Bedankt voor je skepticism. I’m pretty comfortable discussing medieval times, having done scientific work on it myself long ago, but I agree with you that I’ve not conclusively demonstrated my case. . . yet. A scientific argument hangs together, though. See what you think as the evidence and argument piles up. You may be missing in your last comments the quotation I am making of “forced and timeless . . . .” They’re not my words but his. I agree with you that I need more evidence, and need to sharpen my hypotheses. Again, thanks.

It’s beside the scientific point, and I do not want to provoke you, since you seem a sensible and thoughtful person, but perhaps I can venture the remark that I don’t regard most atheists as “pesky” (though I know they like to think of themselves this way, as courageous opponents of dominant opinion. . . in Nederland?!). I regard them as ill-informed. I’ve seldom encountered an atheist who knew much about religion—for example,Daniel Dennett, whom I know slightly, doesn’t know of what he speaks, and neither do Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. You will not find any works of theology in their bibliographies. They content themselves with attacking folks like the Black People in the Netherlands, or the most simpleminded of American fundamentalists. Let me put it in a provocative form: if you haven’t read books like David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions, you don’t have the standing to have opinions about religion, and certainly not a position as confident as “atheist”!

Groetjes,

Deirdre

Even the low bar thus set, to my mind, is not quite reached. When talking about medieval European attitudes, a series of examples from 14th century Italy are not convincing evidence. The Middle Ages lasted a lot longer than that, and Europe is quite a lot bigger. (Whether you need or want to deal with medieval attitudes is a different matter, of course, but your first sentence sure suggests that you do. And if you are going to describe the wonders of renaissance Europe further on, I fear that you’ll have to.)

I would agree that devotion to work is antithetical to classical aristocratic values, but to call it proto-bourgeois seems far fetched. All the more so because monks were not working for private gain, or held any property at all, which to my mind makes them distinctly unbourgeois. Indeed, if work ethic is all it takes, North Korea is pretty bourgeois too.

Of course work, at the very, very end of the middle ages is used to justify merchants’ existence, but methinks the crucial changes in attitude are those towards towards merchants, but towards interest, banking, private property, non-landowning rich people, and the like. These issues are pretty thin on the ground in this chapter, as are references to relevant literature. (I am sure mr Todeschini will be flattered, though.) To be honest, I get the feeling you are not very comfortable writing about medieval culture and thought.

If this is the case (and the ample space devoted to an 18th century (!) author at the end further suggests it is), I think it would be wise to refrain from sweeping statements like:

“The gospel of wealth of a medieval merchant was based on the literal gospels, and on the interpretation of the gospels by doctors of the church. The problem in modern life is the undermining of a gospel of wealth, an undermining powered by a forced and timeless separation of the lay and religious rationalities.”

This is rather a wild conclusion to arrive at after a cursory discussion of some 14th century Italian merchants, isn’t it? And if you desire, as I suspect, in the second sentence, to irritate pesky atheists such as myself in a grand style, shouldn’t the word “lay” be replaced by “secular”? Or are you actually suggesting that we need more clergy (as in “the religious”?). You are an episcopalian, so maybe yes, but I am not sure.

So there. You give your work away for free, and before you know it Dutch people come complaining that it is no good. Stank voor dank! Nevertheless, as always, looking forward to the next chapter.

regards,

Ralf