Job’s integrity and his commitment to virtue without the need for incentive, but at the same time, it also encourages readers to doubt his motives through a pattern of doubt that is integral to the narrative. The first section of this article examines Suspicion & Faith and discusses its approach to modern atheism. Then, in the second section, the author engages in an exegetical analysis of Job 1-2, with special attention to the prologue’s logical groundwork and motif of doubt. The article concludes with a theological reflection on how the hermeneutics of suspicion can augment Christian practice. I. INTRODUCTION Religious life operates on a number of different motives that can range from morally laudable to cynical and corrupt.1 The critical examination of these motives has become an increasingly crucial task for Western theology and the lived experience of Christians, particularly in light of the rise of atheism and disaffiliation. One of the best attempts to make theological sense of these trends is Merold Westphal’s book Suspicion & Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (1998).2 Westphal develops an approach to the ‘masters of suspicion’ (Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud) and incorporates their critiques of false religion for devotional purposes.3 His exploration of the hermeneutics of suspicion demonstrates how modern atheists can offer religious people a source of ‘self-examination’ if they are not summarily dismissed or excluded from faithful deliberation.4 Indeed, he argues that their ‘critique of religion seems to be: (1) all too true all too much of the time and (2) a modern echo of an ancient assault on the devotion of the devout, the one developed by Jesus and the prophets of Israel’.5 This association between biblical traditions of interrogating religious piety and their cognates in modern atheism © 2021 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 302 TREVOR B. WILLIAMS is, therefore, indicative of a potential grammar of suspicion, one that can be employed in efforts of self-examination and moral development. In my view, the Book of Job presents a question with this grammatical framework—‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’ (1:9b)—that can serve as a keen instrument for revealing false religion and its devotion to self-interest.6 Westphal’s analysis of the masters of suspicion is an interesting study just on its own terms, but his intended audience in churches and amongst laypeople raises an important question about how to implement his vision.7 In this article, I will ruminate on Westphal’s approach to the hermeneutics of suspicion as he defines it in Chapter Two: ‘On Learning When Not to Refute Atheism’.8 My argument is that the Adversary (‫ )השטן‬from the Book of Job not only provides a biblical example of the hermeneutics of suspicion but that this figure can also communicate Westphal’s devotional self-examination to laypeople.9 After all, Westphal asks the question ‘who can fail to notice the instrumental character of the piety of the politicians, especially at election time? Do they serve God for nought (Job 1:9)?’10 This passage presents the essence of the Adversary’s examination of Job, and its incisive suspicion can offer a helpful accessory to Westphal’s analysis. To ground his religious use of atheism in a biblical logic, he primarily relies on Israel’s prophetic tradition and the Markan Jesus. However, the Adversary offers an intra-biblical figure who uses the hermeneutics of suspicion in an analogous way as modern atheists, but it is one that participates in (and embodies) the logical groundwork of the Joban prologue. I take Westphal’s incorporation of biblical logic as an invitation to further consider the Adversary’s question. It can, if taken thoughtfully, aid in Christian self-examination and develop capacities for moral development. Both outcomes would help Christians stand up to the forms of false religion that assail contemporary spirituality. This article is organized into two sections that approach the hermeneutics of suspicion through (1) philosophical and (2) biblical modes, with special attention to how they both meet in the Adversary’s question. In the first section, I focus on Chapter Two from Suspicion & Faith and highlight Westphal’s interpretation of modern atheism, the hermeneutics of suspicion, and self-examination. Then, in the second section, with Westphal’s methodology in mind, I engage in an exegetical analysis of Job 1-2 that highlights its logical groundwork and emphasizes its motif of doubt. The third section of this article serves as a theological reflection on the significance of the Adversary’s question. Overall, Job 1:9 presents Christians with an option for moral formation that embodies a religious use of an unconventional source, not unlike what Westphal argues about the devotional capacity of modern atheism. II. SUSPICION & FAITH Even a century after their deaths the modern atheists continue to wield a considerable influence over Western culture. To this day, their contemporary inheritors are designated ‘New Atheists’ to signal a historical connection, but there are massive differences between the two movements. The New Atheists are intellectually less sophisticated than their forebears, while holding a much greater degree of popular appeal. The Atheist Bus Campaign (2008), for example, is illustrative of their humor-laden, consumeristic ethos. It posted signs that read: ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’11 This approach follows an evidential path (focused on isolated propositions) and thus does not employ the hermeneutics of suspicion. In Suspicion & Faith, Westphal finds very little use for evidential forms of atheism. He prefers to focus on Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, writing that ‘few writers can claim to have contributed as deeply and decisively to the secular humanism that permeates the world’.12 Modern atheists MEROLD WESTPHAL AND THE ADVERSARY’S SUSPICION 303 affirm a conception of human flourishing that is firmly in opposition to Christian religion, but Westphal proposes that, despite this enmity, religious people can recognize a ‘profound parallel between the critique of religion in Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud and the critique of religion found in the Bible’.13 This connection grants his project its fundamental plausibility in regards to Christian emulation. Westphal does not let the modern atheists hold an exclusive right to the hermeneutics of suspicion, even though the concept itself is strongly associated with critical theory and the deconstruction of normative claims in epistemology.14 Thus, with the religious formation of Christian laypeople in mind, Westphal begins by naming biblical examples: (1) the critiques of the Pharisees in the Gospels, (2) St. Paul’s emphasis on grace, (3) attacks on dead faith in the Epistle of James, and (4) polemics against ‘false religion’ in the Old Testament.15 Such examples highlight the intra-religious critiques buried in the biblical tradition. Indeed, Westphal cites Jesus as the preeminent critic of false religion, for he even critiques the ‘instrumental’ use of religious piety by his own disciples (Mark 8:27-9:1; 9:30-41; and 