Category: Epistemology

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Culture Epistemology History Law and Policy

Evangelicals and Slavery

John Patrick Daly’s book “When Slavery Was Called Freedom:  Evangelicalism, Proslavery, and the Causes of the Civil War” should be required reading for anyone interested in the relationship between Christian faith and public policy in America.

Daly traces the ways in which evangelical Christians supported the pro-slavery cause in the antebellum South.  As Daly notes, evangelicals in the North tended towards abolitionism, and used theological and Biblical arguments in support of their position.  But evangelicals in the South overwhelmingly supported slavery, and likewise used theological and Biblical arguments in support of their views.

It’s tempting to make a “no true Scotsman” argument at this point:  the Southern evangelicals, we would like to suggest, were using theology and scripture improperly, as a mask for their greed.  In a sense, I would argue along these lines.  Like nearly all Christians today, I think it’s clear that a properly developed Biblical theology must consider slavery a great evil.

However, in another sense, this kind of argument is anachronistic.  The Southern preachers who supported slavery really believed that Divine Providence had ordained the institution of slavery in the American South for the benefit of both the white and black populations.  Interestingly, according to Daly, they for the most part did not rely on earlier arguments from creation and geneology (i.e., the so-called “curse of Ham”), but rather mostly framed their arguments in terms of Providence.  Moreover, the Southern preachers argued that the revivalistic fires of the Second Great Awakening burned hot in Southern states where slavery flourished.  For many antebellum Christian leaders in the South, Providence and Revival confirmed the righteousness of slavery.

Of course, to us today (and to most Northern theologians at the time), this was a tragic, awful, horrid betrayal of Christian principles.   The lingering question is, do we have the courage to question our own beliefs about how our faith ought to relate to the pressing issues of our day?

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Biblical Seminary Epistemology Theology

Faith Thinking

This is Part I of my review of Faith Thinking:  The Dynamics of Christian Theology by Trevor Hart.  This was the first book assigned in my Missional Theology I course at BTS. 

Trevor Hart’s Faith Thinking is a prolegomena to Christian theology in the tradition of “faith seeking understanding.”  In essence, Hart seeks to envision Christian theology as the extension of a MacIntyreian tradition, utilizing the epistemological resources of “critical realism.”

In his introduction, Hart outlines his project and discusses the contours of “faith” and “theology.” “Faith,” he notes, “will always seek to enter into a fuller and deeper knowledge and understanding of that which matters most to it.”   This means that, although faith is situated within a tradition, it is not merely a rote repetition of that tradition.  Faith is concerned both with the “internal coherence” of contemporary expressions of the tradition and the “external reference” of those expressions to other sources and facets of knowledge.   Faith is integrative.  It must “seek .  .  . to come to terms with the problems and the possibilities of integrating our faith in its various aspects into a wider picture of things entertained by society; thereby inhabiting a more or less integrated world, a universe rather than a multiverse.”

“Theology” is an attempt to understand the object and place of faith.   Theology, then, is an effort to understand reality – the universe – from a stance of faith.  Christian theology, in particular, tries to “sketch an intellectual contour of reality as it appears from within the stance of a living and active faith in Christ . . . .”   If all Christians are called to seek after God’s purposes, then all Christians to some degree or another are engaged in the theological task.

Although Hart does not say so directly, his project clearly is an effort to view Christian theology from the perspective of critical realism.  “Critical realism” is an epistemological position that is both realist and critical.   It is “realist” in that, as with Enlightenment empiricists and rationalists, it affirms that human beings are capable of true knowledge of a real world that is not merely constructed.  It is “critical” in that, as with contemporary postmodernists, it recognizes that all human knowledge is constrained, situated, incomplete, and provisional.   In contemporary theology, critical realism is represented in the thinking of Michael Polanyi, Alasdair MacIntyre, Leslie Newbiggin, N.T. Wright, Alister McGrath, and others, many of them referred to by Hart throughout the book.

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Epistemology Theology

Guretzki on Truth

This is a great entry by David Guretzki, Associate Professor of Theology at Briercrest College & Seminary.  Quoting in full:

I had this email come to me from an inquirer from the West Indies.

May I ask you a question about Christian Soteriology ?

With so many different denominations out there who insist that there are commandments which they keep that other churches do not keep (eg 7th day Sabbath) and with so many different interpretations of the bible, how does one know what the truth is and is finding the truth about every single commandment to be kept a matter of life and death?

