Evangelical theology is a matter of thinking about and speaking to and for the God of the Bible, in his relation to all reality and all that we ourselves are and do. It is needed for doxology, for devotion, for discipling, and for directing our lives, and we cannot get on without it. Assuming this, philosopher-theologian David Clark sets forth a wide-ranging, constantly centrist, moderately technical, analytically alert demonstration of the what, why, and how of the evangelical theological task, interacting at each stage with rival positions. No comparable across-the-board vindication of evangelical mental method exists; this is a landmark book. Clark’s ten-year trudge composing it was emphatically time well spent.

—J. I. PACKER

Professor of Theology

Regent College

David Clark’s To Know and Love God is the best antidote yet to the poison of anti-intellectualism that has sapped contemporary evangelicalism of much of its theological mettle. Clark deftly works his way through the traditional issues pertaining to theological method, yet he does so with an eye to our postmodern, multicultural, and spiritually starved situation. He makes a compelling case that cultivating and embodying the wisdom of God for daily living really is the most important thing Christians should be doing; he makes an equally compelling case that pursuing excellence in theology—the spiritual science by which we come to know God—is the best way to embark on the project. Clark has written the perfect introductory theological textbook for “evangelicalism: the next generation.”

—KEVIN J. VANHOOZER

Research Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Christian theology must be biblically sound. However, if it intends to speak to people today, it also needs to be informed on the many issues providing a context for theology in contemporary culture. How does theology find its place in the context of pluralism, relativism, scientism, and its many other challengers? David Clark provides a thorough discussion of the issues that enables theologians to ply their trade with greater awareness and commitment. This book can serve as text-book as well as reference work.

—WINFRIED CORDUAN

Professor of Philosophy and Religion

Taylor University

David Clark’s book is an important statement of where evangelicals should stand on the major issues of the day.

—RONALD NASH

Professor of Philosophy

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Increased fragmentation within the Christian community, specialization of the disciplines, skepticism about religious truth, and the implications of cultural and religious diversity all suggest that the time for evangelical systematic theology is past. Undaunted, David Clark has produced a carefully nuanced and extraordinarily rich discussion of the nature of theology and a sensible, constructive model for doing theology in today’s world. Essential reading for evangelical theologians, philosophers, and missiologists.

—HAROLD NETLAND

Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion

and Intercultural Studies

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Astonishingly well-researched and persuasively argued, David Clark’s To Know and Love God is one of a kind. This book is the product of a mature theological mind that has found a balanced and articulate wisdom, and that refuses to settle for false dilemmas, overstatements, equivocation, or fuzzy half-truths. It is a prized example of the contribution that clear, analytic thinking can have for a robust, twenty-first-century evangelical theology. If you can read only one book on theological method, read this one.

—JAY RICHARDS

Senior Fellow

Discovery Institute

Good texts on theological methodology are rare. David Clark has produced a first-rate treatment of this often ignored and misunderstood subject. This volume provides a substantial underpinning for the remainder of this excellent theological series published by Crossway.

—GARY HABERMAS

Chairman, Department of Philosophy

and Theological Studies

Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary

Competence and sensitivity! Those two words always characterize Clark’s work. Once again he has penetrated the rhetoric to offer a solid case for Christian faith in the real world.

—L. RUSS BUSH, III

Senior Professor of Philosophy of Religion

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

TO KNOW

AND LOVE

GOD

Other books in the

Foundations of Evangelical Theology Series

Published:

No One Like Him

JOHN S. FEINBERG

The Cross and Salvation

BRUCE DEMAREST

Forthcoming topics:

Scripture

Man and Angels

Christ

The Holy Spirit

Sin

The Church

Eschatology

To Know and Love God

Copyright © 2003 by David K. Clark

Published by Crossway Books

A division of Good News Publishers

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

First printing 2003

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture references are from the Holy Bible: New International Version.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clark, David K.

To know and love God: method for theology / David K. Clark.

p.     cm.   —   (Foundations of evangelical theology)

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN 1-58134-484-8 (TPB.: alk. paper)

1. Theology—Methodology. 2. Evangelicalism. I. Title. II. Series.

BR118.C47     2003

230'.01—dc21

2002156480

ML          13    12    11    10    09    08    07    06    05    04    03

15    14    13    12    11    10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

Dedicated to:

Paul and Jim

CONTENTS

Introduction by General Editor

Preface

Introduction: Evangelical Patterns in Theology

CHAPTER 1     CONCEPTS OF THEOLOGY

I. Historical Perspectives

A. Patristic Beginnings

B. Medieval Modifications

C. Reformation and Post-Reformation Developments

II. Contemporary Options

A. Shapers of Contemporary Theologizing

B. Current Trends in Theologizing

C. Traditional Protestant Perspectives

III. Context and Content Revisited

A. Plotting the Options

B. The Contextual Pole

C. The Kerygmatic Pole

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 2     SCRIPTURE AND THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY

I. The Principle of Authority

A. Authority in the Evangelical Tradition

B. Authority as Testimony

C. The Burden of Evangelical Hermeneutics

II. Three Objections to the Authority Principle

A. The Abusive Nature of Appeals to Authority

B. The Circularity of Appeals to Authority

C. The Irrationality of Appeals to Authority

III. Authorizing Theology

A. Confirmation

B. Principlizing

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 3     THEOLOGY IN CULTURAL CONTEXT

I. Theology in the Newly Globalized Situation

A. Culture and Globalization

B. Praxis and the Emergence of Contextualization

C. Hermeneutical Roots of Contextualization

II. Evangelical Contextualization

A. A Decode/Encode Model of Contextualization

B. A Dialogical Model for Evangelical Contextualization

III. A Case Study: Contextualization and Multiculturalism

A. The Promise and Peril of Multiculturalism

B. Theology and Cultural Diversity

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 4     DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES AND

THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

I. Perspectivalism

A. The Concept of Perspectivalism

B. The Scope of a Perspective

C. Perspectivalism as a Feature of Deconstructive Postmodernism

II. The Inadequacy of Perspectivalism

A. Different Kinds of Relativism

B. A Critique of Perspectivalism

III. Perspectivalism and Foundationalism

A. Foundationalism

B. Alternatives to Foundationalism

C. Soft Foundationalism

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 5     UNITY IN THE THEOLOGICAL DISCIPLINES

I. The Fourfold Curriculum

A. The Emergence of the Theological Disciplines

B. The Disciplines Within Doctrinal Studies

II. Fragmentation in Theology

A. The Legitimacy of the Distinction of Disciplines

B. The Possibility of the Unity of the Disciplines

III. Retrieving the Unity of the Theological Disciplines

A. Fusing Horizons

B. Systematic Theology and the Historical Disciplines

C. Systematic Theology and Practical Theology

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 6     THEOLOGY IN THE ACADEMIC WORLD

I. Theology in the Religious Academic

A. The Values of the Academy

B. Theology and Religious Studies

II. Theology as Wisdom and Science

A. Theology as Sapientia

B. Theology as Scientia

C. Objectivity in Theology

III. Conclusion

CHAPTER 7     THE SPIRITUAL PURPOSES OF THEOLOGY

I. Theology and Orthodoxy

II. Integrating Theology as Science and as Wisdom

A. Engagement

B. Discovery and Testing

C. Integration

D. Communication

III. Theology and the Experience of True Community

A. The Concept of Community

B. The Theological Grounding of Community

C. Life in Community

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 8     THEOLOGY AND THE SCIENCES

I. The Rise of Science and Its Challenge to Theology

A. Science as Rational Ideal

B. Science as Cultural Authority

II. Modernist Pictures of the Science and Theology Relation

A. Science and Theology in Mortal Combat

B. Science and Theology in Isolated Compartments

C. Science and Theology as Complementary Perspectives

III. New Views of Science in the Contemporary Milieu

IV. Science and Theology in Dialogue

A. Science Speaks to Theology

B. Theology Speaks to the Sciences

V. Conclusion

CHAPTER 9     THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

I. Philosophy and Reason

A. Four Senses of ‘Philosophy’

B. Three Senses of ‘Reason’

C. Method and Content

D. The Structure of a Worldview

II. Presuppositions and Evidence in Theology

A. The Power of Concepts

B. Presuppositions in a Noetic Structure

C. Evidence and Theological Conviction

D. Faith-Learning Integration

III. Conclusion

CHAPTER 10     CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY AND THE

WORLD RELIGIONS

I. Clarifying the Challenges of Religious Pluralism

A. Religious Pluralism and Religious Variety

B. The Pluralism, Inclusivism, Exclusivism Continuum

C. Alethic and Soteriological Categories

II. Pluralism, Realism, and Evangelical Theology

A. The Pluralist Challenge

B. John Hick’s Realist Religious Pluralism

C. Gordon Kaufman’s Nonrealist Religious Pluralism

III. Evangelical Theology and the World’s Religions

A. The Inference of the Pluralism Challenge

B. Implications for Tolerance

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 11     REALITY, TRUTH, AND LANGUAGE

I. Truth

A. Truth and Knowledge

B. The Bearers of Truth

II. Alternatives to Truth as Correspondence

A. Denials of the Correspondence Theory

B. Replacements: Alternative Answers to the Metaphysical Project

C. Reductions: Answers to the Justification Project

III. Reference

A. Poststructuralism and Deconstruction

B. The Legacy of Wittgenstein

C. A Minimalist Account of Correspondence

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 12     THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE AND SPIRITUAL LIFE

I. Theological Analogy

A. Thomas’s Question

B. Thomas’s Account of Analogy

C. Univocity Revisited

II. Contemporary Perspectives

A. Univocity and Literality

B. Symbol, Narrative, and Metaphor

C. The Problems with Panmetaphoricism

III. Religious Language and Speech Acts

IV. Conclusion

CONCLUSION     THE FUTURE OF EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

BY GENERAL EDITOR

Why another series of works on evangelical systematic theology? This is an especially appropriate question in light of the fact that evangelicals are fully committed to an inspired and inerrant Bible as their final authority for faith and practice. But since neither God nor the Bible changes, why is there a need to redo evangelical systematic theology?

Systematic theology is not divine revelation. Theologizing of any sort is a human conceptual enterprise. Thinking that it is equal to biblical revelation misunderstands the nature of both Scripture and theology! Insofar as our theology contains propositions that accurately reflect Scripture or match the world and are consistent with the Bible (in cases where the propositions do not come perse from Scripture), our theology is biblically based and correct. But even if all the propositions of a systematic theology are true, that theology would still not be equivalent to biblical revelation! It is still a human conceptualization of God and his relation to the world.

Although this may disturb some who see theology as nothing more than doing careful exegesis over a series of passages, and others who see it as nothing more than biblical theology, those methods of doing theology do not some-how produce a theology that is equivalent to biblical revelation either. Exegesis is a human conceptual enterprise, and so is biblical theology. All the theological disciplines involve human intellectual participation. But human intellect is finite, and hence there is always room for revision of systematic theology as knowledge increases. Though God and his Word do not change, human understanding of his revelation can grow, and our theologies should be reworked to reflect those advances in understanding.

Another reason for evangelicals to rework their theology is the nature of systematic theology as opposed to other theological disciplines. For example, whereas the task of biblical theology is more to describe biblical teaching on whatever topics Scripture addresses, systematics should make a special point to relate its conclusions to the issues of one’s day. This does not mean that the systematician ignores the topics biblical writers address. Nor does it mean that theologians should warp Scripture to address issues it never intended to address. Rather, it suggests that in addition to expounding what biblical writers teach, the theologian should attempt to take those biblical teachings (along with the biblical mindset) and apply them to issues that are especially confronting the church in the theologian’s own day. For example, 150 years ago, an evangelical theologian doing work on the doctrine of man would likely have discussed issues such as the creation of man and the constituent parts of man’s being. Such a theology might even have included a discussion about human institutions such as marriage, noting in general the respective roles of husbands and wives in marriage. However, it is dubious that there would have been any lengthy discussion with various viewpoints about the respective roles of men and women in marriage, in society, and in the church. But at our point in history and in light of the feminist movement and the issues it has raised even among many conservative Christians, it would be foolish to write a theology of man (or, should we say, a “theology of humanity”) without a thorough discussion of the issue of the roles of men and women in society, the home, and the church.

Because systematic theology attempts to address itself not only to the time-less issues presented in Scripture but also to the current issues of one’s day and culture, each theology will to some extent need to be redone in each generation. Biblical truth does not change from generation to generation, but the issues that confront the church do. A theology that was adequate for a different era and different culture may simply not speak to key issues in a given culture at a given time. Hence, in this series we are reworking evangelical systematic theology, though we do so with the understanding that in future generations there will be room for a revision of theology again.

How, then, do the contributors to this series understand the nature of systematic theology? Systematic theology as done from an evangelical Christian perspective involves study of the person, works, and relationships of God. As evangelicals committed to the full inspiration, inerrancy, and final authority of Scripture, we demand that whatever appears in a systematic theology correspond to the way things are and must not contradict any claim taught in Scripture. Holy Writ is the touchstone of our theology, but we do not limit the source material for systematics to Scripture alone. Hence, whatever information from history, science, philosophy, and the like is relevant to our understanding of God and his relation to our world is fair game for systematics. Depending on the specific interests and expertise of the contributors to this series, their respective volumes will reflect interaction with one or more of these disciplines.

What is the rationale for appealing to other sources than Scripture and other disciplines than the biblical ones? Since God created the universe, there is revelation of God not only in Scripture but in the created order as well. There are many disciplines that study our world, just as does theology. But since the world studied by the non-theological disciplines is the world created by God, any data and conclusions in the so-called secular disciplines that accurately reflect the real world are also relevant to our understanding of the God who made that world. Hence, in a general sense, since all of creation is God’s work, nothing is outside the realm of theology. The so-called secular disciplines need to be thought of in a theological context, because they are reflecting on the universe God created, just as is the theologian. And, of course, there are many claims in the non-theological disciplines that are generally accepted as true (although this does not mean that every claim in non-theological disciplines is true, or that we are in a position with respect to every proposition to know whether it is true or false). Since this is so, and since all disciplines are in one way or another reflecting on our universe, a universe made by God, any true statement in any discipline should in some way be informative for our understanding of God and his relation to our world. Hence, we have felt it appropriate to incorporate data from outside the Bible in our theological formulations.

As to the specific design of this series, our intention is to address all areas of evangelical theology with a special emphasis on key issues in each area. While other series may be more like a history of doctrine, this series purposes to incorporate insights from Scripture, historical theology, philosophy, etc., in order to produce an up-to-date work in systematic theology. Though all contributors to the series are thoroughly evangelical in their theology, embracing the historical orthodox doctrines of the church, the series as a whole is not meant to be slanted in the direction of one form of evangelical theology. Nonetheless, most of the writers come from a Reformed perspective. Alternate evangelical and non-evangelical options, however, are discussed.

As to style and intended audience, this series is meant to rest on the very best of scholarship while at the same time being understandable to the beginner in theology as well as the academic theologian. With that in mind, contributors are writing in a clear style, taking care to define whatever technical terms they use.

Finally, we believe that systematic theology is not just for the understanding. It must apply to life, and it must be lived. As Paul wrote to Timothy, God has given divine revelation for many purposes, including ones that necessitate doing theology, but the ultimate reason for giving revelation and for theologians doing theology is that the people of God may be fitted for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17). In light of the need for theology to connect to life, each of the contributors not only formulates doctrines but also explains how those doctrines practically apply to everyday living.

It is our sincerest hope that the work we have done in this series will first glorify and please God, and, secondly, instruct and edify the people of God. May God be pleased to use this series to those ends, and may he richly bless you as you read the fruits of our labors.

John S. Feinberg

General Editor

PREFACE

Writing a book is a labor of love. Researching and composing this book has required the better part of a decade. I have done many other things during that time, some of them quite unexpected. So writing this book was a longer journey than anticipated.

I must thank a number of people who contributed in different ways to this project. I have been privileged to work with many fine teaching assistants, each paid by Bethel Seminary. Of this group, Tim Johnson and Chris Vena especially made important contributions. My current assistant and research specialist, Mike Kukuska, has given selflessly in checking citations for the final preparation of this manuscript. A dear friend and Bethel College faculty colleague, Paul Eddy, deserves my thanks. He shared his significant knowledge of pluralism as I wrote chapter 10. Another great friend, my former research specialist and now Bethel College faculty colleague Jim Beilby, has earned my gratitude. Not only did he help me build my house, he vigorously discussed with me almost all the topics in this book. He wrote drafts of his basic research for parts of chapters 10, 11, and 12, and this assistance was essential to their completion. Another friend, Win Corduan, gave me an incredible gift by generously responding to a complete draft of this work. He does not agree with everything I say, but his insights saved me from many a blunder.

I enjoy the friendship of a number of selfless and gifted faculty colleagues at Bethel Seminary. It is a privilege to be in a learning community where we work, think, and talk informally about theology and its implications for spiritual formation and transformational leadership. Carla Dahl, Nils Friberg, Mark McCloskey, Bob Rakestraw, Glen Scorgie, LeRon Shults, and Steve Sandage deserve much more than the appreciation I can offer.

Our editor, John Feinberg, has worked patiently on this series. He both pro-duced his own volume and also coached me. I greatly appreciate his endurance and his friendship. I need to say that none of these people is responsible for any flaws you may find in this work.

Finally, I draw great joy and strength from my family. Sandy is an astonishing life partner—bright, patient, creative, and compassionate beyond belief. My sons, Tyler and Ryan, are completely different from each other and both a blast. I love them both deeply. I am one lucky guy to have each of these three wonderful people, each a child of God, as a part of the adventure that is my life.

Having completed these chapters, I feel conflicting emotions. I recognize the summary nature of the discussions I offer on these topics. As I read over various sections, I know each topic deserves more extensive, complex, and adequate treatment. I tried to explain things simply and clearly enough for students. I also tried to present the whole of this work with a kind of symmetry, beauty, or sanity—along with insights and original ideas—to make it worthwhile for colleagues. I am reminded of J. L. Austin’s words: “What I shall have to say here is neither difficult nor contentious; the only merit I should like to claim for it is that of being true, at least in parts.”[1] I am prob-ably too contentious at points. But I think I have the main things right, at least in parts.

I feel an increasingly profound sense of the rationality and the sanity of the evangelical faith. Though critics may see the seamier sides of evangelical life, the aroma of a confident yet generous expression of evangelical Christian faith, if it is lived out in true community, is alluring. This is not due to the merits of any particular evangelical theologian I can think of, but to the beauty of the Savior whom we love and about whom we speak.

In view of this, I feel frustration, frankly, that some evangelicals do not take good theology seriously. Or—and this leads to similar problems—others take poor theology overly seriously. As theological conservationists (I will use that word in place of the pejorative word ‘conservative’),[2] we sometimes place too much weight on peripheral issues. Our champions call us into combat on too many side issues. We have written too many books with the words ‘Battle for’ in the title. We should apply ourselves more diligently to writing such good, positive theological works that counterfeits pale by comparison. This is no easy task, but I hope we will see more efforts of this kind.

I wish that more people, especially more young people, would patiently explore the wisdom that Christ offers. One of my most gut-wrenching experiences—and this happens not infrequently—is talking with young people who have given up on faith. Some, having grown up in the church, find their leaders unable to respond authentically to nagging doubts or reasonable questions. Others, having not grown up in the faith, have yet to hear an expression of the gospel in witness, or to see an incarnation of the gospel in community, that possesses irresistible power. These young people deserve our best efforts. Their lives make our theology extraordinarily important. The faith is astonishingly reasonable, and news of that fact needs to get out.

On the other hand, I am thrilled that the world evangelical movement is blossoming. Evangelical evangelism is a global and international reality. Evangelical efforts for social justice do go on quietly, though they need to gain strength. We live in an exciting time when the Spirit’s work is evident all around. This too makes evangelical theology important. Theology is the expression of the wisdom of God for peoples in all cultures. Thinking excellently about theology is critical to the global church. For we must not only reach people of diverse cultures with the gospel of Christ but also partner with them as they grow in the unity of the Spirit. Theology is essential to the church as it invites seekers to faith, forms people after Christ, and builds truly biblical communities that change the world.

For these reasons and for many more, excellence in evangelical theology matters greatly.

INTRODUCTION

EVANGELICAL PATTERNS IN THEOLOGY

Knowing and loving God. This is the greatest thing bar none.

In the beginning, God created all things, including woman and man, for his purposes. Who is this Creator? What is his character, and what are his purposes? How can we fulfill his purposes for us, individually and communally? What is our destiny with this Creator, and how shall we live on this earth in light of that destiny?

These are the most vital questions of life. The truth about these weighty matters is more important than a cure for cancer, the latest Third World political crisis, who won the last World Cup final in soccer, new data on global warm-ing, the trajectory of the world’s stock markets, or anything else that might occupy our time, attention, and effort. It is the work of theologians—and of all believers as they do theology—to serve God by discerning what is true about the most crucial issues of life. The task is to learn of God. The privilege is to love God passionately with the mind.

The purpose of this book is to answer the question: What is evangelical systematic theology? Unpacking this leads to other important questions. Is systematic theology a legitimate intellectual enterprise? How does theology build upon the teachings of the Bible? How can evangelical theologians in different cultures assist each other? How does theology contribute to transforming society? What does the existence of other religions mean for evangelical theology? How does systematic theology relate to other intellectual disciplines? How does it connect with the life of the church? What are the purposes and the final goal of systematic theology?

Writing a book on these topics feels a bit like writing a book to train base-ball umpires. Umpires are necessary to the ball game, omnipresent on the field, and highly influential on the outcome of the contest. But enjoying their performance is not the point of coming out to the old ball yard. Similarly, the kinds of questions I discuss here are not ends in themselves. Knowing and loving God. That is the end. But attention to details will assist any theologian in her task. And so I write to present what I could call a philosophy of evangelical systematic theology.

That phrasing betrays some of my predispositions. I speak as a self-confessed evangelical. I claim to speak to and for evangelicals. Of course, in speaking to evangelicals, I will settle on answers to certain intramural debates, and some fellow evangelicals will disagree with me. On these issues, I speak to my dissenting theological brothers and sisters as dialogue partners in hopes of persuading them to accept commitments that (I think) will bring us closer to a balanced understanding of God’s will and ways. In speaking for evangelicals, I will present (and sometimes defend) views on issues about which evangelicals generally agree. In this case, I speak to the broader theological and religious community in hopes of showing how a reasonable, articulate, and credible evangelical theology can proceed.

I speak also as a philosopher of religion. I have taught systematic theology for all my adult life. But the arena where I have something of an academic home court advantage is in philosophy of religion. I use the strategies of analytic philosophy in my thinking. This is closer to the style of thinking common among English-speaking philosophers than to the approach typical of Continental philosophers or contemporary scholars of religion.[1] This is partly why I describe this book as a “philosophy of evangelical systematic theology.” A “philosophy of . . .” some discipline or activity is about the nature, purposes, methods, and limits of that discipline or activity. People can develop a philosophy of education, a philosophy of coaching, or a philosophy of leadership. This “philosophy of evangelical systematic theology” is an analysis of the nature, purposes, methods, and limits of evangelical systematic theology. This, in a nutshell, is what I hope to do here.

As I was about halfway through this project, a friend, Kurt Richardson, asked me one day to identify my mentors in this effort. What theologians was I following? His question caught me a bit off guard. I remember stuttering. The truth is that I am quite eclectic, for I find myself attracted to insights from a variety of sources. But I believe we can very often integrate the insights of varied, sometimes apparently conflicting theological viewpoints. The apparent conflicts arise because good insights are too often grossly overstated. Theologians will make two correct and complementary insights seem to contradict each other by stating their ideas in bold, assertive ways.

For example, on the one hand, our knowledge is limited by cultural per-spective. On the other hand, we can work together to find knowledge that is more and more faithful to the object of our inquiry. But some people get only one half of that balance. Some defend perspectivalism (see chapter 4): all knowledge is encased in the subjectivity of conceptual perspectives. So we can-not really know what is objectively true. Others will endorse objectivism: reality is what it is, and it possesses a certain ontological solidity that (if we are rigorous) we can correctly discover. So we can know quite certainly what is objectively true. Now these are contradictory conclusions. But I believe both that cultural perspectives can blind us to aspects of reality and that reality can push through the limitations of our cultural perspectives to shape genuine knowledge. It is obviously the case that culture influences us; it is also plainly true that we have found reliable ways to partially overcome our shortcomings. Clearly, we can identify opinions that are speculative, steered by “group-think,” or driven by political agenda. And obviously, we can spot convictions that reflect honesty, result from careful study, and represent epistemic virtue at work.

As in this example, I will often choose a carefully stated middle way. I will often claim that the insights of apparently contradictory viewpoints can and should be drawn together. This middle way is holistic. It is systemic in that it acknowledges the essential insight of systems theory: all things in a system relate to all other things in a system. The members in a system mutually affect and reinforce each other. This is true of all sets of theological convictions. As G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites by keeping them both and keeping them both furious.”[2] So I resist either/or quandaries. I see many as false dilemmas that are due to imprecision and overstatement, to inferences that go beyond the evidence, or to hasty generalizing. Some are rhetorically driven. They are created and maintained for political reasons. A false either/or can deliver rhetorical punch or cre-ate political impact. But the truth of things is rarely so simple. Clear definitions, precise distinctions, careful analysis, and modest conclusions are the antidote. These are not flashy, but they belong in the tool kits of good theologians.

Recent comments from Richard Mouw echo this stance. As he mulled over some of the common themes usually linked with postmodernism, Mouw identified things like the role of community in interpretation, the value of stories and narrative, and coherence as an epistemic value. Then he said that evangelical thinkers in his Reformed tradition—stalwarts like Abraham Kuyper, Cornelius Van Til, E. J. Carnell, and Francis Schaeffer—took the themes that postmodern thinkers get jazzed about “out for a walk.” These great evangelical thinkers defended properly modest versions of these motifs, Mouw argued, but they always kept these themes “on a leash.” They did not lock these dogs in small kennels. They took them out for walks. But they did not fear to pull back on the leash when these motifs strained too hard in the wrong direction—that is, when they threatened to make all truth relative.[3] The spirit expressed in Mouw’s metaphor reflects the wisdom I seek.

Pulling in the leash at just the right time and in just the right way demands a deft touch. I believe that we who are part of the evangelical theological community can improve our work in this regard. We could exercise greater precision. Non-evangelical scholars who navigate their theological boats downwind, sailing with the prevailing winds of the academy and broader culture, can express their views more loosely. The usual view is that any scholar who “privileges” a source of truth like the Bible forfeits academic respectability (though this may be changing somewhat). Those who sail with this wind can overstate the implications of their premises for rhetorical effect or under-produce evidence or arguments without seeming odd or unreasonable. But as evangelical theologians, we tack into this wind. This is a more difficult kind of sailing. So we cannot speak and write loosely. Articulating the viability of evangelical theology and faith in the current world calls for a higher level of clarity, precision, and restraint. Because we work against mainstream assumptions of the contemporary intellectual world, we do not have the luxury of appealing in general ways to exaggerated claims. We must be chastened and specific.

Such precision and clarity have paid off in another context. Anyone remotely aware of the current situation in philosophy knows of a revival of scholarship in philosophy of religion that promotes a critical realist view of God and of faith. This revival owes much to what is called the Reformed epistemology movement. In a remarkable article, naturalist Quentin Smith brought the news out of the closet, writing that orthodox Christians are making significant inroads in the philosophical world. “God is not ‘dead’ in academia,” wrote Smith. “He returned to life in the late 1960s and is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments.”[4] So to answer Kurt Richardson’s question, if any group of thinkers is important for my work, it is the philosophers of the Reformed epistemology movement. The careful thinking typical of analytic philosophy as practiced by Reformed epistemologists often shows how complementary insights, when expressed modestly, do in fact cohere. Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and William Alston model for us the clarity and precision I seek to emulate. They preserve the wisdom of the orthodox tradition, but do so in ways that satisfy the guidelines of contemporary thought. Unlike too many contemporary theologians, they do not discard the tradition too easily. I hope that evangelical theologians in the next generation will work with the intellectual rigor, reasoned understatement, and humble courage that characterize this movement.

In exploring the nature of evangelical theology, I obviously presuppose important questions. One important issue is the meaning of “evangelical theology.” Every theologian stands in some tradition, and I am no exception. Evangelical theology is not the theology of a specific denominational tradition like Anglicanism. It cuts across denominations. Many Methodists and Presbyterians describe themselves as evangelicals. Other Methodists and Presbyterians do not. Nor is evangelical theology limited to a clearly delineated theological tradition like Lutheran thought. Evangelical theology includes intellectual traditions as varied as Pentecostal and Anglican. Evangelical theology is, not surprisingly, the theology of a loose coalition or broad movement of like-minded Christ-followers known as evangelicals. So then, to back up one step, what is evangelicalism?[5]

Evangelicalism is a spiritual movement that displays sociological, theological, and experiential features. Some interpreters interpret evangelicalism prixxvi marily through sociological lenses. Martin Marty once quipped that evangelicals are “people who find Billy Graham or his viewpoints acceptable.”[6] Graham’s strategy was to invite any self-described Christian—including main-line Protestant and Roman Catholic believers—to cooperate in his evangelistic campaigns. Various mainline people and groups then decided whether to accept Graham’s overtures. Similarly, fundamentalist leaders, churches, and ministry agencies of the 1950s chose whether they were “for Billy or against Billy.” A majority decided they were “for Billy,” and the evangelical movement gradually gained some cohesiveness, then size, and finally stature. A generation after World War II, the popular press acknowledged the evangelical coming of age when a major news magazine designated 1976 the “Year of the Evangelical.” So evangelicalism today includes all who are connected with a particular network of social institutions—churches, ministry agencies, schools, magazines—and who relate to a certain set of people—leaders, artists, and preachers. Evangelicals are Christians who network with Christianity Today, Willow Creek, World Vision, Wheaton College, InterVarsity, Chuck Colson, Michael W. Smith, and, of course, Billy Graham.

A sociological grid for characterizing evangelicalism offers important insights. But as evangelicals, we typically define ourselves in another way. Like the fundamentalists, who defined themselves by citing fundamental theological beliefs, evangelicals commonly assume that the essential defining characteristics of evangelicalism are theological in nature. In this vein, David Bebbington asserted that evangelicals are those who hold to four things: “conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.”[7] Roger Olson, writing on “The Future of Evangelical Theology” in the quintessential evangelical magazine, Christianity Today, called evangelicalism a theological movement. Evangelicals accent four nonnegotiable theological commitments: the supremacy of the Bible, a supernatural worldview centering on the living Creator God, a conversion experience of God through Christ, and the imperative for mission and service.[8]

In this essay, Olson suggested that among evangelicals, “traditionalists” and “reformists” are striking out in different theological directions on issues like the nature of theology as well as the relation of theology to other religions and other cultures. Traditionalists advocate caution concerning new theological proposals and emphasize historic theological expressions as important safe-guards against intellectual compromise. Their top priority is ensuring that relevance to contemporary culture does not erode commitment to historic Christian theology. Reformists promote careful exploration of theological innovations and regard historic Christian theological claims as valuable but also fallible. Their main concern is continuing to open up new expressions of Christian truth, based on the authority of Scripture, even to the point of replacing traditional interpretations. Olson described the different orientations of traditionalists and reformists as a kind of fault line along which pressure has been building for several decades. Unless this crisis is resolved, he claimed, the “shaky unity” of evangelicalism may dissolve. On the other hand, vigorous debate of the fundamental perspectives of traditionalists and reformists may reenergize evangelical theology, providing catalytic energy that will drive for-ward the creativity and influence of historic Christian faith.[9]

Regardless of how one evaluates the two mentalities Olson identified, there is a more fundamental question: Is evangelicalism basically a theological movement? Kenneth Kantzer, a leading evangelical theologian, wrote, “As constituting a movement, evangelicals may be defined as orthodox Protestants adhering to the ‘material’ or content principle of salvation through personal faith in Jesus Christ and the ‘formal’ or formative principle of the final authority of Holy Scripture.”[10] Olson and Kantzer assumed that evangelicalism is essentially a theological movement.

By contrast, Stanley Grenz wrote that the enduring essence of evangelical-ism is the experience of conversion. Theology is very important, in Grenz’s account, but it is secondary to experience.[11] This makes evangelicalism most fundamentally an experiential movement. The reaction of many established evangelical theologians to this proposal is at best lukewarm and at worst strong rejection.[12] In my view, their response contains some wisdom. The problem with assuming that evangelicalism is an experiential movement—a movement defined most essentially by the experience of conversion—is that religious experience is notoriously malleable. In my theologically formative years, I had this lesson drilled into me. My undergraduate theology professor reminded his charges over and over again that Friedrich Schleiermacher was a Pietist. Schleiermacher, who emphasized religious experience, launched liberal theology. By citing this fact, my professor meant to warn us that placing experience at the center of faith opens a door to theological error.

So is evangelicalism most essentially a sociological, theological, or experiential movement? Grenz and other reformists usually say that evangelicalism is an experiential movement. Although I see the wisdom in the warnings sounded by Grenz’s critics, I think Grenz landed his horseshoe closest to the pin. Evangelicalism is a movement of people and communities drawn to the Father, by the Holy Spirit, through the redemption of Christ. As we come to the Father, we experience spiritual healing and wholeness that issues in a life of worship and service. We who are evangelical share this experience.

But then, how is Schleiermacher’s error avoided? How do we ensure that the path to heterodoxy (or worse) is blocked? My answer is that evangelical-ism is, more fundamentally than anything else, a spiritual movement. By this I mean that evangelicalism is a movement where spiritual experience is the identifying feature. Evangelicalism is experiential in that theological truth must be embodied in vivid, personal experience and in service. This experience is not Schleiermacher’s generic religious experience. It is not some squishy, contemporary spirituality. This is because evangelicalism is theological. Evangelicalism is theological precisely because the teaching about reconciliation to the triune God shapes spiritual experience. Having this kind of spiritual experience is at the heart of evangelical identity. Describing and interpreting this kind of spiritual experience lies at the core of the task of evangelical theology. Again, the furious opposites.

So evangelicalism is both a theological and an experiential movement. On the intellectual side, it depends on theology as a science (what Augustine called scientia). This is theology directed toward a disciplined intellectual knowledge of God. Theology as science is necessary for evangelical spirituality. And it is penultimately important for faith. But knowledge of truth is not identical to experience of God, and it cannot replace the experience. Evangelicalism is a movement that coalesces around the spiritual experience of reconciliation with the Father through Christ and by the Spirit.

This is why theology is never less than truth about God. But theology is never only about expressing true information about God. It is always that, and it is always more than that. Evangelical theology is more ultimately wisdom (what Augustine called sapientia) which is the application of truth directed toward the transformation of people and communities. This is of ultimate importance. Unlike dead orthodoxy, the theological dimension is always incarnated in experience. Unlike misguided heresy, the experiential dimension is always shaped by genuinely biblical theology. The scientific side of theology, as evangelicals understand it, is a necessary but not sufficient pathway to the sapiential purposes of theology. In other words, spiritual life must have theology as one of its ingredients, but having this one ingredient will not by itself guarantee that spiritual life blossoms. So this is the evangelical distinctive: spir-ituality—a theological experience, an experiential theology, all at once. Knowing and loving God!

The wedding band offers a simple illustration. The ring illustrates evangelicalism’s status as a spiritual movement. The ring’s outer surface is theological; its inner surface is experiential. The whole is spiritual. One cannot imagine a ring that has but one surface. The ring and its outer surface, though necessarily united, are not identical—evangelical faith is essentially theological. The ring and its inner surface again are necessarily united but not identical—evangelical spirituality is essentially theologically experiential or experientially theological.

A better illustration yet is the Möbius Strip. This is like a wedding band, but it has a single 180 degree twist. The Möbius Strip has two sides, yet the twist means that the two sides exhibit an obvious unity. An ant walking along the band will find he is able to hike continuously. He circles once on the inside, then hits the “twist” and circles on the outside, only to hit the “twist” and go back to the inside. The strip appears to have two sides, but the sides actually form a single continuous side. The two-ness and the oneness are mutual.[13] Similarly, evangelical spirituality is a dynamic, two-in-one reality in which the theological dimension and the experiential dimension are both essential. Each mutually reinforces the other, and both are needed to create the whole. In evangelical spirituality, theology and experience comprise an essential unity.

To describe an appropriate model for fostering evangelical spirituality, I begin in chapter 1 by recounting the history of the concept of theology. I conclude that theology is like a bridge between Scripture and a particular culture. But this image leaves the question: Exactly how can we do theology so that it is both entirely faithful to its source, the Bible, and completely relevant to its goal, the transformation of people and communities in particular cultures? So in chapter 2, I address the question of theology’s faithfulness to its source. This is the authority of the Bible. But the very idea of religious authority smacks people the wrong way. So can we defend a concept of religious authority without caving in to authoritarianism? Can we argue for biblical authority without making our arguments the supreme authority? How can we visualize our com-mitment to sola scriptura so that we both preserve God as the ultimate source of truth and also properly warrant our knowledge of God? In chapter 3, I turn to the other pole, namely, connection with context. We come to the Bible with our culture and life experience in place. No one is a theological tabula rasa. If theology speaks to our situation, does it lose connection with the Bible? What strategy shields our thinking from influences in the culture that could distort our readings of the Bible?

In light of chapter 3 especially, I need to make a special point about culture. Clearly, I use the tools of an intellectual tradition—analytic philosophy—to analyze evangelical systematic theology. I acknowledge that many people associate this tradition with Western styles of thought. I hope it will be clear to every reader, however, that the formal analysis that I offer will open up space for truly contextual theology. Now doing analysis of theology formally, and doing theology contentfully in a particular culture are not the same thing. The tools for doing analysis of theology are, of course, abstract and philosophical. The tools for doing contextualized theology are not exclusively so. The fact that a conceptual analysis of the nature, task, and purposes of theology is necessarily philosophical in nature does not entail that theological work and ministry communication had best follow a philosophical style. By using the tools of philosophy to do the specific task of this book I do not hint in any way that good theology must be philosophical and therefore Western theology. It is critical that no reader makes this wrong inference. Good theology is true to the Bible and powerfully transformative for real people in real cultures. And, as my analysis will show, good theology that achieves transformation will use a variety of modes of thinking, forms of art, and styles of communication as situations dictate.

Specifically, in chapter 3, I argue that Christian communicators rightly use symbols that are powerful for their specific audience, though they should do so critically. In chapter 7, I offer a model that shows the five phases or stages of theology. This “five-phase model” honors the need for conceptual clarity in the testing of theological models. Equally, it highlights the need for evocative power in the communication of theological motifs in a particular culture. So my writing is philosophical and analytical in style. But the point of that writing is to strongly urge Christians in every context to creatively use the modes of thought, styles of communication, and forms of artistic expression of their local culture as they communicate the gospel. These expressions can be both biblically sound and culturally powerful. If we fail in this, we will not fulfill the culture-transforming purposes of theology.

The next two chapters concern diversity and unity in theological thinking. In chapter 4, I tackle a perilous assumption common in the intellectual life of our culture. This is the idea that all truth is true only within a particular perspective or point of view. Clearly, our perspectives do shape human thinking. But a full-blown perspectivalism implies that we cannot get out of our finite perspectives to find an ultimate unity of truth. Can we recognize any wisdom in the persistent contemporary idea that knowledge is always from a point of view without sliding into relativist thinking? These first four chapters form a unit that describes theology’s role in connecting Scripture and culture. Chapter 5 explores whether the churchly academic disciplines—church history, biblical studies, and systematic theology—achieve a unity of truth. Can we benefit from the different viewpoints represented by these disciplines and still arrive back at a unity of truth?

Then I turn to several questions that cluster around the relation of theology to the church. In chapter 6, I explore the role of theology in the university setting. People who work in higher education believe that universities cannot commit to an allegedly uncriticizable source of truth like the Bible. They opt for the supposedly neutral study of religion, rather than the discipline of theology. How does theology interact with religious studies? How can theology fulfill its purposes if it interacts with the values of the university? Or does theology really belong in the church? But that raises the question of chapter 7. How does theology serve the church? What is the purpose of theology? Is it primarily to mark out the boundaries of the Christian or evangelical church over against academic values, secularized theology, or cultural pluralism? Or are there other purposes?

Next I turn to explore how theology interacts with several important disciplines of study. Chapter 8 introduces theology in its relation to the sciences. Is it best to see theology and science in conflict, in separate compartments, or in a complementary relationship? Or are there new ways to see the integration of science with theology? Another discipline is philosophy. In chapter 9, I discuss different notions of how philosophy operates. Are there ways to apply the insights of philosophical work in the building of a theological worldview? How do presuppositions affect theology? Of what relevance is evidence to theology? How should we think about the structuring and organizing of our theological beliefs? In chapter 10, the issue is religious pluralism. What if many or all of the world’s religions actually teach what is true, or what if they all lead to God? That raises several sets of questions for evangelical faith. But the main issue here is this: Does the challenge of religious pluralism mean that Christians should not proceed with their theological work?

In chapter 11, I address questions of truth. What is truth? Is it reasonable to think there is such a thing? And what account can we give of truth, language, and reality? Does the traditional notion that true statements correspond to the world—that language refers to a real world—make sense? Finally, in chapter 12, I shift the focus slightly to specifically religious language. If human language does speak about the world, does it speak about God? What sort of view regarding language can we exploit to understand how we talk about God, talk to him in worship, and talk with him in prayer?

I believe all these questions have reasonable answers. To explain and defend all those reasonable answers is a monumental task. But we can, I believe, hold that evangelical theology is a reasonable human activity and that it is a medium of true knowledge of God through which we can know and love him. Evangelical systematic theology is this: it is the science by which evangelical believers learn of God. It is rooted in the Bible and focused on Christ. Through this knowledge, the Spirit transforms us into followers of Christ and forms us into Christian communities, awakening in us the wisdom of God that leads to genuine worship and cultural transformation. Through theology we know and love God.

Good theology provides the vision that guides and motivates those who desire God. Good theology fosters the love of God without which no one becomes good. Passionate love motivates theology about God without which no one becomes truly wise. Those who become good because they open them-selves to being loved by God will enter covenant relationship with him and with fellow believers. God will satisfy their deepest longings for love and belonging, for meaning and significance—to the praise of God’s eternal glory.

CHAPTER

ONE

CONCEPTS OF THEOLOGY

The Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c. 100–c. 164) faced a dilemma. He entrusted his soul to a humble Jewish rabbi who lived and died only a century before him. Such a short time span, a mere one hundred years, would pose no problem today. We despise what is old and treasure what is new. But the ancients, with their respect for hoary traditions, felt suspicion toward any prophet so recent as that. To meet an objection that emerged from his particular culture, Justin identified his Savior with Logos, the principle of Reason that the early Greeks recognized. He even claimed that Plato borrowed some of the themes in The Republic from Moses.[1] In this way, he hoped to show that his doctrine about Jesus was not an innovation but the crowning glory of a long tradition. Like many theologians since, Justin contemplated the meaning of his faith. Borrowing concepts from several sources, he sought to relate his faith directly to his culture. This, in general terms, is the task of systematic theology: theology seeks to articulate the content of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the context of a particular culture. The purpose of this work is to explore how evangelical theology fulfills this task.

I. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Christians have thought about their faith for two millennia. Concrete, practical problems like Justin’s often stimulated Christian reflection. This theology is tactical; it responds, sometimes in an ad hoc manner, to issues and needs as they arise. A millennium after Justin, Peter Lombard (c. 1100–1160), in his Sentences, attempted to answer more systematically the questions scholars ask about Christian theology. This theology is not tactical, but strategic; it expresses in a broad, synthetic style the content of Christian believing. Writing a true systematic theology means describing, interpreting, and applying Christian doctrine in a comprehensive manner. As a discipline, systematic theology examines God, God’s works, and God’s relationship with his creation, and it expresses its content in terms of particular cultures.

A. Patristic Beginnings

Early Christians, of course, were not self-conscious about their concepts of theology. During the patristic period, they used ‘theology’ to mean the doctrine of God. A strategic, systematic theology would not develop for centuries. Yet as Christians crafted their convictions about God to fit their time and place, the Christian church developed implicit views about how to express its mes-sage. The historical context in which the church’s first theologians lived and worked forced them to consider the relation of Christianity to pagan culture and philosophy.

The word theologia has Greek origins. Among the Greeks, the word denoted a chronicle of the gods of Greece. Early on, the great poets of Greece offered accounts of their polytheistic and anthropomorphic deities. Later, the Stoics and other philosophers developed more philosophically oriented versions of these narratives about the divine. Theologia in this sense became an important piece within humanitas, the larger educational process that included not just understanding of the divine but of humanity and nature as well. The main view, then, was that wise persons should not raise wisdom about God to a higher position that is independent of other intellectual pursuits.[2]

In presenting his case, Justin followed this strategy, freely connecting Christian themes with concepts from pagan philosophy. In addition, he claimed against the Romans that Christians are not rebels but model citizens.[3] In rebut-ting the Jews, he used detailed exegesis to show that the NT does in fact fulfill the OT.[4] The Martyr’s practice already involved certain assumptions about the nature of Christian proclamation even if he did not expend effort developing an explicit model of theology. He aggressively adapted concepts his audience would know and allowed their perspectives to shape his discussion of distinctively Christian ideas.

Similarly, among the Alexandrians, philosophy supported theology. Clement (c. 150–c. 219) stimulated an important tradition with his view that Greek philosophy purifies the individual in preparation for receiving a true knowledge (gnosis) which is the highest expression of the gift of Christian faith.[5] Going beyond Clement, Origen of Alexandria (c. 186–c. 232) produced On First Principles, which fleshes out a more extensive Christian expression of this gnosis.[6] Origen built his argument on Clement’s distinction between simple faith and higher, speculative wisdom, and then tied this distinction to the allegorical method of biblical interpretation. The literal or material meanings of Scripture correlate to simple faith while the allegorical or spiritual meanings connect with wisdom.[7] Yet like other patristics, Origen’s interest was primarily biblical, for he wrote On First Principles primarily to persuade some anti-intellectual Christians of the validity of his work in biblical studies. When the Alexandrians used philosophical categories and perspectives, they deliberately sanctified and transformed them, putting them into the service of biblical thought.

In his implicit conception of theologizing, Tertullian (c. 160–c. 220) took a different approach, at least on the surface. In his well-known and dramatic claims, Tertullian placed Christianity and pagan thought in sharp opposition. “What has Jerusalem to do with Athens, the Church with the Academy, the Christian with the heretic?” he asked rhetorically.[8] “The Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd.”[9] But Tertullian’s bold statements should not obscure his subtle use of argument. Clearly, Tertullian rejected some content of pagan philosophy, but he used the careful thinking and interpreting that are the heart of philosophy as a method. “There are logical limits to the possibilities for human irrationality,” Richard Swinburne noted dryly, “and even Tertullian cannot step outside them.”[10]

Similarly, the illustrious Irenaeus (c. 130–202) was more wary of specifically pagan concepts than were the Alexandrians. In pursuing a major agenda, the refutation of Gnosticism, Irenaeus revealed his commitment to apostolic teaching and a self-consciously biblical method. As the basis of true knowledge or gnosis, the church preserves the true apostolic tradition in its mother churches (those founded by apostles) and in the Scriptures themselves. The heretics go wrong, he argued, when they use a perverted method of biblical interpretation. They disconnect biblical truths from each other like a depraved artist who rearranges the pieces of a beautiful mosaic. To counter this, a Christian theologian should set specific citations in their proper context within the whole fabric of biblical truth.[11]

Though Irenaeus refuted the content of Gnostic philosophy, he did not repudiate all pagan language or concepts. Rather, he expressed Christian truth and argument by adapting certain pagan categories to Christian use. Consider his use of the word gnosis. Irenaeus rebutted Gnosticism, not by showing that gnosis is heretical or evil, but by declaring that true gnosis is found in Christ as revealed in the apostolic tradition.[12] While not as overt as the Alexandrians, the biblically oriented Irenaeus and even the rhetorically dramatic Tertullian used categories implicit in their culture to develop and explain their Christian theology.

Like his predecessors, the great St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) reflected his time. His voluminous writings tackled a variety of ecclesiastical and theological issues. Yet he wrote to meet specific problems. For instance, his great masterpiece, The City of God, a philosophical interpretation of history, is an occasional work. Although Christianity was the official religion of the empire, pagans whispered that the betrayal of the Roman gods by the Christians caused Alaric’s sack of Rome. In answering this charge, Augustine addressed the content of faith to his context, but did not present it in a systematic way. No Christian had yet written, or even thought about, a systematic theology.

An important topic related to theology is the relation of faith and reason. There was some confusion in the first centuries about the value of reason, but Augustine’s opinion was quite positive. Augustine’s dialogical understanding of faith and reason confirms in a general way Clement’s claim that pagan and Christian thought complement each other in building theology. Faith and reason, authority and understanding, reinforce each other. Yet Augustine preserved the priority of faith. Augustine expressed this by saying, “faith, you see, is a step toward understanding; understanding is the well-deserved recompense of faith.”[13] In temporal sequence, faith (which is really a commitment to a Christian way of life) precedes full understanding, for one first accepts basic Christian truth on divine authority. At the same time, in order to exercise faith, a person must understand the words that minimally explain the gospel. Reason can also help us decide which of several competing authorities to adopt. Thus, reason tells us that it is rational to accept what reason alone cannot demonstrate. [14] Then, after initially accepting basic Christian truth, the Christian the-ologian moves forward, using reason to acquire richer understanding. In this dialectic, faith and reason reinforce each other.[15]

For the theologian who would grasp Scripture fully, the Bishop of Hippo recommended gaining skill in biblical languages, the nature of being, dialectics (refuting sophistry and learning to define words and distinguish concepts), eloquence, the science of numbers, history, and law.[16] With these skills, fuller understanding would elucidate faith, removing objections and developing Christian knowledge. In a word, Augustine advised, “First believe, then under-stand.” [17] His view commanded allegiance for centuries. St. Anselm (1033–1104), for instance, echoed Augustine: “I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe—that unless I believe, I should not understand.”[18]

One distinction in Augustine’s thought is of continued importance for theology even though academic theology today sometimes shunts this distinction to a sidetrack. Augustine preferred the word ‘wisdom’ (in Latin, sapientia) to ‘knowledge’ (in Latin, scientia; basically episteme in Greek and Wissen in German) as a description of the Christian reflection about God.[19] Sapientia is contemplative understanding of divine and eternal things. Scientia is active knowledge of mundane and temporal things. The word ‘science’ would later come to denote an academic discipline, as in the phrase “queen of the sciences.” Later still, in modern times, it would come to mean the method of empirical observation and explanation, as in “modern science.” But in Augustine’s sense, theology goes beyond mere science to wisdom as the believer orders or applies knowledge according to the highest good, namely, the love of God. Wisdom, then, is knowledge directed to salvation.

In contemporary terms, we could say that wisdom is not merely knowledge about God, but knowledge directed toward knowing and loving God person-ally. It is information applied for the purpose of transformation. It is “engaged knowledge that emotionally connects the knower to the known.”[20] In light of this, evangelical theology is not merely scientia. More fundamentally, it is scientia directed to the purposes of sapientia. So Augustine’s distinction provides a framework for the concept of evangelical systematic theology that I will defend in this book. To anticipate, we should understand scientia, the science of God, as an indispensable feature of theology. In this dimension, theology is a disciplined activity by which the church reflects on the nature, will, and ways of the Creator. But scientia, isolated by itself, is a truncated theology. For theology requires another dimension: sapientia, the wisdom of God. For the definitive purpose of theology is the knowledge of God applied as wisdom. It forms godly character in Christians as they live in community, and it governs the loves and the lives of faithful Christians who serve God and transform culture. Any theology that loses contact with this goal falls short.

B. Medieval Modifications

The medieval period saw several important innovations on the concept of theology. John of Damascus (c. 674–c. 749) displayed a fourfold pattern (prolegomena, theology, anthropology and soteriology, ecclesiology and eschatology). This still influences some forms of theology today.[21] Peter Abelard (1079–1142) helped establish the medieval method of synthesis. He sought both to force critical reflection about the apparently contradictory opin-ions of the Fathers whom he quoted and, to some degree, to reconcile them.[22] Abelard’s student, Peter Lombard (c. 1100–1160), wrote a theological text-book, The Sentences, in which he followed the Damascene’s organizational pattern, arranging the discussion topically rather than biblically. Like his teacher, Lombard compiled sources that addressed in a sequential way many of the questions scholars were asking about Christian theology—although he himself left some of the tensions unresolved.

Alain of Lille (c. 1116– c. 1202) first called theology a science in a new sense—as an academic discipline.[23] A science is a coherently ordered field of inquiry that is based on presuppositions and follows rules that are suited to its own method and object. Theology, conceived as a science in this way, found a home in the newly developing medieval universities, beginning with Paris around 1200. Those in the universities distinguished the various disciplines or faculties. Students began by studying the arts and then moved into law, medicine, or theology. As part of this process, academics sought to clarify the relation of theology to philosophy. The standard approach was to place philosophy or natural reason logically first so it could provide the basis for sacred theology and supernatural revelation. Thus the earliest parts of theology tended to focus on metaphysical issues such as the existence and attributes of God, as they were understood philosophically and scientifically. Once grounded in these disciplines, theologians turned to biblical materials that dealt with salvation and the church. In this arrangement, interpretations of biblical themes came under the influence of the philosophical and scientific background. Theology became the culmination of all learning. Although it existed as a separate faculty, it was the queen of the sciences.

In Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) the medieval synthesis found its high-est expression. Thomas’s view of faith and reason both reflects and reinforces theology as a new discipline. It was in his thirteenth-century context that the word ‘theologia’ was first used for what we call theology. Thomas affirmed the value of unaided reason, and in so doing modified Augustine’s view of its relation to faith. For Thomas, unaided reason, operating without faith, can demonstrate such things as the existence, oneness, and simplicity of God. Through faith (that is, understanding acquired through the authority of the church), we can believe (but not prove) these truths. Reason and faith, then, are independent and parallel paths leading to knowledge about God.

At this time, some Christians worried about the encroachment of philosophy on theology.[24] Responding to concerns about the intrusion of philosophy, Thomas limited the range of knowledge that is open to discovery through reason. Doctrines like the Trinity and the incarnation are grasped only by faith. In matters where special revelation goes beyond reason, reason can show the internal coherence of revelation by placing various truths into their proper connections. But reason cannot provide philosophical demonstration. In Augustine, faith and reason operate dialectically from the beginning. In Aquinas, faith and understanding initially stand in a parallel relationship as two paths to understanding. Later, faith moves beyond reason.[25] Thus theology is “a rational and scientific consideration of the revealed datum . . . a sci-entifically elaborated copy of the faith.”[26]

Since for Thomas, reason initially runs on a parallel path to faith, one may legitimately come to know that God exists either by reason or by accepting God’s existence as a matter of faith. Yet theology is in the end clearly higher than philosophy. Theology uses philosophy to demonstrate the fundamental truths of theology, to illustrate spiritual truth by analogy with natural truth, and to defend the faith against attack. The theological use of philosophy is legitimate, for God’s gifts of grace intensify nature; they do not destroy it. But Christians must not allow philosophy to dominate theology. Theology goes beyond the bounds of philosophy. Theology uses philosophy when it is suit-able to do so. Unlike Immanuel Kant, who said that religion is rightly kept within the bounds of reason alone, Thomas held that philosophy is rightly used as the servant of sacred doctrine.[27]

As Protestants, most evangelicals do not follow the tradition of medieval theology and Scholasticism. Contemporary laypersons and even some clergy and academics consider that tradition pedantic and obscure. Interestingly, Thomas recognized this problem and determined to avoid it himself. Speaking of other theologies, he wrote,

I have noticed how they are frequently held up, sometimes by heaps of useless questions, points and arguments, sometimes because the information comes out disjointedly from commentaries on texts or from disputations to meet academic occasions, sometimes because excessive repetition induces blankness and boredom.

Trusting in God’s help, I shall try, therefore, to avoid these draw-backs and to expound sacred doctrine as briefly and clearly as the sub-ject-matter allows.[28]

Though he saw sacred doctrine as a science, Thomas believed that he kept the needs of his audience in mind as he wrote his theology. But many lesser medieval theologians lacked Thomas’s spiritual vitality, and their theology actually does seem sterile and petrified. Partly in response to lifeless theology, St. Bonaventure (1221–1274) developed theology that placed greater stress on the divine initiative in theology. He held that theology requires, not merely intellect, but a living and personal faith that includes appropriate character traits and attitudes. Like science, knowledge of God is a gift of God. Theology depends primarily on God’s grace through revelation and not on science that investigates sensible objects. In his more Augustinian view, Bonaventure raised Christian knowing to the theological, spiritual, even mystical level. The title of his most important work, The Journey of the Mind to God, aptly expresses his outlook.[29]

In the century following Thomas, nominalists sided with Bonaventure in emphasizing the spiritual element of theology. Distrustful of reason when used to demonstrate theology, the skillful philosopher William of Ockham (c. 1290–c. 1349) said that theology should address the spiritual needs of Christians. Ockham doubted the possibility of proving God philosophically. He believed philosophy leads to theological speculation. Although his own philosophy was rigorous, he stressed in his theology the absolute power and freedom of God and in his spirituality a simple faith and a dependence on the Scriptures.[30] This perspective undermined the Thomistic synthesis and fertilized the soil in which the Reformation attitudes toward theology would soon grow.

C. Reformation and Post-Reformation Developments

The Reformers definitively challenged the content of the medieval synthesis although in some ways the Reformed view of theology is closer to the medieval than it is to the modern world. Although they differed among themselves on many issues, the Reformers agreed on the fundamental methodological principle of sola scriptura. For Martin Luther (1483–1546), for instance, this meant he would not countenance the collaboration of theology with philosophy. He renounced any metaphysical or abstract knowledge of God as essentially anthropocentric. It is theologia gloriae, theology of glory. He even asserted, with his usual rhetorical flourish, that when philosophical speculation seeks God as the cause of the universe, it makes the devil and God into one monstrous being.[31] Human reason is blinded by sin; humans need the Christ who comes to them in revelation.

This does not mean that Luther denied natural revelation. Of course, he decisively rejected natural theology as the Scholastics had practiced it and resisted what he perceived as the medievals’ tendency to trust unaided reason. For Luther, natural revelation leads to legitimate, God-given knowledge. Natural knowledge of God is not humanly generated. It is revelation that God simply chooses to convey through the medium of nature. God is the giver of all theological understanding, sometimes through natural means, but supremely through Scripture.

Luther wrote theology to address specific problems, and he never produced a truly comprehensive systematic theology. His theology emphasizes paradoxes such as God’s wrath and mercy, sin and salvation, judgment and forgiveness, law and grace. Yet he saw Christian teaching as an organic whole. Theology is about the gospel: God’s call to sinners to experience forgiveness by grace through faith. Salvation is God’s work entirely. Since the various aspects of Christian thought interrelate, theology is God-centered. It is impossible that humans could depend entirely on God for salvation, and then somehow through their own philosophical reflection achieve genuine knowledge of the divine being. Instead, except for the grace of God, humans are helpless both for salvation and for theology. In every way, Luther sought to preserve the prominence of theology as the story of God’s work for human persons.

By hearing the truth of Scripture, humans receive understanding that leads to salvation. Thus Luther wrote, “the proper subject of theology is man, guilty of sin and condemned, and God the Justifier and Savior of man, the sinner. Whatever is asked or discussed in theology outside this subject, is error and poison.” Theology’s purpose is not informational, but personal. “Theological knowledge is necessary: A man should know himself, should know, feel, and experience that he is guilty of sin and subject to death; but he should also know the opposite, that God is the Justifier and Redeemer of a man who knows him-self in this way.”[32] To know God theologically is to know God experientially, not philosophically. Theology serves the purposes of salvation. This is theologia crucis, theology of the cross.[33]

Like Luther, John Calvin’s (1509–1564) theology displays a biblical orientation. His great theological achievement, Institutes of the Christian Religion, the most systematic theological expression of the Reformation, does not begin with theistic metaphysics. Unlike the medieval theologies, Calvin’s work opens by discussing the knowledge of God. Knowledge of God is available every-where, wrote Calvin, since God has naturally implanted that knowledge in the minds of all persons. God intends that this knowledge will lead humans not merely to idle speculations but to salvation through Christ. This explains why Institutes has a much shorter discussion of God’s metaphysical attributes than do medieval theologies (although Calvin largely accepted traditional ideas about God’s metaphysical attributes). Through sin and ignorance, knowledge of God is either corrupted or smothered. So to receive the knowledge of God, humans must first develop a reverence and experience a love for God in salvation. By this means God in effect restores sight to the blind. Only then do humans see the knowledge that is always available all around them.

God’s chosen means for producing knowledge of God that leads to salvation is the Scripture. In his famous metaphor, Calvin described the Scripture as spectacles:

Just as old or bleary-eyed men and those with weak vision, if you thrust before them a most beautiful volume, even if they recognize it to be some sort of writing, yet can scarcely construe two words, but with the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispersed our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.[34]

Calvin’s theology follows a familiar pattern. After his early teaching on the knowledge of God, Calvin turned to treatments of sin and human need, expla-nations of the human response through repentance, faith, and Christian living, and discussions about the church.

Like Luther, Calvin distrusted human reason, rejecting the view that humans can gain knowledge of God through unaided reason. Calvin did admit that reason, as far as it goes, supports the veracity of Scripture. In the end, however, “Scripture will ultimately suffice for a saving knowledge of God only when its certainty is founded upon the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit.”[35] Here we see that for Calvin, the purpose of theology is salvation.

The generations following the Reformation created the period of Protestant scholasticism. Refinement, precision, and consolidation mark the theology of this era. Reformed theologians pondered the order of God’s decrees. (Did God decree election first and then decree to permit the fall, or the other way around?) Lutherans discussed the details of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. Only in this period did Protestants begin discussing theological method. But because the Protestant scholastics used increasingly fine distinctions to answer speculative questions, the theology of this time degenerated. Some of it is pedantic nitpicking. Ironically and regrettably, the scholastics in some ways revived certain weaknesses in medieval Scholasticism. For example, some Protestants used Aristotelian versions of the arguments for God’s existence with little adaptation. Those who defend the Protestants argue that the scholastics responded effectively to the Catholic Counter-Reformation by adapting to their opponents’ style. This argument has some validity. Unfortunately, the strategy contributed to a kind of Protestant theology that preserved certain weaknesses, in style and in content, from the medieval era.

As Protestant scholasticism developed in the generations following the Reformation, groups of radical reformers also emerged. These radical reformers or “believers’ churches” (like Baptists, Quakers, Moravians, Mennonites, Pietists, and Brethren) generally accepted much Reformation theology. But they also typically modified it at a few points, often in the area of soteriology (under the influence of vivid spiritual experiences) or ecclesiology (with their unique views on the sacraments and on the essence and meaning of membership in the church). Yet few of them (excepting the Puritans) wrote formal theologies. In their informal theology, many stressed personal spiritual disciplines and moral purity. But because much of the written theology to which the contemporary evangelical world can relate came from the tradition of Protestant scholasticism, especially of the Reformed variety, this style continues to influence con-temporary evangelical theology.

II. CONTEMPORARY OPTIONS

The eighteenth century saw many culture-changing revivals led by the likes of John Wesley and George Whitefield. In the same period, a set of converging forces coalesced, leading Europe’s cultural elite eventually to discard traditional Christian theological claims. These forces represent the heritage of the Enlightenment. At the hub of this heritage is the rejection of traditional authority and the affirmation of human autonomy. Edward Farley aptly summarized,

The Enlightenment encompasses an epoch of European culture, a broad cultural ethos, and an ideal. The age was roughly the eighteenth century. The ethos occurred in circles of high culture and learning and was borne by intellectuals, scientists, educators, and scholars of Europe: Diderot and Voltaire, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, Goethe and Kant. The ideal was a vision of a society progressing toward harmony and justice under the guidance of leaders unhampered by superstition, prejudice, or authority, and willing to allow pure reason to be their guide.[36]

A. Shapers of Contemporary Theologizing

The story of liberal theology in the West beginning around 1800 is the account of various theological responses to the eclipse of tradition and the negation of authority in the shadow of the Enlightenment. These developments associated with the Enlightenment pressed theologians to rethink issues like the task, nature, methods, and legitimacy of theology as they were traditionally under-stood. Very different views of theological method—and consequently of theo-logical content—emerged.

Responding to the cultural developments of the late eighteenth century, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) stimulated new ways of conceiving theology. He was the so-called father of liberal theology, for his views still lie at the root of much liberal theology. Prior to Schleiermacher, Christian tradition, both Catholic and Protestant, assumed that biblical and theological statements about God describe real, external objects. But Enlightenment thinkers doubted the Bible could be literally true. Due to commitments to certain views of human reason, the “cultured despisers of religion,” as Schleiermacher called his friends in Romanticism, disdained religion altogether. In his first major work addressed to this group, Schleiermacher did not defend intellectual dogma. Rather, he asked the cultured despisers to see religion as something rooted in direct religious apprehension or experience.[37]

Later, in writing the great systematic theology of early liberalism, Schleiermacher again rooted theology in religious experience. The Christian Faith does not build theology directly on an authoritative Bible. Schleiermacher saw the Bible as a record of the experiences of an ancient tribe of Semites. Instead, Schleiermacher’s model of theology applied the innovative approach of his book On Religion: this change is the so-called turn to experience. This phrase describes two reinforcing factors, a new realization of the prominence of experience in religion and a decision to place experience at the foundation of theology. Reflecting the turn to experience, Schleiermacher wrote that the-ology’s function is to analyze religious experience. Analyses of religious experience reveal that humans possess a sense of “absolute dependence.” The whatever-it-is that is the object of this dependence (the “Whence” of absolute dependence, Schleiermacher called it) is One whom Christian theology calls God. In this way, Schleiermacher tried to show religion’s despisers that the reality Christians describe when speaking of God is already available to them in their own experience.[38] But in effect, Schleiermacher’s new model cut theology off from the object of theology—God himself. Theology became more a discussion of what humans experience about God, rather than an exploration of what God says about God. Given this understanding, Schleiermacher could not see theology as a science of God in the classical sense.

During the next century, liberalism gradually came to dominate theology in Europe. Like theologians before them, the liberals adopted assumptions com-mon in their age. For this reason, liberal theology is best understood as Christian faith making its peace with the Enlightenment. As the twentieth cen-tury opened, however, Karl Barth’s (1886–1968) work launched a radical reevaluation of the liberal view of theology that Schleiermacher had initiated. Indeed, Barth rejected the very idea of systematic theology because it connotes a coherent edifice of thought built on general philosophical assumptions. He titled his monumental work Church Dogmatics to highlight the connection of theology to the Word of God (which is unique to the church), rather than to religious experience (which is common to all humans). Barth’s view of theology reasserted in various ways the independence of dogmatics from all merely human modes of thought.[39]

Barth willingly called theology a science. Like other activities designated as a science, theology is a human inquiry into a definite object and follows a specific path to knowledge. In this sense, theology is the science of dogma.[40] ‘Dogma’ denotes the content of the church’s believing; it is the Word of God in church proclamation. “The task then of dogmatics is to be that of investigating church proclamation as to its agreement with the Word of God.”[41] Dogmatics is accountable first to the living Word, Jesus Christ, the essence of the church. It has no interest in apologetic or philosophical concerns. Although its understanding of Christ is not infallible, dogmatics presupposes that Jesus Christ is the truth. This presupposition means that dogmatics is an act of faith. Dogmatics is not humanly induced thought, but the result of God’s gracious act toward the church. Dogmatics is possible only within the church and requires the church to listen and obey.[42]

Standing in contrast to Barth is another important model of theological method, Paul Tillich’s (1886–1965) “method of correlation.” Speaking broadly, Tillich placed Schleiermacher’s and Barth’s interests in tandem. Schleiermacher tried to connect theology to the experience of human persons generally. Barth sought to reflect a unique and genuinely divine revelation. Tillich said theology must do both. For Tillich, philosophy first analyzes the human situation to produce the central questions of authentic human existence. Then theology shows that the symbols of the Christian faith respond to those inquiries. Theology, in other words, correlates Christian symbols to the concerns common to all human existence. So philosophy asks the questions; theology provides the answers.[43]

Correlation requires that theologians avoid three errors, according to Tillich. First, theology must not treat Christian truth as a body of revealed knowledge that arrives from outside the human situation and makes no connection to human existence. The error here is theology answers questions before they are even raised (fundamentalism and Barth’s neo-orthodoxy). Second, theology must not elicit the Christian message entirely from the human condition. The problem in this case is that the human voice speaks, but the human ear rarely hears God (Schleiermacher’s liberalism). Third, theology must not hold the two poles, the Christian revelation and the human situation, in a dualistic tension. The difficulty here is theology that gives two different answers that it cannot reconnect (Thomas’s division between natural theology and supernatural theology). Avoiding these errors, the method of correlation requires theology to achieve an organic relation between the existential question developed through philosophical analysis and the Christian answer produced through theological reflection.[44]

B. Current Trends in Theologizing

The polarity between Schleiermacher and Barth reflects an abiding issue: the relationship between revelation as God’s work and theology as a human activity. Evangelical theology still faces this problem. Tillich attempted a synthesis. He agreed in a general sense with St. Thomas that theology must relate both to the Word and to the world. But he also insisted that the medieval synthesis places these two poles next to each other without bringing them into genuine integration. How can theology resolve this tension? Unfortunately, no solution dominates the theological world at this time. Rather, theologians are fractured into many splinter groups. If one theme or value stands above its peers in the current pluralistic context, however, it is that culture shapes theology. Assuming that all cultures are quite distinct, the effect of this theme is to invite every social, gender, ethnic, and cultural group to develop its own theology. The primary common thread shared by these theologies is that each community interprets Christian theology through the grid of its own experience. From an evangelical perspective, the risk is that culture will take the dominant position over Scripture.

The influence of culture comes to the fore in liberation theology. Latin American liberation theology burst into the European and North American theological consciousness in 1968 with a groundbreaking meeting of bishops in the city of Medellín, Colombia. This second meeting of the Latin American Episcopal Conference is known as CELAM II or simply Medellín. Medellín broke new ground. The bishops strongly rebuked the Catholic Church for its alliance with the political powers in Latin America. They argued that the church hierarchy contributes to the violence perpetrated against the Latin American poor. In 1971, a Peruvian priest and theologian, Gustavo Gutiérrez, wrote in Spanish the Magna Carta for liberation theology, A Theology of Liberation.[45] A dominant motif in his work is that the theological writings of white North Americans and the wealthy elites in Latin America intensify socioeconomic oppression of the poor. In his view, oppressed peoples in Latin America need (among many other things) a theology that begins with their own lived experience. Too long the forces of power have dictated the terms of official theology and used it as yet another tool of subjugation. The oppressors claim that theology is God’s final truth for all. In practice, however, they use theology to promote their political goals at the expense of the poor. The poor, therefore, need a different theology, one that takes into account their experience of oppression.

African-American theologians in North America immediately resonated with the liberationists of Latin America. In 1969, a group of Black church lead-ers described their movement as a “theology of black liberation.” The best-known voice in Black theology, James Cone, titled his most important work A Black Theology of Liberation.[46] Since then, Cone has purposefully sought dialogue with other liberation movements that represent not only Latin Americans but Africans, Asians, and women. Theologians in these groups share a common sense that they are people oppressed by dominant social and political powers. They share a common agenda to pursue analogous methods of theology in light of that oppression.

An effect of liberationist perspectives is to fragment theology. But this fragmentation is not resisted, but expected, assumed, and celebrated. The fragmentation actually breaks the stranglehold of powerful interests over the oppressed. Breaking up the unity imposed by the powerful gives the voices that were previously silent the space to sing. The title Lift Every Voice, edited by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and Mary Potter Engel, reflects this approach.[47] This anthology draws together essays by persons who speak from their experiences within differing groups. Liberation theologies agree that a theologian’s social location affects her theology profoundly. No neutral theology exists. So these groups share an allegiance to similar contextual methods, but the commitment to this kind of theological method actually fosters differences in theological content. In putting these essays together, the editors do not assume that there is a single kind of liberation theology, let alone one right theology. Rather Lift Every Voice highlights the distinctions that arise among various liberation theologians because of differences in their social, economic, political, and cultural background.[48]

There are several important results of the liberationist approach. First, by insisting on their own unique theological starting points, liberation theologies point out the powerful influences of culture on theorizing. There is no pure theory. Using Marxist sensibilities as their thread, liberationist theologies weave into their tapestry the theme that powerful forces use theories about spiritual things to oppress the poor. There is truth in this charge, though there is more to say. Second, liberation theologies seem to place the greatest weight of authority in their experience. The experience of grinding poverty is irrefutable. The troubling question, however, is whether liberation theology can hear the Word of God through the overlay of theology that is deliberately grounded primarily in painful experience. This is also a challenge, of course, for conservationist (i.e., conservative) theology, where theology grounded in something outside the Bible can obscure the voice of Scripture. The problem is that liberation theology never resists but only celebrates this procedure. Third, the voices of various groups are so strong that finding a unity of truth seems beyond hope. A “truth” unified to support the economic or political cause of powerful interests is surely unworthy of evangelical theology. Still, we should seek a unity of truth in the end. Good theology values differences among the voices of various groups, but without conceding that dissonance among voices is the last word.

In sharp contrast to liberationist theologies stands a very different contemporary model of theology: narrative theology. Narrative theology is currently trendy although the word ‘narrative’ is notoriously difficult to pin down. One analyst described narrativism rather generally: it is a “categorical preference for story over explanation as a vehicle of understanding.”[49] Narrativism takes a different run at the tension between the biblical witness and contemporary context. While liberationism begins with a group’s current experience, narrativism stresses the church’s historic traditions and especially its founding or community-shaping documents. If liberation theology is culture-dominant, narrative theology is Scripture-dominant. For Christians, this means a reaffirmation of the unique place of the narrative of the Bible as the source that binds Christian communities together.

The narrativist interest in reasserting the Bible is attractive to evangelical theology. At the same time, it is important to evaluate how narrative theology views the Bible. For some narrative theologians, the first and most important role of the Bible and of theology is not to describe the world. More essentially, the role of theology or doctrine is to form—to give shape to—the church. Narrative theology sees the Christian story as a unique historical tradition, beginning in the Bible, that molds the community of faith.[50] This means that Christian thought does not depend on any general scheme of universal truth, experience, or rationality. Those who argue for a universal rationality and universal truth reflect the failed optimism of the Enlightenment. In contrast to that movement, the church should use characteristically Christian language to shape its own life. It follows that the Christian community is often quite unlike the culture that surrounds it. The purpose of theology is not to conform the church to the world, but to invite society into the thought world of the church.

George Lindbeck’s Nature of Doctrine is an influential example of narrative theology. Lindbeck delineated three views on the function of doctrinal statements. The first of these—the propositional-cognitivist—is the traditional view of the role of doctrines: they give informative descriptions about objective realities. The second—experiential-expressivist—is the liberal tradition that follows Schleiermacher: doctrines are noncognitive or noninformative expressions of religious experiences or attitudes. The third—cultural-linguistic—is Lindbeck’s choice: “the function of church doctrines . . . is their use, not as expressive symbols or as truth claims, but as communally authoritative rules of discourse, attitude, and action.”[51] Some versions of narrativism highlight the Bible’s key role in shaping the life of the church but are unclear about whether Christian truth actually describes the real world.

There are several important results of Lindbeck’s approach. First, in reject-ing the experiential-expressivist view, Lindbeck’s thesis undercuts the great liberal program that follows Schleiermacher in seeking a common experiential core of all religion. Thus, Lindbeck effectively sabotaged the program of pluralists who affirm that all religious people experience the same God (or Divine Being, Ultimate Reality, or whatever) and then simply describe this common experience by using the only terms they have (namely, the ones they find in their own traditions).[52] This is significant progress. Second, Lindbeck refurbished the concept of authority in the face of the Enlightenment’s eclipse of author-ity. Yet the way in which Lindbeck construed authority is troubling. In narra-tivism, the fact that a text is authoritative is based in or grounded in a community’s decision to recognize that text as authoritative (see chapter 2). Third, in saying that theology shapes the life of the church, Lindbeck made deciding questions of the truth of conflicting worldviews difficult, if not impossible. “Comprehensive outlooks on religion, not to mention religions them-selves, are not susceptible to decisive confirmation or disconfirmation.”[53] In the end, Lindbeck’s narrativism cuts theology off from the task of integrating theological wisdom with other sources of knowledge. There is insight to be gained by participating in the wider culture and by networking with the wider academic world. So narrativism offers a crucial but one-sided warning. The warning is valid but also needs balance.

C. Traditional Protestant Perspectives

Schleiermacher led and dominated the liberal response to the Enlightenment in the first half of the nineteenth century. But traditionally minded Christians continued writing theology in that century. Unlike Schleiermacher, conservationists sometimes resisted and sometimes ignored the Enlightenment’s eclipse of authority. Unlike the liberals, as conservationist Protestants wrote theologies and did missions and pastoral work, they continued assuming the Reformation emphasis on the final authority of the Bible. In order to protect the prominence of Scripture, theologians like B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) defended the author-ity of Scripture and the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.[54] These theologians affirmed a hermeneutical objectivity in Bible interpretation, hoping to exclude (or at least restrain) the influence of cultural, philosophical, and theological pre-judgments. Traditionally minded theologians hoped to allow the data of Scripture to speak for themselves in the development of theology.

In seeking to preserve these advantages, traditional Protestants proposed an important model that pictures theology as an inductive science. The common sense philosophy of Thomas Reid foreshadowed this interest in a certain kind of inductivism. Reid argued that scientists should not focus on building and adopting hypotheses. Reid insisted that hypotheses should not play a role in experimental science, but that scientists should emphasize propositions that are inductively supported by factual observation.[55] Following the ideal of inductive summarization, a few evangelical theologians, some ministers, and many laypersons persist even today in supposing that theology is a pristinely objective and neutral arrangement of biblical facts. A favorite phrase, “inductive Bible study,” reflects this method.

The great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge (1797–1878) provided a classic statement of this view. He compared theology to the empirical sciences that so captured the attention of people in his day. In an often-quoted statement, he wrote,

The true method of theology is . . . the inductive, which assumes that the Bible contains all the facts or truths which form the contents of theology, just as the facts of nature are the contents of the natural sciences. It is also assumed that the relation of these Biblical facts to each other, the principles involved in them, the laws which determine them, are in the facts themselves, and are to be deduced from them, just as the laws of nature are deduced from the facts of nature. In neither case are the principles derived from the mind and imposed upon the facts, but equally in both departments, the principles or laws are deduced from the facts and recognized by the mind.[56]

In developing the analogy between theology and the natural sciences, Hodge contended that in both disciplines the facts themselves dictate the results of the study. He assumed that the human mind is relatively passive. The theologian allows theological interpretations to bubble up from biblical facts. Both in science and theology, reality itself (not assumptions or theories) shapes whatever principles, laws, or truths emerge from study. Careful attention to the facts can screen out the distorting impact of methodological, theological, philosophical, or cultural prejudgments.[57]

An important essay by Warfield presents a sophisticated version of Hodge’s method. Warfield defined theology as the “science which treats of God and of the relations between God and the universe.” He noted explicitly that theology assumes the existence of God as its subject, the human ability to apprehend God, and a reliable medium of communication that presents God to the mind. The highest source of theology is Scripture, and the theologian’s primary task is to combine the data of the Bible. Although theologians must exert effort to bring biblical facts into proper relation, they must not deductively integrate biblical data into some preconceived pattern or mosaic. Rather, they must inductively coordinate the facts “by combining them in their due order and proportion as they stand in the various theologies of the Scriptures.” The result of this process is that more and more facts are firmly established in their right-ful relations to other biblical facts. And thus, “at the end of the ages . . . we are ever more and more hedged around with ascertained facts, the discovery and establishment of which constitute the very essence of progress.” The goal is to propel people to love God and neighbor, to cling to the salvation of Christ, and to submit joyfully to the Holy Spirit.[58]

In contrast, a work by Mark Cambron, a dean at the Tennessee Temple Schools in the early 1950s, offers a simplistic example of Hodge’s inductive method.[59] Page after page, Cambron’s work quotes biblical passages from the King James Version. Cambron arranged the quotations according to a very traditional outline that he nowhere defends.[60] Presumably, Cambron thought he could avoid theological bias by simply selecting and arranging biblical citations. After all, his work does not go one step beyond the straightforward statements of the Bible. But Cambron exemplified inductivism at its worst and reveals the weakness of his model, even though his book won the Zondervan Textbook Award for 1954. Cambron failed to see that both his outline and his principles for selecting texts depend on implicit theological assumptions. The problem is not simply that Cambron had assumptions; all theology surely does. It is rather that he presumed that he did not.

The view of theology as inductive science preserves an essential value. It is that theology must seek a proper form of objectivity. By this I do not mean a perfect, pristine, completely dispassionate objectivity. I mean instead that theology as a proper science must allow the object of its study to govern decisively the results of its study. My obviously post-Kantian claim is that theology rightly practiced puts us in touch with God as God truly is. This is not a claim to an exhaustive, perfect, or “God’s-eye” view of reality. But I do hold out for evangelical theology the goal of genuine, truthful, even if limited and imperfect, knowledge of God’s own self. What is right about the inductive emphasis, then, is that theologians should embody virtues and practice methods that permit them to lay aside their own preferences and to see the object of their study for what it is. This modest form of objectivity is essential to evangelical theology, and it is the value that theology as inductive science seeks to uphold.

In spite of this strength, the model of theology as inductive science suffers several telling defects. First, the model of theology as inductive science implies that just as an ordered discipline like physics is preferable to a jumble of unorganized observations about physical objects, so systematic theology is superior to Scripture. But surely we recognize that the Bible, unlike a set of observations about physical objects, already possesses a certain coherence of its own. This comes from our evangelical belief that God is an author of Scripture. Certainly we understand that Scripture is not an incoherent jumble that awaits a coherence that only theology gives. So the straightforward analogy between theology and inductive science is not appropriate.[61]

Second, the model of theology as inductive science does not properly con-sider the context of theological work. Theologians bring the perspectives and values of their cultural heritage as well as the particularities of their own spiritual and theological pilgrimage to the theological task. Philosophers of science recognize that the background scientists bring with them to the task of interpretation influences their work. They now see that the model of inductive science is too simple even in the physical sciences. Conceiving theology as an inductive science takes an outmoded model of science and uses it as a pattern for theology. This is one reason why George Marsden called forms of evangelical theology that follow this pattern “early modern.”[62] Yet the view that theology is a purely inductive science persists. In fact, to describe the idea that we can achieve an acultural theology, one critic coined the phrase “fundamentalist fallacy.”[63]

The acultural view assumed in the inductive model fails to recognize a critical feature of all abstract theorizing. The process of building and testing theories, even in the natural sciences, actively and creatively engages the imagination of the theorist. For instance, a biologist studying the mating of the sperm whale, reflecting on her initial observations, creatively develops an innovative theory that (possibly) explains her data. She considers how that theory fits with other accepted hypotheses in biology. Then she takes the hypothesis out on the ocean for testing. Does it account for known facts, and does it illuminate new areas for research? This testing, rather than just proving or dis-proving the theory, often forces modification of the hypothesis.[64] Real-life theorizing involves a dialogical relationship between factual observation and creative hypothesis building.

A form of thinking called “abductive” or “retroductive” reasoning gives a place for this dialogical understanding of the interplay between theorizing and observing. Associated with American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce, abduction stands in contrast to pure deduction and pure induction. Deductive inference consists of unpacking the implicit meanings found already in the premises. Inductive reasoning involves drawing conclusions that go beyond what is implicit in the premises. In Baconian induction, the theorist allegedly starts from scratch and seeks the theory that emerges definitively from the set of facts that are relevant to that theory. (Of course, this is already impossible. If someone really did start totally from scratch, then how could he know “the set of facts that are relevant” since he would have nothing for the facts to be related to?) Both deduction and induction operate in a more or less straight line from premises to conclusion. In abduction, the theorist moves back and forth between the theory and observations.[65]

Theologians, then, do not just summarize the Bible. They interpret the data of Scripture. This interpretative process is not merely additive. A theologian cannot simply set biblical facts next to each other in their obviously proper relationship as the model of inductive science implies. At the same time, a theologian should not impose a philosophically derived system onto the biblical data as purely deductive method requires. But there is a middle way. In light of cultural and life issues and concerns, a theologian listens to Scripture, then develops tentative hypotheses, and then goes back to the Bible in a dialogical movement. Guided by theory, he makes reasoned judgments about biblical teachings. He considers their relative importance to each other and their relationship to culture and to life. He seeks to flesh out his hypotheses and to test them for adequacy to Scripture, internal coherence, and explanatory power for life.[66]

The inductive science model, by contrast, does not include in its structure a place for these choosing, organizing, correlating, and testing functions. It does not adequately recognize the theologian’s methodological, philosophical, cultural, and personal assumptions, his blind spots, biases, or interests. Ironically, because the inductive science model does not recognize these presuppositions, it actually runs a great risk of allowing a theologian to read a tacitly presupposed theology back into the biblical data. This is exactly what Cambron’s theology illustrates—the fundamentalist fallacy. By contrast, a dialogically oriented abductive model more clearly recognizes the active, creative role played by the theorist than does inductivism. Like inductivism, a dialogical method clearly values the Bible speaking for itself. Like deductivism, a dialogical method recognizes the power of cultural biases and philosophical assumptions. An abductive model combines these strengths, hearing the text and yet noticing the reader’s assumptions, and in so doing taming their distortive power.

III. CONTEXT AND CONTENT REVISITED

What theological method should evangelicals pursue? Is there space between the polarities represented by liberationism and narrativism? A dominant problem in theological method is the interplay of specifically Christian and generically human thinking. Historically, this polarity was expressed in several ways: divine revelation vs. human discovery, faith vs. reason, or theology vs. philosophy. In these polarities, the pole of revelation/faith/theology emphasizes the uniqueness of Christian claims, and the pole of secular truth/reason/philosophy presses us to connect distinctively Christian affirmations to everything else we know. Speaking of the medieval context, one historian put the issues this way:

By thoroughly exploiting the resources of natural reason, the better to understand mysteries, how can [Scholasticism] preserve for Christian beliefs their dominant character and their “total” value? By using a knowledge of the realities of our world to give an intellectual structure to the revealed mysteries, how can it retain for these mysteries their sublimity, their character of uniqueness and revelation of another world? The problem of Scholasticism is basically the problem of all theology.[67]

The tension between the two poles creates some of theology’s most basic methodological questions. Which pole should dominate? How do they relate? What are the advantages or dangers of emphasizing one pole or the other?

A. Plotting the Options

In the current context, the theological landscape is very difficult to map out. For our purposes, I will distinguish those who are more interested in connect-ing theology with other forms of human thought (the contextual, Tillichian tendency) from those more intent on protecting the particularity of Christian thought (the kerygmatic, Barthian tendency). Liberation theology illustrates the first agenda, and postliberal narrativism the second. Other interpreters will prefer different ways of mapping the options. Different grids for categorizing theologies will highlight different features. Roger Olson mentioned traditionalists and reformists.[68] Clark Pinnock spoke of conservative, moderate, and progressive stances.[69] David Tracy laid out anti-modern, modern, and post-modern categories.[70] (Distinctions along the lines of denomination or ecclesial tradition—Lutheran vs. Pentecostal—are possible. But the contrast between traditionalist and reformist approaches gets at different issues and cuts across ecclesial lines.) For our purposes, the contextual/kerygmatic polarity emphasized in narrative thought is especially relevant because evangelicals see the gospel as the unique Word of God given for all people. Somehow, evangelical theology must work out how the distinctively biblical gospel can be given for and relevant to all peoples.

William Hordern offered a helpful suggestion. In the midst of the God-is-dead era, he designated some theologians as “transformers” and others as “translators.” Transformers are those who, in their attempt to connect the gospel to current culture, alter the gospel fundamentally. Transformers, like the God-is-dead theologians, lose touch with Christian tradition and with Scripture. Translators, on the other hand, may speak a new language in addressing their context, but they faithfully proclaim what the church has always taught. Their message is established biblically, even though their medium is shaped culturally.[71] To flesh out Hordern’s categories, I posit a third position occupied by anyone who seeks to practice theology as inductive science. [72] Those who practice theology as pure induction from Scripture—who see doctrine as a straight summation of the Bible’s teaching—are “trans-porters.” Because they tend to overlook the differences in human perspectives, they assume their theology is derived in a rather straight line from Scripture. Then, as they move into other cultures, they simply transport their theology unchanged to the new contexts. A picture I once saw of African bushmen in the nineteenth century, wearing white shirts and skinny black ties, is a visual symbol in my mind of the cultural displacement created by the transporters’ model. Just as certain missionaries unthinkingly introduced their dress code into new contexts, so “transporters” somewhat uncritically transplanted their theologies into the alien soil of new cultures.

B. The Contextual Pole

The contextual pole, the concern for connection to cultural situation, points to a necessary feature of all good theology. Theology must express the gospel so that it addresses persons and groups in their context. The contextual pole means every theology is rightly judged by the criterion of relevance to culture. When evangelical missiologists speak of contextualization, they show an appropriate commitment to this value (see chapter 3). Tillich’s method of correlation, which rightly emphasizes the connection of theology to culture, is one of his enduring contributions. But the danger in overemphasizing the contextual pole is that assumptions, principles, and categories that are alien to the biblical worldview can dominate theology. Many today see these categories rooted primarily in the concerns of particular cultures. In some cases, according to postmodern critique, these are the concerns of those who possess the power in those cultures. These cultural concerns can exert not just some influence but a controlling influence, a fundamental power over theology.

For example, in the patristic era, theological transformers stressed philosophy and reason. Among other Christians, including some popes, pagan influences played as much of a role as philosophical ones. Theologians today disagree on the degree of influence that Greek philosophical categories exerted on the development of the doctrine of God during the patristic and medieval eras.[73] They disagree on the propriety of this influence. Evangelicals today debate whether the doctrine of God’s simplicity, for instance, is worth preserving, and if so, what sense of the word ‘simplicity’ is helpful to a contemporary doctrine of God.

Today, with the rise of our consciousness of cultural diversity, there is an especially strong emphasis on “contextuality.” Contextuality is the influence of social, cultural, and historical context on one’s thought. Some evangelicals hold that a commitment to contextuality licenses the distortion of the kerygma at the hands of postmodern ideas or experiences. Liberation theologies, written from the underside of society, can lead to emphases that seem alien to the NT. The writings of those working from the underside of society are invaluable. They can be impressive in their passion and correct in their insights. No one can read their work without admitting that all theologians must listen carefully to and take seriously the lived experience of oppressed people. When liberation theologians critique theology from the dominant world, it is obvious to any sensitive person that theology does not begin from an ahistorical, acultural, or neutral standpoint. When the theologians of marginal groups point out the “whiteness” of much evangelical theology, we who are white evangelicals must learn. Still, these liberation theologies can over-state the value of context.

There are also pressing examples from North American church life. Ministers fascinated with “meeting the needs of people” risk transforming the gospel. Supporters of the prosperity gospel offer an extreme example. They for-get that the gospel is not the latest or best way to “meet the needs of people” as defined by the people. If evangelists market the gospel as the best way to achieve healthy relationships, for example, the unstated but implied assumption—that healthy relationships is the primary goal that faith enables one to achieve—will necessarily pervert the gospel. This is the therapeutic gospel, which threatens the church precisely because it subtly uses the gospel as a means to achieve a culturally validated goal.[74] Christian theology must free the gospel not only to specify the answers but also to shape the questions. Emil Brunner said it well: “The Christian church is (always) in danger of exchanging its divine treasury of truth for mere human inventions.”[75]

The problem is that transformers give the contextual pole too much prominence, or perhaps they give it prominence in the wrong way. I say that when Tillich worked out the specific details of connecting with culture, he revealed himself as a transformer. Tillich allowed his existentialist categories to trans-form the gospel not just in its form or mode of expression but more fundamentally in its essential content. He did not faithfully heed his own warning against allowing philosophical concerns to control one’s theology.[76]

Of course, any cultural experience already embeds certain philosophically interesting assumptions. Thus, everyone recognizes that all theology is con-textual in the sense that theology is always developed by or written by particular people from within a specific historical situation. The issue is what to do about that fact. Should we acknowledge it? Absolutely. Can we learn from it? Of course. Should we offer to historical context the final word, the controlling influence in theology? Given our commitment to sola scriptura, we who are evangelical theologians must just say no.

Both philosophically oriented questions and culturally derived issues can very easily arise out of discussions and concerns that are foreign to biblical interests. They carry with them implicit categories, analyses, and concepts that smuggle into theological discussions unwanted connotations that distort theological discussion. P. T. Forsyth warns of this problem: “Christianity can endure, not by surrendering itself to the modern mind and modern culture, but rather by a break with it: the condition of a long future both for culture and the soul is the Christianity which antagonizes culture without denying its place.”[77] These words are not always heeded. Somehow we must honor the contextual pole without capitulating to any foreign philosophy, experience, or agenda.

C. The Kerygmatic Pole

The other pole is equally critical to evangelical theology. It is the kerygmatic pole, emphasizing theology, faith, and Scripture. Evangelicals have a long-standing loyalty to this pole. We value a proper objectivity that pursues a form of knowledge correctly shaped by its object rather than by the biases of the knower. We seek this objectivity, and rightly so, by accentuating hermeneutical faithfulness to the intended meanings and purposes of biblical authors. The kerygmatic pole means that every theology must be judged by the criterion of faithfulness to Scripture.

But evangelical transporters can overemphasize the kerygmatic pole. They assume that inductive approaches to the Bible will enable them to avoid the influence of contemporary context and to proclaim the teachings of Scripture in an entirely objective way. This is a naïve objectivism that fails to see how an interpreter’s outlook affects her interpretation. Ironically, as James Smart wrote, “the claim of absolute scientific objectivity in interpreting scripture involves the interpreter in an illusion about himself that inhibits objectivity.”[78] In our own day, most philosophers of science and many theologians under-stand the role of assumptions on both conception and perception. That insight is not recent. It is reflected in Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) so-called turn to the subject. Kant asserted that knowledge emerges at the intersection of the data of the senses (the content) and the categories of the mind (the structure). The knower’s mind does not passively receive information. Knowledge results when the mind actively apprehends the world, shaping knowledge according to its own subjective categories.

Kant was not the first to say that the mind is active in the knowing process. But he was the first to emphasize that the mind’s categories actively shape knowledge so that knowers cannot grasp reality as it really is. This idea that the mind shapes our knowing is pervasive in contemporary theology. If any-thing, Kant’s subjective turn has taken a more radical form today since many scholars now often hold that a particular person’s categories are shaped, not by universal human rationality, but by his own particular language. This stronger form of the subjective turn is called the “linguistic turn.” It often connects to perspectivalism (see chapter 4).

Although some forerunners of the evangelical movement were inductivists, by no means all were. Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), whose influence lives on in the rather different worlds of Reformed epistemology and presuppositional apologetics, clearly objected to simplistic forms of inductivism: “Let no one, therefore, be blinded by the appearance of objectivity, brought about by the exhibition of these empiric data. It is sheer self-deception to think that we can ever succeed in making the spiritual sciences fit the same last as the natural sciences.”[79] Kuyper claimed that scientific inferences, such as seeking a unity among empirical data, are not entirely objective. If the natural sciences include subjectivity when they go beyond the data themselves, how much more is theology a subjective science. Theology is certainly not purely objective in its handling of data. Kuyper was on the right track. Data are not just “pure facts.” They are contaminated by concepts embedded in presuppositions. Even in the hard sciences, personal perspectives play a critical role even in the observation and recording of data.[80] So Kuyper was right in concluding that theology cannot function on the model of inductive science that Hodge and Warfield proposed. Not even the natural sciences do that.

Yet in our day, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. The problem in the world of academic theology today is not failure to recognize the role of subjectivity in human thought. The more pressing problem for us as evangelical theologians is the tendency to doubt that objective knowledge of any sort at all is possible. Today’s question is this: Given our cultural and linguistic situation, can we rightly claim to have any theological knowledge of God that is deeply and decisively informed by the reality of God’s own nature, will, and ways? Neo-Kantian influences in the academic world and broader culture lead some to question whether genuine knowledge of God is possible. Doubters hold that theology cannot know God as God is. They assert that theology deals in the coinage of human experiences of God or of human life in religious communities. But evangelical theology asserts that, while experiencing God is cru-cial, our knowledge of God is not simply a reflection of our own time and place. It is important to recall that, as C. S. Lewis wrote, “All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.”[81] So somehow we must honor the kerygmatic pole without disconnecting from the truly eternal needs, desires, and concerns that all people experience in their particular cultural worlds.

The threefold pattern based on Hordern’s distinction sets the broad para-meters for good theology. Transformers fail because they are not faithful to the gospel. Transporters fail because they are culturally naïve. That leaves us with the category of translators. All theologians, of course, think they are translators, especially when they criticize opponents. Traditionalists think those to their left are transformers; liberals believe those on their right are transporters. Who has it right? We need a finer analysis. Our problem here is that Hordern’s categories are rather too broad and do not specify how to achieve appropriate translation. At best, they describe the very general goal that good theology should pursue. Thus, we still need to state more specifically how an appropriate theological method can proceed. This will ensure that it is contextually relevant in mode of expression, yet shaped very fundamentally through essential connection with biblical revelation.

IV. CONCLUSION

Evangelical theology must recognize the importance of philosophical and cultural milieu in the doing of theology. But we who are evangelicals should not sell out our commitment to the universal relevance of Scripture and thus adopt a new liberalism. As heirs of historic, Protestant orthodoxy, we should affirm a deep loyalty to biblical revelation as the controlling principle of theology, yet without reverting to a fundamentalist ethos.[82] In the spirit of Augustine, good evangelical theologizing recognizes the value of contemporary contexts even as it gives to biblical content a pride of place in all theologizing. The goal of evangelical theologizing, therefore, is biblically controlled. In this sense, theology is objective, for the object of its study, God’s own nature, will, and ways, decisively controls theology. Theology is also contextually relevant, for good theology leads to spiritual devotion, godly character, Christian community life, and effective service. These assertions, however, need more flesh. What do I mean by the phrases “biblically controlled” and “contextually relevant”? The next challenge is to discuss how Scripture controls theology. (In chapter 3, I address how theology is contextually relevant.) So I turn to this foundational question: How should we conceptualize the authority of Scripture for evangelical theology?

CHAPTER

TWO

SCRIPTURE AND THE

PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY

The period of cultural upheaval after World War I called for new beginnings in theology. In August 1914, ninety-three German intellectuals signed a document supporting the German Kaiser’s imperialistic war effort. A disgusted Karl Barth found the names of most of his theology professors on the document. Liberalism had displayed its true colors as the form of Christian theology that fully grants the claims of modernity.[1] Barth’s public break with liberalism came in 1919 when he published The Epistle to the Romans, a short work that burst onto the theological scene and established Barth’s reputation overnight. For nearly the next half century, Barth pressed the church to speak the authentic Word of God. He insisted that theology begins in the revelation of God. He determined to establish the independence of theology from any anthropocentric point of orientation. Theology is never subservient to any alien humanistic viewpoint.

Barth’s stalwart defense of the God-centered character of theology is one of his great contributions to twentieth-century theology. Traditional Christians have for centuries sought to establish God as the source and center of thought and life.[2] For evangelicals, the Reformation heritage is especially important. The Reformers believed that theology and practice in the Catholic Church had become human-centered. Part of their reasserting the theocentric nature of theology was the Scripture Principle. While the medieval church affirmed the authority of Scripture, the Reformers insisted on the sole and ultimate author-ity of the Bible. The Scripture Principle, the commitment to sola scriptura, is an essential and defining feature of evangelical theology.

I. THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY

As traditional Protestants, we who are evangelicals treat the Bible as authoritative. But Pannenberg wrote, “the dissolution of the traditional doctrine of Scripture constitutes a crisis at the very foundation of modern Protestant theology.” [3] A generation ago, before discussion of postmodernism became rou-tine, Langdon Gilkey declared, “no longer can the theologian or biblical scholar merely appeal to the ‘biblical view’ as an assumed theological authority, since the questions of whether there be a revelation or a revealer at all are the ones he must deal with. And it surely begs these questions to cite only what the Bible says about them!”[4] Gilkey’s point is crucial. My purpose here, how-ever, is not to defend the Bible, as over against some other source, as the authority for evangelical theology. Rather, it is to sketch out the theoretical structure and defend the rational viability of a theological method rooted in a divine authority claim.

A. Authority in the Evangelical Tradition

As evangelical Protestants, we agree with all traditional Christians that the ulti-mate authority for Christian believings is the triune God himself. The highest revelation of the triune God is the person of Jesus who lived on earth as empowered by the Spirit. This is fundamental. But God also communicated through his appointed prophetic and apostolic channels.[5] All reasoning about the Lord must submit to apostolic teaching. In this, we agree with the vast majority of patristic, medieval, Reformation, and post-Reformation theologians. We accept the historic teaching of the church. But Christians have dis-agreed on the location and nature of the apostolic word. Evangelicals say that patristic and medieval theologians erred in assigning too much apostolic authority to the church and to the theological tradition. Roman and Orthodox approaches still allow these sources to rival or even to supersede the Bible as sources of knowledge about God. Some contemporary Protestant theologians have refurbished this pattern. They place tradition or experience on a par with Scripture—although they do so in modern or postmodern ways.[6] But for evangelical theology, the Scripture Principle still holds.

Resistance to taking the Bible as uniquely authoritative became increasingly commonplace among Protestant theologians beginning with Schleiermacher. One of liberalism’s central features is a more human view of the Bible. For many early liberals, given their modernist assumptions, it just seemed that some of the Bible’s teachings are false. Antagonism toward traditional notions of authority reflected the broad cultural spirit of human autonomy that reaches as far back as the Renaissance and is most closely associated with the cultural movements called the Enlightenment. Clark Pinnock wrote of “a rebelliousness in the modern period that seeks to edge God out of the world and leave humanity autonomous in it. To achieve this, the Bible that challenges this insurrection must be silenced as divinely authoritative.”[7] Outside conservationist circles, then, authority-based theological methods of any sort, including evangelical appeals to biblical authority rooted in an inspired Scripture, are suspect.

In contrast to this spirit is the evangelical commitment to biblical authority found in works like Carl Henry’s magisterial God, Revelation and Authority. Henry’s view of theological authority is typical of evangelicalism today. He defended the view that the Bible is the capstone of revelation. It alone is the unique, written revelation of God, a permanent, meaningful, and authoritative self-expression by God of his nature and will. The Holy Spirit’s act of superintendence—inspiration—was decisive in the writing of Scripture and is the reason the Bible possesses unique status as revelation. Through inspiration, the Holy Spirit aided those who wrote the Bible. The Spirit then guided the church in identifying inspired works and collecting them as the canon. This supervision renders Scripture uniquely authoritative for Christian believers.[8] Of course, the Spirit also preserved the Bible and now guides in interpreting the Bible, but these activities are distinct from the Spirit’s work in inspiration. For evangelicals, the phrase “biblical authority” means that in the Bible, and uniquely in the Bible, God communicates intelligibly to humans the divine nature, ways, and will such that the Bible is binding on our thoughts and lives.

In defending the centrality of Scripture, evangelicals adopt an authority-based theological method. ‘Authority’ in general terms describes someone’s right to receive respect or allegiance. In everyday usage, the word ‘authority’ most commonly describes allegiance expressed as obedience to commands. A parent exercises authority toward a child, an employer toward an employee, or a police officer toward a lead-footed driver. Those persons in authority rightly expect others to follow certain laws or commands. In certain cases of disobedience, those in authority properly exert some pressure to achieve compliance. Authority in this sense is moral authority. Human moral authority ought to operate within boundaries; it is neither arbitrary nor absolute. This means that human authorities who pretend to be absolute can overstep their rightful sphere of influence. A patrolman, for instance, may rightly require me to obey highway speed laws, but he may not compel me to lead a dangerous SWAT team assault against armed criminals holed up in an abandoned ware-house. In the context of Christian theology and life, God rightly exercises moral authority over all creation and, therefore, more specifically, over human per-sons. We ought to obey God’s will, and God properly expects this obedience.

While ‘authority’ may properly denote moral authority, it can also rightly describe what Bernard Ramm called “veracious authority.”[9] The phrase “veracious authority” means that someone can communicate truth to an audience such that, because of who the communicator is, the audience is rational or justified in accepting the message as true. This concept emphasizes that an audience could rightly and spontaneously form a belief on the ground of the say-so of an authoritative communicator. A Nobel Prize winning astronomer is a veracious authority in astronomy. If she sincerely explains something about the stars, then, given my high school-level grasp of astronomy, I will rightly accept that her explanation is true (at least until I encounter significant defeaters—contrary reasons or evidence). Her affirming some idea about astronomy gives me justification for believing it. Heeding her word is good epistemic practice on my part, for I know that I am justified in believing that she knows more about this topic than I.

Veracious authority must be part of the concept of authority when speaking of an authority-based theological method. God does rightly exercise moral authority. What God commands, I should do. In addition, for theology, God’s status as the all-knowing Creator gives him not just moral license to require my obedience to what is good, but also intellectual right to command my assent to what is true. All who adopt an authority-based method recognize God as the Lord of all life, including the mind. What God says, I reasonably and justifiably believe. Discussions of theological authority therefore typically begin with a basic ontological claim: God is the ultimate authority for defining our behaviors and beliefs. The authority inherent in any other source—Scripture, creeds, or church—is necessarily derived authority. It is derived from the Lord.

The word ‘authority’ can lead the mind directly to the idea of moral authority. So it is important to speak explicitly of veracious authority. But I do not mean that propositions and rules are the only two things that are important in the Bible. It is not the case that we care only about truth and morality. These are, of course, essential to theology. But there is more Scripture. Some of the utterances in the Bible are neither statements nor rules. They are as important as the propositions and commands. The utterances of Scripture include other dimensions, like beauty. This esthetic dimension, too, is important. The gen-res of the Bible vary considerably. God inspired them all for a reason. And the macroscopic flow of Scripture involves an overarching narrative that is important. So in explicitly adding veracious authority—authority regarding truth—to moral authority, I do not mean to say that statements and commands, abstracted from their contexts, are what really matters about the Bible. No, the entire Bible, including what is not in propositional or imperative form, is inspired and authoritative.[10]

Ramm helpfully distinguished the principle of authority from the mosaic of authority. “In Christianity the authority-principle is the Triune God in self-revelation.” [11] Since it is God who gives revelation, it is he, not any human recipient, who grounds authority. Although the Lord may certainly use a finite medium for expressing himself, no finite source of truth competes with the infinite. The theologian who acknowledges an authority-based method will humbly and joyfully acknowledge God’s initiative. An authority-based theology will recognize an authority principle at its epistemic center. Particular per-sons may justify their beliefs differently; they may come to understand, believe, or justify this center through many different means. But the various steps in those epistemic journeys are not more fundamental than the ontological reality of God’s act of self-revelation. The epistemic steps are, in a sense, occasions of being spoken to by God more than episodes of human discovery. In terms of what is first in reality, God’s intentional acts of communication, both verbal (through Scripture and other means) and nonverbal (through nature and other avenues) are primal. This ontological principle makes God the ultimate theological authority.

Because the reality of God’s self-revelation has ontological priority for our thinking, the principle of authority (which points to this reality) operates at the very center of an evangelical worldview. Implied by this principle, how-ever, are certain other beliefs. These other beliefs, all in relation to each other, constitute the mosaic of authority. The mosaic includes statements that explicate the meaning of the principle of authority and defend it against misunderstanding. It embraces lines of evidence that identify which of several competing claimants to divine revelation (e.g., the Bible, the Qur’an, or the Book of Mormon) is in fact a medium of genuinely divine revelation. The mosaic of authority encompasses hermeneutical principles and patterns of analysis that seek the meanings and implications of sources that are identified as revelatory. These are all crucial questions. But human analyses such as these are not in any sense more fundamental than the prior reality of God’s initiative in revelation—the actual fact of God speaking—and his endorsement of certain sources of theological authority. Thus, the human beliefs that constitute the mosaic of authority (and the behaviors that live them out) are hand-maidens to the principle of authority.

In discussing theological authority, the distinction between the rightful possession of objective authority and the actual recognition of that authority either by individuals or by communities is absolutely critical. Parents, employers, and police officers exercise power because they possess formal positions of authority. We attribute the authority these people exercise to the formal positions they fill. Of those who rightly fill formal positions of authority, some also possess a kind of informal authority that others accept. But others who fill formal positions of authority can lack the kind of informal authority that people naturally follow. A coach who has lost the respect of his team may formally possess the leader’s role, but he does not in fact lead the team. Conversely, others may have an informal authority that arises from the respect that other people give, not primarily due to the leader’s official position but on the ground of her admired skills or valued attributes. A star veteran player may exercise informal authority simply because the other players respect her for her accomplishments and ability.

This distinction between two facets of human leaders’ authority parallels the distinction between two ways to understand the authority principle in theology. Many contemporary views on biblical authority stress the recognition of the Bible’s authority by individuals or communities rather than the Bible’s inherent possession of authority. These contemporary perspectives state or imply that the Bible is authoritative only in that the community recognizes it as such. In this view, authority is not first and foremost grounded in God’s act. Authority is not a quality possessed by the Bible and acknowledged by the church. Rather, a believing community places itself in special relationship with the Bible, and so authority is grounded in this act of the church. The Bible is authoritative because the church chooses to let it function authoritatively for the church. In this view, when a particular community of faith like the church receives the Bible as authoritative, this recognition gives the Bible its authority.[12]

Defenders of functional approaches to the idea of biblical authority believe that their view fits better with the breakdown of modernist notions of purely objective and absolutely certain knowledge. Some state that their postmodern sensibilities render the very idea of an objectively authoritative theological source implausible.[13] That is, postmodern convictions make the authority prin-ciple obsolete. Consider as an example the use of Scripture advocated by Stanley Hauerwas in his work on theological ethics. In his version of narrative ethics, Hauerwas emphasized the identity and character of Christians and the Christian community. On this theory, the Christian community treats the Scripture as authoritative because Christians find that the Bible’s narrative gives structure to their community and because the Bible shapes Christian character and leads believers to follow Christ faithfully. Christians hold that the Bible is authoritative because it “provides the resources necessary for the church to be a community sufficiently truthful so that our conversation with one another and God can continue across the generations.”[14] This seems perilously close to saying that the authority of Scripture rests ontologically in the church’s recognition of the Bible as its guiding document, not essentially in God’s act of self-revelation.

Not only narrativist theologies (which focus on the kerygmatic pole) but some forms of liberationist theologies (which stress the contextual pole) adopt this functional view of authority. For example, notice the view of authority implied in the feminist account of Letty Russell:

The particular interpretive key that assists me in continuing to give assent is the witness of scripture to God’s promise (for the mending of creation) on its way to fulfillment. That which denies this intention of God for the liberation of groaning creation in all its parts does not compel or evoke my assent (i.e., it is not authoritative).[15]

Russell’s evaluation is that the authority of the Scripture rests in the fact that it induces her agreement. If the Bible agrees with her favored notion—that God is mending creation—then this fact gives the Bible authority for her. But if Scripture does not evoke her agreement, it is not authoritative, at least at that point. For functional approaches to authority, the authority of the Bible is built upon the success of Scripture in promoting the vision of a community or reaching some other goal. The agreement of the Bible with a human agenda becomes both the ground of authority and also the criterion for deciding which parts of biblical teaching to affirm.

The functional view of authority does build on an uncontroversial truth. It correctly stresses that God’s people must recognize the authority of Scripture for their thinking and living. To put it negatively, those who refuse to acknowledge the Bible’s authority will not experience spiritual transformation by the Spirit and through the Word. On the other hand, the functional view of authority makes a grievous error to the degree that it collapses the critical distinction between the recognition of the Bible’s authority by the church and the Bible’s inherent possession of authority. For evangelical theology, a community’s act of recognizing a document as authoritative for its thought and life is essential, but this is not the reality, the power, or the force that gives a document its divine authority. That is, the church’s act of receiving the Bible as divine is not the ontological ground of the Bible’s being God’s Word. Rather, for evangelical theology, it is God’s act of inspiration that grounds the Bible’s status as God’s revelation.

So this is the salient distinction: the ontological ground of the text’s authority is not the same as the epistemic acceptance of the text’s authority. For evangelical theology, the first idea, the ontological ground of authority, lies rooted in the objective reality of the triune God speaking through the Spirit’s inspiration. The second concept, the subjective recognition of the Bible as God’s Word by a believing community, is the appropriate human response to the authority of Scripture. These two ideas work together, and both are absolutely necessary. The objective authority of the Bible rooted in God’s inspiring action stands against allowing any contemporary agendas to gain control over theology. The subjective recognition of the Bible as authoritative guards against a dead orthodoxy that pays lip service to divine truth even as it pursues other agendas. Evangelical theology’s affirmation of the Scripture Principle—the Reformation cry, sola scriptura—involves a dual commitment to the innate authority of the Bible and to an explicit, functional submission to that authority. Evangelicals hold the ontological and epistemic principles together; indeed, their integration is essential. The painstaking tasks of biblical exegesis and of theological reflection—interpreting all of life in light of the Bible—begin with this understanding.

B. Authority as Testimony

Trusting the authority of some person amounts to accepting testimony. Believing an idea as true because some authority declares its truth is essentially embracing the say-so of some person as warrant for believing. For example, it is reasonable to believe that a Nobel Prize winner in astronomy, whose long years of study and experience mean that her judgments about astronomy are justified for her, is an expert in her field. Anyone who accepts her say-so is riding her epistemic coattails. And rightly so. Outside astronomy, however, she might be quite ignorant. She might know nothing, for example, about sports injuries. So if I accept her advice on how to treat my torn knee ligament, simply on the grounds that I respect her for having won the Nobel Prize in astronomy, I commit the fallacy of appeal to authority. In everyday life, in the court-room, and even in the research lab, accepting the testimony of other persons is common epistemic procedure. No doubt the vast majority of what each of us rightly believes was learned from others.

Knowledge based on testimony depends on a variation of what Richard Swinburne called the “principle of credulity.” One version of a credulity principle is this:

(a) When something seems to someone to be true, it probably is true, and he may take it as true, unless he knows of some special disqualifying circumstances or evidence to show that what seems true is not actually true.[16]

Notice first that the principle of credulity does not itself count as evidence. Rather, the function of (a) is to guide knowers in their assessing of evidence. Specifically, it is a methodological principle that enables a knower, or a community of knowers, to decide the admissibility of evidence.

If the principle is applied to testimony, it needs modification. This modification is needed because knowing on the basis of another’s testimony is relevant when the knower takes as warrant, not his own personal experience of knowing, but some other person’s experience of knowing. Thus, the principle of credulity applied to testimony might look roughly like this:

(b) When someone tells me something that seems to him true, it probably is true, and I may take it as true, especially if he is an expert in that field of knowledge, unless either he or I know of some special disqualifying circumstances or evidence to show that what seems true is not actually true.

Naturally, good reasons sometimes count against particular knowledge claims even when they are grounded in expert testimony. A person who gives reliable testimony should meet two minimum criteria: she is in a position to know, and she is speaking sincerely. Now if I have any really good reason either (1) to think that the witness is not in a position to know or (2) to think that she is lying, that reason counts as a special disqualifying circumstance that undercuts the credibility of the witness. That good reason is a “defeater.” It gives weighty reason to believe that the original claim, rooted in testimony, is false.[17]

When law courts hear testimony, lawyers on both sides grill their opponent’s witnesses, looking for defeaters to all sorts of claims. Each side searches either for loopholes or for inconsistencies in the testimony or for hidden motivations or character flaws in the witnesses. More specifically, defeaters come in two kinds. Attorneys may seek “undercutting defeaters” that raise doubts and sabotage their rival’s evidence. Undercutting defeaters undermine or dissolve the warrant for believing earlier testimony. Evidence could show that a witness is not in a position to know or that he is motivated to lie. Evidence for either conclusion will undercut knowledge claims based on his testimony. Such reasons amount to special disqualifying circumstances that should lead one to lay aside the principle of credulity in a particular case. No one would accept the testimony of a liar, even though in general terms we rightly accept as true what generally knowledgeable and reliable people tell us.

Lawyers may also look for “rebutting defeaters” that give reasons to over-throw or destroy their opponents’ testimony. Rebutting defeaters may recognize the legitimacy of a witness’s credentials and motives, but give additional facts that override or overturn previous testimony. In a courtroom, one witness may declare that he saw a right-handed defendant enter a building five minutes before the murder. As far as it goes, this is good testimony; it could count toward a conviction. But the defense attorney might introduce testimony from a forensic specialist who proves that a left-handed person committed the murder. Now if the defendant is right-handed, the specialist’s finding would forcefully, if not conclusively, rebut an inference from the previous witness’s testimony and probably lead to acquittal.[18]

This analysis illuminates theological authority. The heart of a theological method grounded in veracious authority is the claim that there exists a source of revelation that is the medium of God’s verbal and/or nonverbal self-witness. That is, God himself has given testimony about the divine nature, will, and ways. God’s having said something entails that I am warranted in believing it. Of course, warranting the claim that the Bible is indeed the divine self-witness would demand considering methodological questions like whether and how we can know that a particular written document (or other claimed source of authoritative communication) is indeed the medium through which God communicates. It would also require looking at a multitude of possible confirming reasons for and defeaters of that claim. Obviously, all this is very complex. But my purpose here is not to warrant the Bible as God’s Word but to explain what it means and how it could be rational to think that we are right to build a theology grounded in divine authority. Warranting evangelical convictions about the Bible is highly complex. Theology rooted in an understanding of the Bible as authority is not purely objective, absolutely certain, or immune to error.[19] But these facts do not by themselves imply or even slyly suggest that the very concept of veracious authority is defective.

Ellen Charry suggests an analogy for theological authority. She points out that there are limits and occasional missteps in a field to which we all give allegiance. Medicine requires a knowledge base that includes detailed information about the human body. (Here objectivity is crucial, for scientists seek to under-stand the structures and processes of human anatomy as they really are.) But successfully practicing medicine requires more than this knowledge. It demands that family physicians trust the scientists who do basic research as authorities in their field. Further, it demands that physicians exercise highly skilled judgment in applying their knowledge to their patients. This requires that patients trust and obey their physicians. So the physician does not know all the scientist knows, and the patient never knows all that the doctor knows. Both must trust what they hear from others, and rightly so. Still there is much more going on in the healing of patients than the accumulation of abstract, dehumanized knowledge. Similarly, theology should lead to true knowledge of God, of the human soul, and of human societies. But as in medicine, a proper use of theology depends on such things as trust and obedience. As the patient trusts the physician, so the Christian must trust what God has said and follow God’s will. Theology is imperfect. But that is no reason to avoid it entirely. And the kinds of imperfections found in theology are present even in medicine—“to which people flock ever more devotedly.”[20] The idea that theologians must trust God is not unreasonable.

