Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank

Take 2: An Evangelical Manifesto

Good discussion here.  Just a few follow-up thoughts in response, and as I've mulled the document a little more:

1. I think I see now that the burden of the document was to rescue "evangelical" from its Colorado-Springs-captivity.  Fair enough; a good project.  I would have thought that Jim Wallis had made that point, but I suppose some of these folks wanted to rescue "evangelical" but not let it thereby be held captive to just a leftish version of Colorado Springs.  Fair enough, too.  But if that's the case, then why all the preamble about theologically defining "Evangelical?"    It's the section of theological boundary marking that made me most uncomfortable because I think such a project is inherently Protestant (though they claim that "Evangelical" is pre-Protestant [!]).  In sum, such boundary marking always seems tainted with a sort of anti-Catholic stance.  I'm not saying they're going to trot out remarks about the whore of Babylon (though it might be interesting to do a little archive search on some of these signatories and their views of Catholicism), but I wonder if a certain anti-Catholicism is just part of the warp and woof of this "Evangelical" identity.

2. As I've thought about this further, and the general weirdness of the moniker "evangelical," I think I've begun to be able to name what makes me uncomfortable: these "theological" definitions are always quite heady affairs.  They're top-heavy; they define evangelicalism largely by doctrines.  Sure, there might be correlate emphases on hymns (that's Mouw and Noll, talking), or on the centrality of evangelism--but such definitions always see these things growing out of doctrines. 

What that means, though, is that you can never really "see" evangelicalism, in a way.  Or let me put it this way: such definitions define "Evangelical" by what evangelicals THINK and BELIEVE, rather than what they DO.  That, I think, reflects just the sort of modernism that gives us evangelicalism (and fundamentalism) in the first place.  In contrast, what defines Orthodoxy or Catholicism is liturgy, the practices of the faith.  And lest this seem like some sort of high-church condescension to bumpkin evangelicals, I would say exactly the same thing about Pentecostalism.  You will know them by their worship.  When it comes to this elusive thing called "evangelicalism" it seems like you can only know them by their documents.  I think this reflects a modernist conception of doctrine as prior to liturgy, whereas I think the wisdom of tradition points to the priority of liturgy to doctrine.

3. So, no, I didn't sign it and won't.  Not because I think it's a terrible document, but because I think it reflects just the sorts of ambiguities and presuppositions that make me most uncomfortable with being an "evangelical" (which, ironically, I admit I am and ever will be, despite all my attempts and protests to the contrary).  And there's still this nagging issue of timing for me: I completely understand the election year concern.  But why a "manifesto" rolled at a Press Club in Washington, DC?  In my most cynical moments, I think one can understand this in terms of a certain class ressentiment; or perhaps better, in evangelicalism's uneasy relationship to celebrity.  Because we've always felt marginal to the halls of power (in many cases, evangelicals have not been the WASPs running the show--that's been left to mainstream Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and later, East Coast Catholics).  Having now gotten attention--which is why evangelicals are just giddy about Lindsay's book, Faith in the Halls of Power--evangelicals crave the opportunity to feel like East Coast big shots.  (Again, this is a very cynical self talking here.)  The idea of signing onto a Manifesto that would be unveiled at the Press Club in Washington would feel so New Yorker, so culturally elite, that you can understand why evangelical theologians would be eager to hitch their humble, midwest wagons to this cart making its way into the halls of power. 

I better stop there.

An Evangelical Manifesto?

So what do folks make of the recently unveiled "Evangelical Manifesto" (download the pdf)?  On the one hand, I think it is in the spirit of a "generous" orthodoxy of the sort that motivated this blog from its inception. In general, I think it rightly criticizes trends on both left and right, and problems both internal to evangelicalism as well as external challenges (e.g., the public policy impact if the "new atheism" gained a foothold).  Most of the time, I thought it sounds like David Wells or Don Carson--that is, sort of a grumpy Reformed take on evangelical "therapies" of various persuasions--but this certainly isn't the only voice. 