Secondly, why is it that the indwelling Spirit doesn’t guarantee singularity of thought?

Here’s what I said:

1) You ask, “With so many different denominations out there who insist that there are commandments which they keep that other churches do not keep (eg 7th day Sabbath) and with so many different interpretations of the bible, how does one know what the truth is and is finding the truth about every single commandment to be kept a matter of life and death?”

Biblically, I think it is important to realize that “truth” is, first of all, most closely identified with the person of Jesus Christ. As he himself says, ”I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). One of the problems we have had in the modern period is assuming the “impersonality” of truth. But this is in contrast to the biblical assertion that God is grace and truth, and that he manifests that grace and truth personally in his Son Jesus Christ, who is also said to be full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Jesus is, in other words, the exact representation of God’s gracious and truthful being (cf. Heb 1:3). To know Jesus is to know Truth.

This leads me to conclude that no human individual (or denomination, for that matter) is able to grasp the truth in its fullness on her or his own. We know the truth analogously to how one knows another person. Thus, we would be better off thinking about “truth” in relational terms. In other words, to know, biblically, is to enter into relationship, not simply to grasp cognitively. To know means to know someone moreso than knowing something. While cognitive grasping of the nature of another person is an important aspect of knowledge, it is only a part of what it means to know.

To know the truth, therefore, means to know Christ personally in a growing way. It is what we call the walk of discipeship and following after Jesus. Consequently, differences of opinion on what Scripture means, how we are to keep commandments, etc. should not at all come as asurprise, given the fact that we (Christians) are all in the process of coming to know Christ more fully, and to becoming increasingly conformed to his image. Since we now only see dimly and only know in part, we are bound to disagree, especially because we continue to fall into sin and division. But when we see Jesus face to face, then we shall “know fully, even as [we are] fully known.” (1 Cor 13:12) Full knowledge in the kingdom of God will consist of knowing God the Father fully in and through the one mediator, Jesus Christ. Though we cannot yet claim to know God fully in this life, we claim the Scripture that he does know us fully in Jesus Christ. Our knowledge of him is, in other words, in the process of “catching up” to how he already knows us.

In regard to whether finding the truth about every single commandment to be kept is a matter of life and death, I would say this: God alone is the one who holds life and death in his hand (Deut 32:39). As important as it is to ensure that we are living in obedience to God’s commands, we do so recognizing that it is only as God gives his Son and his Spirit that there is no condemnation (Rom 8:1-2). Those who think that a particular interpretation of a commandment is the key to life and death are still stuck in the idea that truth has something primarily to do with cognition, or even with right action, rather than right relationship. As disciples, we seek to do everything that Christ commanded (Matt 28:19), but we do so knowing that we do nothing to save ourselves. So we continue to debate over how best to live in obedience to Christ, but we do so recognizing, again, that our knowledge is still incomplete and dim.

2) You ask: “Why is it that the indwelling Spirit doesn’t guarantee singularity of thought?” Hopefully, the above begins to answer that, but I will expand here. Part of the problem, I think, is that we tend to think of “unity” as “uniformity of thought” or “singularlity of thought” rather than “cohesion of thought around a common centre.” I use the example of a large group of people standing around a very large and complex architectural structure–like a Great Pyramid of Egypt or the Taj Mahal. Singularity of thought would mean that every observer sees the architectural wonder from exactly the same perspective and using exactly the same set of words. But such uniformity wouldn’t likely even begin to capture the fullness of what is to be “known.” In contrast, “unity of thought” would accept that while all the people encircled around the object are viewing the same thing (i.e., they have a common centre of focus), they by no means will see the same thing. Thus, someone viewing the Taj Mahal from the north side will see very different things from the person viewing the Taj Mahal from the south side. But it is still the same central focus informing both. That is, I think, what it means to have unity of thought over against the idea of singularity of thought.

If in fact we all thought in uniform ways, the Christian pursuit of the knowledge of God (in the biblical sense) would be in danger of ceasing. Uniformity of thought would mean we would all agree on everything, and once we agree on everything, down to every possible minute detail, we would be tempted to set aside our pursuit of God and the fullness of his glory. We would be tempted by that great temptation which tempted Adam and Eve: You shall be like God, with the ability to know good and evil in the way that only God knows (Gen 3:5).