If God did or does actually testify to the divine nature and ways in a particular written document or oral source, then several things follow. Any true theology will give that source of divine communication a central place in its structure of beliefs. And any viable theology will adopt as a central, core belief within the mosaic of authority that what is taught in that source is true. Any theology that fails to take seriously what God has testified about his nature and ways would at least be severely handicapped. If theologians outside the evangelical world think that allegiance to the authority of the Bible is passé, it is not because accepting authoritative testimony is inherently an irrational thing to do. Human beings routinely and properly accept others’ testimony. The rejection of biblical authority would have to lie in the fact that they do not believe God can testify or has in fact testified to his own nature and ways in the Bible. On the other hand, as Lesslie Newbigin wrote, “If God really exists, is there not something ridiculous about one of God’s creatures taking a stance that, in effect, says to God: ‘I can demonstrate your existence without relying on what you tell me about yourself’?”[21] Without negating a proper natural theology, evangelical theology must give pride of place to what God says about himself.

C. The Burden of Evangelical Hermeneutics

If Scripture is God’s speech, analogous to human expert testimony, this should influence how theologians interpret the Bible. The history of biblical interpretation goes back to the patristic era when scholars developed interpretive methods that emphasized allegory. Although allegorical methods answered some questions, they created other problems. The Reformers stimulated a new approach to the Bible—seeking to let biblical texts speak for themselves. As part of their move to return to the Scriptures as the controlling principle for creating and judging theological claims, the Reformers spawned a tradition of literal (or better, natural) hermeneutics. This reflects Luther’s view that “the best teacher is the one who does not bring his meaning into the Scripture but gets his meaning from the Scripture.”[22]

The word ‘hermeneutics’ began its life as a seventeenth-century term for the study of the Bible. Gradually, however, it came to mean, not Bible interpretation per se, but the study of the principles by which Bible interpretation properly proceeds. Evangelicals traditionally think of hermeneutics as the study of guidelines that help readers of Scripture remain focused on the biblical text itself. This traditional model assumes a subject/object distinction between the reader and the text. The meaning of a text is rooted—we could say ontologically grounded—not by the reader, but by the author. The purpose of this approach to hermeneutics is to allow authors of texts to speak through the texts. Readers allow interpretations to emerge inductively from the text as much as possible. Readers do not impose interpretations on the text. Scholars spell out and follow hermeneutical principles in order to control or dislodge readers’ personal biases.[23] The goal that drives this view of interpretation arises within the Reformers’ tradition: its purpose is to cut through, where possible, any distortion caused by human perspectives in order to hear God’s voice. Evangelical scholars advocate following principles in hermeneutics in order to suppress the background noise produced by contemporary cultural values and tune in the music of God’s Word.

Bernard Ramm’s classic text Protestant Biblical Interpretation schooled a whole generation of evangelicals in this philosophy of hermeneutics.[24] The purpose for interpreting the Bible, said Ramm, is edification—transforming lives and building Christian character. The process assumes that God spoke in human categories, accommodating divine communication to human modes of thought. The result is that the main teachings of Scripture are generally clear to open-minded and open-hearted readers. The method presupposes that God’s revelation unfolds gradually and progressively. Thus, while God’s Word is not uniform, it is internally coherent. Given these assumptions, evangelical interpretation seeks the literal sense of Scripture. This is not “letter-ism,” a stilted literalism that ignores historical tradition, cultural background, grammatical conventions, figures of speech, or literary genres. The method is much like what readers use to interpret other forms of literature. If I read a letter from my wife, for example, the meaning I seek is what she meant as she wrote. Ramm argued that the natural sense of the Bible need not exclude other secondary meanings. But any secondary meanings depend on the “literal stratum” of meaning so that this literal sense exerts control over—it guards against—a reader’s presupposed biases. This procedure is historical-grammatical interpretation.[25]

Among evangelicals, a core principle of biblical interpretation stresses that the meaning of any communication act is determined by an author’s intention. [26] The goal of Bible interpretation is discerning that intended meaning. The meaning in view here is what the author intended to express in the text or accomplish through the text. The thoughts and feelings the author communicated are not the same as the thoughts and feelings the author experienced in the process of writing, but did not commit to writing. To assume that by the reading of a text one can decipher and somehow relive or re-experience what was going on privately in the mind of the author—can discern “mental acts” not revealed in the text—is to commit what is called the “intentional fallacy.” The key distinction is between what the author experiences in her own mind but does not express (the “mental acts”) and what the author intends to do through a linguistic act and then actually does express in a text. The author’s mental acts are private and therefore inaccessible to a reader. But what the author purposes to express and accomplish publicly by means of a text is partially, though never perfectly, open to a reader. The fact that an author possesses unexpressed inward thoughts does not begin to show that the author’s expressed meanings are inaccessible to a reader.

A commitment to locating meaning in what an author intends to communicate stands against two other kinds of approaches to the locating of meaning. Assuming an authorial intention view of interpretation, the meaning of a written communication act is not located primarily in a text conceived as an independent thing disconnected from an author. A text’s meaning is inextricably linked to what its author willed to say and do through the text. And further, given an authorial intention view of meaning, meaning is not situated primarily in a reader’s thoughts about or responses to a text. To learn what a text means, the reader asks what the author purposed to express and accomplish by means of the text.

For a variety of reasons, locating the meaning of a text in the author’s intended message is out of vogue. But there is a promising way to conceptual-ize this idea, and we would do well to explore it. This promising alternative is speech act theory. (See more about speech act theory in chapter 12.) According to speech act theory, linguistic utterances have several different kinds of force. What is called “illocutionary force” is what an author intends to accomplish through an utterance. When I say to my son, “Please clear the table,” what I intend is for my son to understand the meaning of the instruction and to pick up the dishes. When I say to my wife, “My car is fixed,” I intend to communicate that the mechanic has finished his work and my car now has brakes. Based on this, I may then ask her to give me a ride to Steve’s Garage so I can pick up my car and get on with my day’s business. Acts of communication—and a text is a medium of communication—possess illocutionary force. This is the dimension of the act that expresses what authors intend their communication acts to do. Kevin Vanhoozer wrote,

Texts without authors would be mere entities, as devoid of meaning as the marks the waves leave upon the sand. Why? Because meaning is the result of intentional (illocutionary) action, not a natural event. There is verbal meaning only where someone means, or has meant, something by using particular words in a specific context in a certain way.[27]

We can cash out the meaning of the phrase “author’s intention” by using this concept of illocutionary force.[28]

The idea that an author utters something with an intended meaning and force—an illocution—is rooted in an undeniable intuition about the nature of communication. In ordinary speech, we quickly and effortlessly ferret out the illocutionary force. We interpret ordinary utterances in this way dozens of times per day. Many in the contemporary academic world reject the idea of looking for the meaning of Scripture in the biblical author’s intentions. But frankly, I cannot imagine where else to look for it. Locating meaning and force in the message that the author intended to communicate gives a text a certain stability. Even if an author changes her view about something she wrote a decade ago, the meaning of the original text she wrote was fixed when she wrote it. The text means what she meant it to convey when she wrote it. If she experiences a change of heart and writes a new work to express a contrary belief, then the two texts conflict. Obviously, if she says, “I don’t agree with what I wrote a decade ago” (which is reasonable), then the text written a decade ago must have a fixed meaning. So again, texts mean and do what authors intended as they wrote.[29]

Evidence for this became clear to me in a panel discussion at a regional American Academy of Religion meeting one recent spring. I defended the idea that meaning resides in the author’s expressed message. I said I was not persuaded by the hermeneutical theories of philosophers who see meaning residing elsewhere than in the author’s intended purposes. One member of the audience held a different view, however, based on the writings of his favorite philosopher. And he held his view with passion. According to his favorite philosopher, an author’s meaning is not recoverable due to a variety of subjective biases in readers. Based on this premise, his favorite philosopher promoted a reader response hermeneutic. During Q and A, this audience member spent ten minutes haranguing me. He argued passionately that an author’s intended meaning is not accessible to readers. Such things are beyond our ken due to all sorts of subjective biases. Then, in his concluding flourish, he censured me brutally because, he claimed, I had grossly misread his favorite philosopher on this point! But of course, if the message an author intends to communicate is inaccessible to a reader, why did this critic bludgeon me for failing to catch the point his favorite philosopher was making? It seemed to me that day—and it still seems this way—that it is quite impossible to deny consistently the intuition that a text does what the writer meant it to do.

Alister McGrath raised another interesting case that supports this point. During World War II, Paul de Man, a leading postmodern thinker, wrote anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi essays. Now, is he responsible for what he said? It seems obvious that de Man is guilty of anti-Semitism. But this requires that the meaning of de Man’s writing is tied to him. If, however, de Man is disconnected from the meaning of the words he wrote, as some contemporary hermeneutical theories would have it, then how could anyone hold de Man responsible for those (not his) words? If the essays in question have a life of their own independent of the author, or if the meaning of these essays is essentially tied to their readers, then they do not express de Man’s viewpoint. He is not responsible for the essays’ meanings. But that is an outrageous conclusion.[30] Texts do at heart express the meanings and purposes that authors intend.

For evangelical theologians, who see the biblical text as God’s speech, fix-ing the Bible’s meaning to its divine author is not threatening. If it is readers rather than authors whose intentions ground most fundamentally the meanings of Scripture, now that is ominous. For then we lose the idea that in reading the Bible we hear God speaking intelligibly through the text. In this case, human readers of Scripture will hear their own voices, not God’s. But it is precisely the Lord’s voice we seek to hear. So evangelical theology must resist hermeneutical theories and procedures that locate the ground for the meaning of a text in the reader. Indeed, “to treat an author’s words merely as grist for one’s own mill is ethically analogous to using another man merely for one’s own purposes.”[31]

But contemporary readers are not wooden and passive. Readers do bring their cultural perspectives and personal biases to the text. Reading is always active. This is why Hans-Georg Gadamer asserted, “Not just occasionally but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author.”[32] Now to clarify this, we can sometimes infer more from a text than the author meant to communicate. If we read a note written by a distraught lover, and we find words filled with anger and bitterness, we can make an educated guess about the emotional state of the writer when she wrote. We do not want to get into a quest for the elusive mental acts. But within reason, making an inference about an author from a text is possible. (In that case, we treat the note more as an artifact than as a message.) The troubled lover may not have intended for us to make that inference. Still, the inference is possible. But that inference is not part of what the writer intended to communicate, and so it is not part of the note’s meaning. Its meaning is what the author meant to convey.

Because the human author of a biblical text could not possibly have in mind all the implications of what he wrote, contemporary interpreters inevitably make inferences from ancient texts that apply the ideas to contemporary issues. Robert Stein argued for what he called a “pattern of meaning.” The pattern of meaning includes the author’s originally willed meaning as well as certain implications that the author may or may not have recognized consciously. Stein’s example is Ephesians 5:18. Paul’s intended meaning prohibits drunkenness caused by drinking wine. But legitimate implications of this surely relate also to intoxication caused by other narcotic substances. Were he alive, surely the apostle would tell us not to be filled with cocaine even though that cursed drug was unknown to him in the first century. Obviously, “Do not get high on cocaine” is part of the pattern of meaning for Ephesians 5:18. [33]

While this case seems obvious, other texts seem less so. First Timothy 3:2 says the overseer should be “the husband of one wife.” Does this mean that a pastor may not be single, may not be female, may not be a remarried divorcée, or may not be a polygamist? Well, the first task is searching for Paul’s intended meaning; the second is looking for appropriate implications for contemporary church life. (I assume Pauline authorship.) Reconstructing the author’s meaning requires analyzing historical backgrounds, cultural conditions, grammatical conventions, and literary genres. It includes correlating the message of this passage with the teachings of other Pauline texts. The careful reader literally faces a welter of relevant evidence. In the end, deciding which proposed implications of this text are proper is a matter of mature theological judgment. Does it disqualify from the overseer’s position any man who is married to his first wife and has never committed adultery, but who flirts outrageously with other women?[34] Considering the deep purposes behind this principle, I say a legitimate implication of the text is that outrageously flirtatious husbands are dis-qualified from church leadership.

A mature evangelical position implies several things. First, biblical inter-pretation remains partly ambiguous. This is an epistemic point. It is a perfectly correct comment about the human inability to discern meaning perfectly. It does not, however, mean or even hint that texts mean what readers mean. That is, affirming that the meaning and force of a passage lie in the illocutionary force of an author’s communicative act does not even suggest, let alone require, that our interpretive skills are infallible. Commitment to an author-centered view of meaning does not demand a miraculous ability to achieve perfect clarity in understanding the meaning of any particular passage. Locating meaning in authorially intended communication does not commit us to a modernist assumption that we can know a text’s meaning either with complete objectivity or with absolute certainty. It is possible—in my view, necessary—for evangelical biblical interpretation both to retain the essential insight that meaning lies with the author’s illocutionary intentions and to express a proper humility about all human interpretation.

Second, interpreters should recognize the difference between the original meaning of a text and its implications for today—the famous, if difficult, “what it meant” vs. “what it means.” Some readers, failing to see the difference between original meaning and contemporary implications, assign to their view regarding the implications of the text an ultimacy and finality that belongs to God’s speech alone. This is dangerous. We do “see through a glass darkly.” The classic distinction does challenge us to find ways to connect ancient meanings and contemporary applications. In spite of the challenge, the model does express a path by which we spiral ever closer to a genuine grasp of a text’s original meaning even as we use critical theological judgment to apply revelation to our time. This spiraling model creates the rubric within which the fixed meaning of the biblical text continues to control statements about the implications of Scripture even as the church works continuously, if not always perfectly or even successfully, to hear God’s Word in new and different contexts.

Third, this means we do need to seek a proper objectivity in interpretation. The word ‘objectivity’ does not mean absolute certitude or perfect clarity. Rather, it means that the object of our knowing, God himself, decisively controls, directs, and drives forward our understanding of God’s self-witness. The form and content of theology are not directed decisively by the researcher’s agenda, but by the Lord’s. Properly modest objectivity means that the reality of God’s own self and his self-witness controls our thinking about God.

A commitment to this proper sort of objectivity does not rule out a personal engagement with the Lord. Indeed, theology fails to fulfill its goal of creating wisdom if objectivity alone is pursued. We can feel the power of modernist scientific models for academic research influencing us to value complete detachment as the ideal. If these models have too much influence, they can lead to what J. I. Packer called a “cultivated detachment that became a cramping convention in academic Bible work.” He wrote that “the conven-tion of ‘objectivity’ has blighted technical study of Scripture with theological unreality for too long; it is high time that awareness of the text as God here and now addressing us, its latter-day readers, and teaching us from it, challenging us by law and gospel, promise and command, gift and claim, should once more come to inform professional biblical studies in the church.”[35] So the kind of objectivity needed in evangelical interpretation allows the object of theology—God—to control theology, but it never precludes personal engagement with the Lord.

The situation is not unlike the case of a cancer researcher whose husband is suffering from lung cancer. If she approaches her scientific investigation with integrity as she should, she will pursue an appropriate objectivity in which the facts regarding her study drive the results of her research. A commitment to objectivity need not eliminate creativity in imagining new ways of interpreting results or new lines of research. And pursuing an appropriate objectivity does not in the least rule out her being passionately and personally interested in the results. She can hope against hope that her study will uncover a path toward healing for her husband. Still, she must work to understand the cancer as it really is. Similarly, in interpreting the Bible, creativity in shaping the interpretive process and passionate interest in the results of that process are important. In the end, however, correctly interpreting the Scripture, to the greatest degree humanly possible, is the goal. Words of Anthony Thiselton from an earlier work are still valid: it is one thing to “understand the text . . . more deeply and more creatively and another to understand it correctly.”[36]

Evangelical theology seeks to build on understandings of the Bible that are properly objective. Of course, we can suppose naïvely that developing and defending a properly objectivist theory will safeguard us against hermeneutical practices that devalue the goal of “correct” interpretation. This supposition is dubious. In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that younger evangelicals are increasingly willing to denigrate the ideal of seeking correct interpretation. But there are no shortcuts to good interpretation. Tough-minded, self-critical work, rooted in sound hermeneutical theory, leads to good interpretations. I say evangelicals are best served by understanding the author’s intended meaning—the writer’s illocutionary force—as a limit toward which interpretation spirals. To change the metaphor, the text’s meaning is an asymptote. Imagine a line that rises quickly on a curve and then gradually flattens out. Next imagine (above the curving line) a straight, horizontal line that this curving line reaches toward but never touches. This horizontal line is the asymptote; the two lines stand in an asymptotic relation. The horizontal line represents the meaning of the text. The curved line signifies a particular interpreter’s understanding of that text. When we move up the learning curve, the curved line flattens out. Although we grow in our grasp of the text, we never reach the asymptote. But readers in community certainly can make reasonable, public judgments about more or less accurate readings. We should recognize the proper force of a contemporary stress on a reader’s historical/cultural location. But we should also refuse to concede that this makes the biblical message—God’s Word—inaccessible to faithful readers of the Bible.

II. THREE OBJECTIONS TO THE AUTHORITY PRINCIPLE

Contemporary theologians may still oppose the chastened model I described. Some theologians outside the evangelical world suspect any method that appeals to an authority that allegedly delivers a cognitive communication from God. The whole modern project, foreshadowed as far back as the Renaissance, assumes that we make progress toward knowledge, not by appealing to authorities from the past, but by throwing off unchallenged, allegedly inspired traditions. The apparently premodern nature of evangelicalism’s appeal to an authoritative source for theology strikes some in the contemporary academic world as hopelessly simplistic. How can we answer key criticisms of a commitment to the way of authority?

A. The Abusive Nature of Appeals to Authority

A first objection to the principle of authority is this: commitment to theological authority usually deteriorates into authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is the blind, indiscriminate, or unwarranted acceptance of an authority source that lies beyond all critique. This criticism indicts any appeal to biblical authority for failing to see that Scripture has a malevolent side. Critics say evangelical theology ignores how the Bible supports the authoritarian abuse of power through militarism, racism, sexism, and obscurantism.[37] One solution suggested for this problem is adopting a critical approach to Scripture that distinguishes the “abiding character” of the Bible from its “time-conditioned interpretations.” By deciding, through critical reason, which teachings or interpretations of Scripture to accept, the oppressive elements of Scripture can be laid aside and theologians can avoid “reading Scripture as a ‘paper-god.’” This ensures that the Bible never becomes an “arbitrary authority, imposing its dictates on us.”[38]

Packer described authoritarianism as “authority corrupted, degenerated, gone to seed. It appears when the submission demanded is not justifiable in terms of truth or morality.”[39] Two forms of authoritarianism, relating to truth and morality, reflect the two modes of proper authority, veracious authority and moral authority respectively. A dynamic that effectively establishes oppressors in their positions and justifies (in the oppressors’ own minds) their abuse of power involves an interplay between the truth and morality dimensions. This creates a self-reinforcing position that becomes immune to healthy critique.

The self-sustaining dynamic of authoritarianism typically begins by pro-pounding moral authority. In the process of first gathering and then preserving and using their power, abusers begin to employ every means at their disposal. In order to justify using tainted means to consolidate their power, they cite various moral evils that must be fought. The dimension of veracious authority comes into play when oppressors use an idolatrous claim to absolute and unquestionable truth. As a strategy to consolidate their position, they will often claim the authority of God. They may assert that God has called them to a mission. They may take a story from a written source like the Bible and apply the leadership mandate to themselves. Or, what is more effective, they may profess to receive prophetic messages directly from God. Not surprisingly, each of these messages requires them to continue in their positions of power. Either way, authoritarian leaders will use an unfalsifiable message that supposedly possesses God’s authority to consolidate their position and place it beyond critique.

It is especially ironic, as Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out long ago, that the rationale for gaining and holding power tends to change. Those who are powerless begin to realize that they suffer because of another’s abuse of power. They decide to do something about the problem, and they set about to overturn the systems of power by ousting the oppressors. The champions of liberty accumulate power with the noble intention of serving the powerless. As time passes, however, the corrupting acids of power do their destructive work. Those who originally amassed power for the purpose of serving others suddenly begin using the power they gain to preserve themselves in power. They justify their continuation in power on the grounds that they serve the oppressed, when in fact they begin serving themselves.[40] This dynamic is a common form of authoritarianism and is repeated over and over in political dictatorships.

Postmodern people warmly embrace critiques of the abuse of authority. Postmodern sensibilities are especially attuned to the use of power in oppression. In the postmodern perspective, the universal claims of Scripture and the worldview it embodies create a metanarrative (a large-scale account of human history and the meaning of life) that excludes minority voices and buttresses oppression. The claim of the church to have a canon implicitly excludes voices that are extra-canonical. Postmodern thinkers seek to restrain oppression by delegitimizing all totalizing (or dominating) narratives and extolling the freedom that comes through celebrating different perspectives. They delight in the radical plurality of local stories as a hedge against ominous metanarratives. In a postmodern ethos, a Bible that is considered authoritative simply gives despots yet another weapon for controlling others. Releasing the captives requires, among other things, a rejection of any absolute authority in theology.

The postmodern critique emerges not just from philosophical analyses of power relations but also from observations of history. The amount of abuse and oppression inflicted by those who claim to speak for God gives this objection real punch. In responding to the problem of authoritarianism, the first thing to do—even if it seems pitifully inadequate to the emotional toll that abuse exacts—is simply to condemn in the strongest terms possible all abuse of authority. Oppression is sheer evil. We do know why it happens: all human authorities can become corrupted because all human persons, organizations, and structures are sinful and therefore deeply flawed. And it is not hard to grasp why some people recoil from biblical teaching when the only form of Christian teaching they know came to them entangled with an oppressive social system. In no way can the church justify or legitimize the abuse of biblical authority to promote the prestige or privilege of some person or group. Abuse and oppression are sins of the worst sort. To adapt the words of Jesus, it is better that a millstone be tied around an abuser’s neck than that he oppress the poor and the fatherless (Luke 17:2).

This leads to another important point. A second critical response to the abuse of authority—especially religious authority—is to highlight those significant biblical themes that subvert religious authoritarianism. Self-centered religious authorities, especially those that use allegedly direct revelations to establish their privilege, will not speak out against the wrong use of truth. But Scripture in general and Jesus in particular clearly speak against the abuse of truth claims. The Bible unravels the pretenses of false authority. It confronts those who would use God’s Word for partisan causes.[41] Nothing could be clearer than the words of Jesus: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to” (Matt 23:13-14). Since the Bible strongly condemns the abuse of authority, both those who use the Bible to oppress and those who reject the Bible because it is used for oppression are guilty of errors.

The abuse of authority is the grossest hypocrisy. Those outside the faith are particularly quick to notice and condemn the sin of hypocrisy. But as with any form of hypocrisy, the special type of hypocrisy practiced by those who abuse authority in the name of God is mitigated by an important fact: some who claim the authority of God are not rightly related to God. Applying this specifically to biblical authority, the Bible clearly indicates that the church always includes some who are not true followers of Christ. In this world, the sheep mingle with wolves (Luke 10:3). Consequently, we simply cannot assume that every power-hungry religious leader is an honest seeker after God. Indeed, we should prima facie assume the opposite. Power mongers, not Scripture, are the problem. If a crook uses a baseball bat to steal money, we blame the crook, not the bat. If a rapist uses a gun to coerce his victim, we blame the man, not the gun. But when a charlatan uses biblical teaching to fleece the flock, people blame the Bible, as though the charlatan actually represented true biblical teaching. Of course, a con man will use Christian teaching for his cover. He needs a respectable cover. No one will trust him—and thus the con will fail—if he pretends to represent the American Nazi Party.

In a general meditation on Augustine’s political theory, Jean Bethke Elshtain raised another important point: the distinction between authority and power. In Augustine’s teaching, authority is necessary in earthly life. But authority is neither arbitrary nor absolute. By contrast, Rome’s use of unbridled power to subjugate others corrupted the empire. Elshtain argued that we who live in late modernity do not properly distinguish these concepts. Too many persons see no difference between the illegitimate use of power in oppression and the legitimate constraints placed on us by the realities of social life. The desire—the human need—to live together in community assumes that properly constituted authority, constrained by both truth and love, appropriately limits the freedom of individuals. If we discard the proper constraint of duly constituted authority, we have not the utopia of freedom but the anarchy of license. In reacting, as they should, against abuses of power, contemporary people may also carelessly reject the legitimate authority that sets the table for human flourishing.[42]

How then does authority function properly in the church? Both veracious authority and moral authority are essential to community life. Those persons in whom moral authority is vested must exercise it for the common good. This is the calling to public service. Communities rightly employ both external and internal restraints to ensure that authority does so function. Externally, if impartial law limits those in leadership (along with everyone else), it curbs the abuse of power. If power is divided among several people or institutions, this raises another external hedge against power’s exploitation. Yet external restrictions are always less than fully adequate. Human authorities will exercise authority rightly only if they acknowledge the authority of God over them. A properly profound sense of God’s sovereignty over every human authority breeds humility. Humility is an internal restraint that is essential to a mature use of authoritative leadership. Scripture highlights the importance of virtuous character when it gives qualifications for pastoral leadership: blamelessness, honesty, self-control, holiness, and faithfulness. Communities trust their lead-ers as persons of character who use authority for the common good. Similarly, believers trust God to exercise authority over these human leaders. For this reason, “obedience to authority in the theological sense is not servile subjection to an external power or norm but glad acceptance of the message that saves and transforms.”[43]

If authority is necessary to community and if it can function properly in community, then contra the postmodern critique, metanarratives are not essentially evil. Further, while postmodernism embraces local narratives as the anti-dote to oppression by metanarratives, it overlooks the oppressive potential of minority stories. The tribal conflicts in central Africa, Northern Ireland, and southern Europe indicate that minority voices can equally lead to violence. Postmodernism is also simplistic in failing to see its own interpretation of the world (that all metanarratives are evil tools of oppression that must be deconstructed) as an alternative metanarrative. Metanarratives are necessary and not necessarily evil; local narratives are helpful but not necessarily good. All narratives, both local and universal, are “pharmacological”—both medicinal and poisonous. They can heal, and they can destroy.[44] Proper moral authority, vested in mature leaders, is a reasonable restraint against inter-tribal conflict. Proper veracious authority, a source of truth, is likewise a legitimate barrier against violence. It is precisely the proper exercise of duly constituted author-ity, constrained by truth and love, not the rebellious rejection of all authority whatever, that safeguards against abusive authoritarianism.

B. The Circularity of Appeals to Authority

A second contemporary objection to theology grounded in authority is this: some argue that a theological method based in authority is essentially circular in form and therefore cannot provide any warrant for its theological assertions. According to Gerd Theissen, within the community of faith, each person finds his authority in some other person. The layperson takes something as true on the say-so of the pastor, the pastor in turn accepts the say-so of the theologian at the seminary, and on it goes. But there is no end to this chain. So rooting theological belief in authority only gives the appearance of warranting that belief. In the end, the chain of warrant either loops back on itself or ends up hanging in mid-air. Since the chain is not attached to anything solid, the whole series of beliefs remains unsubstantiated.[45] Changing the metaphor slightly, Edward Farley wrote that in the “house of authority,” warrant is passed around through the various rooms. But in the end, if I walk through all the rooms, I am led back to the room where I started. The method of authority leads to vicious circularity, and so the house of authority is a house of cards.[46]

One possible response is to say simply that it is not theology’s task to justify or warrant its basic presuppositions or axioms. Christian theologians can just posit the canonical Bible as God’s self-revelation. It is legitimate for theology simply to unpack the implications of this commitment to biblical revelation. This includes interpreting what Scripture meant in its original context and reflecting theologically about what its teaching means for today. Theologians can reason from, they do not need to reason to, their conviction that the Bible is indeed God’s speech. So Stanley Grenz claimed that “In engaging in the theological task, we may simply assume the authority of the Bible.”[47]

On the one hand, among evangelicals, for purposes of doing theology in the church, it is legitimate simply to posit the Bible as the source of knowledge of God. Scripture is, after all, the authority upon which the church builds its life. On the other hand, when people accept some idea because of its origin in an authoritative source, they typically assume implicitly that the idea possesses some warrant for someone. They assume that something other than a series of appeals to an unending chain of authorities is available somewhere, even if they do not directly investigate that warrant. Similarly, when historians read a historical document in order to learn about the past, they may not have independent access to the warrant that grounds every particular claim made in that document. According to the principle of credulity, they may rightly accept prima facie that what they read is true unless and until they discover some defeater that undercuts or rebuts the document’s assertions. Initially, therefore, they presume that those who wrote the document did have good grounds for believing that what they wrote is true. “Although person A might so believe by trusting the say-so of person B, and B by similarly trusting C, we take it that this chain of testimony is, somewhere in the community, anchored in some-thing other than testimony.”[48]

The need to evade this circularity is acute in cases where authorities clash. If the Bible says God is triune, but the Qur’an says differently, then reading the Qur’an gives me reason to question the Bible (it is a rebutting defeater), and I should do something to resolve the conflict. In such cases, I have a greater bur-den to find a warrant other than circular appeals to a chain of authorities. Prima facie—as an initial move—I rightly accept the say-so of reliable witnesses. The demand for independent evidence for every single belief is unjustified for it leads to an infinite regress.[49] But in cases where authorities conflict on centrally important matters, I should inquire as to which one is the reliable witness. So although it is legitimate to believe certain things spontaneously by trusting the say-so of an authority (like a professor in class), it is also appropriate to investigate the credentials of any source of allegedly true information, especially when authorities conflict.[50]

Certainly, this process demands a tenacious study of relevant evidence of several quite different sorts. For example, theologians should ask: What are the implications of adopting as an assumption that the Bible is God’s revelation? Does this presupposition produce coherent, meaningful understandings of the world? Does this presupposition illuminate or fit with other evidence we find? Is any of this evidence defeated by other considerations? And in each case, I ask whether the Christian worldview displays greater coherence, explanatory power, and existential value than the alternatives. Reasoning through these questions and many others like them, in dialogue with both sympathetic and critical dialogue partners, is the only way to discriminate among conflicting religious documents.

One way of posing this problem emerges when we ask whether it is possible to hold to the ultimate authority of Scripture in a critical way. In Farley’s liberal point of view, “A historical-critical approach cannot avoid some distinction between what is true, authoritative, and real, and the content of the canonical texts.”[51] In this perspective, some of the Bible’s teachings are clearly untenable. Interpreters must critically evaluate the content of biblical expressions, therefore, by placing them against rational standards. But this allows an alien agenda to control the reading of Scripture. It produces a “canon within the canon” where only certain parts of the biblical material (those that cohere with “what we know today,” however that is defined) are acknowledged as true or authoritative. Obviously, this procedure edits the Scripture of important aspects of its teaching. What is authoritative is whatever fights its way through our contemporary screen, in which case our contemporary screen becomes authoritative. So this poses a dilemma for evangelical theology: Must the evangelical theologian choose between adopting the authority of the Bible uncritically and subjugating the authority of the Bible to a critical method?

Let me unpack the question. For one thing, there is a distinction between investigating what the text meant (as judged by the original author’s illocutionary force) and deciding whether to accept and believe what the text claims as true. In investigating what the text meant (essentially the task of exegesis using proper hermeneutics), interpreters do not, strictly speaking, criticize Scripture. Rather they criticize hypotheses about the text, testing one such interpretive hypothesis against another. Similarly, theological interpreters want to know, for example, whether the orthodox view of Christ or the Arian view of Christ does the greatest justice to biblical data. In the current situation, debates about topics like sovereignty need this clarification. The Bible teaches that God reigns. Now if someone rejects a Reformed view of sovereignty, this does not necessarily amount to a rejection of sovereignty—a denial of the biblically authoritative teaching that God reigns. It is a rejection of a particular theory about the biblical teaching, not a rejection of the Bible itself. Such discussion and debate is consistent with a commitment to the authority of Scripture and with two millennia of Christian theological practice.

It is quite a different matter, however, to reject the clearly intended meaning of the Bible just because it conflicts with contemporary sensibilities. It is one thing to say, “Paul instructed the Ephesian church to prohibit women in teaching roles, but women in our culture may authoritatively teach men.” It is quite a different thing to say, “Paul clearly teaches that women authoritatively teaching men is sinful for all times and in all cultures, but I reject Paul’s teach-ing.” [52] The first statement represents a hermeneutical or exegetical conclusion in conjunction with a contemporary theological judgment. The latter surrenders the ultimacy of biblical authority. As evangelicals committed to the authority and centrality of the Bible, we may not say, as Farley likely would, “I know Jeremiah meant to teach x or y, but I just think he’s wrong.”

For another thing, there is a further distinction between testing different versions of evangelical teaching against each other and testing the Christian worldview against other worldviews. The first discussion involves intramural debates that are argued on the assumption that the Bible is authoritative. Sola scriptura is a statement of the way the Bible functions in these intramural debates. Sola scriptura is a “control belief,” a nonnegotiable belief, within a system, that controls whether and how other claims fit into the system.[53] So Scripture plays a regulative role. The second discussion involves intercollegiate debates that include as one of the points of contention whether sola scriptura is true. The analogy of Imre Lakatos’s distinction between “hard-core” beliefs and “auxiliary-belt” beliefs in a scientific research program is helpful. Scientific research programs have essential, hard-core beliefs that can-not be abandoned without causing the entire research program to implode. Similarly, Christian theologians posit certain core beliefs without which their research program would collapse. In testing different Christian claims against each other, the Bible is normative; this is an assumption of the discussion. In evaluating the truth of the Christian worldview, a theologian becomes an apologist and treats her methodological decision to take the Bible as an authoritative norm as a point for discussion.[54]

So a believer who accepts the authority of Scripture for his worldview may still enter a discussion with an unbeliever about the warrant for his belief that the Bible is authoritative. Worldviews, I argue, are warranted in holistic ways. The best worldview is the one that does the best job of handling the widest ranges of evidence. It is therefore possible for a believer to examine all the lines of evidence that give good reason to adopt the total Christian worldview, and this would include the fundamental hard-core beliefs upon which that world-view is built. (One of these is the authority of Scripture.) Thus, evangelical theologians, doing their theological homework, may hold unquestioningly to the Bible as the ultimate authority on the ground that it is, in its very essence, the self-witness of God. But when answering a different question or performing a different, more apologetic function, they may also explore the multitude of rea-sons that could count for or against that belief.

Consider an illustration. Suppose I receive an e-mail message that appears to be from George, a dear friend. My computer screen says: “I feel that our relationship must end. I’ve been thinking it over, and I realize that our friend-ship just cannot go on. I am angry and deeply wounded because you’ve failed to send me any messages in the last month. Therefore, I am breaking it off. So this is good-bye. Have a nice life. Sincerely, George.” Now what do I do with this shocking note? First, I will say that if this message really is from George instead of a cruel April Fool’s joke, then the message carries incontrovertible authority. No one can speak more definitively for how George feels than George. George’s self-witness is the highest court of appeals regarding George’s thoughts, feelings, and desires. I accept the authority of George regarding all George matters. But I take the message as authoritative only if it really is from George. And before I conclude that the e-mail message is from my friend, I will certainly evaluate its authenticity by using all sorts of tests. It is perfectly appropriate both to accept George’s self-witness as the supreme guide to his own thoughts, feelings, and desires (to accept the authority of George about George) and also to evaluate rationally whether a message purporting to be from George really is from him.

The same is true of Scripture. It is perfectly reasonable both to accept that God’s self-witness must be the ultimate guide to divine thoughts, feelings, and desires and also to investigate rationally whether a particular writing that alleges to be from God actually is from God. In committing to sola scriptura, one affirms something like the following:

(c) If the Bible is indeed God’s self-witness, then its content is the ultimate source of knowledge regarding the divine thoughts, desires, plans, and instructions.

If the Bible is God’s Word, nothing could stand above it and criticize its con-tent as a source of knowledge regarding God. No one can speak more definitively for how God feels than God. The authority of God regarding all matters relating to God is supreme. But commitment (c) does not require closing one’s mind regarding any and all lines of reasoning or any religious experiences—including the witness of the Holy Spirit—that could help decide whether the Bible really is God’s Word. That is, evidence is in fact relevant in deciding whether the antecedent (“If the Bible is God’s self-witness”) is true.

Back to the e-mail message from George, suppose a friend says to me, “I know better how George feels than George does. Believe me, that message is false.” I respond, “If you’re saying that this message is probably not from George (based on your intimate knowledge of George), then I will listen.” But I will also say, “If you’re saying that the message really is from George, yet you claim to know more about what George is thinking or feeling than George does, I’ll take his word over yours. His self-witness is ultimate on this matter.” In the same way, suppose someone says that her postmodern sensibilities about God or spiritual experiences of God are a more reliable guide to God’s thoughts, feelings, and desires than is the Bible. Commitment to sola scriptura entails saying, “No, God’s own Word is the ultimate authority on this point.” Evangelical theology says that, ontologically, the Scripture is the supreme guide to divine truth because its author—the Lord—is in the best position to know about these matters. (See Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 2:11-12.)

Still, I must come to know, epistemologically, that the Scripture is the ultimate guide to truth. I might do this by taking my pastor’s word for it. Or, after a challenging conversation with a Muslim, I might seek out whatever rational evidence I can locate for the claim. There is no inconsistency between (1) critically evaluating the rationale for accepting the authenticity of Scripture and for interpreting the Bible in certain ways and (2) acknowedging that the content of the biblical revelation is the ultimate norm for evangelical theology. Evangelical theology affirms sola scriptura, but avoids Farley’s vicious circle.

C. The Irrationality of Appeals to Authority

A third objection to authority-based theological method arises from the previous point: I argue that a community of theologians may—indeed they must—give reasons at some point for accepting some theological source as authoritative. Otherwise they sink back into fideism. But someone could reply that an authority-based theological method may not defend its source of authority using reason. According to this critique, it is incoherent to create a rational argument that leads to a conclusion that some religious source is an ultimate authority. For example, the Catholic debater François Véron (1575–1625) con-founded his Protestant opponents by pointing out that though they claimed to accept sola scriptura, they actually depended on the prior authority of their own rational interpretations. If a theological source really is the ultimate authority, there cannot be some more ultimate rational argument lying behind it. If a reasoned argument must support a theological authority, then the argument, not the authority, is ultimate. In the context of evangelical theology, if someone gives a reasoned theological argument to defend Scripture, then reason, not Scripture, becomes the authority. Does this not mean that a commitment to the authority of Scripture requires rejecting rational evidence?

Two lines of thinking among evangelicals compete to answer this question. On the one hand, some say an evangelical theologian, in order to be fully rational, must provide an argument for using Scripture as a source of knowledge of God. Hendrikus Berkhof and B. B. Warfield claimed that apologetics should precede theology and establish its foundation. They concurred with liberal scholars who typically placed critical reason before allegiance to Scripture. But they disagreed with those scholars for they believed that reason amply justifies a commitment to the truth of the Bible. Writing in the middle of the “God-is-dead” era, one theologian said, “serious questions are being asked about the reality of God, and all the more about the reality of any revelation. . . . In such a situation these questions must be settled before we can treat the Bible as the source of truth and therefore of theological truth.”[55] Berkhof and Warfield would accept this challenge, believing they could rise to the occasion.

On the other hand, other thinkers, like Cornelius Van Til, Donald Bloesch, and Gordon Clark, agree with the Barthian stream. Each of them said in his own way that an evangelical theologian should posit the Scripture as the first premise of thought. In their view, apologetics follows theology. This means that evaluating the warrant for holding Scripture as God’s Word amounts to an abdication of sola scriptura. Gordon Clark, for example, insisted on placing commitment to Scripture first, in a position that is logically prior to any ratio-nal argument. He wrote a biting critique of a book that criticized presupposi-tional apologetics:[56]

Every philosophical or theological system must begin somewhere, for if it did not begin it could not continue. But a beginning cannot be preceded by anything else, or it would not be the beginning. . . . Every system must therefore be presuppositional.

The first principle cannot be demonstrated because there is nothing prior from which to deduce it. Call it presuppositionalism, call it fideism, names do not matter. But I know of no better presupposition than “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the originals.”[57]

Since presuppositions are necessary to all thought, Clark claimed that a theologian might just as well posit that the Bible is the best ultimate source of knowledge of God. Even though Clark acknowledged that a critic could rightly call him a fideist, he declared that this is the way to remain loyal to the principle of sola scriptura.

Clark was right to say that every worldview rightly presupposes some beliefs. This is especially true of methodological presuppositions that are relatively more worldview-neutral. In response, however, notice that presupposing Scripture as God’s revelation amounts to implicitly assuming the whole Christian worldview. This fertile assumption contains within it the core of evangelical theology, and so it is not in any sense worldview-neutral. Those who take Clark’s approach to evangelical theology open themselves to the criticism of vicious circularity. Positing the Christian revelation amounts to closing the case. In essence, Clark admits Farley’s critique; he does not answer it.

Calvin said that the Christian may rightly believe that the Bible is God’s rev-elation, simply on the ground of the Holy Spirit’s inner witness. Reformed epistemologists remind us that it is indeed rational to hold such things as “God speaks to me through the Bible” on the ground of the Spirit’s inner voice. But while it is rational to believe on this ground, there is more to be said. Rationality here is a minimal criterion; what is irrational is false. A Mormon could also claim that he acts rationally in holding that the Pearl of Great Price is authentic divine revelation. So how is such a divergence of opinion adjudicated? This issue is critically important for evangelical scholarship for it gets to the heart of the issue of a starting point for theology. Only those who willingly acknowledge the primacy of Scripture merit evangelical credentials. Yet Christians should honestly follow the evidence where it leads. This creates the dilemma. Gordon Clark says we must first presuppose the Bible. But why not just presuppose the Pearl of Great Price?

To my thinking, we need a multi-faceted middle ground. A helpful place to start is the distinction that emerges from an analogy based on the difference between the judicial and legislative functions of the United States government. The duty of Congress is to pass laws, but the role of the judiciary is to interpret laws. Both bodies have authority, but the form of authority is different.[58] Similarly, in theology, there is a legislative and a judicial function. The authorizing source that gives the revelation its power is divine. God, in other words, plays the role of the legislature. Like Congress, God rightly possesses the authority to proclaim truth and to command our allegiance to his will. But our reason rightly identifies the true revelation and then interprets it. In these functions, reason (in its relatively worldview-neutral sense) acts like the judiciary. Reason may help us assess whether a particular claimed revelation, say, Joseph Smith’s Pearl of Great Price, is a genuine revelation from God. But reasoning (in the relatively neutral sense) has no independent authority to command our allegiance.

There is a further point. The critique is that an authority-based theological method may not use reason to justify its authority, for then the reasoning becomes the supreme authority. This poses a dilemma: either (1) the Bible is supremely authoritative but belief in that authority is unwarranted by reason or (2) belief in the Bible’s authority is warranted by reason but the Bible is not supremely authoritative. Those who say we must initially presuppose, entirely without argument, that the Bible is God’s revelation will accept the first horn of the dilemma. Those who claim that we must first rationally demonstrate that God reveals in the Bible accept the second horn of the dilemma. This dilemma arises from a critical assumption, namely, that all reasoning is essentially linear in form. Both groups view theological reasoning as entirely sequential. If all reasoning were strictly linear, then determining which comes first in the line—the Bible as supreme authority or some reasoning that the Bible is authoritative—becomes critically important. The starting point of any journey determines its course. But are we stuck on the horns of this dilemma?

It is true that some arguments can go in a straight line. But the case for a whole worldview is not necessarily linear. If a critic calls a theological presupposition into question, the defender of an argument will refer back to other aspects of her worldview. If the critic persists, the defender will go deeper, finally ending up at the hard core of her belief system. These patterns of reasoning are more like webs than they are like lines. Worldviews, like webs of belief, are holistic and mutually reinforcing sets of beliefs. Coherence, simplicity, beauty, explanatory adequacy, and practical implications warrant the belief system as a whole. We rightly use more holistic processes—cumulative case strategies—when justifying worldviews. We need not always use that strategy when warranting individual propositions. Thus, there is no simple answer to the question of whether Scripture or reason comes first logically. Epistemological strategies that use coherence as part (not the whole) of their approach to warranting beliefs will not worry about which premise is first in line. This reflects the spirit of Augustine’s “faith is understanding’s step; understanding is faith’s reward”[59] where the process of Christian warranting moves dialectically between reason and revelation. [60] It is misleading to force a simple decision about whether reason or revelation comes first in a line of reasoning.

Of course, there is a trivial sense in which reason (in the neutral sense of idea-processing ability) comes before revelation in sequence. Before a person can hear or read or understand the biblical message, he must possess a properly functioning thinking capacity. But for evangelical theology, it is appropriate to accept the Scripture as God’s Word without first building an argument. As Calvin said, the Holy Spirit witnesses to that truth. Now if and when potential defeaters come our way—when a Mormon claims that Pearl of Great Price is truly God’s self-witness—we should turn to other considerations to discover whether the Mormon’s claim is true. Still, it is the Bible that is the first in importance in our thinking. It is supreme in its centrality for the Christian worldview. The Bible presents ideas about reality, and, more basically, communicates the categories within which God spoke to his followers and through which Christian believers today view life.

So we need not claim that the statement, “Scripture is God’s revelation,” must in all cases occupy the first place in a logical sequence of reasoning. The centrality of Scripture need not refer to its place in the line of premises and conclusions—first in line, in a foundational way. Regarding knowledge of God, the claim is not that we must hold the Bible as a first premise, but that Scripture is of prime importance. The centrality of Scripture, as expressed in sola scriptura, denotes the Bible’s role as a fundamental, regulative “control belief” for theology. As such, Scripture governs the rest of any traditional Christian believer’s worldview. It guides her in assessing new ideas, integrating new data, and evaluating new forms of practice. It is a part of the hard core of her belief system. To deny the centrality of the Bible for evangelical theology, as represented in the Reformation phrase “sola scriptura,” is simply to abandon evangelical thought altogether. But all this means, not that the Bible is the first item in a linear sequence of rational thinking, but that it is of ultimate and central importance to evangelical theology holistically conceived. Commitment to sola scriptura is a decision to give the Bible a most favored status at the heart of one’s theology, to make its teachings the norm of theology. Evangelical theology, by definition, affirms the centrality of Scripture.

III. AUTHORIZING THEOLOGY

The model of theology emerging in this book is this: we may rightly conceptualize theology as scientia—the science of God. In this dimension, theology is (penultimately) a disciplined activity in which the church reflects on the nature, will, and ways of the Creator. But theology is (ultimately) sapientia in that the definitive purpose of theology is the formation of God’s life and character in human believers and communities. This leads to worship and service for God’s glory. Since we follow the way of biblical authority, theology is the church’s reflection predominantly, though not exclusively, on Scripture. Theology is not first and foremost the church’s thinking about experience, tradition, or faith.[61] It is the Bible that authorizes both theological statements and moral commands. (By ‘authorizing’ I mean the process of giving epistemic weight, of ascribing divine authority, of providing appropriate warrant, to the deliverances of theology.) So theology extrapolates beyond Scripture if it is to speak to contemporary life. How does that work?

A. Confirmation

Uncritical readers of the Bible, such as a group of Christians in a Bible study, often do not consciously follow a particular method of interpretation when they read the Scripture. Their theological thinking—and they will do theological thinking—is relatively uncontrolled. They tend to allow thoughts to emerge in their minds about “what the passage means to me.”

This simple form of theologizing is like stereotyping. In stereotyping, an external stimulus (meeting a Peruvian named Carlos, let us say) brings into John’s mind a preformed set of impressions about what Hispanic people are “really like.” (This is John’s stereotype.) Because John holds his stereotype of Hispanics intensely, he cannot see through it clearly enough to come to know Carlos as Carlos—as the individual person Carlos really is. Rather, John’s encounter with Carlos causes John to access his own mental hard drive and to recall an image that has little to do with Carlos himself. John consistently sees Carlos through his own preformed, stereotypical image. Because John is utterly unconscious of this process, Carlos seems to him like “all the other Hispanics I know.” So John’s experience with Carlos does not correct John’s stereotype, but reinforces it. Similarly, uncritical readers allow the Bible to stimulate their minds to access and bring to consciousness their files of preformed theological ideas. These preconceived opinions about theology—who knows where they come from?—become grist for the mill of uncritical theologizing. Naïve readers, of course, are largely unaware of this dynamic.

In this procedure, the Bible (or more specifically, individual verses from the Bible) authorizes preconceived theological beliefs of all sorts in a fairly straight-forward way. This is sometimes pejoratively called “prooftexting.” The uncritical reader of Scripture allows Bible passages to confirm particular preconceived theological ideas. In the philosophy of science, confirmationism, as a general theory of scientific theory development, suggests that scientists first propose a theory and then find facts that confirm the theory. In certain contexts, seeking confirmation is proper, especially for certifying particular beliefs. If I struggle to remember your phone number, and think it might be 651-638-6002, I can look it up in my phone book and confirm the exact number.

Philosopher of science Karl Popper argued, however, that scientists should not use confirmation to justify larger perspectives or theories. Confirmation has several flaws. First, confirmation, as it applies in authorizing theological beliefs, fails to see the difference between summations of Scripture itself—I call this “doctrine”—and our interpretations of Scripture for contemporary culture—more properly called “theology.” Theology is a second-order discipline. Second-order beliefs are those beliefs that the church develops out of or from the Bible in engagement with their experience of their own cultures. It is these second-order beliefs that need authorizing. (There are also third-order beliefs that are not so much contentful beliefs about God and Christian teaching but regulators of Christian thinking. These include rules and principles that distinguish authentic community from what it is not, show how to maintain consistency among its second-order teachings, and organize processes for deriving and defending second-order teachings.) But the second-order assertions that teach about God and about the spiritual life are not just summaries of the Bible. They are interpretations and applications of the Bible. A first step to get us beyond naïve theologizing is finding clarity about the difference between the direct expressions of the Bible and our interpretations of those expressions.

Second, without a clear distinction between first-order and second-order thinking, a confirmation approach is susceptible to special pleading. If a per-son reads the Bible without self-consciously understanding his assumptions, he notices especially those things that fit with ideas he already believes. In such cases, the Bible reinforces his beliefs rather than cutting through those beliefs to bring new insight and profound conviction. So if theological beliefs are held with sufficient volitional force, readers fall prey to ideological thinking. An ideology is a set of doctrines or beliefs that forms the basis of a theological, political, economic, or other system. To count as an ideology, these beliefs must be held in a certain way. While every perspective has hard-core beliefs, the ideologue holds her core doctrines uncritically and dogmatically—as unfalsifiable absolutes. So if an ideology were false, it could not be shown so, for the ideologue develops built-in principles that neutralize and explain away all potentially contrary evidence. In the vocabulary of Lakatos, the auxiliary belts, which do properly protect the hard core of a research program, become so universally effective that no facts ever penetrate them to correct the hard core.[62] So without a disciplined approach to authorizing theology, readers of the Bible can too easily assume that the Bible confirms their previously held beliefs.

Popper noticed that systems of thought like Marxism and psychoanalysis used suspicious methods of justification. Proponents readily produced ample positive evidence for their pet theories. But the internal structure of the system weeded out disconfirming evidence, leaving behind a self-reinforcing but erroneous system of thought. A classic example is Margaret Mead’s book Coming of Age in Samoa.[63] Mead posited that more “civilized” societies can learn from traditional ones. She tried to demonstrate this by showing that cultural demands shape an individual’s experience of the stages of development. So adolescence and sexual development may be fluid or tumultuous, depending on the culture. Mead asserted that in traditional cultures, coming of age was a sweet and natural experience devoid of psychological traumas. But Coming of Age in Samoa is ideological in character, meaning that Mead subtly discounted counter-evidence to her thesis. Derek Freeman began sensing that Mead’s work was wrong. He thought children in traditional cultures also face turbulent times during adolescence. A half century later, only after long and careful study could Freeman document his suspicions.[64] His decisive critique came out only after dozens of doctoral students in anthropology followed Mead’s lead down a dead-end trail.

It is possible for theological systems or theories to acquire this ideological character. Evangelicals are not immune to this dynamic in that some individual teachings or systematic theologies are sustained through confirmation. Theologians may cite biblical statements that are consistent with their theological commitments in order to confirm those theories. But they tend to ignore or reinterpret the biblical evidence that presses a different perspective or emphasis. For example, interpreters may describe contrary biblical themes as metaphoric, anthropomorphic, culturally limited, or situation-specific. So position A has certain “key” texts and some “problem” texts. Position A takes position B’s “problem” texts as its own “key” passages and B’s “key” passages as “problems.” I call this the “favorite text syndrome.” Of course, even in the best of cases, interpreters must make judgments about the relative weight of different data. The distinction is not always clear between cases where theologians are making justified judgments about which texts are “key” and instances where interpreters are evading the primary thrust of Scripture. Still, theologians should work honestly to overcome the favorite text syndrome.

Take, as an example, the question of eternal security. Those who favor the doctrine cite texts like Romans 8:39 and Philippians 1:6 that speak of God’s power to save completely. They recognize that some passages seem to say something other than their view. But they explain them by asserting, for exam-ple, that other texts like Hebrews 6:4-6 refer to unbelievers who appeared saved but never really were. Now the point of this illustration is not to indict those who accept, as I do, the conviction of eternal security. For the same phenomenon occurs from the opposite side. Those who deny the eternal security of the believer emphasize what seems to them the obvious teaching of Hebrews 6:4-6 that stresses the possibility of losing salvation due to human failure. Of course, they also acknowledge that some passages appear to rebut their perspective. So they, too, do a certain amount of explaining, claiming that the texts in question point to what God is able and willing to do—provided the believer remains faithful.

To reinforce the favorite text syndrome, readers sometimes make the pas-sages say a little more than they actually do. In the example above, the clear biblical teaching, “God is definitely able to keep those who trust him,” is sub-tly transmuted into the theological assertion, “God definitively will keep those who trust in him.” The syndrome, sustained by selective reading and exacerbated by subtle exaggeration, can lead to overconfidence in particular theological formulations. Kevin Vanhoozer expressed it this way: a theologian begins with preconceived ideas and then goes “trawling through the Scriptures. One’s exegetical ‘catch’ is then dumped indiscriminately into parentheses irrespective of where the parts were found.”[65] The special pleading involved in this kind of confirmation is dangerous because just as it subconsciously steers around potentially disconfirming evidence, it continues to accumulate, on behalf of an idea or a theological perspective, an increasing mountain of positive evidence. The syndrome becomes hypnotic. We all risk becoming so entranced with an emerging confirmation of our own theology that other perspectives begin to seem entirely unbiblical. This is especially ironic in light of the formal evangelical commitment to the control belief that Scripture must speak for itself.

B. Principlizing

Obviously, there are many times when it is right to seek confirmation for a par-ticular belief. In the example above, I confirm my belief about a phone number by looking it up. This is a perfectly acceptable procedure. But as a theory about how to ground broad, theological theories, confirmationism is flawed. As an alternative, some evangelicals, consciously or not, assume a particular kind of translation procedure. In chapter 1, I borrowed William Hordern’s idea of the translator who brings together new ways of speaking in unique cultural contexts with faithful attention to what the church has always taught. A translator uses the Bible to establish the essential message, but uses contemporary culture to shape the communication.[66] The ultimate goal is to restate biblical truth in a contemporary idiom. Regarding the grounding of theological ideas, this goal moves beyond uncritical confirmationism.

One way of thinking about translation is Charles Kraft’s idea (influenced by Bible translators like Eugene Nida) that a theological statement produced “here today” is the “dynamic equivalent” or “functional equivalent” of a biblical statement written “there yesterday.” Theology says to us in our time just what the Bible said to others in another time.[67] But there is more to theology than this. A good Bible translation seeks to say today in a contemporary language what was said yesterday in a biblical language. Theology does more than restate the biblical message. So Millard Erickson dismissed the phrase “dynamic equivalence,” but instead used the term ‘contemporizing’. Contemporizing is “giving a new concrete expression to the same lasting truth that was concretely conveyed in biblical times by terms and images that were common then.” This is not separating the kernel of truth from its husk. It is not stripping away the myth to get at the message. (These were favorite liberal metaphors.) It is neither allegorizing nor looking for hidden spiritual meanings. It is a search for an “essential meaning” that speaks across cultures.[68]

This way of doing theological translation is “principlizing.” Principlizing sees doing good theology as a process of abstracting from the Bible certain general theological truths called “principles.” Because principles are quite general, they guide reasoning or behavior in a wide range of cultural contexts, rather than in the single culture that the original biblical teaching covers. Interpreters can apply transcultural theological principles cross-culturally by clothing the principles in new cultural garb. Thus, principlizing presumes a two-phase process. First, the theologian identifies the cultural forms in which the theological content of Scripture appears. She condenses the essence of biblical teaching by burning off the cultural elements and distilling the essence of scriptural truth in the form of transcultural principles. This is the “essential meaning.” Second, she restates these transcultural principles in the thought forms of a new culture. Following this model, a missionary to Africa takes the Bible in its original form, states its message in terms of an abstract and transcultural systematic theology, and then restates it for the specific culture in which he is working. This is the “functional equivalent.” In principlizing, the Bible authorizes the theological principles that are then, in a second step, applied to various cultural contexts.

Bernard Ramm espoused principlizing:

The proper [method] is to principlize the Old Testament. To principlize is to discover in any narrative the basic spiritual, moral, or theological principles. These principles are latent in the text and it is the process of deduction that brings them to the surface. It is not an imposition on the text.[69]

Another exponent of principlizing, Roy B. Zuck, said that principles “serve as bridges between interpretation and application. Latent in the text, they summarize the essence of a Bible passage in terms that are applicable to a broad spectrum of readers and situations.”[70]

As an example of principlizing, Zuck cited an interpretation of the command of Numbers 15:32-36 to stone those who gather wood on the Sabbath. This specific command is hardly relevant in an industrialized culture where no one gathers wood or stones criminals. So Zuck advised that we infer an underlying principle from the text. He suggested that this text authorizes the transcultural teaching “God punishes disobedience.” This principle seems relevant to other cultures. An interpreter can apply it, in a second step of theologizing, to any culture. [71] In terms of a model of biblical authorizing, Zuck’s approach means that, speaking strictly, the culturally specific command in Scripture authorizes a cor-responding transcultural principle. In other words, Zuck implied that Numbers 15:32-36 provides warrant for the transcultural conviction.

Contemporizing the biblical message is no easy task. For example, it is not always clear which general principle to draw from a text. Zuck’s example shows this. Zuck himself skated right past the fact that Numbers 15:32-36 says absolutely nothing about God punishing. So then should we infer from Numbers 15:32-36 that duly constituted social authorities should punish criminals? Or that persons should not do ordinary work on Saturday? Or that capital punishment is appropriate for religious sins? Zuck’s example suggests that his procedural advice is simplistic.

Here is another example: Titus 2:5 says that younger women are to be “busy at home.” Does the relevant transcultural principle teach that young mothers should rear their children and not take paying jobs? In the industrial West, the Victorian model of the husband as the breadwinner outside the home and the wife as the preserver of moral purity inside the home is well-known. In the West, therefore, this is the moral principle that immediately occurs to some minds, and it seems the text obviously confirms this inference. But in preindustrial societies, “young mothers should rear their children and not take paying jobs” makes no sense. Then, perhaps, should we rightly infer the more general principle that young mothers should be industrious? The difficulty here is this: the process of identifying the principle that a specific text seems reasonably to imply is strongly influenced by the tacit plausibility structures of the interpreter’s culture.

A very few examples suffice to show that principlizing involves answering the question: How can we decide what dimension of a particular Scripture pas-sage counts as the transcultural principle and what does not? Erickson suggested five criteria for identifying the permanent aspects of a biblical doctrine:

1. Ideas that appear across a variety of temporal, geographical, linguistic, or cultural settings may be part of the essence of a doctrine. Sacrificial atonement, for instance, arises not only in the OT Levitical system but also in the NT teaching about Christ’s death.

2. Claims made in universal settings may be transcultural. Both baptism and footwashing are mentioned in individual contexts, but only baptism is mentioned in universal settings like Matthew 28:19-20.

3. Teachings based on recognizably permanent foundations may them-selves be permanent. Christ grounds his instruction about the permanence of marriage on the creation story of God’s creating Adam and Eve as male and female and then making them one.

4. Doctrine linked indissolubly with an experience regarded as essential may itself be indispensable. Paul claimed that the forgiveness of sins is inextricably linked to Christ’s resurrection.

5. Principles that appear at the final position within the progression of revelation may be transcultural. The OT priests repeated sacrifices, but Hebrews 9:12 declares that Christ’s death concludes the need for sacrifice.[72]

Erickson argued that these criteria offer guidance to the theological process of making general inductive conclusions about the macroscopic, biblical per-spective on some topic.

William Webb recently offered a sophisticated and promising approach to discerning and applying the cultural dimensions of Scripture. He argued for a “redemptive-movement hermeneutic.” This model seeks the transcultural significance of Scripture. In some cases, we live out the “redemptive spirit” of the Bible by simply following the teachings of the Scripture rather directly. This succeeds when the revelatory word has pressed the practices of the ancient world as far as they can go in the direction of God’s ultimate vision for human life. In other cases, “living out the Bible’s literal words in our modern context fails to fulfill its redemptive spirit.” This is why a “redemptive-movement hermeneutic” requires that interpretation press the application of Scripture beyond the meaning of the text in its ancient context. This is not to say that the text’s meaning somehow changes. It is to say that a wooden interpretation that understands the Bible without taking account of its spirit “restricts any modern application of Scripture to where the isolated words of the text fell in their original setting.” Good principlizing seeks out carefully tested applications of Scripture that move beyond how the text would have been applied in ancient contexts. In the spirit of Stein’s “pattern of meaning” concept, the redemptive-movement approach values interpretations that are faithful to original meanings even as they develop applications that the original human authors could never have anticipated completely.[73]

Some kind of principlizing is necessary to evangelical theology. But there are dangers. Sophisticated versions of principlizing such as the “redemptive-movement hermeneutic” effectively guard themselves against these errors. Still we must note some cautions. First, those who practice naïve principlizing can tacitly assume that their principlizing approach enables them to extract every cultural element from the Bible. This implies that their principles are better than the Bible. They can see decultured principles as more accurate expressions of God’s revelation than Scripture itself. But the first and immediate problem is obvious to anyone with postmodern sensibilities: no expression of theology ever disengages entirely from culture. Every theology is necessarily expressed in cultural form. Humans cannot duplicate a supracultural, God’s-eye view-point. Theologians who think they are expressing theological principles at a purely transcultural level mislead only those who are members of their own culture. John Dillenberger once observed, “The problem of interpretation is that of analogically translating from one universe of discourse or configuration to another. But there is never simply an ‘in between’ stage; nor is there the possibility of peeling off layers until the essence has been laid bare. . . . The problem of the interpretation . . . of the New Testament is not that of the kernel and the husks.”[74]

Clearly, drawing out principles from the total teachings of Scripture is one of the important tasks of theology. But using this model only—seeing all theology as principlizing the Bible—is inadequate. This cautionary note does not necessarily demolish every instance of theological reflection rooted in principlizing. Sophisticated proponents of principlizing (like Erickson and Webb) pay attention to the cultural dimensions of every theology. Still, we who are North American theologians often overlook the degree to which North American culture influences the deliverances of our principlizing. We can assume that the theological principles that seem obvious to us are culturally pristine. But they are not. Theologians from other cultures see more clearly than we do that North American theology has a cultural and historical location. Third World Christians reading North American evangelical theology immediately sense its cultural distance (see chapter 3). We need a bit of humility here.

For example, Yale scholar Lamin Sanneh, a convert to Christianity from Islam, wrote,

A popular but erroneous view has been promoted in several quarters regarding the naturalness of separating gospel and culture, with the assumption that by that procedure Christians can get at the gospel pure and simple. However, this is no more possible than getting at the kernel of the onion without the peel. The pure gospel, stripped of all cultural entanglements, would evaporate in a vague abstraction, although if the gospel were without its own intrinsic power it would be nothing more than cultural ideology congealing into something like “good manners, comely living, and a sense that all was well.” . . . The real challenge is to identify this intrinsic power without neglecting the necessary cultural factor.[75]

Other non-Western theologians are quick to see that a theological text by a North American author is not an abstract, decultured version of the Bible. It is, of necessity, embedded in North American culture just as an interpretation of Scripture written by an African will express aspects of an African culture. This means that the North American missionary who teaches Africans what he learned in his North American Bible school may believe he is translating directly from the Bible to the African culture. But he is refracting the theological translation process through his own cultural grid. So discussions of translation, biblical principles, and functional equivalence can hide two tacit assumptions. First, interpreters of the Bible can locate and express culturally uncontaminated principles of Christian theology. Second, the allegedly transcultural principles produced in this procedure are more valuable than culturally mediated expressions of the gospel. Neither assumption is right. Since all theology is culturally embedded, wise theologians do not privilege their own culture’s theology over against the faithful, biblically informed work of Christians in other parts of God’s world.

Second, uncritical principlizing can implicitly value theological principles more than the Bible. It is right, I will argue, to use a culturally nuanced, “soft” principlizing approach by admitting that all formulations of principles are culturally embedded.[76] But even this sophisticated version of a translation process can subtly imply something about the Bible. It can suggest, very delicately, that the genres of Scripture are of essentially the wrong type. It can hint that the Bible, to be truly or more helpfully theological, should not retain its form as prophecy, poetry, letters, or history. Rather, some seem to assume that God should have inspired more abstract propositions. They view Scripture as an “unsorted edition of Calvin” or some other theological hero. Their method of reading the text, by valuing abstract and general propositions over the Bible’s literary genres, implies that God inspired the wrong sort of book. It suggests that the theologian’s task is to translate the Bible into a better, more useful form—that is, into sets of philosophy-like statements.

The Bible uses many genres other than abstract, descriptive, or moral principles. These genres are not the sort of material from which readers can easily distill general principles. How, for example, does one derive transcultural principles from apocalyptic material? A principlizing method works well with didactic (or teaching) sections of the Bible, but does it do justice to poetry?[77] Too strong an emphasis on principles steers us toward the teaching passages of the Bible. We should use the Bible for things other than warranting theological abstractions. Evangelical theology should proceed, not only by interpreting the overt content of Scripture or translating concrete biblical revelation into transcultural principles, but also by interpreting the world through biblical categories.[78] And we should augment a principlizing interpretive process with other legitimate uses of Scripture. For example, we should use the Bible for spiritual formation or for worship (see chapter 12).

Indeed, thinking that sets of didactic statements are the ideal form into which to translate theological truth reveals a North American cultural bias. Observation suggests that many North American Protestant ministers preach most often on the Epistles, less on the Gospels, even less on Genesis and the Psalms, and rarely on other OT books. A friend and NT scholar who visited Africa reported to me his surprise when he discovered that the OT narratives spoke more eloquently to certain African tribal peoples than do the Epistles. It appears the Africans in the region he visited could more easily connect with stories in which kinship relationships played a larger role than they could with Paul’s epistles.

But this difference is not just culturally interesting, but actually theologically important. A North American cultural proclivity toward the abstract principles may actually keep us from seeing the Bible itself as authoritative. The temptation is to invest supreme authority in the theological propositions or principles that we think we are deriving from the Bible, not in the Bible itself. This temptation arises because we have a greater, culturally grounded sense of comfort with propositional forms of communication. Liberal traditions in biblical studies place primary emphasis not on the Bible itself but on such things as the events behind the canonical text or on the early documents or oral sayings that were the sources for the canonical writings. As evangelicals, we think this undermines the authority of the Bible itself. Yet we can similarly treasure the propositions extracted from the Bible more than the Bible itself.[79] If we are careless, we can love the biblical principles more than Scripture itself. There is irony here.

Narrative theology is, in part, a corrective on this point. While certain versions of narrativism make other mistakes, narrativism is right to take seriously not just the content of the Bible but its narrative character. Narrative theologians claim that the narrative character, in all its cultural particularity, with all its varied literary genres, is important because of its role in shaping the character of persons and the communal life of the church. Abstracted propositions will not inspire new ways of living nearly as well as the concrete poetry, story, and apocalyptic in which God saw fit to inspire the Bible. Narrative theology provides a valuable corrective to the tendency to prefer abstract principles of theology. It is indeed of great value that God inspired a revelation that is diverse in literary form.

A both/and approach is needed. At root is the issue of the purpose of the Bible and of theology. Are their purposes purely descriptive, or are they also transformative? I say the ultimate purpose of evangelical theology is sapientia. The Bible makes us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15). As narrative theologians rightly instruct us, there is more to the Scripture and to theology than abstract, descriptive principles. Stories, metaphors, prophecies, parables—in all the concreteness of their narrative form—perform a valuable function that abstract principles cannot perform. But the story of the Bible is, and must be, a true story. The Bible is not true merely in the sense that it has evocative power. It is true in that it describes what God has actually done in history, and in the sense that it interprets for us what God’s activity in history actually means regarding God’s nature and will. So we should challenge some narrativists’ reluctance to affirm the importance of God’s having in fact acted in the history recorded in the Bible.[80] Still, narrative theology balances an overly propositional view of theology.

Clearly, theology should be interpretive (and here a modest principlizing plays a helpful role), and it should be transformative (and here the stories retain their importance). As interpreters of the Bible, we do move “from canon to concept,” in Kevin Vanhoozer’s helpful phrase.[81] That is, we move from the thought forms of the Bible itself (canon) to the thought forms of systematic theology (concept). Something is gained in that process. We do principlize. We should do so softly. We summarize, interpret, and apply. We express Christian truth in certain ways, but then always tie our thoughts back to the authoritative words of the Bible for critique.

Importantly, while we gain something in moving toward theological reflection, we lose something in the process as well. We never make a perfect or direct extrapolation. We make fallible and incomplete judgments and interpretations. So we allow Scripture always to judge, shape, inspire, and propel our interpretations of the world and our lives in the world. We follow the wisdom of the church’s history, listen to the voice of the Spirit, and submit to the insight of the worldwide church. In so doing we approach warranted beliefs regarding biblically authorized truth that connects both with the redemptive spirit of the text and with the concrete concerns of our culture. The authority with which any second-order theological statement speaks is always a derived authority, a revisable authority. It is provisional. It awaits further refinement by the Spirit’s direction as we place it in dialogue with Scripture. Still, God desires his church to live with wisdom. So we do approach the goal of finding biblically grounded understandings that enable us to honor the Lord in how we understand life, live in the world, and grow mature in faith.

IV. CONCLUSION

It is the Bible that authorizes the theological teaching and moral guidance of the church because the Bible itself is God’s own self-witness. If I am committed to following the Lord, I am committed to following his Word. So what the Bible declares and (authorized by that) what the church teaches, I should believe. Further, commands issued in the Scripture and (rooted in that) taught by the church, I should obey. Evangelical theology and ethics submit to biblical authority because the Bible derives ultimately from the Lord. Now the goal of evangelical theologizing is biblically controlled and contextually relevant knowledge that leads to spiritual wisdom—devotion, godly character, and Christian community life and service to the world. The next task is to explore the meaning of the phrase “contextually relevant.” This will take the general idea of principlizing and nuance it further. So I turn to this fundamental question: How should we relate theology to particular cultures through appropriate contextualization?

CHAPTER

THREE

THEOLOGY IN CULTURAL CONTEXT

Mainline Presbyterian Robert McAfee Brown told of the time when a simple question from a Latin American colleague stunned him. The question revealed deep tendencies within most people to see the world from their own cultural perpective. The colleague asked, “Why is it . . . that when you talk about our position you call it ‘Latin American Theology,’ but when you talk about your position you simply call it ‘theology’?”[1] In telling this story on himself, Brown showed that Westerners can experience massive failures in cultural self-awareness.

I. THEOLOGY IN THE NEWLY GLOBALIZED SITUATION

The Christian gospel encountered cultural boundaries before the close of the NT. The message of Christ has connected with varied cultures through history and around the world. Based on case studies from Africa, Andrew Walls argued that Christianity’s adaptability to culture is its greatest asset and a major reason, humanly speaking, for its resilience.[2] Cultural flexibility involves alteration of the message, however. Christianity’s adaptation to new cultures immediately raises questions about how to preserve the gospel whenever authentic biblical teaching moves across cultural boundaries. Some people assume that straightforward principlizing accomplishes this task. But I argued that principlizing must proceed very carefully (chapter 2). To complicate matters, a prominent feature of the contemporary sensibility is the heightened awareness of cultural variation, and this sensibility makes it appear that the principles of Scripture are less transcultural than their advocates believe. This greater sensitivity to cultural variation means it is critical for evangelical theology to find a way to do more profoundly what principlizing tends to do superficially: properly connect God’s Word to contemporary culture.

A. Culture and Globalization

The word ‘culture’ came into English from the German word Kultur in 1871 in the work of anthropologist E. B. Tylor.[3] A classic notion of culture comes from Edward T. Hall. Hall defined ‘culture’ as “the way of life of a people, . . . the sum of [a group’s] learned behavior patterns, attitudes, and material things.”[4] Culture is the knowledge a group stores up for future use,[5] the non-genetic heritage passed down through the generations. It enables a community to interpret its world and adapt to its surroundings. Culture typically operates out of consciousness, but for that reason it shapes human reactions to and reflections on life all the more powerfully. This is why culture is silent—a hid-den pathway.[6] A culture’s preferred way of viewing and engaging the world is embedded in its language. The categories of a language—the connotations and the semantic range of its terms—pass along far more than a description of reality. They pass on sets of concepts, attitudes, and values. They provide the mental structures of art, technology, law, and social function. They embody a society’s plausibility structures, its mental frameworks or conceptual grid within which certain kinds of ideas seem obvious and others unthinkable. Culture is a conversation between a people and their environment, a conversation they cannot escape even if they critique it.[7]

Cultural anthropology approaches the study of culture with a methodological tool called “cultural relativism.” Cultural relativism expresses a particular attitude toward every culture: it requires viewing everything within a culture as appropriate to its time and place.[8] It is an initial commitment to a nonjudgmental stance toward cultures that are Other. Cultural relativism, properly construed, fences in what is called “ethnocentrism.” Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view the world from the vantage point of one’s own group. Ethnocentric people see their own culture as superior, right, normal, natural, or universal.[9] Those who adopt cultural relativism commit themselves, prima facie, to take a sympathetic view of other cultures.

When they adopt cultural relativism, scholars commit themselves to place brackets around their own cultural preferences. As far as possible, they observe the ways in which another culture’s norms, values, and practices operate from within the other culture. Used in this way, cultural relativism operates as a prima facie, methodological principle. It requires viewing things sympathetically the first time through, with the goal of reaching good understanding. It does not require a final commitment to judge that the norms, values, and prac-tices of every culture are morally praiseworthy. So cultural relativism does not entail ethical relativism. For instance, as a first step of understanding, an anthropologist may seek to learn how cannibalism operates in a tribal culture or how individualism functions in North American culture. The commitment to cultural relativism, however, does not obligate him to conclude in the end that these practices are morally admirable. Cultural relativism means taking cultural particulars seriously, from a relatively neutral viewpoint. It means abandoning ethnocentrism. It means willingly viewing all cultures both sympathetically (especially other cultures) and critically (especially one’s own). As a methodological commitment, cultural relativism mitigates the tendency to condemn other cultures and coronate one’s own.[10]

New sensitivity to the variety of cultures is the core feature of globalization. ‘Globalization’ is a term borrowed from economics, specifically currency speculation. It came to prominence in theological circles beginning with the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). Don Browning first raised the idea in a 1986 speech. Since then, the concept has gained considerable energy in ATS. It has formed the theological framework for a number of successful grant proposals, for example. In ATS, ‘globalization’ denotes a movement to encourage theologians in American seminaries to experience, reflect on, and do their teaching and research in light of the variety of human cultures. But getting a more specific definition has proved difficult. Browning laid out four senses of the word: (1) universal evangelism; (2) Christian ecumenism; (3) interreligious dialogue; and (4) feeding the poor.[11] Whatever one thinks of these four ideas—when they are properly defined and related to core theological commitments, I can affirm each of them—I do not think that any of these ideas fully captures the term ‘globalization’.

Globalization is primarily a planetary consciousness, a deepened awareness of, and sensitivity to, the reality of increasing interdependence among the peoples of the world. Important social factors contributing to globalization obviously include cheaper travel, improved communication technology, and economic interdependence. Significant intellectual catalysts include the rise of postmodern sensibilities and the power of the secularist impulse that presses religious convictions into the realm of private opinion. One major book, some-times called the “definitive” work on globalization, emphasizes political, economic, and cultural factors as the shapers of globalization, but largely ignores religious influences.[12] However that issue is decided, such forces cause members of industrialized societies to identify themselves as citizens of the whole planet, not just of a particular locale. But being a world citizen does not mean that all peoples adopt a single correct or ultimate cultural viewpoint. Globalization is not the amalgamation of cultures into one. World citizenship actually involves less loyalty to nation or tribe and, ironically, heightened allegiance to self. The common feature of those who share these sensibilities is the universal awareness of the lack of universality in the face of increasingly com-plex, cross-group human connections. Globalization is a relativizing ethos that celebrates the individuality of cultural perspectives even as it refuses to assign ultimacy to any of them.[13]

People who have access to communication technologies do see the world in newly globalized ways. (On the other hand, ironically, globalization is leaving many people out.) Those with access to technology sense that human cultures connect to and rub up against each other as never before. But globalization is not just the fact that many cultures exist, nor just the awareness that many cul-THEOLOGY tures exist. It includes these ideas, but it also involves a certain valence: the belief that each of the many interconnecting cultures of the world has a right to speak. Taken as a context of theology and mission, globalization means allowing the new cultural awareness and planetary consciousness to connect with Christian thought and practice. Each culture should have a place at the table. In other words, globalized theology adopts an appropriate level of cul-tural relativism. It is theology that guards against ethnocentrism—it refuses to give priority to any one cultural viewpoint as though one cultural perspective provides a universal beginning point for theology. So the phrase “globalized theology”—theological reflection in light of globalization—describes theology committed to hearing genuine insights from various points of view. Theology that fails to take these new cultural sensibilities deeply to heart will be theology that speaks to increasingly smaller minorities of the human race.

This discussion of globalization forms the context for contextualization. Contextualization, in a nutshell, is a feature of theology and mission done in light of globalization. The term ‘contextualization’ arose in 1972 as a replacement for the word ‘indigenization’ in a report of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches (WCC).[14] WCC people believed the word ‘indigenization’ has a colonial feel, implying too strongly that dominant Western countries should play a superior role in relation to other nations. But like ‘globalization’, ‘contextualization’ does not possess a single meaning. Generally, theories about contextualization break into two large clusters with two different sets of assumptions and connotations. Broadly speaking, those two clusters are mainline/liberal and evangelical/traditional.

B. Praxis and the Emergence of Contextualization

Efforts in mainline contexts to conceive of contextualized theology give priority to the cultural milieu out of which a theology arises. This emphasis on culture originally arose most forcefully among Latin American liberation theologians who argued that every theology reflects the social and economic influences of its context. These theologians asserted, therefore, that traditional theology could not help but reflect the economic and political domination of Europe and North America. The economic interests of the affluent shape and infect theology written in a prosperous society. Theology written by and for the wealthy becomes overly concerned with orthodoxy (right belief) and ignores orthopraxy (right practice). Biblical generalizations and theological abstractions actually help maintain the social status quo for they focus attention away from the plight of the poor. So theological reasoning that seeks intellectually pure and socially uncontaminated statements of biblical truth is not economically neutral. Such traditional theology is useless to those who are oppressed by social elites. So liberationists called for a hermeneutics of suspicion with regard to traditional theologies.[15]

A theology of liberation means beginning with the experience of the poor. It demands a revolutionary approach to theological method, the method of “praxis.” For Gustavo Gutiérrez, theology is “a critical reflection on Christian praxis in light of the word of God.”[16] Gutiérrez presented this, not as new con-tent for theology but as a new method for theology. The challenge for theology is not the doubts of cultured unbelievers or the questions of academic skeptics but the very existence of “non-humans.” Praxis means theology begins with the experience of those who are “non-humans” in the sense that powerful forces have stripped away their humanity. Theology in this mode does not seek a priori truths that lie behind practice. The first reference point for theology is not the text of the Bible but the “text” of real life. Real life prevents theological reflection from launching into a conceptual stratosphere and keeps it linked to liberation of those on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. So liberationists place the experience of poverty in a controlling position.

The concern for those who emphasize praxis is that theology always remain connected with social action on behalf of the poor. Adapting several Marxist themes, the emphasis on praxis implies that proper theology will bring social change on behalf of the downtrodden. Theology should not seek mere expla-nation or even just personal conversion but actual social transformation. Praxis means that theology comes to knowledge of God through an active commitment to stand in solidarity with the poor and then uses the knowledge to work for their liberation.[17] So according to liberationist José Míguez Bonino, theology should not seek to discover truth so much as to use truth to change the world. In this model, praxis and Scripture do interact dialectically, but the primary pole is praxis. Orthopraxy—not orthodoxy, the right doctrine of the powerful—reigns as the norm of theology.

Following the primary writings of Latin American liberation theology, those who emphasize mainline/liberal versions of contextualization focus on theology that emerges from praxis. This most closely connects with Don Browning’s fourth definition for ‘globalization’: feeding the poor.[18] It is theology from the underside. While it began in Latin America, the methodological commitment to theology from the underside speaks not only from the experiences of the Latin American poor but also from the lives of other disadvantaged populations—women, non-whites, non-Westerners, the poor, or even adherents of non-Christian religions. Representatives of all these groups write liberation theologies. This means that liberation, feminist theology, ethnic theology, poverty, religious pluralism, and praxis become the recurring themes of mainline/liberal versions of contextualization.[19] These versions of contextualization follow an agenda that mandates a starting point for theology rooted in the lived experience of those who are not part of an established power base or cultural elite. Theology in the past grew out of the experience of those who pos-sess cultural, educational, or economic advantages. But theology that reflects the lives of privileged persons never brings the social justice and equality that the poor so desperately need. Thus, genuinely contextualized theology must take root in the experience of the disadvantaged of the world.

C. Hermeneutical Roots of Contextualization

Liberation theology, with its stress on the lived experience of the poor as the starting point of theology, has important links with contemporary hermeneutical theory. So contextualization connects deeply with hermeneutics.[20] These two ideas cross paths because both touch upon the central task of theology: interpreting the Bible in new cultural contexts. Evangelicals traditionally adopt a narrower view of hermeneutics, taking it to mean the principles or rules for interpreting written texts. This traditional view of hermeneutics assumes the distinction of subject and object, of interpreter and text. It presupposes the objectivity of the interpreter, presuming that the reader can set aside his personal interests to keep them from intruding on the process of biblical interpretation. So hermeneutics should focus dominantly on the ancient text. Though hermeneutics engages the cultural context of the biblical author, it does not require attention to the cultural context of the contemporary reader. In this traditional view, hermeneutics begins directly with the Bible and then moves inductively from text to theological conclusion by means of objective summarization of Scripture.

But contemporary approaches to contextualization are rooted in a broader view of hermeneutics and interpretation.[21] Historians identify the beginnings of this wider approach to hermeneutics with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s lecture notes, published as Hermeneutik.[22] In Schleiermacher’s time, scholars thought hermeneutics differed from one discipline to another. Every discipline—theology, literature, and law—followed its own unique methods. But Schleiermacher argued that understanding texts is like understanding an ordinary language, and so it does not differ from one field to another. Further, scholars had used trial and error to discover rule-of-thumb guidelines for overcoming minor obstacles that arose as people read texts. But Schleiermacher regarded hermeneutics as a general science of interpretation requiring a comprehensive theory of understanding perse. So Schleiermacher focused on a general act of preunderstanding that is prior to any specific act of textual interpretation. In this way, Schleiermacher’s work represented a fundamentally new view of hermeneutics.

Hermeneutik reveals Schleiermacher’s interest in both the linguistic aspects and the psychological dimensions of interpretation. In the spirit of the Romantic tradition,[23] Schleiermacher emphasized that a text represents a creative human experience. At a psychological level, to understand an author’s statement, a reader needs to see it in light of the writer’s personal development and life. This requires a reader to enter into—to empathize with—the human experience behind the text. A reader should allow her own experiences to link up with the author’s experience. In this way, a reader’s life history produces an interpretative backdrop for any interpretation of a text’s meaning because the reader’s history forms the context from which she connects with the author’s life history. For example, in reading what an author says about love, a reader brings to her interpretation of the text vivid memories of her own experiences of love. Since she cannot evade her own history, part of what the text means to her is molded by her own recollections of love.[24] The reader’s life experience constitutes her “preunderstanding.” Preunderstanding enables the interpreter to grasp the text’s outward linguistic grammar and meaning as well as to penetrate the inward psychological dimensions of the text. By preunderstanding, the reader enters the inner structure of the writer’s own consciousness.[25]

Philosopher Martin Heidegger expanded hermeneutics into a philosophical investigation not just of texts but of the nature of all understanding. He started with his analysis of human existence, Dasein (literally “Being-there”). Human existence is not the existence of a single object in the world. The essence of human existence is found in its existential possibilities, not in objective, scientific realities. In light of this, interpretation is not mining a text for information but “the working-out of possibilities projected in understanding.”[26] Understanding (the functioning of interpretation) makes explicit what human beings already are and can be. Understanding a text like the Bible, then, does not lead to settled declarations but to possibilities of meaning for human existence. Interpretation means not just picturing the world but relating the world to the human person. “Any interpretation which is to contribute understand-ing must already have understood what is to be interpreted.”[27] Meaning is not something that resides in abstract words or propositions but in Dasein, which is the ground of meaning.[28] The truth of propositions is derived from the more basic truth that is an existential dimension of Dasein. Meaning is rooted in the act of communication that two people share. So readers do not have a spectator’s view of a text; they participate in what is written by bringing their experience—preunderstanding—into connection with the text. In this context, a reader’s preunderstanding is not a bias to overcome but a pathway toward a proper interaction with a text.

Rudolf Bultmann, following the early Heidegger, held that in order to understand a text with genuine depth, an interpreter must sense a living connection with its subject matter. The possibility for this connection grows out of the interpreter’s life experience. Life experiences both motivate the asking of certain questions of a text and give shape to those questions. So interpretation requires systematic analysis of this life-related preunderstanding. This analysis of preunderstanding is more than just one individual’s experience, however. Rather, a common structure of experience and existence, shared by all humans, lies beneath the specifics of any one person’s life. Bultmann argued that Heidegger’s general analysis of human existence unlocks the secret of preunderstanding, providing a way for ancient texts to strike contemporary read-ers. In his view, existentialism provides the “most adequate perspective and concepts for understanding human existence.”[29] Through existential analysis, the text confronts the reader and leads to commitment to God. This is so important that Bultmann concluded, “without such a preunderstanding and the questions guided by it, the texts are dumb.”[30]

Bultmann recognized, however, that an interpreter must not impose a pre-supposed philosophy onto the text. The liberals fell into this mistake when they tried to subtract or strip away the ancient husk and get to the timeless kernel of gospel truth buried inside. But what they laid bare was not original, universal, ethical truths as they thought. They actually obscured the gospel, replacing it with their own, culturally conditioned moral beliefs. As Albert Schweitzer showed in another context, the method used by nineteenth-century liberals produced results that looked surprisingly like nineteenth-century thinking and suspiciously unlike first-century thinking.

This raises an immediate objection: Does Bultmann, with his existential philosophy, commit the same error and conceal the gospel? To evade this problem, Bultmann coined a distinction between “existentialist understanding of the human being” and “existential self-understanding.”[31] He claimed his method does not impose a general existentialist philosophy on a text. This is as illegitimate as foisting any other general philosophy on the text. Rather, he claimed that his approach requires each reader to unpack the meaning of her own individual existential self-understanding as a way of entering the text. This is not illegitimate. In fact, it is necessary to proper reading, and it is faithful to the text’s real purpose: to confront the individual reader with a call for a rad-ical decision of faith—a call to personal commitment to God. For Bultmann, the analysis of personal human existence that the reader brings to the text does not distort interpretation. It is a necessary precondition for properly accessing and responding positively to the text.

These hugely influential thinkers placed the concept of preunderstanding at the heart of hermeneutics. Following that tradition, the great danger is that intellectual understanding becomes disconnected from personal, existential commitment. So for those in this tradition, like Hans-Georg Gadamer, understanding a text is more than intellectually grasping the cognitive meaning of a text. Understanding is existential participation of a reader’s total self in the world of a text. When the context of an ancient text is lost, participating in the original world of that text is impossible. But interpretation can find the existential application of an ancient text even though the immediate context of that text has changed. Interpretation must be more than a search for the objective intellectual meaning that a text possessed for an ancient context. Interpretation is necessar-ily shaped by—and shaped for—the new existential context of the reader.[32]

Gadamer speaks of a historical horizon, and we can use that word to denote the existential situation of a particular contemporary reader. A horizon includes the whole range of view that is open to a person in one location. Just as the physical horizon is the limit of what a person can see from a particular scenic lookout and marks the boundary of what is out of sight from a particular perspective, so a hermeneutical horizon defines the limit of what is beyond it. This concept implies that the author of an ancient text and a contemporary interpreter of that text both operate within limited perspectives or horizons that emerge from their cultural milieus. Reading ancient texts is obviously difficult because they were written in contexts that are beyond the horizon for the contemporary reader. This means that it is naïve for a contemporary interpreter to assume she can directly access the original meaning of an ancient text. The danger is that she will see her own ideas mirrored in the ancient text and not notice it. Her own existential and cultural situation places limits on what she can see. If she is blind to her own perspective, she will distort the text she exam-ines even as she is trying to understand it.[33]

Healing the split between the ancient horizon and the contemporary horizon is an aspect of interpretation. The phrase “hermeneutical circle” expresses this interplay between the ancient and contemporary horizons. The idea of the hermeneutical circle probably first surfaced in the writings of Schleiermacher’s contemporary, Friedrich Ast (1778–1841).[34] It originally pointed to the relationship between part and whole in a text. To know the parts, one needs to grasp the whole; to comprehend the whole, one must understand the parts. A slightly different contemporary sense of the phrase describes the interpreter engaging a text or object of art in a dialectic of understanding.[35] In this sense, the phrase refers to developing questions that emerge from life experience within a particular culture and addressing them to a text only to have the text in response reshape the inquiry. The circular movement is not between the parts and the whole of the text but between the ancient horizon and the contemporary horizon. In conceiving of the interpretation of texts in this way, contemporary hermeneutical theory emphasizes that no presuppositionless starting point exists for hermeneutics. All interpretation begins with the assumptions, values, beliefs, and experiences that a reader brings to the text.[36]

More generally, this broader tradition of hermeneutics rejects a final distinction between subject and object. Due to interpreters’ presuppositions, pure objectivity is considered impossible. Consistent with this tradition of contemporary hermeneutics, liberation theology assumes that no theology finds a pure, objective, presuppositionless starting point. Theology should admit the obvious: interpreters begin with their actual lived experience. This brings us back to praxis. When the lived experience of severe economic disadvantage is the premise of theology, then mere cognition is inadequate, and social trans-formation is nonnegotiable. This is how Bonino summarized this view:

Theology . . . is not an effort to give a correct understanding of God’s attributes or actions but an effort to articulate the action of faith, the shape of praxis conceived and realized in obedience. As philosophy in Marx’s famous dictum, theology has to stop explaining the world and to start transforming it. Orthopraxis, rather than orthodoxy, becomes the criterion for theology.[37]

This tradition of hermeneutics as it works itself out in liberation theology has important implications for traditional academic theology. It obviously plays down objectivity. It pushes against both the liberal ideal of objective historical scholarship and also the conservationist confidence in the objectivity of traditional theological propositions. So liberation theologians criticize traditionally minded North American or European theologians for failing to see their own culturally grounded assumptions. And they criticize even those who do acknowledge these assumptions for failing to admit that their assumptions have a political effect: they help perpetuate economic systems that preserve the fiscal privileges of North American or European Christians. So contextualization in its mainline/liberal mode involves a theological method that stresses the inevitable controlling power of contemporary cultural presuppositions, whether or not interpreters acknowledge them.

How have evangelicals interacted with these intellectual currents? The evangelical reply to contextualization parallels the evangelical response to the contemporary hermeneutical tradition. Just as evangelicals seek to preserve a more objective reading of the Bible by resisting the approach of Schleiermacher and his successors, so evangelicals often treat contextualization as a trouble-some concept that involves greater potential for risk than for reward. So, for example, Mark Noll and David Wells acknowledged the values of contextualization, but accentuated its risk:

this interpretive journey from word to world is fraught with peril even as it is ripe with potential. Bridges built between God’s word and our world are susceptible of carrying traffic in both directions. In the wider context of contemporary theology, where the need for this bridge building has long been accepted, most of the traffic has been moving in the wrong direction. Twentieth-century people have allowed the cognitive constraints and the psychological conventions of our own day to limit what the Bible may say. This reverses the proper situation. It is the Bible that deserves to prescribe the cognitive horizon for the twentieth cen-tury, just as it has for every century. Much more than the Bible, it is the twentieth century that needs to be demythologized. But the very fact that such an argument needs to be made is a warning to evangelicals of the dangers implicit in the process of building bridges.[38]

The reference by Noll and Wells to demythologizing represents a valid warning (although I believe their stance is a bit too negative). Bultmann’s demythologizing strategy erected twentieth-century sensibilities as the touch-stone of correct theology. Bultmann’s protestations that he does not foist a contemporary theology onto the Scripture are unconvincing. Still it is a descriptive fact that readers bring preunderstandings to the Bible, and evangelical theologians simply must acknowledge this fact and reflect on its implications. It is simplistic to think that we are tabulae rasae as we interpret the Bible and develop theological convictions.

This came home clearly to me one day after teaching a ninety-minute class session on divorce and remarriage. As students filed out, I asked a bright and earnest African student what he thought of the discussion. “It was good,” he said. “But I am the oldest son of my father’s fourth and youngest wife. And you did not address our issue.” His answer blew me away. I focused extensively on divorce and remarriage, but never even mentioned polygamy. The reason I did so has little to do with what the Bible says and everything to do with my con-text. The contemporary North American church world obviously shaped what I did with the Scripture. Unquestionably, culture affects theology. The critical question is this: What should theologians do with that cultural influence?

Liberation theology, in harmony with a mainline/liberal version of contextualization, celebrates the influence of context by crowning the experience of the poor as its point of departure. But we must notice something: giving special place to the views of the oppressed actually presupposes certain answers to important, logically prior theoretical questions. And these theoretical answers deserve critical evaluation. According to J. Andrew Kirk, a British evangelical sympathetic to liberation theology, taking praxis as a starting point already presupposes theoretical commitments. The very concept of praxis is theory-laden. Those who support praxis understand that there is no pure theology. They, and we, need to see that there is no pure, neutral experience either.

Beginning the theological enterprise with praxis—placing lived experience growing out of a cultural ethos prior to an explicit act of interpretation—positions powerful philosophical principles so they can control the reading of the Bible. If culturally derived agendas are deeply entrenched before interpreters even read the Scripture, then these human preunderstandings will dominate theology. Theology that begins with a nonnegotiable commitment to the liberation of the poor exerts detrimental theological control over theology if that commitment is articulated through the thought forms of a non-biblical per-spective. This procedure can undercut biblical authority. I do not say that liberating the poor undermines Scripture. I say that the thought forms of non-biblical perspectives do so. Traditional evangelical theology sometimes overlooks its cultural assumptions. But it is no solution simply to replace one culture’s naïveté regarding biblical interpretation with a call to experience—as though experience were neutral—since experience always embeds theoretical commitments.

Liberation theology is right to raise the issue of cultural context for conscious reflection. But as evangelical theologians, we should evaluate the Marxist premises of liberation theology as assertively as liberationists appraise North American cultural assumptions. Bultmann insisted that “the point . . . is not to eliminate the preunderstanding but to risk it, to raise it to the level of consciousness, and to test it critically in understanding the text.”[39] This says it weakly. The point is to raise preunderstanding to consciousness in order to subject it to biblical critique. Gadamer articulated a distinction between “true prejudices, by which we understand” and “false ones, by which we misunderstand.”[40] So, in Kirk’s view, theology does not take social context—either a traditional theological context or a context of the oppressed—as its essential sub-stance. As theologians, we come to the Bible and to our theological work with cultural agendas in place. We must deploy interpretive strategies for pushing back against all limited cultural viewpoints. This is in part why theology is a discipline. In the end, according to Kirk, theology is not the explication of praxis—either privileged praxis or oppressed praxis—in light of the Bible. It is the other way around:

theology should be a consciously critical reflection on God’s Word in the light of a contemporary praxis of liberation. If this is not the order of our methodology then the phrase (in Gutiérrez’ definition), “in the light of God’s Word,” ultimately becomes emptied of content.[41]

In sum, we who are evangelicals should do several things. (1) We should recognize the reality of cultural influence on all theological interpretation. (2) We must purposefully adopt a self-critical stance toward any and all cultures. (3) Yet we should assert the need for theology to achieve cultural relevance. And (4) while doing so, we must yield to the priority of Scripture over any and all cultural assumptions. Two mistakes are possible. One is to pretend that cultural or philosophical preunderstanding does not exist or is relatively unimportant. This is where too much evangelical theology has failed in the past. The other is to so delight in cultural and philosophical assumptions that they set in concrete the entire agenda for theology.[42] This is where mainline/liberal versions of contextualization continue to stumble. Indeed, capitulating to con-temporary agendas can lead to a faith that is indistinguishable from the sur-rounding culture. And if faith is indistinct from culture, it loses its vitality. Why dedicate energy to a religious faith that is a carbon copy of the surrounding society? An essay contrasting (mainline) Lexington Seminary and (evangelical) Asbury Seminary suggests that being indistinguishable from culture holds mainline institutions back.[43] But a middle way is possible, and it is desperately needed.

II. EVANGELICAL CONTEXTUALIZATION

An important caution regarding mainline/liberal versions of contextualization and hermeneutics is that they allow contemporary social concerns to override the implicit agendas of Scripture. Some models for contextualizing theology do not provide principled strategies to maintain the priority of Scripture for theology. Yet, as I have already suggested, evangelicals are increasingly discovering that the commitment to contextualization contains correct insights. This calls for a model of contextualization that is transformed by evangelical commitments.

A. A Decode/Encode Model of Contextualization

Given that contextualization originated in a mainline/liberal milieu, evangelicals initially divided on whether to reject the idea or adapt it. In 1974, a group of evangelicals met in Willowbank, Bermuda, and chose to transform the concept of contextualization by defining it carefully and integrating it with evangelical commitments.[44] Over time, others confirmed this decision. So evangelicals developed a second cluster of approaches to contextualization. Unlike its use in liberal/mainline circles, the word ‘contextualization’ in evangelical circles is expressed in language that is consistent with the centrality of the Bible, including its comprehensive story, major frames of reference, specific teachings, and even its genre and literary forms.

Mainline/liberal models typically assume that if interpreters of the Bible must theologize from within their own context, then their cultural context controls their interpretative work. The basic principle here is something like this:

(a) All theology and mission are culturally embedded; therefore praxis has priority over Scripture.

Increasingly, liberals of various sorts tend to accept something like (a). Evangelicals do not. But evangelicals reject (a) in two ways. This depends on how to interpret the logical relation between the cultural location of interpreters and the priority of praxis. Some seem to think that (a)’s logical movement from the reality of cultural location to the priority of praxis follows properly. So in order to avoid the priority of praxis, they minimize the fact of cultural location. Those on this side resist contextualization, even as transformed by evangelical commitments. They see any sort of contextualization as hazardous to the gospel.

Others believe that the reality of cultural location is undeniable. The powerful influence of culture is simply a descriptive fact that interpreters must respond to one way or another. These people accept the antecedent of (a), but they deny the logical inference to the priority of praxis. They commit to the premise that theology and mission are culturally embedded, but they do not think that this entails the priority of context. Those on this side transform the concept of contextualization so that they acknowledge the role praxis plays even as they work to ensure the ultimate authority of Scripture. Those at Willowbank took this second route, recognizing fully the reality of cultural influence and developing biblically oriented theological methods consistent with that insight.

One model that represents this second approach is a decode/encode model of theology. Evangelicals who use this approach often see contextualization as a strategy of communication. Pioneering missiologist David Hesselgrave defined contextualization. It is “the process of making God’s revelation of his person and plan as revealed in the Old and New Testaments understandable to the people of a given culture with a view to making it possible for them to respond to it in a meaningful way.”[45] This emphasizes a pragmatic strategy for eliciting commitments of faith from a missionary’s audience. But this communication strategy does embed an assumed theological method. This model of communication presupposes that the missionary decodes the Bible, arrives at a transcultural understanding of principles, moves to a new culture, and then encodes the principles in the communication forms of the new culture. The key assumption is this: this model presumes that contextualization happens only or primarily in the encoding stage.

This view of contextualized missionary and evangelistic work amounts to a missiological application of a particular theological method. This method sees theology as a process of decoding and encoding the transcultural meaning of the Bible. As David Wells explained,

It is the task of theology . . . to discover what God has said in and through Scripture and to clothe that in a conceptuality which is native to our own age. Scripture . . . needs to be de-contextualized in order to grasp its transcultural content, and it needs to be re-contextualized in order that its content may be meshed with the cognitive assumptions and social patterns of our own time.[46]

This decode/encode model of contextualization is in essence a form of principlizing (chapter 2). It abstracts transcultural propositions out of Scripture and then reinserts them into a new culture. It assumes that transcultural, biblical principles remain constant whether they are clothed in ancient garments or in the apparel of varied contemporary cultures. It preserves a primarily linear model of theology that stresses the flow of authority from the Bible to con-temporary contexts. It recognizes that a new culture exerts considerable influence in contemporary theological formulation, but it locates this influence at a superficial level—at the level of mode of expression or communication rather than at the level of deep meaning.

The decode/encode model clearly protects the priority of Scripture. But it involves several shortcomings. First, this model assumes that human expressions of transcultural principles can remain constant even as they change their attire in the cultural dressing rooms of different eras. Principlizing is a helpful start in moving beyond straightforward inductivism, for it attempts to bring the biblical culture and the receiver culture into a direct line of contact. In principlizing, the biblical content is carried, if you will, from one context to another in the container of abstract, transcultural principles. But principlizing obscures the fact that any articulation of the allegedly transcultural principles still reflects the culture of the translator. A decode/encode model focuses on the idea that two cultures are coming into contact. In fact, however, missionary com-munication brings three cultures into engagement. The first is the culture of the biblical author, the second is the culture of the communicator, and the third is the culture in which the communication occurs. When all three cultures are acknowledged, new questions arise. Does the second culture, that of the missionary communicator, exert powerful shaping influence on the allegedly transcultural principles? Or is it better for the third culture to engage the first culture, the biblical culture, directly?

Second, a decode/encode model of theology implicit in this view of contextualization de-emphasizes another important point. It does not make clear that responsibility for contextualization lies with the peoples of the church in every culture, not primarily with cross-cultural missionaries. What is critical in side-stepping the influences of the second culture is the feedback loop from the third culture. Third culture people are well positioned to do this. Initially, for pragmatic reasons, as the gospel enters a new culture, cross-cultural communicators must take the lead in contextualizing the message. In the end, however, contextualization places responsibility for theologizing—for interpreting and applying Scripture to particular contexts—in the hands of the church of those particular cultures. So I say that contextualization is more than decoding and encoding transcultural truth. It is more than artful communication. It is actually doing theology in the new context. It is not just communicating theology as conceptualized in the thought forms of a contemporary missionary-sending culture in the linguistic dress of a receptor culture. Contextualized theology hap-pens best when each people group takes responsibility for “self-theologizing.”[47]

B. A Dialogical Model for Evangelical Contextualization

A more nuanced approach to contextualization requires a set of practices that both preserves the authority of Scripture and takes account of the influence of all three cultures in a helpful rather than destructive way. In fact, a proper view of contextualized evangelical theologizing can do more than simply protect against the corrupting effects of differing cultural perspectives. A sophisticated model of evangelical contextualization will permit us to cash in on cultural differences in a positive way.

Catholic theologian Robert Schreiter presented an insight we can exploit.[48] The heart of his approach is moving away from conceiving the relation between the ancient revelation and the contemporary context in a linear way. A linear model can go in either direction, either beginning from the ancient revelation (as evangelical inductivists want) or from the contemporary culture (as praxis requires). But Schreiter suggested a dialogical pattern of ongoing interaction between the ancient text and contemporary culture. Adapting this work, William Dyrness worked out a dialogical model for contextualization. In line with the strong emphasis on seeing contextualization as a missiological function, he used the dialogical model as a snapshot of what happens as an evangelist enters a new culture to preach the gospel. But the model helpfully conceptualizes the theological reflection process in any culture.[49]

Fundamentally, a dialogical model pictures theologians speaking to a cul-ture with their whole being. Theological reflection properly includes not just thought, but life. It involves not just cognition, but spirituality (formation and inner transformation) and behavior (obedience to Christ and service to the world). Further, the model posits that two things happen almost simultaneously as theology develops: on the one hand, Scripture is read and obeyed, and on the other, the cultural context is opened to analysis. So, to put it overly simply, a dialogical method might follow steps like these:

1. From within the culture, with its own values, beliefs, practices, and dilemmas, Christians raise questions and issues.

2. Christians offer initial responses to these questions by relating them to themes and texts from the biblical teachings. They will begin with what they know of Scripture. Their concern will lead them to explore and interpret unfamiliar biblical passages. (Here they use the tools of biblical studies to direct their grasp of the Bible’s message. They will not get absolute readings of the Bible, but will gradually gain increasingly clear, well-justified understandings of the relevant texts.)

3. As this process goes on, Christians seek to obey what the Bible teaches on the question at issue. They look for new applications of God’s Word to their lives and contexts. They cultivate sensitivity to the voice of the Spirit in all things. The reading of Scripture does not just lead to, but also requires as its presupposition, an open heart toward God.

4. They permit the Bible to judge the cultural viewpoint from which questions arise. They ask whether Scripture deals with the issues, but from different perspectives or in different categories. They ask whether the Bible challenges their questions instead of answering them.

5. Out of this initial attempt to relate biblical teaching to cultural issues in a spirit of humble obedience, Christians allow certain themes for a culturally relevant theology—a contextual theology—to emerge. They begin formulating their theological framework.

6. Christians in one culture discuss their findings with theologians in another culture, either in time or in space. Maybe the “other culture” is a distant era of time. Theologians from the past who struggled with parallel questions might have wisdom to offer. Maybe the “other culture” is a far-off place. Theologians from the other side of the world who grapple with similar issues could suggest ways to interpret the Bible more faithfully or resolve the questions more authentically.

7. But Christians return to the Bible (and again, Scripture is understood with increasing clarity through the tools of biblical studies) to evaluate the emerging theology and continue the dialogical cycle.

I am not suggesting that we follow these steps in a rigid sequence. There is an “all-at-onceness” to this process. Feedback loops abound.

This dialogical model reveals and corrects the defects in Tillich’s method of correlation (see chapter 1). For Tillich, the culture asks the questions and theology provides the answers. Like Tillich, anyone using a dialogical approach admits that he comes to Scripture already primed with concerns that emerge from experience embedded in his cultural context. As James Cone correctly stated, “one’s social and historical context decides not only the questions we address to God but also the mode or form of the answers given to the questions.” [50] But Tillich’s error is that he overlooks the necessity of challenging the mode or form of the questions. As contemporary people, we understand, as a matter of descriptive fact, that culture shapes our concerns and questions. As evangelicals, we insist that Scripture must mold our responses and answers. Using a dialogical method implies we notice the danger in simply asking Scripture to answer the culture’s concerns. A dialogical approach requires that the Bible not only answer our concerns but also transform those concerns.

On the other hand, the corrective function of the Bible does not mean that the concerns of a culture are simply left aside. We should acknowledge that, initially, the concerns of a culture are sometimes expressed in categories that are alien to Scripture. As we move through the process of analyzing and answering those concerns, however, we should allow Scripture to recast the issues culture raises. In Job, God does not answer Job’s question in quite the way Job asks it. Instead of answering Job’s question, God challenges it. Similarly, theology responds to the problems a culture poses, but in new, more biblically oriented ways. Scripture addresses the issues that culture poses, but it does so through sets of categories embedded in the biblical message. Theologies that fail to take this corrective function will seriously distort theology “into a monologue of modern ‘advocacy’ positions, which compels the biblical text to conform to the ideology of an interest group.”[51] So theologians invite cultures to ask questions but also enter into a process of listening to Scripture and then deepening and even correcting those questions.

A fascinating illustration of contextualization is the composition and use of The Heliand, a song-text that missionaries sang to Saxon warrior-nobles in the ninth century. In Douglas Hayward’s analysis, people in any culture are concerned to find meaning in life, to support a compelling value system, and to resolve spiritual concerns. The Heliand did this. It is a song that presented the gospel to medieval northern Europeans in ways that drew on the values of their society. Of course, this strategy brings with it the potential for the gospel to come alive to those who hear it connected to imagery that is culturally familiar. The strategy also involves the obvious risk of misunderstanding and syncretism. The use of The Heliand for the Saxons of northern Europe is a case study of missionary communication. But it is more. It is also an essay in theological method—an exercise in finding the best way to express the story of Jesus and his redemption to a new and different culture.[52] The question, theologi-cally, is the degree to which this entrée into a culture led to an increasingly biblically oriented approach to the issues of meaning in life, value systems, and spiritual concerns. The issue, in other words, is whether Scripture retroactively shaped the concerns of Saxon culture in a more biblical direction.

Consider a contemporary example. A Christian who worked in the social services field once asked me, in all sincerity, “Do you think a non-Christian family could ever be a healthy family?” On one level, of course, the answer is obvious. Social science research does show statistically that Christian faith leads to healthier living, both physically and emotionally. So if the Isaaksons are Christians, this dramatically raises the probabilities that the Isaaksons are a healthy family.[53] And yet there are many counter-examples. Some non-Christian families are obviously emotionally healthier than some Christian ones. Still, on one level, the answer is clearly “Yes, non-Christian families can be healthy families.”

Yet a more basic point is this: asking whether non-Christian families can be healthy families assumes categories, it posits a frame of reference, that a Christian cannot just accept as ultimate. The questioner assumed that emotional health is the most important feature of an ideal family. He did not focus on emotional health with malicious intent to exclude a biblical frame of reference. He focused on emotional health because that is what Americans do—because it is part of American plausibility structures. To respond theologically to the culturally framed question exactly as the question is stated is tacitly to concede the ultimacy of the frame of reference out of which the question arises. This is just what evangelical theology cannot do. Thus, answering the question, “Do you think a non-Christian family could ever be a healthy family?” may include, “Of course, a non-Christian family can be healthy.” But while a truly theological answer would not include less, it should include more.

If we are thinking critically and theologically, we might ask, “But what do you mean by ‘healthy’?” And, “Are you assuming that achieving emotional health is the most important goal of family life?” Theological reflection on the original question goes beyond answering the question; it broadens its scope and digs to the more fundamental question, “What qualities characterize a godly family?” Once these are explicit, we can turn back to discuss whether a non-Christian family could have those qualities. Perhaps psychological health is one of the features of God-fearing and God-honoring families, but not the only or most important one. If so, a good, theologically informed response to the question, “Can a non-Christian family be healthy?” might be something like: “Yes, of course, but then there’s more to living as a God-honoring family than that.”

David Wells made this point effectively in Losing Our Virtue. He blasted the contemporary church’s tendency to transmute the gospel. For example, Donald Capps used new psychological thinking on shame to translate the concept of sin. Robert Schuller defined ‘sin’ as a poor self-image. And seeker-oriented churches, wrote Wells, sell an uplifting message that avoids reference to sin. To appeal to seekers, they lay aside anything that looks like a church:

Crosses and robes should go; dress should be casual; hymns should be contemporary and empty of the theological substance by which previous generations lived . . . pews should be replaced by cinema-grade seats, organs by synthesizers and drums, solemnity by levity, reflection by humor, and sermons by light dialogues or catchy readings. The theory is that people will buy Christianity if they don’t have to deal with what the Church has traditionally been.[54]

Whether Wells is right on each point should make for interesting conversation. Just to register an opinion, I agree that Capps’s and Schuller’s views of sin are appalling. I do not understand why it matters to Wells what sort of seating a church installs or whether it uses drums. (If drums are unbiblical, what will the church in Africa do?) But more to the point, Wells has posed the right question: Will the church so conform to cultural forms that it loses its biblical sub-stance and power?

Here is another theological example. John Pryor wrote, “For followers of Jesus today, the question is not: what did the first-century Jesus think of men and women in relationship? But: what would a contemporary Jesus think? Would that Jesus presume patriarchy or deny it?”[55] In this discussion, the con-temporary understanding of patriarchy is definitive. Pryor simply asked Jesus to comment on it. But this puts things backwards: theology should draw us into Jesus’ frame of reference. Theology does not simply seek out what Jesus might have thought about contemporary ways of framing the issue of men and women in relationship. That endeavor will involve ample speculation at best. Theology needs revelation to correct even the frame of reference out of which questions arise. Theology may begin with contemporary ways of framing issues and may even come back to transformed versions of these. But theology must do more than pronounce judgment on the contemporary concept of patriarchy.

This line of thinking leads to significant implications for Christian involvement in politics. The purpose of Christian theology is certainly not to support a partisan political agenda. It is not that Christians should exempt themselves from public discourse or public service. As evangelicals, we have turned away from fundamentalism’s tendency to regard politics as evil and from its strategy of cultural separation. But Scripture and theology set the agenda for the church. It is wrong to identify one’s favorite political issue and then to recruit the resources of theology and the church to that cause. Stephen Carter summarized wisely, “religions . . . will almost always lose their best, most spiritual selves when they choose to be involved in the partisan, electoral side of American politics.” After reviewing examples of Christian involvement in politics, he concluded, “If history has taught us anything, it is that religions that fall too deeply in love with the art of politics lose their souls—very fast.”[56]

Moving out of North America, this question gets even more complex. Missiology is full of mind-blowing, gut-wrenching examples. Should Japanese Christians go to the Shinto shrine on New Year’s Day and pay their respects to the emperor? Is this worshiping evil spirits or expressing patriotism (like saluting the Stars and Stripes)? Should Turkish Christians offer small fees to government officials to get them to act on requests for permits or licenses? Is this bribery or tipping? Should American Christians play golf on Sunday? Is this breaking the Sabbath or resting and renewing? Or what of a really hot question: Could a Christian identify himself as a Muslim, hold a somewhat modalist view of the Trinity, wear traditional Muslim dress, participate in Muslim customs like Ramadan (the month-long fast), but trust explicitly in Issa (the Qur’anic name for Jesus), and be saved? Whatever the answer, a theologically mature response will interact with a contemporary question with sensitivity to the frames of reference out of which the question arises; it will also transcend the frames of reference that undergird the question by reinterpreting the question in the more fundamental categories of Scripture. This is a dialogical approach to contextualizing theology.

As theology places Scripture in dialogue with today’s world, notice that it interacts with many contemporary cultures, not just one. First, this is true because the Bible itself reflects many cultures. Next, thankfully, the church exists in many cultures. And Christians in certain societies have produced volumes of theology while others have not. This does not imply that those cultures are somehow better suited to doing theology. Questions from cultures that have not dominated the theological world can open up new and creative lines of sight by which to criticize the categories of traditional theologies. In this way, for Western theologians, questions framed in the terms of non-Western cultures can help illuminate blind spots. So the categories of Scripture should challenge the conceptual framework of all cultures. Similarly, the conceptual grid of cultures where the gospel is still new may slash through the jungles of established theological habits and renew readings of Scripture in cultures where the gospel is long-established. Since we accept the authority of Scripture, we do not posit that cultural categories correct the Bible perse. But particular readings or traditional interpretations of the Bible—not to be equated with Scripture—may come under the searchlight of new insights that emerge from cultural perspectives of the Other.

Specifically, readings of Scripture accepted as standard among evangelicals generally emerged in Western cultures. But nonstandard readings suggested by non-Western cultures may—I do not say will, but may—turn out to be better interpretations. An African worldview that values the historical narratives of tribal peoples could helpfully moderate a Western theology that treasures concepts and feels compelled to translate all biblical genres into “properly theological” propositional expressions. So emerging contextual theologies can direct fresh readings of Scripture. They may lead to new insights where previously held theological patterns of expression obscure aspects of God’s revelation or legitimate interpretations of Scripture. Again, however, these fresh readings must deal honestly with the text. Our commitment to the priority of the Bible means that any new reading is justified, not just because it is non-Western or because it is novel, but because it genuinely illuminates the Bible.

This phenomenon is relevant to marginalized perspectives of non-cultural sorts. Craig Blomberg cited five interesting examples of nontraditional inter-pretations that open a path to new and better readings of Scripture. One of these is biblical interpretations suggested by women. From her perspective as a woman, Alice Mathews offered a fresh way to see the Samaritan woman of John 4. Most commentators note that Jesus broke convention by engaging her and offering her a fresh start in spite of her past. True enough. But the same commentators assume that the woman was at fault for having had five husbands. Mathews pointed out that women in that day could not divorce husbands. So perhaps this woman was divorced by four husbands and dumped by a fifth without a divorce. Perhaps this woman was forced by circumstances to seek the protection of a man other than her husband. But Jesus helped her see, in Mathews’s words, that “she need not think of herself as a being condemned to haul water and pleasure men.” By placing this story directly after Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, Matthew (the biblical author) brilliantly contrasted a learned and respected man leaving Jesus in a state of confusion with an ignorant and despised woman who left Jesus and then led others back to him. Traditional readings obscure this very plausible interpretation.[57]

Some might object to a dialogical method of theological construction because it would submerge theology in circularity. Some might think that the image of a hermeneutical circle reinforces this. Or worse, others might imagine a theological eddy that not only goes in circles but pulls one down. But the suggestive phrase “hermeneutical spiral” offers us a better image than either the hermeneutical circle or eddy.[58] The spiral recognizes the dialectical movement from thinker to evidence, and from culture to text. But it balances those dialectics with commitment to progressively deeper, richer, and truer understandings.[59] Progress in enriching our theological discernment may seem as unsteady as the stock market, characterized as it is by periods of apparent retreat and stagnation. But as faithful interpreters work with the biblical text, the rising line of insight can move gradually toward an asymptote. Perfect objectivity is beyond our grasp. But wiser, more informed, and more deeply biblical understandings of God and his will and ways are possible. So the dialogical circle is not viciously circular; we do not merely presuppose our conclusions. There is the potential for progress toward more profound, more adequate understandings that are driven by Scripture but responsive to the specific issues that arise in particular locales. This is the method of “successive approximation.”[60]

I hold that the church in different cultures can enrich our theological work in the West. But let me emphasize: the Bible itself (as best we can understand it) must finally judge any insight that arises from any cultural frame of reference. We must allow our best grasp of Scripture to function as a kind of trump card as we sort out our reflections. Evangelical dialogical theology gives priority to Scripture due to its authority. Since the values embedded in cultures are not theologically neutral, the flow of influence must move dominantly from the Bible to culture. Yet theology includes feedback loops. Not only does Scripture correct the culture’s questions, but a new contextualized theology may correct blind spots in the theology that theologians initially produce. When a North American missionary addresses Southeast Asian culture, she will find that her North American reading of the Bible overlooks things. But reading from within a newly acquired Asian perspective opens her eyes to bib-lical teaching she formerly missed. Still, the Asian cultural perspective is not automatically superior to the North American viewpoint, as liberation theologies subtly suggest. And certainly a Western cultural viewpoint is not superior to an Asian perspective. And neither overrides the Bible. Scripture is authoritative. If theologians representing many cultures dialogue about Scripture, a greater clarity can arise as to what Scripture meant, and what it implies for various cultural contexts of our time.