On the other hand, I find it a strange document.  Now, some of the steering committee and charter signatories include some of my friends, whom I respect a great deal.  So I'm not registering any radical dissent.  But I found myself struck by several things while reading it:

1. Well, there's that whole problem of knowing just what "evangelical" means (or, as they insist in the only footnote, Evangelical--as if evangelicalism has the weight of Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Orthodoxy).  I have to confess that I find the term less and less helpful.  And while this document demands that it be defined "theologically" (and not "sociologically"), I find the defintions offered here (e.g., believing in Jesus) a bit fuzzy.  In short, I'm not sure why the authors are so convinced that "the term is important" (p. 2).  For who?  For what? 

2. Related to (1), I always get a bit nervous when folks begin emphasizing evangelical "identity" (and this document explicitly takes up such identity politics, despite the "grave danger" [p. 4]).  Why does the concern to assert "evangelical" (sorry, Evangelical) identity always feel like an exercise in boundary-drawing with an ominous sense that Catholic-bashing is just around the corner?  Now, I'm not saying that this document does this--and many of these signatories are, in fact, involved in Catholic-evangelical dialogues.  But you can see that this issue is always lurking around such projects when they assert, "Our purpose is not to attack or to exclude" (p. 5).  Hmmm...methinks thou doth protest too much? I guess my question is: what does the term "Evangelical" get you that the term "Catholic" doesn't?  When folks give me answers to that question, I find they either offer me something I don't want, or proffer some caricatured understanding of the Catholic tradition.  Or, to put it otherwise, when they list the "distinctives" of evangelicalism (pp. 5-6), is there anything on there that Catholics wouldn't endorse?  If someone says "sola Scriptura," then we've got other problems (see [3] below).

3. I guess what I was most surprised to see--given the theological heavyweights behind this--is what I can only describe as a rather naive hermeneutic.  Take two examples: First, after affirming that "Evangelicals  adhere fully to the Christian faith expressed in the historic creeds of the great ecumenical councils" (though--dirty little secret--vast swaths of evangelicals are rabidly anti-creedal), the Manifesto then asserts: "We have no supreme leader [why does this sound like some B-grade martian movie?], and neither creeds nor tradition are ultimately decisive for us.  Jesus Christ and his written word, the Holy Scriptures, are our supreme authority" (p. 7).  Seriously?  Are we really entertaining a notion that Evangelicals are those Christians who have some sort of pristine, tradition-free access to "what Jesus really said"?  I thought F.F. Bruce had debunked this sort of naive Scripture/tradition distinction for evangelicals years ago.  As if there isn't a massive and complex evangelical tradition of reading Scripture (for more on this, see chapter 5 of my Fall of Interpretation).  Second, in the same vein, the Manifesto claims that "Evangelicalism goes back directly to Jesus and the Scriptures."  Really?  C'mon. 

4. I think the Manifesto is at its best when its critical finger points backwards at evangelicalism itself (pp. 11ff), for instance when it chides evangelicals who have "become cheerleaders for those in power and the naive sycophants of the powerful and the rich" (p. 13).  So, too, when it points beyond single-platform politics of abortion or marriage and raises the issue of "conflict" (why not just say "war?"), racism, corruption, poverty," and more (p. 14).  It is interesting to note what's not named in here though: e.g., militarism? capitalism? nationalism?

5. The document sort of goes "Greg Boyd" in a final section where it laments the error of "politicizing" faith, either on the right or the left.  This, of course, sounds clear enough, until you start to ask just what "politicize" means--indeed, what does "politics" and "the political" refer to here?  Just the machinations of the state?  When they say that "Evangelicals see it as our duty to engage with politics" (p. 15--really, by the way?  A duty?  Of what sort?  On what basis?), it seems to me that they mean evangelicals have a duty to participate in the machinations of the given state.  Maybe.  But I would just register that it's not quite that easy; that's not the only way to "be political."  I always find evangelical discussions on these matters are quite content to let "politics" function as a black box.  It seems to me that they might mean a "party-izing" of the faith.  But I'm worried that lurking in there is actually some sense that "politics" is "outside" faith, and then we have to figure out how to get "faith" into connection with politics.  And that would seem to assume that the faith is not "political" in itself, which I think would be another naive assumption. 

6. Finally, when I got to the end, I kept hoping that I would figure out just why this Manifesto was released.  Why now?  What's the hook?  On this point, I remain a bit befuddled. 

