Natalie Burris

Absolute knowledge = intellectual idolatry?

Today I started Peter Rollins’ How (Not) to Speak of God for the emergent book discussion. It sounds like it will be a very exciting read! I took a philosophy class from Bruce Benson, who seems to have a lot of similarities (so far) with what Rollins has to say. One of the texts for the course was Dr. Benson’s book, Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry. I’m actually re-reading it since it is such a great complement to Rollins’ book!

For the final we had to start with the Greeks and explain—through the ages—different philosophers’ views about episteme (knowledge that is final, certain, and grounded), and doxa (common belief, opinion). In the end, we dealt with idols and icons, and how we can use them as a framework for approaching epistemology, or the issue of “How can we know what we know?” Although a lot of the things covered in the class seemed over my head and too “philosophical” for me, I realized they are crucial in terms of understanding God and reshaping (Western/northern) theology.

The goal for the Greeks, in their pursuit of knowledge, was to leave doxa behind and solely have episteme. Plato believed we could have perfect understanding, and created a hierarchy of knowing: the pinnacle being complete understanding of the “forms.” It set the standard for beliefs about episteme and doxa, because Plato believed that knoweable, final knowledge existed, and humans are able to reach it through the hierarchy.

Later on, Augustine incorporated belief in God into the pursuit of knowledge. His epistemology requires a prior knowledge of God. Faith precedes reason, and one has to believe in order to know. Augustine believed in a knowable episteme, but it is only attainable by God. Anselm, another medieval philosopher, is similar to Augustine in that one cannot understand something without adequately believing in it.

René Descartes and other modernists challenged prior assumptions. Descartes introduced radical doubt: How can I prove what I take to be true as really true? He wanted to establish the proper method of getting to truth, but there was no way to justify the right method. Therefore, we should demolish everything and start from the foundations, acting as if we do not know anything. It is precisely in such radical doubt that Descartes finds something to latch onto: “I think, therefore I am.” He set the tone for philosophy, causing an existential crisis. How can I know? How do I know if I know? It was not that he wished to destroy the pursuit of episteme; but rather, he believed that doxa polluted it. We must abolish this doxa, this belief, through radical doubt.

Immanuel Kant, another modernist, worked under the assumption that there is a right answer, and we can know it. There is one form of ra­tion­ality, and the phrase “Some people see things differently” would sound strange to his and other modernists’ ears. Kant brought about a sort of Copernican revolution, however, changing the way we should view knowledge. His philosophical basis is not reality in itself, but as it appears to be to us; knowledge begins with experience.

Moving on past the modernist thinkers, American philosopher Richard Rorty believes that there is a world out there, and we can know it. Human knowledge cannot capture the world as it is, because our world is a linguistic, social, and cultural construct. Context is important.

Hans-Georg Gadamer, a German, is similar to Rorty in that we know things according to our context. He proposes a cir­cular structure of understanding: we know what we know on the basis of what we already know. We would not be able to function in the world without our preconceptions, also called prejudices. All judgments are prejudices because we will never reach the place where we know all. Yet we cannot demolish everything per Descartes, since we cannot operate without our preconceptions. So if Plato’s untainted certainty doesn't work, what now? Rorty proposes an unfounded doxa, that which is not true or false and is held ironically because we cannot argue for it one way or another.

Contemporary French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion speaks of conceptual violence, which is stereotyping things in a way that is not fair or adequate to the thing. Here the danger exists of turning this thing into an idol, which is anything one can control by being able to see it, satisfying our gaze. An idol thus is always an endpoint, and cannot be superseded. Every claim of absolute knowledge is a form of idol. Idols are never more than us and are always limited to whoever we are.

Therefore,

Marion

poses the icon, which allows us to see the visible. When an icon comes to us, our way of thinking is exposed as inadequate; we experience bedazzlement, and we see the full glory of something that goes be­yond us. The icon is something we cannot control, as compared to earlier ideas about knowledge. Before, we would come to the place where we know, and that is the endpoint and destination. It is safe to say that the Greeks’ and others’ epistemology has gone by the wayside, because we have realized that we cannot reach full, controllable episteme. Rather, we have learned to destroy the idols that obstruct our view of the icons that can lead us to a fuller, though not perfectly complete, understanding of the world.

It seems like Rollins will flesh out what

Marion

’s icon means in the context of theology, church, Scripture… Especially when he talks about how the church has reduced God to an intellectual object, ignoring the "varied and complex descriptions of God" (12) found in Scripture and instead reducing them to a singular, idolatrous depiction of God.

If arguments don't work...

Tonight at church we dealt with the idea that, when it comes to evangelism, if “arguing” or convincing non-Christians doesn’t work, what then are we to do? How can we move beyond asking folks if they want to go to heaven when they die? (Of course they do!). We discussed that we aren’t even sure what heaven is like, so it doesn’t make sense to base our evangelizing on heaven.

If fuzzy ideas of heaven, along with using arguments to win people over, fail to work, how are we supposed to translate John’s message—and later Jesus’—of “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”? How do we apply this edict to our day?