Furthermore, Scripture makes it clear that it is the Spirit of God alone who knows the deepest thoughts of God (1 Cor 2:11). In order for us all to know God in uniformity of mind, and to be agreed 100% on every minute detail of theology would require that all of us would know all things. And that, of course, would again, by definition, make us equal to God. Rather, it is as a fellowship of believers, the Church, the body of Christ made up of many members (1 Cor 12:12ff) that we come to know God. There is, in other words, no individual member that can claim to “know it all,” lest that individual be tempted to say, “I have no need of you.”

The Scripture teaches that the Spirit is a Spirit of unity (Eph 4:4), not a spirit of uniformity. (By the way, such a spirit of uniformity is what leads people into deception, especially in cults, and indeed, in all kinds of fundamentalisms where diversity of thought is discouraged). This is why the apostle says, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3). If the Spirit ensured uniformity, the moral imperative to us to make the effort to maintain unity would be negated. Instead, to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit means that we as Christians are called to recognize the spiritual unity that we have in Jesus Christ, in the unity of our baptism, and the oneness of God the Father, even in the midst of disagreements. It means working hard to remember that even when we disagree at various doctrinal points and in matters of practice, we still share a common confession of faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in whose name we were baptized. Technically speaking, then, the only appropriate cause for a break of fellowship with those with whom we disagree is when we disagree about the identity of the God whom we worship.

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Biblical Studies Epistemology Hermeneutics Theology

A Third Way and Scripture

Scot McKnight is writing about a “third way” between “conservative” and “liberal” Christian faith.  Today’s post is on the nature of scripture — something I’ve been studying and thinking about quite a bit lately.  I think I’ve read most of the recent books on the nature of scripture.  Here are my thoughts:

(a) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must acknowledge that all scripture is inspired by God; (b) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must be consistent with the completely truthful, loving, and gracious character of God as the one who inspired scripture; (c) if the God who inspired scripture is a God of truth, then any Chrisitan formulation of what scritpure is must be completely truthful and honest about the phenomena of scripture (meaning it must take scripture as we find it, with all of its marks of humanity, and not as we ideally would like it to be); (d) if the God who inspired scripture is a God of truth, then any Christian formulation of what scripture is must not stifle or react defensively to the search for truth in any discipline of study and must not cause Christians to fear any truth wherever it is found; (e) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must locate scripture in relation to God’s revelation in Christ and in connection with scripture’s overarching purposes in God’s plan of redemption (this implies the role of the Holy Spirit); and (f) and Christian formulation of what scripture is must locate scripture within a coherent and satisfying Christian epistemology.  As an addendum to all this, I think we need to remember that any creedal / doctrinal statement about the nature of scripture is not scripture itself; scripture might be infallible, but our statements about scripture are never infallible.  Also, we need to say something about the canon.

Taking all these things into consideration, in my very humble opinion, the “conservative” evangelical approach to scripture, rooted in Warfield and summed up in the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, misses the mark.  However, “progressive” evangelical approaches to scritpure, in my view, sometimes seem weak on (b) and (e) — if “conservative” approaches can seem docetic, “progressive” approaches can seem adoptionist. 

So as a very tentative first cut at a summary:  “Scripture is the true and trustworthy record of God’s plan of redemption in Christ.  It is to be cherished, studied, and heard with reverent humility in the community of God’s people through the ages and under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Each follower of Jesus is responsible before God to seek to understand and live out the story of redemption revealed in the scriptures and summarized in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.”

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Epistemology Spirituality Theology

Bloesch on Epistemic Humility

“The Christian does not pretend to know all the answers to life’s questions, but he does claim to know some of the answers to the final questions, those that determine the direction of one’s eternal destiny.  Yet he makes this claim not on the basis of his own ingenuity or intelligence but on the basis of God’s revelation in the Scriptures.  Moreoever, he does not boast that he ‘possesses’ these answers, for they reside in the mind of Christ which is made available to him time and again by the Spirit.” 

Donald Bloesch, The Ground of Certainty, at p. 76.

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Epistemology Humor Theology

A Third Way Between Modernist Rationalism and Postmodern Relativism

Here’s a lengthy quote from a recent book that touches on epistemological debates within evangelical Christianity. Who wrote it?

On the face of it, we seem set, at least in America, for an unyielding confrontation between foundationalism and postfoundationalism — a ‘take no prisoners’ war in which there can be only winners and losers.