Do we need an "Evangelical" Manifesto?  Is it "important" to "keep the term?"  I remain unconvinced, particularly if keeping the "distinctives" of "Evangelical" means buying into some rather simplistic hermeneutical moves.  And at the end of the day, I would rather be part of a Manifesto that can be affirmed by "mere" Nicene Christians rather than "Evangelicals" alone. 

Your turn.

WWJSD?

"What would Jeff Stout Do?"  That's a question I've been mulling a little of late, since so many "progressive" or "leftish" or "emergent" evangelicals seem to think Stoutian (?) pragmatism is the answer to all our hopes and dreams.  So I'm curious: I know this is old news, but we've been hearing for a few weeks various sermonic claims made by Pastor Jeremiah Wright, such as the following:

The Government “wants us to sing ‘God Bless America’ ” despite treating black people as second-class citizens. “No, no, no,” Mr Wright said, “God damn America!”

More recently, he has said that Mr Obama “knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich, white people; Hillary would never know that, Hillary ain’t never been called a nigger”.

Now, wouldn't Jeffrey Stout pretty much agree with both of those claims?  That is, would Stoutian-emergent-progressive evangelical pragmatists pretty much be inclined to agree with Wright's claims?

So what, then, do these same Stoutians make of Barack Obama's distancing himself from these claims?  If Wright is closer to Stout than Obama is, then I would think that emergent/evangelical Stoutians would not be fans of Obama.  But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Or is it the case that, at the end of the day, the one blasphemy that can't be tolerated is blasphemy against the god of Americanism?   (There's always that nagging question of who "we" are at the end of Democracy and Tradition...)

Conference - Philosophy and Liturgy: Ritual, Practice, and Embodied Wisdom

Registration is now open for the upcoming conference at Calvin College entitled Philosophy and Liturgy: Ritual, Practice, and Embodied Wisdom, May 20-22, 2008.  The conference schedule has also been posted.  Plenary speakers include Nicholas Wolterstorff, Sarah Coakley, James K.A. Smith, Reinhard Huetter, Peter Ochs, and Terence Cuneo.  In addition, invited dialogue partners for the conference include Paul Griffiths, Howie Wettstein, Paul Weithman, Steven Kepnes, Gary Matthews, David Bradshaw, Bernd Wannenwetsch, Rand Rashkover, Ludger Viefhues-Bailey, Don Saliers, Andrew Chignell, John Hare, and Michael Rea.

There will be extensive time for discussion and dialogue as we seek to launch a new emphasis within philosophy of religion.  Be sure to register soon to reserve space in the conference hotel. 

Heaven May Not be Up, But is Hell Forever?

Jason Clark (leader of Emergent UK) is hosting a conversation b/w yours truly, one pseudonymously named Gregory MacDonald and Justin Thacker this week.  We’ll be discussing a topic that landed me in hot sulfur a couple of years ago—HELL! GM and I will be defending the claim that universalism—the view that eventually all are reconciled to God—is compatible with orthodox Christian faith. Justin will be taking exception to the way GM and I frame the issue on Jason’s site —i.e., in terms of whether or not the two are compatible. Justin will be urging us instead to try to make a case for, and thereby convince him that, universalism is true and taught in the bible. (But, alas, Justin doesn’t think we’d be successful.) Should be one hell of a good time!!! So stop over at Jason’s virtual digs and jump in!!!  Here’s the schedule:  GM today.  Me tomorrow.  Justin on Wednesday.

Peace, Love and Eternal Damnation.  --Kevin

 

Heaven Is Not Up

I’ve been saying for some time that the traditional and vertical way of conceiving of heaven needs to be replaced with a more biblical and horizontal view of heaven, that heaven is a future toward which things are moving and our task is to actively anticipate that future. (I say so, for example, here, near the end.) I’ve also been saying that that future is a fleshy, physical, embodied future.  (I say that here, for example.) I’ve been saying that this is what the bible says. Well, apparently N.T. Wright has been clandestinely reading my work, has stolen my ideas and has now written his own book. JK. (-: And I bet he never once acknowledges me! JKA. (-; Seriously, I’ve not yet read this new book of his, but I enthusiastically recommend it strictly on the basis of his previously published works. In a future post, maybe I’ll take up some of these issues as they are, quite obviously, near and dear to holy skin and bone!

How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy, Ms. Death?