10:32-45).16 Westphal argues that Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud embody a ‘deeply biblical’ ethos through their critiques of the insincere or selfish ends that often underly religious piety.17 The hermeneutics of suspicion is, therefore, primarily concerned with what motives underly propositions and how experience is informed by subliminal mechanisms of human thought. For Westphal, this method makes the masters of suspicion particularly helpful for developing our capacity for self-examination and moral development. He extends his use of atheism to ‘religious unbelief in a broad and inclusive sense,’ which includes both atheists (those who believe God does not exist) and agnostics (those who believe we cannot know). The list of theological propositions that dominate these debates is not the sole issue we should keep in mind, because discussions about God’s existence must also include such things as religious life, liturgy, and their mutual coherence.18 Westphal is also not interested in exploring every genus of atheist and, consequently, clarifies the distinction between suspicion and skepticism. For him, skepticism is identified with ‘evidential atheism’ because it is a form of thought that ‘addresses itself directly to the propositions believed and asks whether there is sufficient evidence to make belief rational’.19 Suspicion, however, is directed toward, the persons who believe and only indirectly to the propositions believed. It seeks to discredit the believing soul by asking what motives lead people to belief and what functions their beliefs play, looking for precisely those motives and functions that love darkness rather than light and therefore hide themselves.20 This distinction provides Westphal with a focusing lens that allows him to limit the purview of his book to issues of suspicion (excluding minutiae that might interest skeptics). Religious life thrives on a menagerie of different motives, with every individual and communal body living with a great deal of moral complexity. Westphal takes suspicion to be a form of interpretation that allows atheists to slip underneath the surface of Christian belief and undermine its logical groundwork. However, for him, suspicion is also a tool and does not have to be used for destructive ends (it does not possess an inherently malign essence). The differences between suspicion and skepticism determine what aspects of religious life come under our examination. Westphal observes that while ‘Hume and Kant challenge the soundness of the arguments for the existence of God, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud seek to show how theistic belief functions both to ask and to fulfill forms of self-interest that cannot be acknowledged’.21 The hermeneutics of suspicion does not simply question an agent’s stated motives, it tries to expose those that are subliminal (i.e., repressed or disguised). Wesphal is 304 TREVOR B. WILLIAMS convinced that suspicion is an important way of examining religious life and, for him, it ‘easily transfers its critique from beliefs to practices’.22 He also clarifies that suspicion can be potentially devastating for belief—all belief. It can unravel religious life because of its power to thwart first principles and epistemological foundations. Postmodern critiques of metanarratives are often employed to question similar normative concepts. Christina M. Gschwandtner defines postmodernism, in part, as a denial of modern notions of truth that posit a universal, neutral epistemology. She adds that postmodern thinkers emphasize ‘the importance of listening to many different voices and perspectives, especially those oppressed or marginalized’.23 However, this approach to epistemology can harbor a self-defeating radicality in its denial of universal truth. Westphal names two reasons for this woeful potential, and both are of interest for my argument about the Book of Job. First, he indicates that ‘to an even somewhat impartial observer the critique [of religious motives] seems all too true all too much of the time. The prominence of various self-serving motives in our piety, or at least in that of others, is all too easy to notice’.24 This point was previously noted regarding Westphal’s main argument, and is fundamentally based on the experience of religious life as it is lived and practiced. The danger of this endemic failure to uphold consistent motives for morality is the temptation toward epistemic surrender. Westphal can easily ask: ‘who can fail to notice the instrumental character of the piety of the politicians, especially at election time? Do they serve God for nought (Job 1:9)?’25 Politicians frequently quote Scripture or appeal to propositional aspects of the Christian tradition, but despite these visible, pious gestures, it would be naïve to always take them as sincere displays of devotion. In fact, we would be wise to ask: What are the principles, motives, or self-interests that animate this behavior? Westphal alludes to the Joban prologue and the Adversary’s examination of Job’s righteousness, but the depths of this question are not unpacked. Herbert Fingarette wrote that the disagreement between Yhwh and the Adversary (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-6) excludes questions about the outer self (issue of law), which means that the only possible questions are those that concern the inner self (issue of motive).26 This biblical dispute is, therefore, perfectly in line with the hermeneutics of suspicion because it challenges the way Christians narrate their religious experience. Second, the hermeneutics of suspicion often ‘discredits the believer and the believing community even if their beliefs should turn out to be true and their practices in themselves good’.27 In my view, this represents a negative outcome that is not characteristic of evidential atheism because skeptical arguments against theological propositions can be refuted. Suspicion can end in an implicit nihilism if no telos guides its investigative search, or if it does not maintain a faithful commitment to the vitality of the system it critiques.28 Westphal maintains that the ‘God of the Bible repudiates metaphysical compliments…when they are set in the context of instrumental religion, offered to a god we hope to domesticate’.29 The hermeneutics of suspicion can be used to refine religious motives by staving off the lure of ontotheological instrumentality, the attempt to bring God into the sphere of being (and under human service).30 Skepticism’s purely evidential focus can overlook the often-unseen extremes of instrumental religion because of its focus on propositions. It might discover problems (or hints) on its superficial level of examination, but the more fundamental animating features that involve human interiority will remain untouched. For Westphal, evidential atheism can be refuted by ‘trying to show that there is, in fact, sufficient evidence to warrant religious beliefs and practices rationally. Or it can be done by challenging the way in which the evidentialist demands evidence’.31 This latter point evokes the benefits of suspicion because it critiques the logical groundwork that underlies propositions, with the additional possibility of reordering the