Tony Jones has been giving a series of posts on euphemisms and words within Christianity that are ridden with assumed values that are more harmful than helpful not only in our discourse, but in our desire to be a community. He also tackles a set of words that have tended to bother me namely, "unbiblical", "unscriptural", "high view of scripture" etc. Some use the the odd phrase "objective reader of scripture" as if there is a clear idea of what that means. This is not new.
What happened, as any reader of American higher education history is aware, is that the Baconian understanding of science began to be pushed out of the emerging university. Science was moving on to new methods and as a result was pushing Baconian science, the humanities, and theology with it out of the mainstream of "useful" studies in colleges and emerging universities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But rather than adapt to these new methods in science and the humanities, traditionalists reinforced Baconian science as an approach to the Bible. This system rejected the idea of a hypothetical construct in favor of sticking only to what presented itself to the senses in an assumed transparency of objectivity. The irony is that as the hypothetical method of theorizing clearly yielded greater and more powerful results leading to the dismissal of Baconian science, those who maintained a "high biblicism" stuck with Bacon and still do!
The Baconian method was nothing more than apprehending what was apparent to the senses, categorizing those things, and then finding cause and effect relationships between them. Some of us have heard the odd phrase "interpret Scripture with Scripture." While it might have some merit in finding out the connections and massive amounts of self referencing that goes on in the Bible (mostly going back to the Torah), it assumes that everything is related in a cause and effect manner. Moreover, it maintains that Scripture is a self-enclosed system that cannot refer to anything outside of itself. This is exactly the way that science was done before hypothesis testing which, by the way, was needed for progress to be made on what Darwin noticed in the fossil record.
The question is why they approached Scripture this way? It was to offer scientific legitimacy to the Bible in a time when people viewed it with less and less cultural and social importance. People were less prone to view its importance in the interests of the development of new knowledge and the development of the academy as something to serve the needs of the commonwealth. This made a lot of sense. If they could show that the Bible was as relevant as ever by using the same methods that were revolutionizing how people were beginning to understand the world, then it would resume its rightful place at the top of the educational and social ladder. Yet when this approach was reinforced and then assumed to be "high" biblicism due to its "objectivity", science had moved on to bigger and better challenges. Locking onto this old scientific approach became evident in the Scopes trial where we can find a pivotal schism in evangelicalism between fundamentalists and moderns who embraced new critical methods to break apart assumptions in the text itself rather than assume "objectivity."
The idea of "Scriptural objectivity" is built on a long since undermined scientific notion of objectivity that even scientists no longer use as a primary method. So-called "high biblicism" is nothing more than an assumed late 19th century understanding of scientific objectivity. Because we no longer give this way of seeing things scientific credibility, much less rational credibility in the arts and in literature to be sure, it remains anachronistic and backward. What once was a way to make the Bible more legitimate in the emerging field of disciplinary knowledge is now a weight that holds a large population of Christians down, and unnecessarily so.
This idea of "high" biblicism is nothing more than an outdated and absurd scientific view that tries to make the Bible more "scientific and objective." It is therefore quite ironic that those who follow this path ignorant of the wondrous depths of scripture beyond a false notion of objectivity bound for failure will adamantly oppose current scientific discourse rooted in the scientific method of hypothesis and theory testing! It is the same old worldview that must reject the revolution of scientific discourse that happened many decades ago. Not to embrace what "high biblicism" actually is, a tired and incomplete scientific world view at best, is merely to invest one's self in ignorance.
Related posts:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Drew Tatusko and Drew Tatusko, Drew Tatusko. Drew Tatusko said: .@outlawpreachers i just offered a response to @tjonestony here: euthanizing the word "unbiblical" http://bit.ly/Szk0F [...]
It's a doomed and misguided enterprise, if you ask me, to get rid of expressions like "a high view of scripture," "unbiblical," and still stronger expressions, such as the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture. It makes more sense to use all of the above expressions and qualify them with care.