Mom: Where did you guys go last night?
Me: A movie. Then for coffee.
Mom: What did you see?
Me: All That Jazz.
Mom: Isn't that rated R? How did you get in?
Me: Um, I'm 17 now, Mom.
Mom: Not that you let that stop you before you turned 17.  I think.
[No reply]
Mom: So what's All That Jazz about, anyway?
Me: Death, mostly.
Mom: Oh, really!  What's it got to say about death?
Me: Turns out, death isn't all that bad.  You get to do a song and dance number with Ben Vereen.  And hang out with Jessica Lange.
Mom: I guess that wouldn't seem so bad.
Me: Life should be so cool.
   (Dialogue dredged up from memory: accuracy questionable at best)

Roy Scheider (1932-2008) – whose actual eye color I never did take any note of – was in some enormously popular movies in the 70s, so, as I suppose is the case with just about everyone I know who's about my age or older, I’ve seen several of his performances. But when I heard of his death last week, all I found myself thinking about was All That Jazz.

As with any movie I saw while I was in high school (even if I’ve seen it since), I can’t now vouch for its overall quality. In fact, I suspect that All That Jazz was quite a mixed bag. But it had a couple of scenes that have stuck with me. These are probably scenes that are memorable to anyone who saw the movie, but for me, it’s Scheider’s roles in them that I fasten on. 

Within just a couple of minutes from the start of the movie, we’re into the great scene in which we’re shown Scheider’s character, director Joe Gideon, trying out dancers for a musical, while we hear the song “On Broadway.” Yes, the editing (by Bob Fosse, the writer/director/editor of the film, on whom the character of Joe Gideon is based) is amazing in how the various shots of the dancers are put to the music we are hearing. But what most struck me was what Scheider and Fosse were able to convey about Gideon without our hearing anything he is saying, by means of some quick shots of him watching and interacting with those trying out for the musical. I won’t try to describe what exactly was conveyed (at least to me) – mostly because I can’t – except to say that much of it is very positive and that the shots in which we see him telling auditioners that they are being rejected are especially telling. This is in some important ways a good guy.

And a guy who, despite his obvious problems in handling meaningful (and not-so-meaningful) relationships, is able to find great joy in being with those he loves, as we can see by watching him watching his ex-wife and his daughter in the scene in which they put on a little dance number just for him.  This is one of the scenes that definitively give the lie to Gideon’s “very theatrical” little philosophy (borrowed, apparently, from Karl Wallenda, who died in a fall (during one of his "death-defying" feats) the year before All That Jazz was made): “To be on the wire is life. The rest is waiting.” 

I don’t know whether we’re supposed to so strongly dislike Gideon and his theatre friends as they’re clowning around in the hospital – or whether there’s any “supposed to” here –, but I do. Where does the vehemence of my antipathy for the particular variety of phoniness I associate with “theatre people” come from? Beyond liking (as well as strongly disliking) Gideon, I wonder whether I came to identify with him?:

        : Because I really do love you, Katie
            : You mean that?
            : Ah, hell, no.  I was pissed off at her.  I don't know.
               Yeah, I did mean it.  Sort of.   Sometimes I don't
               know where the bullshit ends and the truth begins.
               I just wanted to say something nice to her.
            : Why?
            : In case...
            : In case...?
            : In case.

“Who found forgiveness hard because my(as it happened)self he was”?, to continue my cummings theme.

I guess what Gideon did for me was better prepare me to much better embrace (or at least: come much closer to embracing. do we ever really…) people who like Gideon are very much mixed bags. Of course, we’re all very much mixed bags, at best. That makes the skill of appreciating mixed bags all the more important, I suppose. At any rate, there are certain types of mixed bags, whose mixededness may be particularly salient to me, but whose goodness has been especially nice to encounter, that encountering Gideon better prepared me for.  So, thanks Roy, Bob.

McCain and Torture

Senator John McCain has been a fairly clear and consistent voice against the use of torture -- even while he's been running for the Republican nomination for President.  I was starting to think he was someone to be seriously considered for the JFK Profile in Courage award.  But now there's this: McCain's vote against an authorization bill, the problem with which was a provision barring the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.  I'll try to find a better story about this vote to link to.  If anyone knows of any source for any explanation McCain himself may have given for this vote, or any good account of all that was in the Senate bill that McCain voted against, please let me know (perhaps in the comments).  But this account (which was written before the bill passed the Senate), at least, makes it sound like something McCain should have voted in favor of.  This NYTimes story isn't that much help.  But it at least sounds like the only problem with the bill was its stance against harsh interrogation techniques. 

