Yarr! – The Weblog of Bob Heffernan

Zoomtard has a response to my last post on scripture here.

Zoomy says:

I would disagree when he says Wright doesn’t role-model or elaborate practical steps for applying his model to the actual text of the Bible. I would argue that Wright’s career has been marked by book after book after freaking book until there are now almost 50 in print where he interprets Scripture against the backdrop of the model he proposes.

This is a fair point although it must be said that I was really commenting about the particular article of Wright’s that I linked to, as opposed to his entire career. I do feel Wright is actively trying to be true to his hermeneutical ideas in his writings.

In response to the rest of Zoomy’s post, I think I mainly agree. The real strength of Wright’s proposal is that it shifts us away from Enlightenment-oriented ways of viewing truth, &c. It forces us to view the authority of scripture in a way divorced from ideas we’ve swallowed whole from the age of reason. In so doing it we may well learn to allow for more diversity of interpretation.

Actually, the mere realisation that our interpretation of scripture is exactly that — interpretation — should allow us to hold our views lightly and should force us to concede that true scriptural interpretation takes place only in the context of the entire body of Christ, where each person and each group shows humility with regard to the interpretations of other people and other groups. This can happen whether or not people take narrative seriously or not.

All this being said, I do think we should take narrative seriously.

I’m not really disagreeing with anyone here. You see, the only point I’m making is that before we propose any models of viewing scripture we need one vital ingredient — humility. True Christian humility should mean that — even among those who view scripture as being, ultimately, a receptacle for propositional truth — diversity will be tolerated, encouraged and viewed as necessary. Humility is not a by-product of Wright’s model, it is necessary to make it effective. I felt that Jayber and Zoomy were talking as if the ability to tolerate diversity of interpretation was a by-product of Wright’s model. I am probably wrong in reading them that way. Also — it probably is the case that even if there’s not a causal relationship, there probably still is a correlation between earnestly trying to implement Wright’s model and humbly submitting your improvisation to be changed and enhanced by the improvisations of others.

So, we all agree now, yes? Group hug?

Later in his post, Zoomy highlights the fact that really makes Wright’s proposal so exciting and interesting:

The other great thing about Wright’s framework is that Scripture does not come to us as propositional truth. Even where it does, for example in the Pauline letters, it is set within the ongoing story of the missionary journeys. An advantage for Wright is that his model does bear a closer resembelance [sic] to what Scripture actually is, which is what we’d expect from a good, decent, honest, sane Critical Realist like he is.

I think I affirmed this in my last post, but it’s good to hear it said again. Wright’s plea is that we need to take Scripture seriously in the form that it has been given to us. For too long our view of scripture (and much else besides) has been hampered by our rationalistic, modernistic enlightenment inheritances. If we truly allowed the Spirit to produce Christlike humility and ‘if our dispute was based in aesthetics instead of [enlightenment-style, reason wirshipping] dogma’ (Zoomy, interpolation mine) then things in our little corner of Christendom could be very different indeed.

Over at Together for the Gospel Mark Dever has posted a great quote from C.S. Lewis on the topic of Calvinism which reminds me of what an absolute legend Clive Staples really was:

I take it as a first principle that we must not interpret any one part of Scripture so that it contradicts other parts . . . The real inter-relation between God’s omnipotence and Man’s freedom is something we can’t find out. Looking at the Sheep & the Goats every man can be quite sure that every kind act he does will be accepted by Christ. Yet, equally, we all do feel sure that all the good in us comes from Grace. We have to leave it at that. I find the best plan is to take the Calvinist view of my own virtues and other people’s vices; and the other view of my own vices and other peoples virtues. But tho’ there is much to be puzzled about, there is nothing to be worried about. It is plain from Scripture that, in whatever sense the Pauline doctrine is true, it is not true in any sense which excludes its (apparent) opposite. You know what Luther said: ‘Do you doubt if you are chosen? Then say your prayers and you may conclude that you are.’

I suppose if you are a complete hyper-Calvinist and totally disavow any notion of free will then you have no need of any “synthesis”. From the standpoint of traditional logic, this is probably the strongest position. For the rest of us, free will and omniscience make for dichotomous bedfellows. Of course, the hyper-Calvanist still has scripture to deal with.

And there’s still the issue of the Trinity and how God being both one and three relates to traditional logic.

It should be noted that I think traditional logic is one of the sharpest tools in the Christian’s bag. I’m just thinking out loud, that’s all.

