Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 08:4 (Fall 1965)
Article: A Critique Of Bertrand Russell’s Religious Position
Author: Arnold Daniel Weigel

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BETS 8:4 (Fall 1965) p. 139

A Critique Of Bertrand Russell’s Religious Position

Arnold Daniel Weigel

Russell is without question “one of the most productive and most brilliant thinkers of our age, mathematical logician, philosopher, journalist and libertarian.”1 There is probably “no figure [who] has”. . . dominated the intellectual world so long, so contentiously, and so courageously as Bertrand Russell.”2 In scholarly circles he has won great acclaim through his monumental publication (completed jointly with Alfred North Whitehead), Principia Mathematica, first published in 1910. This work conclusively demonstrated that mathematics was a special case of deductive logic, and, in the hands of Russell’s pupil Ludwig Wittgenstein, it profoundly influenced the development of contemporary analytic philosophy.3

The “brilliant, crotchety, opinionated”4 Russell has also acquired great notoriety as a “Ban the Bomb” man, especially through such statements as: “I deplore the Russian tests just as I deplored American tests.”5 This venture for peace has given Russell an international popularity which has been enlarged further by his prolific writing. In 1950 he received the Nobel prize for Literature.6

In America, however, Russell is perhaps most remembered for an incident which occurred in 1940 on the campus of the College of the City of New York. Russell, who had been hired to teach philosophy, was declared morally unfit by the College authorities because of certain of his educational views, of which the following is representative: “I am sure that university life would be better, both intellectually and morally ... if most university students had temporary, childless marriages.”7 This incident proved to have damaging effects on the one hand, and limited positive results on the other, for Russell’s acquired popularity. While practically every newspaper, periodical, and journal joined in the “chorus of defamation”8 against Russell, there were some members of the

BETS 8:4 (Fall 1965) p. 140

university faculty who sympathized with Russell and who felt that he had been “viciously maligned ... in large sections of the press.”9 As a kind of honorable recompense for this alleged disgraceful treat...

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