Let me make several other observations. First, a dialogical method allows for modest and “soft” principlizing. It does not assume that principles are culturally neutral. It does not in any way prefer abstract principles to the concrete genres of Scripture. The concrete language of the Bible is fine just as it is. After all, God saw fit to inspire it. And dialogical method does not take principlizing as the whole of theological reflection. Still, in a dialogical method, Christians can distill generalizations that naturally emerge in the process of theological thinking. These generalizations, as they are expressed in terms familiar in one culture, will surely look similar to—bear a strong family resemblance to—expressions arising in another culture. If I write a book on integrity in business from a Western cultural viewpoint, it will surely look familiar to business people in another culture. And this is so, even if bribery is controversial in that second culture but considered clearly wrong in mine. As we understand such principles, we may explore whether we can fruitfully apply them in various contexts.

Second, a dialogical method sees the Bible itself, not the Bible’s “message,” “principles,” “core,” or “essence,” as transcultural.[61] I say the Bible is trans-cultural, but not that the Bible is acultural or supracultural. Obviously it is not acultural; a critical feature of biblical studies is examining the cultural dimensions implicit in the genres and forms in which the Bible was written in order to understand its message better. To say the Bible is transcultural means rather that it is actually the Bible itself that addresses every culture—not a digest of the Bible in abstract, propositional, supposedly acultural or supracultural form. As John Stott wrote, “The Bible does not just contain the gospel; it is the gospel. Through the Bible God is himself actually evangelizing, that is, com-municating the good news to the world.”[62] The Bible was written in particular cultures, and it obviously bears the marks of these cultures. But the Bible is applicable to—it will connect with people in and address issues of life in—any culture. In this sense, the Bible itself is not acultural, but it is transcultural. So contextualized theology can emerge in any contemporary culture.

Third, a model that pictures theology arising from a dialogue between culture and Scripture is as applicable to First World contexts as it is to any other. North American or European theologians may assume that the interaction of Scripture with culture happens only in non-Western nations. North American or European theologians might assume that their theologies are not contextualized. (Remember Robert McAfee Brown’s story!) In an era of political correctness, of course, we who are North American would never say this out loud. Yet in practice we can easily forget that our thought reflects our culture. We can too quickly act as though our theology is free of cultural elements, even though, when we are pressed, we admit that this is not true. No Asian or African evangelical theologies are free of cultural elements, and North Americans can feel that as they read. For North American readers, the “otherness” of an Asian or African theology is always front and center. But as evangelicals from Asia, Latin America, or Africa will say, North American theologies are cultural as well.

Finally, this dialogical model insists that obedience is part of the theologi-cal process. Theology is not just abstract thinking. An unwillingness to obey distorts theology. Christians are to hear God’s will and do it. And obedience is not merely a next step after all the theological work is done. It is part and parcel of the interpretative and constructive work of a theologian. Hardening one’s heart and resisting God’s voice obscure one’s reading of the text.

Mainline/liberal approaches to contextualization can overstate the role of culture. Allowing praxis, feminism, or some other contemporary concern to control the text is an error that is parallel to ethnocentrism. Here the respectable “cultures” of high academia can run roughshod over careful readings of Scripture. Ironically, in the scholarly world, those trying to contextualize can actually accept uncritically the “culture” of political correctness in the very process of seeking a theology that allegedly promotes cultural awareness. Conversely, evangelical/traditional approaches can understate the impact of culture. Traditionalists tend to allow historic expressions to dominate theological reflection. But traditional categories reflect the cultural perspectives of the past, and this leads traditionalists to accept uncritically the limited cultural perspectives of the past. Wisely, Lamin Sanneh wrote, “Liberals dissipate religious genius into the commonplace by dividing it equally among all cultures, while conservatives suffocate it by restricting it to their own.”[63] Contextual-ization means leaving behind the treasured agendas both of liberal ideologies and of conservative traditions, and moving into open dialogue where cultures inform but Scripture finally corrects our understandings.

A slender volume written by Tite Tiénou, a native of Mali, calls for just this sort of theological process. The Theological Task of the Church in Africa offers this challenge: to develop a positive, African theology. Since it is positive, such theology is not reactive—it neither simply rejects nor merely imitates undigested Western theology. An African who rejects Western perspectives just because they are Western is controlled by these perspectives every bit as much as his brother who uncritically accepts them. Since it is genuinely African, such theology does not reflect primarily Western concerns. Since it is Christian and theological, it does not simply clone an uncritically adopted, traditionally African, cultural perspective. Since it is dialogical, it does not look for some abstract, culturally pristine formulation of Christian theology which it then contextualizes in the African context. Acknowledging the authority of Scripture, this theology begins with the concerns of Africa, listens to the wisdom of tradition, and invites Scripture to speak to Africa. While doing so, how-ever, it allows the Bible to reshape the concerns that arise in the African context. In this way, using good interpretative methods, offering sincere prayer, and depending on the Holy Spirit, the African church reflects appropriately on “God’s definitive revelation.”[64]

While African dialogical theology neither mimics Western theology nor seeks a supracultural theology, it does benefit from dialogue with the world church. Theologians need to develop a sensitivity to their own cultural, denominational, and individual blind spots. This is one benefit of using a multiple-perspective approach, seeking mutual critique and enrichment, and in the end integrating perspectives.[65] Dialogical theology coheres with the hermeneutical idea of a fusion of horizons. Theologians are initially limited by their cultural horizons. By opening themselves to new horizons, dialogue enables them to see things they may have missed before. In the early stages of theological reflection, cultural perspectives guide the reasoning process by raising questions. But because the Bible is ultimate, we continually ask it to refine and judge all view-points. While Westerners have long recognized the value of dialogue with the world church for non-Western theologians, it is time to acknowledge humbly that Westerners have much to learn as well. “The twenty-first century will require a devout, vigorous Christian scholarship rooted in the soil of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.”[66]

In sum, discerning theological contextualization addresses the concerns that arise in particular cultural contexts. It responds to these issues from Scripture. It demands obedience and spiritual sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s voice. It permits initial answers to emerge and take shape. It seeks dialogue with Christians in other contexts. And then it allows feedback loops to lead back to Scripture for fresh insight and wisdom. This dialogue leads to theological understandings that are both genuinely contemporary and solidly biblical. This is evangelical contextualization.

III. A CASE STUDY:

CONTEXTUALIZATION AND MULTICULTURALISM

The issues involved in a dialogical interplay between the concerns of culture and the revelation of Scripture became clear to me one day as I sat on an inter-faith panel on the issues of cultural sensitivity. The organizers of the panel pro-posed that there are three contexts where the biblical teaching of justice, equality, and human rights touch down: race and ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. The correct position was that a similar analysis applies to these three arenas. I tried to argue that I view these three issues on a case-by-case basis. All evangelicals understand the moral imperative for justice in race and ethnicity. Evangelicals frankly differ in their views on the relationships of men and women. Regarding sexual orientation, most evangelicals would not see being a homosexual (by which I mean, having homosexual desires) as sin. Evangelicals do see acting out one’s homosexuality by embracing the homo-sexual lifestyle and engaging in homosexual intercourse as sin. (My point parallels alcoholism: being an alcoholic and experiencing desire for alcohol is not sinful; drunkenness is.) But another panel member just would not let me take this view. She insisted that either I commit to what she called “full equality” on all three issues, or else admit bigotry on all three issues. The three issues, in her mind, are a package deal. I am not allowed, she said rather loudly, to split them apart. This challenge offers a compelling example of the issue in this chapter: How does biblically oriented theology speak to a problem that is described in terms or categories that do not arise from Scripture?

A. The Promise and Peril of Multiculturalism

According to Genesis 12:2-3, the Lord blessed Abram, promising to make him into a great nation. God purposed to bless all the peoples on earth through Abram. In a vision of the end of history recorded in Revelation 7:9, John saw “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.” Between these two events, the people of God, both in biblical times and since, have repeatedly failed to live out God’s will for people of very different sorts to join in unity. There are exceptions. Because of his Christian conscience, William Wilberforce stood up for racial justice and opposed slavery in early nineteenth-century England. His public stand cost him the Prime Minister’s position. He spent the rest of his life fighting this evil. On his deathbed, he received news that parliament had abolished slavery. Still, in spite of this and other successes, in the early twenty-first-century church of North America, the dream of reconciliation among those from “every nation, tribe, people and language” remains largely unfulfilled.

There are signs, however, that the evangelical world is beginning to seek actively to become a reconciled community. Parachurch groups like Promise Keepers and InterVarsity evidence strong support for racial inclusiveness through specific programmatic commitments. Biracial pastoral teams are sprouting up in local churches. Several denominations are making reconciliation a top-tier priority. Obviously, if the evangelical church would build communities that incarnate these values, the Holy Spirit must elicit proper attitudes and behaviors among us. Good spiritual leadership is required on this issue. In addition, we must also develop common understandings on what a reconciled community looks like, why it is desirable and good, and how we can achieve it. This is a thoroughly theological task. Evangelical theology must weave into its own fabric an approach to the racial and tribal animosities of our world that is distinctively biblical.[67]

As the evangelical church is beginning to become more active in this area, the new view on cultural relationships, a philosophy called “multiculturalism,” is gaining prominence. Multiculturalism promotes harmony among the races and tolerance of differences among peoples. An important strategy is educational workshops. These workshops, mandated not just in schools but in cor-porations and public institutions, typically stress that North American culture is pluralistic. They assert that all cultures are reasonable and good when viewed in light of their own values and norms. They stress that institutions and personal interactions that require Eurocentric patterns of interaction are oppressive to non-European peoples. The culturally alien patterns of interaction hold back non-European peoples both culturally and economically. To bring justice, monocultural patterns and intolerant attitudes need transformation. Religious perspectives that argue for absolute truth can breed intolerance, and so absolutist religion must be opposed and the prestige of religion used to teach tolerance—that all peoples are God’s children. Religion must not indoctrinate believers into thinking that some people are God’s children while others are not. The patterns of majority culture dominance must give way to multiculturalism, and citizens must adopt a tolerant spirit toward three prominent causes: feminism, racial equality, and gay rights.

The fellow panel member who would not let me divide out these three issues represented a mentality commonly expressed in these multicultural workshops. I call it “ideological multiculturalism.” It is ideological when it is held as an unfalsifiable, uncriticizable position. The ideological character reveals itself, for example, when thoughtful critics of ideological multiculturalism are silenced by the charge of intolerance. Criticism is shut out when anyone who opposes the dominant viewpoint is shamed into retreat through a charge of bigotry.

Defenders of ideological multiculturalism offer their understandings with the goal of promoting peaceful communities. Yet ironically, the cluster of themes typical of ideological multiculturalism paints evangelical theology into a corner. Many of its themes are right. But from a biblical viewpoint, some of its themes are at least ambiguous or at worst false. Multiculturalism, when expressed ideologically, does not entirely cohere with the biblical worldview. Thus, while the philosophy of ideological multiculturalism does offer some valid insights and may be well motivated, it does not by itself give us a conceptual framework upon which to build a biblically oriented reconciled community.

Ideological multiculturalism creates several specific problems for evangelical Christian thought and life. First, it confuses truth and knowledge. Fundamentally, truth is not the same as knowledge. We use the word ‘true’ to denote a property of statements that correspond or accurately reflect what really is. Knowledge is some person’s grasp of truth. Now I admit that our viewpoints or perspectives influence the terms in which we understand the world. Human knowledge is always expressed in terms of our perspectives. So my knowledge is of the truth, but it is also limited by my place in history, by the finiteness of my mental capacity, and by my tendency to distort my comprehension of the world due to my sin. Human knowledge is relative. But though this is all very interesting and important, it does not follow that truth depends on anyone’s viewpoint. Truth is still ultimate and absolute. (See chapter 11 for much more on truth and knowledge.)

Now this paragraph will just set off some defenders of ideological multiculturalism. For they adopt what I call “epistemic relativism.” One form of epistemic relativism commits to a view something like: “All truth depends on the knower’s viewpoint.” In other words, epistemic relativism denies that there is any ultimate viewpoint on truth. Truth is relative either to a person’s own paradigm or to a culture’s or community’s unique perspective. But to anticipate a later discussion, this sort of epistemic relativism is deeply flawed. It is offered as a truth that does not depend on the knower’s viewpoint. The claim is that it is ultimately true that there is no ultimate truth. (And if this is not what is claimed, then we have a right to ask for greater clarity as to what is in fact being claimed.) It appears that epistemic relativism defeats itself. (See chapter 4 on perspectivalism for further discussion of this point.)

A second point follows from the first. Ideological multiculturalism uses epistemic relativism to undermine all viewpoints. It asserts that no viewpoint may override another because no viewpoint is ultimately true. But this strategy of relativizing all viewpoints leaves no ground, no basis, for the moral duty to respect others. If all beliefs are relative to particular cultures, then the belief that all persons should tolerate others could be a truth for one culture but not for another. Put another way, if relativism were true, there would be no ground for building a rational case to show that white supremacists are wrong—that they ought to love non-whites. Since relativism makes individual opinion or community values ultimate, relativism implies that within white supremacist culture, hating or suppressing ethnic groups is not only acceptable but obligatory. Using relativism backfires as a strategy for respecting all persons; it leads to tribalism—exclusive love of one’s own group or kin.[68] Christians say that the duty to love both one’s neighbor and even one’s enemy was intended for all persons regardless of their personal preference or cultural identity. This could not be so if all truth were relative to culture.

Third, multiculturalism generally applies tolerance to three sets of relation-ships: those between whites and non-whites, men and women, and homosexuals and heterosexuals. But for biblical reasons, as I hinted above, evangelicals assess these issues differently. Virtually all evangelicals want racial reconciliation. We may not completely agree on how to achieve it, but we have no doubt that things can and must be better between the racial groups of the human family. Many believe that women and men should relate as equals. I person-ally believe that when people relate in groups or pairs, we should not automatically place males in leadership simply because of their maleness or women in subordinate roles due solely to their femaleness. (I understand that evangel-icals differ on this point.) I believe no evangelical should condemn homosexual feelings, desires, or temptations. But the evangelical consensus, based on the Bible, is that homosexual intercourse, even in a permanent partnership, is morally wrong.

Ideological multiculturalism (in its full-blooded form described above) usu-ally ties these three issues together as my fellow panel member did. It refuses to deal with each one on its own merits. In so doing, it wrongly frames the issues of cross-cultural reconciliation. As we try to find an appropriate stance toward multiculturalism, the ideological way of framing the issue leaves us feeling torn. We want to affirm reasonable versions of multiculturalism but cannot accept the relativism. We want to reject ideological forms of multiculturalism but want to be cross-culturally sensitive. We cannot completely accept ideological multiculturalism’s way of framing these issues. As evangelicals we must reframe these questions, not just comment on our culture’s way of addressing them.

B. Theology and Cultural Diversity

These dilemmas propel us toward an alternative. Step one is to frame the question using the resources of the Christian worldview. As evangelical people, committed to the finality of Scripture for our thinking and living, we ought to ground our understanding and practice of reconciliation in biblical teaching. What we think and do in moving toward reconciliation must integrate valid insights about culture with the Christian worldview.

We may ground an appreciation of people in all their cultural diversity in many theological values and themes. First, God is the creator of diversity. When we consider the descriptions in Genesis 1 and the repeated pronouncement, “It is good,” we rightly infer that God delights in variety in the natural and human worlds. Esthetically, Christians may revel in artistic expressions from diverse cultures. Heartfelt Christian worship that incorporates the ener-getic drums of central Africa, the refined simplicity of Japanese painting, or the soothing rhythms of Hawaiian dance all bring glory to the Lord.

Second, God values human persons because each is an imager of God. The prohibition against murder is tied to the fact that each human being images God (Gen 9:6). While God gave animals for food, God forbade taking human life. James points to an astonishing irony: we use our tongues both to praise God and to curse human beings who are God-imagers (James 3:9). Not only is murder wrong, so is character assassination. The existence of human beings as God-imagers grounds their value. For this reason all persons deserve respect.

Third, according to Genesis, all human persons descend from Adam and Eve. The unity of the human race is important. The unity of our race is the ground both of the sinfulness of all human persons and of the potential for their salvation (Rom 5:12-19). As all are descended from Adam and Eve and there-fore mired in sin, so all may become one in the second Adam, Jesus Christ, and thus find release from sin. From the unity of the race, ancient rabbis rightly inferred racial equality. “Why was [humanity] created a single, solitary human being? So that it might not be said that some races are better than others.”[69]

Fourth, God invites persons of every cultural group to receive salvation. The book of Acts chronicles the spread of the gospel through several cultural boundaries. In Acts 1:8, Jesus declares that the apostles would witness to their faith “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The rest of the book reflects this pattern. At Pentecost, the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, along with God-fearing Jews from many nations, experience the Holy Spirit’s coming. Several chapters later, Philip travels to Samaria, and people experience the Spirit’s presence (8:4-25). Philip goes to the desert, and the African eunuch receives the message with joy (8:26-40). Then Paul is converted (9:1-19), and Peter receives a vision that prompts him to visit the Roman military officer Cornelius. The Spirit’s coming to that home convinces the believers in Jerusalem that the gospel is indeed for all peoples—even Gentiles (11:1-18). Thereafter, Paul begins his Gentile mission. Clearly, the impulse in Acts is God’s passion to share the blessing promised to Abraham with all cultures.

Fifth, God works for the unity of diverse persons in a covenant community. The NT repeatedly emphasizes the unity of the church in spite of superficial diversity. The teaching of Paul regarding spiritual gifts emphasizes the variety among Christians. Jesus’ willingness to teach women (unheard of among the rabbis of the day) and the gospel mission to the Gentiles both ensured a church body composed of many different kinds of people. Yet in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). In typical Pauline fashion, the fact supports the command: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:3-6).

Finally, the greatest commands summarize Christian ethics: to love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. If there were any doubt as to what Jesus meant by ‘neighbor’, he reinforced this commandment with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Its obvious application for us is that genuine love of neighbor crosses ecclesiastical and cultural lines. If anything could be more dramatic than the Good Samaritan story, Christ explicitly taught us to love our enemies (Matt 5:44). Lest we start to think that, in loving some of those around us, we are actually fulfilling the Lord’s command, the words of Jesus bring us up short:

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:46-48).

The Epistles command us to show no favoritism (James 2:1-9). Indeed, the distinguishing mark of Christian vitality is love: “all . . . will know . . . you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).

These theological themes ought to fuel in Christian believers a delight in cultural diversity and a passion for all peoples to be reconciled in Christ. The Christian worldview grounds in a variety of significant ways the ethical command that the church be the diverse and reconciled body of those in union with Christ. This provides a theological basis for the affirmation of all people in their cultural identity. Given this, Christian theologians may reframe the issue of relationships among groups, agreeing with much that multiculturalism says, correcting some of its ideas, and just rejecting others.

Consider some examples from among the themes commonly promoted within ideological multiculturalism. First, multiculturalism says we live in a plu-ralistic culture. This is obviously true descriptively. From this obvious fact, how-ever, some people make an erroneous inference. Some claim that this obviously correct description of cultures proves that, in some sense, all religious viewpoints are true. We should spot this confusion and simply reject the inference.

Second, every culture is good, so society should celebrate and affirm all cultures. This needs unpacking. From an esthetic viewpoint, the styles of one culture are not inherently more beautiful than another’s. Beethoven’s music is neither more beautiful nor less beautiful simply because Ludwig was European. From the perspective of everyday patterns of life, non-Western cultures are not better or worse merely because they are non-Western. For instance, different expectations about time are just different, not better or worse by some absolute scale. From a moral perspective, however, some practices embedded in certain cultures are ultimately right or wrong. “Every culture is good” does not entail that wife burning in India or narcissistic materialism in contemporary North America are acceptable simply because those practices are (or were) accepted as norms in those cultures. It may be that people in those cultures do (or did) accept those values, but from a biblical viewpoint, their mores are not right. So the statement “every culture is good” cries out for clarification.

Third, monocultural approaches hurt others, and the monoculturalism of Euroculture has oppressed non-European peoples. This seems obvious. Consider what happened to native Americans.

Fourth, to achieve tolerance, one must abandon the notion of absolute truth, for truth is true to the person who believes it based on that person’s culture. This is just false. The duty to tolerate others is an absolute moral dictum. Christians believe this is implied in the biblical command, “Love your enemy.” Of course, we must, as evangelical Christians, cultivate humility about our own knowledge.We certainly do not grasp truth in its fullness or entirety. In a free society, we should, at a minimum, tolerate those with whom we differ. But this does not require abandoning the notion of absolute truth as the goal toward which our search for understanding progresses.

Fifth, religion should be used to teach tolerance—that all peoples are God’s children—not to indoctrinate believers into thinking that some people are God’s children and others are not. This is seriously convoluted. In one sense, the ideal of tolerance is too weak. Christ commanded us to love—a much higher and more difficult calling. In another sense, this idea of toleration is too strong. To tolerate a person’s religious view is not to agree with her view, as is commonly supposed. Tolerance entails disagreement. To tolerate a person is to take a stance of openness toward a person; to tolerate a person is not to agree with her ideas. Tolerance requires me to accept her right to hold and defend a point of view and to respect her as a full human being in spite of disagreement. These things Christians must do, for they are a part of loving one’s neighbor. Further, religion should not be used for anything; faith in Christ is not merely a tool of social governance.

Sixth, to overcome oppression, the histories of those who were overlooked should be emphasized. We must tell the stories of those who were and are oppressed, not in propagandistic ways but honestly and with integrity. If the histories of dominant cultures did in fact amount to propaganda, it is no solution to counter that with propaganda from another viewpoint. Honest telling on all sides is best.

Seventh, accepting multiculturalism and becoming a tolerant member of society require supporting three dominant causes: feminism, racial equality, and gay rights. As evangelical Christians, we simply do not accept bundling these three political agendas together. We insist on treating each one on its own terms. This complicates matters, but such issues simply require careful and detailed thinking, and Christian theologians are surely up to that task.

The package of themes typically denoted by the term ‘multiculturalism’ does not fit our biblical and theological perspective. Some multicultural themes seem right, some are just unacceptable, and others need unpacking and explaining in light of clear biblical interpretation and mature evangelical theology. As evangelical Christians, we should hear the cultural concerns about cross-cultural conflict, but we should also bring them into the richness of our theological heritage to think through and live out God’s obvious passion for racial and cultural reconciliation. When multiculturalism becomes ideological, it silences the evangelical perspective. But theology still needs a fresh start, and to signal this new theological way of framing the question, I prefer to speak of the theological basis for cultural diversity. This means that we appreciate the diversity of cultures in all their wonder and beauty. It also means we do so for theological reasons—precisely because the Father created all peoples, our Lord died for all persons, and the Holy Spirit indwells all who trust in Christ regardless of their cultural identity. As followers of the triune God, we of all people have reason to delight in cultural diversity.

I believe we should accept, therefore, some of what multiculturalism says. But we do so, not because multiculturalism says it, but primarily because it permeates our own biblical and theological worldview. We agree with some of the things a committed defender of ideological multiculturalism says because she is in touch with natural revelation and has some things right, just as evangelicals readily agree with some truths an atheistic sociologist learns from natural revelation about human interaction. I also believe we should reject some of what multiculturalism often says. I say that this entails especially that we must stand against the current epidemic of epistemic relativism. We should deny that relativism regarding truth could ever ground an absolute moral duty to tolerate cultural diversity. We should affirm, rather, what is ultimately true for all persons: God honors those who “act justly and . . . love mercy and . . . walk humbly with [their] God” (Mic 6:8).

Based on many conversations with evangelical believers, I think that many evangelicals do dream of becoming a network of reconciled communities. My conversations also uncover an acute sense of unease about multiculturalism. This unease arises from a sense that multiculturalism, in its typical ideological and relativist form, undercuts core Christian convictions. Unfortunately, this unease with contemporary forms of multicultural thinking leads some to repel the very idea of a reconciled community because that idea is allegedly “liberal” or “unbiblical.” I pin my hopes (in part) on the idea that a theological approach to these issues may ease the anxiety. Contextualized theology would allow us to robustly support reconciliation without buying into contemporary liberal ideology. Indeed, it would show that the impulse to become a reconciled community is thoroughly biblical—that it arises out of God’s own will for the consummation of all human history!

This case study illustrates a dialogical method for contextualization. The broader North American cultural situation raises for theologians the pressing question of inter-group conflict. This question is posed by the culture. The culture also offers a way of framing the question and of responding to the issue. This way of framing the question stands at odds with the biblical worldview. Without dialogue with culture, the church might on the one hand simply buy into the prevailing conceptual grid through which these issues are interpreted and thus lose connection with God’s Word. (This is what liberal theology tends to do.) On the other hand, the church could equally oppose the idea of racial reconciliation as a key issue of concern by rejecting the conceptual grid through which the broader culture forces theology to address the issue. (Some evangelicals have done this.) There is a better way. In dialogue with culture, the evangelical theologian, in community with other believers, hears a question about lack of reconciliation and evaluates the deep theory lying behind the question. She then reforms the deep theory, reformulates the question in light of Scripture, and finally offers interpretation that is both biblical at its core and relevant to the concerns of culture as originally expressed.

In this way, evangelical theology is both biblically grounded and culturally relevant. It can show that more than anyone, Bible-affirming Christians have reason to seek lasting relationships of reconciliation among peoples of different cultures. Evangelical theology can do this without affirming the relativism so commonly promoted today. In fact, evangelical theology can offer an even more robust response to the problem of cultural tension than is possible through a secular approach. A biblically grounded theology of cultural diversity does not simply inspire us to affirm our differences in attitudes, but also to go the second mile in seeking out truly reconciled relationships. As Christians, we may use our own heritage to live out the biblical worldview by delighting in cultural diversity, inviting all to be reconciled within the covenant community, and sacrificing personal agendas to make covenant community a reality.

IV. CONCLUSION

H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture lays out the classic analysis of five models of the interaction of faith with culture.[70] Different denominational traditions adopt one or another of these models. Historically, Anabaptists separate from culture, Anglicans engage culture, and Presbyterians seek to transform it. The dialogical model of interacting with culture (if I may narrow the application of this model to theology) is a strategy that seeks to preserve what is true in these seemingly contradictory approaches. Christians who oppose cultural engagement properly point to the essential evangelical commitment to the priority of the Bible over any cultural value or practice. Those who engage culture correctly show that the priority of Scripture must be lived in connection with the culture that is outside the church. And those who emphasize the transformation of culture rightly hold up the ideal that the power of Christian witness will bring healing to cultures of all kinds. But there is a potential problem with this integrative approach. One critique stands in the way of unifying these Christian insights. It is a common contemporary theme: the denial of any ultimate unity of truth. This theme says that no final coherence or unity of any sort, let alone of theology, is possible. To designate this denial of a unity of truth, I use the word ‘perspectivalism’. Perspectivalism would make a unified evangelical theology impossible. Is perspectivalism justified or is a unity of theological truth possible?

CHAPTER

FOUR

DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES AND

THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

My wife and I sat fidgeting on unpadded bleachers in the school gym/auditorium with several hundred other parents. We were reluctantly committing our firstborn son into the care of the administrators, counselors, and teachers of Highview Middle School. Meanwhile, two hundred animated eleven-year-olds toured the building, locating sixth-grade classrooms, meeting new teachers, networking with old friends, and exploring the new world of lockers. Dr. Hood, the stout and confident principal, boomed a welcome. Then, shifting gears, he shared “The Highview Philosophy of Education.” After touching all the expected bases—peer pressure, drugs, self-esteem—he asserted, “When your kids come to Highview, they are children. When they leave, they will be adults.” I was all ears. (Remember, this is a middle school.)

The maturation process, Dr. Hood assured us, would include developing the ability to reason as adults. Students at Highview would learn that only children believe in absolutes; they would find out that adults recognize all moral judgments as relative. To prove his last point, Dr. Hood pointed out that the speed limit on Interstate 694 is 60 miles per hour. Yet many cars and trucks, including some driven by parents, travel at 65 or even 70 miles per hour.

“You see,” he concluded as parents sheepishly acknowledged their auto-motive crimes, “ethics is entirely relative.” I was, I admit, surprised to see hundreds of parents around me acquiescing placidly to Dr. Hood’s (apparently) unremarkable remarks.

Dr. Hood’s reasoning was seriously flawed, of course. As an aside, I simply note my surprise that his assistant principal later claimed that “Every child is respected at Highview!” As father to one of the youngest kids at Highview, I was heartened to hear this, of course. Yet I wondered: Is the assistant principal’s norm universal in its application? Or is the moral norm of respecting others binding in just certain places or cultures? Would she apply the same principle at Southside Middle School in St. Paul? What about a middle school in Southern California, where, from the relatively sheltered world of Minnesota, the rules do seem different? Or what about a middle school in southern India?

I. PERSPECTIVALISM

A. The Concept of Perspectivalism

Theology must articulate the Word of God to its particular culture, as I already argued. In speaking to a culture, evangelical theology must in some sense adapt to its audience. Of course, there is risk here. As sociologist Peter Berger wrote, “any renewed effort to make Christianity palatable to what is deemed to be the secular consciousness of modern man” is doomed because “this modern secularity is in crisis today.”[1] Berger pointed out that equating the Christian message with the thought forms of any particular culture is dangerous, for cultures always change. He was recounting the fate of liberalism, but his words offer evangelicals a stiff warning. In response to this kind of caution, I advocated a dialogical model for theology (chapter 3). But dialogue with our cul-ture encounters the increasingly pervasive presupposition we encountered in connection with multiculturalism: many believe that all discourse is necessarily entrapped in specific cultural perspectives. This entails that theological knowledge is inevitably relative to cultural perspective—that is, language shapes (and is shaped by) historical or cultural context, and language frames all knowledge.

Within many disciplines, scholars have adopted the epistemic conviction that cultural perspectives control all human thought. According to this reigning assumption, all humans apprehend specific ideas about the world in terms of larger sets of beliefs. The larger belief structures always dominate individual beliefs. Sometimes humans intend that a large set of beliefs incorporate all real-ity. I will use the term ‘macroperspectives’ to denote these largest possible sets of beliefs. (The preferred postmodern term is ‘metanarrative’.) An example is the Christian theological worldview. Sometimes humans intend that a large and coordinated set of beliefs incorporate something less than the whole of reality. I will designate these by the word ‘microperspectives’. An example is Newtonian physics, for Newtonian physics is never as comprehensive as a worldview. Perspectives offer the framework within which people configure data about the world. People sort information that is new to them according to the categories provided by their perspectives. This is thinking in terms of the perspective. One’s perspective always forms the grid out of which the world is interpreted and life is lived. This is why, according to a quip attributed to Abraham Maslow, if a person has a hammer, every problem he sees starts to look like a nail. Everything I see looks like something my perspective leads me to see.

Let me mention an important caution: in distinguishing the structure of beliefs (a perspective) from specific beliefs, I do not mean to imply that they are two separate things—as though I have, first, my thought structure, and next to that, my individual beliefs about the world.[2] ‘Structure’ refers to how the pieces are related, the pattern representing how my beliefs fit together. I can-not separate the particular beliefs from the interconnecting pattern of those beliefs any more than I could separate the pattern of my house (represented by the blueprint) from its materials (studs, Sheetrock, rafters, nails, and shingles). Different patterns of two houses will distinguish two buildings that are made from similar materials, and different material will separate two houses built on an identical plan. Even though I cannot separate the structure of my intellectual framework from the contents of my believing, I can distinguish the structure of my worldview from the structure of another person’s worldview. Differences in structure will lead two persons to integrate new information into their respective belief systems differently.

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions initiated a common way to speak of perspectives.[3] Kuhn popularized the now overworked term ‘paradigm’. For Kuhn, a paradigm is an ordered set of methods, principles, and ideas shared by a scientific community. It is not just a group of disconnected facts, but a network of interconnected beliefs, along with methods and values, all coordinated into a coherent whole. Scientists who would carry on a research program must conform to the reigning paradigm. Once they do, the paradigm shapes their thinking about their subject, focusing their attention on important facts and guiding their scientific reasoning.[4] This is thinking in terms of the paradigm. As a philosopher of science, Kuhn originally used ‘paradigm’ to describe patterns of thought in science (although his use of the term is surprisingly ambiguous).[5] As Kuhn typically used the term, a paradigm is a microperspective. But like ‘evolution’ (another concept frequently used outside its disciplinary home territory), Kuhn’s word caught on in other contexts to describe macroperspectives as well.

Though the idea of a paradigm is common, other words are used for perspectives. Describing a perspective as an “intellectual framework” highlights that the perspective represents the structure or framework of one’s beliefs. Naming it a “narrative” emphasizes its historical character and its role in shaping the self-perceptions of a community. Calling it a “conceptual scheme” stresses that it possesses a conceptual wholeness that makes it logically incongruent with other possible macroperspectives. And using the phrase “noetic structure” highlights that it is a structured set of beliefs. W. V. O. Quine’s title, TheWeb of Belief, offers a more concrete image.[6] This image suggests that our thought systems are like spider webs. At the edges, spider webs touch the branches of a tree or the members of a doorjamb. In the center, however, webs hold themselves together, gaining strength from the mutually reinforcing effect of all the internal connections. Similarly, the thought patterns of persons and communities touch the world at the edges, but gain much of their strength through the interconnections in the middle. Quine’s image, the web of belief, emphasizes that all beliefs within a worldview are internally interconnected with other beliefs and that all beliefs are attached, either directly or indirectly, to the external world.

Everyone recognizes differences in the noetic structures of different people. The key question is the nature of those differences. Some people think that the differences between two persons’ perspectives can be total or radical. Others do not. This is critically important. A fundamental claim often made today is this:

(a) The truth value of every belief is entirely relative to or completely dependent on a particular conceptual scheme, noetic structure, or web of belief.

Given (a), the logical, evidential, or valuational principles of noetic structures—the principles people use to organize and evaluate their beliefs—operate only within the specific perspective that gave them birth. No perspective-neutral principles of thought stand outside a conceptual scheme to enable a disinterested observer (if there were such a thing) to decide which perspective is best. This means that when one changes systems of thought, one changes not just specific beliefs but the whole web of belief, including the very rules used in deciding which beliefs to hold. Thus, decisions about which facts to hold and how to relate facts to each other depend on the paradigm or worldview. No one has any “pure facts” (i.e., facts uncontaminated by a prior commitment to some perspective) by which to decide which one of several competing but incompatible conceptual schemes is best. Perspectives control how people and communities view the world.

According to one version of this stance, a person’s commitment to a particular perspective (including its built-in rules of thought) is more affected by when and where he lives—by his historical and cultural location—than by contact with a real or objective world. Kuhn himself appeared (at times) to defend this point. His work, taken as a whole, is ambiguous on the degree to which contact with an objective reality or paradigm-transcending principles can guide the choice between paradigms. He wrote, “the proponents of com-peting paradigms must fail to make complete contact with each other’s view-points.” [7] By using the word ‘complete’, Kuhn hedged his bet, apparently leaving open the possibility of some contact between paradigms. But at the least, it appears that Kuhn was more modest at this point than those who adopt the increasingly common axiom of intellectual life today: all knowledge is relative to perspectives, worldviews, or paradigms. In a word, many con-sider (a) true. For many, (a) entails that the conceptual schemes of various people or cultures are totally closed off from each other. It means that each is shaped by its own unique rules, and each is underdetermined (i.e., not totally supported or demonstrated) by the facts. And some say this means that no truly rational choice between macroperspectives is possible. This conclusion is the heart of perspectivalism.

Kuhn’s word ‘incommensurability’ captures the claim that conceptual schemes or noetic structures are closed off from each other—that no genuinely rational choice of the truest or best paradigm is possible. In Kuhn’s language, two paradigms are incommensurable if we possess no neutral means of translating the paradigms. A scholar cannot calibrate two incommensurable paradigms on the same system. They have no common denominator, no common scale. They are something like IBM and Macintosh back in the good old days before IBMs and Macs could read each other’s mail. Kuhn did allow that what he called five values (accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness) could guide a choice among paradigms. But he stressed that different people will use these values differently. So the process of converting from an old paradigm to a new one is not driven primarily by objective facts but more by shifting personal loyalties. In other words, sociological factors dictate commitment to paradigms. The five values can at best influence theory choices. They are not rules that determine paradigm choice. The “competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.”[8]

Incommensurability is not the same as incongruence. Let us say, roughly speaking, that two worldviews are incongruent if their hard-core metaphysical beliefs are logically incompatible. A Christian says God exists; a naturalist denies God exists. These two beliefs are necessary to their respective world-views. If either side gave up its hard-core belief, it simply would not remain what it is. These two individual beliefs contradict. Given the law of non-contradiction, necessarily, one is false. So the worldviews built on these central, hard-core beliefs are incongruent. But this does not entail that they are incommensurable. A Christian and his atheist friend could have a scintillating discussion about the resurrection of Jesus. If one takes the affirmative and the other the negative, they will heartily disagree. Their positions are incongruent, but not incommensurable. The two friends would appeal to the same sort of evidence and similar principles of analysis and evaluation. So the two perspectives have something in common in the sense that they are calibrated on the same scale. They can communicate. They use similar criteria. If two perspectives are incongruent, they disagree fundamentally with each other, but they disagree about the same sorts of things. If the two perspectives were incommensurable, the distance would be greater. They would have no common calibration for their conversation.

Just as Kuhn’s use of ‘paradigm’ is unclear, so his discussion of ‘incommen-surability’ is ambiguous. Is incommensurability strictly true (absolutely no con-tact between paradigms) or softly true (contact between paradigms is hard, but still possible)? In some instances, defenders of incommensurability imply that the independence of conceptual grids is total and complete. This suggests a stricter version of the incommensurability thesis, and in this version, rational judgment is entirely useless in deciding the relative merits of different paradigms.[9] In other cases, defenders of incommensurability actually affirm weaker versions of the thesis, claiming only that scientific or religious debates are not easily or obviously decidable on straightforwardly rational grounds. A softer version of incommensurability is the claim that we cannot evaluate two paradigms relative to each other by translating them into a third perspective “without remainder or equivocation.”[10] Unfortunately, defenders of incommensurability use the same evidence (e.g., the observation that facts are never entirely theory-neutral) to support both stricter and softer versions of incommensurability. And they are often unclear about whether they have in mind stricter or softer versions.

B. The Scope of a Perspective

The concept of incommensurability connects in a very important way to the question of a perspective’s scope. Worldviews—macroperspectives—have the broadest possible scope. Christian theism and metaphysical naturalism are macroperspectives. They are as broad in scope as it is possible to be, and they are rightly designated worldviews. Microperspectives are more narrow or focused in their range of application or levels of scope. At these lower levels of comprehensiveness we find microperspectives on all sorts of topics. One microperspective is a well-structured set of convictions and strategies relating to the best ways to invest in stocks and bonds. Another is an ordered set of methods, principles, and ideas shared by a group of biologists studying a specific evolutionary mechanism—a Kuhnian paradigm.

Two microperspectives (perspectives of limited scope) can relate in one of several ways. First, two microperspectives may be two necessarily conflicting ways of attending to the same aspect of the same reality. Consider two philosophies of teaching children to play the violin. One teacher might just put vio-lins in the children’s hands and instruct them to try imitating some music they hear. Another might first teach the children how to read musical notation. These two philosophies basically contradict each other. These two hypotheses are not inclusive enough to be considered worldviews, so they are microperspectives. But because they involve opposite views about the same aspect of the same thing, they mutually exclude each other. They would be commensurable, but not congruent with each other. A teacher cannot first have the children just play and also first teach the children to read notes. Of course, it goes without saying, the two teachers will have much in common—their love of violin music and (I hope) of children.

Second, two microperspectives may be two conflicting but resolvable ways of attending to different facets of the same larger reality. Consider a traffic acci-dent in which a car strikes and injures a roller-blading grandmother. The car’s driver might argue that the law restricts where grandmothers may roller-blade. So the roller-blading grandmother’s injuries are really caused by her own error. The grandmother might argue that anyone driving on a public street should watch out for others, especially defenseless pedestrians, bikers, and elderly roller-bladers. So the grandmother’s injuries are really caused by the driver’s inattention. Now these two perspectives relate in complicated ways. For one thing, there is much agreement: both will appeal to the same traffic laws and look to the same facts (like skid marks on the pavement). Further, the driver is right in saying that grandmothers should not roller-blade on interstate high-ways, and the grandmother is right in arguing that drivers should watch where they are going. There are two viewpoints here, but a patrolman will refer to a set of jointly accepted rules to resolve the conflict. He will likely decide that although the grandmother’s point is partly true, the salient point is the driver’s: grandmothers should not roller-blade on highways. In the end, the patrolman will give a citation to the grandmother and not the driver.[11]

Third, two microperspectives may be two non-conflicting ways of attend-ing to different aspects of the same larger reality. Suppose two partners in the jewelry business have different responsibilities. One oversees the purchase of raw diamonds while the other manages the cutting and polishing of those diamonds. If the two are interested in the highest-quality diamonds, they could each attend to their areas of competence. Each could improve the finished product to the degree he upgrades his own facet of the total operation. The two viewpoints, limited in scope, are independent in significant ways. They could not conflict with each other, and they are compatible, since they can be absorbed into a larger comprehensive whole—the perspective that commits both partners to excellence in diamond production. Of course, the two might argue about who is doing the better job, each thinking the other is spending too much time and company money on three-martini lunches. But if they both hope to market the world’s finest diamonds, each can independently focus on his aspect of the business, improving his own part of the operation to the degree possible. And in so doing, neither would limit or contradict his partner’s microperspectival concerns.

Fourth, two microperspectives could be about two very different things. A paradigm about the best strategy for winning Little League baseball games that are tied in the last inning and a perspective on what to do about the fluctuation in the value of the euro are just about two very different things. In such cases, it is hard to say they are part of the same larger reality until one references the whole of reality. Such microperspectives could hardly ever conflict directly.

For theology, the bigger issue is the relationships between macroperspectives. The difference between saying that choosing between perspectives is difficult (a soft view) and saying that choosing is impossible (a hard view) is enormous. I will say right at the beginning that I acknowledge a soft sense of incommensurability. Deciding which of two macroperspectives is closer to the truth will surely tax investigators. Not surprisingly, given the epistemological limitations we face, finding what is really true to ultimate reality is no easy task. Orthodox Christians have admitted this difficulty by stressing the motifs of God’s hiddenness and sin’s noetic effects. These themes require epistemic humility and dependence on God’s gracious gift of revelation. But perspectivalism, as I understand that idea, takes the strict view. Perspectivalism is the notion that macroperspectives are completely incommensurable. Deciding among world-views is not just difficult or taxing, but rationally impossible (meaning that if and when we make such choices, we do so for non-rational reasons). Observing and assessing facts are totally worldview-dependent activities.

Contrary to perspectivalism, however, I argue that macroperspectives are softly incommensurable but not strictly so. Facts do underdetermine theories. This means that no theory is absolutely demonstrated by pure facts. But against a strict incommensurability thesis stands a critical reality: the facts do not underdetermine all theories equally. In every area of investigation, literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of possible theories are ruled out by factual considerations. Some possible theories simply do not account for what facts we do know. Some make a certain amount of sense initially but do not explain reality in the end. By using a variety of strategies, we can and do make progress in choosing among large-scale conceptual frameworks by asking which ones do a better job with the available evidence. Using these strategies taxes us. Sometimes we boil the question down to two or three plausible theories. But it is not the case that we just have no idea how to relate the phenomena we see in the world.

The rejection of strong incommensurability is critical. It means that we may rightly claim to know—to have a properly grounded true belief—that a perspective like evangelical Christianity (or Sufi Islam or Marxist-Leninism) is true. I do not mean that it is “true” just for those who believe it (whatever that could mean).[12] I mean that it is true for all persons, and known properly—with appropriate warrant—by those who attend to it. As evangelical Christians, we claim that all persons may gain properly warranted knowledge of God through Jesus. The gospel is true for all peoples in every culture. People in different cultures may come to properly grounded true belief in a variety of ways. But the knowledge of God through Jesus is still true for them all. Perspectivalism, how-ever, must deny that this is so. Therefore, in view of this universalizing claim of Christian theology, evangelical theology must reject the currently rampant perspectivalism.[13]

C. Perspectivalism as a Feature of

Deconstructive Postmodernism

The patterns of perspectivalist thinking resonate with the ethos of postmodernism. Postmodernism is a broad and nebulous concept. Part of the problem is that diverse fields like literature, politics, architecture, philosophy, economics, theology, and photography exhibit trends that some call postmodern. How could an architectural style and theological theme both count as postmodern in one tight sense of that word?[14] All that is postmodern rebels, no doubt, against modernism. But this is at best partially helpful. As a definition, it suffers from at least two defects. For one thing, defining a concept negatively rarely narrows the categories sufficiently. The classification “all objects without wheels” contains members with almost nothing in common. Negative concepts like “invertebrate”—all animals that lack backbones—just include too much. For another, modernism is itself an untidy category. “Much of the clarity of modernism emerges,” noted Os Guinness, “not from self-professed modernists, but from the attack on modernism by proponents of postmodernism.”[15]

Postmoderns in literature and philosophy (the areas that touch Christian doctrine most directly) see modern thought, exemplified in the Enlightenment, as rationalistic, absolutistic, objectivist, and positivistic in orientation. “The real consequence of the Enlightenment,” wrote Hans-Georg Gadamer, was “the subjection of all authority to reason.”[16] The Enlightenment gospel went like this: the human individual, liberated from external authority, appealing to autonomous human reason, can discover absolute truth which, implemented through rational planning emphasizing standardization and science, leads to social progress.[17] In literature and philosophy, postmodernism is more closely associated with the notion that comprehensive worldviews, total explanatory grids, or macroperspectives do not stand on universal human Reason. In David Harvey’s words, “Fragmentation, indeterminacy, and intense distrust of all universal or ‘totalizing’ discourses (to use the favoured phrase) are the hallmark of postmodernist thought.”[18] Jean-François Lyotard bit the bullet and offered this oft-cited remark: “Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.”[19] Positively, postmodernism values a plurality of perspectives, myths, cultures, and narratives.[20] Contra moderns, post-modern people distrust universal Reason. Postmodernism negates the “individualism, anthropocentrism, patriarchy, mechanization, economism, consumerism, nationalism, and militarism” of modernism.[21] It is the human spirit crying out against the dehumanizing power of modernity.

At the heart of postmodernism are important theses about knowledge. The subtitle of Lyotard’s important book is revealing: A Report on Knowledge. The question is how to justify the practices of human knowing. Defenders of science, for example, often set science in contrast to tradition. Science is legitimate, but stories are not. Lyotard argued that traditional knowledge is grounded in the history or story of a people group. For the people in the group, their tradition possesses authority. The group reaches a consensus against which to evaluate any knowledge claims. Science, however, does not emerge from such a group. So the question of the legitimization of science remains. Those who defend science do not realize that science must also ground itself in a story. The problem here is not that science is grounded in a story but that people who defend science pretend that it is not. All knowledge, according to Lyotard’s argument, begins in a tradition.[22] But there are many traditions, and so there are many perspectives. And the modern project to adjudicate them by appeal to universal Reason is hopelessly flawed. The problem with science, and with other metanarratives, is that their defenders do not acknowledge that they are rooted in narrative.

A rejection of an ultimate truth does not by itself indicate postmodernism. Long before postmodernism, ancient skeptics and medieval mystics mistrusted human reason. The postmodern world rebels more specifically against modernism’s impulse to make all reasoning and knowledge universal. The intense sensitivity to plurality is a new feature in philosophy and literature, and it is a common feature of postmodernity. But two kinds of postmodernity deal with plurality differently. Among postmoderns, some are reconstructive or revisionary postmoderns who recognize diversity and yet wish to move beyond the failings of modernism to renew a positive, but properly chastened, search for what is true and good. Others are deconstructive or eliminative postmoderns who, in the name of human freedom, sabotage every narrative tradition, every positive truth.[23] the end, they often see reality in terms of irony. Many deconstructive postmoderns assume that any claim to final truth hides a latent desire for control, and thirst for power. Thus they celebrate the unruly pluralism of cultures; they delight in the playful and chaotic subversion of absolutist posi-tions. This subversion undermines every position to ensure that none gains a platform from which to exercise power against others.

A commitment to cultural pluralism is used to undermine all claims to totalizing narratives. Multiculturalism, when understood ideologically (see chapter 3), adopts pluralism in order to protest absolutism. This is one example of postmodern thinkers using cultural diversity to justify the rejection of claims to final access to truth. Deconstructive postmoderns appropriate a Marxist motif when they highlight the injustice, oppression, and alienation forced by powerful groups onto ostracized cultural groups. The analysis is neoMarxist, however, for it does not stress the wealthy controlling the poor by means of economic power. It focuses rather on the culturally advantaged who use their theories, worldviews, and claims to truth as weapons. In this context, those who were previously excluded from power are presumed to have the privileged role.[24] Thus, among philosophers, Paul Feyerabend accuses Karl Popper of seeking final truth that is closed and fixed. This amounts to hidden dogmatism, and it squelches spontaneity and freedom.[25] Freedom for the marginalized depends on the demise of such arrogant claims as final truth. Freedom needs the deconstruction of all absolutist worldviews or claims to comprehensive truth.

Postmoderns revel in the variety of perspectives or voices found in different peoples. But several ironies emerge here. The first is that postmodernism, in certain of its forms, not only intends (at one level) to help marginalized people but (at a second level) needs their help. Postmodernism needs the oppression of the oppressed as evidence for oppression to justify opposing oppression. When interpreted in a neo-Marxist pattern, the experience of marginalized cultures justifies the postmodern strategy. It becomes fuel that drives the engine of the postmodern argument against using metanarratives to protect privilege. Without it, the strategy loses its reason for being. So the strategists must at once seek to solve the oppression (which is the point of the position) while subtly maintaining oppression (which justifies continuing to hold the position). A second irony is that many of the viewpoints of those who are oppressed (Third World peoples, for example) are quite absolutist in their stance. And a third irony is that evangelical claims to have access to a final truth about reality are sometimes swept aside as a perspective of an oppressor when, in the Western academy, historic Christianity is often the one group that is forced to the margin.

In spite of their differences, however, it seems clear that both modernism and postmodernism idolize freedom and individualism. While the modern soul believes that the modern intellectual agenda and social enterprise promise freedom, the postmodern heart has discovered that it can lead to new forms of intellectual slavery. So in rejecting universal modes of thought and embracing diversity and chaos, some postmoderns adopt a new strategy intended to open up space for true freedom. In this one sense, therefore, postmodernism is actually hypermodernism.[26] Postmodernism has moved beyond modernism’s faith in universal human reason toward a cynical celebration of human diversity. It has abandoned the view of innocent selves, seeing rather that all persons exercise a will to power. It has jettisoned the conviction of inevitable social progress, taking a more pessimistic, often more ironic, view of the future than modernism does.

Yet the modernist themes remain. Chief among them is the ultimacy of the self. To be sure, the self is viewed differently in the postmodern world: “the postmodern self is more or less the romantic will shorn of its ethical abilities and epistemological powers.”[27] But Diogenes Allen put his finger on the “most striking” fact about “proponents of postmodernity in literature and philoso-phy. It is how very modern they actually are. They retain two crucial convictions . . . of the modern mentality: belief in a self-contained universe, and belief in unlimited human freedom.”[28] Descartes and other moderns focused on the individual self as the final arbiter of absolute truth. The postmodern individual self is a “final arbiter” as well—the ultimate judge of personal preference as it chooses its beliefs from the smorgasbord of equally unjustifiable perspectives. “Descartes, who sat alone gazing at his fire and scouring his mind for indubitable truth, is doomed to recognize as his proper heir the solitary soul couched in front of a television set, seeking satisfaction for unspecified needs and ineffable desires.”[29] If modernism involves simple faith in human autonomy, deconstructive postmodernism is human autonomy run amok.

Postmodern perspectivalism exerts considerable influence in contemporary academic theology. Evangelical theology must take account of its central insight—that culturally embedded perspectives powerfully shape thought and life. Evangelicals cannot respond, as naïve forms of inductivist theologies do, by positing that evangelicalism achieves a neutral, acultural, God’s-eye view-point. It seems obvious that this sort of objectivity is impossible. So evangelical theology at its best will acknowledge that perspectives influence all thinking. And a modest deconstruction of overly assertive modernist claims is all to the good. But proper evangelical theology also realizes the need for deliberate strategies to prevent cultural and historical location from imprisoning theology in the thought forms of a particular time. Don Carson summarized pointedly, “Postmodernism gently applied rightly questions the arrogance of modernism; postmodernism ruthlessly applied nurtures a new hubris and deifies agnosticism.”[30] Because the evangel is the one gospel for all peoples, evangelical theological method must find a middle course. While we recognize the power of perspectives, and even appreciate the value of different but compatible ways of understanding and expressing the gospel, the status of perspectivalism is a crucial issue for evangelical theology.

II. THE INADEQUACY OF PERSPECTIVALISM

Perspectivalism is a virtually unchallenged axiom of the postmodern mind. Some of its defenders point out how postmodern perspectivalism helps Christians. In some universities, evangelicalism is a marginalized viewpoint. Relativism that gives legitimacy to all marginalized perspectives tends to bring the historic Christian worldview into the light of day. Other proponents say that postmodernism’s focus on the uniqueness of all perspectives is deeply consistent with Augustine’s “I believe in order to understand.”[31] But while these points have some value, perspectivalism of a robust kind entails a relativism that we must avoid. Robust perspectivalism is ultimately incompatible with evangelical theology because it leads to certain kinds of epistemic relativism. To sort this out, we should first notice that there are many kinds of relativism. We need to straighten out the variety of senses of ‘relativism’ and show the relation of relativism to perspectivalism.

A. Different Kinds of Relativism

Fundamental to various meanings of ‘relativism’ is the distinction between factual or descriptive observations on the one side and epistemic, rational, or normative claims on the other. Some use the word ‘relativism’ to indicate an observational claim that people adopt different languages, beliefs, rational rules, or worldviews. This factual point is uncontroversial. But I do not use the term ‘relativism’ for this descriptive reality. Rather, I use the word ‘relativity’—as opposed to ‘relativism’—to denote the descriptive facts about how people use different languages and hold different beliefs.[32] Relativism is one of several kinds of theories about these facts. These theories assert that the differences between various viewpoints or perspectives are somehow ultimate or the final word. Relativisms of this sort say that differences in language, belief, rational rules, or worldview are unsolvable or undecidable.

Further, esthetic, ethical, cultural, metaphysical, and epistemic forms of relativism are all possible. The first of these is relatively ignored by Christian theologians (though we overlook esthetics to our loss). The second admits of at least three forms, corresponding to the levels of ethical discourse—descriptive, normative, and metaethical. Descriptive ethical relativism is really ethical relativity, a description that claims there are differences in the beliefs, norms, con-cepts, and practices of different people and cultures. It is uncontroversial.[33] Normative relativism is a theory about the status of norms and rules. Metaethical relativism is a theory about concepts and procedures for deciding normative issues. I say evangelical theology should not follow these last two forms of ethical relativism, but going down that rabbit trail to deal with all the relevant issues would lead us astray.

Some use the phrase “cultural relativism” to mean cultural relativity. Cultural relativity means that different cultures think, perceive, speak, and live differently—another uncontroversial factual claim. These facts show that members of particular cultures do not merely eat different food. They use unique complexes of intellectual software—worldview, categories, language, and quasi-logical rules. These features of intellectual software are culturally transmitted. Again uncontroversial. But if, in addition to admitting the variety in intellectual software, we were to hold that these various culturally rooted complexes of cognitive software are strictly incommensurable, that would create a culturally grounded version of perspectivalism. Some people would use the phrase “cultural relativism” for this stronger view.

In a different and more usual sense, however, the phrase “cultural relativism” describes an appropriate methodological principle of anthropology. It says that we should seek to understand each culture on its own terms instead of imposing categories from our culture. If this is an initial guideline rather than a fixed and unalterable principle—if we apply it prima facie—it seems essentially correct.[34] If, however, we take it that conflicting perspectives are equally true in the end, that goes beyond the methodological principle of cultural rel-ativism. For instance, anthropologist Mary Douglas wrote about the world-view of the Lele people of Africa. The Lele worldview centers on the pangolin, a “fish-like tree-dweller,” who exercises power over humans. Now initially, it is valuable to understand as clearly as possible the patterns of belief held by the Lele and to explore how these beliefs influence their life. But Douglas wrote, “Surely now it is an anachronism to believe that our world is more securely founded in knowledge than one that is driven by pangolin power.”[35] Douglas’s attitude toward pangolin power goes beyond the initial expectations of cultural relativity. It is full-blown cultural relativism. It leads to perspectivalism because in ascribing to the Lele worldview the same level of “truth” as any other, it assumes that we cannot make reasoned judgments about the rational merits of various worldviews.

Metaphysical and epistemic kinds of relativism are distinct. Metaphysical forms of relativism lead to the claim that there exists no reality “out there” that possesses some fixed ontological nature. Reality, in other words, is formless prior to human form-making. In Nelson Goodman’s view, no world (other than one that emerges in human worldmaking) exists “out there.” In the words of Goodman’s title, there are only ways of worldmaking.[36] This amounts to what is called metaphysical nonrealism. (See more on various forms of non-realism in chapter 10).

Generally, basic metaphysical relativism implies epistemic relativism. To reverse this, however, defenders of epistemic forms of relativism may admit that reality indeed has a determinate form or character. Epistemic relativists could accept that a fixed reality exists, or that reality has a particular, stable character. They might only deny that humans have privileged, neutral, or ahistorical access to that reality as such. Epistemic relativisms include views of truth, knowledge, and justification or warrant. They may endorse rationally—acknowledge as being in good shape epistemically—all the various contradictory worldviews that humans adopt. They may even revel in and relish in a postmodern spirit the variety of beliefs, languages, points of view, or world-views humans develop and employ.

Epistemic forms of relativism are of several classes. The first is skepticism. An epistemic stance with a long history, skepticism holds that human knowing is just fatally flawed. It is the idea that no one belief can be known to be epistemically superior to another, or that any viewpoint can be as well-justified as its opposite. Attempts to state the skeptical thesis in a strong way seem self-refuting, for then someone would be saying, “I know that human knowing is all flawed.”

The second, much softer, form of epistemic relativism is the view that a knower’s time and place affect knowledge; humans have no non-historical access to a God’s-eye view of reality. All perceptions and cognitions are related to the perceptions of our senses or the conceptions embedded in our language. To have a point of view is to view things from a point. In a moderate form, this seems obviously true.[37]

The third sort of epistemic relativism is “conceptual relativism.” Conceptual relativism says more than skepticism. It does not say that all particular beliefs are on a rough epistemic par. It says that whole macroperspectives, worldviews, or paradigms are on a rough par with each other. Intellectual frameworks, conceptual schemes, or conceptual grids mediate all human knowing. All knowledge is relative to or embedded in community-based, language-shaped noetic structures. Conceptual relativism adopts strict incommensurability and denies the existence of (or perhaps the usefulness of) paradigm-transcending or (rel-atively) worldview-neutral rational criteria for epistemic judgment. In this strong form, conceptual relativism is what I am calling perspectivalism.

B. A Critique of Perspectivalism

Evangelical theology cannot adopt perspectivalism. Certainly there is much to be gained in using different frames of reference, different microperspectives, in seeking to develop understanding of the world. But the claim that these microperspectives exhaust the possibilities of understanding is essentially atheistic. God possesses the ultimate macroperspective that incorporates all real-ity. Now, as Stephen Ross said, “God’s all-inclusiveness . . . is incompatible with the principle of perspective.”[38] Evangelical theologians should agree. A truly infinite God does not see from a finite perspective. (From his premise, however, Ross concluded atheism. He argued that because God’s existence would require a non-perspectival vision of reality, and no non-perspectival vision of reality exists, there is no God.) I agree with Ross that God’s infinite character is incompatible with the claim that all truth is encased in a finite perspective. But I ascribe to God’s knowing an ultimacy that no human perspective can capture. God’s exhaustively true knowledge simply is absolute. It is not encased in a finite perspective. As humans, we gradually (but very partially) contact what is true by using the epistemic capacities and belief-forming abilities that God created in us. We can take what we each rightly know within our limited perspectives, and we can unify it with the insights of others into broader ways of seeing the world.

Perspectives softly shape human knowing. But I offer three reasons to reject strong perspectivalism. The first reason is Donald Davidson’s: the very idea of strictly incommensurable conceptual schemes is incoherent.[39] Even to say that we can conceive of two strictly incommensurable, two radically different, intellectual frameworks is incoherent. To know that thought system S is utterly different than thought system T, I must know something of both S and T. If I can know enough of the two systems to know that they are comparable, then they are not radically different, but only relatively different. Indeed, as Davidson pointed out, when conceptual relativists in America seek to show how two supposedly incommensurable conceptual schemes differ from each other, they describe a system of thought very different from the typical Anglo-American, English-speaking one. But their description is in English and is intelligible to Anglo-Americans. By explaining their example, the conceptual relativists negate their point. Comparing two systems with each other and showing their radical differences completely undercuts the point of the argument. It is hope-less to try to build an argument to show that two different schemes are radically different or completely unrelated.

Illustrating the radical discontinuity of different patterns of thought requires plotting them on an overlapping coordinate. Take, for example, the supposed incommensurability of the heliocentric and geocentric solar systems. Many people do not appreciate the fact that in Galileo’s day, both systems of thought explained most of the same facts. (For example, they both give explanations why it looks as though Mars backs up in its orbit—the famous retrograde motion of Mars.) Much later, after the heliocentric system was firmly established, observations emerged to decisively refute the geocentric system. But the two systems are attempts to account for some of the same data and to answer some of the same basic questions. As this historical case illustrates, if the two systems of thought refer to the same thing and if they are in any sense able to capture that reality, then some connection between them seems inevitable. Absolutely different modes of thought would have to be about different objects. If the different modes of thought are absolutely different from each other, but about the same reality, at least one would have to be entirely cut off from the reality it supposedly describes, argued Keith Yandell. If two paradigms are about the same object and are somewhat successful in capturing that object, they will have something in common.[40]

A second criticism is that perspectivalism is self-referentially incoherent or self-defeating. The fallacy of self-defeat is a move known to all beginning students in philosophy. Its history reaches back at least to Plato’s attacks on Protagoras and the Sophists. Now some evangelical apologists make the charge of self-referential incoherence too quickly. We must learn precision and caution here. But the charge of self-referential incoherence is a devastating criticism when it is made to stick. This critique simply involves turn-ing a position’s basic pronouncements back on itself. If statement S asserts that all statements and theories are historically conditioned or cognitively relative, one asks whether S applies to S itself. If theory T says that any theory must meet certain standards or criteria to be rational, warranted, or in some other way epistemically exemplary, one asks whether T meets its own standards or criteria.

Many have pressed the claim that conceptual relativism is self-referentially incoherent. For example, Roger Trigg said, “Total relativism is incoherent. Once it is judged impossible to assert anything as true, nothing, not even relativism, can be stated in language. . . . The only honest alternative to accepting the notion of objective truth is silence.”[41] Of Feyerabend’s only principle (“anything goes”), James F. Harris commented, “such a claim—though melodramatic and grandiose—is ultimately nonsense. Feyerabend’s anarchism is intellectually, politically and practically self-referentially inconsistent.”[42]Bernard Williams observed that Richard Rorty sometimes “seems quite knowing about the status of his own thoughts. . . . At other times, he seems to for-get altogether about one requirement of self-consciousness, and like the old philosophies he is attempting to escape, naïvely treats his own discourse as standing quite outside the general philosophical situation he is describing.”[43]

Faced with this dilemma, a perspectivalist could try to rescue her perspectivalism by amending it: she could posit a separate, second-order realm of language about conceptual schemes. She could say, in the language of this second-order speech, that all first-order language within frameworks is relative to frameworks. But she could say that second-order language about frameworks transcends frameworks. A self-confessed perspectivalist could then assert, at the second-order level, certain non-relative propositions that make non-relative judgments about first-order viewpoints. For example, she might assert the following as a second-order statement:

(b) All first-order statements about reality are relative to some perspective.

Since (b) itself is a second-order statement about language (not about reality), (b) does not turn back on itself. In this way, she could say that language within a viewpoint is relative to that viewpoint, without cutting the rug out from under her feet. This avoids self-referential incoherence. First-order (ontological) statements depend on perspective, but second-order (meta-logical or meta-linguistic) statements do not, because they speak about first-order statements and not about reality.[44]

This appeal to second-order language is ingenious. But I find it unsuccessful. For one thing, in order to evade self-referential incoherence, someone who posits the second-order discourse of this sort must admit it is possible to make coherent, second-order assertions about first-order language. But some second-order statements that directly describe certain first-order propositions will entail other first-order propositions that describe reality. Consider, for instance, the second-order claim:

(c) All first-order knowledge is relative to linguistically based perspectives.

Now (c) is a second-order statement, so it is not self-referential. But notice that (c) entails claims, not merely about language, but about reality as well. Not only does (c) describe the nature of statements, it also implies meaningful propositions about the real world. For (c) entails the following:

(d) The world process is the sort of thing that human language captures only imperfectly.

But (d) is a first-order statement about the world process. It tells us that the world process possesses a property, namely, the property of being beyond complete linguistic description. And (d) is presumably not limited to a particular linguistically framed perspective, but is true in all such perspectives. In other words, (d) becomes an exception to (c).

Another example of the same move is the following:

(e) The human mind is a flawed instrument of knowing the external world.

Like (c), (e) also entails propositions that predicate certain properties of reality. It predicates a specific property of the world process, namely, the property of being beyond human mental understanding. So not only do the second-order propositions tell us about language in relation to reality, they also entail first-order statements that describe reality itself. And if that is true (i.e., if some second-order statements like (c) and (e) imply some framework transcending first-order statements about reality), then using the addendum above to escape from the self-referential problem does not rescue perspectivalism. [45]

Finally, notice that positing a second order of propositions modifies per-spectivalism as defined above in a very significant way. A person who admits the validity of this higher level of discussion will open the possibility of ratio-nal judgments (albeit at a second-order level) about the relative adequacy of various viewpoints. In positing second-order language, a perspectivalist opens a sphere of discourse where it is possible to judge different viewpoints. Within this arena, theologians may discuss conflicting perspectives, subjecting them to revision and amplification through dialogue. If this second order of discourse is appropriate, then there is significant theological discussion that is not con-fined inside linguistic ghettoes. Believers can travel outside their intellectual home territory and connect with those from other places. So at the very least, the addendum implies that the burden of proof lies with the relativist to show that this newly posited category of second-order propositions must exclude normal principles of rational discussion (like coherence) that are the basis of dialogue between perspectives. If rational principles are admissible in the second-order sphere, then cross-paradigm discussion and evaluation are possible. Perspectivalism with this addendum differs crucially from the comprehensive perspectivalism defined above. Amended perspectivalism does not confine Christian theology in its own intellectual prison.

The third problem with perspectivalism is simply that it overstates its case. I agree that facts are theory-laden and that facts underdetermine—do not fully establish—theories. No broad theory is ever conclusively demonstrated by facts. Warrant for large-scale theories is always a matter of probability. But conceptual relativism exaggerates the paradigm-dependence of facts. Maurice Mandelbaum pointed out how relativists often illustrate the ambiguity of facts by using examples like the famous duck-rabbit figure. Viewed one way, this famous drawing is a rabbit; viewed another way, it is a duck. The shift from seeing the figure as a rabbit to seeing it as a duck is instantaneous and complete. We cannot see part of the picture as duck and part as rabbit. It does not occur in installments; the picture does not morph gradually before our eyes. A shift of perspectives is a conversion, an instant and total change in viewpoint. Kuhn argued that shifts in scientific perspectives are similarly total, not piece-meal. He said they are revolutionary, not evolutionary. Changing from the Ptolemaic geocentric view of the solar system to the Copernican heliocentric view happened in a single gestalt switch.

The error here is that the ambiguity of the duck-rabbit figure (and others like the old hag–young woman figure) is simply not typical of all perceiving. These illustrations are interesting precisely because they are so unusual. Most facts are not so ambiguous as these persuasive examples lead us to believe. When two perspectives (or two propositions) vie for allegiance, they are rarely absolutely evenly matched over the long term. But the duck and rabbit perspectives are so evenly matched that whenever someone holds either one, she can always imagine herself switching very easily to the other. But someone who switches from the Ptolemaic geocentric view of the solar system to the Copernican heliocentric view (or someone who now holds the Copernican view) could hardly see himself in an equally ambiguous situation. It is not true that he could always imagine a switch back to the previously held view.[46] Facts simply are not as ambiguous as perspectivalism claims.

The instantaneous switch from the duck view to the rabbit view is not analogous to the switch from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican perspective. In fact, Kuhn’s revolutionary interpretation of the history of science is open to significant criticism because it overlooks the continuity between successful view-points. Alasdair Macintyre effectively pressed this point:

What is carried over from one paradigm to another are epistemological ideals and a correlative understanding of what constitutes the progress of a single intellectual life. . . . So Kuhn and Feyerabend recount the history of epistemological crises as moments of almost total discontinuity without noticing the historical continuity which makes their own intelligible narratives possible.[47]

On the other hand, this continuity of viewpoints does not entail that there exists one range of data or set of criteria that all possible perspectives share. Consider the following two ideas:

(f) There are no content beliefs that every worldview accepts as true.

(g) There are no content beliefs that any two worldviews both accept as true.

Defenders of incommensurability may confuse (f) and (g). Evangelicals can agree with (f), for even the statement, “I exist,” is denied in one worldview. Certain forms of Buddhism deny this proposition. But in spite of this, adherents to any two worldviews that come into dialogue will have something in common. The range of beliefs that a Christian will share with a Buddhist differs from the range of beliefs a Christian shares with a Muslim. But this does not prove that the religions are completely incommensurable. Winfried Corduan wrote, “The concern is whether two systems have some overlap. Whether the same overlap exists for a third system or not is not relevant.”[48] So the obvious fact (f) is not adequate to demonstrate the softer conclusion (g). This datum does not show that all worldviews are locked off from each other as stronger versions of the incommensurability thesis suggest. Still, a softer form of incommensurability is warranted, for different systems are actually quite different. Dialogue between defenders of the various world religions is no simple task. But the open-minded adherents of different paradigms of thought do communicate with each other.

In a provocative essay, Paul Griffiths made this point concretely by referencing cross-perspective religious discussion. In particular, he cited his own experience of reading ancient Buddhist texts:

When I had gained sufficient competence in the required languages to feel at home reading the texts of this tradition I immediately felt a great sense of familiarity, of recognition. Here was a philosophical tradition I could recognise, feel at home with, understand. Here was a tradition for which virtually all of the philosophical questions which had troubled me and my tradition . . . were also burning issues. . . . I believe that it is possible for a twentieth century Western English-speaking philosopher to fruitfully engage a fifth century Indian Buddhist Sanskrit-speak-ing philosopher in philosophical argument.[49]

Griffiths’ actual experience of honest and skillful conversation brought him understanding and agreement, certainly not on the fine points of every argument, but at least on the substance of central points. If perspectives could resist external analysis as completely as perspectivalism implies, Griffiths’ cross-paradigm and cross-cultural connection could not happen. Given my own experience speaking with Japanese Buddhists, I resonate with Griffiths’ claim. Different paradigms, intellectual grids, and cognitive perspectives are, of course, different. And it is not a simple task to figure out just how they are different and where they connect. But perspectivalism disastrously overstates this very necessary and essentially correct insight.

III. PERSPECTIVALISM AND FOUNDATIONALISM

I hold that these three criticisms render perspectivalism very implausible. In spite of cultural variety, which we should freely acknowledge, perspectivalism is very probably false. Evangelical theology should avoid turning into the culde-sac of postmodern perspectivalism. But this is not to say that evangelical theology should revert to modernist versions of rationality. The valid insight of soft perspectivalism—the fact that human perspectives differ, sometimes quite significantly—means that we as evangelical theologians should distance ourselves from the program of the Enlightenment. In seeking to ground knowledge and avoid skepticism, modern epistemology demanded a very high degree of demonstration. These very high requirements are completely implausible. (I will sketch the devastating critiques below.) But we should not throw in the towel. Unlike postmodern thought, evangelical theology depends on the view that a certain worldview is true and on the conviction that this worldview, in its broad outlines, is well-grounded epistemically. So is there a foundation upon which to build evangelical theology?

A. Foundationalism

One feature of postmodernism in general (and of theology inspired by post-modernism in particular) is intense opposition to “foundationalism.”[50] In an essay with the phrase “shattering of foundations” in its title, Carl Raschke blamed the current impasse in theology on a so-called “‘Roman’ habit of mind.” Hannah Arendt argued that the very concept of authority is a Roman application of Platonic and Aristotelian political philosophy. Plato sought to found society on those who possessed knowledge of the Truth. Aristotle adapted this, seeking to ground culture on older persons, presumably because they are more knowledgeable. This strategy is flawed, however, for those who are older are often not wiser. Since the Romans wanted to build an eternal city, they created a tradition based on a structure of authority. The Romans solved Aristotle’s problem by citing the ancestors—permanent parents—as the sacred foundation for society. The church, according to Arendt, easily appropriated this concept of an objective, transcendent, and sacred authority when it deter-mined to make the apostolic witness its standard of authenticity. [51]

In following this so-called Roman habit of mind, Raschke says, the Catholic Church vested the office of Peter with political authority. Centuries later, the Protestants rejected Petrine authority but retained the Roman habit of mind. They simply changed the locus of authority to Scripture. Protestants are Pauline, not Petrine. Like Roman imperialism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, modernity is “fundamentalist” in seeking solid foundations for thought and life. “The infirmity of modernity stems from its very preoccupation with securing foundations for reflection and action.”[52] According to a modernist mind-set, a privileged source of knowledge is adequate for all times, and it grounds indubitable knowledge if only the source is interpreted rightly. René Descartes (1596–1650) used the metaphor of building knowledge on an absolute foundation, hoping to free us from tradition-based knowledge. In his famous thought experiment in Meditations, Descartes tried to develop a view of knowledge that is so assured that not even a malicious demon could dislodge it. This absolutism is the typically modernist stance.

When postmoderns seek to erode the foundations of thought, one thing they are rejecting is what I call “source-foundationalism.” Source-foundationalism is a mentality, broadly typical of the modern era and of the Enlightenment, that hungers for a perfect source of knowledge. Modernists hoped that this source would provide absolute and certain knowledge through the practice of objective and neutral epistemic methods. Source-foundationalism, therefore, is that typically modernist notion that “knowledge is the reflection of truth and that we can discover a stable foundation for it in God, History or Reason.”[53] The foundations in view here are not individual beliefs, but major sources of genuine knowledge. Moderns counted on knowledge based on some such foundational source, trusting that it would lead to a more humane society. But of course, the postmodern analysis is that source-foundationalism did not produce the liberty and progress it promised. The search for universal human Reason turned up viewpoints that favored certain groups at the expense of others. Supposedly universal human Reason was actually European, and it became part of the colonial mentality that oppressed non-Europeans. Ironically, from a postmodern viewpoint, the modern thirst for human freedom, by means of objectivity in truth and certitude in knowledge, led toward an absolutist philosophical style that enslaves more than ever.[54]

But we must exercise caution here, for rejections of certain forms of foundationalism are often too aggressive. The word ‘foundationalism’ actually has several different meanings in epistemology. What I call “belief-foundational-ism” is a class of theories about individual items of knowledge—about war-ranting or justifying our individual beliefs. (Justification or warrant is what gives a ground, reason, or rationale for holding a belief.) Belief-foundational-ism focuses on the relationships between individual beliefs within a human noetic structure. Its key distinctive is this: it divides my beliefs into those I know directly (“basic beliefs”) and those I know indirectly (“non-basic beliefs”). So belief-foundationalism says that the structure of my beliefs is like the structure of a house. In the house, a concrete foundation supports the rest of the build-ing. In my belief system, my basic beliefs (the concrete foundation) support the rest of my beliefs (the building).

Here are two examples. I know, for instance, that my lips feel dry because I feel them. I do not know this on the ground that I have built an inference or an argument. I know it directly. This is why it is called a basic belief. But I know that the 1995 Chevy truck I just bought will get about nineteen miles per gallon because I read in Consumer Reports that 1995 Chevy trucks with V6 engines generally get about nineteen miles per gallon. I know this indirectly. This is why it is a non-basic belief. In sum, belief-foundationalism is any view about warrant or justification in which I know basic beliefs directly (without inferring them from other beliefs) and I know non-basic beliefs indirectly (by inferring them from more basic beliefs).

Any theory of epistemology that distinguishes basic (directly grounded) and non-basic (indirectly inferred) beliefs is a member of the class I am calling belief-foundationalism. These theories have a particular way of picturing how beliefs relate to each other. If warrant is the belief-inducing quality that gives me reason to accept some idea, the phrase “transfer of warrant” refers to the passing of warrant from a basic belief to another belief. So, for instance, sup-pose I am driving down the road in Minnesota in January. I look out the window, and I see the local chapter of the Polar Bear Club standing in their bathing suits, chopping a hole in the ice on a lake. Inside my toasty car, I feel warm. But I infer from some basic beliefs I form in my mind as I see these crazy people (plus certain other background beliefs) that they are really cold. Yet, by inferring from the basic beliefs (I see them outside standing on the frozen lake in bathing suits) and from background beliefs (I know how cold January gets in Minnesota), I reason my way to a non-basic belief (these men feel really cold). In this way, the basic belief gives me reason to believe the non-basic belief. That is, warrant transfers from the basic belief to the non-basic belief.

Now foundationalism implies that basic beliefs give reason to believe non-basic ones. But it does not work the other way around. For the illustration above, my belief that the Polar Bear Club members are cold will not provide any warrant or justification—any reason to think—that I am actually seeing crazy people standing on the frozen lake in their bathing suits. My warrant for believing that they really are standing out there in their bathing suits is provided simply by my sight. Warrant does not travel in both directions. It only travels in one direction.

Consider a contrast that will help sharpen the distinction between source-foundationalism and belief-foundationalism. The former speaks of a holistic methodology or a complex authoritative truth source as foundational. In this view, some transcultural logic or language, or some universal method like science is the foundation. Or perhaps an absolute source of religious tradition—the Qur’an, for example—constitutes the basis of all knowing. Either way, source-foundationalism sees the ground of knowledge as the objective, neutral, uniquely reliable, and universally accessible basis of human knowing. By contrast, belief-foundationalism speaks of individual beliefs as foundational. Individual convictions (including beliefs as simple as “I ate oatmeal for break-fast this morning”) are properly basic. And this means they are grounded in experience. These basic beliefs are not inferred from other beliefs or warranted by their coherence with other beliefs.

Scholars have mounted significant attacks against various types of founda-tionalism. But it is critical to get clear about which arguments rebut which types of foundationalism. In an earlier period of the Reformed epistemology movement, Alvin Plantinga subjected one type of belief-foundationalism to devastating critique. The object of this particular assault is known as “classical foundationalism.” Classical foundationalism is a subtype of belief-foundationalism. Like all forms of belief-foundationalism, it sees some propositions grounded in other, more basic statements. (Classical foundationalism is distinct from what I call “soft foundationalism.” Soft foundationalism, which I will defend, is a much more modest version of belief-foundationalism.) Classical foundationalism is distinctive in that it defends very strict rules about what legitimately counts as a basic belief—about what propositions may be included in the foundation. (Soft foundationalism defends looser procedures for deciding what counts as a basic belief.)

Classical foundationalism might assert something like:

(h) Basic beliefs must either be self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses.

Self-evident beliefs are immediately obvious as soon as someone understands them. Simple arithmetic equations, like 3+4=7, are self-evident. One of Descartes’ examples is “Nothing comes from nothing.” Incorrigible beliefs are not correctable; they are absolutely certain. For example, “I feel thirsty” is incorrigible. Direct, empirical observations could be evident to the senses.[55]

Classical foundationalism is in disfavor today. The very powerful critique pressed by Reformed epistemologists has two parts. The first criticizes classical foundationalism (the very strong version of belief-foundationalism) by asking about the warrant or justification for (h). Plantinga points out that (h) and its near cousins are neither self-evident, incorrigible, nor evident to the senses. Nor can we easily infer (h) from premises that are. So (h) and its near cousins set up criteria for warranting that they themselves fail. Thus, classical foundationalism is self-referentially incoherent. As I said, this is a very serious charge.

The second part of the critique is this: in trying to ensure that no error creeps into our structures of thought, classical foundationalism created strict, rigid standards of knowledge. But these overly strict standards are much too limiting. For classical foundationalism eliminates much of what we normally and legitimately know. For instance, if classical foundationalism’s standards are right, I cannot know that I drank coffee this morning (memory beliefs) or that my wife really loves me (knowledge of other minds). But surely I do know these things. So classical foundationalism must be false. As we observe how people actually do come to know about the world, we find that their knowing processes are much more open and flexible than classical foundationalism allows for.[56] Thus, the critique of the early period of Reformed epistemology appraises classical foundationalism as flawed and irreparable—and that for two reasons. Virtually everyone agrees classical foundationalism is dead.[57]

B. Alternatives to Foundationalism

What are the alternatives to classical foundationalism? Some writers assume that all forms of belief-foundationalism fail. The air is filled with statements like “Foundationalism is dead.” So people look for alternatives to belief-foundationalism. And the prime candidate is coherentism. (Of course, that is not the only option. My strategy, to anticipate where I will go, is to refurbish soft foundationalism. And this is important because coherentism itself is subject to overwhelming critique.)

Like belief-foundationalism, coherentism is a class of theories about justification or warrant for belief. Coherentism focuses on the interrelationships between individual beliefs. Coherentism is a class of theories in which justification or warrant arises entirely from the logical fit of various beliefs with each other. That is, belief S implies T implies U implies V implies S. Here, all beliefs are part of a large circular argument, or better, a large, interlocking net. Although we normally think of circular reasoning as a fallacy, a coherentist would argue that when a circle is large enough and the content rich enough, the circle is not fallacious.[58] Coherentism commonly takes a holistic form. In this scenario, the beliefs S, T, U, and V do not relate in a single circular chain but rather as a highly integrated network. In both cases, however, warrant or justification accrues because the various beliefs connect with each other. No belief is known in a properly basic manner. In coherentism, the connection between beliefs does not merely transfer warrant as in belief-foundationalism, it generates warrant. In coherentism, satisfying the principle of coherence is necessary and sufficient to warrant a set of beliefs.

Two features of coherentism seem correct. The first is that coherence is a necessary feature of any true set of beliefs. If this were not so, internally contradictory systems of belief could be true. But that is utterly impossible. If incoherent sets of beliefs were allowed as true, then our ability to eliminate false beliefs from our thought structures is severely restricted. For then some beliefs might count as true even if they contradict other strongly war-ranted beliefs. It could be true, for instance, both that God does exist and that God does not exist. This makes nonsense of knowledge claims. If the incoherence of two beliefs entails that one of the two beliefs is false necessarily, then sets of true beliefs are necessarily coherent. Now if coherence is a necessary feature of truth, then the presence of coherence in a set of claims does provide some warrant for holding those claims. And the presence of incoherence within a set of beliefs strongly justifies a person in rejecting those claims.

The second principle that coherentism correctly emphasizes is the independence principle: claims that are warranted by coherence with a larger number of independent but mutually coherent beliefs are more adequately grounded (all other things being equal) than those warranted by coherence with a few beliefs.[59] If I believe that the University of Minnesota will not run a deficit this year on the basis of President Yudof’s testimony at the state legislature, my belief has prima facie good justification. But my justification for believing goes up if I also read that the firm of Price Waterhouse Cooper made an audit of all university financial affairs and came to the same conclusion. It is improbable (but not impossible—remember Enron and WorldCom?) that the president is covering up a scandal. It is even more improbable (but still not impossible) that the accounting firm is in on a cover-up or else failed to detect one. The two improbabilities are independent of each other, and since they are coherent with each other, they reinforce each other. The independence principle allows us to build strength into a cumulative case for a belief.

Despite these advantages, however, coherentism suffers two major difficulties. First, coherentism suffers from what might be called the “input problem.” If warrant for believing a set of beliefs arises solely from their mutual coherence, this seems to make experience (the experience of perception, for example) unnecessary for warranting beliefs. It seems obvious that perceptual beliefs are inextricably tied to my perceptual experience. The belief that the Polar Bear Club members are cold is warranted for me because I see the ice on the lake they plan to jump into and feel the frigid air. A pure coherentism does not take into account this common and seemingly appropriate form of warrant. So coherentism seems wrongheaded.[60]

Second, coherentism suffers from the “alternative coherent systems problem.” Coherentism makes coherence not just necessary, but sufficient to war-rant belief. But while a set of true beliefs is necessarily coherent (assuming a unity of truth), it does not follow that the coherence of this set of beliefs is sufficient to justify a person in holding those beliefs as true. It is possible to construct an infinite number of self-contained sets of beliefs that are both internally coherent and also mutually exclusive. For instance, coherent theistic and coherent atheistic worldviews are both internally coherent. Yet theism and atheism are externally contradictory at a key point, and so both could not be true. Coherentism leaves us with many internally consistent intellectual frame-works, but no way to reach beyond them.[61] Saying that a worldview is inter-nally coherent is insufficient to show it is true.[62]

Besides coherentism, another alternative to belief-foundationalism is prag-matism. Many current rejections of source-foundationalism (which hopes for stable knowledge rooted in God, history, or reason) tout pragmatism as a better alternative to foundationalism. Pragmatism as a theory of knowledge says that a person is warranted in believing any proposition or theory that produces good results. In philosophy of science, pragmatism assumes that science is a strategy for producing some benefit. Scientists are right to believe any theory that “works.” But they should remain agnostic about whether that theory actually connects to a real world. Pragmatism says that scientific theories do not copy the world but rather help us cope with the world.[63] For instance, when Copernicus originally proposed his astronomical system, some believed that it was descriptively true—that the planets actually did revolve around the sun. But others noted both that Copernicanism conflicted with accepted knowledge and also that other explanatory models of the solar system were available. So they used Copernicanism as a calculating device. It was useful, even to those who remained agnostic about whether the planets really revolved around the sun. Postmoderns today say we cannot know the world in the sense of producing models that reflect the real world. Rather, we develop concepts that help us function day-to-day. Pragmatism, which began with American philosophers like Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, and William James, is the position of choice today among postmoderns.

Among philosophers, Richard Rorty, for instance, defended pragmatism. He did so because, in his view, the traditional Western objectivist metaphysical program

simply isn’t working anymore. It isn’t doing its job. It has become as transparent a device as the postulation of deities who turn out, by a happy coincidence, to have chosen us as their people. So the pragmatist suggestion that we . . . think of our sense of community as having no foundation except shared hope and the trust created by such sharing—is put forward on practical grounds.[64]

Rorty said that the point of inquiry should not be finding a unity of truth. “Feyerabend is right in suggesting that until we discard the metaphor of inquiry, and human activity generally, as converging rather than proliferating, as becoming more unified rather than more diverse, we shall never be free of the motives which once led us to posit gods.”[65] Since there is no one actual truth, “truth” is whatever your peers allow you to get away with saying.

Following a pragmatic method, postmoderns like Rorty carve out a conceptual home to shape their lives. Since they do not claim that their conceptual home is true in the sense that it somehow corresponds to reality, they concur with the scientific nonrealist who says that science does not copy reality. A pragmatically grounded perspective helps either scientific or philosophical communities live in the world. The practical benefit is simply that postmoderns can find a way to live in the wake of the collapse of the modernist pro-gram, especially in its Enlightenment form. Rorty suggested that other groups may want to craft their own unique patterns for living.[66] This is acceptable. Western liberals may not see these other ways as “live options.” Western intellectuals just have different preferences. But such preferences are “not built into us by human nature. It is just the way we live now.”[67] Presumably, the other ways of thinking and living are legitimate for those who hold them. This amounts to a different version of epistemic relativism.

But pragmatism is not the best path. First, though brief, this explication shows that pragmatism leads to a counterintuitive result. If pragmatic utility justifies a person in believing certain things, then a person could be justified in believing things that are obviously false. It appears Rorty acknowledged the utility of different narratives created by communities of non-liberal, non-Western, or non-intellectual people. These other communities are justified in believing the “truth” they allow in their midst. And Rorty, apparently, was glad to say they have a proper belief in their “truth.”

But can we really apply this account consistently? It seems that counter-examples are not hard to find. There are many cases where people could attach a pragmatic justification for beliefs that are clearly false. For instance, Alvin Plantinga cited the case of the Chinese leaders who said that the murders of hundreds of protesters in Tiananmen Square never happened. Suppose these leaders keep insisting that meddling Western journalists are lying about the Tiananmen Square murders. If the pragmatic view of knowledge is right, then a person is justified in holding a claim as true on the grounds that it produces a benefit for his group. Now within the community of Chinese political leaders, the belief that murders never happened does have utility. Peers of these top Chinese leaders let their peers get away with making this claim, for it produced political benefits. So are they justified in believing that the murders never happened? Would this not, on Rorty’s account, mean the murderers are guiltless? Plantinga concluded,

if you have done something wrong, it is not too late: lie about it, thus bringing it about that your peers will let you get away with saying that you did not do it; then it will be true both that you did not do it, and, as an added bonus, that you did not even lie about it. One hopes Rorty is just joshing the rest of us. (But he isn’t.)[68]

Second, pragmatism needs non-pragmatic justification for beliefs about the goals a community pursues. Speaking of science, Rorty said, “the only sense in which science is exemplary is that it is a model of human solidarity.”[69] But this immediately raises a question for pragmatism. What warrants the belief that solidarity is good? In Rorty’s words, an “ideal democratic community” deserves our loyalty because it promotes

freedom. . . . This community would serve no higher end than its own preservation and self-improvement, the preservation and enhancement of civilization. It would identify rationality with that effort, rather than with the desire for objectivity. So it would feel no need for a foundation more solid than reciprocal loyalty.[70]

But this surely presumes that the world possesses certain features—that the world really is a certain way. It assumes that values like freedom, self-improvement, civilization, and reciprocal loyalty are in some trans-systemic way good. If freedom, self-improvement, civilization, and reciprocal loyalty were not good outside the ideal democratic community and in the real world, then the fact that certain beliefs produce those qualities could not even begin to com-mend those beliefs. So given that he has declared the end of epistemology, how could Rorty begin to know that freedom, self-improvement, civilization, and reciprocal loyalty are in fact good?

To justify himself, Rorty implied that we ought to free ourselves of the “motives which once led us to posit gods.”[71] (How does he know the motives we once had and that we posited gods?) He said that the “holistic side of pragmatism . . . wants to avoid having the natural scientist step into the cultural role which the philosopher-as-superscientist vacated, as if the naturalistic world-picture were somehow enough to serve the purposes for which the gods, the Platonic Ideas, and the Hegelian Spirit were invented. It wants that cultural role to remain unfilled.”[72] But this clearly presumes that belief in gods is in fact unjustified, that Platonic Ideas and the Hegelian Absolute Spirit are in fact human inventions. This reasoning compels only if certain propositions actually lack warrant. Rorty assumed further that it is in actual fact dangerous to hold that gods or Plato’s Forms actually exist. But I think he has to mean that it is actually dangerous, not merely disadvantageous, to think that these “invented ideas” are well-grounded. I think he has to mean that an “ideal democratic community” really should not serve any goal other than its own commitment to intellectual freedom. But what warrants these beliefs?

The difficulty with any pragmatism lies in warranting beliefs about the goals it pursues. In justifying beliefs about these goals, pragmatists must either depend on a non-pragmatic strategy or else baldly assert, just posit, their preferred goals. If today’s radical pragmatists wish to avoid a tribalism in which communities adopt as true any beliefs at all (so long as they “work” to pro-duce whatever the tribe posits as good ends), they must become epistemic parasites. They need to affirm that some beliefs are warranted in some manner other than pragmatically. So they must either admit a kind of fideism (taking certain community values as mere posits—grounded in no evidence) or depend on the noetic strategies they take great delight in ridiculing.

C. Soft Foundationalism

Three major approaches to the warranting of individual beliefs are belief-foundationalism, coherentism, and pragmatism. Classical foundationalism is incoherent. Coherentism cannot escape the “alternative coherent systems problem.” Pragmatism depends on some non-pragmatically grounded knowledge and is therefore always incomplete. Susan Haack summarized our situation with this insight: “The old foundationalism aspired to a certitude impossible for fallible human enquirers; but the new conventionalism and the new tribalism surrender to a ‘fictitious despair.’”[73] Where do we turn?

In view of the difficulties with coherentism and pragmatism, belief-foundationalism deserves a second look. “The air is full of announcements of the demise of classical foundationalism. It is a well-deserved retreat. But people infer the demise of epistemology. This is,” as Plantinga will often say, “a whopping non sequitur.”[74] The decisive critiques of classical foundationalism do not under-mine soft foundationalism, which is formulated in light of these critiques.[75] What is soft foundationalism? These themes characterize soft foundationalism:

1. Soft foundationalism is a kind of belief-foundationalism. This means it affirms the essential distinction between basic and non-basic beliefs. It sees basic beliefs as warranted directly and in a variety of ways. And it asserts that non-basic beliefs are somehow grounded in, supported by, or inferred from basic beliefs.

2. It assumes that inferences from basic beliefs can take a variety of forms. They need not be deductive, but can be inductive or abductive.

3. It sees coherence as relevant to the warranting of beliefs. Coherence of a belief with other well-grounded beliefs can be sufficient to warrant that particular belief. Coherence can also magnify warrant for certain beliefs. But coherence is never sufficient to ground an entire web of belief (due to the alternative coherent systems problem).

4. Unlike classical foundationalism, it accepts as warranted many basic beliefs that are formed through normally reliable belief-forming processes, but fail to achieve rigid standards like self-evidence or incorrigibility. This means a person is justified prima facie in accepting many ideas when the justification is less than absolutely certain.

5. Unlike classical foundationalism, further, it allows that basic beliefs may be defeated. This means that, upon further inspection, an idea that a person initially takes as basic might turn out to be, not incorrigible, but false.

6. Soft foundationalism says that if a belief that is prima facie justified turns out to contradict other well-supported beliefs, then these other beliefs become defeaters that can undercut or rebut the initial belief. But note, new evidence or other considerations can defeat any defeaters that undercut or rebut initial beliefs.[76]

This all means that the differences in the uses of the metaphor of the foundation are critical. Too many scholars eagerly discard foundationalism. But this is hasty, for the word ‘foundationalism’ denotes quite a variety of things. Clearly, modernist and classical forms of foundationalism run into brick walls. Coherentism and pragmatism are epistemically incomplete (and they under-mine evangelical theology). So we need another option. Something like what I have called soft foundationalism offers that alternative. It accepts what is true about perspectivalism, for it recognizes that comprehensive patterns of thought do influence our interpretations of the world. But it does not lock us into self-contained intellectual ghettoes as perspectivalism does. It does give an account of effective epistemic practice leading to well-grounded belief. Moreover, it avoids the flaws of coherentism and pragmatism but recognizes what is of value in those theories for seeking genuine knowledge. Finally, it avoids the self-stultifying formulations of classical foundationalism.

Soft foundationalism allows evangelical theology to develop knowledge from its own perspective—its own view of the world centered on the conviction that God is the center of reality. Yet it does not rest content with a self-enclosed perspectivalism. It does not accept an evangelical intellectual ghetto. It pushes Christian theology to trace lines of connection with the observations and convictions that emerge from other perspectives and other disciplines. Facts can push through perspectives, critiquing, guiding, and justifying the path to genuine knowledge. So I conclude that some form of soft foundationalism offers epistemological space that makes possible a biblically controlled yet con-textually relevant evangelical theology that is open to the world of evidence and reason in a public way.

A friend commented to me just this morning that he has heard several people in his university context suggest that evangelical Christians may now “come out of the closet.” Commitment to pluralism and tolerance has apparently encouraged at least some liberals to recognize evangelicals as an oppressed minority in the academic world. Evangelical theologians should find both some comfort in this period of intense cultural upheaval in which we live and some reason for caution. The dominance of modernism (along with its unique way of rejecting historic Christian faith) is crumbling. And the liberal theology that long ago made its peace with modernity (as Barth showed) is in retreat. Describing this liberalism, Raschke wrote,

Set adrift from the breakdown, first, of traditional belief and the breakup, secondly, of the mortar of secular intelligence contemporary theologians have desparately [sic] endeavored to rescue themselves by merging their agendas with specific cultural concerns (e.g., “political theology”). Yet these ploys are tantamount to grabbing a chunk of flotsam before plunging over the waterfall.[77]

It is surely good news for evangelicals if the oppressive weight of modernism (and its theological cousin—liberalism) is lifting.

The demise of Enlightenment versions of source-foundationalism, with their hope for a single, rational, objective, and secular view of the world, has opened space for evangelical thought to enjoy a renaissance. And evangelical theology is experiencing something of a cultural resurgence.[78] Yet the intellectual challenges inherent in the new situation are, if anything, greater than before. The demise of the hegemony of modernist thinking that marginalizes evangelical thought is good. But in its place has arisen a new spirit of deconstructive post-modernism that tethers itself to perspectivalism. This overreaction against what is right about the modern quest for genuine knowledge not only erodes confidence in the modernist vision of absolute knowledge but also undercuts modest but well-grounded orthodox Christian claims to knowledge of God. We must hold what is right about the modern thirst for objectivity in knowledge even as we disentangle ourselves from the excesses of modernity. In building a theology faithful to the gospel for all peoples, we cannot hitch our wagon to the Enlightenment and its cultural trappings. But neither can we make peace with deconstructive versions of postmodernity that recognize “truth” only within intellectual ghettoes. Both cultural movements push important values; both do so in ways that undermine traditional Christian belief. Evangelical theology must find the path between these cultural movements, conceding neither the absolutist vision of modernity nor the relativizing ethos of deconstructive postmodernity. Since the evangel, the good news, is for all peoples, perspectivalism is death to evangelical theology.

IV. Conclusion

I offered a brief, critical response to perspectivalism, the largely postmodern mentality that revels in a leveling of conflicting viewpoints. But a negative critique of perspectivalism is not enough. We still need to understand how to work toward a unity of knowledge. Though we as evangelicals may agree that perspectivalism is faulty, we still need to show positively how evangelical theology can overcome fragmentation and find a unity of truth. Fragmentation can take several forms. One relevant and very important form is the fragmentation between the various theological disciplines—biblical, historical, systematic, and practical theology. This is the traditional fourfold division of the theological curriculum. Is there value in these traditional disciplinary distinctions? And if we concede the distinctions, can we meaningfully integrate these theological disciplines into a unity of truth?

CHAPTER

FIVE

UNITY IN THE THEOLOGICAL DISCIPLINES

Scholars in different fields do not always listen to each other. Commenting on theologians’ usual handling of the image of God theme, OT scholar J. Richard Middleton described the writings of theologians as “writings which largely, if not entirely, ignore the massive literature in Old Testament scholarship on the imago Dei.” He concluded, “this theological ignorance of biblical scholarship is a shame.”[1]

Middleton’s blunt comment honestly describes a sorry state of affairs. Systematic theologians have too often ignored the work of those in other fields. Conversely, of course, scholars in other areas sometimes overlook systematic theology and its unique contributions. But it gets worse. Some abandon the search for a unity of the theological disciplines, not just because they believe that this unity is in fact hard to find but because they believe it is impossible to achieve in principle. Others even think the search for unity is dangerous. Some assume that systematic theology ignores the distinctive themes or emphases of other disciplines, for example, by allowing philosophical concerns to stifle biblical voices. Others posit that claims to unity are naïve because they fail to account for the severe limits of human knowing due to cultural or historical location. Any systematic understanding of Christian truth, others believe, is necessarily artificial because the overarching system distorts the fine details. Given these realities and attitudes, many wonder whether theology could ever fulfill the hope for a unified expression of Christian truth.

I. THE FOURFOLD CURRICULUM

The divisions between various academic disciplines contribute to the fragmentation of theology. Any hope for a unity of theology depends on an analysis of the relationships between various kinds of theology. When used in America without a qualifier, ‘theology’ today often means systematic theology. But the word also includes disciplines other than systematic theology. Biblical and historical theology also fit under the umbrella of the word ‘theology’. Seminaries often employ the more comprehensive sense of ‘theology’ in their name. The word ‘theological’ in “Princeton Theological Seminary” incorporates not just doctrinal or dogmatic studies but biblical, historical, and practical studies as well. The history of the emergence of these four disciplines is relevant to the question of the unity of theology.

A. The Emergence of the Theological Disciplines

Before 1721, tutors at Harvard and Yale took students through a variety of topics—mathematics, Bible, zoology, Latin—in order to teach those students to see God’s truth in the Word and the world. Then Harvard (in 1721) and Yale (1755), mimicking Edinburgh (1620), established chairs of divinity whose occupants specialized in teaching theology. A new curriculum structure that distinguished several facets of theology began evolving around 1760 although it was hinted at two centuries earlier by Hyperius in On the Theologian.[2] By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the so-called theological encyclopedia used the word ‘theology’ in a broad sense to include the four allied theological disciplines: Bible, church history, systematics, and practical theology. (To us today, the word ‘encyclopedia’ connotes an alphabetical list of unconnected topics. I am using the word in an older sense, referring to the various areas of knowledge standing in unified relationship to each other.) The theological encyclopedia came to American shores in the early nineteenth century as professors at the first American seminaries returned from study in Europe. The fourfold pattern still shapes theological curricula and ministerial education today.

The practice of earlier periods in church history anticipated the contrast between biblical interpretation and doctrinal study. Christian leaders in the patristic and early medieval periods did not understand the practice of systematic theology as distinct from the writing of commentaries on biblical interpretation. The Alexandrians hinted at a distinction between systematic and historical (including biblical) interpretation by separating the literal and spiritual levels of scriptural meaning.[3] But they never practiced truly systematic theology. In the medieval period, collections of sayings from the church fathers emerged alongside biblical commentaries. Very prominent was Abelard’s Sic et Non, which accented apparent contradictions in the early Fathers’ sayings. Lombard’s Sentences did not seek to integrate or interpret the varied themes in its sources, but generally left tensions unresolved. In the medieval educational system, students studied Abelard and Lombard as a prelude to the important task: the study of the Bible. Gradually, the study of these textbooks gained stature, leading theologians to see systematic theology as a science or discipline in its own right and to distinguish it from biblical commentary.

Given the patristic and medieval stress on biblical commentary, it might seem that biblical studies as a discipline emerged first. Actually, however, early study of the Bible made significant use of culturally familiar ideas. The philosophically derived conceptual tools used by these interpreters did not encourage them to lay aside their cultural perspectives in order to listen to Scripture on its own terms. In the medieval period, biblical interpretation was “enclosed within the frontiers fixed by systematic theology. Hence theology in the strict sense was the total explication of Christian doctrine, proceeding by systematic methods and normative for exegesis.”[4] The medievals did not emphasize a sharp distinction between what we call systematic theology and biblical studies. Students studying the Bible came to their work already “knowing,” through the preparatory work in the theological tradition, what the Scriptures taught. So in spite of the biblical focus of early Christian intellectual work, it was biblical studies, ironically, that had to extricate itself from the domination of its next of kin—theology—and establish its own independent status.

The separation of scholarly disciplines did not occur in the Reformation period either, even though Protestant values encouraged a closer tie between doctrine and biblical texts. Catholic theology in the Reformation period first distinguished theologia scholastica, systematic or academic theology, and theologia positiva, biblical interpretation. Protestant scholastics adopted similar distinctions in the next century. Finally, in the eighteenth century, theologians gradually came to appreciate biblical interpretation as a distinctive and descriptive historical activity. An important 1773 essay by J. A. Ernesti asserted the historical character of biblical studies.[5] Ernesti claimed that the systematic theologian should ground his work, not in philosophical argumentation, but in the revelation of the Scripture. He argued explicitly for effectively reversing the strategy of medieval Scholasticism that began with philosophical theology and then proceeded to Scripture. Johann Philipp Gabler delivered a famous inaugural address at the University of Altdorf in 1787 in which he highlighted the priority of the Bible to theology.[6] The rise of biblical studies as we now think of it occurred only when the scholarly world gained a heightened conscious-ness of the genuinely historical character of the Bible.

Biblical studies today includes a variety of areas. It involves analyzing the history and development of the original biblical documents through source criticism, form criticism, or redaction criticism. It includes textual criticism, the reconstruction of the original texts from the various manuscripts now in our possession. Biblical studies also embraces exploration of the cultural and historical backgrounds to biblical materials, including archeology. Critical to the field is the exposition of the Scripture’s content in its historic context. Among evangelicals, this is the traditional purpose of biblical interpretation: uncovering what the authors intended to communicate to their original audiences.

Events in the last part of the sixteenth century foreshadowed the rise of another theological science, church history or historical studies. An appreciation of church history as such did not begin to develop until after the Reformation. Denominational debates like the legitimacy of the papacy became in part the catalyst for the rise of historical studies in the post-Reformation era. In the sixteenth century, Flacius Illyricus wrote the Magdeburg Centuries to demonstrate that Roman Catholicism had departed from original Christianity. Baronius then responded in defense of Catholicism. By 1572, Hyperius identified church history as an important topic.[7] In 1628, Georg Calixt, then professor at Helmstedt, defended historical work as a par-allel to exegetical work and as a prelude to the study of dogmatic theology.[8] Yet full attention to history in its own right awaited the rise of a fuller historical consciousness and the development of the theological encyclopedia in the latter part of the eighteenth century.

As with biblical studies, it is easy to assume that church history or historical studies developed early in the history of the church. For example, Scripture itself includes historical narrative as one of its genres. Medieval theologians used tradition as a theological source by quoting constantly from patristic authorities. Obviously, these Scholastics highly valued the past. But the medieval use of historical sources, like its use of Scripture, was actually quite a historical. The Scholastics simply appropriated the opinions of their patristic authorities as they did their biblical sources. They lacked the full awareness of the importance of historical context that scholars now take for granted.

Historical studies embraces a range of issues as well. In its broadest scope, church history includes study of the church’s life as it developed through history beginning with the immediate post-biblical period. (Although the church itself, in its own experience, crossed the line between the biblical and the post-biblical periods without consciously recognizing a demarcation, the study of church life as it is expressed in the NT is typically included in biblical studies.) Church history includes the church’s intellectual debates against various heresies, social and cultural struggles with both persecution and assimilation, and political and institutional conflicts leading to various divisions or unions. In addition, church history rightly investigates its own proper method in order to promote practice in sound historical method.

The fourth of the theological sciences, practical studies or practical theology, gained its footing as a distinct discipline at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This discipline addresses the theoretical and theological bases of the many ministerial arts—preaching, education, counseling, leadership, missions, and evangelism—and promotes skill in their use. The various skills of ministry are strategies by which ministers of all sorts can communicate Christian truth content and build Christian organizations within which people can grow in faith and service. A recent development—a much needed improvement—is the rise of interest in transformational leadership. The field should enable Christian ministers to lead transformationally so that people can receive, understand, internalize, and integrate theology into life.

Practical theology can easily lose its theological moorings. When it is prostituted, practical theology—indeed, regrettably, all theological reflection and education—can degenerate into merely an exercise in technique or skill development. In this case, ministerial preparation becomes primarily a matter of learning pragmatically useful tips and strategies—the “tricks of the trade.” Practical concerns of several kinds are crucial to church life, and theologians must not denigrate them. Conversely, theological values and commitments should infuse the practice of leadership, and practitioners should not belittle them. The loss of integrated unity among these disciplines is deeply damaging. The organic relation between the issues of leadership practice and the concerns of theology that the theoretical disciplines explore is crucial. So the unity of the four theological disciplines is critical, not just for scholarship but for the life of the church.

B. The Disciplines Within Doctrinal Studies

The third of the four aspects of theology, dogmatics or doctrinal studies, includes several sub-disciplines: biblical theology, historical theology, systematic theology, and philosophical theology.[9] The phrase “biblical theology” is hotly debated. In general terms, it has several possible connotations. The first is generic. This meaning will come to mind for most lay people when they first hear the phrase. In this sense, biblical theology is any biblically grounded theology, one that rightly expresses biblical teaching or is properly rooted in the Bible. As evangelicals committed to biblical authority, we agree that explicit biblical grounding is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for good theology. But the technical phrase “biblical theology” does not simply describe a theology that is generally faithful to Scripture.

The second sense of that expression describes a particular approach to bib-lical theology, prominent in the mid-twentieth century, the so-called biblical theology movement. This movement began in the 1940s and reached its apex in the 1950s. It was a legitimate reaction to liberal theology, for the biblical theology movement sought to evade the tendency of the liberal use of the historical-critical method of biblical study to see the Bible as entirely human. Although it acknowledged the Bible as a human work with its own history and background (as did liberalism), the biblical theology movement also emphasized neo-orthodox themes regarding revelation. It stressed that the Bible is also the carrier of the Divine Word. In this way the movement rightly sought both to recognize the true character of the Bible and also to connect theology more closely to Scripture than liberalism had.

The movement foundered, however, as it became clear that it could not resolve some basic issues. For example, the movement hoped to avoid the influence of Greek and philosophical categories. Believing rightly that liberal theology was somehow too philosophical, the biblical theology movement sought to interpret Scripture through supposedly non-philosophical, Hebrew patterns alone. But James Barr wrote a classic critique that was once described as a “trumpet blast against the monstrous regiment of shoddy linguistics.”[10] Using semantic theory, Barr undercut the movement’s tendency to differentiate Greek and Hebrew thought patterns too sharply.[11] Indeed, although it sought to make theology more responsive to Scripture, the movement never fully overcame the classic distinction between the theology of the Bible (“what it meant”) and contemporary expressions of Christian truth (“what it means”). According to G. F. Hasel, for example, the biblical theology movement could not resolve this still difficult question because, ironically enough, it never fully disentangled itself from the axioms and methods of liberalism![12] For these reasons and others, the biblical theology movement waned in the 1960s.[13]

In its wake, under the influence of Barr and others, what is called “new biblical theology” has arisen. Unlike the biblical theology movement, new biblical theology recognizes the importance of the literary and semantic theories that helped to undo its predecessor. As a representative of new biblical theology, Barr distinguished descriptive, informative language from religious, poetic language. He defended the distinction by using more adequate literary reasoning, rather than depending on flawed lexical arguments as the biblical theology movement had. He willingly considered the view that Scripture is religious and poetic, thus essentially downplaying the cognitive character of revelation and emphasizing the Bible’s capacity to shape our lives.[14] This stress on the spiritual function of the Bible as over against its informational content is visible in parallel theological movements, postliberalism and narrative theology, as represented by Hans Frei[15] and George Lindbeck.[16] To anticipate a later discussion, I say that connecting the descriptive and spiritual functions of the Bible is an important step forward.

In its third more generic meaning, a quick survey of the contemporary scene shows that scholars do not agree on the meaning of the phrase “biblical theology.” In general, however, the phrase points to theological work that seeks to uncover the theological distinctives of major portions—say, the Pauline corpus—of Scripture. The title, Let Each Gospel Speak for Itself, reflects commitment to this value.[17] Biblical theology stresses the unique theological themes of the Psalms, the Johannine materials, or the Synoptics, for instance, even though there is little agreement on exactly how to make these delineations. In general, the corpora reflect distinctions implicit in the unfolding of God’s progressive revelation through history. Thus, biblical theology is the “exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.”[18] Biblical theology is narrower than biblical studies in that it focuses on theological content of the biblical corpora as its subject matter. It excludes such matters as the oral backgrounds or literary sources of biblical books as its direct object of study. Unlike systematic theology, biblical theology limits itself primarily to biblical materials, tracks the biblical story, and organizes itself around a historical or chronological pattern.

This traditional understanding of biblical theology, generally assumed among evangelicals, should not mask the fact that the discipline of biblical theology outside the evangelical world is still in disarray.[19] D. A. Carson cited no fewer than six differing definitions of the phrase “biblical theology” in con-temporary literature.[20] Non-evangelical scholars sometimes question the viability of biblical theology because they believe that major sections of biblical material contain no consistent core of perspective or teaching. They would not believe, for example, that anyone could uncover a consistent Pauline theology. They assume instead that various themes in the Pauline corpus stand in tension with, or even in contradiction with, each other. A coherent biblical theology of Paul, therefore, is unavailable to those in the academy who think rationally or “scientifically.” Only those in the church who think religiously or dogmatically (as opposed to critically) defend a unified Pauline theology.[21] This non-evangelical perspective not only proclaims the disunity of any systematic theology rooted in the entire Christian canon, it insists on fundamental dis-continuities even within the sections of Scripture that biblical theology stresses.

Yet, as evangelicals conceive it, biblical theology, properly done, rightly aspires to a sympathetic, inductive description (to the degree that is possible) of the theological themes in major sections of the Bible. It does not develop theology that is about (i.e., somehow based on) those sections of Scripture. Rather it seeks out the theology of (i.e., something that is expressed in) those sections. Non-evangelical scholars question this entire enterprise, based on the contrast between scientific (academic) and religious (churchly) thinking.[22] As evangelicals, however, we believe that God wants to communicate with us and form us through the Bible. This belief is reasonable and well-grounded. Rejecting the very idea that God speaks will lead us to miss God’s purposes in inspiring the Bible, and therefore miss a main point of theology. The point is to get back-ground noise out of the way and listen to Scripture. The medievals put systematic theology prior to the Bible. Liberation theology puts praxis ahead of Scripture. Traditionalists put tradition in place of the Bible. Charismatics and mystics put experience ahead of Scripture. But the point is to hear the text itself. Thomas Oden noted in this regard, “The one thing I have learned in hermeneu-tics which has changed everything is what I can only call ‘obedience to the text’—listening to the text itself instead of modern interpreters of it. This is the most improbable and difficult and revolutionary thing that has ever happened to me intellectually.”[23] This expresses effectively the key value of evangelical biblical theology: primary allegiance to the text.

Nevertheless, we should admit that in actual practice, biblical theologians never achieve pure description. There are some who believe they do, and others who would wish it were so. E. P. Sanders once wrote, “I have been engaged for some years in the effort to free history and exegesis from the control of theology.” Positively, he said, “I aim to be only a historian and an exegete.”[24] This is entirely right as a goal. Still, contemporary hermeneutical discussions of the preunderstandings interpreters bring to their task alert us to how difficult it is to shed presuppositions. I argued that a dialogical approach is of significant value in working toward that goal. But exegetes never completely lay aside their total webs of belief. Still, it is surprising how non-evangelical scholars can presume a presuppositionless neutrality. Listen, for example, to the startling statement of Willi Marxsen: “the historical Jesus is Jesus before anyone has ventured any interpretation of him”![25] Though we are committed to giving finality to the truth of the Bible, we should be humble about the results of our efforts at interpretation.

Admitting that getting out of one’s own place is impossible, it is still biblical theology’s rightful task, to the degree possible, to pursue freedom from overriding systematic theological presuppositions. “Biblical theology’s structure must be capable of encompassing the multiform materials of the Bible without forcing upon them molds extraneous to the respective biblical mate-rials and its contents.”[26] Disengagement from the controlling influence of theological presuppositions and cultural bias is the ideal. None of us ever perfectly reaches the goal. As we approach the goal, it continues to recede. But significant progress is possible. There is a very important difference between biblical theologians who work to move toward the ideal and those who allow other commitments—whether contemporary culture or theological tradition—to exert disproportionate influence.

An analogy for this ideal is the asymptotic line described in chapter 2. In dialogue with those from other perspectives, we gain mature self-awareness of our own biases and adjust for them. Yet we never gain a perfect, God’s-eye view of the area of study. We never reach the asymptote. We do not know God’s mind fully. Our grasp of Scripture is always through a darkened glass.

Another form of theology is historical theology. Just as biblical theology is narrower than biblical studies, so historical theology is sharper in focus than historical studies.[27] While historical studies could include investigation of political forces in church history, for example, historical theology will concentrate more closely on theological themes and theories in various historical periods. In a sense, historical theology is the study of systematic theologies as they emerged in, and interacted with, the cultures of various periods of the church’s history.

Historical theology can proceed in two distinct ways. On the one hand, a historical theologian could examine a whole constellation of interlocking doctrines as expressed in a particular period or person. For instance, a study of Luther’s theology will include his teachings on all the major topics: God, human nature, sin, Christ, salvation, the Holy Spirit, and so on. Once this study is complete, a historical study might turn to Calvin for the same holistic investigation. This approach is a history of Christian theology. It would focus on the inner coherence of various theological structures as Augustine or Barth, for instance, expressed them.[28] On the other hand, a historical theology could trace a particular doctrine through centuries of time. For example, a theologian might choose to follow the doctrine of baptism from its biblical beginnings through patristic, Scholastic, Reformation, and into contemporary formulations. In this study, the sacramental views of Thomas Aquinas would appear in a sequence with the theories of baptism and Eucharist that preceded and succeeded them. This method is a history of doctrines. It would stress the relationships between different views on the same issue.[29]

Both the history of Christian theology and the history of doctrine are properly guided by a desire to allow history to speak for itself to the degree possible. Historical theologians investigate Calvin, not first to provide ammunition for contemporary battles, but to unpack what Calvin meant in his day. This means that historical theology seeks the dominant integrating motifs that emerge from Calvin, rather than facilely reading Calvin through contemporary eyes. Like biblical theology, then, historical theology seeks freedom from cur-rent theological debates in its movement toward historical understanding and explanation. Again, this goal is never actually attained fully although some historical research programs are certainly superior to other studies in the degree to which they are faithful to the sources. Like biblical theology, historical theology seeks, as far as possible, to operate without utilitarian motives. Historical theology seeks, as a receding limit, an understanding of its subject that is free of current agendas. Again, scholars must reckon with the ever-elusive asymptote. The results of historical interpretation, like those of biblical exegesis, do find their way into contemporary theological debates. But applied benefit can-not be the first purpose of such study.

The third doctrinal study is philosophical theology. Philosophical theology as a theological discipline originates with Schleiermacher, who placed it prior to theology (conceived as entirely historical) and to practical theology. Philosophical theology today is understood as theology built out of the mate-rials of philosophical reflection rather than from biblical data. Philosophical theology includes natural theology, often described as theology that uses the data of natural revelation. Though the idea of philosophical theology is obviously more recent, classic examples of natural theology, such as St. Thomas’s five philosophical arguments for God’s existence (the Five Ways), may be classed as philosophical theology. Without using biblical materials, and borrowing instead from the metaphysics of Aristotle, Aquinas developed these arguments for a First Cause and Unmoved Mover. At the end of the arguments, St. Thomas concluded simply, “And by this we mean God.” In other words, Aquinas very quickly identified the being toward which his arguments point with the heavenly Father about whom Jesus spoke.[30]

While some evangelicals use natural theology, especially in apologetics, many express ambivalence toward philosophical theology. Some fear that if systematic theology imposes a set of foreign concepts on the biblical text, philosophical theology will do that and more. Others argue that philosophy played a more dominant role in the early development of some facets of Christian theology than did Scripture. Still others believe that philosophers are obsessed with definitions and words. I once heard a prominent biblical scholar passionately defending exegetical theology, biblical theology, historical theology, and systematic theology. “But our school will never have a program in philosophical theology,” he said. “You know those philosophers. They just sit around asking each other, ‘What do you mean by that word?’” Philosophical theology, he implied, bogs the theologian down in semantic distinctions with very little value for either scholars or believers.