But there is another way. A chastened modernism and a ‘soft’ postmodernism might actually discover that they are saying rather similar things. A chastened or modest modernism pursues the truth but recognizes how much we humans do not know, how often we change our minds, and some of the factors that go into our claims to knowledge. A chastened postmodernism heartily recognizes that we cannot avoid seeing things from a certain perspective (we are all perspectivalists, even if perspectivalists can be divided into those who admit it and those who don’t) but acknowledges that there is a reality out there that we human beings can know, even if we cannot know it exhaustively or perfectly, but only from our own perspective. We tend to slide up to the truth, to approach it asymptotically — but it remains self-refuting to claim to know truly that we cannot know the truth. To set such a modest modernism and such a chastened postmodernism side-by-side is to see how much alike they are. They merely put emphases in different places.

So who said it? D. A. Carson, in his interesting new book Christ and Culture Revisited. I think Carson says some very valuable things here. In fact, he seems to be reflecting the sort of “critical realism” that I think is the most fruitful contemporary approach to epistemology. I might not endorse all of Carson’s critiques of the emerging church, but the sort of perspective he offers here is most welcome, in my view.

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Epistemology Theology

Humble Apologetics — Book Review

John Stackhouse is fast becoming one of my favorite writers. His book Humble Apologetics is a winsome approach to offering our apologia — the reasons for the hope that is within us — in our pluralistic world.

A substantial strength of this book is Stackhouse’s admonishment that we engage in apologetics that are appropriate to our cultural time and place. The Church no longer dominates western society, and basic Christian truths are no longer assumed. for many who are engaged in the culture wars, these facts are cause for, well, war. But as Stackhouse notes,

[w]hat is not so clear to many Christians . . . is that multiculturalism and extensive religious plurality can offer an opportunity for Christians to shed the baggage of cultural dominance that has often impeded or distorted the spread of the gospel. It may be, indeed, that the decline of Christian hegemony can offer the Church the occasion to adopt a new and more effective stance of humble service toward societies it no longer controls.

This call to an apologetic based on service is much needed today.

Stackhouse also helpfully critiques apologetic efforts that require one person to answer every question and provoke a moment of crisis in order to close the deal. As Stackhouse notes,

“[w]hen it comes to anything important in life as a Christian, and particularly in apologetic conversation that aims to benefit the neighbor, we remember this cardinal principle: You can’t do it all no matter what you do, so don’t try! We are part of the Church, which itself is only one corporate player in God’s great mission of global peacemaking. We must do just what we each can do, and trust the ret of the Chruch and God himself to do their parts as well.”

A key point here is that apologetics, like every other endeavor in the Christian life, is about love, not about “winning” arguments.

Like all work on apologetics, Stackhouse’s broader project is epistemological — the question “how do we know and what can we know it” relates directly to the question “what reasons can we present to others for belief in Christ.” I’ll quote a key passage at length because it’s so important:

[g]iven historic Christian teachings regarding the finitude and fallenness of human beings and of our thinking in particular, we must be careful not to claim too much for what we believe. We Christians should not need postmodernists to tell us that we do not know it all. We should not need anyone to tell us that all human thought is partial, distorted, and usually deployed in the interest of this or that personal agenda. We can be grateful for those postmodern voices that have reminded us of these truths, but we believe them because our own theological tradition says so.

Thus we are as committed as we can be to what we believe is real, and especially to the One whome we love, worship and obey as the Way, the Truth and the Life. We gladly offer what, and whom, we believe we have found to be true to our neighbors in the hope that they also will recognize it, and him, as true. We recognize that there are good reasons for them not to believe, even as we recognize there can be good reasons for our own doubts. Indeed, we can recognize taht God may have given them some things to teach us, and we gratefully receive them in the mutual exchange of God’s great economy of shalom.

We recognize, ultimately, that to truly believe, to truly commit oneself to God, is itself a gift that God alone bestows. Conversion is a gift. Faith is a gift. God alone can change minds so that those minds can both see and embrace the great truths of the gospel, and the One who stands at their center.

Not surprisingly, some rationalist evangelicals have criticized this call to epistemic humility. In my view, however, Stackhouse hits the epistemic nail on the head. A holistic apologetic, that treats others as fellow human beings rather than targets, one way or another will recognize that we don’t know it all, and will point away from ourselves to Christ. This is the ultimate goal of all the arguments and evidence we can muster.

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Epistemology Spirituality

Thinking?

“Thinking too little about things and thinking too much makes us obstinate and fanatical.”

— Blaise Pascal, Pensees #21.

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Epistemology Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

What's Wrong with Theistic Evolution?