Pubs, Clubs and Altworship

Kevin Corcoran/kcorcora@calvin.edu

[Note:  During Calvin College's January term a media team, myself and 23 Calvin students spent 17 days in London studying the emerging and altworship movements.  In response to several invitations to jot down a kind of summary of our time I wrote the following.  It will soon be posted on Calvin's website and was this a.m. posted on the church and postmodern culture website:  http://churchandpomo.typepad.com/conversation/2008/01/pubs-clubs-an-1.html#comments
I did what I could w/1500 words. I post it here in the interest of generating dialogue.]

    For two full weeks the members of this course immersed ourselves in the emergent and alternative worship movements in the UK, especially in and around London.  We had the privilege of meeting key leaders and important figures in UK church life.  We met with Pete Rollins (Ikon) from Belfast, Northern Ireland; Kester Brewin (Vaux), Jonny Baker (Grace), and Dave Tomlinson (soul space), all from central London; Jason Clark (Vineyard) from Sutton, and Archbishop Rowan Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.  We also had the privilege of participating in worship services—some emergent (Vineyard Church, Sutton), others alternative (Feast, Grace, Revelation, soul space) and yet others historic (St. Paul’s and Westminster).  Some of us had the great pleasure of serving in a soup kitchen alongside one of our hosts (Feast) and all of us had the pleasure of breaking bread in the homes of Feast members.  Indeed the latter was a real highlight of the trip for many among us.

    But what exactly is emergent/altworship?  I’ve been getting that question a lot lately from those who’ve stumbled upon our course via the web. People want to know what it is about these cultural phenomena that would make a Calvin philosophy professor, a local media team and 23 Calvin students think them worthy of intensive study for several weeks in January. Okay, so the course was offered in London.  And the words “pubs” and “clubs” do feature in the course’s title.  But aside from all that, what’s all the fuss?

    I think the first thing to be said in answer is that these are movements that enthusiastically embrace the postmodern cultural context in which we find ourselves, and Calvin students, having quite literally grown up in such a context, find it a natural habitat.  Some of the cultural features of this context include new technologies, new forms of connectivity, and decentralization.  Those in the altworship and emerging movements embrace new technology as well as the decentralization of power and decision making that current technologies make possible.  The most stunning experience for me this interim was participating in an anglo-Catholic Mass in a very old church that blended ancient ritual, liturgy, and creeds with the use of image and sound reproduction, including a flat screen computer monitor which was perched on the altar table just to the left of the consecrated elements.  I found this juxtaposition shocking.  But what to me was a bit incongruous was to my students ho-hum.  And I think it’s easy to see why.  Bread and wine are ordinary things; so too a computer monitor.  The former can become for us the body and blood of Christ.  The other, ordinary though it may be, can function as a window through which God can communicate via images and sound.  No incongruity at all.

    Postmodernism is not just a cultural phenomenon, however.   There is also what we might call philosophical postmodernism.  And this involves, among other things,  calling into question “meta-narratives” or grand stories of the world and our place in it, like Marxism, atheistic naturalism, consumerism and Christianity itself. Consciously or not, each of us fits our own particular story into a larger story (or stories), like those just cited. What gets called into question by philosophical postmodernism is our ability to  float free of the grand narratives we find ourselves in and to view things from a “God’s eye view.” Those sensitive to the postmodern situation, like those in the emergent and altworship movements, recognize therefore that our grasp of reality is always partial, incomplete, and fragmentary.  And this recognition can engender humility, tolerance, and an opening for dialogue with others. Tolerance and dialogue are two practices those in emergent and altworship both welcome and invite.  Someone who really appreciates our human finitude and situatedness might be more inclined to say, “Here’s how I see things and here’s why.  But, I recognize that I am a finite and frail human being; so I could certainly be the one with blind spots.  How do you see things?’ as opposed to saying “I’m right.  You’re wrong, and going to hell.  End of story.”

