The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories, Revised Edition

While most critiques of the excellent book seem most concerned about the seeming circularity of the argument: defining religion as something everyone must have and then discovering evidence that they do, it remains that even should we call it something besides religion, narratives or metanarratives can be linguistically tied to value and anyone who has any values at all must then have a belief in the narratives that teach those values. True you might enjoy a story but not adopt the values taught in it, but if we follow such trends in argument as that of Hilary Putnam in "The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy" so called facts are increasingly being recognized as tied to values and values are tied to narratives. So call it religion or call it something else, something grounds belief that accounts for human perspectives and uncovering the hidden role it plays and where it comes from is certainly a worthwhile effort.

Mind blowing, impressive, very important, too neglected... Highly recommended!

(Review of old, unexpanded edition)4.5/10The first part of the book, defining religion ('that which is held to be a self-existent first principle') and the necessity of religious belief in all theoretical thought (e.g. the axiom of a closed universe of matter and energy in materialist theories; various axioms, Platonic, constructivist, and otherwise underlying different views of the foundations of logic and math) is very good and worthy of reading. Something about his argument nevertheless 'feels' slippery or overly clever in rhetoric.When Clouser moves on to his constructive Christian project he makes misstep after misstep, moving from self-performative incoherence on the nature of civilizational institutions to outright heresy on the nature of God (stressing transcendence to the elimination of immanence, making even relations or persons in the essence of the godhead unknowable) to claims that the nature of God as revealed is created (in a way more extreme even than the Eastern Palamists, denying the existence of forms or ideas in the mind of God, denying that logic or Good or really anything is inherent in God qua God instead of God qua revelation). He then reinstates what's essentially the Kantian noumenal wall and denies the possibility of any natural theology, he trips so badly as to reduce the value of the first half of the book retrospectively.

This book is absolutely amazing!

I took this as a part of a History of Science and Technology course I was required to take for my major at a Christian college. Non-Christians might find this book uninteresting because it is written from a Christian perspective, but it does pertain to them as well. Clouser reveals some compelling insights about the nature of religion and what that means for scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.My one complaint is that Clouser could have made it shorter and/or simpler to read (though I hear he's a great improvement over Dooyeweerd) and he has a bit of a self-righteous attitude at times.

Roy Clouser's Myth is indeed a clear exposition of the philosophical orientation of Herman Dooyeweerd. But potential readers will not only find an interesting connection with his Dutch calvinist background. The book is an original argument in its own terms. It is not simply a re-statement of an established position "applied" to a new (North American) context. Clouser is copncerned about common views of theory and theorising. He is also concerned with the theories which explain religious experience. To say that theoretical and scientific thinking implies religious world-views can get us into debate where all we end up with is dogma confronting dogma. Clouser painstakingly looks at the character of religious experience and theoretical thought. He shows by logical argument, and then by careful application in various scientific areas (mathematics, psychology, sociology among others) that theories are inherentlreligious. Those claiming to come clean with their religious presuppositions are not doing anything more than those who claim to be religiously neutral. Except they are facing up to the inner reality of their theorising as a religious activity. And this can make a whole world of difference to how scientific research and theoretical debate unfolds. Clouser makes a convincing case for reconsidering the entire scientific enterprise on these terms.

This book was used in one of my classes, but one could just read it on their own. In fact, I have read it again since my class.If you believe that man can be "neutral" in thought or action, this will challenge your thinking. I would consider this a must read for anyone like myself who is Christian now, but wasn't brought up as one.

"awful gibberish, January 18, 2001 Reviewer: bumpus o'rumpus from baton rouge, laby my record, roy clouser has written the most god-awful book ever printed in the united states. at times i had trouble getting through the book w/o vomiting on the pages penned by this lunatic. i feel for all the poor kids who were forced to buy this crap for any class." As they say "the truth will set you free but first it may make you miserable!" I hope you've gotten over it.I used this book home schooling my children and consider it the best foundation you could find for Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Science, and foundation of a Christian worldview.