These attitudes reflect one position in the longstanding standoff among Christian theologians on the issue of faith and reason. The biblical scholar I just described posited a discontinuity between faith (‘faith’ here means, not saving faith, but knowledge that depends on special revelation) and reason (and ‘reason’ denotes knowledge that depends on natural revelation). Karl Barth adopted this stance. The opposite position stresses the connection between faith and reason. That, of course, is Thomas’s view of the matter.

The question of the legitimacy of philosophical theology opens up a Pandora’s box of questions and problems. At this point, I can only state that the temptation to see Thomas’s view as philosophical and Barth’s as non-philosophical is profoundly mistaken. Those who value philosophical theology point out rightly that Barth makes significant philosophical assumptions. One cannot avoid a philosophical level of interpretation. Those who defend what passes for a non-philosophical method inevitably smuggle certain minimal philosophical assumptions into their perspective, but without recognizing them as such. At the same time, the adoption of alien conceptual frameworks is dangerous, and Christian theologians from Tertullian to Barth have rightly stressed this. Too many contemporary theologians, including Bultmannians and Whiteheadians, have forgotten it. (I discuss the relation of philosophy to theology more fully in chapter 9.)

II. FRAGMENTATION IN THEOLOGY

As Middleton’s quote at the top of this chapter implies, contemporary practitioners of the theological disciplines—biblical studies, church history, systematic theology, and practical theology—tend to ignore each other. Through much of theology’s history, of course, Christians assumed the unified character of the knowledge of God. Certainly this was the spirit of medieval synthesis. In the aftermath of Scholasticism, several kinds of thinkers—nominalists, mystics, and Reformers—placed theology in sharp contrast to philosophy in their quest to root theology more firmly in Scripture. In that spirit, traditional theologians would never intentionally separate the study of the Bible and the proclamation of the doctrines of the church. But three decades ago, Brevard Childs spoke of “the growing polarity between Biblical studies and dogmatic theology. At many centers of theology so little has remained of the older consensus that the students have difficulty in even conceiving of a common front between the disciplines.”[31]

A. The Legitimacy of the Distinction of Disciplines

To respond to the problem Childs described, we need an analysis of the rationale for the fourfold encyclopedia. Wolfhart Pannenberg argued that one can understand the rise of the disciplines only by looking at the historical motives that led to their development. It might be tempting to think that scholars divided out the disciplines of theology simply because the complexity of the subject matter required a division of academic labor. Now it certainly is the case that scholarly disciplines are so complex that mastering one academic field, let alone two of them, seems virtually impossible. Yet the practical concern of sharing the workload does not adequately explain the genesis of the divisions among the various theological disciplines.[32]

The factors that occasioned the earliest distinctions that later separated into the theological disciplines included denominational and polemical questions about such matters as the legitimacy of the papacy and the proper view of the sacraments. The rise of the historical consciousness and the methods associated with it also propelled the process that shaped the new disciplines. Edward Farley argued that “the fourfold scheme originated more as a historical accumulation and sifting than from a rigorous intellectual derivation. It bears the marks both of the way and method of authority of Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy and the new historical consciousness of the eighteenth century.”[33] If historical accidents propelled theologians to develop the fourfold system, it might appear that the scheme entirely lacks any theological rationale. Perhaps, like a bureaucratic agency, it continues to exert an influence simply because of its own self-perpetuating momentum. We must consider whether the fourfold scheme is justified for today by something more than a series of historical accidents. So is there an explicitly theological rationale for the distinction between the disciplines?

Examining the validity of such a rationale is especially important since many centripetal forces cooperate in pulling the theological disciplines apart. These tensions make the ghettoization of the disciplines understandable, if not desirable. With the explosion of information, scholars can hardly keep up in their own fields, let alone read widely in other areas. Further, the technical jargon that scholars develop as they pursue their specific research projects tends to fence out those not initiated into a particular guild. Again, professional jealousy may even lead some scholars to think that their own studies are more crucial, insightful, or beneficial than another’s. Institutional factors (careerism, competition, loyalty to one’s own group in the academy, history of a discipline as a field that arose to correct an imbalance in another field) become part of a tradition passed on within a guild. The individual specialties, with their unique philosophical presuppositions, methodological assumptions, historical mate-rials, technical terms, and professional goals, are now heavily insulated from each other. These factors coalesce into a kind of methodological inertia that reinforces the current sense of fragmentation in theology. The current situation of ghettoization of disciplines is both the result, and a reinforcing cause, of the disintegration of theology.

These trends are exacerbated by three other important issues. First, how are the results of these scholarly enterprises relevant to the needs of church life? Second, how does the rise of perspectivalism, heightened by the multicultural consciousness of the contemporary age, affect the evangelical hope for a unity of theology? And third, are the methods that became embedded in the new theological disciplines consistent with orthodox or evangelical commitments? Farley pointed out the dilemma for theology when he said, “Once theologia’s unifying principle, its authoritative texts of Scripture construed as a priori authorities, is lost, what remains are discrete scholarly enterprises.”[34]

Any decision to continue theological inquiry within the fourfold framework demands a thoroughly theological rationale (as opposed to a merely practical justification) for working according to the fourfold distinction. Upon examination, however, it does appear that evangelical commitments about the Bible justify something like the encyclopedia. The four categories are warranted both because of the evangelical belief that the Scripture occupies a unique place in the construction of theology and because of evangelical understandings of the nature and purpose of the Bible. First, the contemporary consciousness that Scripture is profoundly marked by the historical situation of its writing, a fact we evangelicals acknowledge, demands a distinction like that between biblical studies and systematic theology. Because history, language, and culture change, scholars agree that we cannot mindlessly equate what was meant “there and then” (in the Bible) with what is meant “here and now.” This understanding is what makes hermeneutics so important. Whatever strategy we use to man-age the shifts between the perspectives of the “there and then” and the “here and now,” we must at least acknowledge that distinction as an essential part of theological reflection.

Second, the evangelical commitment to the priority of Scripture demands that we hear the biblical message for what it is on its own terms. This is especially important in light of the tendency of all readers—including leading theologians—to read contemporary meanings into ancient texts. Thus, biblical studies, which forges, refines, and uses in a disciplined way a set of methods calibrated to discerning the “there and then” within its own thought world, has a special and distinct mission. Biblical studies “subverts” and “disrupts” a particular Christian community’s reading of the Bible. It seeks to guarantee that the Bible in all its strangeness is not domesticated by a modern viewpoint or used by a powerful group to promote its political interests.[35] Systematic theology, which develops a discipline of strategies directed to interpreting and applying the “there and then” to the “here and now,” has a different, but equally vital, function.

There is a difficult but important balance to be achieved. Lesslie Newbigin put it well: “The path of the true hermeneutic thus runs between two dangers: one is emphasizing the strangeness, the otherness of the text so much that it . . . does not call into question the pre-understanding of the reader but leaves his mental world unchanged . . . ; the other danger is failing to recognize the otherness of the text so much that one simply absorbs it into the already existing pre-understanding of the reader.”[36] The tendency to overemphasize the otherness of the Bible is particularly exacerbated by the perspectivalism of the current postmodern era. The tendency to absorb the Bible into the contemporary world is particularly acute among traditionalists whose impulse is to preserve and defend what has always been believed. Evangelical biblical study will always walk this tightrope.

Third, the evangelical commitment to the unique and central position of Scripture for theology supports the theological rationale for the distinction between biblical studies and church history. The Scripture Principle expresses the evangelical insistence on distinguishing tradition from Scripture and giving the Bible a kind of priority over systematic theology that church history can-not enjoy. This distinction is necessary even though similar methodological approaches “are shared alike by historical investigators of Scripture, church, and the Second World War.” Schleiermacher distinguished philosophy (system), history (Bible and tradition), and practice, a typology that links biblical studies and church history because of their common historical method.[37] But separating biblical studies and church history, as demanded by the evangelical insistence on the uniquely divine authority of the Bible, leads evangelical theology back to the more familiar fourfold approach. Thus, the inner logic of evangelical theological commitments—particularly our view of Scripture—favors a fourfold division over against Schleiermacher’s threefold scheme.

Fourth, Christians in every age and evangelicals today have believed that the epistemic centrality of the Bible for the Christian worldview has as its purpose the transformation of people and communities (see chapter 7).[38] This is a clearly biblical theme, and it is our reason for retaining the idea that theology is at one level rightly seen as sapientia. That the Scripture has life-changing potential means there is a practical goal for understanding the message of the Bible that goes beyond scholarly description of its features or merely cognitive understanding of its message. At the same time, it is also true that leaders, judges, kings, and prophets, apostles, elders, teachers, and shepherds are called to mediate the transformational power of that message through personal ministry. The need for theological reflection on the nature of this ministry justifies theologically the distinction between biblical studies, church history, and systematic theology on the one hand and practical theology on the other. In twenty-first-century North America, with its blatantly pragmatic view of life, an explicitly theological discipline of practical theology and ministry leader-ship is clearly warranted.

Evangelical commitments ground a theological justification for the fourfold division in the very nature and purpose of theology. The materials for a theological rationale for distinguishing the four disciplines emerge most deeply from the evangelical consensus on the centrality and priority of Scripture for theology. Secondarily, the rationale for these disciplines depends on the historical character of the Bible and the church, the impact of culture on Christian theology, and the practical importance of Christian truth claims for trans-formed Christian living and service.

B. The Possibility of the Unity of the Disciplines

But if we justify theologically the distinctions between the four disciplines, a different problem arises. What I have said does not explain how to prevent the distinctions between the disciplines from becoming separations. To draw a conceptual distinction is to recognize a difference between two or more things. Distinguishing two or more things shows that they differ in one or more significant ways, but it does not require that they are also organically disconnected. To make an ontological separation, however, not only distinguishes two or more things but also denies that they are connected. A physician treating my body must certainly distinguish conceptually my brain from my heart, but if she separates them ontologically, I will not stay around to pay the bill. Much confusion arises if we muddle distinctions and separations. A significant problem is that the various academic disciplines have become institutionally separated from each other in their own intellectual ghettos. Seeing this as a problem does not mean, of course, that we see the distinctions between the disciplines as entirely invalid. But it does demand that we acknowledge that academic disciplines are, to a degree, social constructs. They reflect what is real. They are facets of the diamond of a unified and holistic understanding of truth. They are meaningful and helpful in clarifying the different frames of reference through which we can view reality. But we must also understand that we could divide them out in somewhat different ways. And, most importantly, we must transcend them. And so we need strategies for expressing, both theoretically and practically, the fundamental unity of the disciplines. We need to seek out, in the end, an organic fusion of disciplinary horizons.

As the encyclopedia developed, its defenders clearly assumed that the distinct disciplines should ideally exhibit an organic unity. In his discussion of the idea of encyclopedia, for example, Abraham Kuyper claimed that the essence of the very concept of any encyclopedia is that the various aspects of human knowing stand in unity with one another. Like the word ‘university’, the very word ‘encyclopedia’ implies a unity of truth. But early encyclopedists, as they focused on their work of collecting material, began to think of an encyclopedia more as an alphabetical listing of disjointed information. Like modern universities, the lists of information in encyclopedias tended to camouflage the organic, inner connectedness of ideas. Conversely and ironically, those who preserved the sense of unity in knowledge, lost the word ‘encyclopedia’. The rise of scholarly specialization only exacerbated the trend toward disunity. Non-Western theologians quickly observe that North Atlantic theology lost its unity in the midst of a fragmentation of disciplines. The “phenomenon of specialization,” wrote Ismael Amaya from his Latin American vantage point, “has produced theology out of touch with reality.”[39]

But according to Kuyper, a true encyclopedia is like a meta-science that examines the sciences themselves in their integration. Its very purpose is to make plain the relations between all facets of human understanding, not just of the theological disciplines.[40] The aim of a theological encyclopedia consists in “the scientific investigation of the organic nature and relations of Theology in itself and as an integral part of the organism of science.”[41] For Kuyper, the unity of a science arises out of the unity in the object of its study, the unity of human thoughts about that object, and the unity of those thoughts with other areas of human thought, that is, with other sciences. Theology is innately unified precisely because it is in touch with a single reality.

Kuyper offered this example:

Botany . . . is an organic science: (1) because it introduces into the mirror of our thoughts a group of phenomena, which as “the vegetable kingdom” exists organically; (2) because it reflects this “vegetable kingdom” in a world of thoughts, which in its turn also classifies organically; and (3) because it does not introduce this “organic vegetable kingdom” absolutely into this organic “world of thought,” but in organic connection with the life of man and animal.[42]

Clearly, Kuyper assumed a realist understanding of theology. Theological claims, like botanical ones, faithfully (if not exhaustively or perfectly) describe a real world. Biblical statements (like “God created the heavens and the earth”) mirror reality. So an internal unity of the disciplines among themselves and with other human intellectual pursuits exists because they all describe an objective reality that is itself unified.

A historically important shift away from such a view is Schleiermacher’s Brief Outline on the Study of Theology. Schleiermacher addressed two major problems. The first question is the status of theology as an objective and scholarly science in light of the personal and spiritual concerns of pious Christians. The second issue is the legitimacy and unity of theology as traditionally conceived given the intellectual pressures of the Enlightenment which tended to erode the traditional foundations of authority for theology. Kuyper followed the traditional “way of authority.” This locates the unity of theology in the unity inherent in the object it described: God’s revelation about himself and about the world God created. But the rejection by liberal theologians of all authority-based methods forced them to find the unity of theology elsewhere. Kant saw theology speaking of universal moral obligations; Schleiermacher saw theology describing universal religious experience. For liberalism, the traditional view of the unity of theology, rooted in a realist conception of God’s revelation in the authoritative Word of God, is simply not an option.

Schleiermacher proposed two different solutions to the two problems he raised. First and more explicitly, Schleiermacher extrapolated from his Pietist past the “clerical paradigm.” This view of the unity of theology says that theology is a legitimate scholarly enterprise because it aids in the education of pas-tors who will serve the spiritual needs of ordinary believers. The clerical paradigm explains that we can find a unity of the various theological disciplines in that they all serve the needs of clergy preparation.[43] But without the goal of shaping effective leaders for the church, Schleiermacher wrote, “the unity of theology disappears and its parts decompose into its various elements.”[44]

Second and more implicit in Schleiermacher is another theme, the “essence of Christianity” motif. This locates the inherent meaning of Christianity in religious experience. The unity of Christians is in the common religiousness, pious experience, or feeling of dependence that they all share. (This quite obviously denies the “way of authority” which locates the meaning of Christian theology in true teaching derived primarily from an authoritative source, the Bible.) The shift away from a focus on biblical authority intensified scholarly independence. Even if the scholars’ thinking ravaged biblical authority, the experiential focus of the “essence of Christianity” idea implies that Christians do share something, namely, the feeling of absolute dependence. In addition to showing how Christians are united, the “essence of Christianity” motif also gives a unity to the theological sciences. The disciplines are different forms of knowledge of the experiential essence of the Christian faith. But, Farley argued, Schleiermacher’s “essence of Christianity” theme crumbled in the twentieth century. Thus, liberals who rejected biblical authority were forced back to the clerical paradigm as the primary way to achieve a unity of the four theological disciplines.[45]

From an evangelical point of view, however, the clerical paradigm is wholly inadequate to preserve the unity of the theological disciplines. First, the basic axiom of the clergy paradigm is false. This premise is that the main reason for mastering the biblical worldview—mediated through biblical studies, church history, and systematic theology—is to prepare a person for the profession of ministry. If this were true, then gaining that understanding would have little value for those not intending to serve in the clergy. But this is false. The point of gaining knowledge of Christian truth is to be found by the Father, to be con-formed to Christ, and to experience the power and presence of the Spirit. It is to experience God’s transforming touch and to commit to spiritual and social ministry. This is why I insist that theology is rightly seen as directed toward sapientia.Wisdom is worthy and important prior to and independently of any specific ministerial practice; indeed, it is the ultimate point of human living. The first and primary reason for developing theological understanding is to experience relationship to God. So job skill acquisition cannot be the ultimate reason to unify the theological disciplines.

Second, practice always presupposes theory. A single-minded focus on skill development cannot avoid theoretical issues at all. Instead, any form of utilitarianism makes huge assumptions about many important theoretical issues. Those who capitulate to pragmatism will still promulgate significant theological values and intellectual perspectives. They and their audiences may remain essentially unaware of or uninterested in the biblical and theological soundness of the values they are propounding. But in this case, they will lack biblical discernment in dealing with new and attractive ideologies. George Lindbeck pointedly remarked that a utilitarian mindset exerts tremendous power in the contemporary evangelical orbit. “Playing fast and loose with the Bible needed a liberal audience in the days of Norman Vincent Peale, but now, as the case of Robert Schuller indicates, professed conservatives eat it up.”[46] Those who ground the unity of theological disciplines only in the development of pastoral skills will overlook the importance of essential theological truth.

From a liberal viewpoint, it is impossible to find a unity of the various theological sciences by looking to the unity of divine truth. Liberals reject the evangelical answer—the movement from knowledge of God’s revelation to the practical application of that knowledge. According to Farley, this linear model ignores the fact that theologians work within a historical framework that raises practical concerns. “There is simply no way of conducting theology above the grid of life itself.” It is important, therefore, to disengage the unity of theology from the traditional framework in which theology depends on authoritative texts (and for some, traditions). Farley’s commitment to a critical stance toward Scripture precludes finding the unity of theological disciplines in the unity of divine revelation.[47] Another author wrote, “Critical method is incompatible with confessional faith insofar as the latter requires us to accept specific conclusions on dogmatic grounds.”[48] The liberal strategy will not follow the way of authority, and the clergy paradigm is bankrupt. So how are theology’s disciplines integrated?

For Farley, without an authoritative Bible, the unity of theology must reside elsewhere. He placed it in what he called “theologia,” the sapiential and personal knowledge of God. By moving theologia beyond orthodoxy, he essentially argued that knowledge of God can arise outside of orthodoxy. The key is this: achieving a unity of theology depends on each person’s experience of developing theologia. This spiritual development process does have an intellectual component, but each individual may choose his own theological path to find theologia. A person may make use of many different modes of con-temporary scholarship in working toward a personal wisdom. So Farley moved away from traditional commitments and grounded the unity of the theological disciplines in the subjective arena—in the recovery of the individual’s development of a personal knowledge of God.[49]

Evangelical theologians simply cannot accept this solution. Broadly, if not in detail, Farley reverted to Schleiermacher’s approach. He located the unity of theology in human subjectivity and experiences. This leads to theologies that claim Christian allegiance but cannot sustain discernible Christian content over time. Ironically, it will make the unity of theology all the more difficult to achieve because without theological guidance, experiences are entirely malleable and adaptable. Following the liberal, experiential-expressivist model (Lindbeck’s term) will make unity difficult to retain. But for evangelical theology, the ontological ground of unity in theology arises out of the One whom we know, not out of us who do the knowing. The self-revelation of this One is our path to unity. So the question for evangelical theology is this: How can theology that puts sola scriptura at the center of its noetic structure, and which finds the unity of theology in the unity of God’s self-revelation, take account of scholarly developments? This is a large question. For now I will say only that a positive answer would justify Thomas Oden’s assessment: not only is the unity of Christian teaching the unity of its object—the triune God—but the only theological unity worth seeking is the unity that is divinely given.[50]

III. RETRIEVING THE UNITY OF THE THEOLOGICAL DISCIPLINES

The traditional notion that the unity of Christian teaching rests in the unity of its object, God and his will and ways, involves several presuppositions. It assumes in a general way that the way of authority, when properly nuanced, is theoretically legitimate. And it posits a realist conception of theological truth claims. Given these assumptions, our task here is to find a way to integrate the several theological disciplines as different microperspectives under a larger macroperspective. To retrieve a unity between the disciplines in a legitimate way, we need theoretical reasons why a unity of perspectives is possible and a concrete strategy to achieve it. If we are successful in sketching how to integrate different perspectives, we will resolve, not just the question of the unity of the theological encyclopedia, but several other quandaries in interpretation as well.

A. Fusing Horizons

The question of the unity of the theological disciplines demands conceptual discussion that shows what a unity of viewpoints might look like. As a start, notice that each discipline is a microperspective that limits its view of the object of study to a particular aspect or dimension of the whole. That indeed is the strength of particular disciplines: we deliberately create disciplinary perspectives by which we concentrate attention on certain dimensions of a larger reality through abstracting those aspects from their contexts. In this process of abstraction, a discipline lifts out a certain feature of some object from the larger, dynamic whole and freezes that aspect in time and space for purposes of observation and analysis. The fact that academic disciplines use an abstract-ing process means two things at least. First, disciplines gain advantages by focusing on certain dimensions of the whole of the reality. Second, this means each discipline also suffers the disadvantages of focusing on just one part of its object. It distorts its object by selecting some aspects and placing others in the background.[51] A unity of the theological disciplines must therefore emerge from a dialogue among the disciplines where insights about all the aspects of the object are reunited in a larger wholeness.

Although we seek this unity of understanding, it is critical, as Gadamer said, that the differences between the disciplines, as distinct horizons, initially emerge sharply and clearly. When a discipline focuses in on a particular aspect of the larger whole, it achieves its purposes by forcing us to include that aspect in the final unity of perspectives. So we recognize that microperspectives dis-tort the larger reality by isolating particular aspects of a whole thing out of their larger context. But it is not reasonable to ignore or disparage the aspects of the object of study that my discipline happens to obscure. A proper approach values both what my discipline highlights and what yours reveals. Further, we do not proceed properly if we simplistically mingle viewpoints. We first highlight the tensions between the different perspectives. And then, once we grasp each of the two disciplinary horizons in their uniqueness, we may begin the process of finding their relationship. That is, we may then begin working toward the “fusing of horizons.” Properly done, understanding a complex object demands that we first recognize the various horizons in their distinctness and then seek their fusion.[52]

A splendid example of the kind of holistic thinking I am describing is found in the science of ecology. When ecologists studied issues like rising pollution, changes in climatic patterns, shifts in animal and plant population levels, and cycles in food supplies, they did not always assess these in a systemic way. Under the influence of innovators like those at the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia, however, a new approach to ecology gradually gained prominence. This new way presupposes that all the various pieces of the ecological puzzle interact dynamically. Various disciplines like biology, climatology, hydrology, botany, meteorology, and geology all individually focus on certain aspects or dimensions of the larger realities. Then, following systems theory, the holistic science of ecology uses complex computer modeling to fuse the disciplinary horizons, mapping the various academic fields onto a larger field. The concept “ecosystem,” combining the words ‘ecology’ and ‘system’, captures this holistic and dynamic way of thinking about environmental issues.

This example shows that limitation is inherent in a discipline that, for purposes of investigation, appropriately narrows its scope to a single aspect of a larger whole. But this focused view also distorts, for it gains its insights in isolation from the discoveries that emerge in other perspectives. The focus on selected features of a complex reality is a strength, however, for when one discipline is integrated with other disciplines, each insight has, as it were, a champion who insists on that insight playing its proper role in the final integrated product. There is no logical reason for theological scholars to maintain the distortion of their own selective views instead of aggressively seeking a fusion of several narrower viewpoints into a comprehensive picture that more adequately captures the fuller reality in all its dynamism. (There may be professional or personal reasons for resistance to systemic thinking about the various theological disciplines. I said there is no logical reason.)

If there were a logical reason to challenge the unity of the theological disciplines, it would be incommensurability. I argued regarding perspectivalism (in chapter 4) that we must distinguish the stricter and softer versions of incommensurability. Because of its commitment to strict incommensurability, perspectivalism entails that a final fusion of horizons is impossible. According to perspectivalism, two such points of view operate on different conceptual grids, and we have no process for connecting these grids. If we apply this to our discussion of the theological disciplines and find that the various disciplinary viewpoints are based on totally different calibration systems, then we could hardly expect them to come together to enlarge each other in dialogue. But I argued that strict perspectivalism is false. If strict incommensurability were true, then each discipline would be utterly unique, and communication across disciplinary boundaries would be impossible. But such communication is possible. So the various disciplinary horizons are not closed to each other, but are instead open to each other. Disciplinary horizons or perspectives are not so unique as to be locked into their own ghettos of meaning.[53]

Alasdair MacIntyre argued effectively that continuity between perspectives is possible, even if it is overlooked, because we operate out of larger narratives. Descartes, for example, did not really doubt everything. He never questioned his own ability to use French to describe his doubt. Because his doubt was not total or systematic, he could use the background beliefs he surreptitiously retained from a larger narrative to rebuild knowledge. Speaking of Thomas Kuhn’s stress on the revolutionary character of scientific change, MacIntyre shows that an intelligible account of the various paradigms is possible precisely because there is a larger historical continuity among them.[54] Defenders of perspectivalism will speak about the differences between disciplinary horizons as though they were radical—too large to overcome. But perspectivalism often ignores the stable background that lies behind different disciplinary view-points. So the differences between perspectives are not as large as they first seem. The presence of this oft-ignored background, the larger narrative behind the individual disciplines, means that significant interdisciplinary communication is possible.

To illustrate this idea, consider the famous story about the five blind men who feel different parts of an elephant.[55] One feels the tail and says the elephant is like a rope. Another feels a leg and concludes the elephant is like a tree. To another the ear seems like a large fan, to still another the side is like a wall, and to yet another the tusk feels like a spear. The moral of the story, according to the received interpretation, is that different persons (or different cultures, historical epochs, or religious traditions) see the world from different perspectives. Further, according to the received interpretation, people cannot share their experiences of the world with others for each blind man sees the elephant through a perspective that is not compatible with other viewpoints. The story seems to support the view that people are locked in their own disciplinary perspectives and can see only what their viewpoints reveal. The tale persuades many people that interdisciplinary holism is impossible.

But this fable is as misleading as it is delightful. First, the received interpretation glides right over the fact that each man is blind. Since each is severely limited in his noetic abilities, these men are obviously not normally equipped human knowers. Second, the normal interpretation skips past the fact that the men do not make good use of all the noetic equipment they do have. Remarkably, the men never try listening or tasting. Third, the usual interpretation assumes that each man’s perspective is a comprehensive macroperspec-tive—that each man’s perspective is a view of the whole. But this is false. Each man’s limited experience acquaints him with only relatively few facets of the whole elephant. Fourth, the parable implies that the various viewpoints are closed off from each other. But this too is wide of the mark. The men never talk to each other. But in a post-experiment debriefing, the men surely could have shared their insights. If they found they could not unify their reports, they could have gone back to the elephant for further observation. Had they pursued the issue, they could have integrated their insights to form a more comprehensive view of that elephant in spite of their blindness.

Most telling of all, however, we know all this is true because of one critical fact that the story suppresses. There is a sixth viewpoint that completely reverses and utterly destroys the received interpretation. This viewpoint is essential, for without it the story is unintelligible. Yet the telling of the story usually obscures it. This viewpoint is the narrator’s. The perspective of the storyteller, shared by the listener, comprehensively integrates the reports of the five blind men into a single, broader narrative. Were this not so, no one could even tell the story, and no one could ever hear it as one story. (Were this not so, in fact, a listener might not even hear it as five stories.) But since the narrator does unite the five reports into a single narrative, the comprehensive point of view shared by storyteller and audience negates the received tradition. The moral of the story as usually presented, namely, that there is no ultimate perspective for unifying the five reports, is false. The tale persuades many that “everyone has his own perspective.” But while this might be true at the level of microperspectives, it is not true of the macroperspective. Human under-standing does rise above relative perspectives. The story actually illustrates exactly the opposite of what many think.

Given softer incommensurability, we should not conclude too quickly that the various theological disciplines are unable to speak to each other. The various theological disciplines are not calibrated on entirely different systems of thought and communication. Further, the disciplines are not macroperspectives, really, but microperspectives. None of them fully accesses the whole of the Christian worldview. If there is an ultimate unity of truth, then these microperspectives express ideas that, at their very core, do not conflict. For example, two biblical theologies (e.g., a theology of the Kingdom of God and a Pauline theology of justification) will have different emphases. But they do not flatly contradict each other on central beliefs. Finally, the various theological disciplines are about some of the same objects (though they approach those objects in different ways). They are like the several tests a physician will run on a football player’s possible concussion. He will examine the external signs—looking to see whether the pupils are the same size—and later consult internal signs—perhaps checking a brain scan. These microperspectives come at a problem from different points of view. But we do synthesize them, allowing them to illuminate each other. Similarly, the theological disciplines do shed light on each other.

Softer concepts of incommensurability suggest only that the conceptual frameworks of two different horizons do not match up exactly. Some such softer notion seems correct. One writer suggested this understanding: “there is no ‘third paradigm’ into which [two paradigms] can be translated without remainder or equivocation for the purpose of providing standards for mesuring them against each other.”[56] “Without remainder or equivocation” is the key phrase, for it shows that some people use the word ‘incommensurability’ to describe situations where two paradigms match up partially but not perfectly. But admitting incommensurability of this softer sort actually helps us achieve a genuine encounter between horizons. If the disciplines overlapped perfectly, they would not be doing their job. Recognizing soft incommensurability motivates us to understand different points of view as they really are—on their own terms—rather than forcing them too quickly into some supposedly universal pattern of logic and expression. Thus, if we recognize, without exaggerating, that different perspectives develop and use distinct concepts, principles, and norms of thought, we are led to an openness and respect for other perspectives, not to an imprisonment within perspectives.[57] (By openness and respect here I do not mean accepting every perspective as fully true or entirely adequate. Rather I mean coming to understand them honestly on their own terms.) A faithful understanding of each discipline on its own terms actually contributes to a richness of understanding.

The image of triangulation illustrates this fusion of horizons. Albert Einstein happened on an insight one day as he was sitting in his study. He looked out a window and saw a roofer fall off a neighboring building. As the great physicist daydreamed about this event, it suddenly occurred to him that while in flight, the man had his own point of view. The “man-in-flight” (as a physical object) occupied a frame of reference different from Einstein’s frame of refer-ence. In the “man-in-flight” frame of reference, the roofer was a stationary object, and the earth moved toward him. In Einstein’s frame of reference, the earth was the stationary object, and the roofer moved toward it. Of course, when the man hit the ground, the two frames of reference collided. The side-walk caused the roofer’s body to interact suddenly and tragically with reality as depicted by Einstein’s frame of reference. But the insight of multiple frames of reference expresses Einstein’s habit of viewing truth from multiple angles by using various sets of assumptions. The great physicist purposely adopted conflicting viewpoints as a strategy for gaining new insights to solve puzzles. For example, he suggested that a science of origins requires a dialogue between scientific, artistic, and religious perspectives.

The other side of this is that Einstein opposed dogmatism. He thought it wrong to become rigidly committed to one particular view because this rigidity narrows one’s field of vision. Trying out multiple perspectives, one after another, assists one in overcoming the blind spots inherent in all viewpoints.[58] While we may not adopt Einstein’s religious viewpoints, his strategy for integrating different frames of reference is suggestive. It points to the benefits that a meeting of disciplinary perspectives produces. The encounter between horizons emulates an effective cross-cultural dialogue in which each side articulates the interests of its own horizon in a climate where both horizons are valued. It also parallels the dialogue of Scripture with culture in the contextualization process. Similarly, the theological disciplines dialogue with each other. As we seek to understand the one true God and his self-revelation, various horizons open up to each other, the limits of understanding are pushed back, and a fusion of theological horizons occurs.

B. Systematic Theology and the Historical Disciplines

I argue for a unity between the historical disciplines—biblical studies and church history—and systematic theology. Those in historical disciplines are trained to look for historical uniqueness. The insistence on looking for the distinctives of different ancient texts is a major strength of historical studies. This is what these disciplines contribute to the total process of Christian worldview thinking.[59] A problem, however, is that those trained to look for the unique and distinctive features of a text—as those educated in the historical disciplines are—may be tempted to overstate those differences. They may at times forget that their own discipline represents a limited point of view or restricted range of vision. Each discipline encompasses what can be perceived from a particular place. Disciplines therefore represent horizons that are shaped by the use of unique methods and by the attention to particular ranges of data.

The understandings arrived at by those in the historical disciplines are shaped by the specific methods used. The point of these methods is to enable scholars to avoid, so far as possible, the contamination caused by current prejudgments. Thus, contemporary issues do not dominate biblical scholarship at its best (even though theologians inevitably bring certain assumptions to the interpretative task). Those who study the past seek rigorously to bracket out current concerns as far as possible, adopting a sympathetic stance toward their sources and placing themselves in the world of their sources. They allow the perspectives inherent in their sources to control their findings. Their disciplines teach them to play down, so far as possible, those influences that are deter-mined by something other than the subject of study.[60] In biblical studies, there-UNITY fore, the goal first and foremost is to uncover the comprehensive worldview, the flow of argument, and the concrete claims of biblical authors. In historical studies, the objective is apprehending the outlook of the church and its theologians at their point in history. It is the peculiar strength of these disciplines that they seek as much of this sort of objectivity as they can.[61]

The qualification “so far as possible” is necessary, of course, because no one completely sheds his contemporary skin. Those who ignore this qualification are tempted to see theological thinking as essentially a straight-line process beginning with the raw data of Scripture and history and ending with knowledge. (This reflects the view that theology is an exclusively inductive science, as discussed in chapter 1.) There is in some sense a hermeneutical circle and spiral, however, and this means that our apprehensions of ancient meanings both affect and are affected by our immersion in contemporary perspectives. No one entirely escapes the influence of his contemporary viewpoint. At the same time—and this is most important—a self-correcting feedback mechanism by which interpretations of the text are repeatedly reviewed enables historically oriented disciplines to overcome the distorting effects of contemporary perspectives and work toward a proper sort of objectivity.

Those who value a unity of the theological disciplines can conceive the feed-back process as a dialogue between systematic theology and the historical disciplines. In this context, contemporary interests are potential contaminants for historical scholars. When biblical scholars immerse themselves in ancient languages, they not only learn the language, they learn from the language about the culture that the language shapes and is shaped by. Practicing a “thoughtful ‘self-distancing’” from their own prejudices and biases, they begin to enter the authors’ thought world. They gain facility with the linguistic idioms, the style of argument, the dominant values, and the broad conceptual framework that shaped the authors’ thinking.[62] Consider this example: C. K. Barrett does not believe that the author of John’s Gospel sought to present historical realities. Yet Barrett wrote, by some accounts, one of the finest available commen-taries on the Gospel—“fine” in the sense that it sympathetically apprehends and helpfully illuminates the Gospel’s theology.[63] Although Barrett did not assume that the Gospel is inspired, normative, or authoritative, he placed him-self in the biblical author’s world, learned to think like the author and, in the end, produced a faithful description of the author’s thought.

This sympathetic apprehension of the thought structure and substantive content of the ancient writers’ work does not mean that contemporary interpreters completely abandon their contemporary interests; that is impossible. But it does imply that they can to some extent set aside—put brackets around—their own thought world in order to grasp more fully the ancient horizon. They seek to understand the ancient horizon on its own terms; this is a critical first step toward a biblically controlled theology even though scholars know that this first step does not start absolutely from ground zero. It already presupposes that contemporary concerns have guided and motivated that first step.[64] They also realize that, as a second step, they will have to work back to a fusion of the ancient horizon with our contemporary concerns. But historically oriented scholars must take seriously the need to apply a hermeneutic of suspicion to their own contemporary biases and then to open themselves to the ancient text and its world. The integration of the historical sources with the contemporary viewpoint—a fusion of horizons and unifying of biblical studies with systematic theology—presupposes that scholars have first developed a relatively complete and sympathetic unpacking of the Scripture. And this unpacking work should relatively transcend, so far as possible, the contamination of any con-temporary agenda.

Given this stance, how do biblical studies and church history relate to systematic theology? Because evangelical theology considers the Bible to be God’s discourse—divine self-revealing speech—biblical studies provides the data sine qua non for evangelical systematics. These data include basic categories by which to view the world (e.g., the Creator is the source of all his creatures and they depend on him for life), general theological themes (e.g., what is created is intrinsically good as such), and descriptions of specific themes (e.g., all human persons are sinners). Though systematic theology takes the rest of human learning into account, systematics, when it is done in the evangelical community, gives special priority to the data of Scripture. Evangelical system-atic theology, in other words, affirms the authority of the Bible in its completed canonical form for life and thought (chapter 2).[65]

For evangelicals, secondary priority for systematic theology goes to the data of church history, that is, to the tradition. Historical theology primarily con-tributes perspective to systematics; it is not, as in traditional Catholicism, an authoritative source for theology of the same stature as Scripture. Understanding the past enables theologians to grasp why certain issues occupy the place they do in the structure of thought. It assists today’s believers to use inherited theology in ways that preserve the meanings of traditions without being controlled by them. Ahistorical theology, by contrast, mines the tradition for concepts and ideas, but uses these for current purposes without regard to their original applications. Sometimes theologians will distort the good theology of the past; other times they will defend traditional ideas even though the rationale behind those ideas has long since been lost. As Protestants, how-ever, we who are evangelicals follow the Protestant Principle: always reforming. [66] When traditions become overgrown, we evangelicals (when we are at our best) step back, rehearse fundamental biblical values, reassess our contemporary context, and prune traditions back.

C. Systematic Theology and Practical Theology

By imagining a dialectical relationship between contemporary life experience and the historical sources of theology, we can point toward the relationship between practical theology and systematic theology. Traditionally, evangelicals have assumed a linear model in which the flow of thought begins with the data of Scripture and history, moves to the interpretations of theology, and arrives at practical theology. Over against some contemporary perspectives which overstate the influence of contemporary assumptions, we insist that this linear view is essentially correct. In contrast, John Cobb wrote that for Pannenberg’s theology, what was written in the revelation was decisive. For himself, Cobb said, the contemporary perspective is equally decisive.[67] The evangelical could never side with Cobb at this point. I say that Cobb in practice allows contemporary perspective to gain a decisive upper hand. Yet evangelical theology must listen to the feedback loop from practical theology. Contemporary needs do provide an initial direction and motivation to the study of theology’s sources. The ability of systematic theology to speak powerfully to culture is affected by its willingness to listen to culture. Systematic theology, while being true to the primacy of the Bible, also listens to its context so that its articulation of the gospel may, to the degree possible, make contact with people whose plausibility structures—whose sense of what is intellectually possible and reasonable—are culturally derived. But this process still gives Scripture the final word.

Of course, even our best theology may sometimes fall on the deaf ears of a decadent culture. Theology does not cater to modern categories no matter what. Yet when we do fail to speak to culture, we should pause to consider the reasons for the apparent failure to apply the good news effectively to a particular cultural context. We must ask whether our failure to communicate the message is due to the scandal of the gospel or the scandal of shoddy theology. Thus, although theology is in dialogue with society and listens to the feedback loop from culture, this does not mean, and must never mean, that theology may fall captive to the utilitarian desires of a society. This threat is particularly omi-nous in our era. Theology is untrue to its calling if it addresses the felt needs of society as society defines them (chapter 3). There is an asymmetry between systematic theology’s speaking to practical theology and practical theology’s talking to systematic theology. Thus, if the biblical teaching about sin and salvation seems to have no common ground with some particular culture, theology’s task will include the very basic task of communicating new plausibility structures to a culture so that the gospel can speak to that society.

If the traditional disciplines are microperspectives—limited horizons that remain open to each other and expand through mutual interaction—then these disciplines may relate to each other in dialogue. Unless it is thwarted by rigid presuppositions that make dialogue impossible, conversations between biblical, historical, systematic, and practical theology allow larger, more inclusive, and more macroscopic perspectives to emerge. Such perspectives are the result, not just of juxtaposing several closed perspectives, but of placing them in inter-active and integrative dialogue with each other. Vern Poythress suggested a picture for this larger macroperspective—the image of the symphony. In practice, this implies the fusion of several points of view:

We can start with any of several complementary perspectives—doctrinal, ethical, or devotional. We notice different things when we study the same passage from different perspectives. But if we have done our study well, the different insights are in harmony with one another. Furthermore, after an extended study of the passage, we can enlarge any one of the perspectives until it covers everything. In this way we can see clearly that the differences of perspectives are not contradictory or antagonistic.[68]

The larger conversation overcomes the initially beneficial (but essentially artificial) limitation of scholarly work to small ranges of evidence within a specific discipline. And the most inclusive horizons of all will increasingly be expressions of systematic theology.

If contemporary experience retroactively influences theology, it becomes important whose experience funds the feedback loop. It seems obvious that theology should access the personal and communal experience of many Christian believers. This means that actually retrieving the unity of theology is the work of the entire corps of evangelical scholars, pastors, and believers, not just of individuals. Vestiges of modernist academic values—the individual scholar, free of external constraint from bishops and creeds, protected by academic freedom and tenure, objectively viewing some small range of data—remain in evangelical academic contexts. But this model will not serve the church well. Actually achieving a unity of the theological disciplines requires a humble recognition of the various gifts within the body of Christ. No one person can read everything; no one person has all the best thoughts or insights; no one person has all the revealing experiences. When Christians with varied gifts and different areas of competence genuinely listen to each other in dialogue, their respective horizons can be pushed back and their perspectives unified. A community-based model of scholarship may require that those in the evangelical academy temper their individual quests for (academic) fame and fortune and modify their own career goals for the Kingdom’s good.

Contemporary liberal theologians relish the diverse perspectives of many cultures. If an emphasis on cultural diversity is wedded to a liberal, perspectivalist axiom, then the delight in pluralism will definitively and ruinously affect evangelical theology. In that case, the variety of viewpoints threatens the retrieval of unity among the theological disciplines. But if dialogue is set within an evangelical assumption of the priority of the Bible, the cultural variety of perspectives actually becomes a resource to help unify theology. When a common thread among a group of persons with varied cultural backgrounds is a commitment to the priority of the Bible, then the differences of background enable humble Christians in dialogue to spotlight the blind spots inherent in each others’ viewpoints. The pattern that emerges from the fusion of these horizons in cross-cultural, evangelical theological dialogue is a fuller, more rounded expression of the Christian gospel for the contemporary world.

The same is true of a group representing different denominational loyalties or theological traditions. These affiliations are essentially embedded in cultural experiences (in the more limited sense of the phrase “corporate culture”). Dialogue across these lines can uncover prejudices and limitations. Consequently, this variety of loyalties is of some value. Unfortunately, the actual practice of this self-correcting dialogue in the body of Christ is some-times impeded by pride, defensiveness, or overly rigid loyalty to specific theological or denominational traditions. Yet this is not a problem in principle, but a roadblock in practice. The same principle applies to particular and limited microperspectives of various kinds. Regarding an academic specialty, Farley argued,

When a specialty does its work in isolation from . . . diverse postures and paradigms of learning, it loses most of the resources by which it can correct its own abstraction. It is in the world of . . . larger learning that one confronts the complexity, mystery, and dimensionality of reality. For this, more is needed than simply a consultation with another specialty. There must be a constant correction of one’s focused specialty, a restoring of the abstracted subject matter to its concreteness and contextuality. [69]

The unifying of various microperspectives into a larger narrative assumes that God’s self-revelation in the totality of history is the ultimate frame of reference for theology.[70] Given that assumption, a unity of the theological disciplines—a symphonic theology—is achievable.

The fourfold curriculum represents a set of interlocking perspectives focused on a common object. It is not a conglomeration of independent fields.[71] Since, at the deepest levels of current, the river flow of authority is predominantly linear, systematic theology depends on the data that emerge from the first two theological disciplines. Proper biblical and historical study is important to us since we seek the best materials for the construction of our theological edifice. Carpenters know that the quality of lumber contributes mightily to the excellence of the finished product. Were a master carpenter forced to use warped and splitting wood, he would erect a building superior to one built by a novice. But masters know that even they cannot rise above a certain limit imposed by the quality of their lumber. Knowing this, experienced carpenters, unlike novices, reject inferior lumber and insist on quality materials. Similarly, the historical disciplines, when properly executed and effectively integrated, strengthen systematic theology enormously. Without quality materials, even master theologians build inferior theological structures.

While the historical disciplines are microperspectives, there is a sense in which systematic theology moves toward greater richness and breadth than other theological disciplines. Since systematic theology incorporates the data and insights of biblical and historical theologies into a larger whole, systematic theology involves already a kind of broader horizon. At one level, systematic theology slices the pie differently than, say, biblical theology. If biblical theology orients itself to sections of the Bible (to biblical genre or to the corpus of one biblical author), systematic theology organizes itself by subject or topic. In this sense, both disciplines are microperspectives. Still, systematic theology fuses the results of biblical theological analyses of various sections of Scripture (along with the perspectives provided by historical theology and contemporary context) more comprehensively. Systematic theology is the broad-est, most inclusive of the theological disciplines.

IV. CONCLUSION

Proper theology keeps its end in view. This end, for evangelical theology, is the sapiential knowledge of God, including both love and devotion to the Lord as well as discernment and wisdom for living in the Christian community and ministering peace and justice in the world. It is the values emerging from this goal, not those related to the fast-track career path of scholars in the theological academy, that should guide evangelical theology. Yet this statement of theology’s goal raises a significant issue. It forces to the surface the question about whether theology belongs in the church or in the academy. If theology serves the practical end of Christian wisdom, can it really be at home in the academy?

CHAPTER

SIX

THEOLOGY IN THE ACADEMIC WORLD

In 1871, a Swedish immigrant named John Alexis Edgren founded Bethel Seminary, the evangelical Christian school where I teach. For part of its first half century, Bethel existed as the Swedish Department of the University of Chicago Divinity School (and its institutional predecessor). In 1988, an official at that Divinity School wrote, “religious special claims cannot be allowed in the University, even—or perhaps especially—in its Divinity School.” In this man’s view, the Divinity School rightly focuses on helping students understand the religious beliefs of all fellow humans and nurturing respect for different viewpoints. This man said that a scholar who submits to the priority of the Christian faith cannot follow proper scholarly procedures. Acknowledging theological authority undermines the academic task.[1] Like this man, others at America’s elite universities share an axiom with contemporary Western culture: religious believing is inconsistent with objective knowing. Responding to this theme as it is played out at the social level in America, Stephen Carter wrote, “we should stop the steady drumbeat, especially in our popular culture, for the proposition that the religiously devout are less rational than more ‘normal’ folks.”[2]

I. THEOLOGY IN THE RELIGIOUS ACADEMIC

Many academic theologians today agree that commitment to biblical authority undermines true scholarship. In the terms I used in chapter 1, they assert the relevance of the apologetic pole of theology, but they resist the kerygmatic pole. This is one reason why many universities are, in George Marsden’s words, bastions of “established nonbelief.”[3] On the other hand, many other theologians see Christian theology as responsible only to its own source, namely God. Here is a strong affirmation of theology’s kerygmatic pole. Barth’s name is most prominent here, for he stresses that the Christian faith must remain true to the triune God as its object. Unfettered academic understanding can create a concept of an absolute and supreme being, but this intellectual construct is not the living God. God’s revelatory initiative in history—God’s speaking to his people—is the only true beginning of theology, in Barth’s view.[4] But Barth’s declaration of theological independence from merely human thinking opposes some very influential values that powerfully influence the scholarly world.

A. The Values of the Academy

The modern university world expresses certain core values. Writing in 1902, John Dewey (the first president of the American Association of University Professors) distinguished “teaching bodies” (like seminaries) from “the university proper.” While institutions that seek to promote a theological agenda may rightly limit free inquiry, professors at universities must investigate knowledge and verify facts without any restriction. On this modernist model, the independently thinking human individual, liberated from external authority and appealing to autonomous human reason, discovers the objective truth by which to achieve lasting social progress. Ideally, scholarly work is cut loose from churchly commitments to scriptural texts and traditions and shielded from the meddling oversight of creeds and bishops. Universities today express these scholarly values through institutional practices like tenure and principles like academic freedom.[5] The intention of this practice is to liberate scholars to explore any and every theory or perspective for the benefit of students and soci-ety. Its effect is to cut any ecclesiastical tether that could link a professor’s academic work to the church. Though a scholar may attend church as part of her private life, no religious commitment should eclipse her freedom and responsibility as a scholar to search for truth wherever it is found.

The implicit assumption—that the discovery of genuine knowledge demands that the knower be neutral and uncommitted to the object of investigation—is now tightly woven throughout institutional values and practices in the modern university world. The assumption is in the DNA of public universities. It requires a knower to lay aside whatever is accepted on the basis of authority and to operate instead according to principles of critical reason. The effect of this assumption on theology is enormous. Academic theologians operate under a pressure to discard the revelational basis for claims that evangelical Christians take as fundamental to understanding life rightly. These include God’s very existence as a triune Lord, God’s creation of humans in his own image, and human rebellion and sin against God. Such truths as these surely have far-reaching implications for knowledge of all sorts. Yet the dominant values of the modern university do not allow a Christian to accept these theological ideas as relevant to scholarship. According to those values, the burden of proof lies with the evangelical theologian to show that traditional theological ideas pass muster before the bar of neutral, critical reason.

The story of how these values came to be embedded in the DNA of modern public universities is long and, from my viewpoint, discouraging. George Marsden tells the story in The Soul of the American University. It is one thing for scholars to consider evangelical theological convictions carefully and then to rebut them as false, unwarranted, or incoherent. It is another thing for academics simply to presume that evangelical beliefs are antithetical to accepted methods of critical scholarship and unworthy of consideration, simply by virtue of their religious orientation or revelational grounding. In other words, it is not that essential Christian ideas such as the existence of the triune God are taken as worthy, evaluated carefully, and then discarded as false. Rather, these ideas were just marginalized—placed outside the rightful domain of scholarly work altogether. This means that for some scholars, a vibrant intellectual life requires that academics adopt what amounts to a provisional atheism. [6] If this assumption is made, even implicitly, then distinctively evangelical theology cannot flourish. In such a milieu, as law professor Phillip Johnson put it, whenever religious thinkers criticize naturalism, the critique is labeled “mere ‘religious belief,’ in opposition to ‘scientific knowledge’; hence it is, by definition, fantasy as opposed to solid fact.”[7]

No one could expect public universities to require faculty to ascribe to a Christian doctrinal stance. This is inappropriate for a public institution in a society that separates church and state—that chooses not to establish any one religious faith. I agree that a society should not establish one religion or denomination as the state religion. Public institutions cannot adhere to sectarian doctrines. On the other hand, though it is politically wise to avoid establishing any religion or denomination as the state church, it does not follow that it is rational to consider Christian thinking as defective, irrational, or subpar. It seems that truly free inquiry would flourish if the cultures of contemporary universities were really open to perspectives of different sorts, including religious ones. In this case, Christians should enjoy freedom to investigate issues from a Christian viewpoint even as the naturalist exploits the same liberty to investigate the world from his perspective. But the ethos of secular universities is not neutral in this way; it is decidedly hostile to Christian perspectives. The ethos is one of established nonbelief, in Marsden’s provocative phrase. As Peter Berger said, this has predictable results: “the dominant secularity exerts cognitive pressure upon the religious consciousness. . . . Some people, intellectuals as well as others, resolve this problem by giving in to the pressures.”[8]

Into this environment come aspiring young scholars who, hoping to rise to the top of their disciplines, must learn to play by the rules of the academic game. Thus, for instance, the expectation for graduate students is that doctoral research will uncover new discoveries and further the sum total of human knowledge. At the next level, fledgling assistant professors know that universities confer tenure on those who publish. Success in these endeavors demands that a writer not merely repeat what others have said. This requirement forces young scholars to give disproportionate weight to originality or creativity, and to say something new and different. In this institutional culture, the prestige, acclaim, promotions, and foundation grants go to those who press at the edges of knowledge. Sometimes this pressure does lead scholars to genuinely beneficial new ways of thinking. (Think of the exponential growth of knowledge in medicine, for instance.) At other times, however, this pressure also results in scholars advocating untenable and speculative views in a search for novelty.[9]

It goes without saying that these forces place scholars who wish to do their work from a distinctively traditional Christian viewpoint in a difficult position. In the liberal world, the pressures of the scholarly guild mean that only rarely can a theologian outside evangelical schools gain sufficient stature (and the protection of tenure) to freely acknowledge that he rejects fringy academic theology and chooses instead to focus on the traditional core of religious believing. Thomas Oden, one of these rare persons, wrote,

theology stands today in a comic relation to its subject matter (which is God, for theology remains a logos about theos). It is the most humorous of all disciplines because it has worked so hard to disavow its distinctive task. No other discipline has devoted so much energy to doing away with its own subject matter.[10]

Few people in the academic mainstream could say this. Most Christian theologians, whose task is to think God’s thoughts after him, find themselves con-fronted with an academic environment in which the flow of the river resists the sort of humble reflection on God’s self-revelation that has always been a part of the church’s understanding of theology.

The isolation of Christian theology in general (and evangelical theology in particular) from the academy has many aspects. Most germane to the concerns of theological prolegomena is the foundational issue of method: the commitment to biblical authority that distinguishes evangelical Christian theology. Scholars and academic laity alike often assume that academic thinking must adopt a critical rational stance and is therefore illegitimate if it embraces an authoritative source or a sectarian posture. Classical liberalism assumed that the public arena must remain neutral regarding competing visions of social good. Scholars in religious studies departments may study religion, but they may not endorse it. This puts those of us who wish to do distinctively evangelical theology in a severe bind.[11] To repeat the words of the University of Chicago Divinity School official, the claim to a divine revelation is out of place in the university, “especially . . . in its Divinity School.”[12]

His perspective is echoed throughout the academic world. Regarding biblical studies, Gerd Theissen asserted, “there can be no recourse to privileged knowledge or authorities. . . . I shall ignore the view that it is possible to have privileged access to the truth. Instead of this I shall look for technical competence, i.e. competence based on a methodical concern with religion.” [13] And Jeffrey Stout’s title, The Flight from Authority, sums up this scholarly consensus.[14]

David Tracy made his loyalties quite explicit:

The modern Christian theologian cannot ethically do other than challenge the traditional self-understanding of the theologian. He no longer sees his task as a simple defense of or even as an orthodox reinterpretation of traditional belief. Rather, he finds that his ethical commitment to the morality of scientific knowledge forces him to assume a critical posture towards his own and his tradition’s beliefs. . . . In principle, the fundamental loyalty of the theologian qua theologian is to that morality of scientific knowledge which he shares with his colleagues, the philosophers, historians and social scientists. No more than they, can he allow his own—or his tradition’s—beliefs to serve as warrants for his arguments. In fact, in all properly theological inquiry, the analysis should be characterized by those same ethical stances of autonomous judgment, critical reflection and properly skeptical hard-mindedness that characterize analysis in other fields.[15]

Tracy identified a theologian’s true colleagues as his academic associates, not fellow believers. Tradition—and for us this includes commitment to the primacy of biblical revelation—is not an appropriate guide to proper thinking. And Tracy did not assert merely that theologians may adopt this stance on rational grounds, but that they must take it on moral grounds.

A caveat is in order, however. As evangelicals, we must not overlook certain positive values that stand at the root of this view of scholarship. At many times and places, scholars have discovered large new ranges of knowledge only because they refused to give blind allegiance to authoritative sources. For example, the rise of science became possible in part because scientists gradually abandoned the medieval method for investigating the natural world, a procedure that hinged on exploring the thoughts of ancient authorities rather than observing the world around them. Further, we are very aware today that some scholarship is marred by its polemical purpose. The corrupting effects of money and power can reach not only into the thinking of televangelists but also into scholarly work. Scientific research funded by the Tobacco Institute, to cite the most obvious example, is always inherently suspect. Similarly, other scholarship that focuses too directly on serving a partisan cause too often lacks a basic intellectual integrity.

The very question of how to conceive of theology in this context raises issues on two sides, argued Gerhard Ebeling. Both the academy and the church chafe under the restraints within which theology must operate:

The one side asserts that a person destroys the truths of revelation if the judgment of reason and the methods of scholarly criticism are allowed. The other emphasizes that it contradicts the nature of scholarship to anticipate dogmatically the results and to guard against criticism. The former casts suspicion on the work of theology as unbelieving and as a danger for Christian existence. The other defames theology as a shady apologetic, which contradicts honest thought.[16]

Attempts to fulfill the requirements of two worlds—the church and the academy—actually seem to alienate theology from both.

When forced to choose, most scholars side with the academic world. Thus, John Cobb set the methods of those who “take certain doctrines not on the grounds of their plausibility or illuminating power but on the grounds of sheer authority or irrational decision” in direct contrast to the procedures of those who are willing to criticize and revise the tradition. Stressing that university culture should resist any appeal to authority, he argued for weeding out candidates for a university professorship who display a dogmatic spirit—who affirm their authorities by an irrational decision. Cobb admitted that a university community can learn from dogmatists who challenge the academic world’s axiom of critical reason. Yet he wondered aloud whether a university can countenance very much of this fundamental dissent from its faculty.[17] The dilemma for evangelical theology, then, is whether it can maintain intellectual integrity, as judged by the academic world, and still serve the needs of Christian believers. Most in the academy and many in the church assume that theology cannot have it both ways. This means that evangelical theologians want to do what many believe is impossible: both think critically and also recognize biblical authority.

B. Theology and Religious Studies

This dilemma stands as part of the backdrop against which a new set of disciplines emerged. These disciplines center on the psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and literature of the world’s religions. Those who believe that theology is illegitimate as an academic discipline (because it depends on unfalsifiable authoritative sources) may still hold that the neutral description of religious history, literature, belief, and practice, is legitimate. The shift from the word ‘theology’ to the word ‘religion’ includes a change in the object of study, from the study of God to an investigation of the religious nature and experience of human persons and societies. In theology, properly conceived, God must exist as the object of reflection. In religious studies, even if there were no God, the study of religion as a human experience still remains. In 1964, reflecting this evolution of scholarly interest and emphasis, the National Association of Biblical Instructors (NABI), founded in 1909,[18] changed its name to the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

The shift from theology to religious studies in the American academic world reflected earlier discussions and movements in Europe. Important theoretical issues and values lay behind the institutional shifts. One theoretical problem is the very concept of religion.[19] The word ‘religion’ has many important uses. In very general terms, religion is said to include systems of belief and practice, embedded in a culture, that express transcendent values or ultimate priorities and that give life power, coherence, or meaning. But definitions like these trouble some scholars. Every attempt to find a point of demarcation between the religious and the nonreligious, between the sacred and the secular, seems either to include or exclude too much. Zen Buddhism, writers often point out, lacks any notion of transcendence. Zen is much more a philosophy oriented toward ordinary living than life in relation to a higher power. As in philosophy of science, the problem of demarcation—deciding the criterion for distinguishing which worldviews count as religious and which do not—seems almost unsolvable.

A significant scholarly tradition, beginning with Schleiermacher and coming through thinkers like Rudolf Otto[20] and Mircea Eliade,[21] identifies the dimension of sacredness as the essence of religious experience and thus as the core of religion. According to this tradition, connection to the spiritual is the common element present in every instance of religion. In expressing this view-point, Eliade wrote, “Every religious festival, any liturgical time, represents the reactualization of a sacred event that took place in a mythical past, ‘in the beginning.’”[22] The religions in many traditional cultures focus on cultivating the favor of good spirits and keeping evil spirits at bay. This activity is woven into everyday life so that sacred events are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of life. It is difficult to put a finger on the culture’s religion. The religious dimension in the life of such communities is just as likely to find expression in a mother caring for a sick child or a man seeking to ensure a successful hunt or bountiful harvest as it is to find expression in overtly sacred experiences. Indeed, some claim that even asking about the dividing line between sacred and secular betrays a Western conceptual distinction that is incoherent in the cognitive network of certain cultures.

In contrast to this approach, Wilfred Cantwell Smith gave up on the idea of religion in general. “Religion” does not exist as such. It is not a thing in the world, in his view, but an entirely artificial construct, a concept cobbled together by academics. Early scholars of religion took a group of objects that are really quite distinct from each other (viz., the various world faiths) and arbitrarily grouped them into a single category as if they actually shared a common element. Following Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, they applied a Darwinian model to explain the rise of religion. The evolutionary model implies that religion is a single entity that grew through various phases, just as the caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly is one entity in several stages.

But this approach, concluded Smith, is inaccurate. It obscures the distinctives of the various faiths. No one conception of religion includes all the various faiths that emerged in different cultures. No core of religion appears in every world faith. One cannot point to some common feature and say, “That’s what we mean by ‘religion.’” Indeed, not even one religious tradition, like Christianity, is the same through its history. At different points in its history or in different places on the globe, Smith argued, the Christian tradition is different. There is no one Christianity, but many Christianities.[23] Jonathan Smith stated the point unequivocally: “religion has no independent existence apart from the academy.”[24]

Despite these difficulties in defining ‘religion’, scholars are more agreed on how they wish to study religion—or at least, they are agreed on how they wish not to study religion. Early in the twentieth century, liberal academics con-curred that a properly academic study of religion could not begin with a commitment to a particular or unique revelation claim. Ernst Troeltsch and the history of religions school had called for Christian theology to base itself firmly in a general theory of religion. Taking an intermediate step toward the conclusion that no religion is uniquely true, Troeltsch asserted that Christianity is the culmination, the highest peak of religious evolution to date, yet he allowed that a superior religion could emerge in the future.[25] Others took further steps on this path, arguing that Christian theology is fatally flawed because it cannot achieve the basic requirement of all scholarly work: a freedom from all presuppositions. In the early twentieth century, Paul de Lagarde and Franz Overbeck sought to abolish theological faculties entirely from the German university system and to replace them with scholars in general religious studies. They expressed in university policy and structure their disdain for theology as an appropriate academic discipline that studies God and is rooted in God’s self-revelation.[26]

At about the same time, Swami Vivekananda impressed the 1893 World Congress on Religions with a striking call for openness and mutual tolerance among world faiths. This typically Hindu emphasis on respect for alternative theologies struck many as a very important corrective to the usual Western imperialist tendency to assume its own supremacy in any encounter with non-Western cultures. Early in the Congress, many regarded as profoundly correct the swami’s call for fellowship without proselytizing among religions. But by the time they heard all of Vivekananda’s speeches, his audience began to sense that the swami’s call for openness to all religions had its limits. Many in attendance gradually became annoyed when Vivekananda’s idea of openness seemed implicitly to mean accepting all religions after first reinterpreting them through the prism of Hindu philosophy. Similarly, pluralists today chip off the distinctives of various religions, smoothing them out so they fit into the artificial construct called “religion.” This reveals pluralism’s soft underbelly: in its chipping and smoothing, pluralism grossly distorts actual historical religions (see chapter 10). And this is the problem with classing the world faiths under the concept of religion. This strategy wedges the round pegs of actual faiths into the square academic holes of religious studies.

There is another problem for us. Even if scholars could agree on a unified meaning of ‘religion’, it is not obvious that Christianity would fit such a cate-gory. To categorize Christianity as a religion seems to imply that it is a member of a general class and therefore on a par with other religions. This is troubling from the perspective of a normative Christian theology. At the popular level, we commonly distinguish relationship—God seeking out human persons for himself—from religion—human persons seeking out God. This distinction preserves the wholly gratuitous and gracious nature of the Christian God’s love for human beings, a key concept that is unique to Christian theology. The theologian who makes this point most persistently is, of course, Barth. He put the matter this way: “It is always the sign of definite misunderstanding when an attempt is made systematically to co-ordinate revelation and religion, i.e., to treat them as comparable spheres . . . to fix their mutual relationship.” Human religion and Christian revelation are not on equal footing.[27]

The organization of American universities shows, however, that the spirit of de Lagarde and Overbeck won out, at least on this side of the Atlantic.[28] Departments of religious studies now exist in public and secularized universities, but theology is absent. Theology exists only in church-related universities, divinity schools, or seminaries.[29] This institutional separation clearly reflects the common prejudices about these two areas of study and about their relative value and validity. In the German context, however, Wolfhart Pannenberg argued strongly for connecting religious studies to theology.[30] He defined the task of theology in an unusually broad way so that not all theology is Christian theology. Theology is not just the study of Christian teach-ing. It is more generally the evaluation of any specific religious tradition against the backdrop of all religious history in general. In this sense, Christian theology is one type of theology. It is in essence the application of a general theological procedure to specifically Christian teaching. Christian theology, therefore, is certainly a valid area of study, but it is equally appropriate for theologians to apply similar testing procedures to the thinking of other religions—to do Islamic theology, for example.

The implication of Pannenberg’s defining theology in this way is to pre-vent Christian theologians from huddling in—or from being herded into—their own theological ghetto. If Christian theology seeks public accessibility and intersubjective validation (as it should), it must first relate itself to the “tracings” of God’s revelation that are found everywhere, including in other religions.[31] Pannenberg explicitly rebutted Barth’s way of insisting on the uniqueness of Christianity. He called Barth’s perspective a “positivity of a ‘science of faith,’” implying that it amounts to a sheer assumption of the validity of the Christian revelation, a mere positing of the truth of Christianity. By merely presupposing the superiority of the Christian revelation, Barth entirely isolated theology from external criticism. But in effect, he also obstructed external confirmation. Pannenberg said that Barth “takes the crucial step of making the irreducible subjectivity of a personal commitment in faith the basis of all claims about the content of revelation. There is no surer way of abandoning the priority of the reality of God over the arbitrariness of pious subjectivity.”[32]

As evangelicals, we follow the Barthian approach, not theologically per-haps, but sociologically. In our evangelical subculture, we developed a com-plete set of social institutions—seminaries, colleges, denominations, radio and television enterprises, magazines, and publishing houses. This is the home of most evangelical theology. This means that, for the most part, even if we wish to resist Barth’s strategy of merely positing Christian uniqueness, we still work in a social context that is as isolating as Barth’s theological constraints. There are exceptions. The interest that the Evangelical Theology Group creates at the American Academy of Religion suggests a renewed attention to more orthodox forms of Christian theology even in the academy. The well-deserved prominence of orthodox Christian philosophers of religion who associate with the Society of Christian Philosophers, a broadly Christian group, reinforces this same conclusion. The success of the Intelligent Design movement shows that Christian thinking can make a contribution to the wider society. We need to follow up these forays into the mainstream academic world.

Evangelical theology cannot merely presuppose its own superiority or absoluteness. As evangelical theologians, we must argue for the finality of Christian truth claims. A theology of religion need not necessarily come to a pluralist conclusion that places all religions on the same plane. As evangelical theologians, we want to do Christian theology in an academic setting. But in that context and for the purposes of scholarly reflection, we must remain open to discussion and criticism of our initial Christian axiom that the Christian rev-elation is fundamentally superior to other religions.[33] Pannenberg’s middle position points toward a resolution of the fundamental tension between Christian theology and religious studies. We must get past the basic dilemma posited as a choice between whether revelation exercises priority over religion or religion over revelation. This poses the question as an absolute either/or.

Although some people see this question as a forced dilemma, I say that a dialogical middle path, a loosely Pannenbergian position, is the way forward. The journey toward an “in the academy, but not of it” approach for evangelical theology is the path of dialogue. It is the path taken by certain members of the Evangelical Theology Group, the Society of Christian Philosophers, and the Intelligent Design movement.[34] In general terms, we can learn from scholarly work that is shaped by a disciplinary commitment to relative religious neutrality. But we always connect what we learn in that horizon with what we know through revelation. This amounts to a form of cultural interchange where we apply the principles of dialogical contextualization (see chapter 3) to the academic disciplines. ‘Dialogue’ here means an open and honest exchange of views, not in this case between the cultures of two actual societies but the cultures of two disciplines. In this dialogue, we take two disciplines, religious studies (with its relatively more uncommitted method) and evangelical theology (with its allegiance to biblical authority), as two perspectives, two frames of reference, on divine truth. Each disciplinary method may access helpful insights to which the other method is blinded (though there is no guarantee). Theology may learn some things from religious studies. Dialogue may lead to the clarification, enrichment, and expansion of disciplinary horizons through an interchange of beliefs and perspectives.

This sort of dialogue, as it brings a fusion of horizons, should preserve the distinctives of the various partners to the conversation. Theology must not col-lapse into religious studies. Scholars of religious studies must not require as a precondition to discussion that we abandon our commitment to the Christian revelational claim. Neither should evangelical theologians be shy about criticizing other perspectives. We will find that the viewpoints of scholars in religion are not as neutral and objective as is sometimes claimed.[35] Religious studies is only relatively neutral. Dialogue can uncover those scholars’ presuppositions and biases. But dialogue initially permits each perspective to speak about its subject from a point of view forged by its own methodological commitments. The first task is to hear what the different viewpoints appear to uncover. Only then does dialogue turn to critique, evaluating the deliverances of various disciplines by looking at the warrant for their methods, starting points, and contentful conclusions.

Entering this dialogue between disciplines obviously implies that we acknowledge a certain legitimacy to religious studies as a discipline. In the interest of informed and honest description, religious studies, like biblical studies, approaches its subject—the psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and literature of religions—from a relatively uncommitted perspective. For purposes of investigation, the scholar of religion seeks objective (so far as possible) understanding of his subject as a limit. Again, the scholar seeks the descriptive goal of an objective, historical understanding of some form of spiritual life (even if actually arriving at the goal of pure description is impossible). Those who apply the methods of a discipline properly can work toward making reasoned judgments about whether particular historical descriptions of religions are more or less adequate to the object of study. Again, joining the interdisciplinary conversation does not require accepting every hypothesis or interpretation that practitioners of that discipline produce. The results of a religious studies program that is shaped by some polemical purpose can produce a less honest, less correct, rendering of its object. We need not shy away from pointing this out.

The key point, then, is this. While it is possible to adopt a relatively neutral approach to the study of religion, as evangelicals we should never concede that the approach taken in religious studies departments is really neutral. It is not the case that the theologian is biased (due to commitments) and the religious studies scholar is neutral (because uncommitted). Rather, the situation is that both groups have a point of view. Both sides adopt assumptions. Assuming that only the theologian is committed, and therefore that only the theologian is biased, is a myth.[36] A relatively descriptive and historically oriented approach to understanding the world’s religions is all to the good just so long as we do not imagine that this approach is somehow superior to theology. It is different. It offers different insights. We can learn from those insights. But it is not the only stance from which to pursue a rational science.

So, with this important proviso, the historically oriented discipline of religious studies can benefit the four theological disciplines generally and systematic theology specifically. For example, it can help enrich our understanding of biblical backgrounds. A study of the history and literature of the religions that surrounded the culture from which the Bible emerged clarifies for biblical scholars the context in which the biblical writers wrote. By extension, this study helps clarify the meaning of the biblical text. Further, and of equal importance, this discipline can help deepen our comprehension of contemporary religions. This culturally oriented work can lead to knowledge of the contemporary milieu that is, after all, the context of churchly proclamation and apologetic dialogue. Only with this honest understanding of religious beliefs and practices can a Christian hope to warrant the Christian faith as more internally consistent, scientifically confirmed, psychologically revealing, and historically correct than some other religious perspective.

I concur with Pannenberg that theology should not baldly posit its explanatory superiority. Merely asserting the superiority of Christian theology to other religions is surely unacceptable. Thus, one of our theological responsibilities is actually showing that there is a rational ground to believe that the Christian worldview is superior. I also agree with Reformed epistemology that, in order to be rational, we are not required to prove what we believe in some neutral way. We do not labor under moral obligations to demonstrate every religious belief by rational argument. But I also think that we are responsible to communicate our reasoning by appealing to the sorts of evidence that non-Christians can understand. This is the apologetic aspect of theology. Doing theology for those who share evangelical convictions need not focus on apologetics primarily. But we should do theology in light of religious studies. We should think theologically in view of the fact that we live in a pluralistic world. So we should write evangelical theology with an eye toward the task of show-ing (not just asserting) how Christian thinking is superior to other worldviews.

This apologetic dimension of theology is difficult in any era. Today, when pluralism and the toleration of all religions are so highly valued, it seems especially offensive even to suggest that one religion is superior to another in its ability to gobble up the data of experience. But we can pose Christian theism as a hypothesis that in some ways initially guides our thinking. We can evaluate the hypothesis by using different types of confirmation and testing. We move outward in various directions, looking at evidence in various fields (such as, in the present discussion, religious studies) to see whether and how the evidence emerging from those fields clearly demonstrates, circumstantially con-firms, or in some way falsifies the Christian worldview. If some tenet of our worldview does not fit what we find in the world, then the facts we find will tend to disconfirm this tenet. This lack of fit pushes us toward major or minor reformulation.

Evangelical theology, then, benefits from and makes use of evidence from the research programs of scholars who represent many different perspectives. To the degree that a purpose of theology is to describe what is true about God and God’s world from the largest possible perspective (i.e., to elaborate and defend a true worldview), it is unwise simply to pass over the results of other disciplines. Of course, these other disciplinary perspectives are profoundly shaped by the methods they use. So as evangelical theologians, we are not obligated to them. Yet any area of study—even though it is shaped by a particular set of procedural assumptions—can potentially provide valuable data which, within the limits of that disciplinary horizon, can be more or less adequate to its object.[37] The phrase “within the limits of its horizon” is key. We must willingly consider the value of insights and proposals coming from other disciplines, but we assess those proposals in light of that discipline’s methods and assumptions.We evaluate any theory or claim in the context of an analysis of the procedural principles and the disciplinary horizon that gave it birth.

Learning from other disciplines requires evangelical presence in the academic world. Of course, entering dialogue with those who depend on very different methodological assumptions may seem dangerous. But the opposite course, staying in an evangelical ghetto, involves grave risks, too. As evangelical theologians, we who engage the academy must keep at least two cautions constantly in mind. First, as I implied above, we must pay close attention to the strongly influential but generally tacit presuppositions—both methodological control beliefs and substantive content beliefs—that permeate specific disciplines in the scholarly world. The plausibility structures of every community include potent standards as to what counts as reasonable. While loyalty to Scripture is central to any genuinely evangelical theology, it plays no such role in today’s university. So we cannot move toward the scholarly world in the expectation that the academy will concede distinctive evangelical ideas. Even so, cross-perspective dialogue will at least cultivate in evangelical theology a rigor that is more difficult to nurture in the hothouse of the evangelical subculture.

Second, we should keep constant vigilance regarding motives. The world of the university, like any other, can seduce. If we seek to make a mark in that world, all the pressures I described above come into play. The accolades, at this point in history, typically go to those whose theology is nontraditional. We must express evangelical convictions with courage and humility. We must also patiently hear out whatever critique the liberal academy may make against our theology. We must evaluate that critique to discover whether it merely reflects the unwarranted prejudices of an alternate theological model, the stereotyped thinking of people who do not really understand the best in evangelical theology, or a legitimate probing of a soft spot in evangelical thinking. In a nutshell, evangelical theology in the academy serves the evangelical community and therefore refuses to engage the scholarly world in search of personal reward. Serving the evangelical world as a member of the academic world can be a joy-ful but potentially costly calling.

The dialogue model places two disciplinary horizons—religious studies and systematic theology—into a mutual conversation. Such conversation can stimulate us to develop increasing clarity and profundity.[38] At the same time, we who are evangelical theologians must remember the artificiality fostered by the assumptions implicit in any discipline, and this is nowhere more true than in religious studies. Unfortunately, scholars committed to the discipline of religious studies can too easily forget the provisional status of their assumptions. They find themselves seduced into concluding that all religions are equally true or equally salvific, not just in the assumption-shaped laboratory known as the department of religious studies but also in the real world. Still, as evangelicals participating in the academy, we should operate with skill and grace. Perhaps some who carelessly thought that the evangelical tradition is spiritually barren may return to the biblical well for refreshment.

II. THEOLOGY AS WISDOM AND SCIENCE

In describing the Christian reflection about God, Augustine raised the important distinction between sapientia (wisdom) and scientia (knowledge). For Augustine, sapientia describes a contemplative discerning of eternal and divine things while scientia denotes an active understanding of temporal and mundane things.[39] Later in its history, the meaning of ‘science’ evolved. But Augustine’s notion that Christians should direct their knowing to the highest good, namely, the wisdom of God, is still a legitimate contemporary use of the word ‘wisdom’. In this sense, godly wisdom is knowledge directed to salvation and Christian living. Wisdom is not merely knowing about God, but under-standing directed toward knowing God personally. The question now is this: How does theology serve the churchly function of knowing God?

A. Theology as Sapientia

Regrettably, Christian believers often see evangelical theology as alienated, not just from the academy or from society, but also from the church. This third alienation, lamented David Wells, is

most unexpected, most grevious [sic], and most damaging. A church that neither is interested in theology nor has the capacity to think theologically is a church that will be rapidly submerged beneath the waves of modernity. It is a church for whom Christian faith will rapidly lose its point, and this is already well underway within evangelicalism.[40]

At many times in history, Christians reacted against academic versions of theology that deaden life. Examples like the Great Awakenings, the rise of Pietism, Kierkegaard’s rejection of state Lutheranism, and the charismatic renewals come to mind. Too often, evangelicals today replace dead orthodoxy with anti-intellectual activism or moralism rather than with theologically vital spirituality. The model of piety valued most among evangelicals typically stresses inward moral holiness and outward Christian service set in opposition to reflective thought. This disengagement from a secularized academy did help preserve several values: the primacy of the Bible and a respect for the super-natural. But these values survived only inside a conservationist subculture. Fundamentalism weathered the onslaught of theological modernism by retrenching—by fostering a fortress mentality in opposition to and seclusion from the world. Since the academy was perceived as part of that world, fundamentalists and later evangelicals largely abandoned the university world to liberal Protestants who excluded both traditionalists and Catholics.[41]

The upshot is that evangelical theology is alienated not only from the academically oriented university, but also from a pragmatically oriented church. This latter issue is perhaps the most damaging because a major purpose of theology as sapientia is to shape and guide the faith, experience, and character of Christians. And this is surely central to the life and mission of the church. Theology defines the object of Christian believing. As such it must both glorify the triune God and elicit real personal transformation of individual believers, the church community, and, ultimately, the world. Indeed, the church cannot avoid theology in seeking to fulfill its mission. Though some think they can suspend theology, avoid the academic stratosphere, and achieve practical relevance, they succeed only in replacing a well-considered theology with a hodgepodge of theological scraps randomly interlaced with cultural ideas.[42]

Unlike contemporary evangelical churches, the Western church has long connected theology with spiritual life by recognizing the spiritual purpose of theology. Although he distinguished sapientia (knowledge of the eternal) and scientia (earthly knowledge), Augustine did not disconnect them. He taught not only that these two are distinct but that they properly relate. Earthly knowledge is truly virtuous only when it leads to the eternal wisdom which is true faith in God.[43] Similarly, as they formed the great medieval universities, Christian professors aligned all the sciences and arts in a hierarchical order for the ultimate purpose of knowing God.[44]

Early Protestants echoed this theme. The Institutes begins with Calvin’s treatment of the knowledge of God. The purpose of such knowledge is to be grasped by God in salvation for God’s glory. Knowledge of God elicits fear and reverence, which leads to worship.[45] In his sermon “Christian Knowledge,” Jonathan Edwards urged his listeners to pursue Christian knowledge, claiming it is useful and necessary for the believer. He concluded with seven points that offer advice and encouragement on obtaining Christian knowledge.[46] What is the purpose of the knowledge of the divine? Edwards differentiated speculative knowledge of God and spiritual understanding of God. The former is entirely intellectual, but the latter includes the heart. Although spiritual understanding is more important, speculative knowledge is still “infinitely important,” for spiritual knowledge comes by means of speculative knowledge. Intellectual knowledge is highly prized as the means to spiritual knowledge of God.[47]

So great church leaders have long held that the purpose of theology is to know God personally. This knowing God happens at three levels. Theology as sapientia forms the individual Christian’s character, shapes the community of believers, and facilitates communication to the world. First, Scripture indicates that rightly knowing God requires that one know the one true God. Biblical prohibitions of idolatry among the Israelites and warnings against false teach-ers in the church underscore the critical importance of believing what is true about God, in order to identify the One who is worthy of our worship. Biblical faith, in other words, is not an amorphous spirituality rooted in an emotional attachment to a loosely defined divine reality. It is, more specifically, a person’s faith in the triune God revealed in Christ by the Spirit.[48]

Second, theology is central for the flourishing of the church as the church. The church is a body of people, formed into a community of joy, love, justice, and peace. Its members share a common heritage, experience, and faith. They share a common mission of evangelism and social transformation. The con-tent of God’s self-revelation in Scripture expresses the shape of this inheritance and this mission. The substance of churchly theologizing is the result of the church self-consciously reflecting on and applying this legacy to its own life. The church that does not reflect on the content of its faith in this explicit manner risks allowing other gospels to shape its life. These “other gospels” could include understandings of salvation molded by psychologized liberalism, by existential philosophizing, or by market-oriented consumerism. Such a church risks becoming something other than the church. If theological beacons do not guide the church’s life, then alien sets of values—and these are usually drawn directly but unknowingly from contexts outside the church—will signal its path. Thus, a main reason for theology is “to call the Church to rootedness in God’s Word and to resist siren calls to infidelity, since her stability and direction, her health and vitality depend on it.”[49]

Third, theology is necessary as the means of expressing the Christian faith to a needy world. It almost goes without saying that a major purpose of working out Christian theology is to help those outside the faith. The church works so that many people can understand the biblical message and experience transformation of life by means of its truth. Naturally, the church will not persuade others outside the faith of the life-transforming potential of the gospel and will not be a force for justice and peace in the world unless it can express that message clearly in contextually relevant terms. This makes the process of contextualization critical. A theology written only in terms that those already in the church can understand will fail to accomplish the church’s principal task in this world.

What has led theology to stray from these spiritual purposes? One answer is the influence of the academy. The academic world, which has gained a life of its own, can influence theology to stray from a proper knowledge of God in several ways. In Theologia, Edward Farley noted how theological educators ceased to call theology a habitus (a habit). Farley traced the shift in theological education from divinity to scholarship to profession. ‘Divinity’, in this sense, describes a student’s learning directed to “a personal knowledge of God and the things of God in the context of salvation. . . . the study of divinity (theology) was an exercise of piety, a dimension of the life of faith.”[50] This describes churchly theology directed toward knowing God.

But as the educational process of preparing ministers called to church ministry came under the influence of the academy (i.e., the shift from divinity to scholarship), academic values—the emphasis on individual scholars seeking detached, objective research—came to dominate the education of pastors. Scholars in seminaries came to feel more affinity with their colleagues in the academy than with fellow believers in the church. Hauerwas and Willimon said of this trend that “clever new theologies may keep seminary professors from being bored, but they will also distract them from their central mission as seminary professors and they will certainly not renew the church.”[51] Seminary education directed by the scholarly work found in the academic world led to preparation that seemed irrelevant to parish life. How could the skills that serve a scholar well in his research aid the pastor in the performance of his weekly duties? In light of this, seminaries heard calls from their critics to focus pastoral education on the religious profession, on developing skills for the practical ministry. This was the move to profession. These two shifts pushed theology as habitus and as sapientia into the background.

C. S. Lewis, writing about “Learning in War-Time,” noted that the life of the mind is a road to God. But he was careful to point out that it is not the only path and, perhaps, not the safest. The risk is that Christian theologizing can become an end in itself. In the words of the Theologica Germanica, “We may come to love knowledge—our knowing—more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar’s life increases this danger.”[52] I know of individuals for whom academic work in one of the theological fields has become an end in itself. We all know of institutions that lost their focus and began to display greater allegiance to the academic world than to the church world. They are like the American railroads that became fascinated with the lore and mystique of railroading, and they relegated ser-vice to their customers to the periphery and soon paid a price for their negligence. Knowledge of God was pushed to the edge of our academic pursuits and our processes of pastoral education.

Although these influences have led some forms of theology away from its churchly purposes, the evangelical church still needs good theology (just as theology needs the church). Unless it is theologically correct, the church cannot survive as itself. (Without good theology, an institution called “the church” might survive—but as something other than a true church.) Obviously the academy will continue to exist without theology. The core values built into institutions of higher education as they exist at this point in history do not generally shape the sort of theology that accomplishes the purposes of the church. This is especially true of academically oriented theology in secular universities. Indeed, the world of scholarship embodies values that can actually deflect theology from achieving its churchly mission. While the academy provides valuable insights that theology must consider, theology cannot be shaped disproportionately by academic values. The mission and values of the church shape evangelical theology. The church, which desperately needs theology, is the proper home for theology. The values and needs of the church must fundamentally shape an understanding of how to conduct theological work. Truly evangelical theology is churchly.

This means that many of theology’s central methodological constructs should follow from the fact that it is an activity of the church first and fore-most, even though theology can learn from other disciplines. Abraham Kuyper argued just this point, claiming that because a personal knowing of the true God is the goal, theologians should distinguish their work from all other disciplines:

in all other investigations the investigating subject places himself above the object to be investigated, is the active agent in the investigation, and directs his course in obedience to his own free judgment. . . . But when the thirst for knowledge directs itself to Him to whom man and all creation owe their origin, existence, and consciousness, the circumstances are materially changed. Then man stands no longer above, but beneath the object of his investigation, and over against this object he finds him-self in a position of entire dependence.[53]

While learning from other perspectives, Christian theology cannot gut the Bible of its message in reckless attempts to adapt Scripture to the modern world. The indispensable task of evangelical theology is to adapt the world to the biblical narrative.[54] In the end, then, after the dialogue and the listening and the learn-ing, we are right to bring every theological thought captive to Christ (2 Cor 10:5).[55] This correct spirit means that in our dialogue with others we will ele-vate churchly values to a place of supremacy.

B. Theology as Scientia

I claim that theology is sapientia—that it serves the purposes of godly living. But this brings us back to the question, If proper theological method is shaped and even controlled by churchly and spiritual purposes, what of the time-honored view that theology is scientia? Many scholars think evangelical theology is a hothouse plant that would not survive in the open fields of the university. They commonly question the status of theology as a science because science requires an unrestricted employment of reason while theology springs from faith. Theology’s purpose in serving the church means it is far-fetched to claim that evangelical theology is an intellectually respectable and legitimate science. Scholars commonly suppose that evangelical theology must sit at the foot of the academic table.

Deciding whether theology is a science will require clarity on the relevant sense of the word ‘science’. First, for Augustine, the word pointed to active knowledge of temporal things. Second, in the medieval university world, ‘science’ came to designate a legitimate area of study oriented to a particular object and possessing appropriate methods of investigation. Beginning with Alain of Lille, theology was classed as a science in this sense. Third, as it is commonly used today, the word ‘science’ focuses primarily on the empirical sciences, especially the so-called hard sciences but also the soft sciences. The issue here relates to the second of these notions of science. Is theology a rationally legitimate area of study with a clear inner coherence, an actual object of study, and a method appropriate to that object?

Pannenberg argued emphatically that theology is a science.[56] He began his argument by identifying three distinguishing marks of a science. First, a science will be an internally coherent set of perspectives and statements that relates to some particular area of investigation. This means that a science is not just a set of ideas grouped together into a teaching area. In its apologetic work, for instance, theology depends on a variety of disciplines—philosophy, history, sci-ence, biblical studies, to mention a few. The apologetic task of theology is tied together, not so much as a coherent approach to a particular object of study, but by a particular form of practice. Apologetics, then, is a theological practice. It uses materials from a variety of disciplines to offer a reasonable defense of the Christian worldview. For this reason, apologetics is not a distinct discipline or science as such.[57] But evangelical theology, as a rational investigation of God and his ways, fulfills this first criterion.

Second, Pannenberg said, a science aims at propositions that have a cognitive character, that describe some object outside itself. This means that a discipline investigates some actually existing reality or person or some dimension of such a reality or person. Studying the sociological aspects of how religions arise is a legitimate discipline. But if there is absolutely no archeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon (as seems likely), then “Book of Mormon archeology” is not a legitimate science. The psychology of “Book of Mormon archeology”—a psychological investigation into how and why people come to believe that there is a legitimate discipline called “Book of Mormon archeology”—is an entirely appropriate field of study. But it is not at all parallel to Bible archeology. Christian theology does aim for reasonable affirmations that describe (always imperfectly) the ontologically real being and character of God and of God’s world. Evangelical theology’s statements have a cognitive character.

Third, the propositions of a legitimate discipline are the sort that follow a method that leads to some sort of intersubjective or public justification. In a rational science, certain propositions are falsifiable and others are defensible. This third mark does not require proof of a very specific kind. I am not saying that we are under obligation to “prove” theological assertions through the hard sciences, for example. We are not compelled to demonstrate every theological claim in order to fulfill some rational requirement. But if evangelical theology is a science, we should seek out and find some meaningful points of connection between what theology says and the kind of evidence that secular thinkers can understand. Pannenberg put it negatively: “if the assertion that Jesus is the bearer of God’s revelation were accompanied by an insistence that this assertion was inherently incapable of being verified or legitimated, this would nullify the concept of an assertion.”[58] That is, theology is suspect if we say it is valid only within its own sphere.[59]

This third characteristic of a science puts evangelical theology under stress. One difficulty, as I noted above, is that the desire for a rational grounding for theology seems to stand in opposition to the commitment to the authority of Scripture (chapter 2). Pannenberg’s answer is that we cannot settle the question of biblical authority in advance by a sheer posit. He treats all theological claims, including the affirmation of biblical authority, as provisional hypotheses that gain more and more confirmation as a theological program unfolds. Another difficulty is the fact that theological statements can be macroscopic; they may describe the totality of history and refer to the whole of reality. This fact subjects them to postmodern suspicion about such totalizing discourses. Pannenberg’s response is that all meaningful interpretations of actual experience—this would include the perspectives of postmoderns—must presuppose macroscopic propositions of this sort. So we should bring all such macroperspectives out into the light of conscious scrutiny. The comprehensive character of macroperspectives means that final judgments about their rational adequacy are difficult. But we do not simply ignore the task of evaluating them. Some public reasoning in support of evangelical theology is desirable and good.

In spite of difficulties, we who are evangelical theologians serve the church by seeking connection with, and appropriate confirmation from, the larger world of academic thought. Drawing the connections between theology and the tracings of God in other disciplines gives theology a public character and releases it from a self-imposed ghetto. Evangelical theological perspectives gain rational weight as “they give the complex of meaning of all experience of reality a more subtle and more convincing interpretation than others.” Additionally, theological claims are falsifiable in various ways. We rightly abandon assertions that are not proper implications of the Bible, that have no implications whatever for present experience, that cannot be connected to appropriate areas of experience, or that lack explanatory force.[60] So our theology appropriately seeks to connect with the public criteria of a legitimate sci-ence, even though we cannot view the values and assumptions of the secularized academy as ultimate and nonnegotiable. Evangelical theology will best serve the church if it seeks to break out of an intellectual ghetto. Theology at its best is scientia that serves sapientia.

C. Objectivity in Theology

Evangelical theology explores a legitimate object of study, possesses a cognitive character, and seeks to evaluate its claims—in a delicate way—by publicly accepted criteria. This means that evangelical theology is right to claim that Christians can know the deliverances of theological reflection as objectively true. This claim to objective truth, however, immediately surfaces the megashift from modernism to postmodernism. The postmodern ethos is reflected, for instance, in Richard Rorty’s comment that “the application of such honorifics as ‘objective’ and ‘cognitive’ is never anything more than an expression of the presence, or the hope for, agreement among inquirers.”[61] Not all evangelicals support the notion of objectivity.[62] But if theology is rightly a science, as I claim, it should move toward a certain form of chastened objectivity. So I wish now to flesh out more completely a modest form of objectivity that we should seek.

Modernist liberalism is theology that did not merely seek to attain a mod-est objectivity but sought to make its peace with Enlightenment-defined ideals of rationality. The hope was to achieve complete objectivity by using something akin to a scientific method. One way to view this is to notice that theologians reacted to modernism both positively and negatively. An example of the positive appropriation of modernism is the rationalistic theology that used a strategy like demythologizing to reduce theological content in order to appease modernist sensibilities. Many modernist theologians of this sort hoped that this strategy would help them find an essence of religion that would pass muster with rationalistic, anti-supernaturalistic presuppositions. Modernists who take this strategy would deny the objectivity of evangelical theology because they reject its particular and supernatural revelation claim. Although this modernist theological stance is strongly defended, it is defective. Its method is discredited today because its results are not recognizably Christian. And the content that this least-common-denominator approach produces is so minimal that it satisfies no one.

Every worldview incorporates certain central and nonnegotiable claims along with other more peripheral and negotiable theses.[63] The historic Christian worldview is the perspective from which evangelicals view the world. As theologians, we seek to develop our understanding of this worldview in light of new insights and new information. As finite human beings, our knowledge never rises above the Christian perspective to a perspectiveless apprehension of absolute truth. But even though we see the world through a Christian view-point, we are not condemned to a rational solitary confinement. The Christian worldview is not like a tunnel that closes in on us, but like a window that opens up to a real world. As a community of believing theologians, we work together to comprehend the world, gradually moving toward richer understandings of the world and its Creator. We use a variety of strategies to move beyond any relativism that destroys properly justified truth claims and leads many to abandon epistemology or theology.

So objectivity of a very important sort is essential for contemporary thought in general and evangelical theology in particular. There is, if you will, an inter-nal constraint or limit that holds scholars accountable to the data of the real world. The objectivity that is possible, however, does not require that a scholar absolutely abstract herself from her context. That is obviously not possible. This modest objectivity does not entail that she attain incorrigible knowledge. Surely the thoughts of finite humans are always subject to correction. The mod-est objectivity that evangelical theology should value and pursue involves developing intellectual virtues like openness to new information. It requires accessing data that come to light even in the course of dialogue with those involved in research programs that assume alternate perspectives. This kind of objectivity denies perspectivalism (chapter 4), without adopting modernist absolutism. This modest version of objectivity is worth preserving.

I cannot offer a full epistemological treatise here. But the phenomenon of intellectual conversion confirms that this genuine, well-grounded, objective knowledge is possible. Many people change their beliefs as a result of criticism from critics, friendly or otherwise. This conversion is rational. It hap-pens as a result of giving of evidence. It is more than a psychological phenomenon, for many people change their minds in ways that go against what is psychologically enticing. They do so because facts, reasons, and criticisms convince them that their previous convictions are false. Fully recognizing the power of presuppositions and the temptation to favor one’s own biases, some people convert largely because evidence forces them to. In these conversions, honest interpreters do make some progress toward more adequate theories and models. These honest interpreters exhibit epistemic virtues like curiosity, love of truth, honesty with the data, tenacity, precision, and insight.[64] Dishonest thinkers—and many examples come to mind—purpose-fully distort or ignore evidence to gain short-term benefits. Yet honest theologians find genuine depth of understanding by listening carefully to Scripture, to the church’s reflection on Scripture, and to the various disciplines through which humans have investigated God’s universe. Someone who possesses depth of discernment born of careful listening can recognize the difference between insight and ideology. And if this is so, then we can develop the intellectual ability, personal integrity, and emotional health necessary to transcend our personal prejudices and to hear the Bible and tradition in ways that increase genuine knowledge of God’s revelation.

Affirming this modest form of objectivity for evangelical theology points to an insight from Richard Lints: we must recognize both what he called the “reality principle” and the “bias principle.” Acknowledging the reality principle means that we are in touch with a real world that influences our theologizing and restrains it within certain limits. The reality principle means that we may not follow our own speculations wherever they lead. In this sense theology is objective; our thinking is controlled by its object. Recognizing the bias principle alerts us to how personal preferences and prejudices regulate all thinking about the world. The bias principle warns us that we must work hard to avoid the distortions that easily corrupt even the most careful work. Ignoring the bias principle permits our biases to dominate us. If we ignore our biases, we are more powerfully shaped by conceptual proclivities that fall out-side our field of vision. Overlooking the reality principle induces perspectivalists to overstate the bias principle. They say that human biases are ultimate and irremediable. Overlooking the bias principle is what leads moderns to absolutize their own biases.[65]

The purpose of theology is to know God, as I have claimed repeatedly. Theology is directed to sapientia. But those who, in the attempt to affirm theology as sapientia, react against the need to find modest objectivity in theological formulations will make critical errors. First, they tend to fall prey to either/or thinking. They assume, as part of the inner logic of their view, a strong tension between sapientia and scientia. But Augustine, who distinguished these two things, did not separate them. The germ of truth in the distinction, as many Christian believers realize, is that one can become obsessed with theological expressions as ends in themselves. But obsession with theological statements as ends in themselves is just a wrong attitude toward theology. The fact that some get obsessed with cognitive formulations does not even suggest that describing God’s character and work with an appropriate kind of objectivity is unimportant. Seeing theology as a means to the end of loving God is perfectly consistent with a robust interest in objectively correct (if imperfect and incomplete) biblical descriptions of the object of our love. A loving husband unwillingly separated from his beloved wife hangs on every scrap of propositionally stated news from home. Similarly, the believer rightly longs to under-stand the divine person to whom she has committed her life.

Second, there are (broadly) two different ways to think about objectivity. Both critics and defenders of objectivity tend to conflate the two senses of ‘objectivity’. An Enlightenment model of objectivity posits that we are completely neutral and dispassionate scholars viewing God from an ahistorical, God’s-eye perspective. I do not defend that artificial sort of objectivity. I say it is impossible. A more modest model of objectivity recognizes that we see from our place in history. Yet our knowledge puts us in touch with God, not simply with our own mental pictures about God. So God himself, the object of our knowledge, decisively shapes genuine knowledge of God. The predispositions or desires of the knowing subject need not decisively control genuine knowledge of God and thus obscure God. As theologians, we can allow the subject of investigation—a reality that is outside the knower—to exert a dominant influence on our knowing process.

Conflating these two senses of ‘objectivity’ causes problems. If the distinc-tion is erased, then rejecting Enlightenment versions of pristine objectivity (as we should) leads us to deny even modest objectivity. Conversely, defending a modest form of objectivity (as we should) tempts us foolishly to commit our-selves (or evangelical theology) to exaggerated Enlightenment notions of objectivity. So overlooking the obvious equivocation on the word ‘objectivity’ and conflating the two senses of that word is hazardous.

Why are some contemporary theologians skittish even about more modest claims of objectivity? I can only hint at a couple of points. For some people, the problem lies in unwarranted Kantian assumptions. Kant argued that our knowledge (the world as it appears to us) is completely cut off from the objects of knowledge (the world as it is). In this view, the reality of God lies beyond an impenetrable boundary. Knowledge of any object, on this view, is always knowledge of a mental picture caused by that object. This thesis implies that God himself is always hidden from view. But, in the words of Nicholas Wolterstorff,

if we understand perception of an object as awareness of the object—rather than as awareness of a mental representation caused by the object—then it will not make sense to follow Kant in the further step he takes of thinking of concepts as rules for structuring the objects of our awareness. For now the objects of our awareness are not mental states but eagles and dogs. And eagles and dogs are already structured; they don’t await structuring by us.[66]

One of the challenges for evangelical theologians, as Wolterstorff noted else-where, is that this Kantian motif dominates the guild of contemporary theologians. The challenge is to resist this ethos. I hope Wolterstorff’s prediction will come true: “my own guess is that [contemporary Kantianism] will shortly dry up, principally, I would guess, because of its self-referential incoherence and its inability to answer the charge of moral relativism.”[67]

For other people, the problem with objective knowledge of God lies else-where. From Ludwig Feuerbach, through Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, comes the view that subjective, psychological needs drive our (so-called) knowledge of God. In this view, the idea of God is actually a human invention. God is a human idea created to cater to human needs. This thesis may explain religious beliefs that are not biblical. But it suffers from a major difficulty when applied to the God of the Bible. The biblical God is nothing like what we would create. The kind of god humans are tempted to create is a servile genie, ready to fulfill our consumerist whims and to stay out of sight (until emergency hits). But the God of Scripture is the Lion of Judah. Untamable, not safe. Demanding, not accommodating. He is hardly what we would create. Surely the God we proclaim is anything but a human concoction.

In sum, scholars follow methodological principles in disciplined ways. The purpose of these principles is to counteract the human tendency to let subjective bias control thinking. (An example is the practice of using control groups in scientific experiments.) At their best, procedures like these characterize and shape any virtuous human plan for understanding the world as it really is. Those who wish to avoid merely reinforcing their own prejudices and ideologies will allow such principles to guide their thought, even against their pet theories. For this reason, I say that we as evangelical theologians should, in general, follow the sort of methods that all scholars use. We are right to seek knowledge of God by judiciously and critically using time-tested scholarly methods. In this sense, theology counts as a legitimate science and achieves a modest form of objectivity.

At the same time, we cannot give primary allegiance to every standard that operates in the Western academic world. Theology describes the personal Creator in whom we have placed our trust—the triune God whom we worship. Certain pervasive assumptions in the Western academic world rule out the existence of, or knowledge of, such a divine Person. We do benefit from the rigor of the academy and from dialogue with scholars who investigate other arenas of human knowledge. But we must remember that academic culture is not entirely religiously benign. So we must insist on the legitimacy of evangelical theology as a ministry that locates itself centrally in Christ’s church.

III. CONCLUSION

Evangelical theology values scholarly excellence in the sense that it must deal as honestly, extensively, and complexly with its data as possible. We should evidence intellectual virtues. But theology stands in a tension-filled relationship with non-Christian thought, as it has for two millennia. Evangelical theology can and must hear the voices of the academic disciplines—including the voices of challenge from non-evangelicals. This prevents evangelical theology from becoming a hothouse flower that wilts in the public world of reason and thought. But evangelical theology is never fully at home in the secularized academic world. We must not give ultimate right-of-way to the frames of reference embedded in the scholarly world. These frames of reference may illuminate much that is important to theology, and they strengthen our theology. But they must never control theology’s agenda. For the ultimate purposes of theology are spiritual: when everything is out on the table, the home of theology is the church. Theology is a science of God that enables faithful Christ-followers to know God, to find spiritual wisdom. This goal of spiritual wisdom leads directly to the question: How does theology properly serve the church? What are the purposes of theology?

CHAPTER

SEVEN

THE SPIRITUAL PURPOSES OF THEOLOGY

Two days ago, I had lunch with a pastor from a nearby town. He told our group about a new worship service his church had started. It meets in the gym at the same time as the regular worship service. It is contemporary in style and is designed to invite people who have given up on church. The new program-ming is achieving its purpose, and people are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. But some of the people already in the church think the new service is a bad idea. They are good people who know the Bible inside and out. But they want the church to focus on what the church has always offered, the pastor said. The conversation paused. Then the pastor grew reflective: “You know, it’s amazing. Too many people in our church don’t seem to understand that the gospel is supposed to change them as persons.”

Another pastor described in my hearing a man he knows who has for decades listened to great preaching, studied the Bible devotionally, and even completed seminary courses on biblical material. If any layperson knows the Bible, it is this man. Yet this man is one of the most cantankerous individuals the pastor has ever met.

Should stories like these trouble us? Has theology misfired if it gives a per-son lots of biblical and theological knowledge without that person really grasping that this knowledge should dramatically affect her character and demeanor? Is it acceptable to be mean-spirited, or at least to be ignoring issues of character formation, if you happen to be right theologically? What are the purposes of theology?

I. THEOLOGY AND ORTHODOXY

I say that the transformation of lives and communities—sapientia—is the ultimate function of theology. This means that mean-spirited orthodoxy is defective. Getting God’s truth right—scientia—is important as far as it goes. Scientia is important in that one key role for theology is identifying or marking out which persons and beliefs are legitimately Christian. The strategy of theology in distinguishing what legitimately counts as Christian (or evangelical, Lutheran, or charismatic) is defining which ideas are orthodox.

Theology played this kind of role in the NT. The NT church struggled mightily with erroneous doctrine and false teachers, as biblical evidence shows. In the patristic era, the NT canon emerged when the church responded to the challenges of heretics and Gnostics by following the Holy Spirit’s guidance to identify the writings of the apostles and their associates. The medieval church followed Vincent of Lérins, who said that orthodoxy is whatever is believed everywhere, always, and by all. Today, the evangelical work of Thomas Oden recaptures something of this approach in that Oden self-consciously searches for the consensual theology of the early church and anoints it as the standard of Christian truth. Orthodox theology, says Oden, is what the church agreed to in the first five centuries of the church.[1]

The orthodoxy-defining role of theological doctrines has recently come to the fore in a new way for evangelicals. Conflicting views on what counts as legitimately evangelical are now in competition. In the decades after World War II, evangelicals coalesced into a self-conscious group of biblically minded, Christocentric, theologically traditional, and ecclesiastically open Protestants. In recent years, as it became more respectable to be evangelical, people from the right and the left began seeking sanctuary under the so-called evangelical tent. Discussion now swirls on the question of how far the evangelical tent flaps should fly. Should evangelicalism include supportive fundamentalists on the one side and sympathetic mainliners on the other? In the 1920s, modernists and fundamentalists argued about who would get the sem-inaries and churches and publishing houses. Today one issue is the question: Who rightly inherits the title “evangelical”?[2] As Timothy Weber commented, “Defining evangelicalism has become one of the biggest problems in American religious historiography.”[3]

We are witnessing two very broad responses to the newly found respectability of evangelicalism.[4] One response to these trends is to seek tighter theological control on what counts as evangelical. The strategy is to pull in and tie down the tent flaps. For example, the mission of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (ACE)—to reaffirm a stricter commitment to traditional Reformed theological emphases—reflects this impulse.[5] In particular, those sympathetic to ACE seek to halt what they describe as a slide away from historic faith. Some of David Wells’s books express this general orientation.[6] Often those who adopt this viewpoint express concern both that the evangelical left is embracing the worst elements of postmodern thinking and also that numerically growing churches are caving in to market-driven ministry strategies.

An opposite impetus counters with attempts to prevent the tent flaps from being staked too close to the center of the tent. The goal is to widen evangelical thinking beyond the confines of a particular historical era or theological tradition. For example, a loose coalition of so-called reformist evangelicals[7] seeks a broader understanding of what counts as evangelical. In particular, it counters the move to identify the name “evangelical” with the theological right. Members of this loose coalition generally hold that traditional evangelicalism fails to see the values in postmodernity and is still in the grip of modernity. This group endeavors to remain evangelical but seeks to disentangle evangelicalism from modernity. Reformist evangelicals generally occupy the leftward end of the evangelical continuum.[8] They are more non-traditional than those who occupy what might be called an evangelical center. [9] And Gabriel Fackre, thinking back over four decades of theological work, expressed hope about reforming a center for evangelical faith that will connect with the mainline.[10]

Since its founding in 1942, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has included a variety of denominations in its ranks. Not only is the Christian Reformed Church in North America a member of NAE, so is the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas. Alongside the Presbyterian Church in America are the Salvation Army, the Pentecostal Free Will Baptist Church, and now the Worldwide Church of God. Speaking denominationally, the NAE strategy clearly represents an inclusive philosophy. But the question is this: Can evangelical theology preserve a sense of unity if the theological traditions of these rather different denominations characterize the movement? Can evangelical theology maintain cohesiveness if the kind of breadth that the NAE practices denominationally typifies evangelical theology?

Our struggle to define evangelical self-identity and to specify our place on the theological spectrum animates discussion on who and what is truly evangelical. One way of thinking about these matters distinguishes two approaches by appropriating a distinction from set theory. This way of thinking about questions of definition develops the contrast between “bounded set thinking” and “centered set thinking.” Paul Hiebert first applied this distinction to theology in a seminal 1978 essay, “Conversion, Culture and Cognitive Categories.”[11] A bounded set approach defines a category by listing litmus test characteristics possessed by members in the set. It draws clear boundaries between objects that possess the qualities that represent the litmus test and those objects that do not. It assumes that the members of the set all uniformly exhibit these key characteristics and that the set is relatively stable. Once an object is identified as a member of the set, that status does not change.

A bounded set approach to defining the words ‘Christian’ or ‘evangelical’ typically identifies certain beliefs or behaviors to serve as boundary markers. Doctrinally defined, an orthodox Christian is one who affirms the deity of Christ. An evangelical is one who believes the Bible is inerrant. Behaviorally defined, a Christian is one who worships the triune God. An evangelical is one who never smokes. Now a belief or behavior that marks an edge of a category may not stand at the core of the Christian worldview. So relatively insignificant matters can function as litmus tests. These litmus test issues can take on significance in defining the boundary, but otherwise they matter relatively little. In these cases, the belief or practice that marks the boundary of evangelical orthodoxy stands at the logical periphery of the church’s thought or life. A logically inconsequential conviction or behavior carries great weight in the minds of adherents due to its role as a boundary marker. This is because a bounded set thinking style attaches great importance to the boundary line. Whether a person is inside or outside the boundary gets the concentrated attention. Whether the person is just barely inside the boundary or is all the way at the center is less important—as long as the person is in. This could lead to focusing on conversion—stepping over the line to become a Christian—more than on sanctification—the process of moving toward the center where deep allegiance to the lordship of Christ and the power of the Spirit matter most.

A centered set approach defines a category differently. A centered set strategy marks out a class by identifying a center and assessing the direction objects are moving relative to that center. It places less stress (note that I say less stress, not no stress) on specific doctrinal or behavioral boundary markers between “in” and “out.” In contrast to bounded set thinking, centered set thinking focuses on the direction of movement relative to a center. It contrasts those moving in against those moving out. Centered set thinking sees the objects in constant motion, and the question of current location is less important than the matter of the direction of movement. So the objects in the group can vary on peripheral issues, and the set is somewhat dynamic. Defining who is a Christian or an evangelical by using a centered set mentality leads to asking whether or not a person is moving toward full conviction of the doctrine of a triune God, full devotion to Jesus Christ, and full confidence in the Spirit. The key issue is the trajectory of the person’s life. Is this person becoming more like Christ?[12]

To contrast the bounded and centered set mentalities, consider two scenarios. The first scenario asks this question: What might these two mentalities say about Keiko, who is theologically orthodox and behaviorally traditional, but becoming increasingly cold toward God or disenchanted with her church? The bounded set thinker would see Keiko as inside the fold. She might think it unfortunate to see Keiko drifting from God but would take significant com-fort in her right beliefs and practices. By contrast, the centered set thinker would feel alarmed, seeing Keiko in grave danger in spite of her theological and moral correctness. He might think it good, as far as it goes, that Keiko affirms evangelical distinctives like the authority of the Bible and avoids vices like gambling. But he would focus in on the direction in which Keiko’s life was moving. He would feel distress over that trajectory, taking little comfort in Keiko’s professed beliefs and behaviors.

The second scenario asks this question: How might two persons who adopt the different mentalities interpret the story of Rachel, who is unclear about the doctrine of the Trinity and who was, until recently, sexually promiscuous, but is now seeking to turn her life toward Jesus? The bounded set thinker might assess Rachel primarily with concern as outside the Kingdom and in dangerous straits. The centered set thinker, while agreeing completely that Rachel is likely still outside the faith, might view Rachel with hope in light of her heart-expressed intention and apparent desire to begin following God more faithfully.

Centered set thinking would view a person who is assenting to orthodox theology but becoming cold toward the Lord to be in far graver danger than the repentant seeker whose mind is confused but whose heart desires God. That is, the trajectory of a person’s faith journey toward God is more important than the specifics of theological correctness. (Of course, she will wish for both; but forced to choose, the centered set thinker will emphasize faith commitment more than mental assent.) Bounded set thinking tends to put more emphasis on the boundary. In stressing boundary markers it encourages us to assume basic spiritual health or personal wholeness when certain evangelical distinctives are present in a person’s life—a sometimes dangerous assumption. This can lead, as it led some of Jesus’ antagonists, to straining out the theological gnat and swallowing the doctrinal camel. The weakness of bounded set thinking is that it sometimes majors on minor issues and minors on major ones. This feature of bounded set thinking antagonizes too many young people reared in bounded set mentality churches. While many young people assertively embrace bounded set thinking, the experience of living in churches that overemphasize boundary issues is leading too many of their peers toward disenchantment with faith in Christ.

Bounded set thinking views theology as playing a critical role in defining orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Bounded set thinking states clearly, from a theological perspective, what is Christian, what is evangelical, and what is neither. In so doing, a community states its self-identity, defining its belief structure both for itself and for others. A bounded set mentality focuses on maintenance of orthodoxy. In this sense, “an ‘orthodox’ tradition is one which keeps a community authentically attentive to and thus . . . answerable to something above and beyond its own present life: to its source.”[13] This differs from strategies that delimit the concepts “Christian” or “evangelical” by using soci-ological criteria. These alternative grids look elsewhere than to the church’s belief structure to find its most distinctive defining features. But bounded set thinking points to the beliefs or moral norms of a religious group as its most important boundary markers.

So is it legitimate for theology to have as one of its purposes the defining of boundaries? To defend boundary setting, some oppose centered set thinking by arguing that it does not define orthodoxy. And any strategy that admits no orthodoxy will also fail to identify heresy.[14] Bounded set thinkers tend to think that a lack of theological definition leads centered set thinkers into theological drift. This is a correct warning. Undeniably, as evangelicals, we must define ourselves both theologically and behaviorally.

Still, as important as theological self-definition is, overemphasizing theology’s role in defining the church’s self-identity can lead to traditionalism in a negative sense. Jaroslav Pelikan called traditionalism “the dead faith of the living” to distinguish it from tradition in the positive sense, namely, “the living faith of the dead.”[15] Traditionalism in theology is orthodoxy preoccupied with its own maintenance. It is a degenerating conservatism that expends too many resources staking out territory and defending boundaries. At times this growing conservatism identifies itself with a particular form of theology from the past. It begins to position itself primarily as the guardian of this tradition, and it digs in its heels against innovations that threaten change. When it takes up this role, traditionalism can lose capacity for honest self-criticism. It can forget that any model has limits and requires ongoing correction.[16] In a worst case, this can lead toward ideology in the negative sense. It can even hide political agendas or power interests, as various postmodern analyses make clear.[17] Hiebert rightly confronts this tendency of bounded set thinking to laminate many layers of tradition on top of each other in self-protecting ways. It is this layered traditionalism, found in groups that succumb to bounded set mentality, that those with postmodern intuitions can sense so quickly and reject so strongly.

In spite of this danger, a basic feature of the essential intuition of the bounded set mentality is correct and necessary. This basic feature provides a valid warning: evangelicalism does need theology to define in part the essence of orthodoxy. And this is so for a very important reason. A centered set thinker can assess who is evangelical by looking at the direction of that person’s life only if we identify what counts as evangelical. In other words, to make an assessment about the trajectory of a person’s life relative to a center, we must define the center toward which or away from which that person is moving. This definition of the center must include reference to theological commitments. Even if spiritual life is more inclusive than theological doctrine, a particular person’s spiritual life must fit within theological parameters if it is to be spiritual experience of Christ. A spiritual trajectory could hardly be described as Christian if it is not the formation of faith in Christ. Biblically, no faith is true faith if it is not faith in God as revealed in Christ. Faith derives its transformational value, not from its intensity, but from its object—the triune God. So without some clarity on the theological content of the center, no one could assess whether a person’s spiritual movement in one direction or another is either closer to or farther from the Christian God. And this makes theological definitions of orthodoxy essential.

Hiebert’s essay does highlight this point. Hiebert wrote that centered set thinking places “less stress on maintaining the boundary in order to preserve the existence and purity of the category.” But he also clearly stated that in centered set thinking, “the boundary is there.”[18] The choice, then, is not between decentered, bounded sets and boundariless, centered sets. In fact, this opposition is impossible. The very idea of a “boundariless set” is by definition contradictory. The meaning of the word ‘set’ involves the idea that sets include certain members and exclude non-members—which obviously requires a boundary. Evangelical theologians who submit to biblical authority are not free to define for themselves what true spirituality or even genuine allegiance to Christ actually is. Boundaries are defined as the church reads Scripture and makes theological judgments about truth and life. Giving up on boundaries is an invitation to create “God concepts” in a human image. It amounts, in other words, to an invitation to idolatry.

This means that in this context, bounded set thinking and centered set thinking share some features, even though they differ in other ways. In both habits of mind, theology legitimately performs a boundary-defining role by clarifying what is orthodox to believe. This amounts to defining what is truly Christian or evangelical. Such definitions are essential to Christian or evangelical self-identity. But the two habits of mind differ when it comes to identifying who is a Christian. Here centered set thinking provides a needed counterbalance to the too highly cognitive, excessively detailed, or overly traditional approaches to Christian self-understanding that bounded set thinking tends to produce. Centered set thinking focuses on a person’s deepest heart orientation. It stresses whether an individual is indeed seeking a stronger relationship to God. At the end of the day, when the issue on the table for discussion is a person’s salvific relationship to God, then that individual’s life trajectory is more important than his commitment to traditions or concepts that stand at the periphery of the Christian worldview. Augustine wrote centuries ago that if we would know whether someone is good, we must ask not what he hopes, nor what he believes, but what he loves.[19] Centered set thinking asks the question of self-proclaimed followers of Christ: Whom do you truly love?

Theology rightly but carefully defines what counts as orthodox Christian believing, and it properly excludes what is heterodox or unorthodox. Excluding what is unorthodox flies in the face of the postmodern ethos that impulsively values a pluralist habit of mind. But it is no defect or flaw that evangelical theology properly and legitimately excludes certain beliefs and practices—every worldview, organization, and movement must do so. This is an obvious lesson that leaders ignore to their peril. Even those who adopt relativism must stand for something. Affirming any idea or practice at all excludes its opposite. If the postmodern person proclaims relativism, then at a minimum he excludes exclusivism. If he defends tolerance, he opposes oppression. So the role of theology in defining orthodoxy—and excluding what is not orthodox—is legitimate. It has always been and will continue to be important to the self-identity of the church and of evangelicalism. Bounded set thinking emphasizes that theology must set the boundaries of orthodoxy. On this point, centered set thinking agrees! But centered set thinking, where my sympathies lie, entails that the theological definitions of orthodoxy ought to be about the large, central truths of the faith, not about minor issues that are important to particular traditions. Too much emphasis on minor boundary issues is a feature of a kind of traditionalism that harms the church.

Part of the reason that an overstressing of the boundary is harmful is this: defining the boundary does not exhaust theology’s functions. Theology as sapientia requires theology to do something other than police orthodoxy. Many sincere Christians act as though theology is at best irrelevant, at worst, detrimental to real spiritual growth. They do not realize that the growth they experience is mediated by the realities of God’s will, Christ’s death, and the Spirit’s work—realities that are described by theology. The divine realities that theology points to are indispensable to healthy Christian life. Knowledge of proper theology opens the path for Christians to delight in and obey the Lord whom theology describes. Good theology also shapes the affections and behaviors of God’s people. As it describes the core believings of Christianity, good evangelical theology elicits proper spiritual responses to the Spirit without which growth in godliness could not occur in a believer’s heart or a believing community’s life. So not only does theology identify the core doctrines that define orthodoxy, good theology also shapes, supports, and encourages growth in grace. This is theology in its role as wisdom.

Ironically, some Christians who say with one breath that theology is unimportant will boldly assert, in their next breath, their theological convictions about a variety of topics. As many theological professors regularly point out, Christians do not choose between having theological convictions and not having theological convictions. They select between pursuing good, well-grounded, biblical, and reasonable theological convictions and settling for a hodgepodge of theological beliefs. “Sapience includes correct information about God but emphasizes attachment to that knowledge. Sapience is engaged knowledge that emotionally connects the knower to the known.” Modernism sidetracked Western theology into discussions about the intellectual foundations of faith (even questioning the possibility of speaking about God).[20] While these are necessary topics (and obviously, I am addressing them in this book), contemporary evangelical theology must recover a clear sense of its practical purposes. Achieving these purposes will require getting past the issues I discuss in this book to a wisdom that is rooted in the Bible and focused on Christ. It is a wisdom by which the Spirit transforms Christ-followers and Christian communities, awakening a passion for God that leads to genuine worship and loving service.