    Second, emerging Christians tend to be theologically pluralistic and quite suspicious of tidy theological boxes.  They believe that God is bigger than any theology and that God is first and foremost a story-teller, not a dispenser of theological doctrine and factoids. Theology for them, therefore, is conceived as an ongoing and provisional conversation. Emerging Christians are also allergic to thinking which fixates on who is going to heaven and who is going to hell, or on who’s on the inside and who’s on the outside. They stress the importance of right-living (orthopraxy) over right-believing (orthodoxy). What’s important, they often say, is whether you engage in God-love and neighbor-love.  Or as one of our conversation partners put it, “We’re more interested in doing truth than believing ‘truths’.”

    Third, emerging Christians believe the church must change if it is to speak meaningfully to a postmodern culture.  So, like the prophet Amos, the rhetoric of emerging Christians can be shocking, alarming and hyperbolic.  They are frequently given to dramatic overstatement.  But it should be kept in mind that, at its best and most sincere, the aim of the rhetoric is to rouse us (the Church) from dogmatic slumber, to get us to see old things with new eyes, or sometimes to see completely new things.  The aim, one might say, is to unsettle us such that a space is open for God to break in and to speak afresh, and then for us to get on with God’s agenda in the world.

    Fourth, participants in the emergent and altworship movements are passionate about the present. The gospel, they want us to realize, is about the here-and-now, and not a ticket to secure a place in the there-and-then of heaven.  This passion for the present  manifests itself in four overlapping foci: community, transformation, worship and social engagement.

    Community:  Emergent Christians place a premium on community, living life together in all its messiness. However, community can take many shapes, and emergent or altworship communities often do not resemble traditional church community with a paid staff and centralized leadership.  It’s a dispersed community that is lived in the rough-and-tumble of everyday life.  So a premium is placed on togetherness, journeying with and alongside others.

    Transformation:  Emergent types are passionate about transformation, both personal and structural.  They tend not to view themselves as finished products, as “saved” or even as “Christian.”  Instead, they speak of themselves as “being saved” and “becoming Christian.”  They tend to be political activists and socially “liberal” in the sense that they care deeply about the proverbial “widow, orphan and alien,” those who are marginalized, oppressed, and disenfranchised and about changing the personal and structural realities that perpetuate the disenfranchisement and marginalization.  They believe that engaging in such tasks is to follow Jesus.

    Worship:  Emerging Christians are innovative and imaginative in the aesthetics of worship, and they are technologically savvy.  They’re sacramental and incarnational, sometimes employing large-scale transformative theatre (Ikon). Revelation, one of the communities we visited, offers a sophisticated blend of ancient ritual and liturgy and cutting-edge image technology and participation. Typical of the worship in these communities is worship that engages us as whole and embodied beings, providing a feast for most if not all of our sensory modalities: sight, sound, smell, and tactile experience.

    Social Engagement: Emerging Christians enthusiastically endorse Jesus’ claim that “by their fruits you will know them.”  Thus, they seek to be active agents of God’s reconciling, redemptive, and restorative agenda in and for the world. 

    I believe that there is much to praise and get excited about in altworship/emerging expressions of faith and practice.  Indeed, for those in the Calvin community it is easy to hear in these emerging voices and stories echoes of the Kuyperian vision that animates Calvin College itself.  But there are also places to pause and register concerns.  For example, some in the emerging/altworship movements are allergic to creeds and the particularity of Christian beliefs, falsely (in my view) believing that finite human beings cannot say true things about an infinite God. Moreover, in their bid to be culturally relevant, there is the risk of unwittingly succumbing to the same sort of base consumerism that is the hallmark of this generation.  There is also the risk of capitulating to the cult of hip and celebrity that is consumerism’s offspring.   So while emergent/alternative worship is not without its risks, it is, to my mind at least, a legitimate way of expressing authentic Christian faith.  And it is resonating not so much with a particular demographic (e.g., well to do 20-somethings) as with a psycho-graphic (i.e., people of all ages with a certain cultural aesthetic and particular cultural sensibilities).  I believe it deserves a welcome, even if critical, reception wherever it turns up, be it in Protestant denominations, evangelical non-denominational communities, or Episcopal or Roman Catholic traditions.  And make no mistake about it, it is popping up in all these places.

