Why do we do what we do? Why do we believe what we believe?

Tim Keller suggests that people hold things to be true for personal, social and intellectual reasons. Dave Bish has been looking at the myth of secular neutrality and this issue has been popping up there. It’s linked to an argument that I’ve heard a fair few times from my atheist or the agnostic friends goes like this:

Person 1: Ah, you’re just a Christian because you grew up in the UK and have Christian parents. If you grew up in Madagascar you wouldn’t even be a Christian!
Person 2: Yes and if you grew up in Madagascar you wouldn’t be a secular atheist.

What person 1 has done is reduce down the reasons for Christian belief to one category – a social reason (born in a Christian country/to a Christian family). Yet to suggest that the atheist holds their view for a reasoned (intellectual) reason but that the Christian could only hold their belief for a social reason is manipulative at best.

The force of societal pressures loom large in much academic geography where they are argued to be the sole source of morality (social contract theory) and where we are (often) reduced to hapless and occasionally resisting victims of circumstance and socially constructed categories. Although these writings have a tendency towards both secularism and this type of reductionism above, how can Christians take seriously the impact of society – the power of the nudge?

Here are three examples of Christians doing just that…

Albert Mohler has provided a commentary on the reality and limitations of socially constructed morality, which was prompted by the insightful Marrin report on criminality amongst British youth, reported in the Times, July 13, 2008.

Clare at “…I wanna learn how to fly!” has explored how

Politicians are devouring a book called Nudge, written by two American academics, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, which demonstrates how “thoughtful choice architecture can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice”

and how this has been encouraging politicians to think creatively about the power of social norms to influence our behaviour.

On the flip-side of social norms and pressures promoting “moral” behaviours we see the Joker. Ikonograph has argued that, “Heath Ledger’s Joker is the Sanest Man in Gotham“:

What’s fascinating to me is that the Joker rejects the belief of secular humanism that man is basically good. He believes that all that is needed to reveal man’s depravity is a little push.

Or perhaps a nudge would suffice?