If what liberal Christianity is about is constantly reminding people
(1) that liberals in contrast to non-liberals have a lower view of Scripture,
(2) that liberals are not concerned about whether current faith and practice is compatible with historical Christian teaching and the foundation of same in Scripture,
(3) that liberals place their religion within the bounds of reason rather than the other way around,
(4) that the Bible fails liberals because it is not an adequate cudgel in their hands as they take on their ideological opponents,
would that not suggest that liberal Christianity is a reactionary movement? At the very least, I'm wondering whether you might wish to re-examine your rhetorical strategy. I realize that my points (1) – (4) are not precise formulations, but reader-response reformulations, of liberal Christian principles.
When I read posts like this, Drew, it suggests to me that liberal Christianity is an epiphenomenon of marginal interest to those with a commitment to more traditional forms of the Christian faith. Liberal Christianity certainly points to issues that more traditional Christians need to address with care, but does not show the way forward.
john i am not sure where you are getting the four points you present here, but if anything they illustrate the other side of what i think is a false set of assumptions that are not helpful.
by invoking the term "lower" it is an assumption to a qualitatively higher or "better" or "more orthodox" understanding of scripture. but even here it is reliant on a set of assumptions. i think we have more reasonable hermeneutics than others based on the level of probabilities we can confer to certain arguments, but nothing more. i favor a hermeneutic that sticks to more likely and less likely depending on the focus of exegesis and nothing more. to confer a degree of biblicism is an ideological assertion i think presents us with more harm than good and that is my argument here.
as you are well aware, i think inerrancy and infallibility are themselves absurd assertions that should be jettisoned at all costs, but that is for yet another post which i have done before and may do again.
anything can be an epiphenomenon. forms of liberalism (depending on how you use the term – i use the term only in the classical sense of a way of thinking that is adaptable to new evidence as it is presented) as well as forms of conservatism (including fundamentalism which clearly is a reaction to liberalism as i define it) can both be epiphenomenal. yet liberalism has persisted in its form from fosdick and movements before that (like the social gospel movement) to current forms today. this suggests a much deeper movement that has deeper roots than any empiphenomenal movement would have (since it is reliant on something else for which it is a response).
the point here is that if i understand something like the creation narrative to suggest something other than creatio ex nihilo, some will say this is "low" biblicism depending on the anchor value they set for what "high" or even "moderate" biblicism is. it's about your frame of reference and that frame of reference to those who scream that someone is being "unbiblical" especially in reaction to a reading of the bible itself, tends to the idological and it results in lame name calling rather than a constructive hermeneutic.
I like your example, creatio ex nihilo. I blogged about precisely that not long ago:
http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_...
I think you shoot yourself in your own foot with all of the gobbledygook about probabilistic thinking. That isn't how we talk about the things we hold dear. I don't say that I love my wife, all other things being equal, or because she clocks in over several parameters with a lower standard deviation than her peers. I don't say she loves me according to probabilistic reasoning of any kind.
What you are saying, or what I hear you saying, when you talk in probabilistic terms about the word Christians have always affirmed to be a lamp unto their feet, is that you do not hold dear the Scriptures of the Church.
That puts you light years away from Emerson Fosdick.
The terms inerrancy and infallibility have a long and venerable history of use within Christianity. Both terms, properly qualified, are used in Roman Catholicism to this day. It's your error to give these terms away to fundamentalists. What other terms do you give away to your erstwhile opponents? Divine sovereignty? Atonement? The resurrection?
Whenever liberalism goes down this road, its substance begins to take on the appearance of a phantasm. A shell of a shell of a shell of what Christianity once affirmed, and many Christians continue to affirm. But perhaps you think that is a good thing. It just is not clear to me where a liberal like you affirms. It is clear that you are anti-fundamentalist. In that sense, you come across as a reactionary. I mean this as a constructive criticism, since I believe traditional Christianity needs liberal Christians as a check or a corrective. But I think current versions of liberal Christianity are lot less substantial than those of once upon a time. Is this a trend?
it is probabalistic. any historical criticism or theological proposition is. some propositions are more likely to be true that others. not sure calling that "gobbledygook" is correct or helpful.