system that it criticizes. MEROLD WESTPHAL AND THE ADVERSARY’S SUSPICION 305 In view of Westphal’s two reasons for suspicion’s potential devastation to belief, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the hermeneutics of suspicion has the capacity to reveal self-interest in a deeply tantalizing way. He asserts that the ‘emphasis of Christian spirituality on personal self-examination and the emphasis of Hebrew prophecy on corporate self-examination make it possible to speak of the religious uses of modern atheism when we speak of the atheism of suspicion’.32 This account of self-examination follows a biblical logic that is, I believe, similarly active in Job 1-2 and the Adversary’s suspicion of Job’s motives for religious piety. The Book of Job confronts the difference between the inner and outer self, the distinction between motive and law. Such a distinction is tangibly present in the work of early Christian theologians like St. Augustine of Hippo, who often reflected on the outer self that is manifest to society and the life of the inner self that remains elusive and determinative (being fully known only by God).33 In our time, Christian forms of self-examination are lacking, particularly in traditions that do not benefit from Ignatian exercises or penitential observances. I agree with Westphal that the rich tradition of Hebrew prophecy offers an excellent lens for interrogating society, and that the dramatic speeches in the Gospels showcase a continuance of that wisdom. However, I propose that the Adversary embodies a tool for self-examination that is just as powerful as these. III. THE ADVERSARY’S HERMENEUTIC OF SUSPICION (JOB 1-2) The Adversary (‫ )השטן‬is often described using the terminology of legal/moral doubt, with many exegetes identifying his narrative function as the embodiment of the hermeneutics of suspicion.34 This section of my article offers several exegetical observations about the text of Job 1-2 and highlights aspects that illuminate the Adversary’s question in 1:9. This question—about whether Job fears God for nothing—depends on a narrative that emphasizes the conceptual difference between the inner and outer self. The logical groundwork of this question is laid out throughout the prologue. We can see this at work in the opening admonition in 1:1, when the narrator unreservedly endorses Job’s virtue with vocabulary that is reminiscent of retributive theology’s language for piety.35 Indeed, the narrator declares that Job is ‫‘( תם‬blameless’) and ‫ישר‬ (‘upright’), a man known for ‘fearing God’ (‫ )ירא אלהים‬and ‘turning away from evil’ (‫)סר מרע‬. This list makes him a truly venerable human being, composing the narrator’s definitive statement: ‘There was a man in the land of Uz, his name was Job, and this man was blameless and upright—fearing God and turning from evil’ (1:1). Job’s virtue is stated as an axiom for the reader. For us, this endorsement marks the initial appearance of the Joban prologue’s proposition, the primary notion that the Adversary’s suspicion will critique. An evidential approach to this proposition would seek for hidden ways that Job has violated the law, but because the narrator has so securely affirmed his integrity, such a rhetorical strategy is out of the question. However, Job 1:5 embodies the entry of suspicion into the story. The narrator describes Job’s practice of offering propitiatory sacrifices on his children’s behalf, recounting how he would think: ‘perhaps my children sinned and cursed God in their hearts’ (1:5b).36 This pious concern invites suspicion because it invites interiority. Choon-Leong Seow interprets Job’s motivation as the initiation of a narrative pattern of doubt that weaves throughout the entire prologue.37 Job thought about his children and doubted the virtue that was ‫בלבבם‬ (‘in their hearts’), which opens up an avenue of critique (suspicion) that was not covered by the narrator’s original proposition. The Old Testament attests to several instances in which what is ‫ בלבבם‬comes to the fore, with Jeremiah 32:40 presenting God’s declaration: ‘I will put the fear of me into their hearts so they will not turn from me’.38 Jeremiah’s formulaic language about the importance of fearing God is also indicative of Job’s piety. His habit of interceding on behalf 306 TREVOR B. WILLIAMS of his children highlights the possibility that they may have secretly stumbled off the path of virtue. This is a reality that Job’s friends will continually posit in the poetic section of the book (3:1-42:6). Proverbs 1:1-19 warns about this and portrays it as an error in judgment that betrays the goal of a truly sapiential life. Indeed, for Proverbs, the path to God requires a careful discernment between opposites (wisdom and folly) amid the world’s divinely established moral structure. The Book of Job, however, offers its lesson by way of a transition to the heavenly assembly (1:6-13), a realm of which Job knows nothing.39 This enigmatic gathering provides the context wherein the affairs of heaven and earth are discussed and judged (1 Kgs 22:22; Zech 3:1-5). J. Reindl notes that the word ‫( החיצב‬a hitpa‘el form of ‫ )יצב‬can be understood as ‘assemble’ when the subject is a collective (Exod 19:17; 1 Sam 10:29; cf. Num 11:16; Josh 24:1; Judg 20:2; 2 Chr 11:14). He adds that other contexts include the meaning ‘take up a position’ (Zech 6:5; Job 1:6; 2:1; Prov 22:29); however, when it has the preposition ‫( על‬Num 23:3, 15 [with ‫כה‬, ‘here’]; Zech 6:5; Hab 2:1; 2 Chr 11:13), it gains a locative function that directs the subject toward an object.40 The Adversary participates as an agent of Yhwh, who is tasked with patrolling the earth to investigate human piety. This heavenly assembly, then, gathers to ruminate on what is ‫ בלבבם‬and the Adversary is the embodiment of this focus (1:7b).41 A virtuous person such as Job should hypothetically have nothing to fear from this assembly, but Job himself has already raised the question of the inner self. Yhwh asks the Adversary for the details of his report, citing Job’s virtue with an endorsement almost identical to the narrator’s axiom (cf. 1:1, 8). Samuel E. Balentine observes that Yhwh’s reference to Job as his servant places him in league with Abraham (Gen 26:24), Moses (Exod 14:31), and David (2 Sam 7:5).42 The divine assessment of Job’s virtue makes this comparison obvious because of the indication that ‘no one on the earth is like him’ (1:8b). Both the narrator and Yhwh have endorsed the proposition that Job is a righteous human being; his credentials are thus impenetrable to evidential analysis. The hint of suspicion that began at 1:5 now manifests into a conceptual investigation as the Adversary answers Yhwh with a question. He asks, ‘‫’החנם ירא איוב אלהים‬, which is translated as ‘does Job fear God for nothing?’ (1:9b). This question is composed of two parts: (1) a connection to the dialogue initiated by Yhwh and (2) the addition of a new orientation for their discussion. The Adversary acknowledges Job’s virtue in terms of law (his fear of God) but inserts the critique of motives (for nothing). His addition, in this sense, complements (and carries forward) the logical groundwork of the prologue. Any evidential answer to Yhwh’s question would be inadequate because propositions have already been thoroughly addressed. In 1:9, the Adversary’s question focuses on what many scholars have called ‘disinterested righteousness’.43 The Hebrew word ‫ חנם‬is best translated as ‘nothing,’ but many commentators wish to render it as ‘for no profit’ and the like.44 Elsewhere, ‫ חנם‬is used to signify notions like ‘no payment’ (Exod 21:24), ‘without provocation’ (Prov 1:11), and ‘costless’ (1 Chr 21:24). ‘Disinterested righteousness’ is thus a description of the inner self that lives righteously without the need for incentive. The Adversary’s question is not so much based on evidence from Job’s personal life as it is a broader critique of the excesses of retributive theology.45 How can Job be righteous if the blessings that reward his virtue protect him from trials? Or, more to it, could it be that Job is being bribed? Balentine proposes that the fundamental conviction that underlies the Adversary’s question is that ‘without reward, there will be no devotion’.46 This conviction is what gives 1:9 its devotional teeth as it uses a logic that is internal to the biblical tradition. The question as to whether Job’s righteousness is ‫ חנם‬also brings a troubling possibility to the surface: it is possible that these benefits are so tantalizing that Job might never be tempted down the path of proverbial fools.47 Consequently, the original proposition would only be true in a superficial, extrinsic sense, being the true property of Yhwh, rather than the integral virtue of Job. The Adversary’s MEROLD WESTPHAL AND THE ADVERSARY’S SUSPICION 307 test is meant to root out the presence (or lack thereof) of integrity, it is what lies at the foundation of his suspicion. Tremper Longman III cites the oddness that is inherent in Yhwh’s concern over Job’s interest, highlighting how Proverbs often affirms a motive guided purely by prosperity and divine blessing.48 The definition of what it means ‫‘( ברך‬bless’) has often been taken to refer to ‘benefits received’, but one can also point to its more fundamental meaning as a ‘statement of relationship between parties.’49 The latter definition for blessing is more in line with Yhwh’s covenant relationship with Abraham (Gen 17:1-27). Blessing constitutes a fundamental aspect of the divine-human relationship that adds to the covenant’s value and favorability.50 Seow observes that throughout the Joban prologue, the original Hebrew word ‫ ברך‬is used to signify both ‘bless’ and ‘curse’. He argues that this ambiguity forces readers (of Hebrew) to participate in the story by making them discern the relationship between faith and divine blessing.51 This ambiguity also emphasizes a subtle legitimacy to the Adversary’s suspicions, connecting to the logical groundwork that runs throughout the prologue. Because of this narrative ambiguity, we are right to feel a legitimate sense of doubt about Job’s motives and the content that is in his heart (cf. 1:5). The argument in Job 1:10 expands on the Adversary’s question and focuses on Yhwh’s policy of blessing the righteous. The Adversary suggests that Yhwh has ‫‘( שכת‬made a hedge’) around Job and everything under his jurisdiction, signaling an internal critique of the story’s logical groundwork. J. Gerald Janzen posits that the image of the hedge participates in a wider motif of safety in the Old Testament, which includes thematic hedges such as God’s protection of Israel’s national existence (2 Sam 7:1, 10) and defense against cosmic realities (Isa 5:1-7; Pss 104:5-9; 148:6; cf. Ps 80:8-13). Yhwh’s role as Creator also engages in this imagery through the divine power that supports the firmament and keeps the primal chaos waters at bay (Gen 1:69; cf. Job 38:8-11).52 The term ‫שכת‬, however, only occurs in Job 1:10 and Hosea 2:6, making a comparison crucial for a fuller conception of how to interpret the hedge. Hans Walter Wolff observes that Hosea 2:6 is set in the midst of a legal discourse that has God, the plaintiff, bring charges against an unfaithful (idolatrous) spouse. To this end, Wolff highlights the word ‫ריבו‬ (Hosea 2:2), saying that it ‘denotes the succession of speeches before the court and thus judicial procedure as a whole’.53 Yhwh’s legal solution is to negate the spousal separation through reconciliation (if the temptation is removed).54 This hedge motif embodies the retributive theology of the Joban prologue.55 For many interpreters, ‘the unfaithful-but-hedged-in wife of Hosea illustrates the vulnerability of God in the divine-human relationship’.56 God is committed to humanity such that the ‫ שכת‬becomes a way of securing the stability of human faithfulness. The Adversary’s suspicion, however, identifies the hedge as a potential obstacle to truly knowing whether or not Job has disinterested righteousness. Indeed, just as these secure walls prevent Job from being exposed to the brutality of human experience, so also do they shield him from assuming the mantel of an authentic, embodied piety. Yhwh’s protection encircles Job’s blessed life, but for the Adversary, this threatens to make religious piety unintelligible. In Job 1:11, the Adversary distills this language into a piercing declaration that if Yhwh stripped Job of everything, he would ‘curse you to your face’. The Adversary’s critique cites the hedge motif as a sign that God’s blessings make righteousness a fiction, held up only by the weight of external display. In other words, the hedge would be the only thing justifying the original proposition. We need to see what is in his heart to discover the full truth. Does his righteousness belong to him or to Yhwh? The test that arises from the removal of divine protection is truly horrific (1:13-22). Job loses both his children and his livelihood. The few remaining survivors arrive to inform him of these events; and, because of this tragedy, readers discover just how much the hedge kept back the flood gates of chaos. This path ends up looking like an average mortal life, which 308 TREVOR B. WILLIAMS is a reality that stands in tension with retributive theology.57 By taking these protections away from Job, Yhwh and the Adversary can now discern the nature of his religious piety. Job mourns what happened to his family, but the narrator clarifies that he ‘did not sin and did not blame God’ (1:22). This narrative of earthly loss (1:13-22) then transitions back to a second gathering of the heavenly assembly (2:1-7). In 2:3, Yhwh commences a new challenge to the Adversary, highlighting that the previous test did not elicit any imprecation from Job. Yhwh repeats the proposition about Job’s venerable character (cf. 1:1, 8; 2:3), including the additional virtue of perseverance. This confidence in Job is further expressed in Yhwh’s response to the Adversary: ‘[Job] still grasps his integrity (‫ )בתמתו‬though you convinced me to ruin him for nothing (‫’)חנם‬ (2:3b). Yhwh indicates that Job not only carries the signs of outer piety but also evidences a ‫‘( תמה‬integrity’) that links his righteousness to a disinterested motive. The first test of Job’s virtue has tentatively proven that the Adversary’s suspicion was incorrect and that the original proposition was true. Here, the use of ‫‘( חנם‬nothing’) bites back at the Adversary’s question in 1:9. The fact that Yhwh