The distaste for theology, viewed under the strictures of modernity, can inflict even pastors. A pastor of whom I know spoke with a couple in his congregation. Multiple calamities had befallen these two faithful members, and so they asked the pastor to explain evil and suffering theologically. The pastor retorted that he has no theology. Rather he bases his beliefs directly on the Bible. Further, he said, the Bible teaches that God controls every detail of every event in history in order to accomplish his purposes. The Bible teaches that God brought suffering into this couple’s life for a greater purpose, and so, the pastor concluded, they should stop asking theological questions and humbly submit to God’s greater purpose. They should quit thinking, start trusting, and just live for God. The couple, however, did not see this instruction arising directly from the Bible. In their view, the pastor had in fact given them a theology, drawing conclusions that go beyond what Scripture teaches. They felt condemned by their pastor, for they felt they already were trusting and living for God. This couple reported their story to me with quivering voices that dis-closed blossoming cynicism.

My point here is not at all to evaluate the specifics of this pastor’s theology. My point is to illustrate how well-meaning Christians, including ministers, ridicule the very idea of theology even as they promote theology. Of course, the couple is right. Their pastor does have a theology. But the question remains: Why does he feel the need to avoid theology in favor of the Bible? What are his mental images of theology that lead him to jump quickly to say, “I have no theology. I only teach the Bible”? We should take seriously the fact that the very word ‘theology’ conjures in some heads images of the proverbial question about angels dancing on pinheads. We should figure out how theology can be sapientia—directed to wisdom and spiritual vitality.

Admittedly, some theological ideas or theories are not essentially connected to any actual person’s lived experience and therefore seem spiritually moot. Such theories are more like hypotheses about, say, the reproductive habits of sperm whales or claims about how computer chips work. The reproductive habits of sperm whales might have great practical relevance to the lived experience of some persons. Perhaps a group of Inuit villagers follow spiritual practices that are bound up with an annual sperm whale hunt. The decline in sperm whale populations might create a crisis of religious confidence among the villagers. But few people in industrial societies will find any direct relationship between decline in whale populations and their own lives. People in industrialized nations will care a lot about computer chips and very little about the whale population. Similarly, there are theories in the Christian theological tradition that have no direct, discernible connection to the real lived experience of Christians. Certain theories about the imputation of sin, about the timing of the great tribulation, or even about theological method may strike Christians this way.

Take a concrete example: eternal security. The Bible expresses two themes. One is assurance: faithful Christians should not fear that some brutal power might tear them away from God’s loving care. The other is warning: persistently unrepentant sinners tragically separate themselves from God. In interpreting these two themes, evangelical Christians generally move to hold one of two theological theories: either they defend or they reject the eternal security of the believer. Defenders of eternal security explain the two themes one way. First, assurance is possible because no true believer ever loses salvation. Second, warning is necessary because some who appear to be Christians have not actually received salvation and could forfeit eternal life. Deniers of eternal security explicate the two themes another way. First, assurance is possible because God protects faithful Christians from any natural, social, or demonic forces that threaten their faith. Second, warning is necessary because persistently unrepentant sinners, including Christians, are in danger of throwing away their faith.

Both hypotheses—both the affirmation and the denial of eternal security—account for the biblical evidence. Both incorporate the two themes: assurance and warning. So which is right? A final decision on whether eternal security is correct might be impossible since the answer to a key question is beyond our ken: Was someone who once seemed like a Christian and now has fallen away actually saved in the first place? The affirmers of eternal security say not; the deniers say so. But there is no way to know for sure. So assurance and warn-ing as themes are both biblically grounded and practically relevant themes. But in terms of lived experience, eternal security as a theory about assurance and warning is impossible to demonstrate, given only direct biblical teachings. Of course, the issue is decidable in other ways. It could be affirmed or denied based on how it coheres with other theological convictions. Regardless, certain theological theories do not seem to have any direct pastoral importance.

On the other hand, some theological theories are quite important practically. Concepts of spirituality, for example, are quite varied. All of them must deal with the tension between the challenge to seek higher levels of faithfulness and the offer of God’s grace for spiritual failure. This tension leads today, as it did in the NT era, to dangers of legalism on the one side and lawlessness on the other. Understandings of spiritual growth that focus only on the challenge to moral purity and the power of God available to the believer (without the balancing theme of grace) can foster external conformity or legalism and spir-itual pride. Conversely, perspectives on spiritual growth that stress (without the balancing theme) the grace of God’s forgiveness, the impossibility of sinlessness in this life, and the enormous weight of sin can sometimes lead people into hopelessness or undisciplined complacency—cheap grace. The way in which a tradition communicates a theological hypothesis about the dialectic of human moral striving and divine grace can strongly affect the ethos of a particular Christian church. Couple that ethos with varied personalities and family or cultural relational habits, and different theologies will influence the development of a Christian’s life in quite a variety of ways. In other words, these theological theories, in their integrative dance, have direct and immediate practical impact on persons and the common life.

Further, there is a middle category. Some theological theories that seem to lack a direct relevance to life actually are indirectly important even though many Christians do not fully understand them or integrate them directly into their lives. Theological convictions that do not have an immediately obvious theological application and yet are fundamentally important constitute theological infrastructure, what we might call deep theoretical structure. Physical infrastructure in today’s society includes the basic installations and systems that permit a technological culture to function. This infrastructure includes things like sewer systems or satellite phone networks. These are invisible but critical. When I dial the phone, I ignore the technology that makes the system work. But if my dialing is to succeed, the entire system must apply correct theory and good technical practice. Similarly, certain key Christian doctrines must be true metaphysically, if the faithful believer is indeed going to receive salvation, whether or not the believer stops to think about the realities which those deep, infrastructure doctrines describe.

For instance, Paul says that the resurrection of Christ is vital because without it, we would still be lost in sin. No person could be saved if the resurrection were false. The truth of doctines that describe the resurrection and the metaphysical reality of the resurrection lies at a very deep, core level within the Christian theological worldview. Much that is of importance to the Christian worldview entails or is entailed by the resurrection. (For instance, the Bible teaches that the threat of death is overcome by Christ’s resurrection. Without the resurrection, therefore, the threat of eternal death would still loom over us. That would be serious.) But a Christian can gain the gifts of God arising from the resurrection with-out understanding all its inner workings, just as I can successfully call my wife on the phone even though I have no idea how phones work. A Christian could not receive those benefits (just as the phone could not work) if certain realities were not what they are. So a certain theological infrastructure must be true (even if individual believers do not understand it) for believers to receive salvation. This makes theological infrastructure critically important.

There are twin dangers here. On the one hand, some may choose to value only those theological beliefs that have direct and obvious practical implications. Although they correctly see that theology should be practical, they may overlook the fact that some theological issues, buried in a theological infra-structure, are necessary to sustain the spiritual benefits enjoyed even by those who never think about theology’s deep theoretical structure. On the other hand, others may emphasize and relish the subterranean theological infra-structure. They know that the practical application of these concepts is not always direct or obvious. But they also know that the doctrines are fundamentally important. Aware of the great value of deep theory, they sometimes speak as though the most important thing for Christian living is conceptual understanding of all the deep theory buried in our theological infrastructure.

Obviously, we need a balance. Some theories about biblical themes are relatively unimportant either pastorally or theoretically. (I think, for example, of differing views of the Great Tribulation.) Other theories are essential to the deep structure of the faith. (Here I think of something like a critical realism regarding metaphysics that I consider essential to evangelical thought and faith.) Theologians are right to spend their time carefully interpreting and con-firming those theories—even if they do not directly influence everyday life. And there is a third category of simple theological truths, and knowledge of them is critical for Christian life and growth. Some of these are straightforward, and laypersons may not even recognize them as theology. Yet they must be taught, for spiritual integration depends on them.

In his debate with Barth, the liberal Adolf von Harnack stated: “Life, not doctrine.”[21] This is surely a false either/or. But in reaction against the false disjunctive, we should not adopt the never stated but too often practiced: “Doctrine, not life.” An improvement might go like this: “Doctrine, therefore life.” But we do not begin our theology from scratch. As we begin thinking explicitly about theology, we bring with us our concerns, experiences, and cultures that need the correction and instruction of theology. So the best approach, preserving the biblical dialectic, is something like: “Life, therefore doctrine, and therefore life” (chapter 3). Epistemically, we are faced with the challenges of life. These force us to search for understanding, guidance, and inspiration. Christians gain this from Scripture and theology. The metaphysical reality that theology describes will sustain the moral life. In order to support Christian living, theology provides true, orthodox interpretation (What is life like?), direction (What should I do?), and encouragement (Why should I do it?). Theology and life rightly condition each other in an ongoing cycle of mutual enrichment.

II. INTEGRATING THEOLOGY AS SCIENCE AND AS WISDOM

Theology’s purpose as sapientia is conforming individual believers by the power of the Spirit to the image of Christ. If a theology does not transform a Christian’s heart and her church, it fails calamitously. Theology misfires if it fills a believer’s head with Christian knowledge without affecting his character and demeanor. Mean-spirited but theologically correct Christians are a plague. So if theology only defines boundaries, it easily falls into dead orthodoxy. The church desperately needs good theology—good both in content and in tone—precisely because the Lord intends that the church become a fully functioning and spiritually healthy community called the body of Christ. So how does theology contribute to the shaping of character and community?

A. Engagement

I suggest that people encounter reality and process theological truth in five different moments or phases. I do not think of these phases as sequential (though the following description might seem to suggest that). In encountering reality and processing truth in different moments, people go through a spiral of learning by moving back and forth between primarily cognitive and then primarily relational ways. Due to the spiraling nature of learning, there are many feed-back loops in the temporal sequence of phases. In real life, the process is much messier than it is in this model. The feature that distinguishes the five moments is that each phase raises this question: What are people doing with truth? Or: How are people interacting with reality? In each moment, people are doing something different with knowledge; at each phase an alternate sort of reality-processing occurs. Each of the five phases is critically important. Unfortunately, it often happens that a person skips one or another of the moments or phases of processing truth. I say that skipping any one phase keeps theology from fully achieving its purposes.

I label the five moments engagement, discovery, testing, integration, and communication. The first is engagement. By this I mean a person coming into contact with reality as mediated through language. This is the encounter with reality as it is exhibited or presented through truth. What I mean here is that when I meet a new person and share with him some common interests and personal history, a friendship might sprout. In this process, the concepts and categories embedded in my language and thought are the mediums through which I encounter a person. I actually meet Bill; I get to know Bill; I establish a relationship with Bill. The object of my experience is not ideas about Bill, or language that describes Bill, but Bill himself. I encounter the reality of Bill himself, as mediated through language and varied epistemic practices and processes. Similarly, when reading the Bible, I do not seek to engage mere ideas, concepts, or language. I actually encounter the reality of God mediated through the language.

It is critical to leave open the exact nature of the encounter a person might have with truth. I leave unspecified the specific form in which a person encounters reality because beliefs can form in varied ways through different sorts of experiences of the world. For example, an encounter with reality mediated through language could involve hearing an abstract message regarding the Christian worldview: perhaps someone first hears of Christian faith through an argument presented at an apologetics outreach event. Maybe William Lane Craig presents a compelling cosmological argument, and this impresses a cognitively oriented person who thought belief in God is irrational. Or an encounter with reality mediated through truth could involve reading the story of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. Maybe a man is distraught and begins reading the Gideon Bible in his hotel room. Perhaps he is entranced by the power of this magnificent person, Jesus. Or possibly an encounter with spiritual reality happens as a man walks through a silent redwood grove in California and spontaneously forms a true belief in God’s existence. Or finally, maybe a young, secular woman meets a man who shows romantic potential, and she is startled to find that on the first date, this man cares more about friendship than about sex, and she begins to wonder why.

I distinguish engagement with reality as mediated through truth as a sepa-rate phase. My point is to preserve the idea that people come into contact with God through a wide variety of media. Some engage God more abstractly; others encounter God more concretely. Some may find God through a worldview-oriented grid for encountering reality, and others may find God as a character in a narrative-oriented grid. We should not prejudge that the worldview grid—an abstract, propositional way of coming to knowledge of God, of encountering truth of God—is superior to a concrete, narrative, or more vividly experiential way. No! Indeed, the concrete path more often stimulates more people (excepting philosophers, lawyers, and engineers) to engage God. But neither should we prejudge that a narrative approach is inherently superior. People engage truth in a variety of ways. Some do it through stories, and oth-ers through propositions. Both work.

A worldview approach and a narrative approach will ask different questions. Theoretical structures and narrative structures differ like a video cam-era’s snapshot of an airplane and an x-ray machine’s snapshot of the airplane. One imitates human sight. The other does something entirely different, but equally important. In fact, x-ray pictures that reveal tiny fissures in the turbine blades of jet engines may confuse a layperson. A philosopher could not make heads or tails of this picture. But that x-ray picture speaks volumes to a mechanic. And the mechanic’s ability to read the picture—to access what is real about the turbine blades through the medium of this x-ray—matters hugely to the people who step on board. Both the video shot and the x-ray picture capture aspects of the whole. They can be and should be integrated conceptually—they are about the same airplane. In agreement with narrative theology, theoretical, propositional theology is not the single paradigm for encountering spiritual reality and thinking about God. And equally, in the tradition of conceptual theology, stories are not the essence of engaging God’s reality and speaking about spiritual things. (See chapter 12 on the nature of theological language.) Neither of these modes of language is more essential, more paradigmatic, or more normative than the other. Both are valid perspectives through which people encounter the reality of God and then learn to express that reality to others.

B. Discovery and Testing

“Feeling” reality through an engagement of truth is but a first step. The next two phases adapt a distinction from what is sometimes called the “logic of discovery.” These are discovery and testing. Some empirically minded philosophers doubt that there is such a thing as logic of discovery. They acknowledge only a psychology of discovery. Nevertheless, defenders of abduction, notably Charles Sanders Peirce,[22] argued that researchers do use norms to decide, at a minimum, which hypotheses are worthy of further investigation. Further, we assess rationally what aspects of previously rejected theories we should retain in the ongoing research program. Although discovery processes probably do not always use the same, single set of rigorous principles in all cases, it is not controversial to claim that someone trying to interpret some phenomenon must first develop a hypothesis to be tested.

In Conjectures and Refutations, Karl Popper suggested that a scientist’s first step is conjecture, a puzzling over some phenomenon. A scientist asks a question or looks for meaning because he senses a lack of order, explanation, or understanding. Curiosity could be aroused by a variety of sources—a conceptual puzzle, a religious conviction, an intuition or hunch, or even an experience of suffering. Whatever its source, out of this process a scientist develops a conjecture, a potential answer, theory, or hypothesis that is proposed for testing. In discovery, the scientist brainstorms creatively and intuitively to generate a theory or model that somehow explains phenomena or solves a puzzle, in terms of causal explanation, idea integration, or behavioral plan.

Discoveries, in the sense of creative proposals for testing, can arise from a wide variety of sources. Contrary to what some positivist and empiricist thinkers say, these sources can include religious teaching. Discovery involves innovative, constructive, and imaginative thinking. It can seek a smallish model of limited scope—a microperspective. Or it could pursue a comprehensive theory of general application—a macroperspective—that might constitute a new framework or support a different research program. But either way, discovery legitimately employs creativity.

A theologian must use creativity as she seeks to catch up all the deliverances of a biblical theology into a larger conceptual perspective. Kevin Vanhoozer suggested the term ‘mimesis’, creative imagination. Poetry, in Aristotle’s Poetics, is a mimesis that captures or represents human behaviors. Reality is expressed in a new medium. Similarly, theology re-expresses the biblical revelation, in its connections to other forms of human knowledge, in a more abstract and conceptual form. It takes the biblical revelation, in all its concrete and abstract genres and categories, and seeks to re-present that revelation into conceptual discourse. Theology does not merely repeat what the Bible says; it does not simply create an inductive summary of biblical teaching.[23] Theology as interpretation begins with inductive observation, but it requires that we use creative imagination to move beyond induction. Theology demands that we do constructive theology, creating new proposals that connect biblical revelation to new cultural movements.

But not every new constructive proposal is worth preserving. With a pro-posed model or hypothesis in hand, the scientists do a third phase: testing. In the hypothetico-deductive model, the scientist deductively infers the implications of the model and posits these as predictions. Then, through further observation or controlled experiment (as appropriate to the subject of the study), the researcher seeks to confirm and/or to falsify these predictions. The basic distinction between discovery and testing helpfully points to two levels at which humans engage theories or models that claim to be true. This sort of distinction applies, not just in the natural sciences, but in theological thinking and in ordinary reasoning as well. As Nicholas Wolterstorff suggested, “science and ordinary life can be viewed as on a continuum with respect to the presence of theories and with respect to the actions performed on those theories. . . . science [is] different only in degree from ordinary life.”[24] Similarly, using mime-sis, theologians construct theological models that purport to incorporate the widest ranges of data in the best possible way. For example, given the NT teachings about Jesus and dogma regarding both his humanity and his deity, we would first think creatively to imagine hypotheses that incorporate all aspects of the evidence. We would then work critically to judge which hypothesis most faithfully and fruitfully accounts for the relevant evidence—including primarily all relevant biblical data, and secondarily any data from history, science, experience, or tradition.

Before discussing the next phases in the processing of theology, note several observations that the discovery and testing phases raise. First, as evangelicals, we know well that theologians should work critically. But we devalue the need to proceed creatively. Ian Barbour said that science is both a process of discovery and an adventure in creative imagination.[25] The same is true in theology. Theological conservationists are more often interested in preserving theological models the church developed in the past than in creatively constructing theological theories for the future. On the other hand, liberal academics often honor creativity in theological construction at the expense of consistency with the Bible. Certainly we must resist the liberal mindset, for making originality the highest value risks a loss of the central control beliefs of the Christian faith. Yet, on the other hand, we must value creative theological proposals put forward by those who consciously place themselves under biblical authority. Of course, appreciating such proposals is not the same as adopting them. Appreciating them means valuing such work at the phase of discovery—prior to the testing phase. And testing, of course, will include the all-important question: Is it biblical?

Second, because we do tend to give preference to theological proposals from the past, we are susceptible to Popper’s enemy, confirmationism. Popper advocated falsificationism as an alternative to Rudolf Carnap’s confirmationism. Carnap said the gradual accumulation of positive evidence increases the prob-ability that a particular hypothesis is correct. A single negative result, however, shows that a general theory is false or at least that its defenders have applied it too widely. Popper adopted a more constricted conclusion: a model is possibly true if it remains standing in the face of rigorous attempts to prove it false. In defending confirmationism, Carnap says that the combination of many positive confirmations and no negative disconfirmations justifies a theory as prob-ably true. Popper worried that confirmation can lead to ideology. In an ideology, the thinker is so directed by her hypothesis that she focuses only on the confirming data, creating a self-justifying circle. It produces special pleading, where the evidence that fits a theory is taken as conclusive and contrary evidence is excused through some explanatory strategy.[26] While Popper’s approach may be too restrictive, the warning is valid: we must not fall into the trap of simply defending tradition by looking for positive confirmation. In a worst case, theology of this kind proceeds through prooftexting.

Third, it is right to develop theories in which we have personal interest. Indeed, why would a researcher study a hypothesis that he found completely uninteresting? People legitimately care about the outcomes of testing processes. Of course, researchers cannot allow what they wish to be true to count as evidence of what is true. Remember the example (from chapter 2) of the cancer researcher choosing to pursue a certain line of research in hopes of producing the cure to lung cancer because her husband was diagnosed with that disease. This choice of a research program is perfectly acceptable. But of course, she must artificially and temporarily lay aside her personal hopes for finding a cure to her husband’s condition so that the testing can proceed correctly. The fact that her love for her husband makes her passionate about finding a cure in no way demonstrates that the particular research program she is exploring will succeed. In spite of her desperation for a cure, her research program might be a tragic dead end. Similarly, in theology, I may hope that my exegesis of Scripture will confirm my denominational tradition. Yet it is incumbent on me that I face evidence honestly and follow where it leads.

No one skips phase two; people regularly make interpretative judgments about reality. But many Christians, including some theologians, routinely skimp on phase three. Christians can find their own creative proposals so compelling that they do not rigorously test their theological hypotheses. Some Christians lack the critical skills to evaluate whether an idea is actually justified rationally and biblically. So they accept what first comes to their minds or what just seems most likely based on “what I’ve always heard.” Others who do test their beliefs tend to do so more on the basis of consistency with cultural values or family history than with rigorous interaction with the Bible and tradition. Still others, including some theologians, can get locked into a confirmationist mode, looking for evidence to bolster their prior beliefs rather than evaluating their beliefs honestly against biblical and other data. Theological dialogue helps us avoid this self-reinforcing pattern. It forces accountability and honesty. I might ask myself, “But what if I took a Catholic or a South American or a missiological view of this? What would the evidence suggest then?” Better yet, I could enter dialogue with someone who actually holds one of these perspectives. The multiple frames of reference sharpen and correct each other. This is why theology is a function of the whole church, the community of the body of Christ, rather than of individuals working alone.

C. Integration

Christians must process truth at two more phases, however. The fourth phase is integration. The word ‘integration’ can mean many things, but I use it here to describe personally applying truth to the issues of one’s own heart. Integration is forging a connection between theological conviction, inward character, and the events of everyday living. Personal integration, sometimes called theological reflection,[27] consists in persons finding the theological meaning embedded in their experience and evaluating that meaning biblically. A very important example of this is how theology directly touches personal relation-ships. Integration pertains to a person’s ability in and experience of under-THE standing truth as it influences relationships to God, other persons, and self. Persons who integrate truth relationally will grasp its significance existentially, allowing it to create maturity of character and shape personal relationships. All people make sense of personally important matters by placing them against a broader interpretive background. Most people interpret them by drawing on family history or cultural background. In contrast, theological reflection means deriving the meanings of life’s experiences, and the structures of inward character, from the biblical worldview rather than primarily from family history, ethnic backgrounds, or popular culture.

In working at this fourth phase of integration, we still use discovery and testing. But instead of discovering and testing general theological hypotheses, we will work to discover and test specific understandings that directly interpret our own life events. In scientific research, for example, it is legitimate to work through discovery and testing in a relatively detached manner. A scientist who studies something like the reproductive habits of sperm whales may do so with very little specific, personal involvement in the outcome of his hypothesis building. Suppose he proposes that sperm whale populations are declining, not because of illegal hunting practices as often charged, but because of environ-mental contamination in particular bays where the whales congregate to mate. His direct personal involvement in that hypothesis is minimal. At most, whether or not he is right may affect whether his professional paper is published in a prestigious academic journal. But it will not directly connect to his working through his own personal life questions about God, family, friends, and self.

But there are events where assigning theological meaning to life events in a detached and remote approach is nearly impossible. Consider a different example. Suppose a single mother is feeling enormous inner anxiety because her boss just laid her off from work. Certainly, she will not leave this uninterpreted. People never say, “I lost my job. That’s all there is to it.” They generally say something more; they hypothesize about the causes, the results, or the reasons for the event: “I lost my job because my supervisor is too uptight.” But how does a Christian speak theologically about an event like this instead of using material inherited from cultural background and family history? She might hypothesize, for example, “I lost my job because God is punishing me for lying to my supervisor.” This simple explanation is second-phase thought—a step of discovery that creatively proposes a hypothesis that purports to account for an event. Immediately, however, she should move to testing. She should evaluate, based on some area of knowledge, her warrant for saying that the job loss is God’s punishment. If she works theologically as she should, she will access general theories about what the Bible says regarding God’s punishing. Whom does God punish? When? How? Why? But this testing happens infrequently.

In integration, a person uses discovery and testing to find explanations or interpretations of events in a person’s life. But it should do more. By interpreting the events of life, personal integration conforms a person toward Christlikeness. This moves theology beyond cognitive information to personal transformation.[28] So, for instance, if a scientist successfully proves to a pro-fessional society his thesis that pollution is the cause of sperm whale population decline, he has completed his task. But if a believer successfully shows that a particular theological theory or explanation of her life experience is consistent with Scripture, her job is not complete. The moment of personal integration—the phase of theological reflection—necessarily includes allowing theological truth to influence her heart. In personal integration, an individual processes theological truth, not merely cognitively, but also personally. In personal integration, obeying and living the truth of the Christian worldview begins to reconcile fractured relationships, restore confidence in the Lord, heal emotional brokenness, and (most fundamentally) develop godly character. This phase of truth processing is not exclusively intellectual, but primarily personal.

Just as some Christians skip rigorous conceptual testing, others overlook painful personal integrating. The biblically literate but cantankerous man I mentioned at the top of this chapter is a case in point. Avoiding personal integration can have several causes. A person may tend to block integration because of habits learned through an unhealthy socialization process. A per-son who grows up with rigid and condemning parents who never admit their own foibles, for example, might find it very difficult to admit his own failures and limitations. Because applying theological truth to one’s personal life often requires admitting brokenness, acknowledging inadequate resources, developing a willingness to learn, and actually changing behavior, it can be deeply threatening. Thus, many Christians—including theologians and pastors—continue developing their theological convictions even as they hold at bay the deep-est emotional and relational concerns in their lives or, at worst, harbor ungodly motives, habits, behaviors, or attitudes in their personal lives. Christians who unknowingly shield their personal lives from theological reflection can pretend they are “growing spiritually” when perhaps they are merely accumulating biblical or theological information or using high-level spiritual gifts for effective public ministry.[29] A seductive temptation for me—and for religious professionals generally—is to think that I am mature in Christ because I am knowledgeable about theology or skilled in ministry.

More biblical proclamation or exegetical study will not necessarily resolve this sort of failure to integrate faith. Indeed, when integration is not happen-ing, an ongoing intellectual focus can make the problem worse, reinforcing the conviction that “I’m growing in Christ,” when in fact I am only accumulating knowledge. Like a horse wearing blinders, some Christians go on with Bible studies or theological discussions at an intellectual level, all the while missing the connection between these and real heart change. Such people can continue to interpret the experiences and events of their lives using materials from family history or cultural heritage. Meanwhile they satisfy their intellectual curiosity with profound biblical teaching. I think of a person I know who is fascinated with eschatology. He attends Bible prophecy conferences, reads Hal Lindsey, and watches Jack Van Impe on cable television. But his theological hobby has as much impact on his spiritual life as bird-watching. Because of this unbalanced, cognitive strategy, those who are intellectually curious can substitute theology for spirituality. This obscures the point of theology. Its overly abstract language and its perceived disconnection from life means theology seems as important to life change as a chess match.

Christians have long understood the dangers of overly cognitive approaches to theology. In Søren Kierkegaard’s famous words,

What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain understanding must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.[30]

Some critics pick on phrases like “the thing is to find a truth which is true for me” as though Kierkegaard were propagating epistemic relativism. But promoting relativism is hardly Kierkegaard’s agenda. Kierkegaard does not dismiss objective truth outright. His purpose, rather, is holding theological truth in a way that really matters to life—hearing God’s Word so that it elicits desire for and commitment to God’s will and plan. Truth necessarily connects with objective reality; Kierkegaard does not doubt that. Rather he denounces a way of holding the truth that makes no dent on character. Fully recognizing that conceptual knowledge must trigger a transformation of heart and life, Kierkegaard emphasizes knowing truth in a manner that stirs the believer to live as a fully devoted follower of Christ.

Evangelicalism’s family tree includes many branches that arose in part as reactions against overly intellectualized theology. Calvin himself, writing in a context where Catholic theology had become academic and scholarly, called for theology that does more than flit in the brain. He promoted theology that is anchored in the believer’s heart and life.[31] Movements like various forms of Anabaptism, Pietism, Wesleyan revivalism, along with the Pentecostal and charismatic renewals in the twentieth century are in various ways responses to mere cognitivity. In today’s church context, many of the most influential pas-tors, those leading so-called megachurches, continue this theme by raising up the value of spiritual formation.[32]

Cognitive approaches that bypass personal integration bring several results, none of them happy. First, they give the impression that theology is being taken very seriously, yet they actually obscure the true purpose of theology. Uncovering details about the Bible is no replacement for the molding of character. Second, they give the impression that a true grasp of the Bible and theology requires formal study, that only those who study academically have the proper skills for reading the Bible aright. This is why Lesslie Newbigin protested, “We are in a situation analogous to one about which the great Reformers complained. The Bible has been taken out of the hands of the layperson; it has now become the professional property not of the priesthood but of the scholars.”[33] Third, they intimidate Christians who cannot do formal study in theology into thinking they either cannot or should not bother to be theological. In contrast to this, however, if theology is important to becoming Christlike, the simple believer who faithfully honors the Lord is the one who “gets it.” In other words, if she sees that knowing about God must lead to loving God, she may understand the point of theology far more deeply, if less clearly, than the aggressive but orthodox, seminary ladder climber.

In church contexts, an important development in the last several years is small group ministry. Some small group ministries are rightly criticized for lack-ing depth. Such Bible studies can too easily settle for “I feel that for me this verse means . . .” They sometimes degenerate into the proverbial pooling of ignorance. But this criticism is partly due to a misuse of the small group experience. There is a role for which the intimacy that emerges in small groups is indispensable. This role is personal integration. Small groups move beyond the intellectual discovery and testing of theological hypotheses. They move toward actually living out biblical truth. This requires a setting in which Christians model for each other the practice of theologically grounded living, holding each other accountable, trusting and loving each other, forgiving each other, encouraging each other on this path, and calling out the good that God has placed in each heart.[34] If the logic of discovery requires creative brainstorming and the logic of testing dictates critical judgment, the logic of integration demands the intimacy of trustful and graceful personal relationships so that theology changes lives for good. This context is needed for theology to succeed in transforming people into Christlikeness and fulfilling theology’s proper role as sapientia.

D. Communication

The fifth phase at which people work with truth is communication. I am speaking of communication in a wide sense to include all forms of ministry service and leadership. Communicating theology presents a number of special challenges. The first barrier to communicating theology arises because formal theology is typically abstract and propositional in form. Like any specialized area, professional theologians develop technical language that makes theology largely inaccessible even to many Christians, let alone to those outside the church. The abstractness of academic theology benefits theologians who are inducted into the society where this language is the norm. Technical theological language is a sort of shorthand that enables theologians to speak more efficiently and precisely. Technical and abstract language is more closed-ended; it limits hearers to precise and narrow meanings. But its very abstractness makes it more difficult to work with and understand. Technical vocabulary is unfamiliar to most people. It requires high levels of conceptual skill, and it can lack vividness and persuasive appeal.

To balance technical theological language, we need more concrete forms of expression—stories, pictures, metaphors, and analogies. Concrete language is more familiar to those not acquainted with the technical language. It is more open-ended, and it invites hearers to think creatively. It is more personally powerful. This is so both because it is more fully understood and because it is engaging and captivating. A story pulls in the listener, working around behind what C. S. Lewis called the “watchful dragons” of a skeptic’s rationality. It more readily encourages and inspires. It can persuade persons to act righteously. What kind of communication leads one to take a bite of nectarine? Clearly, discussing the chemical properties of nectarines will pale by comparison to presenting images of biting into that tasty, peach-like fruit with a slightly apricoty flavor.

But there are risks in using the concrete forms of expression. First, because they stress narrow ranges of vivid and impactful evidence, concrete modes of communication can easily do injustice to the totality of evidence. We can easily fail to offer a representative sample of evidence. Communication by way of the various arts can express only modest amounts of evidence because it focuses on communicating theology persuasively. Thus it constantly risks committing the fallacy of special pleading—of prejudicially selecting evidence that confirms a conclusion while ignoring counter-evidence. Second, because the various concrete modes of communication cannot be comprehensive, they are not suited to discovering and testing theological models or theories. That is where abstract modes of expression come to the fore, for they can generalize the evidence and assess it in a comprehensive and total way. Third, concrete communication tends to forfeit the greater clarity, sharpness, or precision that more conceptual language can achieve.

There is both power and peril in concrete communication. The solution is to augment concrete language with the abstract. Communicating with imagery and story is not the opposite of using evidence or argument. It is not a choice between abstract, evidential theology that warrants its conclusions and concrete, artistic theology that does not justify its conclusions. Stories need not bypass evidence. Alfred North Whitehead once remarked that imagination is not disconnected from evidence, but is a different way of highlighting the facts. Abstract modes of communication are able to clarify central distinctions and marshal large ranges of evidence. Concrete forms bring vividness to this evidence. Stories or analogies do this by highlighting small, representative, but impactful samples of the relevant data.

The writings of Lewis have currency half a century after he wrote because, among other things, he skillfully combined abstract and concrete modes of expression. Many note this quality in Lewis, pointing out that the Narnia tales, the space trilogy, and works like The Great Divorce and The Screwtape Letters overflow with analogies and imagery. But what is most impressive is the concreteness of Lewis’s more didactic works like Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. This no doubt contributes to their enduring value. Who can miss the punch of the following quote from “The Weight of Glory”—my favorite lines in all of Lewis?

Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.[35]

Good theology will include both the abstract and the concrete, bound in reinforcing relationship. The abstract provides precision while the concrete contributes power.

The recent trend toward narrative theology shows its strength at this point. Narrative theology is the kind of theology that highlights concrete narratives over abstract propositions. Narrativists prefer story to explanation.[36] Traditional evangelical theology tends to be abstract and philosophical, not historical. It is usually a lot like the work you are reading. It offers distinctions, definitions, arguments, reasons, explanations, and critiques. It does not offer extended stories about a person—a hero—who encounters difficulty in the form of some power or event or person—the antagonist. “Modern evangelicalism reads like an IRS 1040 form: It’s true, all the data is there, but it doesn’t take your breath away.”[37] This is a valid critique. Evangelical theology is typically too one-sided in its philosophical abstractness. The form—not just the content, but the form—of narrative theology is important. It serves as a valu-able complement to abstract theology. We should not disparage it.

On the other hand, some narrative theologians overstate what story can do. That narrative and story are essential does not demonstrate that they are sufficient for evangelical theology. That narrative is crucial to the total role of theology in the life of the church does not prove that all people think most basically in stories—that narrative is the essential way we process truth. This is why I left the form of the first stage of encountering reality and truth—what I called engagement—ambiguous. That is, I see no reason to insist either that all encounters with reality are mediated through abstract principles or that all encounters with real-ity are mediated through stories. It seems just obvious that we engage the real world in a variety of ways. I think we should allow for differences of cultural preference and individual style on this point. Both the abstractions we use in theory building and the stories we use in personal and community transformation play important theological tasks. We can and should integrate them.

Dallas Willard agreed that Scripture and theology should both help us know about God and also “inspire and cultivate a corresponding faith.” He argued, however, that “the power of stories alone to generate life-changing faith is much overestimated today.”[38] The reason for this is that a person’s preexisting perspectives and assumed ideas can powerfully shape what he experiences and observes. His presuppositions profoundly affect the interpretation or meaning that an experience or story takes on for his life. Since unexamined perspectives are potent enough to recast the meanings of stories, the stories alone cannot correct the assumptions. So theology rightly uses true beliefs of a more abstract sort. Theology rightly includes more than abstract propositions. But it should not contain less. “What we understand or do not understand, in any area of our lives, determines what we can or cannot believe and therefore governs our practice and action with an iron hand. You cannot believe in a blank, and the ‘blanks’ in our understanding can only be filled in by careful instruction and hard thinking.”[39]

Theology, then, includes both truth-discerning and truth-applying functions. Theology as scientia is concerned to tease out the best possible understandings of God, his will, and his ways. This happens as theologians appropriately pursue the discovery and testing phases in order to explore successively more adequate theological ideas, models, theories, and research programs. This requires objectivity and critical testing. Story alone is not adequate. Theology as sapientia functions to transform believers’ lives through integration, and Christians in turn influence people and communities through communication. In the final two phases, the brackets that are useful to theory formation and testing come off. The second and third moments in theology yield understandings that genuinely reflect the Word and the world; the fourth and fifth moments use theological truth to influence affections, decisions, and character. Affections lead people to decide on specific behaviors. Individual choices, when repeated, become habits. Habits reinforced eventually become character. And character, of course, retroactively shapes our affections. In this way, the truth of the Christian worldview, rigorously tested in critical reflection, can eventually become truth in personal appropriation. It is in this sense that Kierkegaard wanted truth to be true for me.

What happens when a Christian minister communicates theological or biblical teaching in an intellectual way without personal integration? Communication by those who have not fully integrated truth into their own personal lives remains at the cognitive level. It can fail to touch people emotionally, relationally, or spiritually. It can fail to address relational issues in the audience due to the communicator’s naïveté about unresolved issues in the relational aspects of his own life. Theology expressed by those who have not sufficiently related theology to their own lives may be biblical and orthodox. But theology fulfills its purpose as sapientia only when it first touches the deepest dimensions of a communicator’s heart. Out of wholeness and holiness, a communicator expresses theology in ways that effectively contribute to emotional wholeness and spiritual holiness in others.

Why must the communicator first be transformed? Medieval sacramentology taught that grace lies simply in the sacrament, so that an unholy priest can effectively administer God’s grace to the needy heart through the sacrament. Protestants consider this wrongheaded. Generally speaking, a person is trans-formed as she enters into a mutually vulnerable relationship with another per-son and opens herself to that person’s influence. Exerting this influence, with moral and spiritual propriety, is the essence of godly leadership. According to one definition, “Leadership is a dynamic process in which a man or woman with God-given capacity influences a specific group of God’s people toward His purposes for the group.”[40] The key word is ‘influence’—the use of a capacity to help bring change in another person for the good of the other. When this happens in ways that are God-directed, supportive of Christ’s Kingdom, and ultimately in the spiritual best interests of both persons, it is Christian leadership.

I know a high school sophomore who was once my son’s painfully shy and excessively compliant fourth-grade classmate. Since then, she has found friend-ship by developing relationships with the “Gothic” group—peers who listen to hard rock, smoke marijuana, wear black leather, and paint black designs on their faces. By adopting these external behaviors, she identified herself with and then found acceptance in this group. Now watch what happens. Identifying with this group does not instantly and automatically create in her a different set of internal personal qualities. Yet by placing herself with that group, she willingly opens herself to the influence of dominant members of the group. Explicitly through their words and implicitly through their modeling, these dominant members gradually mold her attitudes and perspectives, behaviors and habits, and in the end, her values and character. Over time, she opens her-self to the transformative power of the sub-community comprised of those in her high school who sport the Gothic look. In a similar way, one becomes God-like most fundamentally by experiencing the work of the living God—by doing life together with God, both directly in solitude and then in a network of inti-mate relationships in a community composed of God’s people.

If connecting with others is key to developing character, then it is important for a person who wishes to live the good life to open himself to positive influence through transforming relationships with those who will influence him for good. But is that good? What process defines and identifies the good life and thereby pinpoints which persons and communities will transform him into what is truly good? Theology! Right doctrine names and describes the God who is Ultimate Good and who transforms people for good. It properly expresses the path to spiritual transformation by grace and through faith. It properly identifies the people and communities that are the context where God can form us into a truly godly community. And then, what sort of person influences others to become godlike? Since personal influence includes mentoring, modeling, and teaching relationships that depend on instruction and imitation, those who wish to help others to become godlike at heart must themselves be godlike at heart. They are leaders because they are admired. Because they are admired, they are heeded and imitated. Everyone wants to “Be like Mike.” They have the audacity to say with Paul, “I urge you to imitate me” (1 Cor 4:16). Ministers who can explain the Bible but have not integrated it in their lives are dangerous. As a colleague once remarked to me about ministry, “You can’t do professionally what you haven’t done personally.”[41]

So which is more important? Cognitive theology or personal appropriation? Obviously, both matter. In every act of knowing, there are aspects of knowledge that are in the foreground, and other tacit aspects that lie in the back-ground. When we focus on intellectually rigorous exegesis of the biblical text, the life integration aspect (moment four) remains tacit. When we work to solve a practical problem of everyday life, the theological complexities (moments two and three) remain implicit. Think of how a zoom lens works. It focuses either on the foreground or the background. The photographer can pan out to the abstract and macroscopic or zoom in on the concrete and microscopic. When the focus is wide, the range of vision includes the big picture while obscuring details. When the focus is narrow, it captures a few fine details but shuts out the panorama. Whether the lens focuses on the wide or the narrow view, the other view is for the moment out of awareness. But the other perspective is never not there. Similarly, when an exegete is thinking about the implication of a certain grammatical construction in Jude, the meaning of life in the universe is not directly in view. But it is still integrally connected.

The dual purposes, scientia and sapientia, call upon the church for different gifts. Through theory formation and testing, the church develops the Christian worldview. This is a function of Christian scholars who think creatively and critically. Through integration and communication, the church applies the Christian worldview. This is a role of Christian leaders and com-municators. As these two functions require different gifts, the church obviously ought to value equally the clearheaded scholar and the artful communicator as partners in the work of ministry. The church ought to facilitate their cooperation. In some churches, the two gifts are embodied in different persons with a teaching pastor serving as a kind of scholar-in-residence and a senior pastor serving as the leader. At the same time, while the primary gifting of particular individuals may differ, each one, whether scholar or leader, should do some work in each of the five phases of theology. These phases of theology function rightly only when they operate in an integrated wholeness. The need for this integrated wholeness dictates that the body of Christ develop and apply theology by valuing the varied gifts the Holy Spirit has given to Christ’s church.

III. THEOLOGY AND THE EXPERIENCE OF TRUE COMMUNITY

A goal of theology as sapientia is that persons grow in godliness and in their relationship to God and to others. While this is personal, it is not merely individual. Christian community—authentic, intimate relationship to God and fellow believers within the church—is the womb of godliness. But truly spiritual community seems always just beyond our reach. We routinely mourn its loss. Thomas Bender pointed out that if one is to believe every historian who writes about the breakdown of community, it is unclear whether the crucial turning point was the 1650s, 1690s, 1740s, 1820s, 1850s, 1880s, 1920s, or 1960s.[42] This probably suggests that true community is fragile, and the struggle to experience it is ever present. Yet the ultimate purposes of theology are reached only as a theological vision directs the life of the body of Christ and as the life of the church incarnates the truth of theology. “The gripping message of the Bible will never be fully heard in the library.”[43] the key word. This is because theology does its work of forming us as we risk authentic relationships in the context of true spiritual community.

A. The Concept of Community

People use the word ‘community’ in a variety of ways. Some mean by ‘community’ a town or a neighborhood in a city. Others use it for an institution—the Bethel community—or for a group of people with a common interest—the Minneapolis arts community. Robert Bellah and his associates coined two phrases to describe groups that do not exhibit community in our richer sense of the word. Associates in a “community of interest”—say the membership of a business club—may have many acquaintances. But they seek out others in the club primarily in order to fulfill their own program for well-being and self-esteem. [44] Citizens of a “lifestyle enclave” share segments of their lives with others who are “into” the same lifestyle as themselves. Being in a lifestyle enclave means that only one slice of a person’s private life—usually a leisure or consumption slice—is shared with the group. But communities of interest and lifestyle enclaves cultivate “the narcissism of similarity.”

By contrast, true community is more an experience of intimacy and common life. It is inclusive and whole. It values people who are different. It is much more than a network of similar individuals who enter social contracts for the fulfillment of certain individual needs. The connections that people experience include many aspects of life, both private and public.[45] I emphasize the experience of community as the common life of a group of people whose interaction over time includes shared meanings and practices, and personal relationships of depth.[46] A Christian community is “a group of people who seek to develop a Christianly informed ‘common’ life, through regular verbal and nonverbal ‘communication,’ leading to the development of real ‘communion’ with one another and God.”[47] People in some local churches do not experience much true community. Authentic community goes beyond the superficial “Hello” on Sunday morning. In true community, each person loves and is unconditionally loved. Each one knows others and is authentically known.[48]

Experiencing community is the feeling of finding a social home. This does not require a formal organization. It is more a way of living together. One can share community with family and friends, a small group Bible study, or a church. It fulfills deep needs for belonging and intimacy. But while experiencing community fulfills my need for significance, if I use others simply as a means to my significance, then I undermine community. “Community is not loneliness grabbing onto loneliness,” said Henri Nouwen. “‘I’m so lonely, and you’re so lonely.’ It’s solitude grabbing onto solitude: ‘I am the beloved; you are the beloved; together we can build a home.’”[49]

Genuine and satisfying relationships with God saturate the common life of an authentic Christian community. Merely human community does not replace relationship with God. Some churches, and the people who populate them, substitute dominantly horizontal human connections for vertical relationships with God. In these instances, the literature of psychology and sociology that advocates emotional wellness or social justice can replace the Bible as the sacred text of the group. This may be explicit in some mainline churches, but evangelical churches are not immune to this phenomenon. “Helping people to feel loved and worthwhile has become the central mission of the church. . . . Recovery from pain is absorbing an increasing share of the church’s energy. And that,” wrote Larry Crabb, “is alarming.”[50] Cultural critics describe North American society as a “therapeutic culture,” and this cultural ethos easily seduces Christians to use spiritual resources for achieving emotional ends.[51] Genuine relationship with God will result in healthy human relations, but we should never think of spiritual resources as merely the best technique for achieving emotional health. Loving my wife brings me joy, but the joy is a by-product of love. Loving my wife is never a technique I use to enhance my joy.

Community is consistent with the practice of leadership. Community requires mutuality and service. But it does not entail a complete leveling of all functions and roles. It is possible for leaderless groups to lack community. It is possible for well-led groups to experience significant community. The common fear that leadership negates genuine community touches on a valid point. When a dictatorial leader uses power and status to achieve personal gain or promote a personal vision, community is destroyed. Bonhoeffer used the phrase “human absorption,” where the leader uses superior power to exploit another for the leader’s sake.[52] In Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, the older and wiser tempter, Screwtape, writes to his young nephew, Wormwood, regarding human beings:

We [the Lowerarchy of hell] want cattle who can finally become food; He [the Enemy—God] wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.[53]

This is the very essence of safe leadership.

The solution to self-centered and tyrannical leadership that destroys community is not negation of leadership but servant leadership. The phrase “servant leadership” seems contradictory. If both ‘servant’ and ‘leader’ denoted the same thing, the phrase would lack meaning. But servanthood is about a leader’s attitude and motivation. Leadership relates to role and function. A servant leader leads and influences, but in such a self-giving way that followers are formed for the good, the community is effective in fulfilling its goals, and all experience richness in their common life. Jesus is such a leader. He was powerful in his influence, but utterly trustworthy.[54] Godly leaders do influence members of a community, inspiring them to work toward a common goal. But they self-sacrificially love the citizens of the group and build them up for Jesus’ sake.[55]

B. The Theological Grounding of Community

Our North American evangelical spirituality has emphasized individualized faith. But several significant movements are giving the theme of community high visibility in theology. Narrative theology emphasizes the role of the biblical story in producing community. Stanley Hauerwas’s ethics of virtue focuses on communities of character. Alasdair MacIntyre stresses tradition as the nexus on which community depends. Theologies that reflect the experience of so-called excluded groups often celebrate community. This is true of black theology, [56] feminist theology,[57] and Latin American liberation theology.[58] As evangelicals, however, we tend to focus on the spiritual salvation of individuals. Only occasionally do self-professed evangelicals spotlight community. One exception is Stanley Grenz, who built a systematic theology around the integrative motif, the community of God.[59] So for evangelical method in theology, the onus seems to lie on anyone who thinks that a proper purpose of theology is to produce authentic community.

The Bible consistently supports the idea of God’s people as community: the presence of God with his people, the interconnections among God’s people in common life, and the importance of right human relationships with all peoples. Genesis strikingly teaches that prior to any introduction of sin into God’s creation, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen 2:18). Isolation does not fit God’s creative purposes for humans, and so God created two rather than one. These two became one flesh (Gen 2:24). Once sin created alienation in God’s creation, God began the journey toward reconciliation at the cross. He entered into covenant relationship with his people (Ex 24:1-8). He authorized building the tabernacle and the temple as the locus of his presence with his people. When the temple was destroyed due to the faithlessness of God’s people, the prophets envisioned a renewed reconciliation.

The prophesied restoration is accomplished through Christ, who is Immanuel, “God with us” (Matt 1:23). God founds the community of believers at Pentecost through the coming of the Spirit. The church is described as a body (1 Corinthians 12), an image that promotes the idea of unity and inter-connectedness among the diversity of gifts. The church is a community whose common life is characterized by a new and deeper kind of love (1 Corinthians 13). Its ritual of maintenance, the Lord’s Supper, is known as communion and a love feast. Within this community the pervasive barriers of social class and status—race, gender, economic status—are broken down (Gal 3:28). At the end of history, God will restore a people for his own name to inhabit the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21). This will be a great city, full of people of many tribes and tongues. It will be, in other words, a “social reality.”[60] Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. . . . We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.”[61] This community we call the church is not a human invention. Its creation depends on the propulsion generated by the Holy Spirit.[62]

Metaphysically, community as a central theme for theology is grounded in the inner life of the Godhead. A significant, emerging trend in evangelical theology delights to ground human community in the interpersonal richness of the triune community of three persons in eternal relationship with each other. The profound words of Jesus make this connection clear: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11). Thus, the triune God is both the paradigmatic embodiment of all true community and the initiator of human community.[63]

The individualism of our day makes recovery of this implication of the Trinity critical and timely. Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance”[64] gave classic expression to a dominant, modernist individualism. Of course, believers must take personal initiative and personal responsibility for their lives. But Bellah and associates said “individualism may have grown cancerous” today. For North Americans, the meaning of life is “to become one’s own person, almost to give birth to oneself.” We believe in cutting “free from the past, to define our own selves, to choose the groups with which we wish to identify.”[65] Modernism painted the tradition of a community as a burden, an obstacle to the liberation of the individual. But if that was ever true outside the rhetoric of the Enlightenment, Western cultures now face an opposite problem. Now our society lacks any consensus on how to make sense of life. When tradition is lost and individualism and pluralism run rampant, communal structures of meaning collapse. People find themselves connected to so many different institutions that no one set of relationships defines a unified “meaning” that pervades their entire life experience. Rather, the meanings of their lives are found in disjointed snips and snatches.[66]

A perceptive friend of mine observed that Gen-Xers (his peers) long for community because they experience significant alienation. They search for relief from isolation by pursuing personal relationships. But they have been socialized to behave in ways that undermine permanence in relationships. So they resort to short-term, “virtual relationships,” including casual sex, almost as a narcotic to salve the pain of the alienation they experience because they lack authentic intimacy. As the narcotic—the excitement of the novel relationship—wears off, they scurry around in increasingly frantic attempts to find the next relational fix and thus to satisfy deeply rooted desires for connection. The emotional buzz gained through a sequence of exciting new relationships staves off pain, but each failed attempt at intimacy makes the need for the real thing all the more urgent.[67] Without realizing it, they drink seawater; by taking in salt water to slake their thirst, they find a momentary relief that only makes their thirst more acute in the end. This represents a significant challenge to Christian apologetics. Gen-Xers are too often content to meet the crises of life with “odd and often inconsistent scraps of ‘philosophy’ picked up from anywhere and claiming no universal truth or even relevance. . . . The very conditions which create the need for meaning also make it extremely difficult to meet it.”[68]

In addition to individualism, economic atomization makes the theme of community important. Economists say the industrial world is receding, and the information age is emerging. In this new world, people are mobile, business transactions are instantaneous, capital flows across national boundaries, and citizens ignore the common good of particular nations. New social organization arises as the knowledge class segregates itself from the producing and serving classes. With regard to personal life, people are not members of traditional social classes. Every soul is now “a new kind of cosmopolitan, postmodern individual [living] in re-engineered cultural spaces.” In this postmodern culture, the person faces an avalanche of “goods, images, money, ideas, and other human beings. The shared meanings and background practices of community are emptied out as a deracinated ‘I’ is set adrift from community in a process of individuation and atomization.”[69] Not even Japanese companies promise lifetime employment anymore.

C. Life in Community

Evangelical theology in the new millennium must respond to our technologically rich but relationally impoverished culture. More keenly than in the past, Western people today need the community of faith as the context where character develops. To make sense of life and give direction to life, Christian Gen-Xers who follow the patterns of their generational culture will snatch pieces of theology that seem to fit immediate needs and throw away what is unsuited to their tastes. A pastor friend told me of a faithful believer who worships with the church he leads. This woman accepts many standard evangelical doctrines, but adds to them a firm belief in reincarnation. In a consumer culture, doctrines become items on a theological smorgasbord. The postmodern world is ultra modernism in that it magnifies modernism’s commitment to individual freedom to the tenth power.[70] The aimlessness of contemporary life is not cured by more Bible trivia.

In this cultural context, Steven Garber analyzed why far too many persons who view themselves as Christians during college years gradually move away from evangelical faith. These people understood the Christian worldview, studied the reasons why it makes sense, read all the right books, knew all the best arguments, and adopted the Christian faith as their own. But by mid-life, they had fallen away. Garber summarized the results of his interviews:

Over the course of hours of listening to people who still believe in the vision of a coherent faith, one that meaningfully connects personal disciplines with public duties, again and again I saw that they were people (1) who had formed a worldview sufficient for the challenges of the modern world, (2) who had found a teacher who incarnated that world-view and (3) who had forged friendships with folk whose common life was embedded in that worldview. There were no exceptions.[71]

Garber’s findings about the three qualities that are essential to a life-long commitment to faith support the phases of the truth engagement model. First, Garber identified the need for Christians to develop a theological perspective that is strong enough for today’s intellectual world. Part of my purpose in writing this book is to describe how Christians may develop and warrant such a theological worldview. A theology of sufficient strength is not merely biblically sound. It will engage a variety of other academic disciplines, finding what Pannenberg called the “traces” of God that appear in all scholarly fields. It will also engage secular concerns. Newbigin said, “Theology has been the preserve of those who minister as priests and pastors to the inner spiritual life of their people. Consequently, when theologians whose whole work is in this pastoral ministry try to speak about matters of politics and economics, their words do not carry weight.”[72] But the Christian worldview can speak meaningfully to the worlds of economics, medicine, business, politics, and communication. And we must get clear on how it does so.

Second, permanent and personal transformation of people’s lives requires personal relationships. Garber raises two aspects of this. One is the community, and we will discuss this below. The other, given the university context of his discussion, is the mentoring role of teachers. Mentoring is a fuller sort of teaching that is more than passing on information to a student in a classroom. It includes a teacher giving of himself in a faithful, personal relationship to the student, inviting the student to open himself to the mentor’s influence, and then handling that openness with the good of the student primarily in view. It involves attending to affective dimensions of the student’s growth process—motivation, attitude, and character—with sensitivity to encourage and with wisdom and courage to confront. It demands a modeling in which the mentor lives out the Christian worldview for the student to observe and imitate, up close and personal. It requires a willingness to become vulnerable, to be real and genuine, and not to hide behind masks or pretense.

Good teaching requires a context of trust. Intellectual rigor and clear thinking require that students have space for differences of opinion and freedom to explore ideas. These are communal and relational values. “Good teachers . . . bring students into community with themselves and with each other—not simply for the sake of warm feelings, but to do the difficult things that teaching and learning require. . . . In the absence of the communal virtues, intellectual rigor too easily turns into intellectual rigor mortis.”[73] “If community is not a foundation stone of the educational enterprise, these skills quickly degenerate into the capacity for disconnectedness that is so characteristic of educated people today.”[74] For teaching, the key is not just objective knowledge, but spiritual values. Love is essential to teaching.[75]

The open and honest relationships that are the core of community are also the heart of pastoral leadership that leads to genuine growth in believers. Regrettably, some in pastoral ministry emphasize informational teaching and preaching.[76] They have moved through phases one, two, and three, skipped four, and moved straight to five. Having mastered information, but skipped personal integration, they do not elicit from those entrusted to their care a genuinely transforming engagement with the gospel. This may happen in part because when these pastors attended seminary, their professors modeled for them dominantly cognitive and intellectual approaches to Scripture and theology. Since mentoring involves learning by imitation, the professors of cognitively oriented pastors did not connect with them at a personal level. So now, as these pastors serve in churches, they perpetuate overly intellectual approaches to theology.

Of course, many professors do connect with students even when they are not explicitly working off a community-oriented model of teaching. In these cases, the personal dimensions of mentoring happen unintentionally. Such teachers are unconscious competents—people who are very competent at a task without conscious attention to the task. (They are like Ted Williams, the great baseball hitter, who instructed young players, “To hit well, just watch the seams on the ball.” But other players just could not see the ball rotate by watch-ing the seams on the ball.) Relationally sound teachers share their lives, and they exert an influence on their students that is transforming. Explicitly, they may promote a classical and cognitive model of teaching and leadership. Implicitly, they do much more. Without fully adopting a sapiential model of teaching, these teachers still profoundly influence their students at a personal level. In the end, the rigors of ministry require not just abstract, academic, theological correctness, but theoretic and critical skill integrated with open, relational authenticity. Whether the task is teaching or ministry, this integration is the key to biblically profound leadership.[77]

All of this suggests that true community—a common life, shared meanings and practices, and personal relationships of depth—is central to the transformational work that theology should accomplish. For their effective practice, both the teaching of theology and the leading of God’s people require leaders to influence their associates. God designed ears and brains so that humans naturally learn a language by being stimulated by that language. Similarly, God designed hearts and souls so that they naturally develop into persons of character when they are stimulated by Christ’s love. The authentic relationships found in community are a necessary avenue by which individuals develop into mature and spiritual persons. This is because humans are so constituted in character that they are suited to life in community. This is what God desires us to become, for God desires us to be in relationship with him.

Covenant love with God, in community with his people, is just what this postmodern era needs. Due to the fractured and pluralistic influences of secularized Western culture, it is more important than ever that the spiritual growth of Christians be internal, not merely external. “Internalized faith” is any model of spiritual vitality that measures spirituality by looking at personal congruity—a quality of harmoniousness, correspondence, or agreement—between private reality, personal ideal, and public presentation. My “private reality” is what I really am. It is what really happens inside, how I actually experience and live out my relationship to God and others. It is my real spiritual life. My “personal ideal” is what I stand for, what I desire my life to be. This ideal includes both conceptual and concrete pictures of what life should be, and these are rooted in a theological vision. My “public presentation” is what I display to others, how I try to appear to others. It is my projected image. Mature faith, internalized and lived consistently, involves all three—private reality, personal ideal, and public presentation—in congruence.

“Externalized faith” is any model of spiritual formation that uses personal conformity to external criteria as its only or primary measure of spiritual vitality. Christians who emphasize externalized faith will focus most on complying with institutionally defined norms. They stress external indicators—they can be liturgical, theological, or behavioral—as the best indicators of spiritual wholeness. They measure spirituality by looking at whether a person participates in certain worship forms (taking the Eucharist or experiencing “the anointing”), adopts doctrines (believing the Westminster Confession or defending believer’s baptism), or follows rules (making a sacred pilgrimage or not smoking). Bounded set strategies for defining genuine faith, or for identifying genuine believers, tend toward externalized faith. Bounded set thinking tends to place value on peripheral theological ideas or minor behavioral rules as indicators of spiritual maturity. It can ignore deeper (but admittedly more subtle) indicators of authentic faith. When a church places too much emphasis on external faith, people can adhere to institutional expectations, exhibit external signs of faith, and still miss experiencing deep, inward transformation.

Of course, in churches where an externalist mentality dominates the culture, many people can in fact experience a genuine internalized faith. I know people in fundamentalist churches whose theories about Christian faith emphasize overt behaviors like smoking as important measures of genuine spirituality. Their hearts are really very tender toward God. Further, for people whose faith is congruent, external conformity to reasonable community expectations grows from and therefore really is evidence of mature, inner reality. So to say that institutional standards are less central to authentic faith than loving the Lord is not to say that standards are irrelevant. But externalist models of spirituality do not hold out a vision for going beyond compliance with a church’s chosen external indicators of spirituality. For this reason, those who miss out on inward experience of authentic faith place too much confidence in external beliefs and behaviors. For example, some pastors, when confronted with parishioners struggling with sexual addiction, cannot get beyond, “The Bible teaches us to avoid adultery, so stop doing it.” And this kind of teaching is notoriously unsuccessful in helping people move beyond these addictions. Externalism stumbles because it cannot solve the problem of a failure to internalize faith.

Externalism creates several problems for the church. First, believers get frustrated when they do all the external things as they are instructed, but still sense a gnawing internal gap in their experience with God. They live first with unfulfilled expectations and then with an anxiety over being found out. Second, strangely unable to experience the internalized faith they are looking for, some begin to expend energy maintaining the public image and hiding the incongruence between real and ideal. This leaves them spiritually hollow. They should be using the energy to find real connection with God. Third, Christians who are spiritually hollow but who fulfill external religious criteria are counted as “spiritual.” They may even rise to positions of church leadership. Fourth, these people in positions of leadership (still spiritually hollow) often resort to inappropriate forms of pressure to force other group members to follow them in conforming to external symbols of spirituality. Finally, such leaders tend to become protective and defensive about their external ideals. And they can become brittle and shrill. They sense inward insecurity about the hollowness they know is there, and they feel concern about an inability to relate well to those with different ideals. In a worst case, this can lead to the strident rhetoric against unbelievers that pluralists call “hate language.”[78]

Externalism also creates problems for those outside the faith. First, second-generation believers fall away from the church because they followed the externals as required only as long as they stayed under the external control of an institution. But outside the sheltering environment and its social pressures, they began to see the externals as pointless “hoops” and drifted away from whatever faith they had. They are now inoculated against true faith. Second, those who drifted away or never were part of the church can spot the lack of congruence among the faithful from a distance of some miles. We used to call this hypocrisy. Now they say the church “isn’t real,” fails to be “true to who you are,” or lacks “authenticity” (the word of choice for those who study existentialism). This issue is especially acute for younger people. One study claims that by comparison to Baby Boomers, those born in North America after 1965 are 10 percent more likely to consider themselves “religious,” but 10 percent less likely to join a religious institution.[79] These percentages rep-resent millions of North Americans. Their disenchantment with the church is theologically significant.

There are various reasons that externalism flourishes. Some of our moral instruction emphasizes externals: “What will the neighbors think?” “What if Jesus came back and saw you doing that?” “Is this a good testimony?” These strategies create a sense of need to keep up appearances, but they do not address inward attitudes and passions. Some family patterns may be strict and punitive in style of discipline. But they lack a larger picture of why Christians should behave in certain ways. Thus the stereotypical parental “Because I said so.” The simple fact is that externals are much easier to observe, document, and control.

But externalism can fail to produce personal transformation. Paul the apostle makes this point with characteristic fervor: “Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ‘Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’ These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations . . . lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence” (Col 2:20-23). Paul’s statement is shocking to those who grow up in legalistically minded churches. But it shows why true community is so important as the locus of theology. If my faith is held completely privately, I can hide inward stagnation and sin behind dutiful external conformity (of a liturgical, doctrinal, or behavioral sort). My external performance can seduce me to think I can move directly from my own individual experience with God to participation in ministry and even leadership. I can avoid confronting serious short-comings in my heart. This is why Bonhoeffer’s statement reverberates with insight: “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”[80] If I as a leader cannot relate with integrity to others, a privatized faith makes me an unsafe leader.

A twofold typology that moves from personal faith in God directly into min-istry for God allows individuals to skip the spiritual integration phase. Pietistic evangelicals in North America today draw a straight line between solitude with God and ministry for God (although in practice, much real community is often experienced). What we need is a threefold typology of interplay between solitude, community, and ministry.[81] This typology requires personal, internal faith in which God personally addresses the believer. It requires genuine community as the antidote to a privatized faith in which one seals off certain areas of life and avoids dealing with inward sin or stagnation. And it leads to authentic ministry. Overcoming a privatized faith means that continuing to move toward deeper experience of God requires both a rich theology of community and the courage to risk opening oneself up to it.[82]

John Stott wrote, “Every authentic Christian ministry begins . . . with the conviction that we have been called to handle God’s Word as its guardians and heralds. . . . Our task is to keep it, study it, expound it, apply it, and obey it.”[83] This indicts ministry that involves explaining the Bible but does not actually put in place the pathways that hold the minister accountable to obey it. Of course, we can talk about allowing the Bible to transform, but talking about community is not the same as being in community where one actually experiences accountability. We are rightly admonished:

read [the Bible] in a repentant manner. That is, read with readiness to surrender all we are, all of our plans, opinions, possessions, positions. Study as intelligently as possible, with all available means, but never merely to find the truth and still less merely to prove anything. Subordinate your desire to find the truth, and your desire to have oth-ers do the truth, to your desire to do it yourself![84]

So theology is rightly understood as sapientia, the wisdom that comes from loving and obeying the true God. True community is the context where scientia is encountered and tested. It is where the knowledge about God becomes knowledge of God. It is where sapientia is nurtured.

IV. CONCLUSION

What is the overriding passion of my life? David, king of Israel, failed spectacularly, even after Samuel described the young David as “a man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam 13:14). God’s delight in people who pursue his heart is as strong as his revulsion over those whose insatiable self-love leads them to cultivate external religiosity for public display (Matthew 23). My thesis is that evangelical theology is the science of God, anchored in the Bible, that awakens the wisdom of God within believers’ hearts and in Christian community. Theology provides the vision that guides and motivates those who desire God. Good theology fosters the love of God without which no one becomes good. Those who become good because they open themselves to being loved by God will enter covenant relationship with him and with fellow believers. They are the ones whose deepest longings for love and belonging, for meaning and significance will be satisfied forever. This is theology in its role as sapientia. Yet the dominant perspectives of contemporary culture cast doubt on whether this sapientia is possible. These cultural plausibility structures presume that the natural sciences offer a far more compellingly true account of life—an account that is rich in its description of material objects, forces, and processes, even if impoverished in its understanding of human purposes and the ultimate Good. So do the natural sciences undermine theology? Is evangelical theology rationally plausible, given the impressive success of science?

CHAPTER

EIGHT

THEOLOGY AND

THE SCIENCES

Not long ago, I helped a church doing evangelistic outreach. I made a public presentation, geared for those not yet committed to Christ, about how faith in Christ is intellectually justified and personally meaningful. The church’s leaders had chosen a neutral site, a beautiful community room in a local bank. Many members brought seeking friends. After speaking, I entertained questions. The third questioner was a brash young man. (The pastor had warned me that the young man said he was coming just so he could destroy the faith of the presenter.)

“What would you do,” the young man wanted to know, “if I proved scientifically that God doesn’t exist? Look, science follows the facts. Religion doesn’t. Scientific people adopt only what is provable. Religious people believe in spite of overwhelming contrary evidence. Scientific people follow the evidence. Religious people, Christians included, believe what is emotion-ally comfortable. So could anything disprove your Christian faith? If I gave you conclusive scientific evidence against God, would you give up your faith in God?”

My swaggering questioner apparently thought I would say that my faith would remain intact even if evidence proved conclusively that Christianity is false. (I think he was poised to say that any unfalsifiable position is meaning-less and should be abandoned.) Instead I said, “First, conclusive scientific arguments—either for or against faith—aren’t possible. Second, the Christian faith is intellectually robust. In fact, the evidence doesn’t point away from God, but toward him—which is one reason I believe. But third, if evidence did conclusively falsify Christianity, I would not believe. The heart cannot embrace what the mind regards as nonsense.” My answer must have startled him, for he asked no more questions.

I. THE RISE OF SCIENCE AND ITS CHALLENGE TO THEOLOGY

My surprised questioner exhibited a common prejudice about the relation of science to theology. He just assumed that science possesses a rational legitimacy, an intellectual credibility, that theology lacks. Many share this prejudice. Some hold it explicitly, and they offer various defenses for the alleged rational superiority of science. Others merely assume it, and they allow the broad presuppositions of our era to sustain their bias implicitly. As we do evangelical theology in a culture where many respect the prestige of science but question the reasonableness of theology, it is hard to imagine a more important issue. So how should we conceptualize the relation of science to theology?

A. Science as Rational Ideal

In using the word ‘science’, I refer to both the natural and social sciences—like chemistry and sociology.[1] The Latin, scientia, means “knowledge.” For medievals, scientia denoted any discipline that investigates a particular object and employs methods suited to that object. In this sense, as I have argued right along, theology is a science. The disciplines that we now classify as scientific were once designated “natural philosophy.” The medievals based their theories and explanations in natural philosophy as much on the received perspectives of ancient authorities as on the investigations of living observers. The earliest versions of what we now call the scientific methods emerged as philosophers began supporting their views about nature more explicitly in empirical observation and then in experimentation. This is the so-called Scientific Revolution. It coincided with the Reformation. In the 1540s, Calvin produced the Institutes of the Christian Religion, publishers posthumously printed Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, and a Latin translation of Archimedes’ works appeared in Basel.

In the Scientific Revolution, scientists increasingly trusted their own observations and created instruments to refine those observations. Scientific knowledge began accumulating as scientists collaborated with colleagues at great distance through written documentation and correspondence. The newly invented printing press distributed scientific ideas widely. Before the eighteenth century, when someone said that natural philosophy or some other discipline is “more scientific,” he meant it is more exact. By the early eighteenth century, calling an idea “scientific” came to mean that the idea is very reasonable. And in the early nineteenth century, scholars came to see their scientific methods as distinct from epistemology in general due to their empirical basis. As the sciences developed, the meaning of the word ‘science’ evolved further; it came to mean “empirical science.” By the turn of the twentieth century, empirical science held a special place of prominence and prestige.[2]

The notion that empirical science is the very ideal of rationality answered a concern that arose with Descartes’ (1596–1650) new start for epistemology. For millennia, philosophers agreed that error leads to misery and truth to human good. So philosophers long had valued the search for truth. But Descartes represented a new beginning in the attempt to avoid error and find truth, in part because he determined to overcome doubt by rigorously following a properly objective method. He believed that with disciplined use of a correct method, he could achieve certitude and evade skepticism. Descartes modeled his own preferred method for finding absolute certitude after geom-etry. In his famous Discourse on Method, he stressed deducing theorems from self-evident axioms.

Although geometry seemed like a good model for knowledge, the history of mathematics produced a crisis for rationalist method based specifically on geometry. In the nineteenth century, mathematicians developed alternate geometries. Euclid assumed that for any line l, and point p, one and only one other line, parallel to l, passes through p. But working with concepts like curved planes, Georg Riemann (1826–1866) and Nikolai Lobachevsky (1793–1856) produced alternatives to Euclid’s system. Riemann assumed that no lines, parallel to l, pass through p, and Lobachevsky presupposed that an infinite number of lines, parallel to l, pass through p. Riemann’s and Lobachevsky’s geometries pass the rationalist test of coherence just as effectively as Euclid’s. So geometry does not produce one absolutely certain, true system. People today cite these discoveries in geometry as reason to question whether certainty of knowledge is possible. Descartes’ geometric method led, not to undoubtable certitude, but to conflicting conclusions.[3] Thus, intellectuals eventually rejected Descartes’ plan of using the geometric method to arrive at indubitable truth. But Descartes’ influence continued on in this way: his successors retained his assumption that epistemology must attain certitude to evade skepticism. This polarity—the forced choice of either certitude or skepticism—profoundly shaped the modernist approach to knowledge.

Descartes’ contemporary Francis Bacon (1561–1626) approached knowledge in an opposite way. Bacon was not really a scientist himself. He did not understand scientific methods as we know them. (For instance, he had no conception of testing a hypothesis.) But he did rely on simple sense observations and induction. A practical, self-promoting government official under Elizabeth I and James I, Bacon was convicted of taking bribes late in life and stripped of all position. He died from an infection he contracted while stuff-ing a chicken with snow, hoping to learn whether freezing would prevent spoiling. Despite his checkered life, Bacon did propel science forward. He believed that Scholasticism stifled learning, and so he gathered the growing hostility toward medieval methods into support for a new path. He defended an inductive method. He tried to infer natural laws directly from observations by cataloguing, comparing, and distinguishing the objects of study.[4] (Note that Bacon influenced the theological method that Charles Hodge endorsed. Hodge patterned his oft-quoted definition of theology after the Baconian model of science. Hodge said that dogmatic theology infers principles from the facts of Scripture just as science derives natural laws from the facts of nature.)[5]

But just as Descartes’ rationalism is flawed, so Bacon’s inductivist model is defective as a description of scientific method. As genuine science proceeds, scientists do not come to the data tabula rasa. Facts do not simply and straight-forwardly speak for themselves. Scientists begin their work with at least implicit hypotheses to guide observation. These hypotheses sometimes reveal and sometimes obscure certain features of an object of study. These hypotheses include evaluative criteria which themselves have a tradition, as Alasdair MacIntyre shows.[6] The clean, acultural, factual inductivism of Bacon in sci-ence (and Hodge in theology) is as much a mythical ideal as Descartes’ desire for a single geometric method.

In the year Galileo died, Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was born on Christmas day. By age twenty-three, Newton had put together a comprehensive system of celestial physics—all in all, a staggering feat. His true achievement was not in finding new details, for most of the facts were already known, but in putting them together as a whole.[7] Newton also developed a new picture of science: he conceptualized science as a method that includes both rational and empirical elements. Over time, a new picture of science, the hypothetico-deductive model, developed along lines that are generally consistent with Newton’s reflections on scientific method. In this view, science operates by beginning with observation, moving through classification, inductive generalization, hypothesis-building, prediction, and experimental testing.

Science moved forward neither by following Descartes’ overly conceptual, rational method nor by adopting Bacon’s excessively observational, empirical approach. Rather, science followed Newton’s reflections on scientific method that emphasized a delicate balance, a dialectical interplay, between these two.[8] It developed a variety of specific methods or approaches that integrate rational construction (mathematics) with observational confirmation (experimentation). Still, scholars did not abandon Descartes’ desire of finding a single method. Still today, some will describe the hypotheticodeductive method as the scientific method. So Descartes’ search for a single method in epistemology set the stage for the modernist view of science by launching the search for a single, rational ideal for achieving objective truth. Modernist science—the modern picture of what science is—emerged for some as the answer to Descartes’ way of posing his problem of epistemic doubt: either achieve certainty or concede skepticism. Modernist science is a particular view of science: it posits empirical science as the ideal of rationality. It sees science as a single, unified, robustly empirical method that overcomes skepticism. Most importantly, it identifies this sort of science as the principal (or only) rational path to avoiding skepticism and achieving objective knowledge.

B. Science as Cultural Authority

As modernists came to see empirical science as the ideal of rationality, they also worked to raise science to a place of cultural prominence. Many intellectuals—people of literature, science, theology, and philosophy—shared a cultural goal to shake off the social influence of religious superstitions (as they saw it) that frequently led to religious war. This goal included developing a new, harmonious culture guided by universal human Reason. French encyclopedists like Denis Diderot (1713–1784), for example, opposed the authority of French clerics in the eighteenth century. In England, Thomas Huxley (1825–1895) and his associates fought the prestige of Anglicanism in the nineteenth. Huxley explicitly sought to replace Christianity with a new religion, the “church scientific.” This “church scientific” came complete with Sunday meetings where the faithful sang hymns to nature and listened to scientific sermons. Huxley doggedly promoted Darwinism as a strategy to help him create the secular society he and others sought. In his crowning symbolic achievement, Huxley convinced the Anglican Church to bury the atheist Darwin next to Isaac Newton at Westminster Cathedral, the symbolic heart of Anglicanism![9]

In their campaign to secularize culture, Huxley and his associates recast the stories of science. They especially used the myth of Galileo’s gallant stand for truth against his theological tormentors. They wove a story of the heroic under-dog, Galileo, swashbuckling defender of truth, progress, and the scientific way, battling the powerful and tyrannical empire, the church. Their nineteenth-century telling of the seventeenth-century “star wars” followed roughly the same plot line as the twentieth-century “Star Wars” where the underdog hero, Luke Skywalker, conquers the Empire and its leader, Darth Vader. But Huxley distorted the real story. In fact, Galileo, a loyal member of the church, fought with his professional adversaries just as they did with him. But in Huxley’s version, the church made Galileo a martyr, primarily because Galileo’s honest, scientific inquiry threatened ecclesiastical power. The bishops’ strong-arm tactics could not suppress truth forever. Eventually, the church—the evil Empire—relented, and science triumphed over dogma.

As part of the secularizing impulse, modernist figures took Newton’s scientific theories in a direction he completely rejected. Newton’s system of celestial physics seemed so comprehensive that modernists extended it, using it to explain all reality in mechanical terms. Only too happy to deal God out of the scientific picture, the modernists asserted that all change happens when small, hard atoms of matter collide and ricochet like billiard balls. If bits of matter in motion account for all change, then God and spiritual forces account for none and are scientifically unnecessary. In this way, Newton’s scientific principles were trans-muted into a materialistic worldview that Newton himself would have rejected.

Newton himself asserted that the laws of planetary motion do not account for all the observable facts. He observed an instability in certain planetary orbits and asserted that these orbits need regular correction, just as a slow-THEOLOGY running clock needs adjusting every now and then. Newton suggested that God routinely performs miracles to correct the fluctuations in the unstable orbits. This means that purely physical accounts of these orbits are incomplete. Gaps exist in scientific explanation. Thus Newton claimed that science needs God’s agency to explain these natural phenomena. He cited God’s direct agency as a causal power in the ongoing processes of the universe because, at that point in history, the best available scientific account did not fill in the gaps in explanation. This strategy fit Newton’s desire to use science for apologetic purposes, for he created a system of thought that required God’s existence. In taking this stance, Newton believed (disastrously, as it turned out) that he had preserved a place for God.

It did not take long to realize the magnitude of Newton’s error. Astronomer Pierre-Simon de Laplace (1749–1827) quickly showed that the planets Newton worried about are actually quite stable over time. Laplace argued correctly that the planetary orbits do not need God to tinker with them and thus that scientific explanation of these orbits need not refer to God. According to an oft-repeated story, Emperor Napoleon examined Laplace’s Treatise of Celestial Mechanics and complained to its author that it made no mention of God. Laplace is said to have replied, “Sire, I have no need of that hypothesis.” The story might be apocryphal, but its point is clear. Laplace assumed that what is true of the orbits is true of all of nature: God is not an explanation of natural processes. Following the mechanistic genius of Newton, science can develop complete naturalistic explanations. Ironically, “Newtonianism” came to mean for modernists a machine-like view of the universe in which God played no role—except as the Engineer who designed, created, and launched the machine. And so the dominant view of science among intellectuals in the nineteenth century and among most Western peoples today is this: theology is irrelevant to science. Science does not need God.[10]

What happened in the heavens happened on earth. Although some early nineteenth-century biological theories are non-mechanistic (taxonomists used the less mechanical, more organic tradition of Aristotelian science to classify living organisms[11]), the dominant force in nineteenth-century biology—Darwinism—is mechanistic. After Darwin, most believed the mechanistic model could explain not only the orbits of planets but also the origins of plants. The role of Darwin’s theory in helping to secure the victory of science over religion in the nineteenth century can hardly be overstated. The tenacity by which Huxley used Darwin’s thought to further his social aims earned Huxley the nickname “Darwin’s Bulldog.” Contemporary evolutionist Richard Dawkins said, “although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”[12]

In the United States, Andrew Dickson White’s celebrated 1897 book, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, argued for freeing science from ecclesiastical control. He held that theological interference in science led to bad science. Sectarian theology in American universities caused “the poverty of the advanced instruction then given in so many of them.” How odd that before a prospective science professor’s academic credentials are examined, White argued, he is asked what religious sect—or what branch of a sect—he belongs to. Surely this distorts science. Instead, freeing scientific study of dogmatic restraints is always best both for science and for religion. White concluded, “Science, though it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand with Religion.” So when sectarian theology declines, true Religion flourishes, both in the universities and throughout the world.[13] (By “true religion,” White meant the recognition of a righteous Power, and the moral man-date to love God and neighbor.) Interestingly, a 1965 [!] edition of White’s book includes praise by historian Bruce Mazlish, who wrote that White proved his viewpoint “beyond any reasonable doubt.”[14]

In America, Inherit the Wind, the story of the 1925 Scopes “monkey trial,” strengthened the view that science and theology are at war. This episode still affects our culture, leading to attitudes like those of my skeptical challenger. In answer to these forces, fundamentalist Christians disengaged from culture. George Marsden wrote that Christians in the early twentieth century could not “raise the level of discourse to a plane where any of their arguments would be taken seriously. Whatever they said would be overshadowed by the pejorative associations attached to the movement by the seemingly victorious secular establishment.”[15]

As decades passed, it seemed as though the natural sciences repeatedly pul-verized opinions about nature that were grounded merely on dogmatic theology. For this and other reasons, science replaced dogmatic religion as the ultimate source of human wisdom in Western modernity. The dominant view of science that emerged was that science explained all things naturalistically: natural causes account for all natural events. Further, science would guide society away from theological conflict and into a brighter future. This is the story that became deeply ingrained in the psyche of Western modernity. Factors such as the modernist quest for certitude, the incredible success of science, the concerted effort of science boosters, and a history of retreat and ineffective response by Christians all contributed to science displacing religion as the respected intellectual authority in the secular cultural establishment of the modern West. The challenge to learn a non-anxious engagement with science, given Christian theology’s long tradition of failure, now stares us in the face.

II. MODERNIST PICTURES OF THE SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY RELATION

These cultural movements form the context for understanding the relation of science and theology. A number of thinkers—Thomas Torrance, Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne, Richard Bube, and Arthur Peacocke—challenged the war-fare model historically and philosophically. Yet major movements in the twentieth century continued to reinforce the modernist view that science is more rational than theology. These movements saw science and theology answering the same questions about the same things.[16] This means that when science and theology conflict, either science is right or theology is right. And the discipline that gets it wrong needs correction.

A. Science and Theology in Mortal Combat

Huxley and White obviously saw science and theology in conflict. For them, since science is right, traditional theology is false and in need of major over-haul. [17] Science and theology say different and conflicting things about the same things. So theology needs correction. Liberal theology capitulated to this strategy as part of its surrender to modernism. Bultmann’s oft-cited claim illustrates this: “It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.” Miracles “make the Christian faith unintelligible and unacceptable to the modern world.”[18] Today, the priority of science leads some liberals to preserve theology by adopting a form of nonrealism (chapter 11). God is not an actually existing reality who acts within the framework of nature and nature’s laws. “God” is a human construct: “the only reality of God lies in the use of that word by human beings. It does not refer to some supernatural or mysterious or special being. . . . The only significance of the word ‘God’ is its purely verbal function.”[19] This amounts to saying that whenever science and theology conflict, science takes the lead and theology yields to a right of way.

Christians sometimes agree with this emphasis on the conflict of theology and science (as science is typically practiced). Those who follow this emphasis see the conflict of science with theology as far more than a scientific debate. The conflict arises because science (as usually practiced) embraces a philoso-phy that denies God.[20] So these Christians use the conflict motif to turn the tables. In the conflict of science with theology, theology has the rational right of way over science. Young-earth creationists from the Creation Research Institute, for example, exhibit this pattern. They say that when naturalistic science concludes that the universe is 15 billion years old, science based on Genesis can correct the error. At the same time, science—meaning true science done according to biblical guidelines—strongly proves the Bible. This approach preserves the warfare model, but gives theology the top position. When practiced properly, on this view, science builds upon or supports biblical teaching.[21]

From the naturalist side, a class of important philosophical doctrines that reinforces the conflict model is called “scientism.” In general, scientism is any assertion that only scientifically grounded knowledge is rational or justified. In a milder form, scientism might assert that rational justification of scientific knowledge is uniquely or essentially superior to other forms of knowledge. So scientism reinforces the claim that science is a paradigm of rationality that other academic disciplines ought to follow. Scientism often takes scientific knowledge as the answer to the modernist epistemic problem of overcoming skepticism. The various doctrines about science clustered together as scientism reinforce the rise of science to a position of authority and prominence in the wider culture.

Strong versions of scientism suggest that only science yields knowledge. A belief counts as knowledge if and only if it is a properly tested and well-authenticated scientific belief. Since theological convictions lack scientific sup-port, they cannot count as knowledge. Weak forms of scientism might admit that some things may be known apart from science, and yet insist that science still yields knowledge that is more rational and more socially valuable. Non-scientific knowledge has some secondary status; scientific beliefs remain superior. Weak scientism often requires, or at the very least urges, disciplines outside the sciences to find confirmation from science. Non-scientific assertions are defective or limited until they are connected with science. If a particular belief is not scientifically grounded, then it is irrational, false, meaningless, or in some other way inferior to scientific knowledge.

Strong scientism precludes any dialogue between science and theology. If strong scientism were right, theology could have no rational standing what-ever. Theology could have no status as a science in the medieval sense. Theology could only have emotional, esthetic, or private moral meaning. In this case, a supposed dialogue between science and theology of any sort could never be a conversation among intellectual equals. Even weaker scientism elevates science as the supreme case of rational or properly justified belief. In this case, theology that claimed to describe or explain objective reality might have some limited warrant. But this theology would be more rational if scientific evidence supported it. Because of science’s superior standing, theological convictions cannot add warrant to scientifically grounded beliefs. A less legitimate kind of knowing could hardly add weight and strength to a more legitimate kind of knowing. This means that even for a weak version of scientism, theology is at best a weaker partner in any dialogue of science with theology.

Scientism in its various forms stumbles badly, however. First, strong scientism is self-referentially incoherent. Consider one way of stating strong scientism:

(a) No proposition is justified unless it is a scientific proposition.

Obviously, (a) is not itself a scientific proposition or theory. It is a philosophi-cal statement about science, not a scientific statement about nature. So if strong scientism is true, justification of (a) is impossible. Strong scientism is self-referentially incoherent.

Weaker forms of scientism are not as obviously incoherent. But they are tenuous nonetheless. To begin, any argument used to support weak scientism would itself be a philosophical and not a scientific argument. Weaker versions of scientism can become only as well-supported as non-scientific arguments can make them. Further, humans rightly believe large numbers of perfectly reasonable non-scientific beliefs. Many things I believe, like “The universe has existed for more than five minutes,” are beyond the ability of science to demonstrate. (If I try to prove this using a radioactive dating method, I must presuppose that the radioactive elements I am measuring have been decaying at a uniform rate for more than five minutes. This assumes what I am trying to prove.) Finally, non-scientific beliefs clearly shaped early developments in science. For instance, philosophical traditions affected science. Aristotelianism described the world by positing purpose and using organic metaphors of growth and decay. The mathematical heritage of religious Pythagoreans and Neoplatonic thinkers appealed to the creative powers of active spiritual forces. And the mechanical tradition, recalling Archimedes, used practical, nonreligious mathematical calculation to model the universe after an impersonal machine.[22]

Second, scientism cannot account for the rise of science as a valued human activity. Michael Polanyi, a pioneer in seeking richer accounts of science, showed that science can account for the operation of the natural world but cannot account for the fact that scientists value scientific knowledge of the operation of the natural world. To use an illustration, laws of nature that are stated in terms of physics and chemistry can explain the operation of individual parts of a machine. But these sciences alone can never explain the existence of the machine itself. Science must posit an intelligence in order to account for the information-dense boundary conditions that constrain the operation of chemical and physical laws in order that a purposeful end is achieved. While chemical and physical laws account for the operation of living systems, merely physical and chemical explanations do not account for the origin of these systems.[23] Similarly, science explains the operation of natural processes, but it cannot explain why there are persons who could value the search for genuine knowledge.

Third, among the well-justified beliefs that science cannot ground are cer-tain premises that have not just influenced science but are necessary to science. [24] Without these assumptions, promising prospects in science in Arabian and Chinese cultures never fully matured. Science must assume metaphysical principles such as that an external world exists and that this world is orderly, stable, and properly interpreted numerically. “Few scientists stop to wonder why the fundamental laws of the universe are mathematical,” wrote Paul Davies. How is science even possible?[25] This is very easy to take for granted. Science also presupposes the laws of logic, the reliability of human cognitive capacities, and the adequacy of language. And science depends on epistemic values that are not themselves provable by science. These include the preference for predictive accuracy, simplicity, and coherence.

Fourth, and most ironic for a conflict model of science and theology, the meta-scientific assumptions necessary to science are themselves embedded in a worldview that identifies both the universe and also the observers who populate it as products of an intelligent creator. In Christian theology, over against pagan thought, the physical universe possesses an inner integrity that scientists can unravel. Nature is good, and it is worthwhile expending effort to under-stand it.[26] One historian says that the “Christian world . . . finally gave birth in a clear, articulate fashion to the experimental method of science itself.”[27] So the idea that science can go it alone, that science can build its own platform on which to stand as it gives us knowledge of the world, is patently false. This does not by itself justify theology as a rational discipline or give theology a status that supersedes science. But it does show the necessary failure of objections to the practice of Christian theology rooted in the claim that science alone produces genuine knowledge.

When science becomes the supreme instance—the paradigm—of rational thinking, theology must either concede the field of culture to science or play by science’s rules to gain rational standing. The default position in our culture (although this is eroding in our postmodern time) is that science has the rational upper hand, that science is the only (or at very least preferred) path to knowledge. Two forces, the cultural prestige of science and the philosophical belief that limits knowledge to empirical science, reinforce each other and put theology on the defensive. These are the forces that require theology either to play the game of knowledge by the rules of science or to get off the field. As Newbigin put it,

It is indeed true that Christian theology cannot be done properly with-out facing the questions raised by modern science. . . . But [something is] here simply taken for granted, without argument: . . . that all the religions have to submit their truth-claims to the discipline of the scientific method. At this point we are all required to be orthodox with respect to the plausibility structure that is called the modern scientific method. We are not allowed to be heretics.[28]

This is why, two decades ago, one commentator wrote, “the greatest seeming stumbling block in the way of religion has long been, and still continues to be, modern science.”[29]

But there is good news. Scientism is philosophically bankrupt. The hegemony of modernist science over theology has passed. Note, however, that I did not say that science is in retreat. Science itself is doing well both theoretically and pragmatically. But modernist science—the modern picture of what science is and how it threatens theology—is collapsing. Under the impact of various pressures, modernist convictions about science—that empirical science is the one rational ideal that deserves cultural prominence—are receding. The view that science and theology are rival sources of knowledge about the same things is simplistic and flawed. As evangelicals, we believe that the existence of a personal God, the reconciling work of God’s Son, and the hope of eternal life with God all depend on supernatural reality. This includes both God’s agency in nature (miracles) and also God’s communication to humans (revelation). Modernist science calls all this into question. But empirical sci-ence simply is not the only rational ideal of genuine knowledge, as modernist science assumed. So it is right to recognize empirical science as a legitimate path to genuine knowledge. It is equally legitimate to explore other paths to knowledge of God.

B. Science and Theology in Isolated Compartments

The failure of the warfare motif and the conflict model for viewing science and theology leads some to a very different approach, compartmentalism. This view of the two disciplines declares that they say different things about different things. Each discipline has its own reasonableness within its own sphere, and neither intrudes on the other. In this case, by definition, conflict between science and theology is impossible. Though Andrew Dickson White referenced warfare in the title of A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, his view actually incorporates features of a compartmentalist mentality. He sought to free science from dogmatic restraints. He argued that science has conquered any theology based on traditional interpretation of the Bible. This is the warfare motif. But he also claimed that science is compatible with “true Religion” in the universities. Both science and “true Religion” would flourish if they are kept safely apart. In Tillich’s words,

Knowledge of revelation cannot interfere with ordinary knowledge. Likewise, ordinary knowledge cannot interfere with knowledge of rev-elation. There is no scientific theory which is more favorable to the truth of revelation than any other theory. It is disastrous for theology if theologians prefer one scientific view to others on theological grounds.[30]

This is a compartmentalist orientation.

Compartmentalism requires a clear strategy for keeping science and non-science in their separate compartments. Approaches designated by the phrase “demarcation strategies” fit the bill. Demarcation strategies involve drawing a sharp boundary, a clear line, between science and non-science. They specify what counts as true science and seek to rule out pretenders. Scholars have proposed various criteria of demarcation. Karl Popper, who aggressively opposed pseudo-science and ideology, offered a famous attempt at demarcation (see chapter 7). Popper used falsification to separate science and pseudo-science: the line of demarcation is specified by stating that science is falsifiable—able to be proved false—and pseudo-science is not.[31] Popper said that scientists should initially consider all theories equally improbable. Then, by using experimentation, they should subject every hypothesis to repeated attempts at falsification. When a hypothesis survives this onslaught, scientists may rightly consider it corroborated. A corroborated theory is not certainly true, empirically verified, or even probable. Corroboration makes it possibly true. If falsification succeeds, the theory is known to be false. If falsification fails, the theory is possibly true. But here is the key: if falsification is not possible, the theory is not scientific. The possibility of falsification marks science off from pseudo-science.

Scholars have proposed other demarcation criteria. The young man who quizzed me about my faith used an implicit demarcation criterion: he said that science is open to evidence, and non-science (including religion) is closed to evidence. In discussing—or more precisely, dismissing—miracles, philosopher Michael Ruse alluded to several criteria: “miracles lie outside of science,” said Ruse, “which by definition deals with the natural, the repeatable, that which is governed by law.”[32] Ruse’s pronouncement stipulated “by definition” that science deals only with repeatable and law-like events. If a theory seeks to interpret non-repeatable events, it is not scientific. Or if a hypothesis uses non-natural causal agency for its explanations, it is not scientific. One statement of the latter point goes this way: “Science must be provisionally atheistic or cease to be itself.”[33]

Demarcation strategies that separate scientific beliefs from non-scientific ones seem innocent enough. Of course, it is helpful to map clearly the different ranges of subject matter covered by various academic disciplines. Recall what I said above: scientism is a philosophical theory about science, not a scientific theory about the natural world. That point depends on clarity about how the province of philosophy differs from the domain of the natural sciences. This conceptual mapping is all to the good, for it clarifies what sort of investigation rightly answers which sort of question. But the negative side of demarcation strategies emerges when strategists use demarcation to infer the irrationality of non-scientific disciplines. To denounce a whole discipline—say, the discipline of theology—a demarcation strategist takes two steps. First, he distinguishes science from theology by locating some feature displayed by science and not by theology. Second, he stipulates that because this feature is essential to rationality, theology lacks rationality. In this pat-tern, demarcation becomes, not just an evidential argument against the truth of a particular theological theory, but a definitional argument against the rationality of any theological proposal whatsoever. Demarcation is a very aggressive strategy.

So while mapping the appropriate ranges of various disciplines is clarifying and helpful, demarcation strategies are often self-serving. Popper’s major motive in using the demarcation strategy was to discredit anything he could label “pseudo-science.” Larry Laudan commented,

It is well known, for instance, that Aristotle was concerned to embarrass the practitioners of Hippocratic medicine; and it is notorious that the logical positivists wanted to repudiate metaphysics and that Popper was out to get Marx and Freud. In every case, they used a demarcation criterion of their own devising as the discrediting device.[34]

At times, even Darwin himself used this tactic, rebutting his opponents simply by calling them “unscientific.” This is name-calling. It is not the same as presenting actual, contrary evidence. Discrediting a non-scientific discipline, just because it is not science, is circular. This strategy does work rhetorically in cultures that give science a special place of prominence. But dismissing a conclusion arising from a discipline like theology merely because it is not an empirical science is circular and unjustified.

Further, even if those developing the criteria of demarcation were motivated rightly (which is doubtful), demarcation strategies often assume that science is monolithic. But in fact, the sciences are variegated. For every proposed criterion of demarcation, there is a recognized science that crosses the demarcation line and displays the feature that supposedly indicates non-science. Even if the process of compartmentalizing science and theology were properly motivated, the line between the disciplines is notoriously difficult to specify. Take, for example, Ruse’s claim that science deals only with repeatable events. The problem is obvious: unrepeatable events like the Big Bang are well within the province of contemporary science as real scientists practice it. The history of science includes many research programs that are counter-examples to Ruse’s three lines of demarcation.

Here is another common demarcation strategy. It is the claim that science must explain things via natural laws—that science must use “nomological” explanation. But the assertion that science must explain by natural laws alone does not cleanly separate science from non-science. Of course, many scientific research projects legitimately seek nomological explanations of classes of events. But other scientific research projects rightly seek explanations of singular events, and in such cases, totally nomological explanations are inadequate. When the FBI uses a science lab to determine how a crime happened, it deals with a singular event. In so doing it will appeal not only to natural laws but also to specific facts. But although this investigation appeals to facts at cer-tain points, it is obviously both scientific and legitimate. Or consider the speculative reconstruction found in the historical sciences that investigate singular events—say, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius—from the past. Speculative reconstruction uses abductive reasoning to re-create past events from present clues or facts. It does not explain by appealing to laws alone. It explains by means of scientific laws in conjunction with specific facts.

So the explanatory scope of scientific laws is not complete. Reference to the laws of planetary motion, to cite another example, can explain why the orbit of a satellite will be circular or parabolic, and never triangular or rectangular. But these laws alone cannot explain why a particular communications satellite is orbiting the earth at an altitude of 22,000 miles rather than 19,000 miles. To explain why the satellite is at 22,000 miles requires knowledge of specific facts like the weight of the satellite, the velocity of its launch, and the initial angle of its ascent. Only with knowledge of these specific data, combined with background knowledge that includes an understanding of many laws, can a scientist explain why the orbit is at 22,000 miles rather than 19,000. Or “the law ‘Oxygen is necessary to combustion’ does not explain why a particular building burned down at a particular place and time.”[35] The nomological cri-terion—the idea that science explains only by natural laws—fails to distinguish science from non-science because many perfectly legitimate scientific explana-tions appeal to far more than laws.

So neither the lawlike/non-lawlike distinction, the repeatable/unrepeatable distinction, nor the empirical/non-empirical distinction draws a clean line between science and non-science. Similarly, other suggested criteria fail to separate science neatly from non-science. But the compartmentalist strategy works only if such a line can be drawn. So the compartmentalist strategy fails. The attempt to separate theology and science for the purpose of showing the bankruptcy of theology fails. A proper distinction between the domains of the natural sciences and theology does not show that theology is defective. Nor does it rule out legitimate interdisciplinary discussion between theology and the sciences.

C. Science and Theology as Complementary Perspectives

Another viewpoint regarding the relation of science and theology posits that both of these fields of study are legitimate. They may even investigate and explain the same realities. But the disciplines amount to different perspectives that necessarily explain different aspects or dimensions of the same things. That is, each discipline is valid, but no discipline is ever able to capture all dimensions of the reality. Each discipline is able in principle to give a complete or total account of the dimension of the reality to which its own apparatus is attuned. But no discipline is attuned to all dimensions of a reality. So no discipline fills in the gaps left by another discipline. The fields are autonomous. Scientific and theological descriptions represent different realms of discourse. They view the same reality in terms of different perspectives, and each is limited to its own dimension of the whole. An individual or community may integrate the valid results of the different disciplines after their work is done, but these disciplines as such must work entirely independently of each other. This approach to science and theology is called complementarity.[36]

An example of complementarity is the message displayed in the famous moving electric sign in Times Square. By quickly turning light bulbs on and off, the sign generates letters that appear to move across its screen. These letters form messages that tourists in Times Square easily read. From an electrical engineering perspective, it is possible to produce a complete account of how and when each light goes on and off. This account would lack nothing of electrical significance. There would be no gaps in explanation. It would be entirely complete at the level of electrical engineering. But this full electrical explanation and description would make no reference whatsoever to the message that the tourist could instantly decipher. The meaningful English message would be at a level of explanation that the electrical engineering perspective, though perfect at its own level of explanation, is entirely unable to detect, let alone describe or explain. As in this illustration, complementarity means that a scientific explanation could in principle fill in all the scientific gaps, could in principle be entirely complete in scientific terms, and yet not account for other important but non-scientific dimensions of the object of study.[37]

This becomes important when thinking about God’s agency in the world. Christians who defend complementarity often limit the action of God to preservation, the theological doctrine that God upholds the physical universe, “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb 1:3). This agency of God is very real, but here is the key point: they believe it is scientifically undetectable. God does nothing that science could ever observe, for none of God’s actions affect the dimensions of material reality to which the natural sciences are attuned. In the terms of theology, God’s agency is real, and a scientific Christian could believe for theological reasons that God preserves the world. She could believe this, for example, by revelation. But it simply would not have any connection to her science. The two levels of explanation—science and theology—do not interact and therefore could never collide. This is why science and theology are not about different things as in compartmentalism, but are about different aspects or dimensions of the same things. Both science and theology are valid, and the practitioners of the two disciplines may do their work unimpeded. Christians who are scientists practice science that is indistinguishable from science practiced by atheists. Christians in the sciences believe certain theories scientifically and other theories theologically, but the results of these two realms will never conflict because they never touch. Still, in the end, scientific Christians may integrate these results into a larger picture that more fully accounts for multi-faceted realities.

A major motive for adopting complementarity is disabling any God-of-the-gaps thinking.[38] The God-of-the-gaps strategy is employed if someone reasons in this way: “No available scientific hypothesis explains phenomenon x. Because naturalist explanations fail, I conclude that God explains x.” God-of-the-gaps thinking assumes that science and theology both explain the same sorts of phenomena. This creates the warfare scenario where science and theology offer opposing accounts of the same phenomena, requiring a judgment about whether the scientific or the theological explanation needs correcting. Complementarity evades this scenario by saying that science and theology, done properly, must use different perspectives to explore different dimensions of whatever object is studied. Science and theology are never about the same aspects of whatever reality is being studied. This means two things. First, even if science cannot yet give a full scientific account of the natural or physical dimensions of some phenomenon, it is never legitimate to put God in that gap. It is never right to explain the physical aspects of a natural event with a theological assertion. Second, if science does successfully offer a full and complete scientific account of some phenomenon, it has no bearing on the rationality of a theological explanation of some other dimension of that phenomenon.

Theologians also use complementarity to evade the God-of-the-gaps problem. Nancey Murphy wrote, “anyone who attributes the characteristics of living things to creative intelligence has by definition stepped into the arena of metaphysics or theology.” Murphy offered several reasons. First, scientists are reluctant to use religious explanations for fear of falling into God-of-the-gaps thinking. Second, science requires naturalistic explanation because the concept of science we have in fact inherited is “methodologically atheistic.”[39] Similarly, Diogenes Allen claimed that it is “theologically improper” to look for gaps where God’s direct, supernatural agency might be active. In Allen’s view, this reduces God to the status of a creature, a member of the finite creation. Allen argued that the Christian idea of creation prevents us from thinking that two natural phenomena could actually become disconnected so as to produce a natural discontinuity. If an orderly God is the creator of the world, there cannot be such discontinuities in the natural process. The Christian doctrines of creation and providence should lead scientists to expect and look for direct connections among all natural events.[40]

Now, clearly, the God-of-the-gaps strategy is fatally flawed. One obvious problem is its appeal to ignorance. It does not argue for a hypothesis on the basis of positive evidence for that hypothesis. Rather, it moves to its conclusion on the ground of a lack of evidence for an alternative, naturalistic hypothesis. Clearly, this is fallacious. It is why Peter Atkins said rather colorfully, “Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that ‘God did it’ is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation.”[41] God-of-the-gaps explanations regularly set up their defenders for embarrassment. As science progresses, the lack of evidence for naturalistic alternatives is routinely remedied. Scientists fill in the gaps of natural explanation. The new scientific discoveries then force God-of-the-gaps strategists to retreat—to pull their religiously grounded explanations off the table. This happened to the venerable Newton. The retreat and retrench maneuver, repeated many times, creates a very understandable distaste for even a whiff of God-of-the-gaps explanation. It leads people to fear anything remotely like a God-of-the-gaps strategy and to calm their trepidations by entirely disengaging science from theology. A chief virtue of complementarity is that it simultaneously validates theological thinking and precludes God-of-the-gaps thinking.

Those who defend complementarity require that science must use naturaistic explanation. Given complementarity, the goal of natural science is to explain natural phenomena by reference to natural (and usually physical) laws, forces, and fields. So any rational enterprise that explains natural phenomena by using non-physical forces or personal agents is not scientific. This principle is called “methodological naturalism.” Methodological naturalism can function, of course, as a demarcation strategy. It could be a theory about what kinds of explanations are rightly considered scientific—about what sort of method a discipline must follow to be classed as scientific. Methodological naturalism requires that events, processes, and phenomena that occur in nature are in principle (though we have not yet succeeded fully in fact) totally explainable with-out any reference to a power or being who is spiritual, religious, or supernatural. For a person committed to methodological naturalism, any explanation of a natural event that refers to God or a supernatural deity is, by definition, not scientific.

Although the word ‘naturalism’ is used in this context for a methodological or procedural principle, it more commonly describes a philosophical world-view. And it is easy to confuse these two senses of the word ‘naturalism’. As a philosophy, naturalism teaches that the natural world constitutes the whole of reality. It is roughly equivalent to atheism. Given atheism, that is, given philosophical naturalism of a materialist or physicalist sort, that which is real and that which is scientifically accessible are in principle coextensive. So if philosophical naturalism were true, methodological naturalism is entailed. If God did not exist and nature alone were real, science could explain all phenomena naturally since only natural realities exist to function as causes. On the other hand, methodological naturalism does not entail atheism. One could believe religiously that God is real, and hold that science must do all its explaining in terms of natural causes and effects. Philosophical naturalism, the metaphysic, entails methodological naturalism, the procedural assumption. But the reverse is not necessarily the case. And this is exactly where Christians who adopt complementarity hang their methodological hats.

The distinction between philosophical naturalism (i.e., atheism) and methodological naturalism is lost on too many secular scientists. It seems they think that science requires philosophical naturalism. Steven Weinberg said, “The only way that any sort of science can proceed is to assume that there is no divine intervention and to see how far one can get with that assumption.”[42] In an oft-cited passage, Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin wrote unabashedly about the philosophical values that drive his commitments:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, the materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. . . . anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.[43]

For Lewontin, a radical choice between science and theology is required. To choose the faith is to exclude science; to choose science is to exclude the faith. There is no point of connection between science and faith.

Christian defenders of complementarity will not go that far theologically, but they will share the allergic reaction to a divine foot in the scientific door. So, for example, in endorsing methodological naturalism, Howard Van Till, a scientist and Christian, defended what he calls the “functional integrity” of the created world. This entails that creation has “no functional deficiencies, no gaps in its economy of the sort that would require God to act immediately, temporarily assuming the role of creature to perform functions within the economy of the creation that other creatures have not been equipped to perform.”[44] The sciences assume (at the level of proximate causes) both that every effect in nature requires a natural cause and that every cause has an effect. (By using the qualifying phrase, “at the level of proximate causes,” Van Till allowed for a category of ultimate, theological explanations about which science is mute.) The sciences assume “a continuity of cause-effect relationships.” Van Till said that this assumption is confirmed every time it is applied successfully to natural phenomena. This repeated experience provides growing inductive confirmation that the principle of functional integrity or causal continuity is true in all times and places within the physical universe. Van Till concluded, “the first step in taking the material world seriously . . . is to respect the credibility of the presuppositions on which the scientific study of that world is founded.”[45]

Van Till’s commitment to methodological naturalism leads to several closely related implications. First, science can neither prove nor disprove a theological thesis. Second, theology can neither prove nor disprove a scientific hypothesis. Van Till wrote, “Natural science . . . knows of no nonmaterial entities and thus is simply unable to speak on matters of their status or relationship. . . . it can say nothing about [nonmaterial entities]—nothing positive, nothing negative, just nothing.”[46] Third, science can, at least in principle if not in fact, give a complete account of all natural phenomena at its level or in its terms.[47] No scientific explanation of a natural event or process may identify divine agency or supernatural power as the proximate cause of the phenomenon.

As a Christian, Van Till (unlike Lewontin) does accept God’s power in originating, preserving, governing, and providing for creation. But for Christians like Van Till, these ideas stand on theological reasoning. This means that the creation is radically dependent on God’s ongoing activity, but that creation depends on God in a scientifically undetectable way. God upholds nature, but does not act in nature in such a way that science could discover.[48] According to the principles of functional integrity and causal continuity, theological claims make no scientific difference. As Einstein wrote, “The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation.”[49] The scientist yearns for a seamless web of natural explanation. Discontinuities in nature tear at the web of scientific explanation. Divine action in nature (as opposed to a scientifically invisible divine sustaining of nature) would represent such a discontinuity. So in this way, some scientists who are Christians think that events happening in nature must be proximately causally connected to other natural events.

Does methodological naturalism offer any advantages for theists or Christians? Yes. For a Christian, a complementarity approach opens space for a robust commitment to a scientific career. Science does not critique theological belief; theology does not impede scientific research. At the same time, how-ever, this move requires that a price be paid. For if scientific evidence cannot critique theology, then neither can it support theology, say by providing evidence for or clarification of theological ideas. If a universal application of complementarity is right, science and theology never speak to each other as disciplines. At best, individuals can attempt some sort of integration of the results of the two disciplines after the two separate studies are finished. Complementarity does two things well: it shields theological study from scientific discoveries, and it protects scientific inquiry from theological intrusion.

This double-edged implication of complementarity is sometimes lost on people. They are glad to say that theology cannot speak to science, but they assume that science may still rightly censure theology. The late Carl Sagan happily declared that the cosmos is “all that is or ever was or ever will be.”[50] Of course, this is not a scientific hypothesis but a philosophical claim. But (it seems obvious) admirers of his public television programs assumed that the full weight of science supports his metaphysical pronouncement—and therefore that science rebuts theism. Evolutionist Douglas Futuyma wrote, “Some shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed, has no purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms—but this seems to be the message of evolution.”[51] Of course, the claim that humanity has no purpose is a theological one. If complementarity is true, science cannot speak to that point. The claim goes well beyond what science could demonstrate.

How should we evaluate methodological naturalism? For several important reasons, methodological naturalism seems right prima facie. First, it seems obvious that a premature appeal to supernatural explanations can undermine scientific work. Suppose a scientist proposes a research project to investigate how photosynthesis works in a certain tropical plant under specific light conditions. Imagine (hypothetically) that the scientist gives up after a time, shrugging: “In this plant, God just turns sunlight into carbohydrates.” Suppose he just packs up his instruments and goes home with that answer. Well, this scientist is just plain lazy; he is not really doing science. In this kind of case, if a frustrated scientist were to abandon natural modes of explanation and to account for natural phenomena by positing spiritual powers just because he failed to isolate a positive natural explanation, he would make a completely illegitimate God-of-the-gaps move that short-circuits the progress of science. A scientist qua scientist ought to seek a naturalistic explanation for natural processes.

Second, as a principle, methodological naturalism preserves the value of ask-ing the following question: How does a natural system function when nature is left to itself—when no personal agents are affecting the system? Research projects rightly explain phenomena by looking at individual variables. Thousands of perfectly rational research projects investigate natural processes in artificially limited ways. Lab experiments and computer simulations isolate selected factors for a particular study to explore. Artificially holding certain fac-tors constant is what distinguishes the lab from the real world. The distinction between dependent and independent variables rests in the fact that in science, not everything is tested all at once. In the real world, multiple factors constantly influence each other. In the lab, that swirling multiplicity is tamed, and each influence is isolated and examined one at a time. So in nature, natural events are caused by whole sets of causal factors. In the lab, individual variables are teased out through an abstraction process. When a research program is set up to isolate a certain variable for purposes of investigation, “God did it” is illegitimate. It is proper, in the case of research programs designed to identify specific natural processes, to rule out the invocation of supernatural causes for natural phenomena.

But the fact that some or even most research programs may properly exclude all reference to spiritual reality does not entail that all science per se, that all research programs, must exclude all reference to spiritual reality. Just as it is right to study isolated variables one at a time, so it is legitimate to investigate how a natural system functions when all the variables are reintegrated and reconnected. This is “systems thinking,” a more synthetic approach that puts the knowledge gained by examining individual variables back into an integrated whole. Systems thinking has demonstrated its great value in certain sciences. Environmental studies, for example, coordinate the results of many individual sciences to form a unified picture (chapter 5). A synthetic analysis need not require that only impersonal factors count as scientifically respectable causes. The study of global warming, for example, rightly considers the effects of personal agents—human beings—who deposit tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The action of personal agents produces effects, these effects are measurable, and measuring them is scientifically respectable.

What is the critical question regarding methodological naturalism? Is it legitimate for a particular scientific research program to accept only natural forces, objects, and fields as explanations? Certainly yes. Many—indeed, the vast majority—of scientific research programs rightly focus only on natural forces, objects, and fields as explanations. But is it necessary that all research programs, in order to count as science, may only accept natural forces, objects, and fields as explanations? Here I say no. From the viewpoint of evangelical theology, some research programs in science can take into account what Christians know in a non-scientific way. There are limits here, for no one accepts the God-of-the-gaps move. But at the least, there is no non-circular, a priori rationale that denies legitimate rational and scientific status to a research program that takes certain theological convictions into account simply because the research incorporates those theological convictions. Methodological naturalism is a legitimate assumption for a large majority of research programs, but it is not an essential feature of science per se. There is more to reality than methodological naturalism can uncover. “Methodology does not determine ontology.” So the fact that such things as “meaning and value have been bracketed out by science does not imply that meaning and value do not exist.”[52]

How then does science avoid the God-of-the-gaps mistake? One strategy is the appeal to methodological naturalism. Since methodological naturalism rules out all allusions to spiritual forces, it obviously eliminates every God-of-the-gaps move. But this instrument is too blunt. It is very important to see that while all cases of the God-of-the-gaps mistake are explanations in terms of non-natural causes, not all explanations in terms of non-natural causes are cases of the God-of-the-gaps error. All 747s are airplanes, but not all airplanes are 747s. So although invoking methodological naturalism in order to avoid God-of-the-gaps thinking will effectively guard against that mistake, it might also arbitrarily eliminate other fruitful lines of research. Using methodological naturalism to protect against God-of-the-gaps thinking is overkill, like using a bulldozer to plant an azalea.

One way to show this is to point out the legitimate scientific research pro-grams that do make reference to personal agency. In many cases, explaining an event scientifically requires taking the purposive actions of personal agents into account. The science of archeology, for example, is full of personal and purposive explanation. Archeology uncovers the results of the actions of personal agents. The forensic work of FBI lab technicians detects the action of personal agents called criminals. Since we know from the Bible, as well as from other corroborating sources, that God is a personal agent, it seems there could be no a priori reason that prevents God acting in the natural world in a scientifically detectable way. So while, in many cases, assuming methodological naturalism for the purposes of specific research programs is wise, Etienne Gilson was correct in noting decades ago, “The chief thing here is not to take the limitations of our method for the limits of reality.”[53]

So the key question becomes, When are personal and purposive explanations, in proper connection to naturalistic causal explanations, legitimately scientific? If one assumes that methodological naturalism must reign at all points, the answer is “Never.”[54] Since methodological naturalism should not control every scientific research program, however, the better answer is “Occasionally.” The legitimacy of the historical sciences, like archeology and forensics, confirms this point. So science rightly investigates both the “how” of natural causes and the “why” of purposive action. (Gilson wisely noted, “the discovery of the why does not absolve us from looking for the how, but, if anyone looks only for the how, can he be surprised if he fails to find the why?”[55]) Now my purpose here is not to describe in detail what procedures would lead to scientifically justified belief that God has acted in the natural sphere. Rather, if human purposive agency is occasionally (but not always or even usually) a matter of legitimate scientific concern, it is impossible to conclude a priori that divine purposive action is never of legitimate scientific interest.

III. NEW VIEWS OF SCIENCE IN THE CONTEMPORARY MILIEU

Traditional ways of relating science to theology—whether expressed as conflict, compartmentalism, or complementarity—cripple any attempt to bring science and theology into dialogue. But as modernist views recede, a number of scholars are reopening the dialogue. Phillip Johnson’s challenge to evolution-ism, Hugh Ross’s science-based apologetics, and biochemist Michael Behe’s notion of the “irreducible complexity” of life systems all involve more open approaches to the relation of science to theology. Scholars like Philip Clayton, J. P. Moreland, Nancey Murphy, and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen have exploited the erosion of modernism to discuss the philosophical connections between the sciences and theology. The intensity of this revival led van Huyssteen to write, “Those of us who commit much of our energy and of our lives to ‘theology and science’ are unquestionably living in exciting times.”[56]

Several features of contemporary science—and philosophy of science—set the context for discussing science and theology. First, vestiges of modernist views of science retain significant power. Clearly, many people, including many practicing scientists, still assume that empirical science is the one best path to knowledge. In his critique of evolutionism, Phillip Johnson pointed out the continuing powerful effects of this modernist view of science. Johnson used the word ‘modernism’ to denote a vision for society that combines liberal rationalism and scientific naturalism. Liberal rationalism provides modernism its social and ethical views—stressing human autonomy and the right to choose as the highest moral values. Scientific naturalism is modernity’s view of reality—a metaphysic in which reality is entirely contained within the space/time realm called nature. In Johnson’s assessment, people who passionately promote this view of science, and wish to insulate it from religious influence, dominate the institutions that govern science teaching in the United States. These people seem to think that the welfare of society requires keeping religion out of science.[57]

Second, philosophy of science has begun to take history much more seriously. In the past, philosophers of science used general theories of knowledge and worked in a top-down manner to construct idealized versions of science. They employed general epistemological principles to judge actual scientific work rather than the other way around. They developed pictures of how they thought science ought to look, rather than doing significant observation of how science actually looks. This procedure is called “external philosophy of sci-ence.” External philosophers of science sometimes emphasized the empirical side of knowledge and at other times stressed the rational side, depending on the general epistemological orientation of the philosopher. But they always started with general epistemological theory to create their theories of scientific procedure.

In contrast to this, in the last few decades, a new approach to philosophy of science has emerged. Accelerating the demise of scientism in the current era is the influence of a renewed historical consciousness on philosophy of science. Philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn, Stephen Toulmin, and Ernan McMullin followed this more historical approach. They typically began their work in philosophy of science with careful observation of actual scientific work. Out of this more inductive description they hoped to picture real science more accurately. Of course, perfect induction and purely passive observation are as impossible in this pursuit as in any other. Still, these philosophers of science rightly resisted the influence of idealized pictures, rooted in general epistemology, of what science ought to be. In this approach, the history of science is far more than a source of stories that illustrate idealized models of science. History is the material content from which to develop and test models of what science is. This approach is called “internal philosophy of science.”[58]

Third, history has demonstrated the positive role theology played in the rise of science. In so doing it has corrected the skewed ways of viewing the past interactions of science and theology. The Galileo story is a prime case in point. Huxley and others recounted that story in a biased way as part of their campaign to raise science to a position of cultural authority. Their version pitted scientific persons committed to truth against religious persons opposed to science. In fact, Galileo and his opponents did do battle. But the fighting was between certain religious people who promoted one scientific theory and other religious people who defended a different scientific theory. The moral of the Galileo story is quite different than the one preached by science’s cultural champions.[59] This is not to imply that all early scientists were Christians, though many were. But even those early scientists who were not religiously committed to Christian faith still drew important presuppositions from the biblical worldview. The idea that science and theology, as intellectual disciplines, are necessarily locked in mortal combat does not square with this history.