if you happened to be in the same spot as the events of the scriptures with those who were writing, then your comparison to you wife makes sense. i don't take on faith that my wife loves me, i can see it and ask her of that every day. however, my belief that peter denied christ three times, that god is triune, etc. are rooted in something qualitatively different.
but i am less traditionalist that you. traditions are only media for the kingdom of god being revealed, and flawed media at that. the same goes with doctrine and the development of how the bible has been interpreted and used within various communities of faith through time. that lamp unto the feet of the people of god has not been the same. origen and athanasius, for example, would not even recognize what american christianity is.
none of this means i discount scripture at all. it just means that we are responsible to study it harder and not rely on tradition to mediate our understanding unless we interrogate the assumptions of those traditions in the process. if exegesis were not a probablistic enterprise we would not have libraries full of commentaries with well-reasoned, but often contradictory conclusions about most, if not all, of the passages in the bible.
i am not giving fundamentalists the terms inerrant or infallible either. i frankly don't care who "owns" them. they both point to a very ideologically misguided reading.
when you say "what Christianity once affirmed" it sounds gain like you are assuming that Christianity was at one time a homogenous set of beliefs to which all people who called themselves Christians consented. There have been many different, often radically different, expressions of Christianity. again, this is due to traditionally mediated probabilities of what one tradition believes to be more likely true than another. as a methodist you have to be aware of this whenever you talk to a reformed christian about "TULIP"! yet in spite of all of this, i still recite the apostles creed on sundays and believe it, i can read the 2nd helevetic confession and buy it, etc. but doctrine must adapt or it becomes idolatry. adaptation is always a function of what it more or less likely to be true given one's socio-historical conditions and functional knowledge of scripture – none of which is ever static or homogenous.
Drew,
I'm enjoying the conversation and I hope you are, too. The first thing that comes to mind is that if you self-identify as a liberal Presbyterian who believes the Apostle's Creed and buys the 2nd Helvetic Confession, you might want to model your affirmations on the ones made in those confessions of faith, your language on theirs, etc. Not in an idolatrous way, of course. But in at least a semi-straightforward way, so that an average schmuck might take note and say, "Drew believes that weird stuff in a weird way, and not just on Sunday mornings."
I don't think you're right to classify theological propositions as probabilistic in nature. That seems to assume that we have no experience of God apart from tradition. But we do, or so we affirm in the creeds. I believe in the Holy Spirit.
On that basis, Scripture is a letter to me from someone who loves me fiercely, someone who makes himself known to me in a variety of ways, such that I say in worship, for example, "Jesus is Lord!" The latter is a theological proposition, but it is not probabilistic in nature, even if it is false. It is not a probabilistic statement from a purely phenomenological point of view.
Always engaging John
Actually I posted a statement of faith a while ago here: http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2009/03/25/stat.... But I have never been one to feel the need to clarify or justify my creeds to anyone since they are always subject to change.
I think you are getting caught up in how I am using the world probability here. Statistically, all numbers are probabilities and can be very high probabilities and very low probabilities. For any probability there is a degree of error behind it and also a variance to account for other possibilities. For example, to whom was Paul really addressing Romans? Big debate. Was the Torah written by Moses, are the source critics right, or is it a combo of them, etc.
Despite these probabilities that govern one's reading of the text, and despite the fact that we can be horribly wrong about much of it even now, it can still inspire worship – which I think we can both agree is the primary function scripture ought to have in any community of faith. That we can be wrong in a specific interpretation and still be inspired to worship the God for whom it is a witness.