repeats ‫ חנם‬shows that suspicion—taken to its logical conclusion—can threaten to unravel the entire discourse. Paradoxically, I take this threat to the foundations of belief to be one of the most profoundly beneficial aspects of the hermeneutics of suspicion, even if it is quite dangerous in the absence of fidelity.58 The significance of ‘nothing’ should not be ignored because the dialogue between Yhwh and the Adversary presupposes that there is, in fact, some-thing (one thinks of Gertrude Stein’s popular phrase ‘there is no there there’).59 The double use of ‫ חנם‬brings the hermeneutical task of Job 1-2 into a sharper focus by showing two faces of what constitutes ‘nothing’. For the Adversary, the original proposition was inadequate because it did not account for the possibility of self-interest in its praise of Job’s religious piety (a question of ‫ תמה‬that desires a consistent virtue). However, as we saw above, Yhwh affirmed the original proposition (and Job’s integrity) after the disastrous removal of the hedge. For Yhwh, this ‘nothing’ tells the Adversary that they have encountered the limits of their shared logical groundwork. The test has told them nothing about Job, which makes the hermeneutics of suspicion fall silent as though it were merely evidential. Both interpretations of ‫ חנם‬represent the reality that motives matter. This addition to the story’s logical groundwork is attested in Yhwh’s decision to agree to another test, but this time, the Adversary wishes to take away the rest of the hedge and afflict Job’s health (2:5). The Adversary posits that Job would be willing to sacrifice everything in exchange for his own life. In the Joban prologue, the question of integrity is the anchor point between heaven and earth. This connection is crucial because the Adversary disappears from the Book of Job after the conclusion of the second heavenly assembly scene. Moreover, while readers do not see him return, the concept of doubt continues to haunt the story: Job’s unnamed wife intervenes to confront him about his continued obstinacy, telling him to cease in his ‫‘( תמה‬integrity’) and curse God and die (2:9). Seow explains that this statement ‘gives voice on earth to doubt in heaven regarding human character, articulating to Job on earth the sentiment of the Adversary in heaven’.60 The characters on earth are still ignorant about the dialogue in heaven, but the Adversary’s critique remains active in the logic that links the two together. This logical groundwork lies at the threshold between faith and doubt, which is punctuated by the narrator’s conclusion of the Joban prologue. The narrator states that ‘in all this Job did not sin with his lips’ (2:10b). In this, the narrator employs ambiguity to leave the door of suspicion wide open, particularly as we have been led to think about the human heart. It is thus legitimate to wonder if Job truly retained his integrity in the alignment of motive (inner) and piety (outer). At this point, Job can be regarded as standing in a liminal narrative state because he awaits a final judgment that MEROLD WESTPHAL AND THE ADVERSARY’S SUSPICION 309 will either result in condemnation or vindication. Readers must now walk alongside him in the poetry section (Job 3-42:6) as the textual place that points to an unknowable answer. IV. REFLECTION AND CONCLUSION The Book of Job envisions a test of Job’s religious piety that ends up examining the entire moral system set up by retributive theology. This observation is followed by the vast swath of biblical commentators, but by interpreting this biblical text with Merold Westphal’s Suspicion & Faith, I believe that the Adversary’s question can become a statement posed to the person or community reading the story. The Adversary’s question can expose ways in which our own piety can be self-interested (or imperfect in its motivations). The real question that Job 1-2 poses to its readers is very simple: do you fear God for nothing? I love this question because it has the potential to investigate the nature of ‫ חנם‬for the benefit of religious life. This question (and its variations) can be heard from the lips of earnest spiritual seekers and, certainly, selfproclaimed opponents of religious belief. Popular theology falls far short of what is needed to give a convincing defense of faith and this is reflected in how the New Atheists understand Christianity. For example, in his book The God Delusion (2008), Richard Dawkins poses some of his best remarks in a section called ‘If There Is No God, Why Be Good?’61 He critiques religious motives such that despite his evidential atheism, we see a living example of how suspicion can be used to undermine the faith and morals of Christian religion. Using his characteristically barbed, rhetorical language, Dawkins attacks the ‘religious person’ who claims there is no reason to be good without God. He responds to these statements by asserting: ‘that’s not morality, that’s just sucking up, apple-polishing, looking over your shoulder at the great surveillance camera in the sky, or the still small wiretap inside your head, monitoring your every move, even your every base thought’.62 There is a core insight in this quote that I want to identify, but on the face of it, his repudiation of religious motives also misses some of the epistemological claims that underly the propositions he wants to challenge.63 In addition, his evidentialism is particularly problematic because it articulates spiritual phenomena with the language of materiality. This carelessness demonstrates how his rigid materialism clouds his ability to lucidly interpret religious texts, beliefs, and practices.64 He simply cannot separate (even conceptually or hypothetically) spiritual and material things. However, I believe that his outrage speaks to something much more illuminative than evidential atheism. Dawkins views the existence of God as necessarily related to forms of punishment and cannot imagine moral formation outside of this lens. The God Delusion raises the issue of motives because Christians often say that atheists lack a justification for morality because they place their grounds in subjective preferences or instinct. His moral outrage draws its energy from the existential malaise that pervades modern religion. Dawkins earnestly believes that any bribe disqualifies the entire moral project, which, for him, includes the laws or moral norms legislated by a divine agent. God, in his view, is on the same playing field as human beings, so we must choose between the divine will and what we think is best for ourselves. Put another way, he places integrity at the center of his moral imagination such that any kind of obedience to an exterior power is to abandon one’s personal responsibility to his or her human intellect. This is the lens that fuels much of his evidential atheism, but it is also what makes him deeply suspicious of Christian morality. He is right, of course, that a morality governed solely by fear of punishment is a system that cannot inspire joy in anybody. The strength of his critique lies in its correspondence with the forms of morality 310 TREVOR B. WILLIAMS that many Christians promote. For some, the ‘reward’ of heaven has been reduced to a mere market commodity (a