Fourth, this historical work on the nature of science shows that science is a cultural invention. Viewing science by following a historical method supports the conclusion that “scientific reflection—like theological reflection—is a very specific cultural and human phenomenon.”[60] The sciences are “invented cultural” procedures, not objectively obvious processes that emerge in just the same form in every culture.[61] Science is legitimate, but Descartes’ modernist ideal of a single epistemic method is a myth. We do not learn about the world by following any single path. (At the simplest level, I acquire knowledge of the various things I know in completely different ways. I do not use the same strategy to discover different items of knowledge like: I have a headache just now, it is really hot outside today, and my mother loves me.) If there is no single path to knowledge, then science obviously cannot be the single path to knowledge. So it is unreasonable to privilege scientific explanation over other kinds of knowing. That includes theological interpretation. One critic put it this way: “why should theology look to philosophy of science to discover what the canons of rationality are, especially since there is no agreement about what rationality is in philosophy of science?”[62]

Science is a very human activity. It is rooted in basic patterns of reason shared by all human beings (because all humans reflect the image of their Creator). But the procedures of scientific investigation also reflect specific cultural situations. The sciences investigate a variety of objects. These various objects demand differing techniques. Given these two factors, the most I could say about the various sciences is that they typically share a set of least common denominator convictions, approaches, and values. They tend to value simplicity in conceptual formulation, and they tend to demand respect for empirical evidence. But these are general features, not specific steps, of scientific methods. “(There can be no set recipes for theory-making.) In any particular scientific situation, one can only back one’s reasoned hunches with a lot of hard work and thought. The fruit of one’s speculations (if there is going to be any) will come later.”[63]

Fifth, since the sciences are multiple and varied, it follows that the relation-ship of science to theology is quite complex. The contemporary generation of theorists who discuss the relation of science to theology are clear that science and theology are not single objects. So there is no singular relation between something called “science” and something called “theology.” The idea that one model—whether conflict, compartmentalism, or complementarity—would fully capture the relation of all the scientific disciplines (to say nothing of all theories and models within these disciplines) to all theological doctrines is much too simplistic. [64] The doctrine of creation, for example, will relate quite differently to psychology as it discusses the structure of human personhood and to biology as it explores the theory of common descent. Since it is impossible to speak specifically of the scientific method and since there are many foci in theology, it is doubly impossible to speak of the relationship of science to theology.[65]

So there is no single thing called “science.” Still, the “lingering imperialism of scientific rationality” hangs in the air of contemporary culture.[66] Where the echoes of this modernist spirit still reverberate, theology and ethics are deemed suspect. But science itself, as properly understood by internal philosophers of science, does not rule out legitimate theology as a rational discipline. With the collapse of scientism, naturalistic attempts to marginalize theology (by labeling it “unscientific”) are now bankrupt. Understanding the proper limits of scientific processes opens a window for richer epistemology.[67] We should preserve the obvious merits of science itself. But we must delete from our theories about science—our pictures of science—any leftovers from the past that rule out tra-ditional Christian beliefs. Contemporary philosophy of science does not preclude legitimate theology from operating properly according to rational principles. Theology is a science in the medieval sense.

IV. SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY IN DIALOGUE

Reality is complex, and human knowers access different dimensions of reality using different methods. This is precisely why dialogue among disciplines is important. Dialogue permits us to adopt multiple frames of reference on reality. Still, if truth is unified as we hold, we must seek connections between and integration of these multiple frames of reference. Out of these dialogues, we should expect and seek linkages between specific scientific models and particular theological claims. In other words, sailing the ship of evangelical theology is easier now that we can show that the threatening shoals of modern science will not sink it. With the new recognition today of the varied forms that science can take, a path to science and theology integration is open. Integration cannot happen when one partner holds all the trump cards and overpowers the other. Dialogue leading to integration requires that each partner speak to the other and each respond to the other. In such a dialogue, theology can, within certain parameters, properly speak to science, and science can, within proper limits, rightly address theology.

A. Science Speaks to Theology

I claim that science can speak to theology. More precisely, certain scientific models and theories bear on specific theological doctrines or formulations. Both theology and science involve multiple strands of thought and analysis. So what is needed is not a discussion of how science (envisioned as one single enterprise) relates to theology (regarded as one single thing). Rather, the dialogue of the sciences with theology really amounts to a series of discussions of how particular scientific disciplines or hypotheses relate to specific theological claims or models. For instance, how does biology relate to the doctrine of creation? How does behaviorism relate to theological anthropology? We cannot expect a uniform outcome to all questions of this sort. So it is not possible to say with Huxley that all science conflicts with all theology, or with White that all science is independent of theology. Rather, the influence of science on theology is felt in a variety of ways.

John Brooke warned us about moving directly from science to theological doctrine.[68] This warning is valid, but we must nuance it. First, as a matter of history, scientific models have offered categories within which certain theological ideas were conceived. The shift in physics from the Newtonian model of absolute time and space to post-Einsteinian relativity models, for example, has influenced contemporary thinking. On May 29, 1919, scientists photographed light bending around the sun during an eclipse. They accepted that empirical observation as evidence for Einstein’s relativity theory. From there, the contemporary world has moved, somewhat illogically, toward relativism in a variety of fields (for example, in ethics). Not surprisingly, post-Einsteinian physics influenced theology as well. Various kinds of process theology and evolutionary metaphysics appeared to be more plausible since we live in the broader intellectual climate that thinks in the categories of relativity.

So it is obviously true that theology borrows and adapts various categories of thought that originally hail from particular eras and cultures. These sets of categories may come from several disciplines, including both philosophy and science. The question is this: Is it legitimate for evangelical theology to borrow such categories from science? This focuses our attention on the tension between purity of doctrine and effectiveness of communication. Our tendency may be to revert to earlier formulations in search of a safe haven of doctrinal purity. But theology does in fact use concepts from other intellectual sources. How then should evangelical theology respond to the categories of the physical sciences?

The right course of action parallels the dialogical strategy of contextualization (see chapter 3). When we move theologically into a new cultural context, we encounter a new symbolic world, embedded in that culture and its language. Contextualization encourages us to mine this symbolic world for new ways to interpret and express the faith. But an appropriate contextualization process puts new formulations under the judgment of Scripture. The same applies in specific cases of dialogue between a particular science and a branch of theology. In some cases, the categories of the scientific discipline will help express, interpret, and apply the biblical worldview well, in other cases not. The proper general strategy is to assess the relative merits of using categories from an extra-biblical source, whether it be science or some other field, on a case-by-case basis, as science and theology are placed in dialogue under the guidance of Scripture.

Second, scientific discoveries could function evidentially to confirm or dis-confirm certain theological claims. In the past, it was more common to think that scientific discoveries confirm Christian theology. Newton’s interest in apologetics strongly motivated him in his scientific work. He wrote 1.2 million words on biblical and theological topics, and he explicitly affirmed his desire that his work promote theistic ideas.[69] Of course, his attempts led him to a failed God-of-the-gaps strategy. Today, some Christian apologists seek to evade the God-of-the-gaps and yet to use scientific evidence to support belief in an intelligent, nonmaterial creator. They employ updated versions of the cosmological and teleological arguments. For the cosmological argument, the data showing that the universe began at an identifiable point in time suggest the presence of a powerful, nonmaterial source of the universe. For the teleological argument, certain features of the universe, the so-called cosmic constants or design para-meters, must have a fixed numerical value if life of any sort is to develop. The most reasonable explanation of this highly unlikely fact is the forethought of an intelligent designer who designed the universe for the purpose of supporting life.[70] Further, some argue that the information contained in the genetic codes of life can be explained only if an intelligence is their source.[71]

Is it appropriate to allow science to disconfirm theological claims? Initially, it might seem that allowing science to shape theology raises a problem. Given biblical authority, evangelical commitments appear to rule out any equal-footing dialogue between theology and science. Does not the theological partner in a theology-science dialogue always have a kind of priority due to the divine authority invested in the Bible? Does not theology always trump science?

This requires more nuance. Suppose a scientific idea gains so much warrant that as a community of theologians, we agree it is necessary to alter some theological belief. That does not necessarily mean that science has superseded Scripture. More precisely, we place a particular scientific idea or theory into conversation with a particular theological tradition, model, or doctrine. That is, we bring interpretations of Scripture—theology—into conversation with interpretations of nature—science. So, we do not allow science to supersede the Bible itself. We allow it to override interpretations of the Bible. No particular scientific theory, model, or idea possesses authority over Scripture, but there could be a scenario where a scientific claim trumps the deliverances of theology. The better way to think of this is to say that for evangelical theology, both theology (interpretations of special revelation) and science (interpretations of general revelation) come under the authority of Scripture itself. This means that we can place science and theology into dialogue without giving science veto power, as it were, over Scripture, and thus undermining the authority of the Bible.

Consider a couple of examples. A straightforward reading of Genesis strongly suggests a relatively young earth. Now what happens if an evangelical scholar comes to think that the evidence of astronomy and geology very strongly supports an ancient universe and earth? Is this a denial of the authority of the Bible? I think not. (And, by the way, one can hold a young earth view and agree with this assessment.[72]) If a theologian believes that astronomy and geology indicate an ancient earth, then these sciences rebut the young earth interpretation of the Bible, not the Bible itself. On the other hand, of course, some scientific models do inevitably conflict with Scripture. A full Darwinian evolutionism is a case in point, for this denies any creator at all. We must judge this kind of issue on a case-by-case basis. But the point here is simply that using scientific results to rebut theological claims does not necessarily compromise the evangelical commitment to biblical authority. Affirming the authority of Scripture does place the divine revelation in a category that is distinct from any text that is merely human in its origins. But theology is a human interpretation of the Bible. Science, therefore, can rightly speak to theology.

B. Theology Speaks to the Sciences

Scientism, even in its weaker forms, will hold that theology can benefit from science. But defenders of scientism ridicule the idea that science could benefit from theology. I think this is wrongheaded. In a variety of ways, Christian theological convictions have spoken, and do rightly speak, to the scientific enter-prise. I will offer a list of increasingly controversial claims about how Christian theology contributes to science.

First, Christian theology gives an account of why the universe is orderly, why it is susceptible to mathematical interpretation, why it exists, and, most fundamentally, why its existence matters. Science must assume these premises, for it cannot justify them. Stephen Hawking acknowledged,

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him?[73]

Christian theology works off the premise that the glory of God and the des-tiny that God plans for his creation (including humans) explain why the phys-ical universe and its incredible life forms even exist.

Second, Christian theology provides a metaphysical grounding of the ratio-nal justification of science. Theology explains why natural science is even possible as a rational enterprise. Christian theology may not be the only possible explanation of rationality. Perhaps other accounts are available. But I am persuaded, for example, that a secular macroevolutionary model does not adequately ground human rationality. What reason would we have to think that a physical structure called the brain, whose architecture allegedly evolved because it provided survival benefits, would also, by coincidence, reliably pro-duce true beliefs? At a minimum I say that Christian theism offers a far more reasonable account of human rationality than do alternatives. (I cannot justify this here.) But we are surely right to try to show that the doctrine of creation by an intelligent, triune God explains better why science—or any reasoned dis-cipline for that matter—is even possible.

Third, Christian theology explains why science matters. Christian thinking accounts for the fact that we rightly consider the knowledge gained through science to be of value. Science is a value-laden enterprise. By contrast, reductionist accounts of science explain all natural events in terms of fundamental physical processes without recourse to value. For instance, world-renowned geneticist Francis Crick said, “the ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.”[74] But if successful, this would still leave unexplained the purposeful behavior of the geneticist. Now some research projects rightly exclude considerations of value. If a scientist wants to investigate how certain light-sensitive cells react when bombarded by certain parts of the light spectrum, she properly excludes the categories of value and purpose from that defined area of research. But she would err if she concluded that all descriptions of reality, to be rational, must explain only in terms of basic facts about inert and non-purposive entities, forces, and processes. Again, method does not determine ontology. The scientist examining the light-sensitive cells is herself motivated by purposes. If science embeds an assumption that there is no purposive action in the whole of reality, it explains the light-sensitive cells by a method that cannot account for the scientist’s own purposeful investigation of those cells. So science rightly assumes values that are not themselves open to scientific study. And the Christian worldview explains why it is right to do so.

Fourth, a growing minority voice says that theology can speak to science by guiding future research. This goes beyond providing metaphysical, rational, and axiological grounds for science. It means religious views could suggest potentially profitable lines of scientific research. Historically, this has happened with Giordano Bruno. As Frances Yates showed, a paganism focused on sun worship and the belief that the universe is spiritually alive fueled Bruno’s heart. Although Bruno knew some of the mathematical and physical reasons for the heliocentric solar system, his religious fervor for the divinity of the sun drove him to give the sun an honored place at the center of the solar system. The novel point pressed by Yates is not just that a scientific model emerged from a religious perspective. More specifically, Bruno’s religious viewpoint actually shaped the set of categories that fostered the development of a particular scientific model. And this model, as it turned out, is true.[75]

Perhaps even here, a Christian who accepts methodological naturalism might concede the point. A Christian in the sciences could maintain commitment to methodological naturalism, and still allow that religious ideas could function to suggest or recommend lines of research. The defender of methodological naturalism could stipulate that any theory arising from a religious source must meet conditions something like the following: first, it must explain natural phenomena by making reference only to natural events and forces; and, second, it must be justified entirely by physical evidence. In essence, these stipulations would mean that religious doctrines could stimulate scientific investigation, but maintain that religious ideas never warrant scientific theories. But can we go farther?

Fifth, Christians might use what they know theologically to assist in war-ranting one scientific theory over another. Imagine a scenario where scientists contemplate two incompatible models, both of which appeal to and account for significant portions of the same empirical data. Suppose that the explanatory web of one of these models makes reference to non-natural causal forces and the other does not. Would the latter model, one that uses only natural causal forces to account for natural phenomena, be rationally superior merely because it excludes reference to non-natural causal agency? Defenders of methodological naturalism would say yes. But I say not. If there were good non-empirical (say, metaphysical or theological) reasons for a model, I think in some cases it would be reasonable to judge the model that makes reference to non-natural causal agency as rationally superior.

A movement that explicates this point of view is called “theistic science.” Theistic science says that theological beliefs are, under certain specified conditions, relevant to scientific discovery, explanation, and justification. Ontologically, theistic science claims that God exists, that God designed and created the world, and that God has on occasion acted immediately in the world as a personal agent. Epistemologically, therefore, a theistic scientist who knows these truths can act rationally by considering, where relevant, certain theological beliefs in developing scientific models or assessing rival scientific hypotheses. Methodologically, theistic science claims that in certain cases, a scientist as scientist (not just as believer) can have well-justified knowledge that God acts as an agent in nature. God’s action can create gaps in the fabric of physical reality, and therefore, necessarily, God’s action creates gaps in purely natural scientific explanation. The theistic scientist as scientist may rightly look for the results of divine agency in nature, seeking to identify events that are best interpreted as the acts of a personal agent.[76] Alvin Plantinga put it like this: “What we really need are answers to our questions from the perspective of all that we know—what we know about God, and what we know by faith, by way of revelation, as well as what we know in other ways.”[77]

Defenders of methodological naturalism immediately (and sometimes passionately) accuse advocates of theistic science of committing the God-of-the-gaps fallacy. Bube wrote, “The approach of ‘theistic science’ inevitably leads to a return to a position involving a God-of-the-Gaps.” [78] Defenders of theistic science respond with a critical clarification. They say theistic science does not entail God-of-the-gaps reasoning. In theistic science, the absence of plausible naturalistic explanations of some phenomenon is always insufficient to conclude that a particular natural event or process is caused by personal agency. The lack of a comprehensive natural account does not by itself suggest, let alone prove, the presence of personal agency. On that point, methodological naturalism and theistic science agree. In contrast to the God-of-the-gaps strategy, theistic science requires positive evidence for personal agency. “The contemporary design movement does not rest . . . on gaps in our knowledge but rather on the growth in our knowledge.”[79] Theistic science does not posit God’s agency on the ground of a lack of scientific alternatives but only on the basis of positive reasons. Some—not all—of these good reasons could be philosophical or theological. Bube remained unconvinced: “This may make it good sense, but it doesn’t make it good science.”[80]

Is theistic science bad science? In assessing large-scale empirical models, it is legitimate for scientists to consider, where it is relevant, the added rational warrant provided by theological or philosophical reasoning. In this sense, it is rational to allow theological beliefs to play some role in choosing which scientific hypothesis is, overall, most reasonable. If, however, a large-scale model is grounded entirely in theological or philosophical reasoning, it would then be a theological or philosophical model. In that case, it could hardly count as a scientific model (although it might have implications for science). But fear of the God-of-the-gaps mistake should not intimidate theologians (or scientists) into allowing only purely empirical or naturalistic explanations to count as scientific. Depending on the purpose of the research, where there exists good positive evidence of intelligence or personal agency, a scientist may rightly conclude that a personal being was instrumental in causing a particular event. There is no eternally unchanging definition or abstract ideal of science that precludes personal agency as legitimate scientific explanation.

But not every scientific research program may appeal to personal agency. For one thing, it is critical to distinguish explanations of classes of events and explanations of singular events. When a particular research program seeks to interpret ongoing natural processes, it deals with whole classes of repeatable events. How fast will the earth’s attractive force cause objects above the earth’s surface to accelerate in a free fall? This research program addresses this question: How does a large class of similar events occur when nature is left to itself? Here science must restrict itself to natural explanations. Recourse to personal agency is illegitimate because personal agency is outside the predetermined parameters of that particular research program. This differs from methodological naturalism, which stipulates that any appeal to personal agency is illegitimate because personal agency is outside the parameters of any scientific research whatsoever—that is, outside the parameters of science per se. But sup-pose a scientific research program seeks to explain E, an unrepeatable, singular past event. Then it rightly uses speculative reconstruction. The investigation of E uses abductive reasoning to reconstruct the event from present clues or facts. It explains E in part, but not completely, by appealing to scientific laws. The investigation also uses indirect methods of explanation such as reasoning to the best explanation. In this kind of science, if E was in fact caused by a personal agent, then obviously, appealing to personal agency is not just legitimate but necessary to a complete explanation of E. The scientists in the forensics lab cannot develop a complete scientific explanation of a murder, for example, without including discussion of a murderer.

The question this raises is how to distinguish cases where natural events bear the marks of personal agency. This is a huge issue, and the discussion is in process. William Dembski addressed it in works like The Design Inference.[81] Dembski’s thesis is that design—intelligent planning by a personal agent or mind for a particular purpose—is identifiable as a highly improbable event or process that fits a pattern. A highly probable event, even if it fits a pattern, could be caused by normal natural processes. An event that fits no pattern, no matter how improbable, could be the result of unintelligent forces. But a highly improbable event that fits a pattern suggests intelligent planning. This is the so-called complexity specification criterion. So, for instance, if scientists receive a coded message (a set of individually improbable but collectively meaningfully patterned signals), hidden in millions of haphazard data points, they may rightly infer intelligence. The computers that scan the radio waves from outer space looking for signs of intelligent life are looking for highly improbable events that fit into meaningful patterns. If they find such, scientists in the SETI program may rightly infer the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence. If the results of intelligence are identifiable in research programs like SETI, then there are scientific research programs in which methodological naturalism is not an appropriate assumption.[82]

Even in properly delimited research programs where methodological naturalism is appropriate, however, the results of scientific research should be reintegrated with the results of other truth seeking operations. Research that limits itself to naturalistic analysis can bifurcate its subject. If reductionism is to be avoided, researchers should reintegrate the findings with other knowledge. At one level of explanation, the analytic strategy of studying one variable at a time, rather than multiple variables at once, is helpful. But science must reintegrate the results of such study into holistic accounts of the phenomena in question. “In terms of the rationality of the created universe as a whole, we may infer that reality is disclosed as an open hierarchy of stratified structures, and that reality can only be grasped by creaturely intelligence in terms of this ordered openness.”[83] If isolated studies of single layers of the “open hierarchy of stratified structures” are not reconnected with the results of studies of other layers, then reductionism results. The analytic techniques of science can serve a valid function by isolating certain phenomena from their broader environments and focusing attention on bite-sized pieces of the natural world. But these techniques can delude us into thinking that reductionist accounts are best, even in cases where holistic accounts are superior. Disciplines become solipsistic if they allow their own interests to undermine interdisciplinary dialogue. Without dialogue, disciplines are unable to dis-cover the relational inner logic of the stratified open-structured reality of the universe, ghettoizing their areas of study, and cutting relationships with fuller accounts of the objects they purport to describe.[84]

Under certain conditions, then, theology does rightly speak to science. This does not mean that in cases of apparent difference between a theological and a scientific claim, theology always trumps science. In fact, most specific scientific debates do not hinge in a crucial way on any metaphysical or theological claims, and they are not decidable by theological or metaphysical concerns. Yet, speaking historically, the broad theistic framework of Christian theology did undergird the rise of science.[85] Science assumes that an external world exists and that this world is interpreted mathematically. It presupposes the laws of logic and the reliability of human cognition. Historically, these and other premises came to science from Christianity. Still, a debate between two scientific models, theological considerations rarely settle the debate. When Louis Pasteur refuted spontaneous generation by showing that decaying meat does not produce maggots, for example, he made the same assumptions about the external world, the laws of logic, and the reliability of the senses as did those who believed in spontaneous generation. But in a few cases, cases that are no doubt impossible to specify entirely ahead of time, theological beliefs can guide Christian scientists in their assessment of science and scientific claims.

Another move is available to the opponent of theistic science—to anyone who says that the very definition of ‘science’ must always assume methodological naturalism. A person could admit that theological or philosophical concerns count as legitimate reasons for a Christian to believe something, but such reasoning just could never count as a kind of science:

If God were to create something from nothing instantaneously in front of a person today, the person could attribute what he observes scientifically only to “spontaneous generation.” Then, as a human being reflecting on the situation, he may come to the faith conclusion that he has witnessed a direct primary creative act of God. This would . . . not [be] the outcome of his science.[86]

But this move leads directly to a discussion of the semantic range of the word ‘science’. The defender of theistic science could contend the semantic point. Or she could just concede: “Okay,” she might say, “I’ll give you the word ‘science’ to describe empirical, non-purposive, and naturalistic explanations of things. This is just a semantic debate anyway. I’ll use the phrase ‘theistic explanation’ in place of ‘theistic science’.” Is there a problem with this?

I think the problem is severe. Giving up the word ‘science’ is a problem because of the lingering cultural authority that attaches to that word. In spite of the announcements that we live in a postmodern world, the sciences still possess an air of prestige and authority that other disciplines lack. We are left with the impression that scientific beliefs about natural objects are more rational, more justified, or in some other way epistemically superior to theological beliefs about God. What counts as science is important, therefore, because people coronate science with a special rational standing. If people today valued both properly warranted theological beliefs and also suitably supported scientific beliefs about nature equally, then we might just define methodological naturalism as a feature of science. But given that, in the default assumptions of our time, theology is considered rationally deficient, we must challenge the dominance of naturalistic explanation. We must insist on a level playing field between the various intellectual disciplines. Of course, theology is not just like physics, but so what?

Evangelical theology has nothing to fear and everything to gain from competent scientific practice that seeks to understand God’s world. If, for purposes of investigation, a particular research program assumes methodological naturalism in order to focus on particular features of a natural system, as nature operates on its own, that is all to the good. But the rational legitimacy of scientific research programs that rightly (given their subject matter and purpose) assume methodological naturalism does not begin to entail the illegitimacy of research programs that do not make this assumption. And among “other research programs” are both scientific research programs that do not assume methodological naturalism as well as theological research programs. The better way is to allow specific disciplines to specify limited frames of reference, including relevant methodological principles, so that these frames of reference can enable the disciplines to understand the objects of their research most effectively. Scholars need not feel compelled to use exactly the same methods to investigate all the subjects in the world. They should follow methods appropriate to the varied objects of their research.

So scholars in a particular discipline follow the frames of reference relevant to their field of study to discover what they can about the object of their work. Then scholars from that particular discipline should reintegrate the results of their own study with the results of other disciplines. In this way they form larger, more holistic accounts of reality. As Plantinga wrote,

what we need here . . . is not natural science, but a broader inquiry that can include all that we know, including the truths that God has created life on earth and could have done it in many different ways. . . . what we need when we want to know how to think about the origin and development of contemporary life is what is most plausible from a Christian point of view. What we need is a scientific account of life that isn’t restricted by that methodological naturalism.[87]

It is rationally legitimate to focus a research program narrowly on any natural phenomenon. This procedure does not undermine theology. But we should then seek to reconnect the deliverances of such a research program to the larger framework of God’s purposes in creation and redemption.

V. CONCLUSION

Science challenges faith. Modernist pictures of science—scientism, for example—entail that theology is rationally second-rate. But clearer knowledge of the nature of science now shows how science is consistent with theology as a rational discipline. Scholars are now freer to enter the potentially fertile arena of the science-theology dialogue than in several centuries. But the demise of modernist views of science may not encourage postmodern people to think of theology as an objective discipline. It could have the opposite effect, persuading them to think of science as but one more subjective voice in the chorus of perspectives. This subjectivism and the pluralism that goes with it confront theology in a very different way. Modernist science—natural and empirical science viewed as the primary (or only) path to objective truth and social progress—undermines any discipline that is unlike itself. But postmodern pluralists doubt whether any discipline at all can produce genuine knowledge. They see all disciplines as legitimate perspectives (see chapter 4). This defies the evangelical proclamation of Good News for all persons. So does it make sense to hold that certain ideas are true for all? How shall we under-stand reason and philosophy, and what role do they play in shaping Christian theology?

CHAPTER

NINE

THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

I began studying philosophy formally three decades ago. Since then I have often defended the discipline of philosophy to fellow believers who suggested that philosophy is an inherently dangerous and destructive enterprise for any Christian. I know all about Paul’s warning in Colossians 2:8: Beware of deceptive philosophy. The apostle says that believers are to beware of philosophy that is guided by human traditions and worldly principles, rather than by Christ. Christians need not renounce all philosophy, but we should reject worldly and humanistic philosophy. Still, many evangelical believers distrust philosophy.

Surprisingly to these believers, many world-class philosophers of religion today adopt traditional Christian convictions (like miracles). On the other hand, many contemporary theologians and biblical scholars consider historic Christian doctrines unbelievable. Harvard theologian Gordon Kaufman wrote that belief in the actual existence of a Creator God is impossible in the age when the threat of nuclear war hangs over our heads.[1] Roman Catholic philosopher Michael Dummett described certain post-Vatican II Catholic biblical scholars who reject traditional beliefs: they “react only with indignation to the dismay evinced by Catholics to whom it appears that the religion to which they have been loyal is apparently being whittled away from above.” These liberal scholars treat “expressions of such dismay as no more than malicious attacks upon themselves. Certain of their superior knowledge, they do not ask whether this dismay might not be well founded.”[2] Few evangelical believers would expect a Christian philosopher to lament the distortion of biblical faith by biblical scholars!

I. PHILOSOPHY AND REASON

Many long-standing controversies in Christian theology revolve around the integration of the Creator’s sphere and the created sphere. These debates are important precisely because as traditional Christians, we believe that the truth about these matters is ultimately unified. Classic conundrums like the relationship of faith and reason, Christianity and human culture, nature and grace, and divine sovereignty and human freedom often hinge on properly conceiving the point of intersection and relation between the divine and the human, the transcendent and the immanent. I call these “intersection questions.” The connection of philosophy to theology is another of these intersection questions. Philosophy—reason—has interacted closely with and influenced revealed theology—faith—for most of its history. Indeed, Donald Bloesch says, “probably the single most important issue in a theological prolegomenon is the enigmatic relation between faith and reason.”[3] An account of theological method must straightforwardly analyze the interplay of revelation, traditionally seen as the basis of theology, with reason, seen as the province of philosophy.

A. Four Senses of ‘Philosophy’

The history of the word ‘theology’ (see chapter 1) reveals a range of contradictory claims about the relevance of philosophy and reason to theology. An important complicating factor in this history is that theologians representing different points of view used the words ‘philosophy’ and ‘reason’ quite differently. This simple semantic point seems fairly uncontroversial, but its deep significance is often overlooked. Because different thinkers use distinct vocabulary, the actual positions of persons who sound as though they are arguing at cross-purposes may not always be as far apart as their rhetoric implies.

English speakers use the word ‘philosophy’ in four major ways. First, the word can refer to a philosophy of life, a person’s worldview. A person’s world-view is her structured way of perceiving and conceiving of the whole of reality. A worldview links a person’s largest beliefs about life and her everyday practice of life. It is a “framework of fundamental considerations which give context, direction, and meaning to our lives.”[4] In this sense, philosophy describes the person’s broadest intellectual framework or conceptual grid. A philosophy of life is a macroperspective, a “total interpretation,”[5] an inter-pretation that encompasses the whole of reality. In contrast, a scientific paradigm like Newtonian physics is a microperspective because its scope is less than total. All philosophies of life answer at least five large issues: the nature of real-ity, the nature of human existence, the human predicament, the resolution to that predicament, and the destiny that humans may anticipate when that solution is applied. A worldview embodies a person’s answers to the most basic life questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?

Second, ‘philosophy’ points to a cluster of academic disciplines. In this sense, philosophy includes particular objects of study or ranges of experience along with methods of study appropriate to those objects. Philosophical method typically involves a stress on clarifying concepts, criticizing assumptions, evaluating arguments, and constructing viewpoints. Historically, philosophy included the study of the natural world. The subject matter of what was once called “natural philosophy,” however, has become the province of the various sciences. University departments of philosophy today include subjects that are unique to philosophy: logic, epistemology, metaphysics, esthetics, or ethics. Philosophy may also use different methods to explore subjects that other disciplines investigate. Philosophy of mind, for instance, uses a metaphysical approach to investigate the human spirit or psyche even though other disciplines like psychology and brain physiology also touch on the human psyche. This leads to boundary disputes. Some might argue that all we can know or need to know about the human mind is discovered through one discipline. But a good philosopher will point out that this claim assumes large and controversial philosophical positions both about the nature of human beings and about the capacities of science. These intersection issues are the province of philosophy.

Philosophy intersects theology in at least two disciplines, “philosophical theology” and “philosophy of religion.” I described above (in chapter 6) the various ways scholars study religious belief and life. A scholarly study of religion may use anthropological, psychological, sociological, historical, or literary approaches. Philosophical theology and philosophy of religion, however, both take a philosophical approach to the content of religious believing. They focus on the meaning of and the truth status of religious beliefs. They assess the meaning, consistency, rationality, or warrant of theological ideas.

While these two disciplines both use philosophical tools, however, they do differ somewhat. The phrase “philosophical theology” usually connotes the use of philosophical tools to work constructively within a particular tradition. If a Christian uses a certain set of metaphysical concepts and tools to develop and defend a Christian view of God, that is a case of philosophical theology. “Philosophy of religion” does not assume any specific religious point of view. It does not presuppose that a particular revelation claim (e.g., “The Bible is God’s Word”) is central for its work. Philosophy of religion may at times turn to construction and synthesis, but even then it emphasizes analysis and evaluation. If a Christian uses philosophical tools to explore the concept of karma, that is an example of philosophy of religion.[6] Philosophy of religion is today a very vital field of work, and, happily, many leading philosophers of religion are traditional Christian believers.[7]

Many evangelicals studying apologetics do so in the context of philosophy of religion. But while philosophy of religion contributes to apologetics, the two are distinct. First, because philosophy of religion is an academic discipline or a science in the traditional sense, it is narrower in scope. Apologetics, however, is more like an area of practice than a unified academic discipline. For its work, apologetics incorporates the results of many disciplines—history, biblical studies, the sciences, theology, and philosophy. So it is not a discipline per se. Second, apologetics is narrower in purpose: its goal is primarily to defend a religious point of view or to persuade persons to adopt that religious perspetive. Unlike apologetics, philosophy of religion is content to explain and analyze various religious beliefs.

Third, a number of other uses of the word ‘philosophy’ parallel its use in the phrase “philosophy of religion.” Scholars in philosophy departments study philosophy of science, philosophy of law, or philosophy of history. These are second-order, or higher-level, areas of study that have become academic disciplines in their own right. But the phrase “philosophy of” can denote a second-order analysis of any first-order activity including things like parenting, recreation, business, or even ministry even though these activities are not academic disciplines. A “philosophy of” some activity analyzes the concepts, goals, and methods of that activity in hopes of achieving more coherent and effective practice. For instance, a first-order activity like teaching the first grade depends on underlying principles that express the purposes and most appropriate methods for that kind of teaching. Some teachers develop the basic principles of their teaching explicitly. Others gain an implicit philosophy of teaching by observing other teachers and develop a hodgepodge of teaching strategies through trial-and-error. Either way, first-grade teachers assume some things about the goals and proper methods of their work. These constitute a “philosophy of first-grade teaching.”

One activity for which we may develop a “philosophy of” is systematic theology itself. The book you are reading is actually a “philosophy of theology.” It is a study focusing on the nature, assumptions, concepts, goals, and appropriate methods of doing evangelical systematic theology. Given the severe criticisms that come against evangelical theology, the value of developing a sophisticated philosophy of evangelical theology, one that is not merely thrown together, seems self-evidently great.

Fourth, ‘philosophy’ can express a commitment to clear, analytical thinking. Philosophy in this sense stresses careful analysis of the meanings of concepts (including denotation and connotation), detailed exploration of latent presuppositions buried within any argument or viewpoint, and critical assessment of the evidential status of a claim or perspective. (Notice that this chapter is itself an example of this kind of philosophy.) Much contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, the so-called analytic tradition, sees philosophy functioning primarily or even exclusively in this sense. In narrower forms of this tradition, philosophy has no distinctive subject matter at all. As natural philosophy no longer exists as such because the natural sciences have taken over the study of nature, so philosophy generally has abandoned all specific objects of study. Rather, philosophy studies the disciplines themselves, evaluating the inner logic—the concepts, methods, and assumptions—of every other field of study.

Take, for example, ethics. Morality is the actual experience of deciding, evaluating, and living according to moral norms. Ethics is the philosophical and theological investigation of morality. Traditionally, ethics included two orders or levels of discussion. The first, descriptive ethics, makes descriptive observations about actual behaviors and beliefs (i.e., about morality). The second, normative ethics, evaluates those behaviors and beliefs. But analytic philosophers today have teased out a third level of analysis. Metaethics, this third-order analysis, seeks to understand the meanings of ethical concepts and the appropriate criteria for judging moral values and duties. In other words, just as normative ethics analyzes and judges descriptive ethics, so metaethics analyzes and judges the concepts, criteria, and principles of normative ethics.[8] Now some analytic philosophers hold that the only proper domain of moral philosophy is the third-order analysis, metaethics. This stance illustrates the narrow view that the only proper job of analytic philosophy is evaluating the language and methods of other disciplines. But other analytic philosophers construe the task of philosophy more broadly. They value the careful clarifying work typical of the analytic tradition. But once the analysis is finished, they do believe philosophers may rightly turn to the constructive task of building a worldview.

B. Three Senses of ‘Reason’

Just as we who are Christian thinkers have never agreed on the relation of philosophy to theology, so we have not reached consensus on the relevance of human reason to divine revelation. To clarify the status of human reason, we need an analysis of the meaning of the word ‘reason’ that is not unlike our sketch of the various uses of ‘philosophy’. The word ‘reason’ functions in three distinct ways. First, “autonomous reason,” a phrase Francis Schaeffer popularized, [9] is human thinking born out of an insistence on living independently of God. It is human thinking that demands ultimacy and priority for its own starting point, conceptual terms, and principles of method. Sometimes evangelicals identify the claim that reason is the final arbiter of human knowing as an expression of an attitude of sinful rebellion against God.[10]

Many contemporary theologians give reason (i.e., a critical stance that dis-allows commitment to religious authority) a very prominent role. For instance, David Tracy claimed that “in all properly theological inquiry, the analysis should be characterized by those same ethical stances of autonomous judgment, critical reflection and properly skeptical hard-mindedness that characterize analysis in other fields.”[11] For Alfred North Whitehead, this understanding of the role of reason stands in contradiction to a commitment to Scripture as an authority. He insisted that “ultimately nothing rests on authority; the final court of appeal is intrinsic reasonableness.”[12] This prioritizing of critical reason over authority, expressed as ultimate allegiance to the methods of the academy, may reflect autonomous reason.

Second, ‘reason’ can refer more generally to the totality of our knowledge-producing capacities, the entire set of our human noetic equipment. Reason in this broad sense is more nearly neutral in relation to the question of allegiance to God. In this sense, reason is simply the ability to think about any subject at all. Christians have long taught that it is right to use human thinking in the service of God. In spite of the negative implications of “autonomous reason,” evangelical theology needs human thinking in the process of building any theological worldview. When reason functions as a servant (rather than as a master, like autonomous reason), reason is the divinely created capacity to understand God’s revelation both in the Bible and in the world.[13] Reason in this second sense includes all our belief-forming capacities.

Third, ‘reason’ may denote one facet of human noetic equipment. (This would be in contrast to other parts of our noetic equipment, like sense perception.) In the narrower sense, reason is that part of our belief-forming capacities by which we draw inferences and check for consistency. The God-given inferential equipment with which each person is endowed enables us to grasp God’s revelation, distinguish it from other claimed revelations, and apply it appropriately to life. To say that reason is part of the God-given noetic equipment is not to say that it works perfectly or automatically. To be committed to what is reasonable requires moral virtue. Reason is our friend if we seek what is true, but it is no friend to the man who hopes to cover his tracks. Thieves and adulterers are “constantly alert to appearances and inferences that may logically implicate them in their wrong actions.” Learning to reason requires growth in character for it demands not only the ability to think rightly, but the will to do so.[14]

To exercise reason in its broadest sense, someone must know how to recognize contradiction and follow the principles of implication. Reasoning applies several different kinds of rational principles. One category of such principles includes the traditional laws of logic, the laws of identity, noncontradiction, and excluded middle. Some technical discussions may appear to undercut the universal application of these principles, but no worldview abandons them completely. Another category includes such criteria or principles as coherence or comprehensiveness. We use these to judge both individual beliefs and larger sets of ideas. A final category of principles followed in rational processes encompasses general rules of evidence. These do things like guiding us to decide the admissibility or relevance of evidence to particular questions. Richard Swinburne says that we need “primary inductive principles” to guide inferential reasoning.[15] An example is the principle of credulity:

(a) When something seems to someone to be true, it probably is, unless there is a special disqualifying circumstance that defeats the original belief.

A critical question is whether principles of reasoning ever transcend world-views. According to perspectivalism as well as conceptual relativism, all rational principles operate only within a perspective or worldview. Obviously, some principles do. (“The Bible is God’s unique revelation” is a core belief that is at home only within the Christian worldview.) But I say that rationality as such transcends worldviews. Now I must not overstate the case. Admittedly, the specific, concrete form that an abstract principle like coherence takes within a particular perspective (whether that is a particular culture, academic discipline, or religious worldview) will differ from the form it takes in another viewpoint. One philosopher claimed that “issues of rationality are always situation specific.” [16] And obviously, not all worldviews agree with all other worldviews on the principles by which they evaluate their beliefs about the world.[17] But while we should recognize the uniqueness of the specific forms that rational principles take within perspectives, we should also balance that insight by acknowledging the common patterns these principles display. For in addition to the serious defects in perspectivalism (see chapter 4), we have positive reasons to affirm worldview-transcending rational principles.

Consider a specific example, the principle of coherence. It may be possible—I do not know how exactly to do this—to show that coherence is very different in different worldviews or disciplines. (Or maybe it amounts to the same thing to say that coherence is relevant only in some worldviews, not others.) But I hold that any attempt to understand the world will make any progress at all only if it achieves some sort of universally recognizable coherence. Attempts to reject rationality systematically fail. Zen Buddhism, for instance, is at one level quite anti-rational. But perspectives like Zen nevertheless display a kind of coherence at a deeper level.[18] Further, all worldviews I know about address, in internally coherent ways, the great worldview issues—nature of reality, human existence, the human predicament, the resolution, and human destiny. Any worldview that analyzes the most fundamental human predicament as moral in nature, for instance, interprets the solution in moral terms as well. Thus, reasoning processes rightly include applying principles that are embedded in particular worldviews. But proper human reasoning always follows rational guidelines that are part of any and all good thinking processes. Without following these rational guidelines, reasoning of whatever sort breaks down.

C. Method and Content

Clarifying the several senses of these two words leads directly to an important distinction. We need this distinction to clarify the relation of philosophy to theology. People will use the words ‘philosophy’ and ‘reason’ to refer, on the one hand, to substantive or material beliefs. On the other hand, people will also use these words to describe procedural or formal principles. There is a fundamental difference between content beliefs and method beliefs. When used in the first two of the four senses I mentioned, the word ‘philosophy’ describes beliefs about the world. The content of these beliefs will either cohere with or conflict with—either support or subvert—evangelical convictions. Similarly, autonomous reason is a particular way to think of the rational principles we all use. It is the use of rational principles in combination with certain convictions like, “Human thinking is the final arbiter of truth.” It is not the rational principles themselves, but the latter conviction (human thinking as the ultimate arbiter) that contradicts evangelical convictions. But ‘philosophy’ in the latter two senses and ‘reason’ in the latter two senses are relatively more neutral pat-terns of thinking that evangelical theologians, like all thinking persons, must use in some way.[19] A key to sorting out the relevance of philosophy and reason to evangelical theology, therefore, lies in analyzing clearly the particular sense in which words like ‘philosophy’ and ‘reason’ are used in a particular context.

Consider an example. Donald Bloesch asserted that “every philosophy rep-resents a rationalization for a false theology or religion and that true theology necessarily excludes philosophy—not its concerns, not even its language, but its worldview, its metaphysical claims.”[20] In the first part of this statement we find the theme that philosophy and reason are intended to conceal and rationalize sinful rebellion against God. Philosophy just is autonomous reason—and is therefore incompatible with the properly humble spirit that is essential to evangelical theology. Theology cannot eliminate the concerns or language of philosophy (i.e., its method). But theology renounces philosophy’s meta-physical claims when the metaphysic in question stands in contrast to Christian faith (i.e., the content of non-Christian perspectives).

Given all this, on the one hand, some contentful claims about the nature of reality held within specific philosophical or religious viewpoints that are not Christian can contradict Christian teaching. But other contentful claims arising from non-Christian perspectives may be coherent with the Christian world-view. Christian theologians must decide these matters on a case-by-case basis. On the other hand, the formal philosophical methods of reasoning perse are not typically antithetical to evangelical theology. The method of philosophical analysis involves strategies for clarifying concepts, criticizing assumptions, evaluating arguments, and constructing positive viewpoints. This philosophi-cal analysis differs from everyday thinking, not absolutely, but in that it more rigorously applies the generic thinking skills that humans regularly use. Further, it does develop special intellectual tools that everyday thinking does not require. These analytic skills are very helpful, even though not sufficient, for good evangelical theologizing. Christian theology uses the kinds of conceptual principles and strategies that are implicit in all good worldview-building processes.

D. The Structure of a Worldview

The point of thinking reasonably, in conjunction with using other facets of our noetic equipment (like the senses), is to acquire knowledge. The goal is to have actual, contentful understanding of God, ourselves, the predicament of sin, salvation from sin, and eternal life—and to live life in light of that understanding. Christians believe that the content of the Christian worldview provides a coherent response to the pressing human questions all worldviews attempt at some level to answer. Thus, one major purpose Christians have in using philosophy as method (where its methods are appropriate) is to arrive at Christian philosophy as content.

As humans, we gather our knowledge of the world into structured, inter-locking systems of beliefs.[21] In chapter 4, I discussed perspective, meaning a point of view or an entire system of beliefs. The word ‘perspective’ emphasizes that we structure sets of beliefs into coordinated patterns that reflect how a per-son sees the world from a specific point of view. Knowledge of the world is something that a person possesses. Knowledge is mediated through viewpoints, and the most comprehensive of these is a person’s worldview.

This broadest perspective is also a noetic structure.[22] Using the phrase “noetic structure” emphasizes the total set of a person’s knowings with special stress on the rational structure, the inherent, internal relatedness, of those knowings. Within a noetic structure, different beliefs are more or less critical, logically speaking, to the inner workings of the total system. Organizing a noetic structure means developing a natural relationship among various data beliefs. Beliefs that logically imply many other beliefs become, by virtue of their logically primal status, more central to the noetic structure. A belief upon which large ranges of a web of belief stand or fall (e.g., in evangelical theology, the deity of Jesus Christ) moves right to the center of a worldview. A belief that has very few ramifications for the rest of the worldview (e.g., baptism by sprinkling) moves toward the periphery. For certain denominations, a particular mode of baptism may be existentially central because it defines the historic distinctives of that theological tradition. Mode of baptism might be the issue that led to that denomination’s founding. But that history might not nec-essarily make mode of baptism logically central.

The phrase “depth of ingression” denotes a rough index of the relative log-ical importance of a specific belief to a total noetic structure.[23] If a belief has maximal depth of ingression, that means many peripheral beliefs will logically cohere with, depend on, or be entailed by that belief. This sort of a belief is conceptually central to the system. Logically, a lot hangs on such a belief, and it is logically primal. On the other hand, if a belief has minimal depth of ingression, very little hangs on that belief. It therefore stands at the outer edge of someone’s belief system.[24] A person can change a belief that has minimal depth of ingression without substantially altering her total noetic structure. If an evangelical believer learns that Mt. Rainier is not the tallest mountain in the world, she might find it surprising but it will likely not change her noetic structure very dramatically. Abandoning even one belief that has a maximal depth of ingression, however, may finally mean renouncing the system of thought entirely, even if the vast majority of peripheral beliefs remain individually unchanged. So a person who gives up believing in God’s existence radically alters her worldview—unlike someone who learns, by hearing the news on the Discovery channel, that Mt. Everest is the world’s tallest mountain.

Imre Lakatos developed a philosophy of science that correlates to this analy-THEOLOGY sis of a noetic structure. Lakatos used the phrase “scientific research program” to denote a cluster of experiments that build on each other and form an ongoing web of research processes. According to Lakatos’s model, a research pro-gram includes networks of models and theories. It involves nonnegotiable, “hard-core” beliefs. Beliefs in the hard core possess a maximal depth of ingression. To give them up is to abandon the research program. A research program also develops “auxiliary hypotheses” that are more negotiable. These form a protective belt around the hard core. Scientific experimentation seeks to test the auxiliary hypotheses in order to handle troublesome data, preserving the hard core and expanding the explanatory power of the research program. A research program can be progressive or regressive. It is progressive when it incorporates new empirical content. Thus, Lakatos claimed that “experience still remains, in an important sense, the ‘impartial arbiter’ of scientific controversy.” [25] Contrary to Kuhn’s emphasis on the revolutionary nature of scientific development, Lakatos argued that the shift of a research program from one model to the next is more evolutionary. Again, unlike Kuhn, Lakatos pointed out that new theories typically retain much from the previous theories in the historical sequence, even though later ones are potentially superior to earlier ones. This means that a hard core—that is, beliefs of maximal depth of ingression—defines the noetic structure even as peripheral beliefs adapt to new evidence.

All persons have the beginnings of a worldview whether they recognize it or not. A person’s worldview is her total and (more or less) organized set of beliefs. For a Christian believer, his theology is his worldview. His theological worldview is a particular instance of a more general family of worldviews shared by other Christians. Obviously, since all individuals have unique experiences and distinctive beliefs, to say that two Christians share a common worldview cannot mean they hold exactly identical sets of beliefs. It implies rather that their individual sets of beliefs include all the essential Christian beliefs, especially at their hard core. So one traditional Christian believer has the same worldview as other Christians somewhat like the way my ’97 Plymouth Voyager is the same car as Tom’s ’97 Dodge Caravan. The various sets of beliefs that are Christian or evangelical must contain certain common features at the maximal level of depth of ingression. For instance, they all include the conviction that Jesus Christ is the decisive revelation of God. But two Christians could completely disagree about multitudes of more marginal beliefs, say their opinion of the esthetic qualities of Christian rock music, and still share the same worldview.

Whether or not two macroperspectives stand in conflict depends on the specific claims each makes. Obviously, the logical relationship between the most central hard-core beliefs in two noetic systems is by far the most important. Evangelical theology includes at the center of its hard core the claim that a personal Creator, whom we know as God, actually exists. Secular naturalism denies this. Thus, these two perspectives are simply not compatible. A Christian and a naturalist can share many beliefs about many things, but they cannot share worldviews. Conversely, if two Christians agree that the triune God exists, but experience conflict over any of a thousand auxiliary-belt beliefs, we would hardly say that they have different or incompatible worldviews. Humans in the knowing process gather their beliefs into relatively structured forms. Like anyone, Christian theologians develop these noetic structures. We assess whether certain beliefs are genuinely Christian or evaluate the epistemic status of Christian beliefs, not in isolation from other beliefs, but as they appear in the context of these noetic structures.

II. PRESUPPOSITIONS AND EVIDENCE IN THEOLOGY

Noetic structures shape our understandings of the world through their concepts. Categories offer us matched sets of concepts. They provide the conceptual cubbyholes by which we organize our interpretations of the world. Worldviews assume sets of categories in terms of which various beliefs are thought and expressed. Because these categories are deeply embedded in the hard core of thought and language, they are not always defended explicitly. They are simply part of the intellectual atmosphere or landscape of a person’s or a community’s thought life.

A. The Power of Concepts

Since concepts are powerful in shaping our understandings, we should sketch out aspects of their inner workings. Differing sets of concepts lie embedded in various languages (and the cultures with which those languages are enmeshed). The categories of one language may not correspond directly to those of another. As linguistics teaches, the uses of words in ordinary speech are ambiguous, and exactly direct translations are often impossible. A simple example of this is Leviticus 11:19, which lists bats as birds. Our contemporary scientific categories distinguish furry mammals from feathery birds. In terms of these categories, a bat is a mammal, but an ostrich is a bird. In the Hebrew way of looking at things, the relevant distinction is between land animals and flying animals. (The Hebrew word meaning “bird” is literally “flying animal.”) In terms of Hebrew categories, a bat is a bird. Similarly, despite what sharp Sunday school teachers may have told you, Jonah’s fish (in the ancient sense of ‘fish’) was probably a whale (in the modern sense of ‘whale’), not a large fish (in the modern sense of ‘fish’). The distinction between a gilled fish and a lunged whale is contemporary. No ancient author would have classed a whale anatomically with a jackrabbit instead of with a basking shark.

When pagan philosophy offered to Christian theology its theories, categories, and methods, it created bigger problems than categorizing bats or whales. In particular, during the patristic era, discussions of God and the per-son of Christ borrowed much extra-biblical language. But when theologians borrow terms and concepts from other contexts, they may unknowingly inherit certain persistent but unwanted contentful connotations. Deciding when such borrowing is helpful and when it is misleading is possible only on a case-by-case basis. For instance, in the fourteenth century, Meister Eckhart wanted to emphasize the believer’s intimate relationship with God. To describe the mystical union with God, he borrowed the dramatic phrasing of the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus, who spoke of “becoming one with the One.” This language effectively served the needs of piety. But with it came extra baggage—the Plotinian categories that lay implicit in the language. For Plotinus, the unity of the One is an absolute unity without division. By using Plotinian language, Eckhart implied that the Christian God is absolutely one just like Plotinus’s One.

Obviously, however, the idea that God possesses unity without division is troublesome for a Trinitarian. Could Eckhart integrate the Plotinian One with-out division with the orthodox God in three persons? As a first move, Eckhart unraveled the logical dilemma by positing his famous distinction between God and Godhead. God is the Trinity, but Godhead, who is absolutely one, is the “God beyond God.” The triune God is grounded in Godhead that lies beyond and is more ultimate than God. This addressed the Meister’s first problem of integrating Plotinian and Trinitarian grids. But it created another difficulty for Christian theology because it made the triune God less than ultimate. Eckhart answered this second conceptual problem by suggesting that the Godhead is actually God the Father. This seemed to cohere with the orthodox notion that the Son is generated by the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Son, and it integrated the Trinity with the Godhead. But again, this solved one of Eckhart’s difficulties only to create another: the new formulation compromised the equality of the three divine persons. It placed the Father (i.e., the Godhead) on a higher plane metaphysically than the Son and Spirit. In the end, Eckhart never successfully surmounted the powerful connotations implicit in Plotinian categories.

Michael Buckley offered a different example of the power of implied cate-gories. According to Buckley’s analysis, the Jesuits powerfully influenced the course of apologetics. Trying to persuade a modernist culture to acknowledge God’s existence, the Jesuits argued that God is fair, orderly, and compassion-ate in terms their contemporaries would accept. That is, the Jesuits imputed the modern notion of fairness to the biblical God. The trouble was that when modern people encountered life that did not seem orderly or fair, as modernists usually defined these terms, they concluded that God must not exist. The Jesuits, in other words, invented a model of God that the modern world eventually found quite easy to dismiss. In this way, Buckley claimed, the Jesuit apologetic strategy ironically contributed to the rise of atheism.[26] A contemporary example is Gordon Kaufman, who redefined ‘God’ as the historical evolutionary force that has brought us all into being.[27] This notion fits nicely with the intellectual milieu of the contemporary liberal academy with its evolutionary ethos. But it is so far from the biblical understanding of God that it is not recognizably Christian. I believe it will bolster atheism.

These examples lead some to think that all theological use of philosophical concepts is unbiblical. This is simplistic. Some concepts that began their life in pagan contexts or in contemporary culture are adaptable to theological use in ways that the Christian tradition finds acceptable.[28] Of course, the warnings against any naïve identification of philosophical categories with biblical con-tent are very important. Without very careful qualification, Tillich’s method of correlation (see chapter 1) leads, not just to answering the questions of culture, but also to unknowingly accepting the terms embedded in the culture’s questions. In using the categories of alien philosophy and surrounding culture, a theologian risks a simplistic appropriation of the alien values embedded in the DNA of those categories. So if Christians appropriate materials from other scholarly disciplines, religious viewpoints, or philosophical thought systems, they may do so only with the greatest care. Pannenberg wrote, “Christian theology can effect a link-up with the philosophical concept of God only when it undertakes a penetrating transformation of the philosophical concept right down to its roots. Wherever philosophical concepts are taken over, they must be remolded in the light of the history-shaping freedom of the biblical God.”[29]

Pannenberg’s statement leads us to ask: How do we remold these concepts successfully? It seems obvious that we will not find one simple, general rule for evaluating borrowed concepts and categories. The preferred strategy will certainly require attention to several kinds of issues. Most basic is understanding a concept in its original context. Any use of concepts from foreign contexts begins with an inductive process of dialogue with people who are fluent in the language in question. (This is true whether the language in question is a spoken language or the “language” of a philosophical system.) After careful analysis unpacks a concept within its home territory, we may begin to determine whether that particular concept could suitably serve evangelical theology. As part of this process we judge whether to tweak, adjust, alter, or discard a con-cept. And we create qualifiers that prevent the imported concept from unduly distorting Christian expression.

Christians have long used this kind of dialogical process to borrow thought forms and put them to Christian use. I advocated this dialogical approach in seeking to connect Christian teaching to the concerns of particular human cultures (chapter 3). What I commend here basically extends that principle. Just as theology can enter dialogue with cultures in the contextualization process, so theology can pursue dialogue with philosophical perspectives, using the concepts, principles, and strategies found there. The warning for us as evangelical theologians is that we must appropriate critically, always evaluating aggressively the baggage that consistently tags along with any philosophical resources we adapt to our theological purposes.

B. Presuppositions in a Noetic Structure

All philosophies of life or theological worldviews use categories to interpret the world. These categories are enmeshed in the inner structure of a worldview. Some are therefore maximal in their depth of ingression. The hard-core beliefs that describe what lies implicit in the core categories of particular worldviews, therefore, must either cohere with each other or conflict with each other. Many worldviews, especially in the secularized Western world, use categories that strain evangelical convictions. In evaluating the basic categories of a worldview and the hard-core claims that flesh them out, we must go beyond looking at specific concepts to identify and evaluate a worldview’s presuppositional claims.[30] This is one important facet of effective philosophical analytical strat-egy that we can apply as we evaluate concepts borrowed from other contexts.

As an example of this strategy, Alister McGrath assessed several evaluative criteria articulated by Hans Küng. Küng wrote that those religions which preserve human rights, emancipate women, promote justice, and decry war are “truly human.”[31] But McGrath pointed out that this assessment blithely assumes or presupposes a thoroughly modernist and Western stance. McGrath remarked that although Küng used “the jargon of postmodernity, Küng seems . . . trapped in an enlightenment worldview, which treats all the religions as manifestations of a greater rational whole accessible to the intelligent thinker.”[32] This criticism of Küng’s assumptions hits the bull’s-eye. Concepts like rights, emancipation, and justice (in their modernist senses) bring with them significant philosophical and cultural paraphernalia that do not neatly cohere with a biblical worldview. Because the power of presuppositions in shaping perspectives is so great, we must examine their nature and proper use. We should always carefully sanitize them of their pesky paraphernalia.

The Dutch theological tradition flowing from Abraham Kuyper has profoundly affected evangelical thinking on this topic. The tradition coming from Kuyper emphasizes that essential, hard-core, control beliefs strongly and often subconsciously influence a person’s interpretation of facts. In this way Kuyper opposed the inductive science view of theology; from a Kuyperian viewpoint, strong inductivism is insufficiently aware of the controlling influence of pre-suppositions. The Kuyperian tradition continues its influence both through the Reformed epistemology movement and, in quite different ways, through presuppositional apologetics advocated by Cornelius Van Til, modified by Francis Schaeffer, and propounded by John Frame.

Presuppositionalism in the tradition of Van Til says that a brute fact is a mute fact. This means that (contrary to the inductive science model) uninterpreted facts do not lead us in a straight line to genuine knowledge. Facts make sense only within perspectives. In fact, the power of perspectives, with their embedded presuppositions, is so great that Christian knowing and non-Christian knowing share nothing—they have no common ground. True knowledge requires the right perspective. The right viewpoint is the Christian worldview centered in the being of God and his revelation in the Bible. But no one comes to warranted belief that this perspective is true simply by observing facts, for facts will always depend on a perspective for their meaning. As one representative wrote, “presuppositionless impartiality and neutral reasoning are impossible and undesirable because God’s word teaches [otherwise].”[33] Discovering the right viewpoint requires presupposing the God of the Bible. Facts cannot tell us anything until the proper context of those facts, namely God and his revelation, are both understood with the mind and acknowledged with the heart.

The Kuyperian emphasis on the uniqueness of Christian thought is valid. To reject altogether these insights on the power of presuppositions is to revert to inductivism. Human knowing is surely more complex than inductivism allows. So the question must be whether we are best off accepting presuppositionalism in a strong form or simply acknowledging and adopting its insights more modestly within another epistemology.

A “presupposition” is any belief—but especially a belief with a high depth of ingression within a system of thought—that is assumed to be true without an explicit justifying process. It is simply accepted as a given within a world-view, argument, or research program without explicit prior argumentation or grounding. So to say that a statement, belief, or principle is a presupposition is not to say something about its content. It is to describe something about its function within a particular noetic structure and its relation to other beliefs in that noetic structure. Calling a belief a presupposition answers this question: What role does this belief or idea play within a specific noetic structure or within a particular argument? This means that even though a statement, belief, or principle is simply presupposed in one context, it could very easily be the subject of rigorous warranting or defense in another.

Roughly speaking, the status of a belief as an assumption, however, could be of different kinds. On the one hand, some assumptions presuppose basic facts about the world or truths about reality. On the other hand, assumptions could be epistemic. They could be about the principles of generating and evaluating beliefs. Of these, at least three kinds come to mind: rational, systemic, or procedural. A “rational presupposition” is any assumption that is necessary to any rational thinking at all. The basic laws of logic (identity, noncontradiction, and excluded middle) as well as certain fundamental epistemic principles (e.g., coherence or Swinburne’s “primary inductive principles”[34]) are necessarily embedded in all attempts to account for the world in a cognitively meaningful way.

A “systemic presupposition” is any concept or belief that a particular noetic structure must assume for its own purposes. Such a belief is tacitly assumed as part of the grid through which a particular model, theory, or worldview interprets the world. Such presuppositions are usually so tacit as to go unnoticed. Such a principle “operates behind our backs rather than appearing before our eyes. We think from it rather than about it.”[35] For instance, the Newtonian system altered the reigning systemic assumption about “natural” celestial movement. Aristotelian science assumed that “natural” movement of heavenly bodies is circular. Newton posited, however, that “natural” movement is straight-line motion. So in Newton’s paradigm, if the moon were moving along without any external interference, it would travel in a straight line. But since the moon travels in a curved motion, this requires an explanation, and Newton provided it by positing gravity. By contrast, in Aristotle’s paradigm, if the moon were moving without any interference, it would travel in a circle. For Aristotelian science, circular motion was “normal,” and the circular movement of an orbiting moon therefore needs no explanation.

This systemic presupposition is part of the hard core of a system of thought. If an Aristotelian gives up the notion that “natural” motion is circular in favor of the idea that it is linear, then he gives up the Aristotelian view of celestial mechanics. The abandonment of a belief that functions at this depth of ingression entails a paradigm shift—it means giving up one model completely and adopting another. In Christian theology, a parallel example might be giving up the notion that Jesus is the Son of God. Some interpreters assume that changes of perspective that are this radical in nature will happen regularly; they think that “paradigm shifts” occur quite routinely.[36] It appears, however, that the vast majority of our beliefs are not so deeply ingressed. We could alter any one of thousands of possible beliefs without undergoing a paradigm shift away from the Christian worldview. There are far fewer systemic presuppositions that are truly essential to the structure of a worldview.

A “procedural presupposition” is a belief or principle that is presupposed for the purposes of a particular, limited argument. For instance, in looking for a good deal on some new electronic equipment, I might check out what the magazine Consumer Reports has to say. I could also look at what an alternative consumer magazine, Consumer Digest, says. Initially, I would reasonably assume, for the limited purposes of deciding between GE equipment and Sony equipment, that all consumer publications probably give good information about the relative merits of different types of electronic equipment. This procedural presupposition is simply part of my general background belief set. It is highly relevant to my electronic equipment purchase, and to certain other purchases I might make, but not for much else.

But suppose Consumer Reports and Consumer Digest give conflicting information. I am now forced to decide which one of the two magazines is likely more reliable. Upon investigating, I discover that while Consumer Reports takes no advertising, Consumer Digest does take advertising. This fact (together with other background beliefs about topics like advertising, human nature, and conflicts of interest) will lead me to conclude that Consumer Reports is the source I should probably trust. Due to the mixed signals I receive, I can no longer continue to assume what was originally a good procedural presupposition. I had to search for better grounds for a premise I originally assumed and to look for ways to answer various objections brought against that premise. The belief that Consumer Reports is the better source of con-sumer information became a warranted belief for me.

Similarly, suppose a theologian simply posits a procedural assumption for the limited purposes of presenting a particular train of thought. Then a critic seeks to defeat her line of thought by calling the procedural presupposition into question. To defeat the criticism, the theologian moves back toward the hard core of her noetic structure. She could seek to ground the procedural assumption (the assumption that makes a particular argument go) more deeply in the matrix of her noetic structure. Or she could go back to the drawing board to defend her argument by using a different procedural presupposition to defend her train of thought in light of her hard core.

Now suppose a critic calls into question a systemic assumption. The systemic assumption is so deeply embedded in the hard core of the theologian’s worldview that protesting the assumption really amounts to questioning her entire noetic structure. When Newton denied that “natural” motion is circular, he implicitly rejected Aristotelian astronomy as a whole. An Aristotelian would have no recourse within his system for defending the idea that “natural” motion is circular. That idea is embedded in and essential to his system of thought. To reject that axiom is to reject the system. Defending the axiom requires moving outside the system and defending the system as a whole—say, by pointing to its superior explanatory power. Similarly, a theologian may get to the place where she has no deeper logical levels to which she may appeal in defending a very basic, systemic presupposition. At this point, warrant for the systemic presupposition is grounded in judgments which conclude that the noetic structure of which this presupposition is an essential building block is more effective at interpreting the world, all things considered, than alternative belief systems.

Next suppose that a critic denies a theologian’s rational assumptions. In this case, the critic’s argument will prove too much, for it will undercut not only the theologian’s assertions but the critic’s as well. But pointing out this well-known problem, the self-referential incoherence of denying the most basic rational presuppositions of thought, does not amount to demonstrating the wisdom of assuming the legitimacy of the rational presuppositions lying behind all inference. At best we can say that these basic rational principles—or something much like them (since they can emerge in somewhat different, culturally relevant forms)—undergird all human believings and are never successfully denied. If we know anything by inference at all (and we do), then we know that the rules by which one belief is inferred from others must actually hold.

C. Evidence and Theological Conviction

Bertrand Russell was asked what he would do in the next life if he faced God who challenged his unbelief. He retorted that he would tell the Almighty, “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!”[37] I believe that some of our beliefs, including some beliefs that are essential to an evangelical theological structure, are rightly assumed as true. I claim that we rightly presuppose certain rational principles and probably even some systemic principles that are part of the evangelical theological viewpoint. This goes against the assertion that all beliefs must be supported by evidence. It contradicts the claim that no belief is rational until it is defended by evidence.

The question of whether all individual religious beliefs need evidence was a large issue in recent philosophy of religion.[38] The problem arises due to the challenge of evidentialism. Evidentialism, in this context, is the view that a per-son is duty bound, epistemically obligated, to reject any individual beliefs that are not based on empirical evidence.[39] The classic instance of nineteenth-century evidentialism is W. K. Clifford, who said, “it is wrong always, every-where, and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”[40] (This is obviously a parody of Vincent of Lérins’s test for theological orthodoxy.) Clifford further claimed that religious doctrines do not have sufficient empirical evidence. On this basis, he and other skeptics who followed this thinking concluded that it is immoral to adopt religious belief.

In the minds of some Christian apologists, however, Clifford’s evidentialism does not lead to religious skepticism. Another way to reason from Clifford’s premise is to accept his evidentialist requirement as valid for theological know-ing, and then to meet it! Evangelical apologists who adopt a strong rational-ism respond by seeking to show Clifford and his philosophical descendents that evangelical thinkers really do fulfill their requirement for producing sufficient evidence.[41]

Others, however, think it a mistake to concede Clifford’s principle. Proponents of Reformed epistemology seek to defeat Clifford’s challenge in a different way. Alvin Plantinga argued that Clifford’s evidentialist principle is itself unfounded. The only reason to accept evidentialism, argued Plantinga, is that Clifford assumed classical foundationalism. But classical foundationalism is seriously flawed (see chapter 4). For one thing, it is self-referentially incoherent. For another, we rightly hold many beliefs that are not based on evidence.

For example, our believing in the existence of other persons’ minds is not based on evidence. It is direct or “basic.” If it is illicit to adopt basic beliefs on the ground of direct experience, we could never get the knowledge-building project underway. (Inferences must draw conclusions from premises. If we require that every premise be inferred from a prior premise, we set up an infinite regress, and no inference will ever begin.) So, negatively, the Christian believer is under no compulsion to meet evidentialism’s unrealistically high requirements. And, positively, the Christian believer may rightly accept such statements as “God exists” on the ground of direct experience. Christians are rational in accepting these beliefs even if there were no empirical evidence for them. There is no need to find sufficient evidence for these beliefs.[42]

But what if a Mormon were to say, “I know the Pearl of Great Price is divine revelation on the ground of my experience”? Would he be rational, too? Can we believe just anything on the basis of experience? Plantinga was making the point that belief in religious objects can be rational without evidence. A rational belief, on this account, is a conviction arising through properly functioning belief-producing faculties. But the fact that a belief is rational does not guarantee that it is true.[43] So in addition to rationality, we seek warrant for individual beliefs. I hold that this is especially true when conflicting beliefs come into epistemic parity—when our belief-producing faculties send conflicting signals. In such cases, we do (and we should) typically look for other factors to help us distinguish true from false among rational beliefs. Evidence does help us discriminate when we are trying to decide which of several apparently rational beliefs is more likely correct. When faced with directly conflict-ing truth claims, I hold that we need evidence. This evidence does not replace our experience, but it does refine it.[44]

The discussion of evidentialism in contemporary philosophy of religion focuses on the status of individual statements like “God answers prayer.” Exploring the ground and/or warrant for holding individual beliefs is important. But it is not the only important form of rational judgment we make. Like theorists in other disciplines, theologians also assess larger patterns of thought. These can be microperspectives—say, the inner structure and dynamic of a grace-based notion of salvation—that describe some facet of reality. Or they can be macroperspectives or worldviews that purportedly take in all of reality.

Theologians and philosophers who compare macroperspectives against each other perform a legitimate task. This is the critical activity of evaluating the relative rational merits of large-scale religious perspectives. It is in essence the task of worldview apologetics. In philosophy of science, empiricists often see scientific warranting as a debate between a theory and the facts. Actually, scientific judgment places alternative theories about the facts in competition against each other.[45] This kind of judgment is about which hypothesis exhibits the greatest coherence, scope, explanatory adequacy, beauty, and livability—which theory best accounts for the widest ranges of evidence. Similarly, the Christian worldview gains warrant as it exhibits these qualities. This does not mean that every theologian must begin with apologetics. An evangelical theologian qua theologian may rightly assume the Christian worldview (i.e., adopt its systemic presuppositions as axioms). He may take on the task of working within the structure of Christian thought to flesh out its implications on various topics. This is a valid and significant task.

Although this is a valid kind of theological research project, I hold that someone, somewhere within the evangelical theological community, should explore the warrant for the wider evangelical macroperspective, the Christian worldview as such. Someone should work to assess whether the Christian worldview actually has more coherence, explanatory adequacy, or scope than its alternatives. This does not mean we must provide conclusive evidence for every item of belief. The strong form of evidentialism proposed by Clifford sets up unrealistic requirements for defending beliefs. And so, following the wisdom of Reformed epistemologists, we who do evangelical apologetics should reject the evidentialist requirement. But in view of the fact that conflicting worldviews vie for our allegiance, some Christians should embark on the project of showing why the Christian worldview is superior to its competitors. Critics will quickly point out how difficult this task is. They are right. But every worldview has the same burden. Showing how Christian thinking is superior is challenging, but because the task is important, it is worth tackling.

D. Faith-Learning Integration

We do need Christian worldview apologetics. But for the task of fleshing out the inner structure of the Christian theological worldview, a scholar may rightly presuppose a macroscopic Christian noetic structure. Evangelical scholars and professionals want to know how the Christian worldview (which they may simply presuppose) relates to knowledge that emerges in other disciplines. A Christian psychologist should know how a theological view of human per-sons relates to certain psychological theories. An evangelical business executive should reflect on how the principles of human relationships in Scripture can inform the practices of transformational leadership in the corporate world. The various academic disciplines and professions include significant presuppositions. They represent intellectual traditions, carried along by communal languages, that express the sets of categories embedded in those disciplines. Christians in an academic field or a profession are bicultural. They become conversant in the languages intrinsic to these disciplines or practices. They might realize the importance of connecting the categories implicit in their areas of work to the thought forms of the broader Christian perspective. The phrase “faith-learning integration” describes this implicitly theological activity.

Faith-learning integration is a project that seeks to define the intrinsic relationships between wisdom rooted in the Christian worldview and knowledge developed in various areas of study or practice. According to William Hasker, Christians may take three different approaches to faith-learning integration. One who adopts compatibilism affirms a deeply fitting, intrinsic connection between the Christian worldview and some particular discipline. For someone seeking integration in this context, the assignment is simply to uncover the already existing, inherent relationship of shared assumptions, categories, and claims. One who uses transformationism finds that a particular arena of thought produces some correct insights, yet lacks much that is important to the Christian perspective. The task here is to reshape the field of knowledge, changing some of its core principles or claims into a more explicitly Christian enterprise. One who follows reconstructionism finds deeply rooted tension between Christian theology and the other arena of thought. The task here is to rebuild the area of knowledge anew, from its very foundations, on more overtly biblical grounds.[46]

Although it may sound as though sharp lines separate these three strategies, they are in effect three points on a continuum. In fact, they fade off into each other. One pole of the continuum emphasizes the continuity of generically human understanding with specifically Christian knowing while the other stresses the discontinuity of these two ranges of knowledge. Obviously, compatibilism highlights continuity, reconstructionism underscores discontinuity, and transformationism lies between the poles.[47]

Among Christians who think about the integration of faith and reason, we often hear the aphorism, “All truth is God’s truth.” This statement is true in a very important sense. The Christian worldview assumes the unity of reality and, therefore, of truth. The unity of truth is basic to the very concept of a university (over against a “multiversity”). Christian thinking presupposes Christian theology as the unified macroperspective within which all truth makes sense. This posits a general coherence between knowledge that the human mind produces when it is functioning properly and the truth claims of the Christian worldview.

“All truth is God’s truth” could also be misleading, however. Not all research programs or institutional practices produce results that are compatible with the Christian worldview. This is the correct insight of a reconstructionist strategy. Reconstructionism correlates with the essential insight of the Kuyperian tradition that emphasizes the significant discontinuity between non-Christian thought and Christian knowledge. It is naïve to hold, on the grounds of the truism that “all truth is God’s truth,” that the results of every human attempt to explore the world will produce knowledge claims that naturally cohere with broad outlines of the biblical worldview. This is why presuppositional apologetics presses the point that evangelical thinking must begin, not with allegedly neutral evidence or knowledge, but with the absolute assumption of the truth of the Bible. The Bible provides the macroperspective—the intellectual frame—within which all the rest of what we know makes sense.

Presuppositional apologists overstate their case, however, when they affirm or imply that the reconstructionist approach is the right way to relate evangelical thought to the knowledge that arises from other disciplines. Theologians should not prejudge that Christians who study non-theological disciplines or research programs must always adopt the reconstructionist strategy. Presuppositionalists rightly warn Christian thinkers against assuming naïvely and instinctively that academic reasoning is essentially neutral and leads straightforwardly to objective truth that is very easily integrated with Christian claims. They also correctly caution against presuming that whenever some academic perspective appears to exclude Christian worldview convictions, the Christian perspective must give way to the other perspective—even if that point of view has gained social acceptance.

But there are cases where Christians can profit from disciplines and practices that do not drink deeply from the well of Christian truth. If reconstruc-tion is sometimes right, transformation is, too. So we should both pay attention to the power of presuppositions whenever we seek to integrate faith with an academic discipline and also understand that the alternative frame of reference in that academic discipline can lead to illuminating insights. We should think Christianly. We should allow evangelical convictions to play a role in our thinking. In Plantinga’s words, “as Christians we need and want answers to the sorts of questions that arise in the theoretical and interpretative disciplines; in an enormous number of such cases, what we know as Christians is crucially relevant to coming to a proper understanding; therefore, we Christians should pursue these disciplines from a specifically Christian perspective.”[48] At the same time, we may learn from those who approach some topic or develop some practice without explicitly Christian presuppositions.

In discussing the relation of evangelical theology to other disciplines and practices, the temptation is to give right of way to the prestigious academic discipline. But although we often do learn from secular perspectives, Plantinga’s warning bears repeating precisely because it is so easy both to underestimate the power of the conceptual categories and to understate the influence of the social relationships found in secular academic traditions or professions. Suppose, for example, that a Christian grad student studies biology with an eminent but secular scholar who lacks both Christian commitment and philosophical expertise. The grad student may not fully appreciate how the research program in which he and his mentor engage themselves will entail beliefs that conflict with his Christian faith. The mentor will definitely not appreciate this point. The student will gain great expertise in biology, but he may not grow a correspondingly sophisticated understanding of his own Christian worldview. He will likely have a positive working relationship or even friendship with his secular mentor. He will likely be quite impressed with the expertise he finds around him in the biol-ogy lab. (He might not find a similarly high level of intellectual sophistication in what he hears from Christian pulpits.) These factors might lead him to adopt a compatibilist strategy when in fact his Christian convictions actually demand a transformationist or reconstructionist approach.

How would we know, in some particular area of work or study, whether to take a compatibilist, transformationist, or reconstructionist approach? This question has no single or simple answer. I know of no reason to think that any one of these three approaches will commend itself in every situation. Rather, in the best-case scenario, we who are evangelical theologians will explore individual models, theories, or research programs on their own merits. We will do this in conjunction with Christian colleagues in other disciplines. We will analyze the theories or research programs, identifying their methodological commitments, their implicit categories, and their contentful hard-core beliefs. Then we will compare these to Christian convictions. We will make rational judgments about which ideas are true and which methods are fruitful. We will subject these judgments to evaluation in the context of dialogue both with non-Christians who have expertise in their disciplines and with Christians who have a deep grasp of the Christian worldview.

For philosophers who are Christians (and those who are not), this amounts to adapting the methods—the logical procedures and analytical strategies—of philosophy to the task of evaluating the methods, assumptions, and claims of var-ious areas of study in service of the Christian worldview.[49] Investigations of this sort involve second-order thinking. (For example, the question of how science and theology relate is not itself a first-order scientific question, but a second-order philosophical matter. A theory about the relation of science to theology is not itself an assertion of science—a claim made about the world by science. It is rather a philosophical statement about science—a claim made about science by philosophy.) The methods and tools of philosophical analysis can serve the theological disciplines just as usefully as it serves other academic fields. Additionally, certain specific philosophical ideas, concepts, and arguments can also benefit theology. And the philosophical analytical techniques will clarify how to connect theological convictions with knowledge arising from other disciplines—the task of faith-learning integration. We should pursue all these activities carefully, evaluating various proposals on a case-by-case basis, and only then integrate them with the central core of a Christian noetic structure.

III. CONCLUSION

Philosophy is very useful for good theology. Much of the philosophy practiced in the English-speaking world today stresses the artful use of careful definitions, clear distinctions, and valid logical form. It emphasizes teasing out assumptions, rigorously evaluating claims, and properly qualifying conclusions. Unlike other disciplines, philosophy zeroes in more on sound method than on true content. Other academic disciplines are more likely to contribute contentful knowledge to theology. The role of philosophy is to map out how to integrate all these sources of knowledge. Like the academic disciplines, non-Christian religions make claims that can be integrated with Christian theology. The assertions made by adherents of other religions both confirm and contradict Christian teachings. Other religions include values, categories, and teachings that may or may not cohere with the Christian worldview. Muslims believe there is one God. They do not believe this one God is triune. Beyond this, many contemporary people believe both that all religions teach the same thing and that all religions lead to God. This is religious pluralism. As evangelicals, we reject religious pluralism (as a theory about religions) even though that theory is securely connected to the plausibility structures of the contemporary world. We believe there is one gospel for all peoples. What does this say about evangelical theology as a legitimate, rational enterprise? Is evangelical theological reflection defective if it rejects religious pluralism?

CHAPTER

TEN

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

AND THE WORLD RELIGIONS

Some years ago some Christian friends of mine visited the Bahá’í temple in Wilmette, Illinois, for interfaith discussion. The adherents of Bahá’í believe that each of the nine great religions of the world is true. Symbolizing this idea, the temple building features nine equal sides. In teaching that all religions are true, Bahá’í is very much in tune with the sensibilities of the contemporary world. For many people believe today that all religions teach basically the same things and that all faiths are essentially true paths to God. As historic Christians, we who are evangelicals believe that God revealed his will and ways decisively and uniquely in Jesus. How do the pluralist beliefs, not only of the adherents to Bahá’í but of many other contemporary people, affect the viability of evan-gelical theology?

I. CLARIFYING THE CHALLENGES OF RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

The interchange at the Bahá’í temple raised important questions for evangelical theology. But my objective is not to develop a comprehensive theology of religions. That is too big a bite to chew in one chapter. My point in this chapter is to ask: Is evangelical theology a legitimate enterprise and a rational discipline in view of the many religions?

A. Religious Pluralism and Religious Variety

The fact of religious variety is not new. In the Mediterranean cultures where the church first grew, the Christian gospel encountered dozens of alternative religious practices. In that world, the Romans tolerated all the religions so long as everyone in the empire acknowledged the ultimate authority of Caesar. Christians and Jews resisted this requirement. After Constantine, however, the dominant cultural perspectives in the empire presumed the superiority of the biblical faith. Obviously, this assumption continued to hold sway for centuries, both in Europe and in North America. So as the twentieth century began, Western people generally assumed the legitimacy of the Christian faith. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, that situation is reversed. The essence of the change in the last one hundred years is not the fact of religious diversity. That is old news. The new situation is defined by a decisively differ-ent attitude toward that diversity. Langdon Gilkey put it this way:

Plurality is not new; there have always been other religions. What is new is the dawning recognition of what I have come to call the “rough parity” between them, and so a new relation of dialogue, of mutual respect, of the recognition of truth, of some sort of truth, in the Other, and thus, a stance of listening as well as of proclaiming and instructing.[1]

The very word ‘pluralism’ is ambiguous. So consider some definitions. ‘Pluralism’ can have a sociological and descriptive force, or it can have a profoundly different, philosophical and normative sense. Descriptively, North American society, like Rome, is clearly religiously pluralistic; the population of North America exhibits widely varying religious commitments. The term ‘pluralism’ here denotes the sociological fact that followers of all the world’s religions live in the West. North American communities sport mosques, temples, and study centers of every sort. Obviously, people in the United States, in other Western nations, and in the non-Western world follow widely diverging religious beliefs and practices.

I do not use ‘pluralism’ to denote the sociological fact of diversity in religious belief and practice. I use the concepts of “religious diversity” and “religious variety” for the sociological reality. “Pluralism” or “religious pluralism” is a class of meta-religious, philosophical theories. Pluralism is a normative or prescriptive idea. It is a theoretic interpretation of the fact of religious diversity—a philosophical theory about religious variety. Pluralism says something generally like this: all religions are true faiths, all are spiritually valid, or all potentially lead to contact with God or the ultimate Reality. For a Christian pluralist, “All religions are equal and valid paths to one divine reality, and the Christ I follow is one revelation among many equally important revelations.”[2] Pluralism is the theory that a rough parity exists among religions.

B. The Pluralism, Inclusivism, Exclusivism Continuum

Isolating the philosophical theory called religious pluralism raises a question. If religious pluralism is one class of meta-religious theories about religious variety, are there other classes? The typical typology of responses to religious variety contrasts pluralism with two other general classes of meta-religious theories called “exclusivism” and “inclusivism.”[3]

Religious exclusivism maintains that only one religion is genuine or true; only one faith actually brings a believer into contact with God. For a Christian exclusivist of the strongest sort, God will save only people who hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, know about his death on the cross, and explicitly confess him as Savior. This strong form of exclusivism is also called “restrictivism.”

Exclusivism comes in various subtypes. First, one sub-form of exclusivism modifies restrictivism by allowing for a few exceptions. One such exception is a provision for the universal salvation of all who die before they reach some cognitive age of accountability. Second, another sub-form of exclusivism asserts that God ensures an opportunity to believe for those who he knows would believe. This uses a middle knowledge view of divine foreknowledge (where God knows what every person would do in every hypothetical situation). God makes sure that the message of salvation gets to every person who would believe if he heard the gospel. God ordains that all who would receive salvation if given the chance actually do get that chance.[4] Third, yet another sub-form of exclusivism affirms that all people have an opportunity to hear the gospel, and this could include the chance to receive salvation after death.[5]

As a midway point between exclusivism and pluralism, some follow religious inclusivism. Inclusivism agrees with exclusivism that only one religion is ultimately true. But it shares with pluralism the conviction that sincere adherents of religions other than the true faith may still come into contact with God, find spiritual life, or achieve the religious goal. So, for example, a person who adopted Muslim inclusivism might say that Islam is actually the only true faith, rooted in the one, valid revelation of the ultimate Reality, Allah. Still, this hypothetical Muslim inclusivist might say, a faithful Jewish follower of the Mosaic law could still receive a heavenly reward, if he is faithful to the dictates of Judaism. For the Muslim inclusivist, Judaism is not the true faith, and yet the faithful Jew who follows Torah may still go to paradise. Paradise is achievable due to such things as the Jewish believer’s religious sincerity or piety, the truth of Islam, and the good will of Allah. For the Christian inclusivist, Christ is the ultimate revelation of God. Salvation is possible for people who explicitly fol-low other faiths. But this salvation is always from or through Christ.

Inclusivism also admits of sub-divisions. The most important is a distinc-tion between “constitutive inclusivism” and “normative inclusivism.” In both versions of inclusivism, Christian inclusivists agree that a person can be saved without explicit saving knowledge of Jesus. Constitutive inclusivism affirms that Christ’s work is the necessary ground of all salvation, and other religions cannot provide the ontological power for salvation. Anyone who is saved receives salvation only because of the power and atonement of Jesus Christ. Yet someone could fail to accept Jesus Christ, follow a religious path that is in no way Christian, and still receive salvation by following what light she does have. Again, the metaphysical ground of this salvation is always the work of Christ.

A version of constitutive inclusivism called the “implicit faith view” is closest to exclusivism. The Christian version of this view says that a person can be saved if he meets these conditions: he knows nothing of Christ, he rejects the false religion around him, and he follows any valid natural revelation he does have. He implicitly follows Christ by worshiping the Creator. This is the most restricted form of constitutive inclusivism because it holds that anyone who explicitly rejects Christ cannot receive salvation in this way, irrespective of his sincerity. In other words, those who have never heard of Christ, and so never have a chance to reject him explicitly, can trust him implicitly by following whatever light they do have. So, unlike more liberal inclusivists, defenders of an implicit faith view will say that a person who does not explicitly follow Christ can be saved in spite of, but never because of, anything that another faith might offer him. Even though historical accident keeps him from hearing explicitly of Christ, he may receive salvation by rejecting the false religion he sees around him and calling on God. And he is saved solely on the basis of the reality of Christ’s work.[6]

Normative inclusivism goes well beyond constitutive inclusivism. A Christian defender of normative inclusivism will deny the necessity of Christ’s work for salvation. Instead, Jesus offers one valid religious path among several. Initially, this sounds like a form of pluralism. But it differs slightly. In normative inclusivism, one religion is the “norm.” This one normative religion is the best, the clearest, the least ambiguous path to God. Still, other religions possess validity though to a lesser degree. So the one valid religious path is the first among several valid equals. This norming religion functions as the normative example, the paradigm, by which all paths to God are judged as more or less salvific. But it is not the only path through which people may come to God.

The three-part typology—exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, along with the various subtypes—is not without difficulties. Though many people use this vocabulary for discussing the relationships among religions, it is subject to several objections. First, some object to a priori typologies in general. Paul Griffiths, for example, pointed out that those who develop general typologies of responses to the world’s religions are often not sufficiently knowledgeable about the religions to categorize them adequately.[7] And he rightly warned us to look at how the theological axioms of an interpreter’s religion influence his definitions of the categories.[8] But while Griffiths’ point is valid, it is also limited. His argument cuts against analyses developed by people who lack a complete knowledge base. But it should not undermine typologies developed by people who do have the requisite knowledge. It does not point to some in principle difficulty with developing typologies. And the fact that our typologies will always fall short of perfect categorization, with no gray areas between categories, does not mean that typologies are completely useless. The lesson here is that while typologies are useful, their categories should not run roughshod over carefully researched descriptions of the world’s religions. Fair enough.

A second and much more important objection is this: different thinkers use the threefold continuum to answer two entirely different questions. This leads to different accounts of the meaning of the three categories. This is a major problem that causes significant confusion. Take exclusivism, for example. On the one hand, Alvin Plantinga defined ‘exclusivism’ in this manner: “the tenets or some of the tenets of one religion—Christianity, let’s say—are in fact true . . . [and] . . . other religious beliefs that are [logically] incompatible with those tenets are false.”[9] On the other hand, John Hick used ‘exclusivism’ in this way: “only those who follow the teachings of a particular religion are saved.”[10] In the abstract, these two definitions themselves are perfectly in order. Both Plantinga and Hick describe relatively clear meta-religious, philosophical ideas. But they offer very different definitions of ‘exclusivism’ because they tacitly use the threefold typology to answer two conceptually distinct questions. Both of these two questions are attempts to analyze the theology of religions discussion. But the two questions analyze very different aspects of the theology of religions discussion. It is very easy to get them confused.

Plantinga’s definition gets at the ontological reference or descriptive truth of various religious teachings: Are the religious doctrines true? Do the beings described in the religious teachings actually exist? Do all the religions contain or promote true beliefs? I will group this first constellation of issues as “alethic questions” (from the Greek aletheia, meaning “truth”). By contrast, Hick’s definition deals with the potential of each religion to help its adherents experience salvation or liberation: Is each of the world religions salvific? Do all religions lead to the spiritual goal of liberation, enlightenment, or salvation? Do more than one of the various religious paths lead to God or ultimate Reality? I will group this second cluster of concerns as “soteriological questions” (from the Greek soteria, meaning “deliverance” or “salvation”).[11] I will come back again to this crucial distinction between alethic questions and soteriological questions.

Having sketched a representative way of explaining the concepts of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism (along with some subtypes), I turn to the core issue of prolegomena: What are the implications of these theories for evangelical theology? The fact of religious variety and the rise of varied philosophical interpretations of that fact pose questions that need answers in their own right. This is the issue of religious pluralism per se. But as evangelicals, we are unalterably committed to the uniqueness of Christian revelation. This certainly includes exclusivism and may allow for constitutive inclusivism. In my view, it clearly prohibits normative inclusivism and pluralism. Yet commitments to pluralism are pervasive in our postmodern cultural milieu. So that leads to the fundamental question for theological methodology. Given the reality of religious variety and the seeming omnipresence of religious pluralism, is evangelical theology a legitimate intellectual enterprise at all? Must evangelicals wait for a widely acceptable response to the challenge of religious variety or for a definitive answer on the rational viability of religious exclusivism before embarking on the theological task?

Finally, if we do conclude that evangelical theology is a rationally responsi-ble discipline in this context, then how should we live in a pluralist world? Can evangelicals live as neighbors with adherents of other faiths as well as those who reject all faiths? Gilkey says that the awareness of religious variety requires a new ethic of relationship that includes respectful dialogue, acknowledgment of truth in other perspectives, and a willingness to listen and learn. But does the awareness of religious variety require religious pluralism? In the minds of some contemporary people, exclusivism is incompatible with an ethic of respect and dialogue. This is true both of some pluralists who value respectful dialogue (and therefore reject exclusivism) and of some exclusivists who dis-avow pluralism (and therefore renounce respectful dialogue). So what kind of ethic does the best in evangelical theology encourage us to employ toward adherents of other religions?

C. Alethic and Soteriological Categories

I can now return to the distinction between alethic and soteriological questions. Alethic questions ask about the possible answers to this question: Are all the religions true? But even this question is ambiguous as it stands, and so it calls for another sub-distinction. On the one hand, the question could mean this: Are there true doctrines, taken as individual propositions, in other world religions? This addresses whether the many religions teach true ideas or make true claims. It focuses on individually true statements a religion might make. On the other hand, the question could mean the following: Do all (or many) religions, taken as wholes, correspond to the truth? This asks whether the religious belief system taken as a whole, especially in the hard core of its noetic structure, is essentially pointing to or accurately describing an actual ultimate Reality.

First, as to the alethic question regarding individual statements, all the major world religions share with Christians many true ideas. This seems obvious, yet some deny it. Some emphasize the uniqueness of the Christian symbols and doctrines so strongly that, in their minds, the teachings of Christianity simply do not correlate with those of other faiths. They will say that a non-Christian religion really cannot teach any true Christian ideas. Every religious system of thought is entirely self-enclosed. Other religious doctrines are incommensurable with Christian theology. So the conclusion is that truth claims are possible only within religious worldviews. But this emphasis exaggerates a true point. The exaggeration amounts to an unwarranted version of perspectival-ism (see chapter 4). Both acknowledging the reality of religious variety and also asserting the status of Jesus Christ as God’s unique revelation are consistent with a belief that other world religions teach some true ideas, affirm some morally right ethical principles, and encourage some valuable practices. I see no reason to deny the true teachings found in other religions, even assuming an exclusivist account of Christianity.

Consider examples. As Christians, we can embrace a Jewish critique of polytheism.[12] We can accept the Islamic assertion of monotheism. We can agree with Sikhs that Hinduism is a false religion. And we can assert with exclusivists of many faiths that there is only one true faith. In addition to teaching some true theological ideas, many of the major world religions teach generally similar ethical standards. They typically teach believers to rise above selfish behavior to selflessness, and they acknowledge that most or all people fail to reach that high ideal consistently. As Christians, we agree. Of course, real differences do appear among the world’s religions when they begin teaching about the spiritual solutions to these human moral failures. Deep disagreements arise when discussing what to do about the fact that most people act selfishly. But the world’s religions agree that most people fail to act as selflessly as they should. Regarding the alethic question about individual truth claims, all truth is God’s truth.[13]

The alethic question that relates to individual beliefs is not unimportant. Christian theology will say that the whispers of general revelation mixed with the echoes of special revelation explain the true teachings found in other religions. But the issue that really drives the religious diversity debate is whether the religions, taken as wholes, are true. Here the issue is not individually true statements, but the referent or object of the religious belief system’s hard core. Do all the religions, taken as whole systems, point us to, tell us about, the true God? Does the being that every particular religion points to, refers to, or leads its adherents to actually exist? Do all religions truly reveal and accurately identify the actually existing, ultimate spiritual Reality and the path to that Reality?

But now this question introduces yet another complication. In the liberal academy, only some accounts of or theories about religion assert that there actually exists a spiritual Reality, a God, or ultimate spiritual Force. Other theories of religion deny the real existence of any such ultimate spiritual Reality. These theories say that the religions are human constructions that do not actually refer to any existing Supreme Being or ultimate Reality. This raises the distinction between what is called “metaphysical realism” and “metaphysical nonrealism” regarding religion.

The word ‘realism’ has meant many things at different times. That term serves many agendas like mathematical realism, modal realism, ethical real-ism, and intentional realism.[14] For our purposes, the phrase “metaphysical realism,” as it relates to religion, will designate the view that an actual spiritual Reality exists independent of human thought and speech. In this view, the mind-independent reality, in some sense, causes or shapes human religious or spiritual experience. Saying that the spiritual ultimate Reality is the cause of certain religious experiences means that something outside the human mind exerts influence on human consciousness, either revealing a divine Self or Reality or leaving clues as to its existence or nature. Thus religious thought and life result from contact with some metaphysically real object of religious devotion. As evangelicals, obviously, we hold that this spiritual ultimate Reality is God.

Closely associated with this question about metaphysical realism is a second issue of the nature of theological language. Some views affirm that religious doctrines refer to or in some way describe an actual ultimate Reality, and other views deny that any humanly describable ultimate Reality grounds religious doctrines ontologically. I will use the phrases “alethic realism” and “alethic nonrealism” to designate this distinction.

An alethic realist believes something very roughly like this: when religious doctrines are true, when they do what they are supposed to do, they name, describe, or point to the actually existing ultimate spiritual Reality. Obviously, an alethic realist (who thinks that the purpose of religious doctrines is, at least in part, to describe an actual spiritual Reality) must be a metaphysical realist (who thinks that such a Reality exists). In the next chapters, I will defend alethic realism in a critical form. I reject naïve forms of realism. Naïve realists fail to consider that their knowledge claims and linguistic assertions about the metaphysical reality are fallible and incomplete. They do not pay attention to the various ways our thinking and speaking can go wrong. So I accept alethic realism, but I acknowledge that we can make mistakes in our attempts to refer to the world as it is. Our beliefs and assertions can be defeated. They are not just obviously right. We need to negotiate many defeaters that arise against our convictions and statements by looking for more evidence or other reasons. I will claim that our thinking does capture something of a mind-independent reality and our language does refer to that reality, but it is unwise to think we face no challenges in these important tasks.

In the spirit of Kant,[15] an alethic nonrealist holds something like the fol-lowing: even when they function as they are supposed to, religious doctrines never describe or point to any objectively existing spiritual Reality. It is not the purpose of religious doctrines to refer to God. An alethic nonrealist can go in one of two directions to explain why religious doctrines do not correspond to, point to, or describe an ultimate spiritual Reality. First, an alethic nonrealist might opt for metaphysical realism: even though a spiritual ultimate Reality actually exists, no human knowledge of the divine Reality is possible. Humans can never locate any positive, properly warranted, true propositions regarding the religious Subject. Such propositions may exist, but they are beyond human knowing. This is theological agnosticism. Second, an alethic nonrealist might adopt metaphysical nonrealism: there is no actually existing spiritual Reality independent of human thought and speech. No religious Subject exists to be the referent of religious doctrinal claims. In this strategy, theological speech, if it is meaningful at all, has some role other than to speak descriptively of a God. In essence, this second strategy really amounts to a religious naturalism.

Typically, alethic nonrealists say that no doctrine is informative. They say all religious assertions are human constructs. They often give religious language a pragmatic purpose. Even if some such language were caused by the spiritual Reality, the purpose of that language is not describing or pointing to that Reality. Its function might be, for example, to create order for a believing community’s life, to illuminate a way of being religious in the world, or to promote “human flourishing.” Generally, nonrealists say the sacred writings of the various world religions—like the Christian Bible, the Hindu Vedas, and the Islamic Qur’an—are the products of human beings. Perhaps the writers of these scriptures were particularly bright human beings or religious geniuses. Or the literature arose from a school of religious leaders, each depending on the traditions passed down from those who went before. But there is no divine involvement in their writing. Scriptures do not represent communication from a Divine Being. Nonrealism typically adopts some sort of pragmatism regarding the import of human religious language. (For more on the purposes of language, see chapters 11 and 12.)[16]

Now the alethic and soteriological questions are distinct. On the one hand, the distinction between alethic realism and alethic nonrealism answers the alethic issue regarding religious systems: Do the religious doctrines of a particular religion, taken as a whole, describe or point to an ultimate spiritual Reality or Subject? On the other hand, the exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism paradigm is not directed to the alethic issue at all. Instead, the three-fold paradigm answers the soteriological question: Do the practices of one, some, or all of the world’s religions lead their adherents to salvation or enlightenment or spiritual release? This question does not focus primarily on the issue of the truthfulness or referential success of the claims made by a religion. Rather, it answers whether the religion in question, if practiced, would lead to a religious goal of enlightenment, salvation, or release. So the three-fold paradigm is relevant to the question of soteriology: Does this religion, or do all religions, produce spiritual results, provide religious benefits, or achieve some moral function?

Since the alethic and soteriological questions are quite distinct, it is helpful to put them into a matrix. First consider alethic realism in connection with exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist viewpoints. Are these all possible? Obviously, an evangelical Christian who adopts alethic realism is declaring that God actually exists and that God possesses the qualities that Christian doctrines say God possesses. She will also choose exclusivism if she thinks that only Christian truth and practice lead to salvation. Her neighbor might agree that God is as Christian doctrine says, but opt for inclusivism in thinking that the practice of other religions can lead to salvation, but because of Christ. And his friend could hold that God does have certain definite features or properties, that the doctrines of various religions identify that deity under different names, and that all religious practices have the power to get a believer in contact with the supreme Reality. So it appears, at least prima facie, that an alethic realist can adopt either exclusivism, inclusivism, or pluralism.

Now consider alethic nonrealism in connection with exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism. It seems, at first glance, that a nonrealist has to be a pluralist. An exclusivist says that only one path to spiritual Reality actually produces salvation. If so, then surely the doctrinal claims that describe that one path must be true. Their negations are false. The nonrealist argues, however, that no religious doctrines are true descriptions, and this means that no doctrines are false either. So an exclusivist could hardly be a nonrealist. A similar argument regarding inclusivism goes to the same conclusion.

It is possible, speaking very precisely, to speak of combining exclusivism (only one religion leads to release) and alethic nonrealism (no religious doctrines describe ultimate Reality). For example, what if it were true that practicing Zen Buddhism—say, doing meditative exercises, contemplating nonsensical koan, and doing menial work—is the only path that successfully leads a novice to experience release from desire and suffering? And what if release from suffering is achieved without the novice learning any Zen doctrines that are true descriptions of reality (since on the supposition of alethic nonrealism, such descriptions are impossible)? This would amount to an exclusivist alethic nonrealism.

Of course, someone could object: the success of a Zen novice still requires some descriptions that are true. For example, if Zen practice alone successfully nurtures release from desire, the following sentence is true:

(a) Only those who meditate, contemplate koan, and do menial work will experience the kinds of mystical experiences that lead to release from desire and suffering.

If Zen is the only valid path to release from desire, then sentence (a) is descriptively true. This statement also presupposes something like the following:

(b) The proper goal of any and all religious practice is release from desire and suffering.

So, the objector might say, exclusivism does imply some true doctrines about religion, and this entails alethic realism. But someone could respond: it is true, technically speaking, that (a) and (b) are not Zen doctrines. Statements (a) and (b) are not teachings of Zen; they are instead meta-religious or philosophically true statements about Zen. Given this answer, religious exclusivism is technically compatible with alethic nonrealism regarding religious doctrines.

But this example also suggests that exclusivism entails some descriptively true propositions, even if they are technically not doctrinal teachings of that religion. If someone commits to the idea that all language about religious matters functions in a nonrealist manner, then pluralism follows. (By the phrase “all language about religious matters” I mean to include both religious doctrines asserted by a religion and meta-religious, philosophical propositions about a religion, but not asserted as doctrine by that religion.) Here is the argument: if exclusivism is true, some path (to salvation, enlightenment, release, or wherever religion is supposed to lead) must be the right path and other paths must be the wrong paths. There must exist some propositions (even if they are unknown to all human persons) that identify and describe the true paths and deny the false paths. If exclusivism is true, these propositions are true. But to say these propositions are descriptively true is to deny alethic nonrealism (with regard to the idea “all language about religious matters”). Thus, while we might technically say that exclusivism is possible even if no doctrinal teachings of the true religion are actually descriptive, exclusivism is logically excluded if no propositions at all about the true religion are actually descriptive. For all intents and purposes then, exclusivism and inclusivism require alethic realism.

All this shows that the theology of religions question is not a single question, but a bristling cluster of related issues. If one brings these various categories together in a matrix, a range of views emerges. Logically, the threefold soteriological typology and the alethic distinction between realism and nonrealism produce six conceptually possible views: exclusivist realism, inclusivist realism, pluralist realism, exclusivist nonrealism, inclusivist nonrealism, and pluralist nonrealism. Exclusivist nonrealism and inclusivist nonrealism, I say, lead to conceptual trouble. So we are left with four genuine positions. The first stance is realist exclusivism. This is where many evangelicals find their identity. [17] The second option is realist inclusivism. Some evangelicals will place themselves in this group—at least in the constitutive inclusivism side of things.[18] The third position is realist pluralism. John Hick notably represents this option.[19] Finally, the fourth viewpoint is nonrealist pluralism. Gordon Kaufman typifies this position.[20]

II. PLURALISM, REALISM, AND EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY

The issue for theological prolegomenon is: How do religious variety and religious pluralism impinge on the evangelical theological task? Personally, I believe that at least some forms of inclusivism—specifically normative inclusivism—compromise essential evangelical commitments. But that is not at issue here. Evangelical exclusivists and constitutive inclusivists share, against all pluralists, the convictions that Christian revelation in Jesus of Nazareth is spiritually decisive and that salvation is possible only because of him. So for the purposes of showing the rational validity of evangelical theology, evangelical exclusivists and constitutive inclusivists can join hands in common cause. If either exclusivism or constitutive inclusivism is most reasonable, then one religion, taken as a whole, is true or points to ultimate Reality, and the hard cores of the worldviews of other religions are false. If so, then developing the evangelical theological research program to discover the explanatory power and epistemic status of the one true faith is surely legitimate. If pluralism of any sort is right, however, then at least one basic evangelical commitment is just plain false. Evangelicalism defends as a core commitment the idea that a single gospel is true for all peoples. If pluralism is right, this message cannot be true for all. Evangelical theology is wrongheaded at the level of a core conviction. If pluralism is true, then (at least prima facie) to the degree that evangelical theology depends on this core commitment, it seems rationally illegitimate.

A. The Pluralist Challenge

I will call the thesis that casts doubt on the legitimacy of an evangelical theology the “Pluralist Challenge.” The Pluralist Challenge is:

(c) Irrespective of one’s theory on the nature of religious language, the spiritual ultimate Reality is equally involved salvifically in many of the major world religions, and the adherents of many world faiths are able to contact that Reality. The followers of many religions can experience the benefits of liberation, enlightenment, or salvation. Therefore, any theology that assumes it has a unique and special claim to salvific efficacy or theological truth is flawed at its core.

Notice first that (c) is not about religious variety. The mere existence of contrary religious doctrines about ultimate Reality does not entail that any of these contrary doctrines are true. Of course, Western people today do accept the truth of conflicting beliefs from the various religions. Admittedly, this fact does create pressing apologetic challenges for us. But this point merely describes what people are inclined to believe, and it does not even suggest, let alone prove, that one meta-religious theory is actually more reasonable than another. Many people in the first-century Mediterranean world believed that angry gods caused storms. The fact that adherents to different religions adopt incompatible religious doctrines is completely consistent with the view that only one religion teaches truth. This is, in fact, a truism. Religious variety does not undermine the reasonableness of evangelical theology.

The Pluralist Challenge is about pluralism, the meta-religious theory. I claim that this challenge fails. To defend my claim, I will critique both the premise of the Pluralist Challenge and its inference. Essentially, I will argue that we should not adopt pluralism. In its several forms, it suffers significant defects. But even if I concede the premise, there is still good reason to conclude that the conclusion does not follow from it. Even if pluralism were true, I say there are still good reasons to pursue excellence in evangelical theology.

Arguing against the premise, I will first make a case against pluralism when combined with metaphysical realism. The heart of this critique is the claim that metaphysical realism regarding religion and religious pluralism, taken together, form an unstable compound that ultimately falls apart. The way to develop a plausible form of religious pluralism is to adopt metaphysical nonrealism. To continue the argument against the premise, I will next suggest reasons why religion based on metaphysical nonrealism is untenable. We come to the climax of this critique when we recognize that every meta-religious theory is forced, in the end, to evaluate various religious doctrines either positively or negatively. For nonrealism, this evaluation typically happens pragmatically. That is, the evaluation is often based on a judgment about whether a doctrine achieves a certain goal. Now there must exist true propositions that describe the goal that is the criterion of pragmatic success. And the propositions that express the goal of this pragmatic evaluation are either true or false. They contradict their negations. To anticipate, when Kaufman uses what he calls the “criterion of humanization” to evaluate religious claims, he offers what amounts to a religious claim. This religious claim entails a whole set of propositions that are either true or false. His “criterion of humanization” implies, for example, that the point of human life is found in this life, not in the next. This proposition, it appears, must either be true or false in a realist sense. That is, it is either true or false that religious life is entirely directed toward this world. If Kaufman says that religion is for this life, then religions that point to the next life in heaven after death are false. How could that square with the pluralist claim that all religions lead to salvation?

Now if both forms of pluralism fail, then the main premise of the Pluralist Challenge fails. (The main premise is this: the ultimate Reality is equally involved salvifically in many of the major world religions.) Of course, I cannot establish fully that both forms of pluralism fail; that task is too large for a short chapter. So to cut down the task, we will look at a single, respected and influential exponent of each position. John Hick obviously supports pluralism by connecting it with metaphysical realism, and Gordon Kaufman clearly defends pluralism in the context of his metaphysical nonrealism. I assume that Hick and Kaufman represent major accounts of realist and nonrealist pluralism respectively. If both of their theories suffer from major problems, this gives some reason to conclude that pluralism is probably flawed. And if pluralism is flawed, then either exclusivism or inclusivism is true. In this case, pluralism is not an invincible roadblock in the path of an evangelical theological research program that involves a denial of pluralism.

Suppose, on the other hand, that at least one of the two main versions of pluralism is not rationally troubled. Suppose hypothetically that someone offers a very good account of religious pluralism, whether connected to real-ism or to nonrealism. Then what? Even if that claim is well-grounded, I will argue, the inference of the Pluralist Challenge does not follow. (The inference is this: any theology that assumes it has a special claim to truth or salvation is flawed at its core.) I argue that even in a worst-case scenario (for evangelicals), evangelical theology is still important. Even if pluralism is defensible (which I do not believe), evangelical theology is legitimately rational.

B. John Hick’s Realist Religious Pluralism

First, consider John Hick’s realist pluralism. Over a lifetime, Hick made a sig-nificant theological pilgrimage.[21] He admitted that he held to a “Calvinist orthodoxy of an extremely conservative kind” in the 1940s.[22] But his academic training in theology and philosophy (Edinburgh and Oriel College, Oxford) provided him with two key concepts that would influence the trajectory of his thought throughout his career. First, Hick adopted (from John Oman) a Schleiermacherian emphasis on the primacy of religious experience. Second, he borrowed (from Norman Kemp Smith) a Kantian epistemology. The former influenced Hick’s move toward pluralism, and the latter provided a solution to a major problem he encountered as he fleshed out his pluralist theology of religions. In mid-career, in the 1960s, Hick became interested in the question of religious diversity and felt a need to work out a theology of religions. [23] At least part of the impetus behind this shift in interest was a physical move to the religiously diverse city of Birmingham. In 1967, Birmingham University appointed Hick as H. G. Wood Professor of Theology. Hick’s work on natural theology, specifically his study of the argument for God’s existence based on religious experience, set the stage for a new understanding of the world’s religions. In Birmingham, Hick sought out firsthand encounters with various religious experiences by actively engaging persons of other faiths.

Like Schleiermacher and others who heavily emphasized the experiential aspect of religion, Hick came to see that any argument from religious experience used to substantiate Christianity would also support other religions.[24] He wrote that

since one could restate the argument [for the rationality of Christian the-ism] . . . from the point of view of many different religions, with their different forms of religious experience and belief, the question arises whether the argument does not prove too much. In establishing the rationality of the Judaic-Christian theist’s belief in the reality of God, must it not also and equally establish the rationality of the Buddhist’s belief, arising out of his own coercive religious experience, and likewise of Hindu belief and of Islamic belief, and so on? We need, I think, have no hesitation in accepting this implication.[25]

Hick’s experiential religious epistemology encouraged his pluralist move. But this experiential religious epistemology also raised a serious roadblock to the development of a theory of pluralism. The problem is this: if religious experience provides the only solid, veridical grounding for human religious beliefs, it seems prima facie that human religious experiences in different religions would be roughly similar, or at least not incompatible in nature.[26] But, as Hick acknowledged, “the immense variety of the forms of religious experience” generates “apparently incompatible beliefs.”[27] In fact, many of the doctrinal claims of the major world religions are not just broadly incompatible but strictly contradictory. For example, some religions generate experiences of a personal God, but others generate experiences of an impersonal, non-theistic Reality—a reality best labeled (with apologies to George Lucas and Obi-Wan Kenobi) an impersonal force. This problem, the “conflicting conceptions of the divine” problem, became for Hick the single largest barrier to a consistent pluralist theology of religions.

To resolve this problem, Hick drew on Kant’s distinction between noumenon and phenomenon. The Real is the noumenon—Reality as it is in itself. Religious experiences are caused by the Real, but religious believers experience it as phenomenon—Reality as it is for us. The object of any religious worship or meditation is not actually the Real itself. It is a concept caused by the Real. Hick explained, “In each of the great traditions a distinction has been drawn, though with varying degrees of emphasis, between the Real . . . in itself and the Real as manifested within the intellectual and experiential purview of that tradition.”[28] Hick did not mean merely that knowledge of God is limited or imperfect. He meant that we simply cannot access knowledge of God as God actually is. He asserted that “our language can have no purchase on a postulated noumenal reality which is not even partly formed by human concepts. This lies outside the scope of our cognitive capacities.”[29]

But it is not immediately clear how all this is supposed to work, given every-thing else Hick asserted. On the one hand, Hick claimed that an ultimate spiritual Reality actually exists and is the source or cause of religious experience. A religiously significant, metaphysical ultimate Reality exists. Religious experiences can properly ground—they can give some reason for—belief in the Real. On the other hand, he said that this ultimate spiritual Reality is entirely beyond human knowledge, language, or conception. How can this be? It seems prima facie that Hick’s theory requires applying human concepts (like the property “being the cause of religious experience”) to the Real. But if that concept does not attach to the Real, then how could he say that religious experience provides a reason to think that the Real even exists as something other than a human construct? Or if religious experience does give reason to think that a religiously significant ultimate Reality exists, then why did Hick claim that the Real is completely hidden such that human concepts do not apply—not even the concept “being the cause of religious experience”?

So the crux of the problem facing Hick as he sought to combine meta-physical realism and religious pluralism arose because he insisted on the fol-lowing ideas.

(d) The ultimate, spiritual reality, the Real, is an actually existing, ontological reality, not merely a product of human imaginations, hopes, or fears. This is metaphysical realism.

(e) The Real is an aspect of an unknowable noumenon. We humans have no positive, substantive epistemic access to or knowledge of the Real. This is Kantian theological agnosticism.

(f) Religious doctrines never describe or point to any objectively existing spiritual Reality. We cannot judge that one religion has more accurate portrayals of the divine reality than another. So we should conclude that contradictory religious doctrines are all equally caused by the Real and that sincere believers of all faiths are in touch with the Real. This is alethic nonrealism in support of religious pluralism.

To put it kindly, Hick’s position is internally strained. Keith Yandell called it “utterly indefensible.”[30] I will mention three different lines of response to Hick’s attempt to combine metaphysical realism with religious pluralism. First, Hick’s use of religious experience to ground belief in the existence of the Real stands in tension with his other theses. So notice that Hick’s responses to various objections make clear his commitment to (d). When critics claimed that the Real does not exist, or is just a human projection, or is some unspecified abstraction like Tillich’s “ultimate concern,” Hick responded that an ultimate spiritual Reality does in fact exist independently of human thought. But how could Hick know (d) in light of his other convictions? For he also holds (e)—the Real possesses no positive, substantive properties knowable by humans. And he supports (f)—no human concepts describe the Real more accurately than any others. Hick tried to argue that the experiences had by people in the many world religions ground belief in the actual existence of the Real. But without any substantive epistemic access to the spiritual Reality, how can the question of the mind-independent existence of the Real ever emerge from a cloud of mystery?

Think of it this way. Given Hick’s own religious epistemology, he cannot acquire this knowledge through experiences embedded in just one particular religious tradition. That would judge one tradition as epistemically superior to the others. He cannot appeal equally to experiences shaped by the doctrines of all religions. The doctrines of various religions contradict each other, and so these experiences conflict as well. And he cannot appeal to a generalized, generic religious experience. There just is no such thing (except as an abstraction in the minds of certain scholars of religion). So why would Hick suppose that all religious experience gives reason to conclude that the Real actually exists? How could he offer any support at all to the idea that the Real exists in a mind-independent way? Hick said that the uniform experience of religious transformation carries with it an implication that a Reality lies behind all religious experience. But how could he defeat Feuerbach’s critique, that religious experience results from human psychological processes projecting outward in the vain search for Transcendence? In light of his assertion of (e) and (f), Hick’s commitment to (d), metaphysical realism, is an unwarranted belief that seems entirely gratuitous.

Second, the three theses lead to a contorted (though not strictly incoherent) theory about human knowledge of the Real. To be precise, Hick actually did not deny that some concepts apply to the Real. Since Hick asserted the Real actually exists, he agreed that it must have certain attributes. Every existing thing must possess certain formal and necessary properties—“being a referent of a term,” for example. Hick acknowledged this.[31] Though committed to (e), Hick stated (correctly) that “it would indeed not make sense to say of X that none of our concepts apply to it.”[32] He also admitted that the Real possesses certain negative properties. Drawing on the via negativa tradition, he suggested that human concepts like infinity apply to Reality. That the Real possesses “unlimitedness, or infinity, . . . the denial of limitation . . . is a basic assumption of all the great traditions,” he wrote.[33]

But Hick’s admission that the Real possesses formal and negative attributes raises questions. For example, negative properties have positive complements. If the negative property, “not ignorant,” applies to the Real, so does its com-plement, “wise.” This is a positive and substantive property. If the negative property “infinity” applies to the Real, this entails that positive attributes (like “wise”) possessed by the Real would be infinite. In other words, if the Real pos-sesses knowledge, then the Real is unlimited with respect to knowledge. That is, the Real is omniscient. And omniscience is a positive attribute.

But how could this fit with (e), Hick’s central principle that says we have no positive knowledge of God? If a person wanted to defend Hick’s proposal, she could assert that the Real might possess the attribute of omniscience, but that we could never come to know that the Real possesses omniscience. We could know that the Real is infinite because that is a negative attribute. We cannot know that the Real possesses knowledge because that is a positive attribute. The Real might in fact be omniscient. It is just that we could never know that. So a hypothetical defender of Hickian pluralism could find coherence by saying three things. (1) The Real possesses formal and negative properties that we can know or grasp conceptually. (2) The Real possibly possesses some substantive and positive properties that are beyond our knowing. But (3) the Real does not possess any positive attributes we can know about. The Real is infinite, but the Real is infinite only with regard to properties about which we are entirely ignorant.[34]

This position, stated very carefully, is coherent. But it does seem contorted. And it leads to other difficulties. To remain consistent with the thesis that humans have no positive, substantive epistemic access to the Real, a Hickian pluralist would have to affirm this disjunctive: as regards any positive, substantive property, either the Real does not possess it or we can have no grasp of it. But now go back to consider the property “being the cause of religious experience.” This is a positive, substantive property. Obviously, we can grasp it. That means the Real cannot possess it. But if the Real does not possess the property of “being the cause of religious experience,” then how does Hick’s argument for metaphysical realism get off the ground? How could Hick say that “the noumenal Real is experienced and thought by different human mentalities”? [35] Hick appealed to religious experience as evidence that the cause of that experience exists as a human mind-independent reality. This argument can rev up its engines at the end of the runway, but it will never fly.

Another aspect of this dilemma arises when we ask how Hick could know that the noumenal Real appears most profoundly in religious experiences. If we cannot gain knowledge of any of the positive properties possessed by the Real, why would we think that the Real appears to us in religious experience as opposed to some other form of experience? How could Hick say that the Real is encountered authentically in an experience of Jesus of Nazareth, say, rather than in an encounter with Attila the Hun or Joseph Stalin? Why, accord-ing to any knowledge we could possibly possess, would we think that our experience of Jesus is more authentic as an encounter of the Real than our experience of something frightful? Perhaps our experience of something quite horrible is more genuinely indicative of the ultimate spiritual Reality. Indeed, there is good reason why, in certain Hindu traditions (where ultimate Brahman is beyond concepts and thus strictly unknowable), the gods are morally ambiguous. Kali, for example, is bloodthirsty and wears skulls around her neck. If we want to say that an experience of something frightful is not indicative of the Real, does this require that we know some positive properties possessed by ultimate Reality and that we know these do not match whatever it is that we experience as horrible? If all features of the Real are so truly hidden from us, what reason is there (of the kind we could actually know) for connecting the Real specifically with positive, moral religion?[36]

Third, as Hick actually worked out his program, he routinely returned to personal language about the Real. This reveals that, given his other theological commitments, staying firmly committed to (e) was very difficult, if not impossible. So the combination of metaphysical realism and pluralism, as Hick sought to defend it, is an unstable compound. On the one hand, if substantive knowledge of the Real is possible (and we can predicate humanly graspable, positive properties to the Real), then we can use that knowledge to judge which religions are true or point to ultimate Reality. This entails, at a minimum, a normative inclusivism. (For if normative inclusivism is right, then even though followers of many religions can experience salvation or liberation, humans can still know that one religion is truer than others in pointing to the ultimate spiritual Reality. One religion is the “norm” among religions.) And if inclusivism of some sort is true, then pluralism is false. So if substantive knowledge of the Real is possible (and (e) is false), then pluralism is false.

On the other hand, if substantive knowledge of the Real is not possible (i.e., we cannot apply humanly graspable, positive properties to the Real and (e) is true), then religious metaphysical realism is simply unwarranted. Belief in the existence of a religiously relevant, mind-independent, ultimate spiritual Reality becomes a bald assertion. It is an extraneous doctrine, an overbelief that lacks warrant. Based on parsimony, it should be abandoned. In the end, Hick took the first option. He regularly revealed his deep conviction that the Real is more like a person than a force. But that requires knowledge of positive properties. This means he should have abandoned his religious agnosticism.[37] If, alternatively, he took the second option, he should have discarded his metaphysical realism—his commitment to (d). A nonrealist who followed this latter direction, Don Cupitt, concluded bitingly, “John Hick is the platonic ideal of the liberal theologian who believes in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. He is sweet reasonableness incarnate.”[38]

A complete account of a theory that is as important as Hick’s pluralism would require not just a section of one chapter but a full research program. So this brief discussion only hints at what I believe are fundamental difficulties in his perspective. But these difficulties arise, I strongly suspect, not just in Hick’s specific attempt to put metaphysical realism in conjunction with religious pluralism, but in any effort to do so. If this is so, then a far more plausible com-pound joins religious pluralism to metaphysical nonrealism. This is the track Gordon Kaufman follows.