I know in the coming weeks we will flesh out a better answer, but for me, reading Richard Hays has been helpful after realizing that my trusty ol’ evangelism strategy ain’t working anymore. Second Corinthians 5 states that “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.” Hays notes that Paul is describing the renewal of the whole created order, along with individual renewal, of course. Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection ushered in the new creation, and the church bridges the gap between the old order and the new. That is to say, salvation—and therefore our ways of trying to communicate the gospel message—should hinge on this idea of new creation and of exploring this idea of the kingdom of heaven, rather than some vague notion of getting to go to heaven when you die.photo © 2009 digitalbob8 | more info (via: Wylio)

Perhaps our heaven-focused way of evangelizing tends to devalue the present, as well. Salvation is an other-worldly thing; this world is passing away and a new age will be ushered in. According to Hays, however, salvation leads to a transformation of lives now, new creation now, actively working and loving in the context of community. He emphasizes that the church living out the gospel leads to action, as opposed to a passive faith that is content to wait until we can play golf and/or fish in heaven. And the church community is supposed to give us a foretaste of God’s redemption of the world.

I feel like my thoughts are all over the place, but reading Roger Lundin has also been helpful in reconfiguring my beliefs about evangelism, especially regarding the whole arguments thing. In a difficult but excellent book of his (The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World), Dr. Lundin discusses what truth is for the church, which relates well to “arguing” with a non-Christian about salvation. We wouldn’t debate or try to convince someone that Christianity is true without believing that it is indeed true—and that that truth is accessible.

Many American Christians work under a modernist paradigm when it comes to truth and communicating that truth through evangelism. This way of thinking elevates reason and assumes that we can know the world, a knowledge that is communicated through absolute facts. Modernism holds that our universe is a machine, and analysis and rational thought are the ultimate, definitive ways of thinking. There­fore, our universe is knowable through analyzing it. This not only applies to thinking about our world, but also about the gospel. Many Christians assume that it too can be proven and communicated in a rational, analytical way using logical arguments.

What’s come about recently, however, is this big bad word called postmodernism. As Dr. Lundin describes it, this way of thinking abandons the search for truth and seeks a therapeutic understanding of life, meaning that important truth questions can­not be answered, so we have to manage as best we can. Therefore, truth is therapy, whatever helps us to cope.

With the advent of postmodernism, Christians do not want to abandon the quest for truth; rather, Scripture, the church, and tradition can be a source if modernism cannot. Christians should not turn to argumentation in order to ground truth claims and evangelize, because supposedly in our therapeutic culture, lan­guage is used as an extension of our needs. Once the need disappears, we drop the language, and the truth claims have no bearing on our lives. For instance, I took an anthropology class that explored Islam in depth. Once we would hear an equally convincing argument of Islam (moving beyond media caricatures, I will admit its beliefs/practices were compelling), we would wonder what to do with our neatly packaged rational argu­ments about the truth claims of Christianity.

By the end of the class, we realized that God’s truth is active, creative, and self-changing, which brings about “new creation.” Our authority to claim that Christianity is “worth it,” so to speak, comes from the past, because the community and faith tradition shape truth. We can seek to recover the language of our community, because it tells us things about truth, who God is, and ourselves. To the Christian and to the perplexed anthropology student, truth is not in peril when “arguing” and language come under attack, because our un­der­standing of truth is personal and communal, combining experience and revelation. Our authority to share the gospel and state that it is true does not come from human reason, nor does it disappear in our therapeutic culture. Truth—and our authority to proclaim it—is rooted in redemption, not therapy.

Redemption, as opposed arguing one’s way to salvation, is one of the main things that Dr. Lundin emphasizes about the Christian faith. It can perhaps be one of the main things we can emphasize when thinking about evangelism, because notions of truth will certainly change. When it comes to the gospel, we see the pattern of guilt then grace, sin then forgiveness, death then resurrection, which hopefully our church community lives out—here and now, rather than in the distant future in heaven.

Notions of truth

For my culture theory class we had to read one of the most difficult—but most interesting—books I’ve had to read so far in college. It was The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World, written by Roger Lundin, a very popular and brilliant English prof at Wheaton. In the book, he explores the nature of self, truth, and language inside and outside the church. I’m actually re-reading it, since I’m sure I didn’t understand it the way I was supposed to. But it seems as if Dr. Lundin has some keen insights about contemporary US American culture as well as Christianity and intellectual trends. So, one of my questions for the final was to describe Romantic, Marxist, postmodern, and Christian notions of truth as Dr. Lundin describes them.

First, Romantic truth was a reaction to the Enlightenment, so it finds a place for truth in the ima­gin­a­tive self, intuition, inner feelings. The basis for belief is in the inner human, so while searching for truth, the Ro­mantics put unsha­kable faith in the relationship between the unhindered self and the spirit at work in the world. Marxism is also a reaction, trying to recover from Enlightenment and Romantic individualism. Theorists look to Marxism for its subversive and suspicious readings of texts. It is a tool for social change, freeing the power­less from oppression. It also sees the past—and the truth that comes from it—as a vehicle for oppres­sion.