super-product), rather than the telos of human life and action. In any case, what could be a solid point is robbed of much of its potential impact because Dawkins fails to grasp its actual implications. He argues that if religious people accept that it is possible to do good with disinterested motives, then they undermine their own conviction that God is necessary for morality.65 This argument is highly problematic. It fundamentally suffers from an incomplete grasp of the metaphysical grounding of morals, or even forms of Christian belief that stress its emergence in experience. Nevertheless, Dawkins’ observations reveal a governing conviction that underlies his critique: God is an oppressor who watches, judges, and demands. Again, for many, this capricious, micro-managing portrait of God is quite accurate or, at the very least, relatively recognizable. Some religious people are even actively invested in maintaining this faulty portrait, which makes this issue something that the Christian tradition is obliged to address. The portrait of an oppressing God is a conception shared between Dawkins and other New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens, but it is also evident in the writings and public works of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud.66 I cite Dawkins as an example of someone who critiques religious motives because he embodies the kind of ‘suspicion’ that most Christians will encounter. In the Book of Job, the Adversary asks Yhwh about the righteousness of the hedge, the true motives of Job, and the hermeneutical challenges of a life without any protection from worldly chaos. I understand the Adversary to be a narrative embodiment of the hermeneutics of suspicion. He gives us a biblical form of Westphal’s approach that complements its philosophical ruminations. Its capacity to narrate an investigation of human motives (even if it is as brutal and devastating as the story of Job) grants a kind of scriptural legitimacy to suspicion. Indeed, if Christians incorporate the Adversary’s question, they might discover a fuller participation in the goodness professed through faith, or else learn more about what steps are needed for further moral refinement. The logical groundwork of the Joban prologue hints toward this narrative embodiment because the Adversary’s question intentionally explores what it means to be ‘righteous.’ Is the retributive system of rewarding weal and woe an all-encompassing account of the good life? One must conclude that the Book of Job answers this question with a hearty ‘no’. Job’s vindication (as a righteous person) flows from his profession of devotion to Yhwh because his religious piety truly signifies his motive of loving God with all his heart. He possesses integrity in such a way that allows him to challenge our conception of virtue, and does this by manifesting a faithfulness to virtue that is not dichotomous with his religious devotion (without also blending into one another without distinction). To be clear, this fidelity is not an erasure of the ontological chasm between God and finite creatures, it is a reminder that God, as the Creator, exercises a non-competitive agency. We humans, as moral agents who choose the good, are acting in participation with God. In the person of Job, we see the possibility of a morality that does not place human relations at odds with what is owed to God. And yet, we, as readers, are led inexorably to the boundary between faith and doubt when the narrator tells us that Job ‘did not sin with his lips’—or every time we encounter the word ‘bless’. The human person, assisted by grace, never completes the task of moral development. We can always find new ways to pursue moral excellence because humanity bears an eternal destiny. The lips of human beings are weaved together for the expression of speech, the affection of love, and the ultimate praise of the Creator. However, the motives that drive our actions are a key ingredient in the cultivation of integrity. This observation touches on the important issue of implementation. I understand the Adversary’s question to be a mode of self-examination, a tool to aid in the moral development of Christian motives. This self-examination mirrors the distinction between imperfect and perfect contrition, which is a relevant difference as the moral MEROLD WESTPHAL AND THE ADVERSARY’S SUSPICION 311 agent strives to develop a fuller grasp of what it means to follow Jesus. In their search for virtue, Christians must endeavor to interrogate the hedges in their lives (finances, political status, nationality, etc) and bring the Adversary’s question to bear as both challenge and warning. To ask do you fear God for nothing? is nothing less than to recognize that our earthly pilgrimage is fraught with a fundamental weakness. This weakness, among others, is the propensity to transmute altruistic moral precepts and holiness codes into diverse forms of self-aggrandizement and self-interest. The malformation of religious life is not an accidental part of the human experience; rather, it is part of the postlapsarian ‘package’. Serious Christians ought to constantly guard against the possibility that they will commit their motive to worldly goods apart from the summum bonum. If we interrogate our motives for both faith and morals, we can also deconstruct the forms of false religion that often inhabit our worship. False religion makes God into the ‘great surveillance camera in the sky’.67 Again, Christians need to challenge this conception in the spheres of proposition and practice. It is not enough to simply dismiss it as a strawman argument or a misreading of the tradition (both of which are true, of course). Because, if a person is convinced that this argument perfectly summarizes God, then he or she is right not to believe.68 To be faithful to the tradition, Christians must push back against the desiccated forms of belief that exist today. Westphal’s discussion of the hermeneutics of suspicion covers much of these issues, but in this paper, I believe that Job 1-2 has provided a legitimate extension of his biblical parallels. The Adversary’s question is likely all too true all too much of the time and Christians can recover the hermeneutics of suspicion in such a way that we can sharpen its focus. Self-examination must always include a practice of reconstruction after the agent has deconstructed self-interested motives. In this way, keeping the beatific vision as a telos for the refinement of motives is a necessity for fully participating in the divine-human relationship.69 The very capacity to push back against false religion is dependent on how Christians negotiate human motives. This is the task of spirituality today, for when the Adversary poses the question ‘does Job fear God for nothing’ (1:9b), we ought to seriously consider it. The Book of Job offers a hermeneutical mode of examination that is, ultimately, a question about what is ‫ חנם‬at the center of the human heart. The Adversary gets to the core of this dispute with his question and it should not be seen—funny enough—in a purely adversarial way. We should not summarily dismiss it! I think some next steps for this project would further develop the biblical logic of this approach and place