C. Gordon Kaufman’s Nonrealist Religious Pluralism

Like Hick, Gordon Kaufman experienced a significant transformation of thought through his lengthy academic career.[39] In the early and mid-1960s, Kaufman’s theology was somewhat traditional, reflecting a Mennonite back-ground and a neo-orthodox theology. In the early 1970s, Kaufman experienced a revolution in method.[40] He began to think that traditional ways of doing theology, and more specifically, traditional ways of construing theological truth, were profoundly misguided. While complex forces no doubt lie behind this new sensibility, Kaufman himself listed two: the “death of God” movement in the 1960s and the “critique by analytic philosophers of the meaning of theological language.”[41] Kaufman became profoundly skeptical about whether it was even possible to continue to endorse the concepts of divine revelation, the idea that God is a personal being, and the belief that human language has any ability to refer to God in any sense. For our purposes, it is instructive to look at the important methodological sea change that occurred in Kaufman’s think-ing during the 1970s.

The direction of Kaufman’s methodological revolution was a turn to a robust form of alethic nonrealism. For the alethic nonrealist, theology is not the study of a particular divine being but an investigation of the human quest for ultimacy—either ultimate meanings, ultimate origins, or ultimate purposes. Because of alleged problems associated with the idea of a real, ontological deity, Kaufman began to use the term ‘God’, not to refer to a being out there, but to describe a human construct. Several essays, written in 1970 and reproduced as chapters 5 and 7 in God the Problem (1972), conceived of God as “an objective reality over against man.”[42] But by 1971, Kaufman began to think that traditional ways of seeing God’s agency and purpose in the world are flawed. In a 1971 essay, he wrote that “At present it is doubtful whether such modes of thought are even possible for us any more.”[43]

Kaufman presented a main argument for his emerging theory in this way:

“God” raises special problems of meaning because it is a noun which by definition refers to a reality transcendent of, and thus not locatable within, experience. . . . If absolutely nothing within our experience can be directly identified as that to which the term “God” properly refers, what meaning does or can the word have?[44]

The thrust of Kaufman’s argument is this: if God is truly infinite (as God is traditionally understood to be), then we cannot perceive or experience him directly. And, if we cannot experience God directly, if nothing we experience is connected to the referent of the term ‘God’, then the word ‘God’ does not refer to anything. Or, more minimally, it is at least difficult to understand how the word ‘God’ could refer.

By 1975, Kaufman brought his new view into full flower in An Essay on Theological Method. He put the matter bluntly: “‘God’ is not a reality over against us, totally other from us at all, but is in fact a construct of the human imagination which performs certain important functions in our thinking and experience.”[45] Theology is not about depicting divine reality, or constructing concepts appropriate to divine reality. If I think of God realistically or hold that God actually exists ontologically, I “reify” theological language. To “reify” a theological word is to assume wrongly that the word has an ontological referent. It is a form of idolatry. To counteract idolatry, theology must de-reify traditional belief and focus instead on “imaginative construction.” The theologian should take “control (so far as possible) of these constructions so as to develop theological positions to which thoughtful contemporary men and women can give themselves.”[46]

As his thinking evolved, Kaufman came to understand the “ultimate Mystery” of existence (that is, God) as nothing other than the “cosmic evolutionary and historical processes.”[47] The word ‘God’ is not appropriately used for an actually existing, personal Creator. (That would be to reify the word ‘God’.) It properly denotes the physical, biological, and historical process that surrounds us, for this “actually creates and sustains human life.”[48] In Kaufman’s thinking, the natural world process replaces the Creator as the proper object of the word ‘God’. And Kaufman defended this idea in the name of avoiding idolatry! So while Kaufman retained some minimal, quasi-personal language in order to speak in a unified way of the various forces that surround humanity, he actually moved to a radical “naturalism,” as he admitted.[49]

This, of course, is a full-bodied metaphysical nonrealism regarding spiritual reality combined with an alethic nonrealism regarding traditional theological language. But it is not really a nonrealism regarding all language. Kaufman abandoned—or at least shied away from—anthropomorphic language about God. The clearest passage appeared in a review of Sallie McFague. Kaufman said McFague did not move far enough away from personal metaphors to non-personal concepts: “I am doubtful . . . if metaphors or models based primarily on the human person are adequate any longer to serve as the principal foundation for our conception of God.”[50] So Kaufman abandoned neither the use of the word ‘God’ nor, surprisingly, the possibility of alethic realism. Rather, he kept speaking about God, but redefined God as “nature,” “evolution,” or “historical processes.” “Cosmic serendipitous creativity” replaced the personal Creator. Alethic nonrealism applies to the idea of God (as evangelicals construe God). But Kaufman actually reasserted alethic realism. Only now, traditional religious language refers to natural and nonreligious realities. This tragically fulfills Ludwig Feuerbach’s prediction: “What yesterday was still religion is no longer such today; and what today is atheism, tomorrow will be religion.”[51]

How does this alethic nonrealism regarding traditional religious objects con-nect with religious pluralism? In Essay on Theological Method in 1975, Kaufman referred to the issue of religious pluralism in a footnote. He explained his concern only with the concept of God found in the three religions that emerged from Israel. He suggested, however, that his new views on religion have important implications for other religions.[52] In an epilogue, Kaufman spoke to the question of truth. Given his constructivist view of religious doctrine—religious ideas are human constructs created to promote and sustain human well-being—he asserted that the “criteria [sic] of correspondence can-not be applied: only the criteria of coherence and pragmatic usefulness to human life are relevant and applicable.” He applied this vision of religious truth to “all human concepts” for all concepts are important to us only as they give us “useful maps for dealing with life.”[53]

Kaufman explicitly connected his newly formed metaphysical nonrealism regarding religion to the pluralism debate in a 1976 article. In his view, the con-temporary world cannot accept exclusivism. Inclusivism (though Kaufman does not use this term) is unstable. Moving to the other extreme, a relativism that follows Troeltsch, goes “so far as to despair of an ultimate unity of religious truth.”[54] And Kaufman criticized Hick (along with Hick’s mentor, Wilfred Cantwell Smith) for developing a form of pluralism that “implicitly gives up all claims to the finality or definitiveness of specifically Christian faith.”[55] The fundamental issue is that each of these perspectives treats the theology of religions debate as a structural or conceptual question rooted in a set-tled metaphysical reality, rather than as a historical matter rooted in the dynamic flow toward a more humane future. Kaufman wrote,

If human existence is essentially historical, and religion, like human nature itself, emerges only gradually in history and changes continuously in history, it is a mistake to look for any such permanent structural solution to the problem of the relations of the various religions to each other.[56]

Kaufman implied that exclusivism and inclusivism are flawed because they assume metaphysical realism regarding religion. These options view the relations among the religions as permanent because the religions and their relationships to each other are rooted in ontology. But according to Kaufman’s historical and constructivist approach, the relations among the religions are dynamic, for he insisted that these relations are always free of the restrictions rooted in a stable “way things are.” The religions are always dynamically open to the future.

Where is the dynamic historical process going? Kaufman developed a theological agenda to advance humanization—to promote human flourishing. Here Kaufman reflected the influence of a book by M. M. Thomas, Man and the Universe of Faiths.[57] (This title is a knockoff of John Hick’s 1973 volume, God and the Universe of Faiths.[58]) Thomas argued that “common humanity and the self-transcendence within it, more especially . . . the common world, rather than any common religiosity, or common sense of the Divine, is the most fruitful point of entry for a meeting of faiths at spiritual depth in our time.”[59] Kaufman developed this theme as the criterion for assessing religious truth claims pragmatically: truth should be judged by whether it enhances human life in the here and now. Humanly constructed theological concepts, including even the most central concept, “God,” have value (i.e., are true pragmatically) as they enhance human flourishing.

If religious doctrines are assessed pragmatically, then the constructs that elevate humane living could presumably differ from one context to another. What remains constant from one context to another, for Kaufman’s nonrealist pluralism, is the “criterion of humanization.” He wrote,

Throughout the world there appears to be a growing passion to reconstruct the present order into one more truly humane. That is the great aspiration of our time . . . whether we are Christians or Buddhists, Americans or members of the so-called Third World, communists or adherents to Western-style democracy. How shall we build a new and more humane world for all of the peoples of the world?—that is our most important question.[60]

Kaufman detected an emerging consensus that theology must address the issues of life in this world, rather than focusing on some other-worldly destiny. This justifies an entirely humanistic and this-worldly theological method.

Before I respond, notice a couple of things. Pluralism follows from Kaufman’s nonrealism regarding traditional doctrine. To be sure, back in 1966, Kaufman recoiled from “that especially offensive kind of theological arrogance and pride that insists I have the truth about God, and those who disagree with me are fools.”[61] And he later wrote that the new consciousness of religious pluralism demands new, non-polemical approaches to other religions.[62] The allergic reaction to definite truth claims—especially traditional truth claims—correlates positively to a commitment to pluralism. But Kaufman took a journey toward pluralism more by default. That is, it appears Kaufman did not start out to develop a pluralistic theology of religions. Rather, the metaphysical nonrealism of his theological method, beginning with his 1970s sea change, propelled him toward religious pluralism. This is no surprise. For those who say that religious beliefs do not describe spiritual realities, the purpose of doctrine typically becomes pragmatic functionality. For Kaufman, this pragmatic function is enhancing “humanization.” From here it is a very short step to a pluralist conclusion: any religious beliefs that promote human flourishing—whether they are Christian, Buddhist, native American, or Ainu—are “true” and “salvific.” Kaufman’s metaphysical nonrealism regarding religion led him in a rather straight line to a robust version of religious pluralism.

To go a step farther, however, not only does something like Kaufman’s non-realism lead to pluralism, I think something like it is the most plausible approach to pluralism. Suppose someone begins (as Kaufman does not) with a commitment to pluralism and then seeks out obviously correlated views of spiritual reality and religious language. Suppose she posits that all religious doctrines are really on a par and wants to flesh out an account of the role of theological doctrine that coheres with that conviction. Then a constructivist account of the meanings of doctrines plus a pragmatic account of their justification is an unbeatable duo. Hick’s theory bristles with roadblocks, but Kaufman’s nonrealist strategy runs over those obstacles like a tank. Hick tries to say that an actual spiritual Reality really exists, causes religious experience, and is evidenced by human experience. Yet this spiritual Reality is entirely hid-den from human knowing and equally well encountered in whatever contradictory religious beliefs any religious person might hold. Phew! How much more straightforward to say that human beings invent religious ideas because they produce humane benefits. Go Feuerbach one better! Just say that the humanly constructed ideas of the various religions are not evidence of defective thinking but a brilliant strategy for humane living. Different—contradictory—ideas can all be “true.” A pluralist will save herself no end of conceptual headaches by wedding her religious pluralism to the various nonrealisms.

As Hick’s realist pluralism falls, however, so I believe Kaufman’s nonrealist pluralism stumbles (even though it is in some ways more plausible). I will raise several lines of critique. First, the inference to theological nonrealism is unwarranted. From Kaufman’s premises, metaphysical nonrealism and alethic non-realism regarding religious objects just do not follow. He argued in effect that God’s infinity gives reason to think that God is not located within human experience, and then that God’s being outside human experience shows (or at the very least suggests) that the word ‘God’ has no referent. [63] But both legs of this argument are weak.

To examine the first leg of this argument, let us suppose that God is infinite with respect to power and knowledge. If a God who is almighty and all-knowing does exist, what follows? Kaufman thinks it follows that we cannot experience God. But why? What is it about God’s being almighty and all-knowing that should lead us to infer that he is incapable of crossing our experiential radar screen? It seems that a limited or finite God might have difficulty getting on our radar screen. But if God is omnicompetent, that would empower him to communicate to us. From God’s being maximally powerful and wise I should think it better to infer that God can speak to people in a wide variety of ways. In traditional Trinitarian thinking, God can even take on a full human nature to make the infinite known to us finite knowers.[64] How strange to think that God’s being maximally competent in power and wisdom should be the very thing that prevents him from making himself known.

Turning to the second leg of this argument, it seems initially obvious that we do routinely refer to many things we do not directly experience. I have never experienced a dinosaur attacking a prehistoric mammal. But surely I can refer to that. It is hard to imagine an argument that would preclude such reference. Further, we do refer to God by using definite descriptions. A definite description refers to something if there is exactly one object that possesses the attributes delineated in the description. “Father of Ryan David Clark of Rosewood Court in New Brighton” is a definite description of me. I am the only one who exemplifies those properties. We can refer to God by using descriptions like “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” To my close friends, the term ‘David’ functions as the exact equivalent of “Father of Ryan David Clark of Rosewood Court in New Brighton.” For Christian believers, the term ‘God’ functions as a proper name that is essentially the equivalent of “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” If the Christian God does exist, there is no reason to think that this kind of referring is out of order.[65] The argument that begins with God’s infinity and ends with metaphysical nonrealism and alethic nonrealism regarding God has no leg to stand on.

Second, the content of the criterion of humanization depends on a Western liberal notion of the good life. Kaufman’s move to alethic nonrealism does not mean that he abandoned the assessing of religious claims. Obviously, he turned to pragmatic considerations to evaluate beliefs. He wrote that people around the globe are feeling a strong passion to reconstruct the world order. All people, whatever their religious belief, national origin, or political commitment, have as their primary aspiration the creation of a world that is authentically humane. It is the function of religious doctrine to answer the question: “How shall we build a new and more humane world for all of the peoples of the world?”[66] Our goal as theologians, Kaufman claimed, is to enhance “human fulfillment and meaning.”[67] But this leaves the central question completely open. What is the meaning of ‘humane’? What is the content of the phrase “criterion of humanization”? It seems, initially, that Kaufman assumed something like a Western liberal notion of the good life. In spite of his use of quasi-personal language for the divine being, he admitted a commitment to radical “naturalism.”[68] I frankly doubt, however, that the majority of the world’s 2 billion Christians would agree that human flourishing rooted in radical naturalism is the point of their faith. I have the same doubts about billions of Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists. Even though Kaufman’s ideal of humanization is as comfortable as an old pair of jeans in the Western academy, globally speaking, I doubt it is truly the “great aspiration of our time.” [69]

Third, the previous point leads directly to the next: nonrealism is inconsistent with the convictions of the vast majority of religious believers. Most religious people believe that the object of their worship or meditation actually exists as their doctrines teach. As Edward Farley asserts correctly, “faith is not indifferent about whether its contents, that is, that which it affirms, have the status of reality.”[70] I shall argue below that a pluralist ends up telling proponents of any traditional faith that their religion, as they understand it, is false. But nonrealism adds to this problem. Not only does the nonrealist pluralist tell believers that their unique beliefs are false, the nonrealist pluralist also informs them that even the beliefs held in common with all other religious believers—what they share with those of other faiths—are false. The nonrealist pluralist does not just say that this view of God is true and that view false. The non-realist says that every belief about God held by any religious believer is false if that belief is taken as a true description. Believers in all the religions have missed the point—except those who are Western academics, who have seen the light, and who know that all doctrines are human constructs that lack an onto-logical referent. Even if Kaufman is right, we should recognize the audacity of his bold stance. If he is right, then every devotee of a traditional religion essentially misunderstands his own doctrines because he misses the central insight regarding the nature of doctrines. (And this insight is open only to Western academics.) This implication is stunning precisely because pluralism’s supposed strong suit is that it acknowledges the truth of all religions.

In a backhanded way, this kind of pluralism insults traditional believers in the end. Let me offer a parable. Suppose that Joe Bloom, a sports reporter assigned to the Minnesota Twins, gradually realizes that he and other con-temporary people find baseball slow and boring. Baseball just does not work for our time. It fails to speak to modern people. Its rhythms bespeak another era. Along with other postmodern people, Joe finds more excitement in the riskier, wilder contests of those who ride skate-, snow-, or wakeboards, or who do acrobatics after launching themselves into the air while strapped to skis, riding a bike, or by leaping from an airplane. Joe used to love baseball. His heart remembers the innocence of watching Harmon Killebrew and the Twins out at the Met, the now-demolished stadium. He and his dad (may “God” rest his soul) drove to the Met on many a summer Saturday to watch “Killer” hit. For Joe, talking “baseball”—the language game of “real” baseball—evokes powerful feelings of nostalgia, warmth, and joy.

Today, however, Joe never watches the Twins. Yet he has decided to keep “baseball,” and to redefine it. “Baseball” (the language game, not the game itself) now serves in an odd way as a centering metaphor for Joe’s life. (And he still earns six figures writing “baseball” for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.) But Joe no longer uses ‘Twins’ and other “baseball” words (like ‘homerun’, ‘stealing’, and ‘pitching’) to describe what other people call baseball. Instead “baseball” now describes the “X Games” that appear regularly on ESPN (the sports TV network). And the other words apply to different parts of the “X Games.” ‘Homerun’, for example, is a metaphor for a maximally intricate skydiving routine performed with great skill.

Well, what to say? Maybe Joe breaks no laws of nature or of linguistics by using “baseball” (the language game) in this way. But he will at least confuse and probably annoy those who love “real” baseball. They will certainly want to know: Who are these “contemporary people” who think “real” baseball is outmoded? By what lights do they think they see so clearly that baseball is archaic? In the end, we will forgive those who still love “real” baseball when they wonder out loud to each other: Do you ever bother to read Joe’s “base-ball” reports? I cannot understand what Joe writes. My point is perhaps overly clear: Why would anyone retain the language—the words and concepts, the symbols and metaphors, the syntax and grammar—but completely abandon the content or substance of faith? Why would someone who experiences relief in getting rid of (the “real”) God find any value in keeping (the concept) “God”? This is “throwing out the baby and keeping the tepid bathwater, at best a bland, unappetizing potion that is neither hot nor cold and at worst a nauseating brew, fit for neither man nor beast.”[71]

Fourth, a commitment to candor, it seems, would suggest that nonrealists like Kaufman should admit their real commitments and just drop the Christian theological language. The perspective Kaufman offers is in fact indistinguishable from atheism. Could Kaufman, in fact, object to someone who adopted as her “religious faith” an explicitly atheistic life philosophy, say, that of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “directed evolution”?[72] In linguistic form, Kaufman’s writing differs from Csikszentmihalyi’s. But in material content, it seems roughly equivalent. Why not straightforwardly admit this?

A further example of this same point arises in Kaufman’s 1989 essay, “God and Emptiness: An Experimental Essay.”[73]We must take seriously the fact that Kaufman used the word ‘experimental’. Still, the essay is revealing. Kaufman stated that its purpose is to propose “certain modifications of the conception of God which will bring it into much closer proximity than has usually been thought possible with important Buddhist notions.” He described God as “the ultimate point of reference,” noting explicitly that what is in view here is the function of the word ‘God’, rather than its content. Here Kaufman offered ideas that are “formally” Christian, but “materially” much more like Buddhism.[74] Now why would a Christian find this anything but confusing at best and maddening at worst? It is as though the cardboard and satin box the diamond comes in is more valuable than the diamond. Should not a Kaufmanian nonrealist just acknowledge more candidly that he is simply not talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?[75]

This form of nonrealism just simply is not authentically Christian. But further, this nonrealist pluralism is actually not truly pluralistic. It is worth ask-ing, at least, whether nonrealist pluralism—or nonrealist so-called pluralism—can hold that all paths lead to salvation or liberation. Quite clearly, traditional versions of Christianity suffer, in Kaufman’s mind, from the error of reification. They point toward salvation in heaven in another life. They will lead away from humanization. And so they are false. Kaufman argued to these conclusions. And I feel certain he would argue the same thing to a traditional Muslim who thinks following the five pillars of Islam leads to paradise or to a traditional Mormon who thinks that his faith will lead to celestial heaven. They focus on pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by. They lead away from humanization. So if Kaufman’s nonrealist pluralism is right, then all these religions are false. But in this case, how can his view actually be pluralist? It appears this position amounts to an exclusivism in which salvation is humanization in this life. How could it not constitute a denial of the salvific efficacy of religions that define salvation as glorification in the next?

The upshot is this. The realist forms of pluralism, as illustrated by John Hick, suffer severe internal tensions. It appears more reasonable just to abandon the unstable union of pluralism to metaphysical realism and to move instead toward nonrealist versions of pluralism. But nonrealist pluralisms suffer difficulties, too. Metaphysical nonrealism implies an alethic nonrealism. Alethic nonrealism typically raises up some goal or end of religious striving that becomes the North Star that guides the evaluation of theological claims. Now even if this goal is something quite different than Kaufman’s humanization, it still functions as an epistemic touchstone: doctrines that promote the goal are “true,” and those that lead people away from the goal are “false.” In this pat-tern of thinking, traditional religious beliefs are usually judged false. In this case, nonrealists will say that traditional believers are wrong at least in that they hold that their doctrines are true in a realist sense. But if the traditional doctrines of literally billions of believers are determined to be false, then pluralism is not true. At best, inclusivism is true (in the case where a nonrealist says that traditional beliefs are false, strictly speaking, but could still lead traditional believers to the stipulated goal of religious faith). Now if inclusivism is true, then pluralism is false. And if pluralism is false, it does not constitute a compelling reason for us to doubt the rational legitimacy of evangelical theology.

III. EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY AND THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS

Evangelicals believe that Jesus of Nazareth uniquely and decisively embodies God’s self-revelation—that NT faith is in some sense The Truth. If this were unjustified, irrational, or, worse yet, if it were false, this would call into question the legitimacy of evangelical theology as a rational research program. Because various forms of pluralism suffer severe difficulties, I conclude that pluralism does not render evangelical theology irrational, unwarranted, or defective. But what if I am wrong? What if pluralism were not just reasonable or plausible, but well-justified and actually true? What then? It might seem prima facie that a compelling account of pluralism would constitute a crippling blow to the practice of distinctively evangelical theology. But even if pluralism were true, or even if we could not be certain it is false, I say the Pluralist Challenge is still essentially flawed.

A. The Inference of the Pluralism Challenge

I phrased the Pluralist Challenge in this manner:

(c) Irrespective of one’s theory on the nature of religious language, the spiritual ultimate Reality is equally involved salvifically in many of the major world religions, and the adherents of many world faiths are able to contact Reality and experience liberation, enlightenment, or salvation. Therefore, any theology that assumes it has a unique and special claim to salvific efficacy or theological truth is flawed at its core.

Even assuming hypothetically the worst-case scenario (for an exclusivist) that pluralism is true, for those who have well-grounded belief that the Christian faith is the true path to salvation, the inference at the heart of the Pluralist Challenge does not follow. Even if pluralism is true, study of the world’s religions from the perspective of those who believe those religions are true might still have at least heuristic value. Even if pluralism were true, we should still want to know, say, how spiritual Reality looks to a Hindu believer, how a Hindu theologian would give an account of the world from a Hindu point of view, and how that view of spiritual Reality shapes Hindu life and culture. It is still quite helpful to hear how an exclusivist with well-grounded beliefs in the teachings of her own religion would develop her theology. It is still beneficial to know why she thinks her religion alone describes the true path to salvation or liberation, and to know what she thinks it means to say this about her faith. Again, I believe pluralism is false. But even if I am mistaken, it does not follow that evangelical theology is a worthless enterprise.

Whatever the status of pluralism as a meta-religious theory about religions, Christian theology must take account of the world’s religions. For evangelicals, committed to the decisive character of God’s revelation in Christ, the perspectives of theologians in other religions are important. From a biblical viewpoint, we may see some aspects of other religions as expressions of natural revelation. Evangelical theology has a stake in any valid insights that arise in natural revelation. Even if we say that other religions are not true when taken as wholes, we can acknowledge that these religions contain important individual truths. If Christian theologians are to understand, from a firsthand point of view, the specific truths of natural revelation that are accessed by the world’s religions, then the people who actually believe and practice those religions must articulate their faith in such a way that we can understand them. In that sense, having Hindu theologians doing their best to give an account of their faith is of some benefit to the evangelical theologian.

This means that evangelicals can dialogue respectfully with theologians who are practicing members of other religious communities. Such respectful dialogue is consistent with exclusivism. Dialogue never requires conceding the truth claims made by dialogue partners. Nor does it demand a willingness to accept as true only the overlapping beliefs, the least common theological denominators, that dialogue might reveal. It invites openness to sympathetic listening, commitment to honest response, and willingness both to instruct and to learn. It assumes, at the very least, a readiness to hear what the other per-son wishes to say on the topics about which the other is most competent to speak. Minimally, these topics would include how his own belief and practice looks to him and how he perceives and responds to Christian claims and witness. What evangelical theologian can do without good, firsthand information on these points?

To be concrete, I am suggesting that a Muslim doing his best in Muslim theology is of some help to an evangelical Christian doing her best in evangelical theology. From a Christian viewpoint, of course, I believe it would be better, frankly, if the Muslim became a Christ-follower. The Muslim will think the converse. But I assume here that we should not hold our breath—or refuse to talk—until these things happen. Given that some of our neighbors are Muslims and that many of those will remain Muslims, we can benefit from learning how things look from a Muslim viewpoint. Wisdom can arise from an understanding of various perspectives, and this includes understanding viewpoints with which we disagree.

Now if this is right, does not the same logic apply if the roles are reversed? Suppose that as evangelical theologians we work out our research program, assuming, as evangelical believers do, that Jesus Christ rightly claims unique and distinctive theological truth and salvific efficacy. Suppose further that we have some good reasons to think as we do. But suppose further that we are wrong—the Christian faith, taken as a whole, is a false religion and does not actually yield eternal salvation. In that case, serious believers in other faiths should still want to know how we think our faith works and to hear our account of our beliefs and practices. This enterprise—developing the evangelical theological research program—will serve not only the Christian church but both the wider academic world and other religious communities as well. This means that even if we accept pluralism as true—in fact, I emphatically reject it—but even if we do concede it, evangelical theology is still a viable and reasonable enterprise. As evangelical theologians, we should still work confidently, thinking out issues from our own, specifically evangelical premises, even though we live in a culture that is highly sensitized to religious pluralism.

Alvin Plantinga rallied Christian philosophers in a classic address, “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” delivered on November 4, 1983, on the occasion of his inauguration as the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. To illustrate the importance of bold, independent, distinctively Christian thinking, he drew his listeners’ attention to set theory. This is a curious example of the need for distinctively Christian analyses, for set theory comes from mathematics. And math seems at first blush to be almost completely neutral with regard to worldview. But Plantinga argued as follows: if a set is a collection, then its existence requires some sort of intellectual activity. Someone must mentally collect or think together the members of a set. But if human minds or the intelligences of some other merely finite beings were doing this collecting or thinking together, there would be far too few sets. We need and there exist far more sets than any finite being could possibly conceive. For Christians, the natural explanation is that sets exist because God thinks things together—because God collects the collections.

Reflecting on this as an example of a distinctively Christian approach to a mathematical problem, Plantinga concluded,

This idea may not be popular at contemporary centers of set theoretical activity; but that is neither here nor there. Christians, theists, ought to understand sets from a Christian and theistic point of view. What they believe as theists affords a resource for understanding sets not avail-able to the non-theist; and why shouldn’t they employ it? Perhaps here we could proceed without appealing to what we believe as theists; but why should we, if these beliefs are useful and explanatory? I could prob-ably get home this evening by hopping on one leg; and conceivably I could climb Devil’s Tower with my feet tied together. But why should I want to?[76]

To generalize from this, if we as Christian theologians need to know about rock formations, or love, or nebulae, or language acquisition, or anything else whatever, then we should seek understanding that takes into account all the data, all the background knowledge, we have. This definitely includes our evangelical theological convictions. There is no reason to allow the majority opinions in culture generally or academic culture specifically to bully us into taking account only of the knowledge that we gain from secular, naturalistic, or non-Christian religious reference points. We need to understand—it is important to our spiritual and intellectual health that we know—answers to myriad questions that arise in many theoretical disciplines. Specifically Christian doctrines are highly relevant for vast numbers of these answers. Therefore we ought to think about these questions from a distinctively Christian point of view.[77] Plantinga concluded, “we who are Christians and propose to be philosophers must not rest content with being philosophers who happen, incidentally, to be Christians; we must strive to be Christian philosophers. We must therefore pursue our projects with integrity, independence, and Christian boldness.”[78]

Now this just strikes me as deeply sane. If these words apply to Christian philosophers, they do so all the more to evangelical theologians. If God has indeed revealed his will and his ways through the Christian Scriptures—and this is what we believe—then certainly we who are evangelical theologians have a very high duty to do our work while staring that fact straight in the face. If God has in fact decisively spoken to humankind through the Bible and intervened salvifically in human lives and cultures in the person and work of Christ, then surely, the worst possible strategy would be doing our theological work as though those two central truths regarding the history of the universe were false. Of course, we should work with humility toward those of other persuasions. Of course, we should remain open to what we can properly learn from other viewpoints. But inferring from this that we must do our theology as if God had not acted in history is not just weak-kneed but fundamentally irrational. We should not only challenge pluralism itself, we should reject the flawed inference of the Pluralist Challenge. And we should commit ourselves to courageous interpretation of biblical revelation, in light of natural revelation, for our time. In so doing, we should seek to develop in our intellectual and spiritual lives the godly intellectual virtues of integrity, independence, and boldness.

B. Implications for Tolerance

Many trees have given their lives to produce books telling the world that evangelicals are intolerant. Undeniably, some traditional Christians are intolerant. This creates a huge headache for Christian apologists. In contemporary culture, any viewpoint other than pluralism is considered narrow-minded. Pluralists tend to say that only pluralism, the conviction that every religion leads to God, leads to civility. An unending supply of quotations is available to document this.[79] Reflecting on the traditional Catholic teaching, “Outside the church, no salvation,” Hick commented, “In the light of our accumulated knowledge of the other great world faiths, this conclusion has become unacceptable to all except a minority of dogmatic diehards.”[80] For many people, either holding that certain religious doctrines point to the true God (so that contrary doctrines are false) or asserting that one religious way leads to spiritual release (so that others do not) entails bigotry and intolerance. To put it most boldly, according to the contemporary sensibility, the moral mandate of tolerance demands the adoption of pluralism.

To respond very briefly, the inference from tolerance as an ethical dictum to belief in pluralism is deeply flawed.[81] The inference simply does not follow. It is certainly true that some exclusivists and some Christians are bigots. But there is no logical connection between alethic realism and bigotry or between exclusivism and intolerance. It is perfectly possible to adopt tolerant exclusivism. It is, in fact, the teaching of Jesus. To get clarity on this, first note that tolerance is in essence a stance of openness toward others with whom one disagrees. It is an attitude where a person allows others to hold the views they do, to see things the way they see them, even though they see things differently than she. It is entirely possible to believe that Jesus is God’s decisive revelation, that salvation is only in and through Christ, and yet to tolerate a naturalist. As fol-lowers of Jesus, we place ourselves under the authority of the moral dictum, “Love your enemies.” At a minimum, this requires tolerance.

Second, however, while loving requires tolerance as a minimum, love in fact demands more. The ideal of tolerance is too weak. For many contemporary people, the word ‘tolerate’ involves a mandate of non-interference. One could tolerate another by completely ignoring him. But that hardly fulfills the law of love. Christ’s command to love is a much higher and more difficult calling.

Third, the commonly assumed definition of tolerance is implausible. Contemporary Westerners assume that to tolerate someone is to agree with his views or judge as morally acceptable his lifestyle choices. To tolerate a person’s religious view, however, is not to agree with her view, as is generally supposed; to tolerate a lifestyle is not to affirm every possible moral decision. Rather, by its very nature tolerance implies disagreement. To tolerate a person is to take a stance of openness toward the person, to accept her right to defend a point of view, to respect the other as a full human being in spite of disagreement over belief or behavior. This does not exhaust the Christian’s duty to love, but it is a minimal feature of a fully Christian commitment to loving one’s neighbor.[82]

Finally, propositions that are ultimately true stand behind Jesus’ command that his followers love their enemies. This command, like other biblical imper-atives, is appropriately connected to true propositions of Scripture (see chapter 12). For example, the theological truth that all people are valuable in God’s eyes supports the moral duty to respect all people (see James 2:1-10). Now the contradictories of these true propositions are false. It is false that God loves only those who are part of a favored class or group. This means that Jesus’ command requires that certain background propositions are exclusively true. If those background theological ideas were false, Jesus’ moral teaching is drained of its force. So, from an evangelical viewpoint, the imperative of tolerance requires certain theological background beliefs that are exclusively true.

The true irony here is precisely that pluralism can lead to intolerance. In arguing for treating all religions alike, pluralists really say that all religions, as understood by the proponents themselves, are false. This, of course, is simple disagreement. But they go further: they say in essence, “We pluralists under-stand your faith better than you do. In fact, you are profoundly confused about the status of your faith at its very core. For you think your faith is true, and others are false. But I happen to know that all religions—yours included—are literally false.” Declaring pluralism in certain ways can amount to a different kind of arrogance. The Western academic pluralist says, in essence, “we now declare that everyone is mistaken here, everyone except for ourselves and a few other enlightened souls. We and our graduate students know the truth; every-one else is sadly mistaken.”[83] This is a pronouncement from on high. Is this not arrogant and patronizing? At least we evangelicals can say, to the person whose religious convictions differ from our own, “We think your religion is wrong. But we acknowledge that you understand the import of your religion better than we, and we are willing to hear about it.”

Take this another step. Suppose that to disagree with a person—to say, “I believe your belief is wrong”—really does entail arrogance and intolerance. This makes a pluralist as arrogant and intolerant as a fundamentalist. For when a pluralist dialogues with an exclusivist, he must say, “I believe your belief [about exclusivism] is wrong.” If in fact disagreement entails intolerance (which I deny), then since pluralists must declare that the five billion plus exclusivists in the world are wrong (about exclusivism), it would follow that pluralists are intolerant. “Hick’s reason for thinking all religions equally right seems to be a desire to avoid self-aggrandizement; shouldn’t the same desire lead him to hold that his views about religion—his view, for example, that they are all equally right and equally wrong—really have no more claim to truth than any other view here (for example, the view that Christianity alone, say, is correct)?”[84] G. K. Chesterton, the great Christian apologist, once wrote, “It is not bigotry to be certain that we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.”[85] The better way is for all to acknowledge that respectful disagreement is possible, both for the exclusivist and for the pluralist. As evangelicals, we believe we have it right, but we should each humbly admit, “I could be wrong.” And this is a statement about my knowledge, but not about truth.

Recall the visit of the Christians to the Bahá’í temple. As the Christians and the followers of Bahá’í began to discuss their beliefs, the Bahá’í believers claimed to accept Christian teaching along with all the other religions of the world. They said that all the religions are true revelations. The Christians asked whether the Bahá’í faith accepts monotheism. The Bahá’í adherents agreed. The Christians inquired whether Bahá’í believes in Jesus. Again the answer was affirmative, for Bahá’í teaches that God reveals himself through many prophets including Jesus. The Christians then asked whether Bahá’í acknowledges that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Savior of the world. This time the answer was negative. “No,” said the followers of Bahá’í, “we don’t believe that.”

The pluralism of the Bahá’í fosters a subtle arrogance: Bahá’í denied a doctrinal claim that Christians take as nonnegotiable. They did so precisely because this doctrine does not square with Bahá’í teaching. So despite protests to the contrary, the adherents of Bahá’í did not actually accept as true the real Christian faith that Christians profess. They adopted a “Bahá’íized” version—a cardboard cutout—of Christianity. Like other pluralists, they denied what is unique to a particular religion. Asserting that all religions are true in some very general sense forced them to conclude that all other religions are false in their unique features.

This is a concrete case study on the subtle arrogance of pluralism. Bahá’í teaches that all the religions of the world are true. But it accepts none of the world’s religions as they really are. It accepts all religions, but only as they are reinterpreted to fit a least common denominator of religious belief—and this is defined by Bahá’í. Then, in the name of openness to all faiths, this least common denominator is coronated as the true faith! This case study points to significant ironies regarding the public relations image of pluralism in the marketplace of religious ideas. How much more honest to say what I believe and to listen patiently to others sharing what they believe, rather than to claim in the name of tolerance that all religions teach the same thing—and then to insist that it is identical to what I believe!

It is very difficult to hold consistently that God or some other ultimate spiritual Reality actually exists and yet that all religious doctrines about God are true or that every religious way is salvific. At a minimum, these conundrums for pluralism imply that evangelical theology is not obviously illegitimate rationally for failing to embrace pluralism. Nor is Christian morality obviously problematical for failing to see agreement with all religious opinions or affirmation of all religious ways as a cardinal virtue. Further, it is very possible, indeed it is virtuous, to converse respectfully with people whose views one rejects. Some, but not all, pluralists practice such respectful dialogue with their antagonists—including with evangelical exclusivists. I know that, in person, John Hick practices respectful discussion. All evangelicals should, too.

IV. CONCLUSION

According to many Western people, evangelical theologians should concede that all faiths, including especially non-Western ones, are “salvific.” Interestingly, the belief that all religions lead to God is not shared by many outside the Western world. People in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, for example, do not hold that all religions contact the ultimate Reality or provide salvation. Most are realists who think that reality possesses a certain character, and they believe that reality basically possesses the features they think it exhibits. Now if the vast majority of religious believers alive today are wrong about the truth of metaphysical realism—if reality is not a particular way and there is no essential way things are—then Kaufman’s version of pluralism poses the real challenge to evangelical theology. If metaphysical nonrealism and alethic non-realism were true, evangelical theology and faith are stranded in a thick patch of very tall conceptual thornbushes. I say, however, that both metaphysical non-realism and alethic nonrealism are false, and so pluralism is implausible. This means that pluralism does not undermine the evangelical theological research program. But why think that metaphysical nonrealism and alethic nonrealism are false? Does our theological language refer to a way things are? Can language actually describe mind-independent reality?

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

REALITY, TRUTH, AND LANGUAGE

Most people assume that various sorts of entities, beings, properties, or relations actually exist outside a speaker’s mind. Most people, in other words, are metaphysical realists. Many believe that language actually corresponds to that human mind-independent reality. That is, most people also assume alethic realism. But a bright young philosophy student named Aaron offered me a clearly stated metaphysical nonrealist view regarding God: “My roommate and I have the same view of God,” he told me. “But he’s an evangelical believer, and I’m an atheist.”

“Interesting!” I said. “Tell me more.”

“Well,” he responded. “My roommate and I agree that there is no actual person or real being named God out there. [He pointed to the sky.] But we both think that the concept of God, the myth of God, is very real and powerful. My roommate’s decided to live his life according to that concept; I have not.”

In a world where some people appear to think that virtual reality is more gripping than real reality, this nonrealism does not seem entirely implausible. It seems plausible to think that the word ‘truth’ describes the existential force projected by certain utterances. The key virtue of a “true” statement—what distinguishes it from a “false” statement—is its practical power.

I. TRUTH

Aaron’s nonrealism is a common and distinctively contemporary stance. The nature of truth—particularly the tension between broadly realist and generally nonrealist sensibilities—has intersected with many of our discussions so far. So now I will address more directly the question that Pilate asked millennia ago: What is truth? But right away we face a complexity, for the question is ambiguous. I am not asking: Which particular claims (like “It’s snowing today” or “God exists”) are true? The issue is not: What is true? I am asking about some-thing more basic: What is truth? When someone says, “The statement, ‘It’s snowing today’, is a true statement,” what does she mean by the word ‘true’? The question is: What do we mean by the concept of truth?

A. Truth and Knowledge

Traditionally, an utterance is said to be true if it adequately depicts aspects of a mind-independent world. Sets of utterances in coherent patterns are true if they describe the world. Put simply, truth includes statements that correspond to reality. Traditionally, the word ‘correspondence’ denotes the connection or correlation between language and reality. (The correspondence account of truth refers to a category or cluster of explanations of or viewpoints regarding the nature of truth.) So “truth is always about something,” wrote C. S. Lewis, and “reality is that about which truth is.”[1] This means the ontological ground for the truth of true affirmations is reality itself.

To say that truth corresponds to reality is to say, for example, that the statement, “I’m looking at a dragonfly,” is very simply about the fact that I am actually looking at a dragonfly. Since virtually all people, including those who have never studied epistemology, typically assume something like this notion of truth, it is a pretheoretic intuition regarding truth. According to the usual pretheoretic notion of truth, the truth value of a statement is a function of its correspondence to the facts of reality. This is pretheoretic in that it is not an idea that results from complex theory building about the nature of truth but a belief that people bring to their theorizing about truth. It is a basic assumption, rooted in experience. It is something people philosophize with, not some-thing they philosophize to.

Because everything that exists, including both God and God’s creation, in some sense possesses a definite character (even if it is a changing process), true descriptions of reality (if they are indexed for a particular time and place) do not change. Clustered and properly related together, these true descriptions are the whole of truth. This truth is ultimately unified because of the unity of reality that it describes. All truth is known within God’s unified purview. In this sense, all truth is God’s truth.[2] I believe that as evangelicals, we should not shy away from saying that the content of God’s truth amounts to “absolute truth.” Using the word ‘absolute’ to modify ‘truth’ means that what God knows as true is not a function of, contingent upon, or limited to any finite perspective. Neither truth itself nor God’s knowledge of truth is imprisoned within any one particular viewpoint among many viewpoints. Absolute truth is coextensive with God’s omniscient knowledge of reality.[3]

Truth and human knowledge differ, and this difference is very important. Knowledge is some person’s properly warranted grasp or apprehension of the true nature of reality. It is a properly grounded belief, possessed by someone, about something true. God’s knowledge is what God rightly believes as true. God is omniscient; he possesses infinite intelligence. God’s knowledge—his grasp of the way things are—is fully adequate, both extensively and intensively. He comprehensively knows all facts, and his grasp of them constitutes a conceptual framework that is as complex as reality itself. God’s exhaustive knowledge represents the fullest possible grasp of truth. As I already said, to claim that an ultimate, God’s-eye perspective does not exist is to say that an all-know-ing God does not exist. It is to deny Trinitarian theism. If there is a triune God, there is a God’s-eye view of everything. If there is no absolute truth, there is no infinite God.

Human knowledge is, by contrast, woefully limited, as ancient cynics and postmodern skeptics quickly point out. All human knowledge is relative to the place of the human knower. It is an axiom, in contemporary theological accounts of knowledge, that human knowledge is historically and culturally located. This is a severe, but not debilitating, limitation. But as if that were not enough, Scripture adds another dimension to the human epistemic floundering that skeptics understand [!] so well. Scripture speaks to the corrosive effects of human selfcenteredness on knowledge. As humans we suffer the noetic effects of sin. Finding well-supported knowledge of important truth is no small task.

In admitting the difficulties in our epistemic endeavors, however, we should not throw in the towel on knowledge. Human epistemic failings are real, but they are also sometimes overstated in our era, especially when it comes to evangelical belief. I already touched on the view that our knowledge is entirely imprisoned in cultural, linguistic ghettoes. I argued that this comprehensive perspectivalism, along with the global agnosticism it entails regarding religious doctrines, is not justified (chapter 4). In addition to this totalizing agnosticism, however, is a skepticism that denies the truth of traditional beliefs only. Gordon Kaufman, for example, suggested in one essay that three major obstructions block the path of traditional religious thinking. First, the fact of religious pluralism demolishes traditional belief. Traditional believers are naïve, he said, for they do not understand the implications of the new consciousness of religious pluralism. Second, the evidence marshaled for traditional belief is suspect. He claims that all the arguments for traditional religious belief are failures. Third, traditional believers give their own beliefs an unwarranted degree of objectivity, because they skate past the new awareness that all human thinking is culturally determined.[4]

First, I already discussed the logical import of religious pluralism for evangelical theology (chapter 10). It is not at all clear that pluralism is a plausible and defensible position. And if pluralism is unlikely or merely possible and not at least probable, it does not threaten evangelical theology.

Second, what about the idea that the evidence supporting traditional beliefs is illegitimate and irrelevant in our time? Take, for example, evidence of design in the universe. As the history of ideas unfolded, the traditional teleological argument, expressed classically in William Paley’s so-called Watchmaker Argument,[5] suffered because Darwin’s hypotheses supposedly offered an alternative explanation for the apparent design in life forms. Today, however, new evidence for design in the universe and in various life forms is bolstering the teleological argument (chapter 8).[6] Now in Kaufman’s view, such evidence is not relevant to belief in an intelligent Creator. But it is not as though he examined the evidence and found it weak. Rather, he just disallowed evidence that allegedly counts for God. Now this is very odd in light of the fact that religious pluralism, for example, counts against God. If a critic denounces any project of looking for evidence that warrants belief in God on the grounds that evidence is not relevant to belief in God, why would an evangelical theologian be impressed when this critic comes up with negative evidence that allegedly falsifies belief in God? Why does negative evidence count decisively against God, when all positive evidence for God is defeated by the general claim that evidence is irrelevant to religious belief?[7] Someone forgot to shuffle this deck of cards.

Third, what about the claim that all knowledge is socially and historically located? This issue is pressed more consistently and fervently than any other. If all knowledge is limited to a particular point in history, then it seems that access to absolute truth is cut off. Certitude is no longer possible. For such reasons as these, Kaufman said we should exercise faith by repenting [!] of claims to certainty in knowledge. Over against a sense of assurance, he advocated “‘letting go’ . . . of all attachments, including specifically and especially our . . . theological attachments.” Such faith “opens us to what is beyond our present world, opens us to that which we do not yet know but which will be creative of our future”—that is, this kind of faith promotes human freedom.[8] The purpose here is freeing people from intellectual tyranny by loosening the stranglehold of traditional belief. After assuming that historical and cultural context virtually controls all thought, the strategy seeks to undermine traditional com-mitments and free contemporary people from their control.[9]

Statements of the historical and cultural location of all human knowledge run into deep problems, however. What exactly should we infer from the fact that knowledge is historically located? There exists a large distance between saying that our place in history influences our knowledge and saying that it determines our thinking. Grappling tenaciously with this slippery distinction is all-important. I think we should acknowledge that historical location affects all human knowledge of the world. We should also stand vigilantly against the exaggerated inference to a full cultural determinism in knowledge building. It is all too easy to exaggerate the influence of culture—especially when we are criticizing our opponents’ views.

A postmodern scholar who points to social conditioning as the flaw in the ointment of traditional knowledge will often do so in order to free people from the oppressive dominance of totalizing discourses or metanarratives. But the obvious question here turns her skepticism back on her own affirmations. How does the critic who rejects traditional belief on the ground that historical location determines all knowledge come to know the things she needs to know in order to build a platform from which to launch her critique? How does she know that all knowledge is limited in this way—since then her knowledge about the effects of historical location on knowledge is itself determined by contemporary historical location? How does she know that metanarratives are the primary cause of oppression? How does she know that oppression is evil? How does she know that ridding ourselves of metanarratives will free us from oppression? Indeed, return to Kaufman’s own assertions—for example, his own claim that “‘letting go’” of our “theological attachments” opens us to a creative future. Are not these beliefs determined by the dominant culture of the Western academy of the early twenty-first century? Do they not amount to a culturally determined set of beliefs of which we should repent?

I have heard liberally minded theologians arguing against evangelical conviction, as Kaufman did, on the ground that historical location determines traditional believing. Then, as they defend their own views, I have heard these liberals slyly slip back to a softer understanding of the impact of cultural locale. Indeed, they cite the fact that their views are shaped by the cultural perspectives of their own time as a virtue! This amounts to what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” We should recognize both that culture affects our beliefs and also that honest thinkers can work past the limitations imposed by their own historical location. This applies to all theology, whether traditional or liberal. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

B. The Bearers of Truth

What is the relation of truth to language? In other words, exactly what kind of linguistic entity is best designated as a bearer of truth? What is the sort of entity about which it is most proper to ask, “Is that true?” What sort of linguistic thing could have the property “true” or “false”? Is it a sentence, a statement, or a proposition?

First, let me review some standard definitions. A sentence is a grammatically complete, linguistic expression, including all its dimensions. If spoken, for example, a sentence includes such aspects as tone of voice. If written, it would include any italics, bold print, underlining, or punctuation that affects its force. There are many kinds of sentences, including questions, exclamations, commands, and statements.

A statement is one kind of sentence. It is an assertion-making, declarative, or indicative sentence. The purpose of a statement is to tell how things are. A statement also typically includes some nondescriptive dimensions. So a statement could both describe the world and also communicate (say, by tone of voice) how the speaker feels about whatever she is describing. All complete statements are sentences, but not all sentences are statements. Many perfectly acceptable sentences do not do what statements do (describing how the world is), but rather ask questions, give instructions, or express feelings.

A proposition is an abstraction that captures or expresses the descriptive content of any complete statement. A proposition is the descriptive element of a statement, taken out of the statement. If I delete, from a fully developed statement, all the nondescriptive elements, then what is left over is the proposition. If I strip away all the dimensions of the statement that do something other than tell how things are—things like the feelings expressed by tone of voice—the remainder is the proposition. A proposition abstracts from a statement only the descriptive dimensions of a natural statement, so it will not convey any affective or poetic elements of a total statement.[10]

How do statements and propositions relate to each other? They are not the same thing. Several statements can convey a single proposition. For instance, two statements spoken in different natural languages can embody the same proposition. “It’s hot” and “Atsui desu” express the same proposition, in English and Japanese respectively. Two spoken statements in the same language can use different words and still convey the same content. “Mrs. Benton is a wife” and “Maria is a married woman” are different statements, but they state the same proposition about Mrs. Maria Benton.

Conversely, one statement can convey different propositions. The statement, “Tim Pawlenty is still running,” could communicate that Pawlenty is once again campaigning for governor or that Pawlenty is still jogging down the street.[11] Suppose we want to discern whether the statement means that Pawlenty hopes to get elected to public office rather than that he is still on a fitness kick. Then we would evaluate the natural utterance in its full linguistic and social context. We would use subtle clues, the sort that are almost unconsciously learned and applied by natural speakers, to discover which proposition the utterer of the statement intended to convey.

In one other important way, one statement can convey many propositions. We might say that a statement like “It’s sunny out” is true today but was false yesterday, since it rained all day. This might tempt someone to think that lin-guistic practice is relative to time and place in this way, and then to infer that truth is relative. This is convoluted. The statement, “It’s sunny out,” is uttered at many times and places. So “It’s sunny out” is shorthand for a proposition like: “The sun is shining at 9:37 A.M., on June 28, 2000, in St. Paul, Minnesota.” In reality, “It’s sunny out” serves as shorthand for an inestimable number of other propositions that describe the weather conditions at different times and places. So when a speaker says, “It’s sunny out,” she usually means (without fully saying it), “It’s sunny out here and now.” Her statement is implicitly time and place specific. So the proposition, “The sun is shining at 9:37 A.M., on June 28, 2000, in St. Paul, Minnesota,” is true, even if the speaker utters that statement on June 28, 2010, or is standing in Nairobi when she does so.

So then which of these entities—sentences, statements, or propositions—are the sorts of things that can be true or false? Which linguistic entities are bearers of truth? Some may say that sentences bear truth. But not all sentences possess descriptive content. Many perfectly formed and functional sentences (e.g., questions) are not in the indicative mood. Some sentences are true or false, but others are neither. So sentences are not most precisely the bearers of truth.

A second view is that statements are bearers of truth, for all statements are uttered for the purpose of describing reality. But statements, it seems, are still not most precisely the bearers of truth, and this for two reasons. First, and this is telling, a single statement can convey two opposite propositions. Consider an example. Say Maria says sarcastically, “Oh yeah, right. Like Juan is gonna keep his promise!” The actual statement Maria utters is, “Juan is gonna keep his promise.” But understanding her naturally and in context, the real proposition Maria intends to utter is, “Juan won’t keep this promise.” This means that a single statement can have opposite truth values. This is a very odd conclusion. (The example, “Tim Pawlenty is still running,” makes the same point.)

Second, there is much more to a statement than its descriptive content. Only the descriptive content of a statement is true (or false) in the sense that it actually does (or does not) correspond to mind-independent reality. But other dimensions of the full linguistic act of uttering a statement—a tone of voice that conveys disgust, for example—do not describe or point to reality. In the example of Maria’s statement, her utterance also conveys her disgust about Juan’s behavior. So Maria’s full statement includes both a descriptive dimension (the proposition) and an expressive dimension. This utterance is doing several things at once. Now the descriptive dimension of the full statement (i.e., the proposition), “Juan won’t keep this promise,” is testable. If Juan promised to give $50 to the high school band fundraiser by the September 1 deadline, it will be clear on September 2 whether the proposition is true or false. But the actual expression of disgust itself, the feelings Maria is venting, cannot be tested for truth or falsity. Of course, “Maria is disgusted” can be tested. But that is a statement about Maria that describes her disgust. It is not Maria’s actual expression of disgust. The actual proposition that Maria utters is about Juan, and it describes his alleged unreliability.

For these two reasons, it seems more precise to say that propositions are bearers of truth.[12] Propositions are the descriptive content abstracted from statements. They are the part or aspect of a larger linguistic unit (the full statement) that tells how things are. Propositions have truth value. There are no dimensions of propositions that do not have truth value, for all other dimensions are abstracted out. We judge propositions as true or false depending on whether the descriptive meaning intended by the author of the statement from which the proposition is abstracted corresponds to reality at a level of accuracy that is contextually appropriate.

Speaking generally, of course, statements are also true or false. More precisely, a statement is true, I will say, if the proposition embedded in it is true, regardless of the other dimensions of the sentence. So for instance, if Melissa is prim and proper, then the proposition, “Melissa is prim and proper,” is true. The proposition is true even if uttered as an insult, say, by Jodi, a Gen-Xer who thinks “prim and proper” is boring and inauthentic. And it is also true if intended as a compliment, say, by Myrtle Williams, the small-town society page editor, who thinks “prim and proper” is very, very good. The non-propositional aspects of Jodi’s utterance are negative, and those of Myrtle’s utterance are positive. Embedded in the natural utterances of Jodi and Myrtle are expressions of opposite attitudes regarding Melissa. But assuming the terms are constant, both women describe the same reality (i.e., Melissa) in the same way. They are uttering the same proposition when they speak. And it is either true or false.[13]

Now truth can also be a property of a person. Some evangelical theologians want to reserve the concept of truth for persons only, and so they disparage cognitive or descriptive truth in theology. In the spirit of Karl Barth, they say things like, “Jesus is truth. In John 14:6, Jesus himself said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’” Truth, these theologians stress, is an attribute of per-sons, not of propositions. Persons, not propositions, are bearers of truth. Jesus did not come to tell us true information. He embodied the truth. One defender of this view wrote, “Jesus did not arrive among us enunciating a set of propositions that we are to affirm. . . . Jesus never asks us to agree; he asks us to join up, to follow. He did not call for cognitive assent; he asked for a life of discipleship involving the whole self, not just the mind.”[14] Christ offers something much better than objectively true propositions that we can grasp with our minds. Christ offers himself.

The Bible obviously does use the word ‘truth’ in this personal sense. Jesus’ remark in John 14:6 emphasizes that, as God’s incarnate Son, Jesus is genuine, the real McCoy, not a counterfeit. Jesus is the path to God; knowing Jesus leads one to God. So ‘truth’ in Scripture sometimes does represent faithfulness, reli-ability, integrity, and consistency. And these are properties of persons.[15] But this is not the only meaningful sense of the word ‘truth’. The issue is not whether the Bible uses the word ‘truth’ in this intensely personal use. It certainly does. The question is whether and how this personal use of the word ‘truth’ relates to a descriptive, propositional concept of truth.

The theologians I am speaking about wrongly place the person-oriented understanding of truth in strong opposition to an informational or contentful notion of truth. They persist in placing the personal and the propositional senses of the word ‘truth’ in a disjunctive, either/or relation. Donald Bloesch, for example, argued, “Truth in the Bible means conformity to the will and purpose of God. Truth in today’s empirical, scientific milieu means an exact correspondence between one’s ideas or perceptions and the phenomena of nature and history. . . . The difference between the rational-empirical and the biblical understanding of truth is the difference between transparency to Eternity and literal facticity.”[16]

I see this as a mistake. Evangelical theology should interpret the personal and descriptive uses of the word ‘truth’ as distinct yet positively related. To get at this, we may ask: Which is ontologically prior, Jesus’ actually being the Truth or a proposition describing and corresponding to his actually being that Truth?Ontological priority surely goes to the reality of who Jesus is. As I argued, the ground of a proposition’s being true is the determinate nature of the reality the proposition points to. The truth value of the cognitive language that describes Jesus’ status depends on what Jesus’ status actually is. The statement is true only if it adequately corresponds to the inherently reliable, trustworthy, genuine reality of Jesus’ own person. The statement, “Jesus is the way to God,” is true if and only if Jesus is in reality the genuine, non-counterfeit path to God—if, in other words, he is the Truth.[17] A correspondence concept of truth does not rule out saying, “Kazuko is a true blue friend.”[18] Kazuko is true blue, and the proposition that tells us about Kazuko is true. Taking truth as a property of a person is compatible with emphasizing truth as a feature of propositions.[19]

Indeed, it is critically important to keep the two senses of ‘truth’ properly related. Jesus calls me to act on the command, “I am the Truth. Follow me!” He does not intend me merely to think about this utterance—to memorize it so I can correctly answer a question on a quiz. The obvious goal of his command is that I actually follow. At the same time, however, if I choose to obey Christ’s command, I inevitably resolve to reject many other purported paths to God. Jesus commands me to follow, but he is not the only one to do so. The followers of Allah command me to breathe the words, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” I must decide which voice to follow. In that process, the descriptive truth of Jesus’ utterance, “I am the Truth,” and my coming to know that his claim amounts to a true proposition are critical components in the process of my coming to know God. There are many pretenders to the throne of the universe. Many of them command me to follow. I do not follow the command of Jesus merely because he commands. Part of my reason for following is that he who commands is, as biblical propositions truly affirm, the actual Lord of the universe.

Those who refuse to see this proper relation between the personal and cognitive senses of ‘truth’ simply exaggerate essentially correct points. For one, the Bible is not just cognitive propositions. It is written in many genres, many of which are not straightforward descriptions of historical facts or doctrinal affirmations. Certainly, a faithful interpretation of Scripture requires a clear head about the multiplicity of its genres. For another, rational theological understanding is not an end in itself. Theology as science exists to support the spiritual life of devotion and to develop character and virtue—to lead a believer to theology as wisdom. The best evangelical theologians have always understood this.

For another, it is right to say that Jesus “did not call for cognitive assent; he asked for a life of discipleship involving the whole self, not just the mind.”[20] Surely the correct point here is that Jesus does not ask for merely cognitive assent. He asks for more than cognitive assent, but he does not ask for less. Consider these statements:

(a) Jesus’ call to discipleship does not involve cognitive assent at all.

(b) Jesus’ call to discipleship does not involve cognitive assent alone.

Those who adopt a neo-orthodox, postliberal, and narrative theological method in an extreme way are incorrectly and confusedly affirming something like (a), when they should really make the correct and important point, some-thing like (b). There is all the difference in the world between these two claims.

The point of genuine knowledge of cognitive truth about God is personal relationship with God. This point is astonishingly easy to lose. Sometimes rationalists in evangelical theology or biblical studies, for instance, do become obsessed with Christian minutiae. They sometimes do to biblical truth what that sub-group of Pharisees described in the Gospels did to God’s law. They nitpick it to death, focusing on literal details in ways that suck vitality from Christian living. The stereotype that comes to mind is the fundamentalist believer poring over an eschatological wall chart but missing the punch line of apocalyptic passages like 1 Thessalonians 5:11: “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.” Christians can “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” not only morally, but theologically as well. Statement (b) is consistent with the claim that God expects his followers both to hear and to do his word.[21] As Dallas Willard wrote, “The role of the Scriptures and scriptural interpretation is to provide us with a general understanding of God and to inspire and cultivate a corresponding faith.”[22] Scripture, and therefore theology, are about cultivating wisdom—sapientia.

So evangelical theologians admit that human knowledge is not absolute.[23] Kevin Vanhoozer warned, “theologians must resist eating fruit from the tree of absolute knowledge.”[24] Yet doing evangelical theology requires that we gain informative knowledge that God has acted decisively in Christ for the benefit of all peoples. Evangelicals also say that this gospel about Christ is true absolutely, not just true for us or from our perspective. It is also a serious mis-take to declare the relativity of all truth in light of the oft-cited and perfectly correct observation that all human knowledge arises in historical and cultural contexts. As evangelical theologians, we should retain the conviction that absolute truth exists, yet we should piously and humbly acknowledge the objective-yet-relative character of our own human knowledge.

II. ALTERNATIVES TO TRUTH AS CORRESPONDENCE

Correspondence accounts of truth embody the core intuition according to which the word ‘true’ modifies utterances that adequately connect to and depict aspects of a mind-independent world. Many philosophers have tried formalizing this pretheoretic intuition about truth into a full-blooded theory, a theory that gives a complete and accurate explanation and definition of truth. They hope this theorizing will produce the correspondence theory of truth. Correspondence theories of truth are the result of attempts to specify just what it means to say that the truth of a statement is a function of whether or not that statement accurately represents the actual world that exists out there. In recent years, however, the correspondence theory has come under consistent and significant fire. In some circles you will hear, “You don’t really accept the correspondence theory of truth, do you?” (A snicker may accompany this remark.) Many academics agree with George Lindbeck, who wrote disdain-fully that certain ideas about truth suffer from “vulgarized forms of rational-ism descended from Greek philosophy by way of Cartesian and post-Cartesian rationalism reinforced by Newtonian science.”[25]

A. Denials of the Correspondence Theory

Those who deny correspondence as a theory of truth imply (in effect, if not in intention) that the truth value of the statement, “Hi Truong’s shirt is yellow,” is not grounded in whether or not Hi Truong’s shirt is actually yellow. Now initially, this seems very odd. But those who make this counterintuitive claim do so for what they think are good reasons. The motivation for denying the correspondence theory of truth arises from some real questions associated with the idea of a proposition corresponding to reality. A central critique is that defining truth in terms of correspondence and reality is unhelpful. Defining truth in this way merely replaces one ambiguous term (‘truth’) with two ambiguous terms (‘correspondence’ and ‘reality’). Those who object to the cor-respondence theory of truth say that a good theory should only use clear terms. This requires developing clear ideas of correspondence and reality, and then using these to define truth. But the words ‘correspondence’ and ‘reality’ are every bit as difficult to define as ‘truth’, the word they supposedly illuminate. So, the objectors say, the correspondence theory of truth achieves an illusion of clarity. It does not eliminate the ambiguity; it merely moves the vagueness down the street.

The second issue for those denying the correspondence theory is that the linguistic entities that supposedly correspond to reality—namely, propositions—are themselves less than clear. Those who object to the correspondence theory claim that a successful correspondence theory of truth should provide a complete account of the structure and nature of propositions. That is, a successful theory of propositions should specify the meaning and truth conditions for any proposition. But this is very nearly impossible. So because of these difficulties, some scholars pronounce the correspondence theory of truth DOA—dead on arrival—or at least MIA.

The denial of correspondence raises three interesting questions. First, do the replacements for the correspondence account of truth fare any better? Second, if not, does this suggest that the search for a clear concept or definition of truth should be abandoned—much like the search for the proverbial Fountain of Youth? Finally, are the standards that people use to judge the correspondence theory of truth actually reasonable?

To better understand proposed alternatives to the correspondence theory of truth, it will help to consider the different contexts in which the question of truth is raised. That is, the larger question of truth is actually a cluster of different questions. Dividing out these different inquiries will bring some clarity. Richard Kirkham identified several “projects” relating to theories of truth. These are classes or clusters of questions about theories of truth. He called the first of these the “metaphysical project.” The metaphysical project is the attempt to specify what it is for a proposition to be true. In other words, the metaphysical project is the effort to explain what is meant by the truth predicate. What does “is true,” in a proposition of the form “X is true,” actually mean? The process of developing this explanation will take the form of the attempt to specify conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient to make a particular claim true. The correspondence notion of truth is one answer to the metaphysical project.

The second project is the “justification project.” The justification project is the attempt to specify how someone should decide whether or not a particular proposition is true. More accurately, since evidences or warrants for a particular belief will always underdetermine the truth of the proposition, the justification project actually deals in probabilities. So the justification project is about specifying what must happen—what factors should be in place—in order to say someone has appropriate reasons for believing that a particular proposition is probably true. So those involved in the justification project seek to answer the following question: For any given proposition, when and how is a person justified in thinking that the proposition is probably true?[26]

Answering the justification project is quite different from responding to the metaphysical project. The clearest difference between the metaphysical project and the justification project is the practicality of the application of the answers each provides. The difference is between specifying the conditions for a proposition’s being true (the metaphysical project) and specifying the conditions for knowing or coming to know that a proposition is true (the justification project). The purpose of the justification project is to provide criteria for believing or criteria for human knowing that a proposition is probably true. So while the obvious goal of the justification project is to discover which beliefs are in fact true, the metaphysical project does not have such a clear practical application. This is so because the necessary and sufficient conditions for a proposition’s being true are usually highly abstract.[27]

Certain rejections of the correspondence theory touch down in the arena of the metaphysical project. Those who reject the correspondence theory of truth will give alternatives of two different sorts. First, a critic could attempt to provide an answer to the metaphysical project that differs from the correspondence theory of truth. Those who pursue this path have proposed two notable alternatives to the correspondence theory: the coherence theory of truth and the pragmatic theory of truth. These are replacements for correspondence.

Second, a critic could claim that the very idea of providing an answer to the metaphysical project is wrongheaded. But this does not mean that these views give up using the truth predicate. They still involve saying that a proposition is true. Those who say that we should abandon the metaphysical project will tend to reduce truth to some form of positive epistemic status. They will say, in other words, that if a proposition is “true,” this is just the same as saying that some person is justified in believing it. So the phrase “true proposition” does not indicate a proposition that corresponds with reality. The phrase “true proposition” is defined as any statement or proposition that someone believes rationally or that someone is justified in believing. There is no separate truth about which people have warranted knowledge. Truth just is warranted knowledge. And to ensure that we are not just talking about an evaluation con-ducted by a particular individual, this view will say that truth is comprehensive or ultimate opinion. These theories are reductions of correspondence.

B. Replacements: Alternative Answers

to the Metaphysical Project

Epistemologists have proposed several categories of theories as replacements for the correspondence concept of truth. The first replacement for the correspondence theory is the coherentist theory of truth. Brand Blanshard advanced this theory. He claimed that truth is—the concept of truth is defined to mean—a fully coherent set of beliefs. The paradigm example of truth is Euclidean geometry.[28]

It is important to say that the coherence theory of truth is an answer to the metaphysical project. It responds to the question, What is the definition of ‘truth’? That is, what do we mean when we say that a proposition is true? Clarity matters here because we can also use the principle of coherence to answer the justification project (chapter 4). First, the coherence theory of truth is not a strategy for justification. If a particular thought coheres with other well-grounded ideas that I hold, then I have reason to believe that thought. But a coherence theory of truth is not a strategy for identifying properly warranted knowledge, but an account of or a definition of the very concept of truth. Second, the coherence theory of truth is not coherentism (see chapter 4). Coherentism is not a theory of truth but a theory of warrant or justification. It answers the justification project—it stipulates that a particular belief is war-ranted or justified for a person if and only if it fits logically with the rest of the things she believes. Blanshard is after something different than either of these. His claim is that what makes a belief true, the ontological ground of a belief’s being true (not just the knower’s strategy for identifying a true belief), is its coherence with the rest of one’s beliefs.

There is one strongly counterintuitive fact about the coherence theory of truth. This is the basic problem: many sets of propositions are perfectly coherent, and yet they have no connection whatever to reality. On a coherentist theory of truth, their coherence is sufficient to make them true. But obviously, they are not true in any usual sense. So the coherentist theory of truth is false.

Take, for example, the coherent set of propositions expressed by J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterful fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. These stories depict a coherent universe, complete with entire languages, a comprehensive history, creation account, and political system, all infused with a consistent set of values. Does all this internal coherence mean that propositions describing Tolkien’s characters are true? Even those who have only seen the movies know it does not. Is it true that the first king of Gondor in the Fourth Age was formerly known as Strider? It certainly is true—in the thought world of Tolkien’s fantasy—that the first king of Gondor in the Fourth Age was formerly known as Strider. But it is clearly not true of the real world in the same sense as a proposition like, “Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States.”[29] Given the coherentist theory of truth, multiple coherent sets of beliefs would be true. Given a unity of truth grounded in a rational world, these can-not all be true and so the coherentist theory of truth is unreasonable.

The second replacement for the correspondence theory is the pragmatic theory of truth. The pragmatic theory of truth is the attempt to redefine truth in terms of its usefulness. This theory can be traced back to thinkers like Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Formalized, the pragmatic theory of truth is as follows:

(c) The proposition p is true if and only if p is useful or pays off.

William James offered an example of the pragmatic theory of truth: “The possession of true thoughts means everywhere the possession of invaluable instruments of action.”[30] Again, “‘the true,’ to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.”[31] Thus, ideas “become true just in so far as they help us get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience.”[32] Take, for example, a proposition like, “There is a red stoplight in front of me.” The truth value—the cash value of calling this proposition true—is not grounded in the fact that a red stoplight exists out there in the intersection, but precisely in that it is useful for me to act as though the stoplight is there.

The pragmatic understanding of theological propositions is ubiquitous in contemporary theology. Rebecca Chopp wrote, “Theology is not primarily a debate about ontological or epistemological categories, but rather fashions dis-course and practices for living justly.”[33] The idea of “just living” refers to those patterns of life that will protect and support women as they seek womanly flourishing. Graham Shaw stressed the function of doctrines—their results or benefits—not their actual truth:

The emphasis on the function of doctrines, on asking questions about the use to which human beings are putting their religious claims and language, makes possible a new understanding of the reality of God, modified and more intelligible. For the logical consequence of this approach to scripture is that the only reality of God lies in the use of that word by human beings. It does not refer to some supernatural or mysterious or special being; it is instead a word of the creative imagination by which we construct first in imagination and ultimately in reality a new and different world.[34]

Later, Shaw admitted he might have spoken more softly about the “logical con-sequence” of a functional approach to theological truth claims, yet he remains convinced, apparently, of the religious dangers of holding that God exists in a metaphysical sense. He adopts, in other words, forms of metaphysical and alethic nonrealism. And the word ‘true’ attaches to doctrines if those doctrines help us imagine new worlds. If a God actually exists, said Shaw, then humans necessarily [sic] become passive. If God exists, then God does everything, and we do nothing. God is touched by what he does; he is untouched by our lives. This is “a vision with its own brutal beauty.”[35] Far better to assume that doctrines do not refer to a metaphysical being, but function as tools of creative human imagination. In this sense, doctrines are true.

Although contemporary theologians routinely flesh out the various forms of nonrealism with this pragmatic move, there is something fundamentally counterintuitive about the pragmatic account of truth. The concepts “true propositions” and “useful propositions” overlap to be sure. But they do not coincide exactly. First, not all true propositions are useful. Consider the proposition,

(d) In A.D. 305, Jane Doe lived in what is now Wales, England, and had three cats.

Supposing that someone named Jane Doe really lived at that place and time and actually owned three feline friends, then a normal pretheoretic intuition is that (d) is true. It would be very odd to claim otherwise. But how useful is knowledge of (d)? Maybe it was useful to someone in 305 to know about Jane and her companions, but today, knowing the proposition is useless. (Its only conceivable use today is as an illustration about the pragmatic theory of truth.)

Second, not all useful propositions are true. Suppose I have a belief:

(e) My watch is working.

The watch says 10:55. I look at it and infer that I have five minutes to get to an 11:00 meeting. The meeting room is three minutes from my office, so I stop writing my book, walk to the meeting, and arrive just on time. Unbeknownst to me, (e) is false. My watch stopped exactly twelve hours earlier, at 10:55 last night. My belief, (e), is useful. It gets me to the meeting right on time. Maybe my getting to this special meeting on time translates into a promotion, a large raise, and a corner office. All that makes (e) useful, but none of it makes (e) true.[36] Still more questions lurk on the horizon. For example: For whom must a proposition be useful? Yet even without getting into all those complications, it is clear that what is true may not be useful, and what is useful may not be true.

The pragmatic theory of truth seems to have a degree of intuitive plausibility. Why? Probably because very often, true beliefs about the world are also useful. True knowledge does enable us to correlate our attitudes and behaviors to what is really the case in our environment, and this often pays off. The categories “true propositions” and “useful propositions” do indeed overlap. But the connection between truthfulness and usefulness is loose. C. S. Lewis said, “If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.”[37] The pragmatic theory of truth fails at a deep and important level to capture our most profound intuitions about the meaning of truth.

If a young man falls deeply in love with a beautiful woman, he will yearn for a true answer to the question, “Do you love me?” If and when she says “Yes!” he will take that as correspondence with reality. But would a pragmatic definition of truth satisfy our young swain? Most certainly not! Suppose a pragmatist epistemologist tells him that “Yes!” does not mean “She actually loves you.” Instead, “Yes!” means only that she will reap some benefits from asserting that she loves him. In that case, the pragmatist epistemologist risks getting punched in the nose. The young lover does not want the useful benefits of the proposition, “She loves me.” He wants it not just to be useful, but really true. He hopes she actually loves him![38] The pragmatic theory of truth captures neither our common intuitions nor our young lover’s instincts about the nature of truth.

C. Reductions: Answers to the Justification Project

Because of the difficulties in fleshing out the replacement theories of truth, some just conclude that the metaphysical project is unanswerable. They say that the best approach is to collapse the two projects together. That is, they connect the idea of truth very closely to the notion of justification. Blanshard argued that it is best to handle the metaphysical project and the justification project together. In other words, he gave virtually the same answer to the question of defining the concept of truth as to the matter of testing for truth. He wrote, “If you place the nature of truth in one sort of character and its test in something quite different, you are pretty certain, sooner or later, to find the two falling apart. In the end, the only test for truth that is not misleading is the special nature or character that itself is constitutive of truth.”[39]

If someone defines the idea of truth as any belief that is in some way well-supported or properly believed, we call that an “epistemic conception of truth.”[40] In epistemic conceptions of truth, if someone says a proposition is true, she means simply that the proposition has some positive epistemic attribute—that it is justified, warranted, or rational. This means that to say a statement is true is only to say that someone properly believes that statement. So epistemic conceptions of truth reduce answers to the metaphysical project to answers to the justification project.

Two very influential expositors of epistemic notions of truth are Peirce and Hilary Putnam. Peirce developed the optimistic idea that truth is whatever ulti-mately informed people will agree upon. “Let any two minds investigate any question independently and if they carry the process far enough they will come to an agreement which no further investigation will disturb.”[41] In Peirce’s view, whatever all reasonable people (who take enough time to think through a topic) agree upon is true. Whatever is a common conclusion is also by definition a true conclusion. “Human opinion universally tends in the long run to . . . the truth. . . . There is, then, to every question a true answer, a final conclusion, to which the opinion of every man is constantly gravitating.”[42] So, truth for Peirce is constituted by final consensus. He is not only saying that humans discover truth by looking for final consensus. He is also saying that truth simply is this final consensus. Agreement among informed people just is the truth.

But this reduction of truth to a positive epistemic status is problematic at a number of levels. First, what if someone brainwashed every human being until they agreed by final consensus that a false claim is actually true?[43] What if Hitler had won World War II and eventually killed all those he opposed? Would we say that the tenets of Nazism were true merely because all living human beings held these views? Certainly not! Second, Peirce’s notion of truth has the unique problem of making it impossible to say that any belief, no matter how mundane, is true. Truly final consensus is in fact impossible. The suggestion that humanity would ever reach an ultimate consensus seems implausibly optimistic. If truth is constituted only by final consensus, then for as long as human beings think for themselves, someone will reject the consensus on every issue. And that would put a final consensus forever beyond our reach. I am not making this point: if Peirce is right, there is a truth, but we will never discover it without final consensus. I am making this point: if Peirce is right, and final consensus is the very definition of truth, then without final consensus there is no truth. But that surely seems an odd conclusion.

Although Peirce’s work has difficulties, it has exerted great influence. One contemporary philosopher, Hilary Putnam, built on Peirce’s theory. Putnam’s approach sidesteps some of the pitfalls of Peirce’s approach by avoiding all reference to ultimate or final consensus. Instead, Putnam talks about truth as being constituted by ideal justification. In other words, Putnam says that truth is any belief produced by a hypothetical person in an ideal epistemic position. Examples abound. Is Bill’s knee hurting him? The ideal epistemic situation for this question would be “being Bill.” Who really is Jack the Ripper? The ideal epistemic situation would be “being present at the time Jack the Ripper committed a murder.” For Putnam, it is not just that persons in ideal epistemic situations are able to discover truth. Rather, truth is defined as whatever is believed by a person who is in this ideal epistemic situation.[44]

Several important results flow from these theories of truth. First, all truths are knowable in principle. Second, on the flip side, any belief that is in principle unknowable cannot have a truth value. But here we hit a snag. Some propositions are in principle not knowable or not verifiable. But they still have a truth value. This is the Achilles’ heel of epistemic notions of truth. William Alston pointed out that Peirce and Putnam make a questionable assumption: they presuppose that human powers of cognition are sufficient to capture the truth of any true belief whatsoever. But surely there are some truths that no human could ever know. Many reasons suggest that human cognitive capacities are not so suited:

Think of the limitations of our cognitive powers—limitations on our storage and retrieval capacity, on the amount of data we can process simultaneously, on the considerations we can hold together in our minds at one moment, on the complexity of propositions we are capable of grasping. Isn’t it likely that there are facts that will lie forever beyond us just because of these limitations?[45]

For that matter, there could be beings fundamentally different than us. In fact, theists believe that at least one such being actually exists: God. It is eminently reasonable to think that there are truths about God’s nature that lie beyond human comprehension—in fact, Christians have always believed this is true of God. Surely our inability to know these things about God does not prove that they have no truth value. A theory which says that truth just is whatever is humanly knowable—especially whatever is knowable in some ideal situation—seems very counterintuitive.

But even if we grant—in a sudden outburst of grace—that all truths need only be knowable in principle, Putnam’s account of ideal justification still seems fatally flawed. The difficulty lies in how to conceptualize truth that is not distinct from justification. Putnam’s epistemic conception of truth emphasizes that truth is to be conceived in terms of a particular idea: “ideally justified beliefs.” But what is it to have an ideally justified belief, if it is not being ideally justified that some belief is true? Putnam’s contention is that truth simply is a function of being in epistemically idyllic circumstances to evaluate a particular belief. But what is it to evaluate a belief if it is not to evaluate it as true? What does it mean to say a proposition is justified unless it is to justify it as [something]?[46] If a war is justified, then it is justified as fair; if a person’s reaction is justified, it is justified as appropriate to the circumstances; and if a belief is justified, it is justified as true.[47] A belief is not justified as justified. Beliefs are justified as true.

We can describe the problem another way. Putnam’s notion of ideal circumstances implicitly requires a tacit reference to truth. What sense can we make of evaluating one set of circumstances as less (or more) ideal than another set if we do not already presuppose some prior concept of truth in a correspondence sense? Ideal circumstances are defined precisely as those situations where a knower has a better chance to get at the truth of the matter. Without an independent sense of “the truth of the matter,” to which ideal circumstances lead us, we cannot make sense of the very idea of an ideal circumstance.

For example, suppose we know that observation in low light conditions is less ideal than observation in bright light conditions. This assumes we have some concept of what it could mean to say this is how the things being observed really are. If the very concept of “the truth about how things really are” is not a meaningful concept, then exactly what is it that bright light conditions are “better” at helping us find? In spite of yeoman efforts to explain the very definition of truth as some sort of positive epistemic status, it seems that truth is something more than just ultimately justified or ideally warranted knowledge. Truth includes propositions that appropriately describe how things are.

Attempts at replacing a correspondence view of truth (coherentist and pragmatic theories of truth) and reducing truth (to positive epistemic status) are popular. This is in large measure driven by the widespread skepticism about the possibility of developing a full correspondence theory of truth. It is exacerbated by the generally Kantian assumptions about the nature of the noumenon and about our inability to cut through the curtain that supposedly separates reality from our concepts. But major attempts to replace the idea of truth are themselves troubling. The pragmatic theory of truth is especially popular among contemporary theologians, but deeply troubled. And major attempts to reduce the concept of truth to epistemic status are likewise flawed. All these views run up against deep intuitions about what we mean when we speak of truth. So far we do not have a compelling alternative to the idea that the ontological ground for the truth of true affirmations is reality itself. Evangelical theology should not abandon the view that true affirmations are statements that correlate to reality. It looks as though we are best off accept-ing what is intuitively irresistible—that my words do (at times) describe (though imperfectly) a real world.

III. REFERENCE

If we intuit correctly that truth correlates to reality, then language—or more specifically propositions and statements—must refer to a real world. This is the heart of alethic realism. When true propositions do what they are supposed to do, they name, point to, and describe mind-independent realities. By contrast, alethic nonrealism (also antirealism or irrealism) says that reality in some way depends on human thinking for its characteristic structures as we understand them. Notice the contrast in these two titles on ethics: Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, by J. L. Mackie, and Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, by Louis Pojman.[48] Following a generally Kantian sensibility, alethic nonrealism sees the experiential data coming to the human mind in an essentially chaotic, unformed mass. The mind then imposes its structure on that reality. Human concepts in some way give form or meaning to the raw matter of experience. Concepts, therefore, do not describe the preexisting structures of reality. Concepts shape unstructured reality. On the other hand, in alethic realism, true propositions actually point to a reality that already possesses a structure. The realities that make it such that a particular proposition is true—the realities that ground true statements—are themselves independent of human cognition.[49] So related to alethic realism is metaphysical realism, the idea that actual, meaningful, and structured realities actually exist as such.

A. Poststructuralism and Deconstruction

Several intellectual movements, when interpreted aggressively, contradict alethic realism. They suggest that language does not refer to mind-independent realities.[50] If strong interpretations of these movements were well-justified, then they would make an alethic realism and a correspondence view of truth untenable. In that case, the view that language (sometimes and imperfectly) refers to reality “out there” is unwarranted. To conclude in the end that language does indeed refer to mind-independent realities (and for theology, to conclude that doctrine refers to God and spiritual realities) requires a well-conceived response to certain central theses of these movements.

Whatever else postmodernity is about, it involves an allergic reaction to the Enlightenment’s decrees of neutral objectivity, absolute certainty, and straight-forward answers. Postmodern patterns of thinking appear in hard or strong forms as well as in soft or weak varieties. One avenue into the heart of stronger forms of philosophical postmodernism is one of its key methods, deconstruction. [51] The roots of deconstruction lie in linguistics.[52] Deconstruction emerged in response to linguistic structuralism. Structuralism, following Ferdinand de Saussure,[53] posits the following: certain universal patterns or structures lie embedded in all human languages and, more basically, in the human brain. So all languages reflect a universal “deep structure.” This universal “deep structure” operates at the level of the unconscious, but it powerfully governs human social life. Because it is unconscious, the particular historical stories of specific cultures express human meaning, not in their specific details, but in the universal themes they share with the myths and folk tales of other cultures. Structuralism approaches a literary text, then, not so much to find the unique meaning of that particular text. Rather it seeks to show how the text expresses, in its deep structures, the timeless, symbolic meanings that rise above the specifics of history.[54]

Reacting to structuralism, deconstruction denies that any universal structure in language governs human behavior. Building on a linguistic theory called “poststructuralism,” deconstruction rejects the clear and universal connection between language and reality. The term ‘deconstruction’[55] comes from Heidegger’s use of two words: ‘destruktion’ and ‘abbau’. Contrary to appear-ances, ‘destruktion’ is not a cognate for the English word ‘destruction’. Instead, ‘destruktion’ means “the dismantling of a system’s structural layers.” The other word, ‘abbau,’ means “to take apart an edifice to see how it is constituted or deconstituted.”[56] The conjunction of these two words specifies a practice that de-structures or dismantles conceptual systems, analyzes unquestioned assumptions, and unearths new perspectives and meanings.[57]

Deconstruction employs two important analytical tools. First, it uses a hermeneutics of suspicion. This emphasizes the idea that power ploys and ulterior motives lie camouflaged within all truth claims. Personal agendas are embedded in everything people believe or proclaim as truth. Second, deconstruction deploys a hermeneutics of finitude. This stresses that all claims to knowledge are made from the perspective of a finite being. No human being attains a God’s-eye view of reality. In effect, deconstruction dismantles all the easy bridges that people build between their knowledge claims and external reality. It de-structures the connection between language and the very idea of “true representations of reality.”

The specific methods, agendas, and conclusions of various proponents of deconstruction will vary. Jacques Derrida emphasized reading texts so as to cre-ate sets of mutually incompatible readings.[58] Michel Foucault scoured texts for hidden power ploys.[59] And Jean-François Lyotard stressed how the twin evils of capitalism and materialism dramatically infiltrate our understandings and representations.[60] Each one used deconstructive strategies designed, in one way or another, to unravel “grand unifying theories” or metanarratives that pretend to provide a grasp on absolute clarity (meaning) or factual certainty (truth). They sought to sabotage any all-encompassing view of reality that stakes a claim to legitimacy on the ground of universal reason. So deconstruction denies unmediated access to either meanings or facts. It constitutes a critique of the metaphysics of “presence.”[61] It is the full flowering of the seed prefigured in Nietzsche’s statement, “There are no facts, only interpretations.”[62]

To sum up in different words, strong versions of deconstruction involve the conjunction of three theses. (1) Certainty is not possible (the epistemic thesis). (2) There is no such thing as reality itself; we have access only to interpretations of reality (the metaphysical thesis). (3) Classification and categorizations that use binary oppositions—part/whole, inside/outside, good/evil, nature/nurture—fail to capture an objective reality (the quasi-logical thesis). Unifying these theses is the idea that any view of the world expresses a perspective embedded in a concrete and particular narrative. No perspective flows directly from universal Reason applied by correct epistemic method. There is no sure-fire method to adjudicate competing visions of what is true, beautiful, and good. The thirst for certitude built on the foundation of universal Reason will go unfulfilled. And so advocates of deconstruction practice a “stark refusal to cultivate a nostalgia for the unattainable.”[63]

How should we evaluate deconstruction? Does this complex movement justify abandoning the irresistible intuition that our language refers to real reality? This is a huge question. I can do no more than wave toward a response. But I begin with a very important general point: the evaluation of any expression of deconstruction depends largely on the strength of that particular expression. Here the difference between strong and weak accounts of deconstruction is critical, for these two versions lead to rather different implications for language. Stronger versions of deconstruction involve bolder stances that deny reference altogether. Weaker accounts assert only the more modest con-clusion that referential claims are complex. The two versions lead us to very different conclusions regarding the ability of language to refer to mind-independent reality. There is all the difference in the world between these two readings of deconstruction.

One way to describe this situation is to adapt David Ray Griffin’s distinction. This is the contrast between eliminative postmodernism and constructive postmodernism. Recall that eliminative or deconstructive postmodernism “overcomes the modern worldview through an antiworldview.” It denies the elements necessary to any worldview, including concepts like God, self, reality, and truth. It is, says Griffin, ultramodern. But revisionary or constructive post-modernism overcomes “the modern worldview not by eliminating the possibility of worldviews as such, but by constructing a postmodern worldview through a revision of modern premises and traditional concepts.”[64] (Although Griffin lists Jacques Derrida as one who inspired eliminative postmodernism, it is sur-prising to some that Derrida himself makes something like the distinction Griffin makes and, at times, seems to side with constructive postmodernism.[65])

Suppose first that defenders of deconstruction really mean to assert their view in its eliminative form. Then the plausibility of the modest premises or evidence is vastly greater than the plausibility of the immodest conclusions. Taken as a statement of the way things are, bold versions of poststructuralism are thought provoking, but problematic and overstated. If Derrida and others forthrightly and flatly deny the possibility of language referring to a mind-independent world, the obvious question arises: How could they make this claim? Their thesis, in its strong form, entails that reality is not properly described by human language. But in the very act of asserting the thesis, they use language that implies certain things about reality or ascribes certain properties to reality. The self-referential problem seems obvious. At the very least, the thesis ascribes such formal properties as “dependent on human minds for its form and structure” or negative properties like “not being the kind of reality that human beings could describe literally.” Reality out there—reality that is mind-independent—must intrinsically possess these features, if the strong thesis is to work. (I could run through a discussion of purely formal and negative properties that parallels the discussion in chapter 10 of Hick’s attempt to assign only formal and negative properties to The Real. I doubt that a strong deconstructionist would achieve any more success than Hick on this point.)

But do deconstructionists really mean to propose this strong, eliminative view? In the case of some deconstructionist claims, the bolder reading seems justified. Even if Derrida himself does not intend the stronger approach, his fol-lowers are less careful than he is. For instance, Mark C. Taylor wrote,

No longer in bondage to its author-father, the text is freed for permanent metamorphosis, its meaning open to ceaseless flux. The ongoing productivity of the text is realized through the act of interpretation. Such creative interpretation is possible only after Author and author have died. The disappearance of all forms of authority means that univocal meaning and certain truth are inaccessible.[66]

But perhaps this is not the most charitable reading of deconstructionism. Suppose that in the main, deconstruction’s defenders really mean to promote deconstruction for a constructive purpose. Then the strategies of deconstruction lead us to more chastened but more plausible conclusions. They do not, in that case, negate a carefully crafted assertion that language refers to a real world. Perhaps deconstruction should lead us to conclude that referential statements are extremely complex. Maybe it shows us that we should stop and think about ulterior motives when we describe mind-independent reality. Perhaps it reminds us that we do not have a complete theory of reference. Maybe it warns us that texts are sometimes ambiguous and interpreting them is not an exact science. Well, then the defenders of deconstruction make important points. But they do not negate the powerful pretheoretic intuition that some human language does refer to a mind-independent reality.[67]

So suppose we assume that in Derrida’s writings, the meaning of words, in their respective contexts, are fixed (or at least limited) by his intentions as the author. And let us accept that Derrida is right in pressing forward the cautions implicit in a positive deconstructionism. This soft reading of his general per-spective is entirely compatible with humble, properly nuanced alethic realism. A charitable reading of Derrida in particular (and of deconstruction’s defenders in general) is that he does not intend to deny reference entirely. (That is debated, of course, and arguing for a particular reading of Derrida is not my central purpose.) Derrida hopes, perhaps, to rebut naïve versions of alethic realism where all statements necessarily, trivially, or precisely refer to their referents. He seeks, apparently, to underscore the complexities of reference. The evidence he cites and strategies he employs succeed in that task. This is all to the good. But when other defenders of deconstruction use more radical language for rhetorical effect and imply a complete denial of reference, they move well beyond what their evidence and strategies warrant. They are like Wile E. Coyote, the cartoon character, whose momentum repeatedly carries him past the canyon rim. Frozen helplessly in mid-air, he turns and blinks sheepishly into the camera before crashing to the canyon floor far below. Despite the claims of its bolder defenders, deconstruction does not defeat the core intuition that human language properly refers to mind-independent realities. If poststructuralism is a clarion call for caution, circumspection, and humility in all philosophical or theological endeavors, it speaks wisely. But in this case, it does not deliver new news.

B. The Legacy of Wittgenstein

A second perspective also seems to deny the reference of language to reality, and to subvert the correspondence theory of truth. It arises from the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Note, however, that my purpose in this section is not to interpret Wittgenstein himself, but to talk about ideas and assertions that Wittgenstein’s work has stimulated.[68]) In his later years, most prominently in his Philosophical Investigations,[69]Wittgenstein explicitly rejected much of his earlier work on truth, including especially the so-called picture theory of language. Wittgenstein defended the picture theory of language in his own early work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.[70]

Wittgenstein’s later work has profoundly affected certain segments in the worlds of philosophy, philosophy of religion, and theology.[71]Wittgenstein had held, earlier in his career, that the meanings of words and sentences are fixed by the objects they picture. A word has an essential meaning and always denotes a particular object. But he came to believe that this theory misconstrues the idea of meaning. In his later view, he denied any necessary and systematizable connection between words and reality. The meaning of a word or sentence is not necessarily fixed by the one thing it refers to or by the single object it pictures.

A central insight of Wittgenstein’s later thought is that the meanings of words and sentences are determined by their use—by how words are used in the contexts.[72] Meanings of words and sentences are shaped by larger contexts. These larger contexts are “language games.” A language game, for Wittgenstein, is a full-orbed language that comes complete with unique concepts and rules. A language game is not as complete as a full natural language, and it is part of a larger context, a “form of life.” This phrase denotes a whole way of living and interacting that incorporates a language game. So, for example, the language game that functions in the form of life known as “the world of modern art” is quite distinct from other language games. A single word, when used in the world of contemporary art and in the world of cultural anthropology, will have different meanings that depend on the respective language games.

Although this account is helpful in some ways, at least some stronger applications of it deny the crucial linkage between meaningful language and specific objects or states of affairs. The theory of language games denies that language refers to reality in a single straightforward way. This seems right. Analyses of language show clearly that language works in a variety of ways. But some of Wittgenstein’s followers take a short but fatal step farther. They say that because language functions in complex ways according to the grammatical rules that govern what can and cannot be said in a particular form of life, language may not refer at all. This means they relate the words ‘truth’ and ‘meaning’, not to reality, but to grammar. Meaning is not a function of a connection of language to reality, but of language to more language. In this case, the “apparent harmony between language and reality is merely the shadow cast upon the world by grammar.”[73]

Correlated with this shift in the definitions of ‘truth’ and ‘meaning’ is a change in accounts of how one discovers what is or is not true, justified, rational, or intelligible. Reflecting a broadly Wittgensteinian pattern, Peter Winch wrote,

Criteria of logic are not a direct gift of God, but arise out of, and are only intelligible in the context of, ways of living or modes of social life. . . . For instance, science is one such mode and religion is another; and each has criteria of intelligibility peculiar to itself. So within science or religion actions can be logical or illogical. . . . But we cannot sensibly say that either the practice of science itself or that of religion is either illogical or logical; both are non-logical.[74]

A possible implication is this: because there is no one language, and because there are no universal criteria that fix the meanings of words, there are no universal criteria for justifying truth claims. Evaluations of rationality, intelligibility, justification, and even truth become dependent on the form of life and language game in which any linguistic utterance is embedded. Because language games are peculiar to themselves, we have no means to adjudicate the truth or rationality of different language games. In fact, language games are not more or less true. They just are. They are given. They represent how people play the game of language. It just makes no sense to ask the question about the rationality or truth value of one language game relative to another. Like the animals in the zoo, all words are locked in their own linguistic pens. The whole question of whether language refers, indeed, the entire distinction between realism and nonrealism, is a matter that some Wittgensteinians con-sider conceptual confusion.

As with deconstructionism, however, it is possible to develop either strong or soft readings of Wittgenstein’s followers. Some people who borrow Wittgenstein’s insights in softer ways will allow that language can refer to mind-independent reality. But those who use Wittgenstein in stronger ways will not. Take, for example, the statement, “God exists.” Someone operating on a softer use of Wittgenstein’s insights would not necessarily deny that this statement refers to “how things are.” But he would still caution against assuming that this particular use of the word ‘exists’ has no general meaning outside the language game in which ‘God’ also has meaning. In the language game of religion, the word ‘exists’ has a specific function that it may or may not have in any other language game. So the word ‘exists’ is used differently in “Cows really exist” than in “God really exists.” Defenders of stronger Wittgensteinian views may allow that theological language refers to the ideas of the person making a claim. But they will deny that theological statements refer to mind-independent realities. D. Z. Phillips, for instance, stated his view very clearly: “it is a grammatical confusion to think that [religious language] is referential or descriptive. It is an expression of value. If one asks what it says, the answer is that it says itself.”[75]

It is important to see Phillips’s analysis of the cause behind this failure of theology to refer to mind-independent realities (or, more accurately, the fruitlessness of asking questions about such reference). He is not merely saying that some allegedly referential statements are improperly formed—perhaps suffering from the sort of ailment that could be cured by a little more philosophical attention. Phillips is making a more radical point. The very notion of “reality” (and hence, the idea of “reference” to reality) is mistaken: “This idea of ‘how the world actually is’ is a philosophical chimera. It refers not to a reality we do not know, but to a conceptual confusion. . . . I am questioning the very intelligibility of this metaphysical notion of ‘how things are’.”[76] In Phillips’s view, there is nothing beyond the human epistemic practices that we find embedded in the various specific and incommensurable language games. There is nothing beyond the language game for those practices to point toward. “What lies outside the epistemic practice (to employ a strained way of talking) is not a metaphysical state of affairs, but the loss of the conception manifested in the practice.”[77]

Does this use of Wittgenstein’s insights eliminate referential language? Clearly, Wittgensteinians make some valid observations, if I can adapt them to the purposes of a realist account of language. First, to discern the meaning of an utterance, a hearer should consider what the utterer intended to say by paying very close attention to how the utterer used linguistic conventions to say what he intended. These conventions differ in various linguistic contexts. Second, meanings and communication depend on holistic epistemic practices. No one comes, as tabula rasa, to any observation or dialogue. People begin to think about any important topic whatever with sets of epistemic practices, presuppositions, and theories already in place. Third, it is difficult—sometimes impossible—to judge which of several alternative language games is superior. Is the language game of the professional badminton leagues in Thailand superior to the language game of Mormons in Utah? (What could that question even mean?) So even if we overcome the variety in the uses of different terms, dissimilar values, varied methods, and contrary accounts of what constitutes a “good explanation” or an “accurate representation of reality,” we cannot assume that people who practice different forms of life share common language. I grant all these points (in the general way I stated them here). But none of these points even slyly suggests that the very idea of a “reality” independent of our representations is defective. None of them entails or requires Phillips’s strong claims that no “metaphysical state of affairs” exists or that reference to reality is impossible. These observations about the complexity of language, when stated softly, are consistent with a properly qualified, humbly asserted, alethic realism.

I see Phillips’s denial of reference as a confusion of truth with justification. Notice the following interchange between Phillips and William Wainwright. Wainwright claimed that reality exists independently of our epistemic practices. [78] Phillips answered, “Wainwright should be able to specify some sense of ‘how things are’ independent of ‘our being in the world.’ This, of course, he cannot do.”[79] Well, of course not. But why would we require someone to get outside of his skin in this way before allowing that he can refer to the world? The question that comes to mind is this: What grounds Phillips’s requirement that referring to “how things are” requires a person to stand in a place that is not in the world? On what possible ground would such a high requirement come into play? Phillips seems to think that before we can speak of language referring to reality, we must adopt the God’s-eye view—obviously an impossibly high requirement for someone who is not God. But why must we do this? This is an unreasonable demand. If the philosophical apparatus Phillips demands were needed in order to refer, no one would refer. But obviously, people do refer. Children do so quite early in life. A babysitter once asked one of my boys when he was two, “See the red birdy?” “Yes,” he replied, surprising the babysitter. “That’s a cardinal!” So I agree that religious language and other kinds of language (like science) are not exactly the same. Still, Phillips’s claim is overstated.

I accept valid insights from the Wittgensteinian legacy. Religious language can and should express our values and shape our lives in various important ways. But these functions of religious language are inextricably tied to its descriptive function. How can the utterance, “Jesus is Lord,” continue over time to shape the life of a community? Only if the members of the community believe it is actually the case that Jesus is Lord. I accept a soft interpretation of the Wittgensteinian legacy which suggests that religious language is not exactly the same as other kinds of language. Still, the statement, “Jesus is Lord,” will lose its power over time if believers do not think that Jesus is in fact the Lord. The atheist Wainwright clinched the point: “It is doubtful that religious attitudes, values, and practices can be retained once the relevant metaphysical beliefs have been abandoned. Most of the attitudes, practices, and values in question are appropriate only if the relevant metaphysical claims are true.”[80] Phillips responded: “On the contrary, the wonder is that the practices and the beliefs have survived the metaphysical speculation about them.”[81] This is nice repartee, but it leaves the main point unanswered. Is there a “metaphysical state of affairs” in which Jesus is Lord? The power of the belief, “Jesus is my Lord,” to guide my life and motivate my behavior is dissipated, like a punctured balloon, if no reality named Jesus exists in any sense.

There is a final, deep irony in any strong interpretations of Wittgenstein that deny referential language. For all the emphasis on “being true to actual epistemic practices,” when Wittgensteinians like Winch and Phillips discuss religious language, they seem to ignore a critically important fact: the vast majority of religious people actually believe that their language about God does refer, even if only haltingly, to an external reality. Paul said we see as though looking at a poor reflection in a mirror (1 Cor 13:12). Still, it is the Lord we see, and not a linguistic shell devoid of metaphysical substance. Those who adopt positions like those of Phillips or Winch often skate right past the fact that in the minds of believers, statements about God are just simply not statements about how they decide to respond to life.[82] Phillips and Winch are certainly not being true to actual epistemic practices in evangelical communities. And so we who do evangelical theology should not abandon the practices of historic faith in favor of strong versions of Wittgensteinianism. Wittgenstein’s movement toward ordinary language analysis produced many insights. But as before, there are those who extend these insights too far.

C. A Minimalist Account of Correspondence

With these considerations, I am beginning to touch on the subject matter of chapter 12, religious language. The issue of religious language includes more than the basic questions of reference generally. But it cannot include less. For evangelicals, theological reference is important. Paul wrote, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” and “you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:14, 17). His point is clearly that ancient cosmogonic myths—and, I might add, modern humanistic myths—do not save. Mere words—not even true words—save. Theology alone—the words, categories, ideas, and arguments themselves—does not transform human lives. It is God’s Spirit who saves, with real spiritual power, the same power that raised Christ. God’s power is mediated through the words, but words themselves, without the power, are as helpful as a dead battery on a Minnesota winter morning. “If Truth is objective, if we live in a world we did not create and cannot change merely by thinking, if the world is not really a dream of our own, then the most destructive belief we could possibly believe would be the denial of this primary fact. It would be like closing your eyes while driving, or blissfully ignoring the doctor’s warnings.”[83]

This brings us back around to correspondence. Some genuine knowledge of an objectively existing spiritual Reality is essential to evangelical theology. Language must connect in some way to objective reality, for it is the reality, not the language, that saves. Yet, clearly, language will not capture reality fully. For this reason, many scholars give up hope of finding any objective knowledge. Many ordinary people today say of the gospel, “It’s true for you, but it’s not my truth.”[84] Both academics and accountants have been known to insist that if we cannot know the reality completely, then we cannot know it truly.

Although I insist that language does refer to mind-independent reality, we come up against the fact that a full correspondence theory does not seem forth-coming. A full account of how language works keeps falling just off our fingertips. Now what should we do with these problems? Some say that until we produce a full theory of correspondence, we have no right to operate on the basic intuition of correspondence. But must we choose between the horns of this dilemma? Must evangelical theology give up on the idea of reference altogether until it produces a robust, widely accepted account of a correspondence notion of truth? I say not. That would be like giving up the use of language until someone produces a complete and satisfying theory of how language works. This seems like too much to ask.

Without fully developing this claim, my intuition about truth is that it is a primitive notion that is virtually impossible to define in more basic or fundamental terms without the process declining into hopeless circularity. This is also the case with other primitive concepts like “existence.” But this fact does not require us to adopt skepticism about things existing as we wait for a full account of this primitive concept. Similarly, we should not surrender before the demand for a robust theory of correspondence. We should challenge the wisdom of demanding a full theory before we operate on the basic intuition. We should make do with a more modest proposal. We should point to the inescapable, pretheoretical intuition regarding the import of language. We should note that its denial is self-refuting. We should rest content with a critical realist intuition that language does speak of extra-mental realities.[85]

So what then is truth? Truth is constituted by correspondence of linguistic utterances to mind-independent states of affairs. This is really an assertion, an affirmation, of a universal, pretheoretic human intuition. It is a minimalist approach that affirms the intuition while acknowledging the fact that the full theory about the intuition is elusive. The assertion of this deep intuition captures what we need. A minimalist approach shares the essential feature of a full correspondence theory of truth. Both assert that what makes a belief true is precisely that it mirrors, at least approximately, the way reality actually is. Specifically, this minimalist account stipulates that a statement like, “Lisa is tall,” is true if and only if Lisa actually is tall.

Clearly, this minimalist commitment addresses the metaphysical project by responding to the question, “What is truth?” It does not address the justification project by answering the question, “How can someone know that a given belief is true?” How can we discover that Lisa is tall? The minimalist approach amounts only to a bare statement of the meaning of correspondence. It is more an affirmation of an intuition—and this is a universal and unavoidable intuition—than it is the development of a theory. A minimalist approach, in its most general use, is a philosophical account that does not try to explain too much. The attempt to define the concept of correspondence (by giving a more fully analyzed expression that is identical to the word being defined) is an over-whelmingly difficult project. Definitions offer an appearance of clarity that rapidly disappears the deeper one digs for meaning.[86]

Several things are not entailed by this minimalist account. First, commitment to a correspondence intuition regarding truth does not entail the notion that all statements refer exactly or precisely to the extra-mental world. This is naïve real-ism. Even if the man who rides the Fourteenth Street bus assumes this view, no scholar would advocate it. Deconstruction is helpful in warning us against naïve realism. Second, commitment to a correspondence intuition does not require believing that all or even most language refers. Many meaningful linguistic acts do not refer. (More on that in chapter 12.) And third, commitment to a correspondence intuition does not entail any particular theory on the nature of propositions or any exact theory of correspondence. In fact, this is exactly what a minimalist account leaves open. In spite of these points, adopting a correspondence intuition regarding truth is reasonable. Dallas Willard wrote, “inability to say how we know something does not imply that we do not know it—although it is always appropriate to raise the question of the ‘how’ when-ever someone claims to know something, and some appropriate kind of expla-nation is usually required.”[87] Similarly, inability to say how our language corresponds does not prove that all language fails to correspond.

If this seems like too weak a stance for evangelical theology, remember that those positions that question the possibility of reference are flawed. There is wisdom in a minimalist approach.[88] It admits what is real about the current state of affairs regarding the philosophical search for a full correspondence theory of truth. Yet it encourages us not to give up on this very deep and undeniable intuition about the concept of truth. No compelling argument stands in the way of what is universally assumed by human users of language. So I conclude that we do in fact refer to reality when we speak. The limits and flaws of language and communication do not require us to deny that language refers to a world outside the human mind. They urge us to do our epistemic home-work when we speak about the world. Donald Davidson’s evaluation of non-realism is right: “antirealisms remain sour-grape philosophies. Their motto is: if you can’t grasp the grapes (in some approved sense), they aren’t just sour, they were never there in the first place.”[89]

IV. CONCLUSION

The weather in our postmodern theological atmosphere seems to be shifting toward alethic nonrealism. Whether or not a new weather front will come through and clear out the humidity is unclear. I hope for a renewal of critical realism in the wider theological academy that parallels the rise of critical realist metaphysics and epistemology in the philosophical world over the last generation. Perhaps the nonrealist patterns will lead to permanent change in the theological climate of the scholarly world. But whatever meteorological forces strike the wider academy, we who are evangelical theologians must preserve a properly qualified intuition that language contacts reality. Evangelical theology assumes that Christian doctrine describes a real God. It is the power and love of God, not merely the power of religious words and the love of human community, that Christian theology describes, interprets, applies, and commends. But this claim calls for more discussion. The issue in chapter 11 is truth, language, and reality in a more generic sense. I need to go farther. If we are right to think that language in general actually refers to a real world, is it correct to think that specifically religious language also refers to something real? How does religious language work? What approaches to issues surrounding religious language should evangelical theology pursue?

CHAPTER

TWELVE

THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE

AND SPIRITUAL LIFE

Many people say many things about God. What is a proper way to speak of God? More generally, is it proper to say anything about God at all? Is God enough like us that we can make meaningful sense of God at all? Or will every statement about God completely miss the mark? Merold Westphal pressed the question by suggesting that every prayer is offered to a God who is an idol. Even authentic, heart-felt prayer is offered to a concept of God that is edited by the believer or by the believing community. This is a bold way of saying that the idea of God we have in our mind when we pray never totally matches the reality of who God is.[1] So does our theological language tell us about God as God is, if not perfectly, at least truly?

In chapter 11, I addressed, in a general way, truth and language along with their relation to reality (although I occasionally touched specifically on religious language). Of central importance is the issue of language as a vehicle for referring to mind-independent reality. Are there any objections, coming from discussions of either the nature of truth or the nature of language, that should lead us to think that human language does not refer to mind-independent realities? I argued that several major objections to the possibility of referential success are unsuccessful. So pathways to true description of the world are open to us.

This involves several kinds of realism. In the last two chapters, I used the phrase ‘alethic realism’ to mean that when statements do what they are sup-posed to do, they name, describe, or point to human mind-independent realities. Alethic realism regarding God means that when religious doctrines are true, when they do what they are supposed to do, they name, describe, or point to God. I used the phrase ‘metaphysical realism’ to mean that a human mind-independent Reality actually exists. Obviously, an alethic realist (who thinks that the purpose of language is, at least in part, to describe an actual reality) must be a metaphysical realist.

I. THEOLOGICAL ANALOGY

Holding to realist accounts of reality, truth, and language in a critical way—in the spirit of critical realism—means acknowledging that our attempts to know and describe the world are fallible. We do not encounter reality so simply and straightforwardly that we cannot err. Yet, while we must be critical, evaluating our claims and humbly correcting them when defeaters arise to rebut or undermine our beliefs, we can still come to know the world as the world is. We are not locked in a Kantian prison such that our thoughts and words reflect only the internal processes of our minds rather than the world as it is. In theology, we do know something of who God is. So we should take a critical stance. In that spirit, one theory that tries to account both for the successes and for the limitations of our knowledge and speech about God is theological analogy.

A. Thomas’s Question

By a nearly inviolable tradition, any discussion of how language refers to God must begin with St. Thomas Aquinas and his idea of analogical predication.[2] This is the classic treatment of religious language. To begin, what question regarding religious language does Thomas’s doctrine of analogical predication answer?

The question of religious language arises from the intersection of two realities. The first reality relates to the words we use. Our terms and expressions arise from our talk about created objects. We generally know what we mean when we say things like, “Juanita loves her daughter,” “Tim is wise to run for office,” or “I exist.” But when we say “God is loving,” or “God is wise,” or “God exists”—when we predicate the concepts love, wisdom, or existence of God—we use terms, as it were, outside their native habitat. But is it proper to use these concepts so far outside their natural environment? Or when we speak of an infinite God, does the fact that we are radically changing the context of our speech mean that our terms no longer function normally? Is there any common ground between what these words mean, or in how they function, when describing a human and when describing God?

A reason to wonder about the propriety of using finite language for God is the fundamental, qualitative difference between God and the world.[3] God is unlike anything in creation. He is not a member of the class of created things—only bigger, better, or greater. Golf legend Jack Nicklaus has said that Tiger Woods plays a game that he (Jack) never played. Still, there is a meaningful sense in which even my mediocre golf game is like Tiger’s. Tiger’s is quantitatively much, much better, of course. I hit my 7-iron 160 yards at most; he hits his 200 yards or more. My 7-iron shots fly straight 50 percent of the time; his fly straight 98 percent of the time. I am happy to hit it roughly straight; Tiger shapes his shots, curving them left or right as the situation dictates. But with all due respect to Jack, the differences between my game, Jack’s game, and Tiger’s game are not infinite, but measurable. They are matters of degree.

The same is not true regarding the differences between God and me. God’s nature is infinite, eternal, omniscient, and morally pure. My nature is finite and temporal, ignorant and weak due to limitation and sin, and polluted by moral failure. God and I are simply not comparable. God and I are not on the same scale ontologically, epistemologically, morally, or in any other way. God is qualitatively different from me. God is eternal and incorporeal. His being is infinite, Wholly Other, or transcendent.[4] The difference between us is not measurable, but infinite. And if all this is so, then how could the meaning of a concept like ‘love’ as applied to me and the meaning of ‘love’ as applied to God be even vaguely similar? So our question arises because of the complete difference between God’s infinite, pure, divine nature and my finite, sinful, human nature.

When we as evangelicals explore religious language, we assume the qualitative difference between God and his creation. We begin with a particular view of God, namely, historic Christian Trinitarianism. But even with shared evangelical commitments to orthodox thinking about God, we may give slightly different accounts of God. And it turns out that theories about how finite language describes God will depend on which features a particular theologian ascribes to the triune God. For example, consider the idea of God’s absolute simplicity—the idea that he is not in any way complex or composed of parts. Some of us think God is simple; others do not. But the question of God’s simplicity affects specific issues regarding religious language. More generally, different theories about the nature of God and about the differences between God and finite objects lead to various accounts regarding religious language.

What does this say for evangelical prolegomena? First, obviously, the problem of religious language is not really a single, general problem. It is a cluster of problems. Each problem in that cluster arises as a result of certain attributes that we posit of God. If we say God lacks a body, that leads to a particular set of complexities. If we say God possesses simplicity, that raises a different set of questions. This means that some of the questions regarding religious language will change, depending on which properties a particular view of God ascribes to the Creator.

Second, if ascribing specific properties to God or articulating a doctrine of God in particular ways alters the possibilities regarding religious language, then it seems that a comprehensive methodological discussion must await a completed theology proper. But that is impossible for my purposes here. Evangelical prolegomena cannot first present a complete doctrine of God and only then begin to explore the nature of language referring to God. So I will assume that fuller answers to the issues of religious language would require an integration of—a dialectic between—theological prolegomena and doctrine of God. And that means that I will offer only some first steps on this topic.

Third, an evangelical theological view on religious language will operate between two sidelines. On the one hand, evangelical theology cannot duplicate the Brahmanic move by emphasizing God’s infinity and transcendence in such an absolute sense as to render human language completely inadequate for describing God. Certain Hindu and Muslim ways of understanding God move in this direction. To concede that all speech about God is completely equivocal nullifies the evangelical commitment to the Bible as truly informative revelation. On the other hand, evangelical theology cannot recover the possibility of speech about God by positing that God is finite and limited. The mistake here is to press God’s immanence in such a way as to deny God’s uniqueness. Evangelical theology will not go this route for any reason, let alone as a rescue strategy for religious language. With the historic tradition, evangelical theology proper operates between the twin claims. So we cannot gain the meaningfulness of religious speech by abandoning divine infinity nor preserve divine infinity by discarding the meaningfulness of our language. Like Aquinas, in the midst of this crossfire,[5] we encounter the problem of how to speak of God.

While we hold the tradition on these two main points, we need not affirm the tradition on every specific point. We need not adopt as theologically essential every property that somewhere along the line the tradition has ascribed to the God of the Bible. To go back to a previous example, we openly debate whether it is wise to think that God possesses simplicity. Still, as evangelicals, we agree in general terms that whatever properties God does possess, God possesses infinitely or maximally. (If God possesses knowledge, for instance, he possesses it maximally.) Because we as evangelicals typically hold that God possesses his attributes maximally, we do face the questions regarding religious language that emerge from a commitment to the infinity and transcendence of God.

B. Thomas’s Account of Analogy

In broad and general terms, Thomas shared the two boundaries that evangelical commitments lay out for us. He wanted to hold to the infinity of God and to the meaningfulness of human language regarding God. He approached the topic of religious language by focusing on the possibility of attaching to God any descriptive concept that we properly ascribe to created objects. In other words, what sort of relation exists between two senses of a concept, when one of those is the sense it possesses when it is ascribed to God? Aquinas explored how a descriptive word can stand for x in the two statements, “God is x” and “John is x.” This is the purpose of his theory of analogy or analogical predication. The predicate term in each sentence—the x—connects a property, rela-tion, or activity to the subject term of each sentence—God and John respectively. How does x in the one sentence relate to the x in the other? Aquinas was interested in concepts like being, goodness, existence, and loving.

Thomas discussed the issue of predication by using his famous trilemma. This offers three options, univocity, equivocity, and analogy. Each of these describes the semantic relationship between the meaning of a specific word in one context and its meaning in another. That is, the terms denote the ways in which two uses of a term are related semantically. The term ‘univocity’ means a word has exactly the same meaning in two different contexts. The word ‘powerful’ in the statement, “He was the most powerful man of his day,” is used univocally of Julius Caesar and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The term ‘equivocity’ means that the way a word is used in one context is entirely different from the way it is used in another. In the teenager’s exclamation that his math teacher is a dope, the word ‘dope’ is used equivocally when com-pared to how the word is used to denote a certain weed (allegedly) passed around at Woodstock. In fact, another way to think of equivocity is to say that we actually have two distinct words that happen, perhaps coincidentally, to use the same phonetic symbol in a particular natural language. When a sin-gle term or concept is used analogously, this means that in two or more linguistic situations, the term communicates different senses, and yet those different senses are somehow meaningfully related to each other. The word ‘wing’ used to speak of the wing of a bird and the wing of a house is used in two analogous senses.

The pattern of argumentation Aquinas used to arrive at analogy as the appropriate understanding of divine predication is revealing. He did not look to Scripture and build a case that Scripture uses language in a particular way. He did not typically make a positive case for analogy. In discussing the application of predicates to God, he first assumed that, by reason or faith, we already possess knowledge of God in spite of his qualitative distinctiveness. Next, he named the three options, univocity, equivocity, and analogy. Finally, he showed that the predicates in question could not be ascribed either univocally or equivocally to God. He denied univocity because it entails anthropomorphism. We know that God is truly infinite. He rejected equivocity because it leads to agnosticism. We know that God is truly infinite. So by process of elimination, he arrived at the middle way as the only viable option for meaningful speech about an infinite God. Analogy accounts for the reality and the nature of that knowledge.[6]

For Aquinas, more specifically, the primary barrier to using terms univocally is divine simplicity. In ascribing the property of wisdom to a human, we identify an aspect of his person that is in some sense distinct from other aspects of his being. We refer, in other words, to his intelligence, memory, or intellectual character, but not to his emotions or body. But if God is simple, we cannot identify just one aspect or part of God. God is not composed of parts. It is not possible to separate, even conceptually, God’s wisdom from any other aspect of his being. In fact, it is impossible to distinguish God’s essence (his nature or being) from his existence (his actuality or instantiation). God does not possess a mind that is wise and a heart that is good. God is a simple being who in some way includes all of those things. One might say, perhaps inaccurately, that God is “goodwiseexistingbeinglovingtriune . . .” all at once. God’s simplicity requires us to think of the divine nature in a single “conceptual swoop.” Due to our limits, we cannot help but think of God as divided up into this and that attribute. But God is not so divided. So Thomas taught that our talk of God is necessarily and fundamentally inadequate. This conclusion, shaped by a commitment to the doctrine of divine simplicity, and con-sistent with the tradition of negative theology, pushed Thomas away from univocity and toward analogy.[7]

But what, more exactly, is analogical predication? According to the traditional interpretation, Thomas defended the “analogy of proper proportionality.” There are limits to how words can function analogically, and the phrase ‘proper proportionality’ expresses that limitation. It means that God and created beings have properties in proportion to their modes of being, that is, in proportion to being infinite and finite respectively. Consider these statements:

(a) God is good.