For you, your expression Jesus is Lord is still a probability. Surely there are more ways than one to understand that statement not just among communities of faith today, but throughout Christian history beginning with the communities represented in scripture. If I am wrong and there is only one way to understand these things, then you are right and saying that these are probabilities is wrong. But then with all of the conflicting opinions throughout the history of the church, who is the most correct?
to answer that question requires an assumed frame of reference, and that's my entire point with this post.
it is probabalistic. any historical criticism or theological proposition is. some propositions are more likely to be true that others. not sure calling that "gobbledygook" is correct or helpful.
if you happened to be in the same spot as the events of the scriptures with those who were writing, then your comparison to you wife makes sense. i don't take on faith that my wife loves me, i can see it and ask her of that every day. however, my belief that peter denied christ three times, that god is triune, etc. are rooted in something qualitatively different.
but i am less traditionalist that you. traditions are only media for the kingdom of god being revealed, and flawed media at that. the same goes with doctrine and the development of how the bible has been interpreted and used within various communities of faith through time. that lamp unto the feet of the people of god has not been the same. origen and athanasius, for example, would not even recognize what american christianity is.
none of this means i discount scripture at all. it just means that we are responsible to study it harder and not rely on tradition to mediate our understanding unless we interrogate the assumptions of those traditions in the process. if exegesis were not a probablistic enterprise we would not have libraries full of commentaries with well-reasoned, but often contradictory conclusions about most, if not all, of the passages in the bible.
i am not giving fundamentalists the terms inerrant or infallible either. i frankly don't care who "owns" them. they both point to a very ideologically misguided reading.
when you say "what Christianity once affirmed" it sounds gain like you are assuming that Christianity was at one time a homogenous set of beliefs to which all people who called themselves Christians consented. There have been many different, often radically different, expressions of Christianity. again, this is due to traditionally mediated probabilities of what one tradition believes to be more likely true than another. as a methodist you have to be aware of this whenever you talk to a reformed christian about "TULIP"! yet in spite of all of this, i still recite the apostles creed on sundays and believe it, i can read the 2nd helevetic confession and buy it, etc. but doctrine must adapt or it becomes idolatry. adaptation is always a function of what it more or less likely to be true given one's socio-historical conditions and functional knowledge of scripture – none of which is ever static or homogenous.
Drew,
I'm enjoying the conversation and I hope you are, too. The first thing that comes to mind is that if you self-identify as a liberal Presbyterian who believes the Apostle's Creed and buys the 2nd Helvetic Confession, you might want to model your affirmations on the ones made in those confessions of faith, your language on theirs, etc. Not in an idolatrous way, of course. But in at least a semi-straightforward way, so that an average schmuck might take note and say, "Drew believes that weird stuff in a weird way, and not just on Sunday mornings."
I don't think you're right to classify theological propositions as probabilistic in nature. That seems to assume that we have no experience of God apart from tradition. But we do, or so we affirm in the creeds. I believe in the Holy Spirit.
On that basis, Scripture is a letter to me from someone who loves me fiercely, someone who makes himself known to me in a variety of ways, such that I say in worship, for example, "Jesus is Lord!" The latter is a theological proposition, but it is not probabilistic in nature, even if it is false. It is not a probabilistic statement from a purely phenomenological point of view.
Always engaging John
Actually I posted a statement of faith a while ago here: http://notes-from-offcenter.com/2009/03/25/stat.... But I have never been one to feel the need to clarify or justify my creeds to anyone since they are always subject to change.
I think you are getting caught up in how I am using the world probability here. Statistically, all numbers are probabilities and can be very high probabilities and very low probabilities. For any probability there is a degree of error behind it and also a variance to account for other possibilities. For example, to whom was Paul really addressing Romans? Big debate. Was the Torah written by Moses, are the source critics right, or is it a combo of them, etc.
Despite these probabilities that govern one's reading of the text, and despite the fact that we can be horribly wrong about much of it even now, it can still inspire worship – which I think we can both agree is the primary function scripture ought to have in any community of faith. That we can be wrong in a specific interpretation and still be inspired to worship the God for whom it is a witness.
For you, your expression Jesus is Lord is still a probability. Surely there are more ways than one to understand that statement not just among communities of faith today, but throughout Christian history beginning with the communities represented in scripture. If I am wrong and there is only one way to understand these things, then you are right and saying that these are probabilities is wrong. But then with all of the conflicting opinions throughout the history of the church, who is the most correct?
to answer that question requires an assumed frame of reference, and that's my entire point with this post.