Question: Why do men prefer blonde women?
[T]he skins of blonde women do age faster BUT their fair skin makes dermal signs of aging such as dark age spots and wrinkles easier to detect. A woman’s fertility and offspring viability decreases with age. As such, men prefer blondes because the signs of aging are much easier to detect. This would enable men to predict the age of a woman fairly accurately to ensure that they mate with a young, fertile woman which would in turn increase their reproductive success.The criticism of evolutionary psychology is not that it reaches wrong conclusions (though surely it often does), but rather that there is no way to test its conclusions. There is no falsifiability. How do you test whether men prefer blondes because of fertility cues? This is what we call a “just-so” story. To varying degrees it may sound reasonable, but there is no way to be sure. I see this more and more in theology. Take this passage:
14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exod 3:14-15)What can you really make of this, credibly? In v.14 the first answer to Moses speaks of God’s self-existence, the very meaning of his name. We can easily understand it this way: “Tell the people of Israel that Jehovah has sent you.” The second answer, in v. 15, perhaps necessitated precisely because v. 14 did not simply use the name, or maybe just to drive a point home, is that it is not just any self-existent god who sent Moses, but their God, the God who made promises to the patriarchs. In other words, without much speculation or extrapolation, with firm purchase, I believe we can all agree that these two verses can be paraphrased minimally with a high degree of certainty (qualities that are correlated) as “Tell them Jehovah, the God of their fathers sent you.” End of story.
In contrast, here is what Samuel Renihan, in his book “God without Passions, a Primer” says about this passage:
There are many interconnected ideas at play here. [0] Because God is what he is [1] he is simple. God does not have parts. [2] He is not a composite being [3]. You cannot add up anything in God that constitutes his existence. [4] He simply is. That is why you cannot classify God in any category. [5] There is no higher cause dictating God’s being. [6] And this must be so because any composition, any time two things are put together, implies a higher cause governing the composition. [7] God cannot be God if he is caused. [8] Thus God is simple, spiritual essence. [9] He is not becoming. [10] He is pure being. [11] (God without Passions, p 53. Footnotes are to my commentary.)Renihan bases an entire doctrine of God’s simplicity on this passage. But does this passage really lead, inexorably, to such an extensive, detailed, and comprehensive conclusion about the very nature of God? Do you really feel comfortable extracting so much from this passage? Well, maybe. But to me it smells just like Evolutionary Psychology explaining why men prefer blondes. It is just an untestable assertion. It's a just-so story. Which is okay, fun, provocative, and instructive even.
Until it becomes dogma and someone gets hurt.
I would whether take when I can reliably take out of this passage, and leave the details about God's, nature, beyond those that are plainly revealed, as mystery.
There is no indication that God is, in this passage, giving us instruction on intimate details of his nature. There is, however, every indication in this passage that God is given us instruction on his name.
[0] Not necessarily. The only idea that is certain is that God tells Moses, “Tell them Jehovah, the God of their fathers sent you.”There may be no other ideas at all involved in this passage. Perhaps you are reading too much into it.
[1] What to make of this? Of course God is what he is. Everything is what it is.
[2] This is a leap. The passage says nothing about parts. What do "parts" even mean as applied to a spiritual being? And how simple is God? Too simple to be trinitarian? Is God as featureless as white noise?
[3] I think this is a false dichotomy (and a straw man), God being without parts or God being non-composite, when we only really understand what "composite" means in the material realm. We all agree that God is not put together like an Ikea television stand. However, we have no clue that a spiritual being cannot have features.
[4] What does that even mean?
[5] And what does that even mean?
[6] No Christian of any stripe would claim that there is a higher cause.
[7] How do we know this? Here is some speculation: God is self-caused, and that includes a type of spiritual self-composition, such as (in however this works in a spiritual being) God has self-composed himself as a trinity, or, if we want to set aside the trinity for a moment, he has self-composed himself with the features analogous mind and heart, or intellect and affections.
[8] Nobody is saying otherwise.
[9] The word "Thus" is totally unwarranted. "Thus" implies something has been demonstrated. Something has been proved. But nothing has been demonstrated, only speculated, with a great deal of word-salad.
[10] What does that even mean?
[11] And what does that even mean?
Oh, dear.
ReplyDeletethe problem with the evo psych example is that even if gentlemen detested blondes, the evo psychologist would explain that just as well (blondes can't hide their flaws so men can easily avoid them).
ReplyDeleteIf the Bible passage somehow said the opposite of what it does, would the theologian make the same conclusion about the nature of God?