   

A Defense of Fallibilism in the Epistemology of Religious Beliefs

In a very interesting post, Alexander Pruss (Baylor, Philosophy) attacks what he calls "liberal theology," but what he means by that term is some form of theological fallibilism.  He writes:

The liberal theologian does not believe that any part of the Sources is infallible in matters of faith or morals,

and he has explained his use of "Sources" as follows:

Consider a revealed religion, say Christianity.  I will use "the Sources" for the locus or loci where revelation is believed to be discursively embodied.  In the case of Catholic Christianity, the Sources are Scripture and Tradition, in the case of Protestant Christianity, the Sources might be just Scripture.

Pruss's overall goal: To argue that liberal theology, so understood, "is untenable."  I'm interested in his first conclusion.  Here he argues that, because she takes no part of the Sources to be infallible, the liberal theologian has to make her decision about what from the Sources to accept "by the light of her reason."  Thus, Pruss concludes:

The liberal theologian, to be consistent, must have a high view of reason.

But this won't sit well with them, according to Pruss, who writes:

I suspect that some liberal theologians, in the thrall of postmodern thought, do not have a high view of reason.

I reply (this is a comment I left on Pruss's post, but since the issue might be of interest to GOTT readers -- or whatever readers GOTT may have left! -- I thought I'd post it here as well):

Very interesting post! I think I’m a liberal theologian, by your present construal, but I wonder about this part: "The liberal theologian does not believe that any part of the Sources is infallible in matters of faith or morals."

I believe the Sources you list are all fallible. But might there be parts of them that are infallible? For all I know, and for all I firmly believe, yes. I guess there’s an issue of possible “neg-raising” in your sentence I’ve italicized above. But this much is true: there is no part of them, at least as I seem to have access to them as Sources, of which I have the positive belief that it is infallible.

Anyway, supposing we have a good enough grip on what the liberal is (on your present construal), I’m most interested in your first conclusion. I’m not sure what exactly you mean by a “high view of reason” -- though to the extent that I think I have a feel for your meaning here, I don’t think I have such a view. So I have an interest in resisting your conclusion. And I don’t think it follows, but maybe what will result in pursuing the issue would be a better understanding of what “reason” is supposed to be here, and what a “high” view of it would be.

This analogy, though messy and imperfect, may help. Consider the several Senses. Suppose they operate by (perhaps among other functions) each presenting propositional information to the subject whose senses they are. The subject thinks they are extremely reliable sources of information. Are any of them infallible? Well, that seems very implausible to her. She uses her Reason to integrate the information she receives from these sources, together with some other sources. Sometimes, for example, there is very strong reason, coming from Touch, to believe something, where Vision is presenting (perhaps in a very weak form) information in conflict with that. But the subject has learned that (or at least has taken herself to have learned that), generally reliable as it is, there are certain circumstances in which Vision will present her with false information. She thinks this because, on the picture of the world she has used her Reason to develop, working with information from all the Senses, together with other Sources, Vision tends to glitch up a bit under the circumstances in question.

Is our subject operating with a "high view of Reason"?

Of course, that depends on what’s meant by that phrase, but maybe the way to go is to pretend I understand that, and just present the counter-argument. So here goes:

Not necessarily.  Maybe she recognizes that her Reason is highly fallible -- perhaps more fallible than Vision. Well, then, why does she allow Reason to “trump” Vision here? Well, in a way, this is a case of Touch trumping Vision, but Reason is operating. It seems our subject can be reasonable in her procedure here, despite the views I’ve just ascribed to her. She could be thinking along these lines: Vision is extremely reliable, but is very limited in what information it presents, and is one source among many. Some integrating and adjudicating is called for. That’s one of Reason’s functions. Reason is so highly fallible in part because it’s often called on to settle very tough issues. Some of these are so tough because they are matters about which there is information from different sources pointing in different directions. And some are tough because there isn’t information pointing very solidly in any direction. One strategy for dealing with the latter type of tough issue is to be very conservative, and have no views about such matters. But the subject is willing to risk substantial chances of error in order to have a more complete view of the world. (I'm assuming she advocates a moderate, and not a completely non-conservative stance here, trying to balance comprehensiveness with accuracy.)  She keeps her fallibility on such matters firmly in mind, holds her views quite loosely, and is very open to change on such matters, but does not remain non-committal. That all sounds pretty reasonable to me.

