GOD AND BABIES

An interdisciplinary scholar reflects on the ways in which childhood innocence connects humanity to the divine.

Rather than viewing infants through the lens of adult responsibilities and obligations, Dixon, a retired professor who taught in the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry and Centre for the Study of Religion, takes a counterintuitive stance that it’s babies who “have important things to (re-) teach us” about love, grace, forgiveness, tolerance, and human dignity. “Babies demonstrate for us—transparently and guilelessly—not optimism but robust, enduring hope,” he asserts. The volume explores this idea by drawing on theories and psychology of human development, which Dixon combines with Christian religious themes. He eschews debates surrounding reproductive health and family planning and instead turns to the fundamentals of his faith, such as the original Christmas story’s angelic proclamations that world peace has come in the form of a newborn baby. This core message, the author laments, is often lost, as shown by Christianity’s history of religious violence, intolerance, and fundamentalism. Indeed, he asserts that, despite Jesus’ own admonition for his followers to “become like children” (which Dixon convincingly interprets as “absolute dependence,” replete with doubts), far too many Christians embrace their religion with an absolutist certainty that they “can know everything there is to know about the mind of God.” Thus, he avers, perhaps the greatest lessons babies can teach, particularly to the devout, is the power of having a childlike perspective without the trappings of self-righteous certitude and its accompanying intolerance. Dixon’s academic bona fides—he holds a doctorate in modern history, a master’s degree in the study of religion, and is a doctor of medicine—are reflected in this volume’s abundance of cross-disciplinary references from sources as varied as Sigmund Freud and St. Augustine, but he writes in an accessible style that emotively captures what he calls the “grace-filled glimpses of divine revelation” that babies offer. And although the author writes from a Christian perspective that leans heavily on the faith’s spiritual vocabulary, he also critiques orthodox doctrines while embracing an inclusive approach to religion that welcomes readers of all backgrounds.

A well-researched and poignantly written exploration of how babies connect humanity to God.