For a short while, I fancied myself a theistic evolutionist. I realize now that I can’t really carry that label. First, I hate labels. Second, the one label I do want to carry is “Christian.” I don’t think being a Christian necessarily commits a person to a particular view about “evolution,” if that means simply that organisms change gradually over deep time and all of life shares a common genetic heritage. Those facts, it seems to me, are irrefutable. But I do think being a Christin commits a person to a particular view of humanity, and particularly of humanity in relation to God. We surely don’t know all the details of exactly what it means that God formed man “out of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7) or exactly in what ways the Biblical references to “Adam” and the “Garden” are literary stylizations. But, fundamentally, I think being a Christian entails a theology that asserts (a) humans are in some way unique among the creatures of the earth; (b) humans at their root, in their first representatives created by God, had a special relationship of fellowship with God and each other; and (c) the first human representatives broke that relationship and this has affected all of us in relation to God, each other, and the rest of creation, ever since. This is what sets the stage for God’s relationship with Israel and for the cross of Christ.

In this regard, I’m really troubled by Karl Giberson’s summary on Steve Martin’s blog of his forrthcoming book, “Saving Darwin.” Now, I want to be careful here, because I haven’t read Giberson’s entire book yet. The book was blurbed, with some reservations, by John Wilson, Editor of Books & Culture, whose judgment usually is sensible. Maybe some context will help, but, in his guest post, Giberson says this:

I suggest in Saving Darwin that we must abandon the historicity of the Genesis creation account. Adam and Eve must not be thought of as real people or even surrogates for groups of real people; likewise the Fall must disappear from history as an event and become, instead, a partial insight into the morally ambiguous character with which evolution endowed our species. Human uniqueness is called into question and we must consider extending the imago dei, in some sense, beyond our species. These are not simple theological tasks but, if we can embrace them, I think we may be able to finally make peace with Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.

To me, this is an important place at which Christian theology has to “push back” at science in dialectical tension. It seems to me that Giberson here advocates that we concede a central motif of the Christian story. I don’t think this is an “evangelical” issue; it seems to me to be a “Christian” issue.

If this is what it means to be a theistic evolutionist, I am not one. I’m not sure what that makes me — I respectfully reject young earth creationism, I think old earth day-age creationism isn’t fair either to the Biblical or scientific records, and I think much of the contemporary “intelligent design” debate — much, not all — just recycles William Paley’s theologically and scientifically discredited watchmaker arguments. Maybe a real synthesis and “peace” between “faith” and “science” in some respects simply is not achievable in this life. I don’t like it, but maybe a humble, respectful, but firm patience here is part of the “not yet” walk of faith.

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Epistemology Theology

Stackhouse on Certainty

John Stackhouse wrote a wonderful post recently on certainty.  I”ve been reading some of Stackhouse’s books recently (will blog on them soon) and am finding much resonance with how he thinks through things.  Here is the heart of it:

The Bible, that is, doesn’t promise somehow to lift me above my human limitations into an epistemic situation such that I can know something truly and also know that I know it truly and could not possibly be wrong. How could I, as a human being, ever experience something like that?

(And those who quote passages such as Luke 1:4 and Hebrews 11:1 need to consult the Greek lectionaries to see what is actually meant in the English translations that use “certain” words therein. Those words do not mean certainty in the former sense I’m defining here.)

No, the Bible promises that I can know with such assurance, such conviction, such well-grounded faith that I then can and will act in accordance with that faith—and thus be faithful.

This is, finally, the point of it all. We Christians “live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7)—and so does everybody else, actually, since no human being can transcend our common situation of epistemic finitude. In fact, if we enjoyed all the certainty (in the former sense) that some Christians say we should claim, well, then, we wouldn’t need faith anymore. We would just know things, and we would know that we were entirely right about them.

Instead, we know things more or less well, just like I know various people more or less well, or various songs more or less well, and thus I have more or less confidence in my knowledge of them. I don’t know anyone or anything in such a way that I could not possibly be wrong about them.

Is that a bit scary? Yes, it is, and I think fear motivates a lot of people who spout off about absolute truth and certainty and the rest of it, and who condemn anyone who suggests that we can’t be as sure of things as they say they are. But claiming certainty in a big, belligerent voice doesn’t alter the situation one bit. And I wish such bullies would calm down and face, so to speak, reality.

Welcome to the human condition, friends. We have to sort out the world as best we can, with whatever help we think we have found.