it in dialogue with traditional Christian interpretations. This is a necessary step because, in the service of faith formation, we cannot avoid identifying the connective tissue between the content of faith and practices of devotion. The concept of ‘nothing’ is not religiously indifferent. Indeed, though some might be reticent to adapt something from the mouth of the Adversary, it is important to see the question with reference to the entire Book of Job. We are presented with a narrative that possesses an intentionally ambiguous logical groundwork, one that instills a sense of doubt even as it encourages us to believe. Job’s disinterested righteousness should be a point of Christian emulation, but its examination in the prologue should encourage us to desire ever greater levels of devotion. To be devoted to the depths of religious piety is to invite one to incorporate it in greater strides toward self-identification. The Adversary’s question, in this sense, can help Christians cultivate the disinterested righteousness of Job, because part of religious piety is learning to become harmonious with God’s will. Christians would surely benefit from a practical exploration of their motives and, consequently, the energizing witness of integrity. This would push them to pursue a life that chases the charge issued by Jesus, to ‘be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matt 5:48, NRSV). 312 TREVOR B. WILLIAMS Notes 1 ‘Why Americans Go (and Don’t Go) to Religious Services’. Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (August 01, 2018), http://www.pewforum.org/2018/08/01/why-americans-go-to-religious-services/. 2 Merold Westphal, Suspicion & Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1998). 3 Ibid., xiii-xv, 10. Cf. Paul Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 28-33. 4 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. xiv. 5 Ibid., p. xiv. 6 For the sake of clarity, all translations are that of the author, unless otherwise specified. 7 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. xiii. 8 Ibid., pp. 10-17. 9 The Adversary’s (‫ ;השטן‬haśśātān) identity is an issue of debate amongst biblical scholars. For exegetes relying on historical-critical methodologies, the consensus is that the Adversary from the Joban prologue is not to be identified with Satan, the adversary of God. This perspective is obviously in direct contradiction to the traditional Christian interpretation of the text. Indeed, based on one’s conclusion about this issue, the meaning of Job 1-2 will radically change. I think Christians can still find something useful in the Adversary’s question, whether one adopts the historical-critical method or chooses to follow early Christian theologians. The Adversary functions as a figure of suspicion with varying possibilities depending on the exegetical analysis, and this makes the text an incredibly flexible tool for the upbuilding of Christian laypeople. David J.A. Clines, for example, engages in a sustained polemic against several commentators who attribute malevolent intentions to the Adversary (Job 1-20, Word Biblical Commentary 17 [Dallas: Word Books, 1989], pp. 20-27). He describes the Adversary by comparing him with the role of the advocatus diaboli (‘devil’s advocate’), arguing that ‘his office and his appointment owe their existence to the body that actively supports the canonization, and his role is to ensure that no potential criticism of the candidate remains unheard and unanswered’ (Ibid., p. 25). This approach is quite distinct from biblical commentaries that articulate traditional Christian interpretations. St. John Chrysostom (349-407) is one such example of Christian interpretations that understand ‫ השטן‬to be identifiable with God’s adversary. He suggests that Satan’s question in Job 1:9 is ‘characteristic of wicked people’, and that because ‘he could not find a flaw in what was said, he calls in question the mindset; he finds no flaw in what is on the surface, only in what is not on the surface’ (Chrysostom, Commentaries on the Sages, trans. Robert Charles Hill, vol. 1 [Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006], p. 30). Additionally, concerning the same passage, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) wrote that Satan’s question is like that of ‘perverse men’ who ‘usually accuse holy men unjustly of not acting for a right intention because they cannot find fault with the life of the saints’ (Commentary on the Book of Job, trans. Brian Thomas Becket Mullady, O.P. [Lander: Aquinas Institute, 2016], p. 19). This interpretation is consistent with what Chrysostom wrote, but Aquinas further expands on the nature of the question in a way that is illuminative for Westphal’s project. He points out that Satan’s chief point is that Job is only righteous ‘because of the temporal goods which he has attained from you [God]’ (Ibid., p. 19). In this regard, the question of interiority is at the center of both historical-critical and traditional Christian interpretations. We can choose to understand the question in the same way as Satan’s words in the desert temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11) by using it as a framework from which to build a scriptural resilience to evil. Furthermore, the hermeneutics of suspicion could help Christians move from imperfect to perfect motives (cf. Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 7, a. 1) and seems ripe for this kind of exploration. Chrysostom and Aquinas are right to warn about excessive scrutiny, so I do not want readers to walk away from this article with the conviction that I disregard their exegetical acumen. The opposite is the case because their interpretation, in my view, can be incorporated into the heart of my argument. 10 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. 15. 11 Cf. Steven Tomlins and Spencer Bullivant (eds.), The Atheist Bus Campaign: Global Manifestations and Responses, International Studies in Religion and Society 27 (Leiden: Brill, 2016). 12 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. 10. 13 Ibid., p. 10. 14 Tracey Rowland, Catholic Theology (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 144-46; and Christina M. Gschwandtner, Postmodern Apologetics?: Arguments for God in Contemporary Philosophy (Fordham: Fordham University Press, 2013), pp. 10-16. 15 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. 11. 16 Ibid., pp. 11-12. 17 Ibid., p. 12. MEROLD WESTPHAL AND THE ADVERSARY’S SUSPICION 313 18 Ibid., pp. 12-13. 19 Ibid., p. 13. 20 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 21 Ibid., p. 14. 22 Ibid., p. 15. 23 Gschwandtner, Postmodern Apologetics, p. 11. 24 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. 15. 25 Ibid. 26 Herbert Fingarette, ‘The Meaning of Law in the Book of Job’, in Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre (eds.), Revisions: Changing Perspectives in Moral Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1983), pp. 249-86 (here p. 253). 27 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. 15. 28 By ‘implicit nihilism’, I mean the practical assumption that there are no propositions that are ultimately authoritative or binding. 29 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. 15. 