Postmodernism, as Dr. Lundin describes it, abandons the search for truth and seeks a therapeutic understanding of life, meaning that important epistemological questions can­not be answered, so we have to manage as best we can. Therefore, intellectual activity is therapy, and truth is whatever helps us to cope.

As for Christ­ians, we do not (or at least should not) throw out linguistic, literary, or cultural theories because post­modernism highlights the decept­iveness of language. Instead, we acknowledge that these theories can provide truth. We also can­not disregard history, because the gospel story is root­ed in history. Christ­ians can engage theories and his­tory, seeking to renew the deceptive vocabu­lary instead of capitulating to post­modern critiques of truth.

Christians do not want to abandon the quest for truth; rather, Scripture, the church, and tradition can be a source if rationalism cannot. Regarding authority, Christians do not (again, or at least should not) turn to the foundational na­ture of truth to ground truth claims, because in our therapeutic culture, the lan­guage used is an extension of our needs. Once the need disappears, we drop the language, and the truth claims have no bearing on our lives. Therefore, Christians hold that God’s truth is not inter­pre­tive or self-disclo­sing; instead, it is active, creative, and self-changing.

Authority comes from the past, too, because the community and faith tradition shape truth. Christians can seek to recover the language of our community, because it tells us things about truth, God’s nature, and ourselves. To the Christian, truth is not in peril when foundationalism and language come under attack, because our un­derstanding of truth is personal and communal, combining experience and revelation. Authority does not come from human reason, nor does it disappear in our therapeutic culture. Truth—and our authority to proclaim it—is rooted in redemption, not therapy.

Redemption, as opposed to propositional truth claims or therapy, is one of the main things that Dr. Lundin emphasizes regarding the Christian faith. As we can see from our brief look at eras like the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Marxism, and postmodernity, notions of truth will inevitably change. But, thankfully, when it comes to the gospel, we have what Dr. Lundin calls “an ineluctable pattern of guilt and grace, sin and forgiveness, death and resurrection” (264).

And I know it didn’t seem like it in my description of postmodern notions of truth, but postmodernism seems to have a lot to contribute to Christians when it comes to reorienting our understanding of community, story, truth, and hermeneutics.

Discourse and power

This weekend I finished a beastly take-home exam for culture theory, and part of it covered Foucault. I like his ideas about discourse and power, especially when he discusses the author. He points out things that I had never realized before. The “immanent rule” of our culture is that the author should be invisible, absent from the text. This allows her to have more privilege and more power over the text, because we don’t even acknowledge that she as an individual writer has disappeared from the discourse. In our culture we also closely identify the notion of author with the notion of a work. The author’s name has a taxonomic role, because we can refer to a certain discourse simply by referring to her name.

Think of Freud or Marx, for example. When we refer to them, we aren't talking about them as people necessarily, but rather their ideas found in their works. The author is also bestowed a certain status. But who gets to do the bestowing? Institutions with power get to decide who’s who. Certain institutions, like universities, get to classify and validate discourses. We read Shakespeare and Nietzsche because “they” said so. Somebody gets published and gets legitimized because “they” said this somebody was good. “They” get to define the terms of discourse. I never thought of power and discourse this way.

Foucault definitely points out things that we take for granted, and not only about discourses, but also about the author in general. Our culture is such that we can attribute a work to one author, even though that author undoubtedly produced her work with the help of a large community. In addition, how do we decide how much an author wrote is part of her work? What should be published? What about notes, rough drafts, or lists? At what point do we draw the line, and who gets to decide that?

photo © 2005 liz west | more info (via: Wylio)

Dark’s thoughts that I’ve read lately relate to power and discourse, as well. He discusses how difficult it is sometimes to transcend the terms of the discourse we have here in America regarding politics and religion. Many times it is difficult to communicate or even think clearly when we have such stringently defined terms, terms that “they” have defined. Maybe in this situation the institutions, “they,” aren’t necessarily universities, but are also the mainstream media and our government. Dark mentions that when we allow terms like “conservative” and “liberal” or “politics” and “religion,” to “characterize an argument or a proposition before we’ve given ourselves the chance to consider them, we allow the unthinking shorthand well-suited for electronic media to infect our imaginations” (38).

For the church anyway, it is in that moment that we lose our prophetic voice. We lose a lot the moment that we lose our ability to think past and transcend mischaracterizing categories of discourse. Taking a long hard look at others’ language, as well as our own, “is the only way to sustain the interests of discipleship and democracy” (39). What does it mean when we use the word “evil,” another loaded term in the politics-and-religion discourse, and should we be so quick to think of terrorists as the only ones who are evil in this world?

Dark continues: “Simply thinking twice and looking hard for what our categories and knee-jerk responses conceal can become an especially effective form of exorcism. A twenty-four-hour fast from using the words ‘liberal,’ ‘conservative,’ ‘political,’ and ‘religious’ might open whole new worlds” (38). ...and Dr. Todd has good thoughts on diminishing rhetoric in discourse in "Different meanings often mean trouble..."