Francis Schaeffer and others like him were always very adamant that the two-valued logic of thesis and antithesis was the proper mode of reasoning for the Christian. This is most usually applied, of course, to the area of morality. There is objective right and wrong, something cannot be both right and wrong at the same time, and so on. Christians, and theists in general, have good reason for sticking to this sort of logic – the presence of an external and objective point of reference (God) makes use of such absolute terms as right and wrong or thesis and antithesis valid. Without an external reference such as good, such logic is not possible. I feel that if the atheist (or the agnostic) wishes to use the logic of absolutes he must first provide a reason for us to accept that absolutes, of any sort, to exist. This is an old argument and not the one I want to make here.

So, Christians have long resisted any sort of logic other than that outlined above. Specifically, methods of reasoning such as reasoning by dialectics a la Hegel (not Socrates) have been vehemently rejected. In this framework the truth lies somewhere in the tension between thesis and antithesis – synthesis. I am simplifying, of course, probably to the point of misrepresentation, but I think the general idea is clear. Reasoning in this way removes ideas such as true and false leaving room only for this vague synthesis of thesis and antithesis. So, in a sense, something may be both true and false, the reality of the situation lying somewhere in between the two.

Such modes of thinking have usually been excluded from Christian thinking, certainly from anything but the most liberal Christian thinking at least, and usually for good reason. But are there certain situations when the dialectic mode comes into play?

What brought all this to mind was a thought I had recently, while walking home, about the whole debate between predestination vs. freewill. Both views seem to be supported, to an extent, by scripture. People on both sides of the argument seem to feel their side is supported more but it is certainly possible to support arguments both ways from scripture. I myself err on the side of free will (although I haven’t studied the issue too closely yet). It occurred to me that the person who believes in free will has to deal with two facts:

1. While there appears to be plenty of support for free will in scripture, there certainly seems to be some support for predestination too; and
2. leaving scripture aside, the facts that God is both pre-existent and omniscient pose serious logical problems for the idea of free will.

So, there is a very real sense in which both the notion of free will and the notion of predestination are true. Could this be an example of dialectic in Christian truth? Both of these ideas are in fact true and form a synthesis?

Before people start branding me as a heretick, I have a second example. Consider the trinity. On the one hand God is one god (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4) and yet also God is composed of three separate entities/personalities – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit (cf. John 10:30 or 38, for example). Here we have two concepts that are in some sense contradictory and yet in a very real sense both true. Thesis: “God is one”, antithesis: “God is three” leading to synthesis “God is one and yet three at the same time.” This particular synthesis is one that has been accepted for many centuries by most Christians, indeed it is those who cause a fuss and say “well, they can’t both be true!” that are called hereticks.

I think Christians should certainly cling to the traditional logic of thesis and antithesis. It is our privilege as theists to be able to use such logic, and it is a powerful tool. But are there instances (especially when talking about God in terms of our own understanding, seeing as he is external to our physical universe) when the logic of dialectic must hold?

I’m sure this sort of application of dialectic reasoning to Christian ideas can’t be new, but I’ve never come across it. Is it because Christians are (justifiably) wary of moving away from traditional logic, or just because I don’t read the right books?

I like to think to myself that the pursuit of knowledge, the attempt to discover more about the physical universe, is, in itself, an act of worship. That is, ‘science is worship’. Ergo, mathematics is worship.

I understand that this is a nicely self-aggrandising theory for a mathematician to have. Still, consider the following scripture:

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. ” (Proverbs 25:2, NKJV).

If, as a Christian, I believe that the very structure of the universe and the order that we see there is a reflection of God’s nature then the search to understand this structure and order, the act of ‘searching out’ those matters which God has concealed within nature, is surely in some sense tantamount to learning more of God himself. God is revealed to us through his creation and the study of his creation is in some way the study of the creator.

Furthermore, mathematics is the language of God. Right? :)

It confers a certain nobility on the work of the scientist. Not that I’m arrogant about it, I have no delusions about how my trifling work in abstract group theory ranks as theology, or mathematics for that matter. And there are more direct ways to learn about God than science, of course. But the view of science as a form of worship puts science in its proper context – too many worship science rather than he whom science reveals.

I suppose this must sound like the dribblings of a Philistine to the non-believer. Oh well.

p.s. – I really need to simplify my sentences. I can hardly read the above for all of the commas.