30 We also must resist the temptation to devolve Christian faith into a Kantian philosophy of religion that values the Hebrew prophets solely because of their commitment to ethics. For Christians who hold to the ethical view of religion, the Hebrew prophets are particularly attractive because of their emphasis on social justice. Mary Douglas observed that Old Testament scholars from the nineteenth century—and social anthropologists of religion—presented the prophets as being evolutionarily more advanced than Israel’s priestly practices. For them, ‘primitive peoples use rituals magically’ (Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo [London: Routledge, 1984], pp. 23-26). The Joban prologue helps counter this perspective by giving us a more-than-ethical perspective. 31 Westphal, Suspicion & Faith, p. 16. 32 Ibid., p. 16. 33 Cf. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), X.v.7. 34 Carol A. Newsom, ‘Narrative Ethics, Character, and the Prose Tale of Job’, in William P. Brown (ed.), Character & Scripture: Moral Formation, Community, and Biblical Interpretation, ed. William P. Brown (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 121-34 (here p. 125); and Samuel E. Balentine, Have You Considered My Servant Job? Understanding the Biblical Archetype of Patience (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2015), p. 53. 35 Much of this language is predicated on the content of Deuteronomy and Proverbs. Cf. Deut 1:26-46; 4:1-14, 39-40; 6:3, 18; 10:12-22; 11:8-32; Prov 1:32-33; 2:7-8; 3:1-2, 33-34; 4:10; 8:20-21; 10:3, 6; 11:21; 16:3, 7; 19:9; 22:4; 24:19-20; 28:18; 29:25. Abraham also walks blamelessly before Yhwh (cf. Gen 17:1). 36 An interesting comparison with this verse is the occasion in which Sarai doubts God’s ability to give Abram a son through her (Gen 16:2). 37 Choon-Leong Seow, Job 1-21: Interpretation and Commentary, Illuminations (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), p. 256. 38 Emphasis mine. Cf. Pss 28:3; 78:18; 84:5. See also: Ecclesiastes 9:3 and Leviticus 26:36. 39 The other notable occurrence of the ‫‘( בני האלהים‬sons of God’) in the Hebrew Bible is in Gen 6:1-2. Laurence A. Turner notes the debate about whether this designation refers to the descendants of Seth or divine beings (Job 1-2; Pss 29:1; 89:7; Dan 3:25). He indicates that one of the overriding concerns is that ‘humanity continues to multiply’ (Genesis [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000], pp. 42-43). 40 J. Reindl, ‘nṣb/yṣb’, in G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, trans. David E. Green (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 519-29 (here 524-25). 41 Tremper Longman III highlights this interpretation by translating the hitpa‘el word ‫( התהלך‬lit. ‘walking to and fro’) as ‘patrolling’ (Job [Grand Rapids: BakerAcademic, 2012], pp. 82-83. 42 Samuel E. Balentine, Job (Macon: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2006), p. 52. 43 John H. Walton, ‘Satan’, in Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns (eds.), Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2008), pp.714-17 (here p. 715). 44 Tod Linafelt and Andrew R. Davis, ‘Translating ‫ חנם‬in Job 1:9 and 2:3: On the Relationship between Job’s Piety and His Interiority’, Vetus Testamentum 63 (2013), pp. 627-639. 45 The word ‘excesses’ is carrying a lot of weight here. I do not deny that the Book of Job challenges the definitive nature of retributive theology, but there is no reason, in my opinion, to suppose that it entirely rejects 314 TREVOR B. WILLIAMS it. The narrative presupposes a divinely instituted moral structure and seeks to expand the subjects within that horizon. 46 Balentine, Job, p. 54. 47 Cf. Proverbs 1:7-33. 48 Longman, Job, p. 84. See also Proverbs 3:13-18; 8:20-21; and 22:4. 49 Kent Harold Richards, ‘Bless/Blessing’, in David Noel Freedman (ed.), Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 753-55 (here p. 754). 50 Ibid., 754. 51 Seow, Job 1-21, pp. 256-58. 52 J. Gerald Janzen, Job (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1985), p. 39. See also: Balentine, Job, p. 54. 53 Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea: A Commentary, trans. Gary Stansell (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), pp. 33-36. 54 Ibid., p. 33. For a further exploration of the language used by Hosea, see Renita J. Weems, Battered Love: Marriage. Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). 55 The hedge curbs her adultery with ‫‘( סירים‬thorns’, cf. Isa 34:13; Nah 1:10; Eccl 7:6). 56 Seow, Job 1-21, 257. Cf. Job 1:11; 2:2, 18; 4:1, 6; 5:7, 11; 6:11; 7:12; 8:3, 14; 9:15; 10:6, 15; 11:5; 12:2, 14; 13:3, 6, 16. The recognition of ‘vulnerability’ is not, as I employ it, to deny divine impassability. 57 The reason for this ‘tension’ is that retributive theology envisions a moral structure to the cosmos. J. Robert Vannoy indicates that the ‘correlation between human behavior and its ensuing reward or punishment is a fundamental assumption of OT literature’ (J. Robert Vannoy, ‘Retribution: Theology of’, in William A. VanGemeren [ed.], New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, vol. 4 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997], p. 1140). 58 This is to say that one needs to truly love a tradition in order to be suspicious of it productively. 59 Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1937), p. 289. 60 Seow, Job 1-23, p. 305. 61 Richard Dawkins, God Delusion (New York: Mariner Books, 2008), p. 259. 62 Ibid., p. 259. 63 By this statement, I mean that Dawkins thrusts an empirical epistemology on all other forms of knowing. This confusion seems to be an unwitting mistake, but it prevents him from understanding metaphysical claims about morals or any ethical language, in general. 64 I think this problem is especially evident in what he considers to be his best argument against God’s existence, which he calls the ‘Ultimate Bowing 747 gambit’. He posits that ‘the argument from improbability states that complex things could not have come about by chance’ (Dawkins, God Delusion, pp. 138-39). However, this argument falls flat on its face simply because it does not correspond to any proposition of Christian theology. God is historically understood to be simple, not complex, but even if this were the case, Dawkins still distorts the doctrine of God through the lens of his rigid materialism. He clearly thinks that God is just a huge, cosmic man, and that ‘he’ must have evolved to the point of supremacy. If this correctly describes his understanding of Christian doctrine (and it does), then it is so riddled with theological errors that he simply needs to forget what he knows and start over. 65 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 259. 66 Cf. Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve, 2009), pp. 249-52. 67 Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 259. 68 This observation is fundamentally pedagogical and pastoral. I think authentic Christian teaching is highly compelling on its own terms, but our rhetoric and form of communication truly matters. To me, this is a fundamentally Augustinian notion. 69 Paul Ricoeur also discusses the ‘hermeneutics of faith’ (Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, p. 28).