But in any case, Reason is needed here. Even the policy of integrating and adjudicating information from among the several sources by clinging to the postulate that Vision is Infallible would be an instance of using Reason to reach that decision. Based on her experience, though, this would just seem to the subject to be an unreasonable use of Reason. Why suppose Vision is infallible? And why suppose it’s right in this instance? Our subject knows people well who at least profess to operate under the assumption that Vision is infallible. In fact, she’s considered adopting the assumption of several people very close to her according to which both Vision and Hearing are infallible. But when she tried provisionally adopting that assumption, it seemed to result in what seemed a very unlikely picture. It could be done, she thought -- it wouldn’t be impossible. But it meant ending up with judgments that seemed very implausible. For instance, there are matters which don’t seem to be central to what Vision and Hearing seem designed to deal with. Still, Vision and Hearing do present some information about them. And if they are infallible, well then, you can take what they say to the bank, even on such matters. But there are other sources that really seem aimed centrally at just such matters, and are presenting information contrary to what Vision and Hearing present, and the information these other sources present fits in extremely well with the subject’s whole picture, built up from her many sources, including the matters that Vision and Hearing seem to be centrally concerned with. So, our subject (reasonably, it seems, at least to me) adopts a different method, which involves trusting Vision and Hearing to a great degree, especially on certain matters under certain circumstances, but doesn’t hold either to be infallible.

Is she being inconsistent? Even unreasonable? I can’t see that. As she would pointedly ask: Why think that Vision and Hearing are infallible? If anything, given the circumstances described in the above paragraph, that would seem the more unreasonable alternative. (Of course, it’s possible that there are relevant disanalogies between the situation described above and what you think, or what may actually be, the case concerning the information given to us by your Sources. But then consider this just as the presentation of a *possible* scenario under which one can use highly fallible Reason in rejecting some information from a very reliable source without betraying a “high view of Reason” and w/o being unreasonable.)

Is she betraying a “high view of Reason”? Well, like I said, this all seems consistent with her thinking that Reason is highly fallible, and more fallible than Vision. Well, I guess what I’m thinking there is that it’s generally more fallible than Vision. I guess she is thinking that in this instance, she’s more likely to arrive at a true view about the matter in question by going with the information that Touch is presenting than with trusting Vision. And Reason is involved in making this determination. But is this holding a “high view of Reason”? I wouldn’t have thought so. Her alternative would be to go with what Vision is saying and rejecting Touch’s information, which would be using Reason to reject Touch. Or she could believe nothing. Or she could believe both things, which may be flatly inconsistent, or, depending on how we are imagining the case, just in sharp tension with one another. So, this seems a reasonable defense for her to give to the charge that she’s adopting a “high view of Reason”: “Look, what to do in these especially tricky situations is a very tough call. Reason has figured out that the best way to integrate the information I’m getting here is to go with Touch on this one. Yes, Reason is highly fallible. It could very well be wrong here. I have no high view of Reason. But what would you have me do instead, and why would that be so much better?”

Well, stepping out of the whole analogy to comment: One thing that seems to be going on is that I seem to be construing Reason a bit differently from you. For you, it seems to be another source at the same level as the various other sources. But I’m seeing it as at least in part performing a higher-level, “executive” function. It is what puts together information from various other sources. It “trumps” the various sources in certain cases, not because it’s so “high” in terms of its reliability, but because of the different role it plays. That’s its job. It integrates & adjudicates information coming from various other sources. That’s always a dicey game to play. But it has to be played. Something has to make these calls – even when the call it makes is: “I’ll just go with whatever Source S598 tells me.” You may play that game by designating some sources as infallible, but it’s far from clear that that’s the best way to go, and even further from clear that it’s the only reasonable way to go. Why Source S598? To this, “Well, some source had better be infallible, or we’re in trouble!” doesn’t seem very convincing. (I’m not assuming that’s how you would answer. I’m mentioning this answer b/c it seems to be what’s driving at least many people who buy into infallible sources.) Maybe we just are in trouble – if by that we just mean: have to put up with a little uncertainty.

However we construe “Reason,” this point remains: We do have to integrate information from various sources, including the Sources you mention. Are you thinking that, on the pain of inconsistency, we have to designate some source or sources of information as Infallible in this integration & processing stage, or else we are betraying a “high view” of our own ability to integrate & process information? B/c I’m really not seeing that.