(b) Mother Teresa is good.

God stands in relation to ‘good’ in a way that is appropriate to God, while Mother Teresa stands in relation to ‘good’ in a way that is appropriate to her. We rightly apply the word ‘good’ to God because we see that the mode of God’s relation to God’s goodness is similar to the mode of Mother Teresa’s relation to her goodness. The term ‘good’ does not function univocally—with absolutely the same meaning—in the two statements. God is good in the way in which God alone is good, and Mother Teresa is good in a manner that is appropriate for humans to be good. They are both good, but the ways in which God and Mother Teresa are good are proportional to their status as Creator and creature respectively. God’s goodness is to God what human goodness is to a human (God’s goodness: God:: creature’s goodness: creature). They are both good, but God is infinitely good, as fits his mode of being, and Mother Teresa is finitely good, as appropriate to her mode of being.

There is complication here in that the received traditions regarding Aquinas’s theory of analogy likely do not reflect his actual thinking on this subject. Dominican Cardinal Cajetan de Vio interpreted Thomas as defender of the analogy of proper proportionality. During the 1950s and 1960s, critics of Cajetan’s account overturned the received tradition regarding Thomas’s under-standing. Aquinas believed that theological judgment, while very close to equivocity, allows Christians to predicate truths of God. He discusses analogy only after he has established firmly a variety of important truths that do ascribe such properties as existence, unity, and simplicity to God.[8] Of course, it is well beyond the scope of this discussion to resolve the historical debate over what Aquinas really said.[9] What matters is discovering what different theories of analogy say and whether they help us speak meaningfully of God.

Whether or not Thomas committed himself to the concept of proper proportionality, the idea has not gone unscathed. One strong objection is expressed by Frederick Ferré. Consider these ideas:

(c) Jan’s life: Jan’s essence.

(d) God’s life: God’s essence.

Now in the analogy of proper proportionality, the word ‘life’, as it appears in (c) and (d), does not have a single meaning. We grasp the meaning of “Jan’s life,” and we understand “Jan’s essence.” If we knew what either “God’s life” or “God’s essence” meant, we could work out a calculation and understand the last term. But we do not know what ‘life’ means with respect to God precisely because it is in proportion to, or a function of, God’s essence. (This is the point of the analogy of proper proportionality.) And here is the problem: we also lack knowledge of God’s essence.

To illustrate, consider the following:

(e) 2: 4:: x : 16.

(f) 2: 4:: x : y.

Obviously, (e) is solvable—a child can calculate that x=8. But (f) presents us with two unknowns. And so, in an equation like (f), we cannot arrive at the numeric values for either x or y. At best we can define them as functions of each other.[10] Similarly, Ferré argued, proper proportionality yields no positive information about God. Both of the terms in (d) are obscure. We do not know what “God’s life” is, and we cannot grasp what “God’s essence” is. So it seems initially that proper proportionality licenses complete equivocation, leaving us with an ever-widening gap between Jan and God that completely mystifies us regarding God’s true nature.[11] Analogy, Aristotle said long ago, is actually a form of equivocity.

Ferré said analogy does not provide any substantive knowledge about God. But although analogy fails to inform us about God, Ferré believed analogy per-forms another task. Analogy functions as a rule to govern which parts of ordi-nary speech we may use of God. That is, analogy restricts the undisciplined use of ordinary terms in the linguistic universe of theology. It helps us decide that we in the Christian community accept as legitimate such theological statements as “God is our Father.” But we refuse to use assertions like “God is a terrorist.” The role of analogy is “not to inform but, rather, to limit the proper employment of language within the framework of theistic systematic assumptions.”[12] But this seems an unsatisfactory way to go. Ferré has saved a role for analogy but given up on informative speech about God. Hardly a good trade!

Thomas also hinted at the form of analogy known as the “analogy of attribution.” This form of analogy concerns the proper character of only one of the analogates (the two objects compared in the analogy). Analogies of attribution merely state that a concept is predicated of a second analogate in a “derived” sense because of some real, metaphysical relation between the two analogates. Thomas’s well-known example is the word ‘healthy’.[13] Both proper diet and good muscle tone are healthy in the sense that they both relate in some natural way to a woman’s health. Proper diet is its cause, and good muscle tone is its result. When we speak of God, we speak “in virtue of the order that crea-tures have to God as to their source and cause in which all the perfections of things pre-exist transcendently.”[14]

Analogy of attribution, in the critics’ minds, fares no better than proper pro-portionality. One of the difficulties is that Thomas explicitly rejects the anal-ogy of attribution elsewhere.[15] (This fact contributes to the emerging consensus that Thomas never developed a fully consistent theory of analogy. Rather, he presented different approaches at different times in his life.[16] But again, that is a historical point.)

There is another, more substantive problem. Suppose “God is good” means only that God causes goodness. Then we know only about God’s relation to his creation, but we could not know whether God himself actually possesses the property of goodness. That is, we remain ignorant of God’s own being and fall into agnosticism. Thomas’s answer is that whatever exists in the effect exists more perfectly in the cause. But of course, God is the cause of all things. So Ferré asked whether this means that it is appropriate to say not only that God is good and wise but also that he is sweet tasting and finely powdered (since God is the cause of these things).[17] Obviously, many of the things God causes have features he does not have. Perhaps, in following Thomas, the best we can hope to achieve is this: when we say “God is good,” we point vaguely to a divine perfection by imagining that perfection as a higher, more exalted version of human goodness. And God’s goodness is “exalted” beyond human goodness to an unknown degree and in an unknown way.

One defender of analogy, E. L. Mascall, admitted that these two forms of analogy fail individually. But he claimed that they succeed if they are used in concert to reinforce each other.[18] This is worthy of exploration. Still, the main conclusion of contemporary theology is that theological analogy, as Aquinas articulated that concept, does not help us understand God. Indeed, tensions within Thomas’s own statements suggest that he probably sensed some of the difficulties that I hinted at here. “Over seven hundred years after Thomas’s death we . . . breathe somewhat different air,” wrote Terrence Tilley, and we “cannot assume that he has offered a final solution to the problems of the sense and reference of talk of God. While Thomas is certainly an inspiration, his solution to the problem of talk of God is no longer adequate.”[19]

C. Univocity Revisited

If the denial of univocity of concepts as they apply to God does not land us in the middle of the slough of agnosticism, it certainly brings us very close to the edge of the bog. I think we can do better. I will argue for a carefully crafted commitment to univocity. But first, I need to clarify one thing. I am not merely saying that we can attribute negative and extrinsic concepts of God; that is relatively uncontroversial. In saying that we can predicate some concepts univocally of God, I am speaking of positive and intrinsic concepts. First, negative and positive predicates differ in that negative predicates tell us what a thing is not; positive attributes say what a thing is. Predicating of God the concept “not a dolphin” is quite different than ascribing to God the positive property “completely wise.” Few have problems predicating the former property for it says nothing contentful about God. The discussion gets tense when we claim to predicate positive properties of God. Second, extrinsic and intrinsic predicates differ in that the former, roughly speaking, are about the relation of God to something external to himself; the latter describe God’s internal nature or structure. [20] Sharpening up our topic a bit, I am not asking whether we can predicate just any properties of God at all. The pressing question is specifically whether we may predicate univocally any intrinsic and positive properties of God. Can we say meaningfully, for example, “God is love,” and mean some-thing by ‘love’ that we will find informative?

How might we ascribe positive and contentful attributes to an infinite God? William Alston argued that God and a creature can both possess the same abstract property. We can predicate the same property both of God and a creature, even though there is as great a difference as we could imagine between how the property is realized in God and how it is realized in the creature. Here is the key: even if God is infinite, God’s infinity or transcendence need not express itself in the meaning of a concept (which would require employing the term equivocally to describe God and the creature). The infinity of God may express itself in the entirely unique manner in which the concept is realized in God by comparison to how it is realized in the creature. This allows us to employ certain concepts univocally as we describe God and creatures. Against Ferré, this means we need not give up on informative speech about God. With Alston, I choose to bite the bullet and defend the univocal predication (care-fully defined) of concepts to God.

Now what does it mean to speak of “how a property is realized in some-thing”? Alexander may describe both a brilliant work of art and a fascinating new feminine friend as intriguing. The word ‘intriguing’ functions with a uni-vocal sense. But what it is that makes the painting intriguing and what it is that makes the woman intriguing are entirely different. The word ‘intriguing’ has a consistent meaning. Both the painting and the woman are intriguing. And yet the manner in which they are intriguing is radically different. Similarly, God’s creating differs from Van Gogh’s creating. Alexander can predicate an abstract property, “creative,” of both God and Van Gogh. The property is “being an agent and by the exercise of agency bringing something original into existence.” This property is univocal in the two statements, “God is creative” and “Van Gogh is creative.” But the modes of their being creative—how it is true that “God is creative” and “Van Gogh is creative”—differ totally.

Aquinas came close to this idea at several points.[21] He distinguished the property that a term signifies from the mode of the signifying. Regarding the property “good,” Thomas said that the concept signified of God and the human is common, but the manner in which it is signified is not. But Thomas did not follow up on this insight to create a space for certain kinds of univocal predication. In fact, in an important passage in Summa Contra Gentiles,[22] Thomas wrote that God’s simplicity eliminates univocity. He implied not only that God’s simplicity obstructs the mode of signifying but also that simplicity precludes a common meaning for the property that is signified. In other words, because of God’s simplicity, not only is the way in which goodness is ascribed to God different from how it is applied to a human, but further and more fundamentally, the very meaning of the property “goodness” differs as well. Due to simplicity, there is divergence both in how the property “goodness” applies to God and in what “goodness” is when applied to God. “The divine simplicity not only makes the forms of our speech inapt for talk about God (difference in mode of signifying) but also interferes with any identity of form between God and creature.”[23] So for Aquinas, we can at best attribute to God a more exalted version of the concept of goodness than we ascribe to humans. But we cannot really say what that exalted concept is.

Alston exploited the hint that Thomas suggested at some points, but denied elsewhere. To explain this, Alston adapted functionalism. In this context, the word ‘functionalism’ denotes a movement in contemporary philosophy of mind. It is at heart a theory regarding the meanings of psychological terms and the relation of these meanings to the core psychological processes the terms describe. A basic principle of functionalism is that a fundamental role of the psyche is to direct behavior. In functionalism, a psychological term from ordinary language means or refers to a specific function of the psyche. The terms ‘belief’ and ‘intention’, for example, simply mean whatever jobs the psycho-logical substructure accomplishes. So a belief is a structure that fulfills some function. Saying that Don believes the train will be on time ascribes to Don a structure of some sort that performs the function of regulating his actions with regard to, for example, getting to the train station at a certain time.

But here is the key point: functionalism remains agnostic about the nature or form of these structures. In functionalism, there is no relation between the meanings of the psychological terms and core psychological processes that underlie them. Functionalism offers no theory about the essential nature of the processes—either of a physical nervous system or of any spiritual soul—that produce psychological functions. It focuses exclusively on the doing of a job, and it does not speculate about how the job is done.

Take, for example, the lowly mousetrap. Not only does the mousetrap epitomize the idea of irreducible complexity for Michael Behe in Darwin’s Black Box, it also illustrates functionalism for us. Mousetraps catch mice. If an aspiring entrepreneur contrives a device and intends it as a catcher of mice (this excludes cats), then it is a mousetrap. But the device could be completely different than any mousetrap ever designed in the history of humankind—which is partly why hope springs eternal in the aspiring entrepreneur’s breast that he can build a better one. The fact that mousetraps can come in completely dis-similar designs is irrelevant to the meaning of the concept of a mousetrap. How two different mousetraps work could be completely dissimilar; mousetraps are mousetraps simply because they catch mice. So to call an artifact a mouse-trap—to predicate the positive property “mousetrapness” to a device—is to say nothing about its internal structures. We can call two radically different objects both mousetraps, even though they share nothing internal or structural, strictly because of their function. Similarly, in functionalism, psychological concepts are cashed out, not in terms of their internal processes, but entirely in terms of the ends they accomplish.[24]

To apply this to language about God, a functional property could apply both to God and to a creature even in the case where the structures for realizing that property differ radically. And it is likely true that a transcendent, infinite, qualitatively different, Wholly Other God will always, perhaps even necessarily, realize any properties entirely differently than I do. So I cannot know as God knows. I cannot even begin to form any idea of what God’s inner intellectual life is actually like because it is completely other than mine. (Does God make inferences from premises?) And yet it is still true that I can speak univocally of God knowing. It is still true that I apply the same concept “knowing” to God that I also apply to my friend.[25] The same might be said for other mental predicates and action predicates as well.

Consider a test case.[26] Suppose someone claims that because God is incorporeal, we cannot apply univocally the concept “act” both to God and to a physical being. As I explore whether it is appropriate and what it means to say that God acts, I compare God’s action to mine. As I act in the world, I move my body. I simultaneously push the “shift” key and the “g” key on my computer keyboard in the process of typing the word ‘God’. As I act, I change the world by moving my finger physically. But how does God act? How does God change the world when he has no literal finger to move? Because God has no body, God cannot act as I do. So how can I say that I can act in the world and God can act in the world in the same sense of the word ‘act’ when my action requires physical movement and God is an incorporeal being?[27]

This is just the kind of question that functionalism answers. The essential meaning of the word ‘act’ is “bringing about a change in the world—directly or indirectly—by an act of will, decision, or intention.” The core idea is not, and it need not include, the mechanism by which the change is caused. Moving a body part is the mechanism by which I act. It is not how God acts. But while body movement is essential to my way of acting, it is not part of the meaning of the concept “act.” Functionalism is neutral in regard to the structures or mechanisms that bring about that result. So the concept “act” can mean the same thing in regard to God and to us—even if the strategies or mechanisms by which God acts are entirely different from those we use to act, and even if God’s ways of acting are completely unknown to me. We can know negatively that the mysterious mechanism God employs is not physical. We may not know positively just what that mechanism is. But all of that is irrelevant to the fact that we meaningfully predicate the concept “act” univocally to God. We do know that God acts.[28]

Where does this leave the discussion? If Alston’s account succeeds, we can apply concepts univocally to God and creatures. This is informative speech about God. This does not entail that all human language about God is univocal or even that most of it is. Probably only the most abstract of concepts apply univocally. Think, for example, of the concept “believing.” There exists a significant difference between human believing and chimpanzee believing. Arriving at a concept that we can predicate univocally of both species of mammals might require us to abstract from the idea of “believing” every feature that distinguishes human believing and chimpanzee believing. What is left after the abstracting process will apply univocally to both human and beast. This concept may not exist in ordinary speech. It would instead be a technical concept. But why should that slow us down?

Someone might claim that such an abstracting process is impossible. But why in principle should this be so? What arguments show the impossibility of technical concepts of this sort? It seems plausible to think that we could form a concept of corporeality that abstracts out the differences between corruptible and incorruptible bodies, for example, and thus applies univocally to both.[29] This process produces concepts that we could predicate univocally to very different sorts of physical beings. It might be plausible to say that we can-not simply grab a concept out of its ordinary language context and apply it univocally to God. It could be that every word found in a natural language carries the contaminations of finitude that make it inapplicable to God. I concede that point. But we may still defend a modified univocity of concepts. Concepts that are defined in technical theological discourse or that emerge in the language of the church as it speaks precisely about God’s self-revelation in the Bible could apply univocally to God.[30]

Both Thomas’s fear of anthropomorphism in speaking of God and con-temporary theologians’ emphasis on God’s infinity push us to abandon univocal predication. But we have a complex set of strategies for retaining a univocal core in the technical concepts that we predicate both of God and of created beings. The univocal core remains, perhaps, after we purge them of finite or physical features. So, for example, the word ‘act’ in the sentence “God acts” could mean “bringing about a change in the world.” We may purge it of any implication that action must use a finite or physical means. Therefore God can act even though he lacks a body. Following this kind of strategy, we can predicate of God certain relevant concepts that come from the native environment of human personalistic language. We may have to disinfect those concepts by abstracting any elements that are entailed by finite human features or that are inconsistent with other properties God possesses—especially infinity, incorporeality, and eternality. But in the end, even if the concepts taken directly from a natural language do not apply directly to God, at the least we can create technical concepts that will apply univocally of God and created beings. In this way, we can speak informatively of God.

II. CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES

Although philosophers offer ways to think about predicating univocal concepts of God, contemporary theologians remain unconvinced. Because many theologians reject the univocal predication of concepts of an infinite God, they offer, not surprisingly, a welter of accounts that campaign for models, symbols, parables, narratives, and metaphors as the favored mode of speech about God. In other words, most contemporary theological theories about religious language move to non-literal modes of speech about God. Whatever religious language is, it is not informative speech about God.

A. Univocity and Literality

Before touching on figurative language about God, however, I need to take a small excursion on the relationship between univocity and literality. It is tempting to think that ‘univocal’ and ‘literal’ denote the same idea. Similarly, it is easy to presume that ‘analogical’ and ‘figurative’ are the same concepts. But neither of these assumptions is quite right. In saying that finite language used of God describes God by analogy, Thomas is neither denying literal predication nor affirming that all language about God is metaphor.[31] The distinction between univocal predication and analogical predication is in the relation between the meaning of the term as applied to God and the meaning of the term as applied to the creature. In analogical predication, the sense of the term as applied to God and the sense of the term as applied to the creature are similar but not identical. In univocal predication, the two senses are identical. The mode of the two predications of a univocal term may differ completely. How the term is applied in the two cases will always differ. But in univocal predication, the term itself possesses the same denotation in the two applications. The word ‘creator’ expresses the same meaning when I apply it to God and when I apply it to Van Gogh, even though the modes of predication differ completely.

The contrast between literal language and figurative language attaches to a different issue. Literal language uses words and phrases in their native linguistic habitat. Literal speech is language used in the ordinary sense. The literal sense of language is what first comes to a native speaker’s mind, unless some contextual clue suggests an out-of-the-ordinary sense. The literal sense of a word is the sense that native speakers will presume that it has in the absence of any contextual information to the contrary. The literal sense is its default meaning.

If I say that the soldiers marched down the street in the parade, I speak literally. If I read some poetry that speaks of a line of trees marching across a snowy field, I do not take it literally. Now if someone mentions that after the fight in the sixth-grade classroom, Mrs. McWilliams marched Johnny straight down to the principal’s office, I will probably take this non-literally. But I would plausibly take Johnny’s “marching” as a borderline case, as somehow closer, in some undefined way, to the “marching” of the soldiers than to the “marching” of the trees. This suggests that a sharp line of demarcation between literal and non-literal language might elude us. Still, in clear cases, literality is language functioning in one of its normal, ordinary, or usual senses. Figurative speech is language used in some non-ordinary way. This implies that there is a community of speakers whose custom determines what counts as an ordinary sense. And over time, since language changes, what counts as ordinary can shift. This potential for change is another reason why there is no absolute criterion that will enable us to decide whether or not a particular borderline usage of some word is literal.

Literality is not equivalent to truth. In everyday speech, people commonly identify these two ideas. Millard Erickson told me once about a sports announcer who got so excited about a football team playing with great passion that he shouted into his microphone, “This team is literally on fire!” The philosophers in his audience found themselves hoping that the team was not literally on fire, but only figuratively so. The word ‘literal’, in this case, functioned to make the statement more assertive—as a way of (non-literally) pounding the pulpit when making the assertion. Many Christians say the same thing about the Bible. They say that the Bible is literally true. What they mean is that the Bible is really, really true. The sense of the concept “literality” that I am discussing is not the equivalent of the concept “true.” If I say “John Kennedy died in 1936,” I speak literally. That is not figurative speech. I am using terms like ‘John Kennedy’, ‘died’, and ‘1936’ in their native linguistic habitat. But the fact that I speak literally does not entail that I speak truly. Obviously, John Kennedy died in 1963. [32]

Saying that a particular locution or symbol is being used literally does not entail that it has an eternal and unchangeable meaning. The specific signs and symbols of any natural language change. ‘Let’ in English, based on the Anglo-Saxon lettan (“to make late”), once upon a time meant “to hinder” or “to obstruct.” (See 2 Thes 2:7 in the KJV.) Today, based on the Anglo-Saxon laetan (“to leave behind”), ‘let’ has a nearly opposite meaning, “to permit” or “to allow.” (A properly indexed token statement, on the other hand, has an eternally unchangeable truth value, but that is a different point.) Perhaps many, or even all, natural expressions arose out of figurative language.[33] But expressions that were once literal can become figurative and vice versa. “Keep the home fires burning,” as I understand it, used to mean that a member of a tribal family would stay behind to keep a fire going in the home on the belief that a fire would ward off evil spirits. Today, when warding off evil spirits is no longer a top pri-ority, people still speak of keeping the home fires burning. But this does not refer to an actually burning fire, but only to someone’s staying home while others make a trip. Conversely, phrasing that begins in a metaphoric context could become so commonplace that native speakers begin taking it as literal speech.

To show that ‘univocal’ and ‘literal’ are not the same and that ‘analogical’ and ‘figurative’ do not denote the same thing, I offer a few counter-examples. On the one hand, we may imagine certain metaphors applying univocally both to God and to human persons. Deuteronomy 32:18 says, “You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.” Calling God ‘Rock’ means that God is solid and dependable. Or, calling a particularly reliable human leader, say the rugged captain of a championship football team, ‘Rock’, intends to say that he, too, is solid and reliable. The manner in which God and Number 65 are rock-like will differ, but the univocal core sense of the word ‘rock’ may not. This example is univocal, but not literal.

On the other hand, we can imagine some literal speech that applies ana-logically to God. Suppose the minutes of an ordination meeting tell us that the Ordaining Council laid hands on Pastor McCarthy. This means the Ordaining Council literally consecrated the candidate by literally laying hands on him. Someone might also properly say that God laid his hands on Pastor McCarthy, meaning that God consecrated the candidate. Both the Council and God consecrated him. But the literal dimension of the phrase ‘lay hands on’—physically touching him—will be part of the meaning of that locution when it describes the Council’s action. (Given our linguistic practice, speak-ing of the Council laying hands on Pastor McCarthy in consecration will include the idea that they physically touched him.) But necessarily, the literal dimension of the phrase ‘lay hands on’ could not be part of the meaning of this locution when it describes God’s act. (There is no way we could speak of God physically touching Pastor McCarthy with his hand.) So the Council laid hands on Pastor McCarthy literally, and by analogical extension, God did so figuratively. In this example, the words ‘lay hands on’ function analogically, and yet the Council’s act was literal.

B. Symbol, Narrative, and Metaphor

The reigning orientation in the theological academy is that religious language is wholly non-literal. Contemporary theologians outside the evangelical world usually say that all language about God is symbol, narrative, or metaphor. The sheer volume of discussions about these non-literal modes of religious speech is overwhelming. So a full account of all the possibilities, let alone critical comment, is flatly impossible. I can only suggest a few centrally important theses. (1) Non-literal forms of speech about God are wholly acceptable. The Bible itself is full of them. Philosophers have a bias against figurative language, but wrongly so. (2) Figurative speech is not annoying, unnecessary ornamentation. It plays its own very important role in language and in theology. Non-literal speech does things literal speech cannot do. (3) It is unnecessary to decide between literal, abstract, and theoretical language on the one hand and symbol, metaphor, and narrative on the other as to which is more basic. It may not even be possible to decide in a non-arbitrary way which one is more fundamental. It is best to say that reality is most basic. Both literal speech and non-literal language are mediums by which humans engage and apprehend reality. Regarding God and the life of faith, both literal language and figurative language are crucial. (4) Evangelical theology must maintain literal speech about God. Translating non-literal speech into literal language enables us to judge truth values in figurative modes of speech. It is also critical to retain figurative language—poetry, narrative, metaphor—for these speak the language of the soul.[34] It is critical both that concrete religious language has transforming power, and also that the transformation proceeds in line with truth.

A prominent account of non-literal religious language is Paul Tillich’s. Tillich said that (almost) all religious language is symbol, and he held this view for the usual reason: the radical uniqueness of God. Tillich denied virtually all—but not absolutely all—literal predication of God. The words ‘almost’ and ‘virtually’ are very important here. Tillich did allow that one statement is not symbolic, namely, the assertion that God is “being-itself.”[35] Other than that one statement, however, all language about God is symbolic. It is instructive that Tillich makes this point. He understood the implausibility of saying that all language is non-literal.

For Tillich, the purpose of symbol is not description. Symbols enable us to encounter God in our experience. So symbolic statements are not straightforwardly true or false. They do not stand in the normal relationships with each other—relations like entailment or contradiction. In other words, “God is love” need not contradict “God is indifferent,” if both statements are symbolic. [36] If a symbolic assertion like “God is love” is true, this means that it successfully evokes an experience of God for some person or group. (Of course, different symbols can affect different people in different ways, so the same symbols could be true for one person and false for another.) The role of religious language is to open up human lives to experience of the transcendent—“being-itself” or the “ground of being.”

Yet in spite of his radical assertion of God’s infinite transcendence, Tillich also said that all finite things participate in being-itself. In other words, God unconditionally includes within himself (or itself?) everything that exists in a dynamic process. Tillich apparently meant these statements literally; it is hard to imagine what else they could mean. But the apparent contradiction of saying God is infinitely transcendent and also includes everything within himself confuses even sympathetic interpreters.[37] Of course, if the function of symbol is not informative but evocative, then tensions between literal renderings of Tillich’s words about transcendence and immanence dissolve. If symbols do not say anything, then they could hardly say something that logically contradicts what other symbols say.

Or consider a case where a religious symbol evokes in someone a feeling of hatred for all who do not share his faith. I assume Tillich would agree this makes that symbol “false” (in Tillich’s sense). But saying that this religious symbol is “false” for this person entails that something else is true in a correspondence sense. It requires, as a presupposition, that hatred for those who fol-low a different religion actually is evil. A proposition that expresses this fact must be true in some non-literal way. But how could the one literal statement, “God is being-itself,” provide the content needed for determining that hatred of those who follow a different religion is evil? So to judge whether a symbol is “false” (in Tillich’s sense), we need to know (as non-symbolically true) certain other theological truths. It seems we do need literal language.

Just as Tillich appeals to the symbolic nature of (virtually) all religious speech, so another movement in theology—narrative theology—emphasizes non-literal religious language. Narrative theology is not a particular view of theology, but more an approach to theology that gives “categorical preference for story over explanation as a vehicle of understanding.”[38] Many trace the origins of narrativism to H. Richard Niebuhr’s essay, “The Story of Our Lives,” which emphasized the early church’s stories as the locus of revelation. In telling stories, the church did not merely recite objective facts. The early Christians participated in the events, they entered the story line so that their own personal lives made sense as subplots in the larger story of God’s redemptive work. The events became an “internal history, the story of what happened to us, the living memory of the community.”[39]

Narrativists in theology will value theology rooted more directly in the con-crete biblical story and the specifics of Christian history over against philosophical theology that traffics in abstract conceptions. That is a valuable corrective. Despite general agreement on the value of concrete narrative, how-ever, narrativists use ‘narrative’ in quite varied ways. Sorting them out has become, said one observer, a cottage industry.[40] One common interpretation distinguishes two poles of narrative theology.[41] Gathering at one pole are those from the so-called Yale school who stress the uniqueness of Christian life and thought in contrast to the categories of modernism. More Barthian in spirit, these “pure” narrativists like Hans Frei, George Lindbeck (see chapter 1), and Stanley Hauerwas declare the independence of theology from Enlightenment-inspired thinking. Converging toward the other pole are those who are more open to engaging the categories of the modern world. More Tillichian in spirit, these “impure” narrativists like Paul Ricoeur, David Tracy, and Sallie McFague want theology to draw connections with the rest of what the modern world accepts as true.[42]

In chapter 7, I discussed five moments of theological encounter with reality: engagement, discovery, testing, integration, and communication. Because they prefer story to explanation,[43] narrativists will probably see the second and third moments, discovery and testing, as decidedly secondary to the concrete language that comes to the fore in integration and communication. Discovery and testing explicitly seek theoretic explanation. From a narrativist’s view-point, these activities tend to run roughshod over the specifics of the biblical story, replacing the evocative words of the Bible with philosophical propositions that are alien to genuine Christian life. And one of the main agendas for narrative theology is precisely to break the grip that theoretical propositions and abstract concepts have over story in theology. Due to what is valid about narrativism, I do not mean to say, by distinguishing these moments of theological reflection, that discovery and testing are somehow more primal, more foundational to theology than story. I do not mean to relegate concrete language—the metaphors and stories of the Bible—to a secondary, merely orna-mental role. Neither the abstractions of discovery and testing nor the stories useful in integration and communication have a monopoly on religious language. Neither, it seems to me, is more basic to our thinking or experience of God’s world.

Recall the dual nature of theology as both scientia and sapientia. Since the purposes of theology rightly include discovering what really is true about God, his will, his ways, and his world, the abstracting processes of theory building—discovery and testing—are indispensable. For those who take a nonrealist approach to doctrine, who adopt an entirely functionalist account of theology, truth seeking—the task of seeking truth about God in the sense of correspondence—is beyond unimportant. It is impossible. On this view, theological language does not describe spiritual things as such. Rather, its function is solely to shape our lives and transform our communities. For a nonrealist view of things, the theoretical processes included in discovery and testing are counter-productive to the aims of theology. Now I agree that theology does have the transformative role that narrativists ascribe it. But theology also rightly has a theoretic/explanatory role. And these two work together. I am shaped by the reality that is genuinely mediated to us both through abstract propositions and through evocative stories.

Sober narrativists caution against overstatement. Narrativist theologian William Placher summarizes in this way:

Christian theologians ought to avoid letting philosophers or anyone else set their agendas or the rules for their activity. . . . postliberal theologians have brought this into clear theological focus. Sometimes, how-ever, that emphasis risks sounding like radical relativism—like the claim that Christian doctrines express merely the rules for talking within the Christian community. Other communities, other rules—and no onto-logical claims, one way or the other.

Then he adds, “Going that far is a mistake.”[44] Placher is right. Going that far is a colossal mistake from which evangelical theology would never recover. Evangelical theology irrevocably makes ontological claims. It is neither the stories nor the doctrines in themselves that provide the spiritual life that empowers our lives. It is the actual Father and God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jesus Christ who died in space and time, and the indwelling Holy Spirit who operate in actual twenty-first-century history, who bring spiritual reality to bear in our hearts. God’s presence is mediated to us through concrete language to be sure, but it is God himself who saves. God, not stories, redeems us. Narrative theology, then, is right to defend the power of concrete, figurative, and creative modes of theological expression. I support a modest narrativism that insists on the necessity of the Christian story. But it is both unwarranted and unwise, in the very next breath, to abandon theoretic work or, worse yet, to lurch into a nonrealist account of theology. There is, of course, all the difference in the world between saying that theory-building is not the only important task of theology and saying that theory-building is irrelevant to the task of theology. Narrativism is valid so long as it is clear to say that the language of theology and the stories of the Bible are not themselves the source of the power we so desperately need to live in our time.

Another strategy emphasizing non-literal speech is a cluster of views that emphasize metaphor. Reflection on metaphor goes back at least to Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle, for example, said that a metaphor takes the name of one object and gives it to another object.[45] He saw figurative language serving styl-istic, rhetorical, or didactic purposes, and he held that figurative language is translatable into a literal paraphrase that preserves cognitive meaning. Later thinkers adopted Aristotle’s general orientation. Cicero held, for example, that metaphor is an inferior type of comparison.[46] In the modern era, Thomas Hobbes produced a “literal-truth paradigm.” He held that human concepts are essentially literal. Literality is necessary for accurate communication and assessment of truth; metaphor is a deviant mode of speech.[47] George Berkeley asserted, “a philosopher should abstain from metaphor.”[48] In the twentieth century, positivists followed the spirit of Hobbes’s literal-truth paradigm by classifying metaphor as unverifiable, emotive speech.

Along the way, thinkers like Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed more positive accounts of metaphor. But it was Friedrich Nietzsche who launched a genuine counter-offensive to the literal-truth paradigm. Nietzsche argued that all human thought, experience, and conceptual activity is fundamentally metaphoric. He held, in other words, that humans actually encounter reality metaphorically. In the next century, with the demise of positivism, philosophers began to explore more carefully the inner workings of Nietzsche’s proposals regarding metaphor. I. A. Richards wrote a seminal treat-THEOLOGICAL ment on metaphor, arguing that metaphor is not merely a figurative appendage or stylistic overlay to literal words or sentences. Like Nietzsche, he said that metaphor is the fundamental mode of human thought. In Richards’s view, metaphor brings “two thoughts of different things active together and supported by a single word, or phrase, whose meaning is a resultant of their interaction.”[49]

Richards influenced Max Black, who then developed the “interaction theory” of metaphor. In this theory, a metaphor, “a is b,” causes the attributes or qualities typically associated with object a to interact with those connected to object b. That is, the commonly associated properties and relations of a inter-act with those of b to form “emergent metaphorical meaning.”[50] “The ‘inter-action’ is a screening of one system of commonplaces by another to generate a new conceptual organization of, a new perspective on, some object.”[51] A metaphor is a linguistic odd couple. It places two unrelated words next to each other, and by allowing them to interact, it creates new meanings. According to interaction theory, literal language cannot create new meaning in this way. Literal language never fully captures the new metaphoric meaning that an interaction produces. For this reason, metaphors are irreducible and untranslatable. We cannot reduce or translate what a metaphor expresses back into a literal locution. The literal utterance always misses the metaphoric meaning. Only metaphors retain the new metaphoric meaning.

The interaction theory stands in contrast to the “comparison theory” (and its cousin, “substitution theory”).[52] According to comparison theory, a statement like “a is b” simply compares two concepts, a and b. So “the meaning of the metaphor is a literal set of relevant similarities picked out by the context of the utterance.”[53] In other words, a and b have some common characteristics that a native speaker identifies by looking at context. A metaphor is essentially a simile, only without the words ‘like’ or ‘as’. To utter a sentence like “Bill is a gorilla” is to say that in certain ways, Bill (in the literal sense of ‘Bill’) is like a gorilla (in the literal sense of ‘gorilla’). Based on background knowledge, and looking to context, native English speakers can discern just exactly how Bill is like a gorilla. If Bill is playing golf, it probably means that he can hit the ball a long way. It probably does not mean that he has dark hair covering his entire body. According to comparison theory, a native speaker can substitute literal language for the metaphor and still say what the metaphor said. So she translates the metaphorical statement “Bill is a gorilla” into the literal statement “Bill hits the golf ball a long way.” This does not imply that a literal statement can do everything a metaphor can do. It definitely cannot. But it does mean that a literal statement can say the propositional content of a metaphor. That is, literal language can express the cognitive dimension of a metaphor. The statement translates the metaphor; the metaphor is reduced to a literal statement. Thus, a metaphor is translatable or reducible.

Black criticized the comparison theory. He noted that the comparison theory “suffers from a vagueness that borders on vacuity.” Any two objects in the universe will share some features; they can always share negative properties. For instance, both a redwood tree and a red dress share the property, “not a swordfish.” Since we can compare any two objects negatively in an infinite number of ways, how do we decide just what point of comparison a particular metaphor emphasizes? How can comparison theory provide rules or pro-cedures by which to pick out the relevant similarities between the terms in a metaphorical utterance?

It is true that the specific point of some metaphors is just obscure. If God is the Rock of our salvation (Ps 89:26), then some feature of rock-likeness is applied figuratively to God. But which one? Although we do not have specific and foolproof rules for determining which feature of the created object God possesses, natural speakers can typically use background information to sort through the possibilities and understand the communicative purpose of the metaphor. But a parallel critique applies to interaction theory. The main critique against interaction theory points to its seeming lack of detail in explaining just how concepts interact to form new meaning. Philosophers since Black who adopt his interaction theory have worked to posit just how the mechanism of metaphor works to create new meaning and insight.[54] That discussion continues.

Now it might seem that the debate between interaction theory and comparison theory is merely academic. But for a discussion of religious language, it is critical that metaphor is translatable—that figurative speech is reducible to literal language. Can we express the propositional content of various kinds of figurative religious speech in literal terms? Interaction theory says not. If interaction theory is the best view of metaphor and if all language about God is figurative—metaphor, poetry, narrative, and symbol—then it appears that the informative character of religious language is lost. This is the heart of “panmetaphoricism” regarding speech about God. Panmetaphoricism includes two ideas: first, all theological language is metaphorical; and second, all metaphor is irreducible to literal speech.

Now if panmetaphoricism is true, and all religious speech is irreducible metaphor, then severe implications follow for evangelical theology. There is an oft-cited statement, “the poet never affirms and therefore never lies.”[55] If this is true of theological speech, then we do not have knowledge of God. If all theology is metaphor and all metaphor is irreducible to literal speech, then theology does not assert anything about God. Or theology does not affirm anything of the sort that we humans are able to grasp intellectually. But as evangelicals, we assume that we are informed about God. Scripture is God’s self-witness; in it he speaks about himself. We presume that religious language does refer to God—never perfectly, but still truly. This referring of our language to God is critical. Without intelligible truth values, the language of Scripture cannot con-trol our thinking, and the notion of the authority of Scripture loses all practical relevance. So the nature of metaphor and the validity of panmetaphoricism are important questions for evangelical theology.

What happens when literal speech does not control our use of theological metaphor? The theology of Sallie McFague offers an interesting case study. McFague is known for her work in models and metaphors in theology: Speaking in Parables (1975),[56] Metaphorical Theology (1982), Models of God (1987),[57] The Body of God (1993),[58] and most recently Life Abundant (2001).[59] McFague’s agenda has evolved into a program to render Christian teaching relevant to a contemporary world shaped by the threats of ecological catastrophe and nuclear war. In this she explicitly heeds the call of Gordon Kaufman (in Theology for a Nuclear Age) that the contemporary time requires a new way of thinking about our faith.

In Speaking in Parables (1975), McFague said theology must take Jesus’ use of the parable as its paradigm. This puts metaphor at the center of theology. She defined ‘metaphor’ largely by following the interaction theory (though with some inconsistency).[60] Metaphor is a word or phrase used in a novel way to evoke new understandings. It pushes us beyond the normal view of things so that we see our world in a fresh light. Metaphors are irreducible to literal comparisons, but necessary to theology. So as theologians, we should not bypass biblical metaphors. We cannot express the essence of the gospel if we ignore the parables and images of Scripture—especially if we overlook the story of Christ’s death, argued McFague.

With Metaphorical Theology (1982), however, McFague introduced a fem-inist concern. She tackled the problem of literalizing the patriarchal metaphor for God—God as Father. And she offered an alternative biblical theme, God as friend (although she acknowledged the limits of even that model). And the book reiterated that metaphor is untranslatable, ending with the words, “when we try to speak of God there is nothing which resembles what we can conceive when we say that word.”[61]

Then, in Models of God (1987) McFague began claiming that biblical language is outmoded and must be reinterpreted, for theology must speak to our contemporary context. The Body of God (1993) stressed yet a different set of themes. Finally, in her most recent work, Life Abundant (2001), McFague said that the Christian faith affirms all life. In this work, she focused on ecological economic concerns as the heart of the biblical meaning. The gospel just is—it is redefined in terms of—the moral imperatives of ecological sensitivity and economic justice. These, it turns out, are the essence of salvation—of abundant life.[62]

McFague’s journey is fascinating. She began with and has stayed with the view that all theology is metaphor. Metaphor is the only song theology can sing. This is panmetaphoricism.[63] How has panmetaphoricism functioned in McFague’s work? As her journey has unfolded, it appears she has meandered away from biblical roots. So panmetaphoricism has functioned practically to allow a decoupling of theology from the teachings of Scripture. At first, McFague emphasized the parables and images of Scripture, including especially the story of Christ’s death. But then she began exploring feminist concerns with “God as Father” language, sensing a need to reinterpret that language. By 1987, she considered biblical language outmoded. Finally, she presented ecological and economic concerns as the essence of the gospel. But it is an open question whether Life Abundant connects the contemporary issue integrally with actual biblical teaching. It seems rather to use a biblical motif as a launch-ing pad to reflect on a very important issue in terms of contemporary plausibility structures. The idea that all theology is metaphor sanctions an emptying of a biblical phrase in preparation for refilling it with contemporary content. Does this seem like a journey that has lost its biblical mooring?

So there is a caution here. The lesson of this case study, at the minimum, is that there is a danger that panmetaphoricism cannot guard against. The dan-ger is that panmetaphoricism allows conceptually unregulated redefinitions of biblical concepts and historic Christian doctrines. This in turn permits doctrine to function like a mirror that reflects back contemporary cultural concerns. The theology that emerges from this procedure, without the regulating impact of meaningful biblical teaching, tends to mimic contemporary agendas. Panmetaphoricism can become, in the worst case, a kind of failed contextualization that unhinges theology from Scripture. Albert Schweitzer noted a century ago that each Jesus presented in successive “Life of Jesus” projects bore an uncanny resemblance to its author.[64] In a similar way, it appears that as McFague’s spiritual journey progresses, her reinterpretations of biblical motifs increasingly bear an uncanny resemblance to political agendas in contemporary America.

To be clear, I have only hinted at my suspicions about McFague’s journey. But if these suspicions were confirmed, they would lead to the question: Should evangelical theology abandon the use of metaphoric language in theology? Should those who believe that God speaks in Scripture give literality pride of place? The answer is No! Philosophers, said William Lycan, “like language to be literal.”[65] Lycan spent thirteen chapters on literal reference and meaning before turning to metaphor at the end of his study. But we ought not follow the literal-truth paradigm. Clearly, metaphor and other forms of non-literal speech play a prominent role in Scripture. A proper use of figurative language in connection with literal language is not only acceptable but essential if theology is to fulfill its purposes as sapientia. The problem, then, is not with fig-urative language perse, but with panmetaphoricism. This is the theory that all theology is metaphor and all metaphor is uninformative regarding God.

C. The Problems with Panmetaphoricism

I regard panmetaphoricism as a serious mistake. Here are four reasons why. First, contentful knowledge of God is a nonnegotiable feature of evangelical thought. We hold—and we should hold—that religious language is informative about God. We are not satisfied with evoking emotions of certain kinds or encouraging behaviors of certain sorts. We agree that right feelings and actions are essential. But there is more to the life of faith than emotions and behaviors. At its core, the faith experience means being invited into an actual, personal relationship with the triune God. If we would understand this in a realist way, it requires that personal predicates—mental predicates (like thoughts and attitudes) and action predicates (like creating and listening)—attach to God. Scripture itself makes these sorts of claims about God. And if Christians expe-rience actual personal relationships with God (and do not just live in linguistically constructed worlds by speaking and acting as though a God actually existed), then God must possess the sorts of capacities that these mental and action predicates describe.

We should remain metaphysically unrepentant. The Bible says that God created the world precisely because God actually and literally did create the world. Negatively, ascribing ‘creator’ literally to God does not mean anything other than that God, by exercise of his will, brought this world into being and gave it the parameters within which it now operates. How God did that is completely beyond our ken; that he did is not. If someone affirms panmetaphori-cism, denies informative knowledge about God and his ways, and commits to some form of alethic nonrealism, then he abandons evangelical thought. A per-son who walks this path will take a different road than the great doctors of the church and present-day evangelical followers of Christ. Of course, it is possible that historic Christian faith and contemporary evangelical theology are entirely wrong here. Perhaps no one really enjoys a personal love relationship with “the God who is there,” as Francis Schaeffer put it.[66] Maybe Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud were right. (As an aside, I think their reasons are wholly unconvincing, but this is not the place to make that case.) But I want to say here that evangelicalism assumes real relations between faithful believers and the living God. So it is good to get very clear: if panmetaphoricism were true and religious language were entirely uninformative, then historic Christianity and evangelicalism are hopelessly wrong.

Second, panmetaphoricism fails to take advantage of reasonable conceptions regarding metaphor and figurative language. In addition to Alston, thinkers like Richard Swinburne[67]and Janet Martin Soskice[68] offer helpful accounts of religious metaphor. We can integrate metaphor with abstract, literal, and theoretic truth without conceding panmetaphoricism. The conceptual tools philosophers offer do clarify how literal language can describe God. These tools—taken together with accounts of how (at least) technical concepts apply univocally to God and created objects—do allow for informative speech about God. These accounts do not require that all language about God is uni-vocal. Most, in fact, is probably not. Nor do these accounts require literal, univocal, or informative speech as the ideal, paradigmatic form of language. We can translate metaphor and still hold that metaphor does important things that literal language cannot do. Other accounts of metaphor mean we are not compelled to follow Ferré’s decision to give up on informative religious speech and then cast about for some nondescriptive role for religious language. Philosophical discussions of metaphor give alternatives to panmetaphoricism. [69]

Third, it is virtually impossible to avoid using literal language in theology. Some theologians defend metaphor, narrative, or some other form of non-literal speech as the only way to speak of God. But then they often (always?) give in to the overwhelming temptation to translate their symbols or metaphors into literal and univocal language. How truly difficult it is, when speaking of God, to avoid entirely the urge to interpret the symbols and metaphors literally. Liberals and evangelicals agree in interpreting figuratively the anthropomorphic language that speaks of God’s body parts, for example. But the liberals go further, assuming all theology is metaphor, and by this justify rejecting natural readings of the Bible and traditional interpretations of theology. They not only steer clear of talking about God’s hands. They also reject psychological or mental terms, concepts like “act” or “love,” that picture God as an agent. They say that they avoid literal speech about God in order not to fall into idolatry.[70]

Yet, theologians who insist that all religious language is metaphor will often forget their own prohibitions. They end up telling their readers what the sym-bols and metaphors really mean. This misdemeanor is virtually irresistible; at least I know of no one who successfully avoids it. It is instructive that Tillich could not say that absolutely all language of God is symbol. He did admit one literal statement: God is being-itself. So far, so good. But then he makes other statements like: “If we call God the ‘living God’ . . . we assert that He is the eternal process in which separation is posited and is overcome by reunion. In this sense, God lives.”[71] But this is literal. As Alston said, it seems we have caught Tillich with his “finger in the jam-pot of literal metaphysical interpretation.” [72] I call this the dirty pool fallacy.

Fourth, and most importantly, the translatability of metaphors into literal language enables us to uncover the relative merits of religious metaphors, not just in terms of evocative power but in regard to truth. Because we can trans-late metaphors into literal speech—because metaphors are reducible—we have strategies for regulating the use of the various sorts of evocative figures and narratives. The translation of figurative speech enables us to assess the truth value of figurative language. By translating metaphors about God into literal speech we determine, for instance, that it is true to say that God hears the prayers of his people even though he has no ears. Translatability and literality help us decide that “God eats sandwiches” is false. This may seem like an absurd example. But frankly, if metaphors have no discernible informative meaning, then we have no ground for deciding the suitability or unsuitability of any metaphor for God. Reducing metaphors to literal speech ruins the metaphor in one sense; the figurative speech loses its evocative and communicative power. But this reduction helps us discern that concepts like “shepherd” and “rock” are appropriate metaphors for God while “six of hearts,” “terrorist,” and “copilot” are not.

Now I admit this gets sticky. Judgments are always difficult in borderline cases. But not so in clear cases. I think that ‘rock’ obviously communicates truly of God and ‘terrorist’ clearly does not. In other words, the metaphorical statement “God is my Rock” is true. Metaphors—or at least their propositional content, or the propositions embedded in them—have truth value. We judge the truth value of a metaphor by considering the truth value of the literal statement into which we translate the metaphor. So suppose someone who needs to meet Don at the airport asks, “Is Don really tall?” Someone says, “Don’s a giraffe.” Now in fact, Don is 5'2''. Well, then no one should have any trouble judging that the metaphorical statement, “Don’s a giraffe,” is false. “Don’s a giraffe” means “Don’s tall,” and he is not.

Some examples are borderline cases. Is it correct to say, for example, “God is my copilot,” as the bumper sticker reads? That depends on how someone takes the figurative assertion. In the sense that God is with me throughout each day? Yes! In the sense that God will sit docilely in the copilot’s seat while I grab the controls and fly the plane of my life? No! So the bumper sticker is debatable. Of course, it is debatable precisely because it can be taken plausibly to mean two different, literal things. This in itself involves translation of the metaphor; it is simply the case that metaphors sometimes have several plausible renditions. And we assess which is meant by the speaker by looking to con-text to discover which of the meanings the speaker intended. (The same principle applies generally to non-metaphors.) So in spite of some ambiguities, many cases are clear. God is not a terrorist. Obviously.

III. RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE AND SPEECH ACTS

As evangelical theologians, we should adopt alethic realism. Doctrines about God function to name, refer to, and describe—truly, but never perfectly—the actually existing ultimate spiritual Reality. We can retain a univocal core in our predication of God. Concepts—at least technical concepts—retain the same sense when applied to God and to created objects, even though the mode of application will differ. And we must hold to literal description without diminishing the importance of figurative language. If we as evangelicals do not retain these commitments in the spirit of a critical realism, we sell our theological birthright for a pot of linguistic porridge. Christian theological language speaks of a real, extra-mental Reality whose name is God, who alone will res-cue and redeem us.

While I express strong commitment to referential theological language, description is not the only legitimate function of language. The idea that language’s primary function is to describe, or that all meaningful language is descriptive, is a vestige, in various ways, of views like scientism (see chapter 8), empiricism, and positivism. But these theories are bankrupt. Still they influence assumptions about theological language. Conservatives are tempted to assume that theology’s full role is to give propositional descriptions of God and God’s ways (what Lindbeck called the propositional-cognitivist view of doctrine). Liberals are enticed to think that theology cannot describe transcendent Reality at all. So religious language is put to work as a vehicle to express human religious experience (the experiential-expressivist theory of doctrine). Today, theologians find value in the role of religious language as that which shapes a community (the cultural-linguistic account).[73]

Wisdom, I believe, dictates that we not limit theological language to any one of these roles.[74] Happily, it is possible to escape the dilemma and bring together the best of all these worlds. What is called the “speech act theory” of language offers a more robust way to understand language. It allows a holistic model in which religious language can perform several different roles. Evangelical theology can gain important explanatory advantages by adopting some version of this view.

Speech act theory flows from the ordinary language wing of analytic philosophy. It is most closely associated with J. L. Austin[75] and John Searle.[76] Evangelical theologians like Kevin Vanhoozer[77] and Nancey Murphy,[78] as well as philosophers like William Alston[79] and Richard Swinburne,[80] have appropriated speech act theory to understand religious language. I cannot give any-thing like a full account of speech act theory here, but I believe it offers extraordinary promise for evangelical theology. Its central insight is instructive: language does many things. The paradigmatic function of language is not to say things, but to do things. Some communicative acts do say things by using statements that embed propositions. For example, “Abraham Lincoln was our sixteenth president.” But language can rightly do other things than say things about the world. Language expresses feelings. Such utterances do not actually describe the world in any way, but they are meaningful. “Wow!” yells the teenager after surviving a trip on the world’s wildest roller coaster. This is expressive, not descriptive. (Now we can infer, “The teenager thought the ride was exciting.” But that is what we infer from the exclamation. It is not the meaning of the exclamation. This is like inferring, from the fact that a person is shivering, that she is cold.) So the fact that language does things is a more basic, a more comprehensive fact about language. On this account, saying things about the world is one thing language does, but not the only thing it does—or even the most important thing it does.

Speech act theory interprets utterances holistically. An individual communicative act involves a system of dimensions. Whenever someone utters a sen-tence, she is doing something. Sometimes she is saying something; that is, she is uttering a statement and thereby seeking to tell how things really are (in the sense of correspondence). These are sentences in the indicative mood, and they do meaningfully but imperfectly picture reality. Embedded in the total linguis-tic act of uttering a statement is its descriptive content, the proposition. But the linguistic act generally includes something more than the propositional con-THEOLOGICAL tent. In some statements, this something more could be as important as, or even more important than, the proposition itself.

But not all utterances embed propositions. According to speech act theory, language rightly accomplishes a variety of tasks. On one analysis, sentences can accomplish five primary things. (1) Some utterances tell people what is the case (statements). (2) Some try to get people to do things (commands). (3) Others commit the speaker to doing certain things (promises). (4) Still others express feelings or attitudes (exclamations). (5) Finally, some change realities (performatives). [81] All five different kinds of utterances are proper linguistic acts. Nondescriptive utterances are neither more nor less important and valid than descriptive utterances. Still, speech act theory rejects the claim that no utterances say something. Reference is possible.

Some perfectly acceptable theological speech acts have a completely legitimate function even though they have no referential purpose. Utterances that lack descriptive content do not have a truth value as such. So these utterances are neither true nor false in the sense that they succeed or fail to correspond to real states of affairs. But they are important linguistic acts, and contrary to positivism’s claim, they are meaningful. For example, consider the exclamation, “Yeah, Vikings!” Its purpose is to express the speaker’s feelings. It makes no sense to ask whether the sentence is true. Suppose Paul and Rachel are at the Metrodome in Minneapolis cheering for the Vikings. Paul yells, “Yeah, Vikings!” The point of his utterance is to convey his feeling of joy that Randy Moss has just scored a touchdown. Paul’s point is not conveying to Rachel the information: “Moss scored a touchdown.” Assuming Rachel has her head in the game, she already knows that. If her mind is wandering, Paul’s exclamation will enable her to infer that information. Still, it is not Paul’s intention to tell Rachel how things are. He is emoting, expressing how he feels. So is “Yeah, Vikings!” true? No. “Paul is excited about the touchdown” is true. So is “Moss scored a touchdown.” The latter two sentences tell what is the case, and they may or may not do other things. But Paul would never intend “Paul is excited about the touchdown” to do the same thing as the perfectly legitimate natural utterance, “Yeah, Vikings!” So some nondescriptive utterances are perfectly in order.

Speech act drives a middle road between strict modernism and deconstruc-tive postmodernism. On the one hand, modernist empiricism and positivism erred in making description the key function (or the only task) of meaningful language, and they disparaged language that does other things. This is in line with the literal-truth paradigm. Contrary to this, the nondescriptive functions of language are perfectly in order. Speech act theory preserves these other functions by shifting the focus away from the view that all utterances (or all important utterances) say something. That is, it does not privilege description. Speech act theory recognizes that utterances are perfectly in order even if they do something other than describe.

On the other hand, certain forms of postmodernism follow an alethic non-realism that errs in disparaging descriptive language. Just as it is wrong to denigrate non-empirical language, so it is wrong to turn the tables and give theological language every function but description. Various theories that prefer nondescriptive language entail that religious language commands, expresses, performs, and promises, but does not describe. In this spirit, Paul van Buren wrote, “the word ‘God’ marks the point at which the religious man has come up against the final limit of what he can say about the object of his concern.”[82] But the descriptive functions of theological language are also perfectly proper. Both limiting religious language to description and rejecting meaningful religious description are caught in an illicit, either/or vortex: language is either entirely descriptive or not at all descriptive. This either/or is a vestige of previous errors. It offers theology only the noncog-nitive crumbs from the rich man’s empiricist table. To change my metaphor, modernist empiricism allows descriptively true theology to hang onto the rock face by its fingernails—or watches in delight as it falls off the cliff entirely. If we reject the vortex completely, however, we can say theology does many things well, and description—including the predication of concepts to God—is one of the things it does.

If language is supposed to do something, what counts as success? Austin delineated three technical terms. First, speech act theory defines a “locution-ary act” as the use of an utterance with a definite sense and reference. Second, every act of communication also has “illocutionary force.” This is the effect the speaker hopes to accomplish in uttering the sentence. Not every utterance has descriptive content, but each one has illocutionary force. A speaker is always trying to do something. (In chapter 2, I suggested we unpack the idea of authorial intent in biblical hermeneutics in terms of illocutionary force. The idea of authorial intent denotes what a speaker or writer seeks to accomplish through a communication act.) Third, acts of communication also have “perlocutionary force.” Perlocutionary force is whatever the utterer actually communicates through the utterance. For instance, if Bill says to his teenaged son, “Shovel the driveway,” the illocutionary force is Bill’s expressing his desire that his son grab the shovel and relocate the snow. Bill is not exchanging information; he is not telling his son how things are. He is trying to communicate to his son. The perlocutionary force obtains if Bill’s son understands what his father is attempting to get him to do. Whether Bill’s son actually shovels snow is another thing. Unfortunately for Bill, he could succeed quite effectively in getting his point across, and the son might still decide not to exert any effort with the shovel.[83]

The difference between a message and what Deborah Tannen called a “metamessage” shows how locutions can have illocutionary force.[84] Tannen offered this case. As Diane and Jim explore a restaurant menu, Jim decides on a large steak.

“Did you notice the flounder?” asks Diane.

“Will you stop criticizing me?” Jim retorts.

“I’m not criticizing you. I just thought you might like something else.”

In asking whether Jim notices the flounder, what is Diane really doing? Is she simply giving Jim information about the menu? Or is she in fact launch-ing a critical harpoon at her chubby, cholesterol-laden husband? When Jim reacts to the barb, Diane retreats to her straightforward and literal words. She claims that, according to her literal words, she was only being helpful. But people who know each other well bring a lot of history into a conversation, and their words echo with overtones of purpose and intention. In this case, Jim feels criticized because he is tapping intuitively into these overtones. He knows Diane is not innocently offering a dinner suggestion. She is doing some-thing more. She is harping on him for eating too much red meat and having a cholesterol count of 305.

But it is easy to imagine a different illocutionary force connected with exactly the same locution. Notice the helpful waiter, who has no clue about Jim’s cholesterol count, could not care less about his waistline, and hopes by being helpful to earn a large tip. He might also say, “Did you notice the flounder?” The waiter performs an entirely different speech act than does Diane. So in unrelated contexts, as Tannen’s example shows, the same locutions embody different illocutions. Language includes purposive overtones that go beyond the propositional content of a sentence. Native speakers of language include a speaker’s intentions as an aspect of the force of any locution.

Speech act theory has many positive implications for religious language. First, as the previous example shows, even a speech act that refers to the world will include purposive overtones. So the descriptive content itself, abstracted as a proposition, is only one of the several dimensions of the speech act. Another aspect of an utterance is its emotional content and persuasive intent. This is essential for theology. Suppose Susan is speaking to Desiree, a prostitute locked in self-hatred. Using a voice choked with emotion, she says, “But Desiree, God really loves you!” Given her tone of voice and other nonverbal cues, it is obvious that Susan’s illocutionary intention is for Desiree to feel something, be touched by something—or Someone. The ordinary language utterance, full of emotion, does much more than say, “God really loves you,” in a manner that would allow Desiree to pass a theology quiz. In the total linguistic act, Susan says something that is descriptively true. But she also expresses her own strong feelings and through them seeks to persuade Desiree to adopt certain beliefs along with a corresponding set of emotions. All language is multidimensional. And all of these dimensions, not just the descriptive or propositional dimension, are important to religious language. This variety of dimensions allows theology to achieve its purpose of spiritual transformation.

Second, nondescriptive language communicates meaningfully. Positivism and empiricism equated meaning with verifiability. But against positivism, authors intend that the utterances they make will obviously mean something even when they are not subject to verification. Questions, for example, are meaningful. Consider “Did Christ die for all persons?” This question is not empirically verifiable, but it communicates something that is cognitively meaningful. Obviously, it must do so, or else how could someone give a meaning-ful answer, “Yes, Christ died for all people.” Or a command to my son, “Tyler, mow the lawn,” is meaningful. How else could he know that he is being asked to mow the lawn rather than to pick up his socks (which would not be a bad idea, by the way)? But “Tyler, mow the lawn” is not empirically verifiable. Recognizing that language has several legitimate functions does not entail that metaphysical, theological, and ethical statements lack meaning. Limiting the meaningfulness of language to descriptive sentences, or worse, to empirical statements, is wrong.

I suggest this account gives good insight into the language of worship. Doxological language is one of the kinds of utterances that perform nondescriptive functions. Consider a sentence like “Jesus is Lord.” This sentence can have different meanings, depending on the author’s intention—on the purpose embedded in the speaker’s illocutionary force. The locution can tell how things are. Suppose someone asks, “Is Caesar Lord?” The descriptive answer is that “Jesus is Lord.” But this locution could also express glory—it could act as an offering of praise—to God. A worshiper shouts, “Jesus is Lord!” Or consider the sentence, “Praise God.” This locution could also function doxologically when, in the middle of worship, the believer breathes the words, “Praise God.” In a different context, it might be a command: “Praise God.” Or suppose a seeker asks, “What do Christians do in worship services?” The answer is descriptive: “Praise God.”

These sentences can be descriptive, or not, depending on what the author intends. Spoken in a context of worship, the purpose of these utterances is to direct praise and honor to God. In worship, these words are somewhat like a lover saying to his beloved, “I love you.” They are expressive, not descriptive—but not any less meaningful for that. Or they are like shouting “Great race!” to ten-year-old Kristin who just finished the 100-yard dash at the Special Olympics. The purpose of shouting “Great race!” is not to give a journalist’s account of the race. Probably, in the history of humankind, thousands of ten-year-old girls have run 100 yards in a much shorter time. The purpose, clearly, is to support and encourage Kristin.

Third, the illocutionary force (the communication act intended by an utterer) and the perlocutionary force (the communication that results) of commands, promises, exclamations, and performatives must connect in complex ways to statements. Take, for instance, a pastor uttering a performative, “I declare you husband and wife,” in the context of a wedding. This is not a descriptive statement. But it does have illocutionary force. The pastor intends to accomplish something through these words. Now if this act is to unite two people successfully in marriage, as the pastor intends, dozens of background propositions must be true. The utterance would fail to marry two people if any of the following propositions is true: “The pastor is explaining weddings to his five-year-old son”; “This is the Friday night rehearsal”; or “The pastor is driving down the road, daydreaming about meeting his wife at his best friend’s wedding.” It would take an encyclopedia to give a full account of all the possible relationships between all these various sorts of sentences. But clearly, in many cases, nondescriptive sentences are necessarily connected in a relevant, contextual way to true propositions. Only then do the nondescriptive utterances actually achieve what their utterers intend.

Go back to doxological language. If an utterance is not intended to tell how things are, then it does not have a truth value. So when spoken as an expressive, an utterance like “I love you” is not technically true or false. But if we cannot always judge something like “I love you” as true or false, then how do we judge it? We ask what it achieves. Of course, sometimes it is descriptive. A lover may have doubts. “Do you love me?” he will ask. “I love you,” she will answer. Or it could function as an example in a philosophy lecture. The professor says, “As an example of expressive language, consider ‘I love you’.” It could be the words of a movie actress, in a new romantic comedy, saying to an actor who is actually married to another woman, “I love you.” Or it could be a lover’s true expression of her commitments and feelings: “I love you.” But if the words are to express true love, certain background propositions—describing two actual people, actually talking with each other, actually in love—all must be true if the sentence is to achieve the desired effects. If a teen-ager, dreaming of being in love, kisses the refrigerator for practice and utters the words, “I love you,” her words fail to express true love.

Worship works the same way. Consider a religion where Tash (from C. S. Lewis’s Last Battle) is God. If, as Christians believe, Jesus Christ is indeed the Lord, but Tash is not the true God, could the doxological cry of the Tashian still succeed? The illocutionary forces of “Praise be to Tash” and “Praise the Lord Jesus” respectively appear parallel. But the results would not be. For while the respective believers both cry out their words of praise, the intended end of actually ascribing that glory to Tash or Jesus respectively is achieved only in case the persons in question actually exist. If I say “Great race, Tamara,” and no such person as Tamara exists, my praise misfires. You could say I have launched a linguistic dud. If I say, in all seriousness, “Praise be to Tash,” and the proposition, “Tash exists,” is false, the praise misfires. The effect I intend in my worship fails to obtain. So the success of nondescriptive speech acts requires that they be rightly related to certain contextual back-ground facts. Nondescriptive speech acts must connect in very complex ways to realities described in descriptive speech acts. And the descriptive speech acts have truth values.

This shows how the language of Scripture, worship, preaching, spiritual formation, and moral instruction is sapiential. This language is intended to do something. As such, religious utterances of this sort do something other than informing listeners about reality. But they do relate to theology as scientia.Scientia is the language intended to describe spiritual realities truly. The purposes of sapientia—worshiping the triune God, transforming Christian character, building the spiritual community called the church, and fulfilling God’s call to evangelistic and social mission—these all involve the use of linguistic utterances of various sorts. But they require the background truth of theology as scientia. To encourage a flagging student, a pastor utters the moral com-mand, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all to the glory of God.” This is one small strategy for building virtue in that new believer. Yet, obviously, it requires the truth of such statements as: “God exists”; “God’s glory is the ultimate good”; and “Human deeds can glorify God.”

This is why theology cannot opt for alethic nonrealism regarding religious language. The teachings and expressions of theology are not humanly constructed linguistic worlds that shape our lives as though they were true. The biblical authors’ intentions—both the human author’s and the divine author’s intention—in communicating the words of Scripture are to nurture personal faith and to form spiritual community. The locution “I declare you husband and wife” is a linguistic dud if the pastor is explaining weddings to his five-year-old. It fails as a performative utterance; it does not tie the knot for an actual bride and groom in the usually intended way. The same is true of the statement, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16 will not create actual eternal life unless certain back-ground realities actually exist and the propositions describing those realities are actually true. There must be a real God who gave a real Son. And we must exercise true faith in the real Son. If these things were not so, Christian theology would not have the salutary spiritual impact on our lives that we so desperately need.

This is how theology as scientia and theology as sapientia reinforce each other. Theology as transformation integrates the spiritual power of the triune God into the lives of individual people, specific communities, and whole cultures. Theology as information speaks truly about the reality of the triune God. Mere information without spiritual transformation is dead. How many times through church history has dead orthodoxy reared its head? Theology as information describes the life and power of the triune God whose energy fuels any true spiritual transformation. Radical transformation without true information is rudderless. How often has fervent piety fueled heresy? Not only are the informational assertions that tell us truly about God the Father, the work of Christ, and the presence of the Spirit proper and good, but so also are the formational utterances that spur us on to worship, spiritual growth, inner healing, godly community, and sacrificial service. These create the venue within which the disciplines of Christian living and the direction of biblical wisdom shape our personal faith, life together, and service. They lead us to the goal God intends for us: true community with himself, with fellow Christians, and—potentially—with all God’s creation, beginning now, and for eternity.

IV. CONCLUSION

This chapter presents the outlines of an understanding of religious language. Happily, a speech act approach to religious language offers insights that inte-grate the two largest purposes of theology. The explanatory power of speech act thinking provides a holistic and systemic way of thinking about theology. Theology expresses truth about God. It never does less than that. But theology is never only about expressing true information about God. It is always that, and it is always more than that. As I understand it, evangelical theological description is a necessary but never sufficient pathway to spiritual life. When descriptive truth about God is uttered and grasped in the right context, the truth embedded in the doctrines and stories of the faith evokes faith in God. As people respond to God in faith, the Father saves them through the death of the Son. Then these people, at the Holy Spirit’s prompting, achieve the purposes of theology. Theological truth, properly expressed, forms spiritual community and fashions godly persons who worship God, love each other, and serve the world—to the glory of the triune Creator.

CONCLUSION

THE FUTURE OF

EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY

Just yesterday, I met a friend for lunch. He works at a seeker church that is cul-turally aware, growing fast, and regularly leading people to salvation. He asked, “Where is evangelical theology going in the next decade?” I paused to think on that one. I decided that evangelical theology faces enormous chal-lenges. But I also believe that evangelical theology stands on the threshold of even greater opportunities.

Another vignette gives context to my optimism regarding my friend’s question. I spoke earlier this week with a former student, an Asian-American brother, who is now a Ph.D. student. He studies under theologically liberal professors who believe that their theology is academically superior to historic Christian theology. My friend told me, “My professors think that they are right. But they also think evangelicalism is okay, because after all, their churches are closing, and evangelical churches are growing.” God is at work in the world evangelical movement.

In light of this fact, what are the practical implications of evangelical theology done well? What difference will following good method and arriving at profound Christian thinking make? And where should we focus our energies in the future? First, we ought to abandon secular modernity and all its sup-porting doctrines. Secular modernism as a grand social experiment is a bust. The lust for a humanist utopia based on impossibly high standards of knowledge, unreasonable expectations of human progress, and unrealistic confidence in human ability is waning. Someone popped the party balloon. Perhaps it happened in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Maybe it was 9/11/01. But some-how, somewhere, the news got out. Modern secularity is at a dead end.

Second, we should seek a positive spiritual vision for the future of evangel-ical theology and life in a postmodern era. Postmodernity—the celebration of modernity’s death—is upon us. Cynicism about the pretense of secular modernity is well-justified. But the hope of something clear and positive from secular postmodernity is not well-grounded. Postmodernity rightly exposes the fall of modernity, but strong versions of postmodernity do not offer much that is positive to grow in its place. We must take what is right about the postmodern critique of modernism—including the compelling warnings about the mis-use of power. But we must also find ways to overcome the skepticism and show that a theologically profound pathway toward truth, goodness, beauty, and life is available through Christ.

Third, we must not turn inward from culture. Due in part to radicalized versions of postmodernism and the debauchery of Western culture, some strands of evangelicalism are catching the virus of fundamentalist separatism. As flawed as our culture is, a reactionary turn inward will not lead us forward. The early church lived in a culture as full of spiritual counterfeits, sexual enticements, and materialistic allurements as our own. Those Christians learned to live in that world. Although they lived in community with each other, they did not isolate themselves from the broader society. They lived out the light of Christ at all strata of society. Good theology enabled them to live “in, but not of” the world, and so must we.

Fourth, we ought to guard against evangelical polemics. While we should value any concerted effort to write theology that is careful, precise, and detailed, we must also guard against focusing too much of the force of our work against our own evangelical brothers. The tendency to pursue finer and finer points of theoretical clarification may be acceptable so long as such work is reintegrated with the broader concerns of God’s Kingdom. But if we use the finer and finer points of theology to debate among ourselves, we run the risk of increasingly ingrown discourse. This is a time in our history where the best of our theological work is gaining some measure of attention. Evangelical theology, for example, is gathering momentum at the American Academy of Religion. Our challenge is to write theology that is as open-spirited and generous in dialogue with fellow evangelicals as it is clearheaded and compelling in dialogue with non-evangelicals.

Fifth, we should engage the academy with the best in evangelical thought. In the American Academy of Religion, the wild and wooly radical outer edge (not cutting edge) will continue its search for even more fringy spiritualities. But some mainline people see the handwriting on the wall. The liberal academy needs something of greater substance. This is an opportune time to remain authentically evangelical and, at the same time, to engage in dialogue with the larger circles in the scholarly world. The Reformed epistemology movement and the Intelligent Design movement are models of serious intellectual work that is grounded in specifically Christian or theistic thinking. I see hopeful signs that other clusters of Christian scholars are banding together to create distinctively Christian scholarly research programs of this caliber. If our witness is cleansed of feisty separatism, I believe that the world of serious scholarship will listen with interest to discover how a sagacious evangelical theology will engage, transform, and even reconstruct the academic disciplines.

Sixth, we need more focus on spiritual formation—on gaining sapientia. I do not mean just an intellectual understanding of wisdom, but a spiritual character actually shaped by wisdom. Living well in our culture, to say nothing of affecting our culture, requires genuine, internal, spiritual strength. Externalized Christian faith is insufficient. In a time when the broader culture discourages moral restraint and inhibits Christian virtue, the inner moral com-pass that comes from spiritual formation is more essential than ever. A generation or two ago, we could count on the general consensus of a broader social morality. If that was prudent then (which may be doubtful), it is disastrously unwise today. More than ever, an essential task of Christian leaders is following up on successful evangelism with effective discipleship: weaving truth into the fabric of human hearts so that theology contributes to genuine spiritual transformation. We do not yet know how to do this well. I recognize, of course, that God is the ultimate cause of spiritual growth. Still theology is supposed to shape us spiritually. And this does not happen well when Christians passively listen to theological ideas. In the spirit of Philippians 2:12-13, I believe it is more crucial than ever that we design places where we do our part to bring genuine, deeply rooted transformation to the hearts of all believers.

Seventh, we ought to promote authenticity in relationships. The experience of community is the human context that cultivates sapientia. Thinking biblical thoughts and obeying biblical rules does not necessarily bring inward spiritual change. The “think and obey” approach to spiritual formation can too easily lead to outward forms of conforming religiosity that leave the human heart in a state of decay. The trusted and intimate relationships of true community bring spiritual transformation because growing in Christ is primarily about trusting God, learning honesty, cultivating virtues, and evoking noble feelings. This personal trust that a person can experience in human relation-ships parallels what she experiences in the divine relationship. This need to foster authentic human relationships, however, must not replace a personal relationship with Christ. Rather, formation happens in a dialectic of experiences—in the moving back and forth between personal devotion to God and true community with fellow believers. Formation is less about specific theoretical beliefs. Theology does matter, but only as, in the crucible of spiritual experience, it penetrates the marrow of the soul and leads to deeper trust, greater hope, and more passionate love.

Eighth, we should prepare for hard times. The window for rationally grounded, intellectually vital faith may be opening somewhat. But the trend is not toward even more freedom to live as a vital Christian in the public sphere of the broader culture. Inner strength is all the more important given that it appears that resistance to faithfully following Christ will not recede any time soon. Although I will not rehearse world statistics or current events, it should be obvious that religious conflict, economic uncertainty, political upheaval, and social unrest are poised to create pressures that many Western Christians have not yet faced. I see no indicators that it will get any easier to live faithfully as followers of Christ. We who are Western Christians will need more of the Spirit’s strength and more of the patient teaching of fellow believers around the world when (and if?) we find ourselves facing more resolute resistance to the practice of our faith.

Ninth, this means we should seek a deeper solidarity with the world church. The church around the world needs the Western church. To cite one example, we should share our abundant educational resources by sending teachers, if—and this is a big if—these teachers can instruct their students with contextual sensitivity and without imposing our uniquely Western ways. But equally, the Western church needs the global church. Christians elsewhere have learned how to live in economic hard times, to thrive under political difficulties, and to speak truth with wisdom, passion, and courage. They have much to teach us, both in theology and in faith. We in the West may need the global church more than the other way round.

Tenth, we must press forward with theologically profound and culturally relevant evangelism. A deeper kind of spiritual longing that has led to millions of conversions in Latin America and Africa is now also emerging in Western societies. This means more opportunities for reaching a culture that is more open to spiritual things than it has been for some time. Good theology is essential to that task, for poor theology is too easily dismissed by people who are browsing at the smorgasbord of religion. A properly theological witness will connect Christian witness with Scripture even as it shows how the gospel speaks to the deepest fears, hopes, and longings of every human heart. This kind of seed will fall on good ground.

Eleventh, we must reestablish balance by working for social peace and justice by eliminating the racism and injustice that are rooted in ethnic identity. I do not subscribe to secular ways of framing the questions of ethnic relation-ships (see chapter 3). But those of us who are North American evangelicals have not really stepped up to be counted on the questions of opportunities for the poor, equality for non-white groups, and “liberty and justice for all.” Much research shows that in our evangelical focus on the inner life of faith and in our emphasis on seeing God transform human hearts through conversion, we have lost focus on some of the greatest social issues of our day. I have claimed repeatedly that theology is sapiential. It must lead to the formation of godly hearts and communities. But our ethical concern for piety needs to be matched by a social concern for compassion and justice. I recognize the shortcomings of liberal social engineering. I do not believe the church should adopt those means. Still, we do not have nearly enough dirt under our fingernails on racial and ethnic issues. Just as we are beginning to see a renaissance of the evangelical mind that will overcome the scandal Mark Noll speaks about, so we need to see a renewal of compassion for God’s creatures who suffer physically through no fault of their own. That renewal will do as much to spread the transforming salvation of Christ as the best apologetic.

Finally, we must uphold the essential value of theology. Reflecting an under-current of populist thinking, evangelicalism has long tolerated a soft underbelly of anti-intellectualism. In today’s society, when truth and knowledge of all sorts are under suspicion, however, this is no time to give up on solid theology. Although liberal elements in the academy can raise questions for traditional Christians at a withering rate—witness the Jesus Seminar—they cannot over-whelm the wisdom and reasonableness of historic faith. For sober thinkers who see the hopelessness of the secularist endgame, a rigorous but graceful theology of God’s amazing passion to redeem the world may yet prove attractive. So the church, the academy, and the wider world all need excellence in evangelical theology.

I arrive at long last at the end of this work on evangelical theological method. I now understand, far more clearly than when I began, that there is no end of intricacies on these questions. Repeatedly I was forced to skate past the merely important issues and to summarize the absolutely critical ones.

In spite of that frustration, however, I find myself compelled to believe that the way of historic faith in Jesus Christ is the most humane path to spiritual life. The “faith once delivered to the saints” is intellectually robust, spiritually profound, and socially impactful. Theology that respects what the academic disciplines offer and reintegrates that wisdom with the life of the church will pay ample dividends. Christian theology of this sort may not answer every conceivable theoretical question. But it will far outstrip the alternative worldviews, both in its ability to account theoretically for our lives and our world and in its capacity to provide a moral foundation for human lives that honor God.

Sometimes I ruminate about other paths that offer to lead us toward human flourishing and spiritual transformation. These paths include the humanizing values of cultured and lettered elites, the spiritual teachings of the world’s religions, or the moral practices of various nebulous “new spiritualities.” Sometimes these paths seem to promise an initial plausibility. But eventually, my musings lead me home. I acknowledge that I labor to imagine how God created the heavens and the earth. But I then find it infinitely more impossible to think—as atheists must—that the universe just popped into existence from nothing and by nothing! Or I struggle to believe that the infinite God created us, the residents of this very small planet, because of his passion to satisfy completely our deepest desires for eternal significance. But I find it indescribably more implausible to hold—as some Buddhists do—that we are best off if we vigorously stamp out, by rigorous physical disciplines and irrational mental exercises, our intense longings for transcendent meaning. And so I am guided back home, back to the glory of the Father, the passionate love of the Son, and the powerful presence of the Spirit.

The Way of following God is a Way of wisdom. This is a wisdom that sec-THE ularist accounts of knowledge and truth, academic rigor in the humanities or sciences, and the epistemic practices of modernity and postmodernity do not overturn. I have always believed that the heart cannot embrace what the mind regards as nonsense. And in the end I find that faith in God is the most deeply sane, most passionately evocative, most naturally humane, and most profoundly sensible path to life. So it is the course of wisdom to open our hearts to the ravishing love of God.

Evangelical theology is scientia—the knowledge of God. It is rooted in the Bible as its supreme authority. It focuses on Christ and his work at the cross. It operates by the power of the Holy Spirit. If it remains purely conceptual, it is fragmentary. It must continue to do its inward work until it transforms Christ-followers according to the image of Christ and reshapes Christian communities that follow the pattern of the inner life of the Trinity. When this theology reaches full bloom, it blossoms into sapientia—the wisdom of God. This leads us to passionate love for God, genuine worship of the Trinity, true community with fellow Christians, and loving service in personal evangelism and social compassion—all to the glory of God. That is what it means to know and love the true and living God. Absolutely nothing matters more.

NOTES

PREFACE

1. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd ed., ed. J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), 1.

2. J. I. Packer is the one who suggested the term ‘conservationist’ for those of us who care to conserve the tradition without being conservative in the negative sense of that word.

INTRODUCTION

1. See William J. Wainwright, ed., God, Philosophy, and Academic Culture, AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion, no. 11, ed. David E. Klemm (Atlanta: Scholars, 1996).

2. Quoted in Philip Yancey, “Living with Furious Opposites,” Christianity Today, 4 September 2000, 74.

3. Richard J. Mouw, “How Should Evangelicals Do Theology?” Books and Culture, May/June 2001, 21.

4. Quentin Smith, “The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism,” Philo 4 (2001): 195-215. See also Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Between the Pincers of Increased Diversity and Supposed Irrationality,” in God, Philosophy, and Academic Culture, ed. William J. Wainwright, AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion, no. 11, ed. David E. Klemm (Atlanta: Scholars, 1996), 13-20.

5. See Alister McGrath, Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 58-59, regarding the question of who gets the title “evangelical.”

6. Martin Marty, quoted in Kenneth L. Woodward, “The Split-up Evangelicals,” Newsweek, 26 April 1982, 89.

7. D. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 2-3.

8. Roger E. Olson, “The Future of Evangelical Theology,” Christianity Today, 9 February 1998, 40-50.

9. Ibid.

10. Kenneth S. Kantzer, “A Systematic Biblical Dogmatics: What Is It and How Is It to Be Done?” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 484.

11. Stanley J. Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the Twenty-first Century (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

12. See Tom Nettles, review of Revisioning Evangelical Theology, in Trinity Journal 15 (1994): 123-130; David Parker, review of Revisioning Evangelical Theology, in Evangelical Review of Theology 23 (1999): 280-283; Robert Pyne, review of Revisioning Evangelical Theology, in Bibliotheca Sacra 152 (1995): 361-362.

13. For history on the Möbius Strip, see J. Fauvel et al., eds., Möbius and His Band: Mathematics and Astronomy in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). For this and other citations on the Möbius Strip, plus an application of this image to theological method, see F. LeRon Shults, The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999), 206-210.

CHAPTER 1

1. Justin Martyr, The First Apology of Justin, the Martyr, 21-23, 44, 46. The section Justin thought Plato borrowed from Moses is found in The Republic 617e.

2. Frank Whaling, “The Development of the Word ‘Theology,’” Scottish Journal of Theology 34 (1981): 289-293.

3. Justin, Apology, 1-30.

4. Ibid., 31-53.

5. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 1.20.

6. Because its form is more comprehensive than that of its predecessors, On First Principles takes a step toward what we would call a systematic theology. See Joseph Wilson Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (Atlanta: John Knox, 1983), 87-129.

7. Origen, On First Principles, 4.2.4-4.3.5.

8. Tertullian, The Prescriptions Against the Heretics, 7, trans. S. L. Greenslade, in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 5, Early Latin Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 36.

9. Idem, On the Flesh of Christ, 5, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, 10 vols., ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, reprint ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1950–1951), 3:525.

10. Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), 25.

11. Irenaeus, The Treatise of Irenaeus of Lugdunum Against the Heresies, 1.7.5; 1.9.2; 1.9.3.

12. Ibid., 4.33.8.

13. Augustine, Sermons on New Testament Lessons, 126.1, trans. Edmund Hill, in The Works of Saint Augustine (New York: New City, 1992), 270.

14. Idem, On the Predestination of the Saints, 5; On True Religion, 24.

15. Norman Kretzmann, “Faith Seeks, Understanding Finds: Augustine’s Charter for Christian Philosophy,” in Christian Philosophy, ed. Thomas Flint (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 18.

16. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 1.2.

17. Idem, Faith and the Creed, 1.1; On the Gospel of John, 27.9.

18. St. Anselm, Proslogium: Faith Seeks Understanding, I, in St. Anselm: Proslogium: Monologium; An Appendix in Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilon; and Cur Deus Homo, trans. and ed. Sidney Norton Deane (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1959), 7. But David Knowles wrote, “Anselm . . . declared that he followed Augustine in all things, but shows no trace of adopting the characteristic Augustinian epistemology” (Knowles, The Evolution of Medieval Thought [New York: Vintage, 1962], 240).

19. Augustine, On the Trinity, 12.14.21-15.25; 13.19.24-20.25; 14.1.1-3.

20. Ellen T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 4.

21. John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith.

22. Peter Abelard, Sic et Non.

23. Alain of Lille, Regulae Theologicae.

24. Gillian Rosemary Evans, Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 1993), 10-16.

25. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, 1; Ia, 2; Summa Contra Gentiles, 9.

26. Yves M.-J. Congar, A History of Theology, trans. Hunter Guthrie (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), 102.

27. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, 32.

28. Ibid., Prologue; Ia.i-ii, Prologues.

29. St. Bonaventure, “The Journey of the Mind to God,” in The Works of Bonaventure: Mystical Opuscula, vol. 1, trans. José de Vinck (Paterson: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1960).

30. William of Ockham, Summa Logicae, 1.

31. See Luther’s distinction between “theology of the cross” and “theology of glory” (Luther’s Works, 55 vols., ed. Helmut T. Lehman [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976], 31:40, 53, 55, 79, 225, 256).

32. Martin Luther, “Selected Psalms,” in Luther’s Works, 12:311-312.

33. Idem, “The Heidelberg Disputation,” in Luther’s Works, 31:37ff.

34. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.6.1, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, in Library of Christian Classics, 26 vols., ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960), 20:70.

35. Ibid., 1.8.13; 1.20.92.

36. Edward Farley, The Fragility of Knowledge: Theological Education in the Church and the University (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 4.

37. Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, trans. John Oman (New York: Harper & Row, 1958).

38. Idem, The Christian Faith, 2nd German ed., trans. D. M. Baillie et al. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1960), 259-268.

39. For example, Barth emphasized that in calling theology a science, he did not place theology in a position of subservience to some alien sense of ‘science’ (Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, part 1, trans. G. T. Thomson [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936], 9).

40. Ibid., 1-17. “Theology has no cause to forbid itself the name of a science” (10).

41. Ibid., 51ff., 286.

42. Idem, Evangelical Theology, trans. Grover Foley, reprint ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1963), 17-25.

43. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951–1963), 1:1 28, 66-68.

44. Ibid., 1:59-66.

45. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, trans. and ed. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1973).

46. James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1986).

47. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and Mary Potter Engel, eds., Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).

48. Ibid., 2-3.

49. Stanley Hauerwas, Truthfulness and Tragedy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 34.

50. See an interesting dialogue on this point between Carl Henry and Hans Frei in which Frei somewhat reluctantly admits that the word ‘God’ refers to a being who actually exists externally to human language and thought (C. F. H. Henry, “Narrative Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal,” Trinity Journal 8 [1987]: 3-8; Hans Frei, “Response to ‘Narrative Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal,’” Trinity Journal 8 [1987]: 23-24).

51. George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 18.

52. For example, the pluralist John Hick said that “the great world faiths embody different perceptions and conceptions of, and correspondingly different responses to, the Real from within the major variant ways of being human; and that within each of them the transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness is taking place” (Hick, An Interpretation of Religion [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989], 240).

53. Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine, 10, 11, 42, 46.

54. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1948).

55. See Larry Laudan, “Thomas Reid and the Newtonian Turn of British Methodological Thought,” in Science and Hypothesis, ed. Larry Laudan (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1981), 86-110.

56. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981 [originally 1871–1873]), 1:17.

57. Evidential apologist Charles Pettit M’Ilvaine followed Newton’s inductivism: “The grand characteristic of the philosophy that Bacon illustrated, and Newton so nobly applied, and to which all science is so deeply indebted, is that it discards speculation; places no dependence upon theory; demands fact for everything, and in everything submits implicitly to the decision of fact, no matter how incomprehensible, or how opposed by all the speculations of the world” (M’Ilvaine, The Evidences of Christianity, 6th ed. [Philadelphia: Smith and English, 1861], 375).

58. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, “The Idea of Systematic Theology,” in Studies in Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932), 53, 56, 63, 67, 78, 86. Other examples of this view include H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology, vol. 1 (Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 1940), 27; Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, Prolegomena—Bibliology—Theology Proper (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947), 6; Henry Clarence Thiessen, Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1949), 24, 46; Klaus Bockmuehl, “The Task of Systematic Theology,” in Perspectives on Evangelical Theology, ed. Kenneth S. Kantzer and Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1979), 4.

59. Mark G. Cambron, Bible Doctrines (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1954).

60. The traditional fourfold pattern is prolegomena, theology, anthropology and soteriology, and ecclesiology and eschatology. It appears as far back as the eighth century in John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith. Not surprisingly, Cambron omits prolegomena.

61. Richard A. Muller, The Study of Theology, Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 180.

62. George M. Marsden, “Evangelicals, History, and Modernity,” in Evangelicalism and Modern America, ed. George M. Marsden (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984), 98.

63. Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 8.

64. The procedure here is reflected in the title of Karl Popper’s important work, Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic, 1963). Popper’s position is falsificationism.

65. John Warwick Montgomery defended abduction as appropriate for theology in a paper first delivered in 1965 (“The Theologian’s Craft: A Discussion of Theory Formation and Theory Testing in Theology,” in The Suicide of Christian Theology [Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1970], 271-288).

66. D. A. Carson, “The Role of Exegesis in Systematic Theology,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 69.

67. Congar, History of Theology, 143.

68. Roger E. Olson, “The Future of Evangelical Theology,” Christianity Today, 9 February 1998, 40-48.

69. Clark H. Pinnock used this as his grid for describing contemporary theology in Tracking the Maze (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990).

70. David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury, 1975), 3-14.

71. William Hordern, New Directions in Theology Today: Introduction, New Directions in Theology, vol. 1, ed. William Hordern (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), 142.

72. Some, like Hodge and Warfield, defended theology as inductive science even though their practice of theology surpassed the limitations of that model.

73. For a clear example, see John Sanders, “Historical Considerations,” in Clark Pinnock et al., The Openness of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 59-100.

74. See Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).

75. Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics I, trans. Olive Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1950), 9.

76. See George F. Thomas, “The Method and Structure of Tillich’s Theology,” in The Theology of Paul Tillich, ed. Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall (New York: Macmillan, 1964), 104.

77. P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (London: Independent, 1960), 89.

78. James D. Smart, The Interpretation of Scripture (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961), 29.

79. Abraham Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1954), 104.

80. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), is best-known here.

81. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960), 188.

82. Millard Erickson, The Evangelical Heart and Mind (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1993), 191-207.

CHAPTER 2

1. William R. Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976).

2. Bruce Vawter, Biblical Inspiration (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 20-42.

3. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Crisis of the Scripture Principle,” in Basic Questions in Theology, 3 vols., trans. George H. Kehm (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 1:1-14.

4. Langdon Gilkey, “Secularism’s Impact on Contemporary Theology,” Christianity and Crisis, 5 April 1965, 66.

5. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, “The Church Fathers and Holy Scripture,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), 204-219.

6. Lisa Cahill, “The New Testament and Ethics, Communities of Social Change,” Interpretation 44 (1990): 383-395.

7. Clark H. Pinnock, The Scripture Principle (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), xiii.

8. Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 2, God Who Speaks and Shows (Waco: Word, 1976; reprint Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1999), 13-14.

9. Bernard Ramm, The Pattern of Religious Authority, 5th ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1968), 21.

10. Maarten Wisse, “The Meaning of the Authority of the Bible,” Religious Studies 36 (2000): 473-487.

11. Ramm, Pattern of Religious Authority, 21.

12. David H. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).

13. Mark I. Wallace associates the “Protestant fundamentalist doctrine that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God” with the modernist assumption that the Bible is free of “all human subjectivity and historical determination.” Postmoderns “share in the now-common assumption that there is no a historical, nonlinguistic, neutral, ‘objective’ Truth that allows us to escape from the web of words to which all of our inquires are inextricably bound: we are all dwellers and detainees within the house of language.” Evangelical theology must recognize that the Bible bears the marks of its historical location without abandoning a commitment to the objectivity of truth (Wallace, “Postmodern Biblicism: The Challenge of René Girard for Contemporary Theology,” Modern Theology 5 [1989]: 310).

14. Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 64-65.

15. Letty M. Russell, “Authority and the Challenge of Feminist Interpretation,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 137-146.

16. Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979).

17. The concept of defeaters is from John Pollock, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986).

18. Ibid., 38-39.

19. To be clear, I say theology is not immune from error. I do not deny the inerrancy of the Scripture when that idea is defined and qualified carefully. Theology is a human reflection on Scripture in light of other knowledge. The Bible is inerrant; theology is not.

20. Ellen T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 11-16.

21. Lesslie Newbigin, Truth and Authority in Modernity (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity, 1996), 6.

22. Martin Luther, quoted in Frederic Farrar, History of Interpretation, paperback ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1979), 475.

23. Notice the phrase “playing by the rules” in the subtitle of the book, A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible: Playing by the Rules, a competent introduction to evangelical hermeneutics by Robert Stein (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1994).

24. Bernard L. Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1970 [originally 1950]).

25. Ibid., 93-162.

26. For example, Walter Kaiser and Moisés Silva, An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1944), 37-45; Yoilah K. Yilpet, “Knowing the Biblical Author’s Intention: The Problem of Distanciation,” Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology 19 (2000): 165-185.

27. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “From Speech Acts to Scripture Acts: The Covenant of Discourse and the Discourse of Covenant,” in After Pentecost: Language and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Craig Bartholomew, Colin Greene, and Karl Möller, Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001), 18.

28. Idem, Is There a Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1998).

29. Stein, Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible, 17-38. Stein’s account is indebted to E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), 209-244.

30. Alister McGrath, A Passion for Truth (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 187-188.

31. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., The Aims of Interpretation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 91.

32. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. and rev. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 296.

33. Stein, Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible, 39-43.

34. This is the argument of Robert L. Saucy, “The Husband of One Wife,” Bibliotheca Sacra 131 (1974): 229-240.

35. J. I. Packer, “Infallible Scripture and the Role of Hermeneutics,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), 335-336.

36. Anthony C. Thiselton, “The New Hermeneutic,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, ed. I. Howard Marshall (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977), 323.

37. Edward Farley, Ecclesial Reflection: An Anatomy of Theological Method (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).

38. J. Christiaan Beker, Suffering and Hope (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 32-33.

39. J. I. Packer, “The Reconstitution of Authority,” Crux 18 (December 1982): 2-12.

40. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953; reprint, Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1996), 186-194.

41. J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 87.

42. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Augustine and the Limits of Politics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 89-112.

43. Donald G. Bloesch, A Theology of Word and Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 185.

44. Middleton and Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be, 79.

45. Gerd Theissen, On Having a Critical Faith (London: SCM, 1979), 10-11.

46. Farley, Ecclesial Reflection, 165-168.

47. Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 22. Grenz says theology is a “reflection on community faith.” I do not think that is helpful. Schleiermacher says theology is reflection on the faith experience of the Christian community. Evangelicals hold that theology is reflection on the content of God’s revelation. But for my purposes, Grenz’s point that theology may, for certain of its tasks, simply assume Scripture as a starting point is correct.

48. Stephen J. Wykstra, “Toward a Sensible Evidentialism: On the Notion of ‘Needing Evidence,’” in Philosophy of Religion, ed. William L. Rowe and William J. Wainwright, 2nd ed. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), 430.

49. See William Alston, Epistemic Justification (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 196-210.

50. Wykstra, “Toward a Sensible Evidentialism,” 434-437.

51. Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 138.

52. Paul Jewett, regrettably, seems to take this approach on the question of women teaching in the church. See Paul Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1975), 111-170.

53. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984), 15-20.

54. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “Christ and Concept: Doing Theology and the ‘Ministry’ of Philosophy,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 138.

55. Gilkey, “Secularism’s Impact on Contemporary Theology,” 66.

56. The book Clark criticized was R. C. Sproul, John Gerstner, and Arthur Lindsley, Classical Apologetics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984).

57. Gordon H. Clark, “Classical Apologetics,” The Trinity Review 45 (September/October 1985).

58. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1998), 282-285.

59. Augustine, Sermons on New Testament Lessons, 126.1.

60. Idem, On the Predestination of the Saints, 5; On True Religion, 24.

61. Louis Weil, “The Gospel in Anglicanism,” in The Study of Anglicanism, ed. Stephen Sykes and John Booty (London: SPCK, 1988), 60.

62. The procedure here is reflected in the title of Karl Popper’s important work, Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic, 1963).

63. Margaret Mead, Coming of Age in Samoa (New York: William Morrow, 1928).

64. Derek Freeman, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983).

65. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “From Canon to Concept: ‘Same’ and ‘Other’ in the Relation Between Biblical and Systematic Theology,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 12 (1994): 104.

66. William Hordern, New Directions in Theology Today: Introduction, New Directions in Theology, vol. 1, ed. William Hordern (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), 142.

67. Charles Kraft, Christianity and Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979). Chapter 15 is titled “Dynamic Equivalence Theologizing.”

68. Erickson, Christian Theology, 129.

69. Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, 199-200.

70. Roy B. Zuck, “Application in Biblical Hermeneutics and Exposition,” in Walvoord: A Tribute, ed. Donald K. Campbell (Chicago: Moody, 1982), 26.

71. Ibid., 28.

72. Erickson, Christian Theology, 130-134.

73. William J. Webb, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 30-70.

74. John Dillenberger, “On Broadening the New Hermeneutic,” in The New Hermeneutic, vol. 2 of New Frontiers in Theology, ed. James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr. (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 154.

75. Lamin Sanneh, Encountering the West: Christianity and the Global Cultural Process: The African Dimension (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993), 117.

76. “We must be careful to recognize that our understanding and interpretation are influenced by our own circumstances in history, lest we mistakenly identify the form in which we state a biblical teaching with its permanent essence. If we fail to recognize this, we will absolutize our form, and be unable to update it when the situation changes” (Erickson, Christian Theology, 134).

77. N. T. Wright, “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?” Vox Evangelica 21 (1991): 11-18.

78. Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 285.

79. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 46-48.

80. See David K. Clark, “Relativism, Fideism, and the Promise of Postliberalism,” in The Nature of Confession, ed. Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Okholm (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 107-120.

81. Vanhoozer, “From Canon to Concept,” 96-124.

CHAPTER 3

1. Robert McAfee Brown, “Theology in a New Key,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 33 (1977): 24.

2. Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1996).

3. Charles H. Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-culturalPerspective (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979), 45-46.

4. Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language (New York: Doubleday, 1981 [1959]), 18, 20.

5. Clyde Kluckhohn, Mirror for Man (New York: Whittlesey, 1949), 23.

6. Hall, Silent Language, 29, 62-66, 120.

7. Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 104.

8. See the classic discussion of this in William Graham Sumner, Folkways (New York: Dover, 1906; reprint, New York: Mentor, 1960), 65.

9. Ibid., 27-28.

10. David J. Hesselgrave, “Christian Contextualization and Biblical Theology,” in The Relationship Between Epistemology, Hermeneutics, Biblical Theology and Contextualization, ed. Douglas Welker Kennard (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1999), 162.

11. Don S. Browning, “Globalization and the Task of Theological Education in North America,” Theological Education 30/Supplement 1 (1993): 15-16.

12. David Held et al., Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

13. Stanley Grenz, “‘Community’ as a Theological Motif for the Western Church in an Era of Globalization,” Crux 28 (September 1992): 10.

14. See Steven Bevans and Norman E. Thomas, “Selected Annotated Bibliography on Missiology: Contextualization/Inculturation/Indigenization,” Missiology 19 (1992): 105-108. This bibliography reflects both the evolution of terminology and the significant interest in this topic.

15. For example, see Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon, 1983).

16. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, trans. and ed. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1973), xxix.

17. José Míguez Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 81.

18. Browning, “Globalization and the Task of Theological Education,” 15-16.

19. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996), 542.

20. Dean Flemming, “The Third Horizon: A Wesleyan Contribution to the Contextualization Debate,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 30 (1995): 141.

21. A classic and authoritative account of these new paths in hermeneutics is Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Description (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980).

22. Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics: The Handwritten Manuscripts, trans. James Duke and Jack Forstman, ed. Heinz Kimmerle (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1977).

23. J. J. Winckelmann is credited with first expressing the Romantic view of art in which one does not care about the objective meaning of the work. Whether the statue is of Zeus or of Christ makes no difference. The key is to inquire into the artist’s inner spirit or genius. Art’s value lies in its witness to the artistic soul. See Rudolf Bultmann, “The Problem of Hermeneutics,” in New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, trans. and ed. Schubert M. Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 80.

24. Richard E. Palmer, Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 87-88.

25. Another factor contributing to highlighting the psychological side of hermeneutics is this: the first edition of Hermeneutik, edited by Friedrich Lücke in 1838, contained a single authentic manuscript (plus student notes) which stressed the psychological aspect. The Kimmerle edition, first translated into English in 1977, achieved a better balance by including nine manuscripts.

26. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 188-189.

27. Ibid., 194.

28. Ibid., 188-194.

29. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 55.

30. Idem, “The Problem of Hermeneutics,” in New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, trans. and ed. Schubert M. Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984 [essay first published 1950]), 82-84.

31. Idem, “On the Problem of Demythologizing,” in New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, trans. and ed. Schubert M. Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 116, italics added to emphasize the distinction between existential and existentialist.

32. See Jay C. Rochelle, “Bonhoeffer: Community, Authority, and Spirituality,” Currents in Theology and Mission 21 (1994): 119.

33. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. and rev. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 300-307.

34. See a good summary of Ast in Palmer, Hermeneutics, 76-81.

35. Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 135.

36. Palmer, Hermeneutics, 121.

37. Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, 81.

38. Mark A. Noll and David F. Wells, “Introduction: Modern Evangelicalism,” in Christian Faith and Practice in the Modern World, ed. Mark A. Noll and David F. Wells (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1988), 15-16.

39. Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 84.

40. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 298-299.

41. J. Andrew Kirk, Liberation Theology: An Evangelical View from the Third World (Atlanta: John Knox, 1979), 193.

42. Clark H. Pinnock, “How I Use the Bible in Doing Theology,” in The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options, ed. Robert K. Johnston (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 30.

43. William “Beau” Weston, “The Battle of Lexington and Wilmore,” Christianity Today, 11 March 2002, 46-49.

44. John Stott and R. T. Coote, eds., Down to Earth: Studies in Christianity and Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980).

45. Hesselgrave, “Christian Contextualization and Biblical Theology,” 156. See also David Hesselgrave and Edward Rommen, Contextualization: Meanings, Methods, and Models (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1989), 1-2.

46. David F. Wells, “The Nature and Function of Theology,” in The Use of the Bible in Theology: Evangelical Options, ed. Robert K. Johnston (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), 177.

47. Carson, Gagging of God, 540.

48. Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1985), 6-12.

49. William A. Dyrness, Learning About Theology from the Third World (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1990), 28-34.

50. James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed, rev. ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1997), 14.

51. J. Christiaan Beker, Suffering and Hope, reprint ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 35.

52. Douglas Hayward, “Contextualizing the Gospel Among the Saxons: An Example from the Ninth Century of the Cultural Adaptation of the Gospel as Found in The Heliand,” Missiology 22 (1994): 439-453.

53. See Michael E. McCullough et al., “Religious Involvement and Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review,” Health Psychology 19 (2000): 211-222; David Larson, Susan Larson, and Harold Koenig, “Research Findings on Religious Commitment and Mental Health,” Psychiatric Times 17 (2000): 32ff.

54. David F. Wells, Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 198-205.

55. John Pryor, “Jesus and Women—A Second Look at the Issue,” Interchange 50 (1993): 18.

56. Stephen L. Carter, God’s Name in Vain (New York: Basic, 2000), 1, 18.

57. Craig L. Blomberg, “The Globalization of Hermeneutics,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 38 (1995): 588-589; Alice Mathews, A Woman Jesus Can Teach (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Discovery, 1991), 24-26.

58. Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1991).

59. The image of the spiral also appears in Thiselton, Two Horizons, 104.

60. J. I. Packer, “Infallible Scripture and the Role of Hermeneutics,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), 348.

61. Dyrness, Learning About Theology from the Third World, 28, 31.

62. John R. W. Stott, “The Bible in World Evangelization,” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, rev. ed., ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne (Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey Library, 1992), A6.

63. Lamin Sanneh, Encountering the West: Christianity and the Global Cultural Process: The African Dimension (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993), 184-185.

64. Tite Tiénou, The Theological Task of the Church in Africa (Achimota, Ghana: Africa Christian, 1982).

65. Harvey Conn, Eternal Word and Changing Worlds (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984), 337-338.

66. Andrew F. Walls, “Old Athens and New Jerusalem: Some Signposts for Christian Scholarship in the Early History of Mission Studies,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 21 (1997): 153.

67. Two important examples of this kind of reflection are: George Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder, eds., The Church Between Gospel and Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996); David A. Hoekema and Bobby Fong, eds., Christianity and Culture in the Crossfire (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997).

68. ome claim that multiculturalism does not lead to tribalism. For example, see Alice Kessler-Harris, “Multiculturalism Can Strengthen, Not Undermine, a Common Culture,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 October 1992, B3, B7. A lot hangs on the exact sense of the word ‘multiculturalism’.

69. Talmud, Sanhedrin, 37a.

70. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper & Row, 1951).

CHAPTER 4

1. Peter Berger, The Heretical Imperative (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 183-184.

2. See Donald Davidson, The Myth of the Subjective, ed. Michael Krausz (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 159-172.

3. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970 [first edition 1962]), 10-12.

4. Although at times Kuhn used ‘paradigm’ to designate a specific scientific hypothesis, more fundamentally he used it for a self-contained but holistic and comprehensive perspective.

5. An early critic is Dudley Shapere, “The Structure of Scientific Revolution,” The Philosophical Review 73 (1964): 385. Margaret Masterman found that Kuhn used the word ‘paradigm’ in at least twenty-one different senses. She also determined that the concept “general metaphysical viewpoint” is not a primary sense of ‘paradigm’ (“The Nature of a Paradigm,” in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave [London: Cambridge University Press, 1974]), 61-66.

6. Willard V. O. Quine and J. S. Ullian, The Web of Belief, 2nd ed. (New York: Random, 1970).

7. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 148. But Kuhn also wrote (in 1963) that scientists are right to believe a paradigm dogmatically even if it is false. The belief inspires them to do the grunt work that will eventually surface the anomalies that will undercut the paradigm (“The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research,” in Scientific Change, ed. A. C. Crombie [New York: Basic, 1963], 347-369).

8. Kuhn, Scientific Revolutions, 148.

9. If a Christian theologian defends strict incommensurability among theological views or religious perspectives, he succumbs to fideism. ‘Fideism’ is difficult to define because the word is often used as an insult. I think of fideism as the view that religious claims are not in any way defensible by recourse to trans-paradigm evidence or principles or that knowledge about God is inaccessible to normal human reason, experience, or reflection. Fideism stands in contrast to rationalism, the conviction that ordinary human rationality and experience can produce reliable knowledge about God.

10. Terrence W. Tilley, “Incommensurability, Intratextuality, and Fideism,” Modern Theology 5 (1989): 89.

11. “There are as many causes of x as there are explanations of x. Consider how the cause of death might have been set out by a physician as ‘multiple hemorrhage,’ by the barrister as ‘negligence on the part of the driver,’ by a carriage-builder as ‘a defect in the brakeblock construction,’ by a civic planner as ‘the presence of tall shrubbery at that turning’” (N. R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958], 54).

12. Once we make that statement fully explicit, the implausibility of saying that a statement is true for one person and false for someone else becomes obvious. “I’m hungry” might be truly uttered by Will and falsely by Maria. But that is because “I’m hungry” is a single sentence in a natural language that stands for many different propositions. “Will is hungry” could hardly be true for Will and false for Maria. Or “I’m hungry” might be true for Maria at 5:00 P.M., but not for Maria at 6:00 P.M., right after dinner. But the fully explicit statement, “Maria is hungry at 5:00 P.M.,” is never true for Maria and false for Will (see chapter 11).

13. Obviously, two microperspectives relate in a variety of ways. But in speaking of perspectivalism, we are discussing only macroscopic, comprehensive narratives or worldviews. The frameworks of thought on which perspectivalism focuses operate at the largest possible scale. Perspectivalism says that the broadest possible narratives (i.e., worldviews) are strictly incommensurable.

14. Diogenes Allen rightly pointed out that postmodernism in architecture is a much more humane view of urban living. As a designation of a full-blown cultural movement, the concept of postmodernism is very broad. It is stretched thin—like a rubber band ready to snap (“Christianity and the Creed of Postmodernism,” Christian Scholar’s Review 23 [1993]: 118).

15. Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1994), 104.

16. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. and rev. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 278.

17. In the American context, Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed some aspects of this philosophy in the classic essay “Self Reliance”: “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” in Emerson: Essays and Lectures [New York: Viking, 1983], 259).

18. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge and Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 9.

19. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), xxiv.

20. Allen, “Christianity and the Creed of Postmodernism,” 119.

21. David Ray Griffin, “Introduction to SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought,” in Varieties of Postmodern Theology, ed. David Ray Griffin, William A. Beardslee, and Joe Holland (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), xiii.

22. Lyotard, Postmodern Condition, 3-6.

23. David Ray Griffin, “Series Introduction,” in David Ray Griffin et al., Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy, SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1993), viii-x.

24. Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), 161. Another reason this is neo-Marxist is that Marxism, as worked out in the Soviet state, is one of two major expressions of modernism. Soviet Marxism was an attempt to bring social and political life under the control of human reason shorn of religious authority and expressed through scientism. One could interpret Western capitalist democracy as one attempt to do the same. Yet Thomas C. Oden argues that Western capitalism and liberal democracy will likely outlive modernism (Oden, After Modernity—What? [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1990], 82).

25. Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 5.

26. Allen, “Christianity and the Creed of Postmodernism,” 121-126; David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology (New York: Seabury, 1975), 8. Tracy noted that what remains with us as we shift from modernism to postmodernism is the current critique of modernity which deepens the commitment to purely secular standards for knowledge and action that started with the Enlightenment.

27. Roger Lundin, The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 247.

28. Allen, “Christianity and the Creed of Postmodernism,” 121.

29. Lundin, Culture of Interpretation, 249.

30. D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996), 544.

31. James K. A. Smith, “A Little Story About Metanarratives: Lyotard, Religion, and Postmodernism Revisited,” Faith and Philosophy 18 (2001): 361-362.

32. Michael Krausz distinguished relativism from relativity. He used the word ‘relativism’ to mean conceptual relativism and ‘relativity’ to denote sociological or factual relativism. “Cultural entities are to be understood or made intelligible in the cultural settings in which they appear” (Krausz, “Relativism and Foundationalism: Some Distinctions and Strategies,” The Monist 67 [1984]: 397).

33. For more, see a standard text in ethical theory like William K. Frankena, Ethics, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 4-5, 109-110.

34. William Graham Sumner gives a classic statement of cultural relativism that does not clarify whether it is an initial guideline or an unalterable principle: “Everything in the mores of a time and place must be regarded as justified with regard to that time and place” (Sumner, Folkways [New York: Mentor, 1960 (1906)], 65). Taken as an unalterable presupposition, this statement amounts to a cultural version of conceptual relativism. But it is best to interpret cultural relativism as a methodological point. Charles Kraft says that initially, in studying a culture, one ought to take unusual customs (e.g., like widow burning) “seriously within the cultural context in which they occur and attempt to appreciate the importance of their function within that context.” ‘Initially’ is the key word. This strategy does not permanently eliminate all cross-cultural moral critique (Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1979], 50). On the other hand, Robert B. Edgerton strongly warns against allowing cultural relativism (even when taken as an initial guideline) to exert so much influence that anthropologists overlook deficiencies that may exist in primitive cultures. Cultural relativism can so color an analysis that the anthropologist never gets around to critique. This can lead to unrealistic and idealized accounts of other cultures (Edgerton, Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony [New York: Free Press, 1992], 2-3).

35. Mary Douglas, Implicit Meanings (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), xxi.

36. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (Cambridge: Harvester, 1978). Goodman was “not speaking in terms of multiple possible alternatives to a single actual world but of multiple actual worlds.” Rather, he was expressing neo-Kantian nonrealism: there are no real ontological objects to which one worldview corresponds more closely than another. Humans actually make worlds by creating theories (2).

37. One should not say, “In the Bible, which is God’s revelation, we do have a God’s-eye view of reality.” This ignores the distinction between truth and knowledge (see chapter 11). Even though the Bible is truth, we come to know its contents from within our own time and place. Thus, while we are committed to the finality of revelation in Christ, we still “see through a glass darkly.” Only God has a God’s-eye view.

38. Stephen D. Ross, Perspective in Whitehead’s Metaphysics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 256.

39. Donald Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47 (1973–1974): 5-20.

40. Keith Yandell, Christianity and Philosophy (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984), 140-148.

41. Roger Trigg, “Religion and the Threat of Relativism,” Religious Studies 19 (1983): 305, 310; idem, Reason and Commitment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).

42. James F. Harris, Against Relativism: A Philosophical Defense of Method (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1992), 193. Though his criticisms of relativism are helpful, Harris adopts a thoroughly modernist perspective which should give Christians pause.

43. Bernard Williams, “Auto-da-Fé: Consequences of Pragmatism,” in Reading Rorty, ed. Alan Malachowski (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 29. Rorty brushes off Donald Davidson’s criticism that the incommensurability thesis is self-refuting: Davidson’s argument “is destructive of, at most, some incautious passages in some early writings by Feyerabend.” He dismisses the criticism of relativism thusly: “the realist is, once again, projecting his own habits of thought upon the pragmatist when he charges him with relativism” (Rorty, “Solidarity or Objectivity?” in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, vol. 1 of Philosophical Papers [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 25, 30). “Relativism seems a threat only to those who insist on quick fixes and knock-down arguments” (idem, “Pragmatism Without Method,” in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, 66). Richard Bernstein says Rorty knows full well about self-refuting arguments and avoids them by using indirect strategies for loosening the grip of objectivism (Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 9).

44. Mark B. Okrent and Joseph Runzo make this sort of move (Mark B. Okrent, “Relativism, Context, and Truth,” The Monist 67 [1984]: 351-352, 356-357; Joseph Runzo, Reason, Relativism, and God [New York: St. Martin’s, 1986]).

45. Note that this second criticism differs from the first. Let me state the criticisms in overly simplistic ways to get at the difference. The first criticism is that it is incoherent to speak of understanding two radically different conceptual grids, for understanding them—even calling them both “conceptual grids”—implies they are not radically different. The second criticism is essentially that it is incoherent to affirm as ultimately true that there are no ultimate truths.

46. Maurice Mandelbaum, “Subjective, Objective, and Conceptual Relativisms,” The Monist 62 (1979): 415.

47. Alasdair Macintyre, “Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science,” in Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas and L. G. Jones (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), 153.

48. Winfried Corduan, Reasonable Faith (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1993), 73.

49. Paul J. Griffiths, “Philosophizing Across Cultures: Or, How to Argue with a Buddhist,” Criterion 26 (Winter 1987): 11, 14; idem, “Denaturalizing Discourse: Abhidharmikas, Propositionalists, and the Comparative Philosophy of Religion,” in Myth and Philosophy, ed. Frank Reynolds and David Tracy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 57-91.

50. As a liberating strategy, postmoderns delight to undermine totalizing discourses, the worldviews and philosophies of the past. “Postmodernism tends to claim an abandonment of all metanarratives which could legitimate foundations for truth. And more than this, it claims that we neither need them, nor are they any longer desirable” (Patricia Waugh, “Introduction,” in Patricia Waugh, ed., Postmodernism: A Reader [London: Edward Arnold, 1992], 5).

51. Hannah Arendt, “What Was Authority?” in Authority, ed. Carl J. Friedrich (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), 81-112.

52. Carl Raschke, “Theology, Hermeneutics, and the Shattering of Foundations,” Encounter 43 (1982): 402.

53. Waugh, Postmodernism, 6. The first part of the statement implies that source foundationalism includes a commitment to critical realism, a general class of views which say that our knowledge reflects truly, though neither exactly nor exhaustively, the nature of a something that exists.

54. Thomas Finger, Christian Theology: An Eschatological Approach, 2 vols. (New York: Nelson, 1985), 1:33.

55. Alvin Plantinga, “Is Belief in God Properly Basic?” Nous 15 (1981): 44.

56. Idem, “Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 59-61.

57. A very helpful introduction to the details of Reformed epistemology is Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990).

58. See the famous statement by D. Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 53.

59. Robert Audi, Belief, Justification, and Knowledge (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1988), 99.

60. Of course, I continue to assume here the usual view that coherentism is a theory of justification that makes coherence sufficient for warrant or justification.

61. If there are forms of coherentism that say coherence is insufficient to warrant belief (i.e., that warrant requires more than coherence), then the criticism I raise does not hold. But that form of so-called coherentism, in its essential meaning, is more like the soft foundationalism I defend, and I do not care to argue against it.

62. Laurence BonJour, formerly a leading light among coherentists, has recognized that these problems are fatal to coherentism (“The Dialectic of Foundationalism and Coherentism,” in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, ed. John Greco and Ernest Sosa [Oxford: Blackwell, 1999], 117-142).

63. See Ian Barbour, who defended critical realism in Issues in Science and Religion (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 162-174.

64. Rorty, “Solidarity or Objectivity?” 33.

65. Ibid., 27.

66. Rorty commends the “laissez-faire attitude that sees religion and science as alternative ways of solving life’s problems, to be distinguished by success or failure, rather than rationality or irrationality. “The anti-scientific, holistic pragmatist who adopts the latter attitude wants us to adopt naturalism without thinking of ourselves as more rational than our theistic friends” (Rorty, “Pragmatism Without Method,” 66).

67. Ibid., 29.

68. Alvin Plantinga, “On Christian Scholarship,” Religious and Theological Studies Bulletin 5 (November/December 1994): 14.

69. Richard Rorty, “Science as Solidarity,” in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, vol. 1 of Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 39.

70. Ibid., 45.

71. Idem, “Solidarity or Objectivity?” 27.

72. Idem, “Pragmatism Without Method,” 75.

73. Susan Haack, “Foundherentism,” in Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993), 222.

74. Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 182.

75. This is also called “soft rationalism” (William J. Abraham, “Soft Rationalism,” in An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985], 98-113).

76. Audi, Belief, Justification, and Knowledge, 98. Kevin J. Vanhoozer rejects both foundationalism and nonfoundationalism in favor of a position he calls fallibilism, a key component of which is that rationality includes the criticizability of beliefs. This makes it clear that Vanhoozer has classical or hard foundationalism in mind when he rejects foundationalism. His approach is consistent with soft foundationalism (Vanhoozer, “Christ and Concept: Doing Theology and the ‘Ministry’ of Philosophy,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991], 102-103, 132, 137). See also Robert Chisholm, Theory of Knowledge, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1989).

77. Raschke, “Theology, Hermeneutics, and the Shattering of Foundations,” 404.

78. But Mark A. Noll severely questioned the quality of evangelical scholarship in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994). On the other hand, see also, “Scandal? A Forum on the Evangelical Mind,” Christianity Today, 14 August 1995, 20-27; “Whatever Happened to Christian History?” Christianity Today, 2 April 2001, 42-49.

CHAPTER 5

1. J. Richard Middleton, “The Liberating Image? Interpreting the Imago Dei in Context,” Christian Scholar’s Review 24 (1994): 11.

2. Hyperius did not develop four disciplines as such. He primarily offered suggestions for private Bible study as a prelude to theology.

3. This is Wolfhart Pannenberg’s suggestion (Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, trans. Francis McDonagh [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976], 351).

4. Gerhard Ebeling, “The Meaning of ‘Biblical Theology,’” Word and Faith (1955): 82-83, quoted in Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, 353.

5. J. A. Ernesti, Opuscula Theologica.

6. Johann Philipp Gabler, “A Discourse on the Proper Distinction Between Biblical and Dogmatic Theology and the Boundaries to Be Drawn for Each.” See Bernard W. Anderson, “Tradition and Scripture in the Community of Faith,” Journal of Biblical Literature 100 (1981): 6.

7. Hyperius, De Theologo seu de ratione studii theologici.

8. Georg Calixt, Apparatus theologicus.

9. For a helpful organizational chart of the two levels of these disciplines, see Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1998), 23.

10. Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meanings (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), 18.

11. James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Glasgow: Oxford University Press, 1961).

12. Gerhard F. Hasel, Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1972), 26.

13. Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 61-87. Childs argued that the movement crumbled in the early 1960s. Others, like J. D. Smart (The Past, Present, and Future of Biblical Theology [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979], 11) claimed that biblical theology lives on. Smart was correct with regard to biblical theology as a discipline; Childs was speaking of the biblical theology movement.

14. James Barr, The Bible in the Modern World (London: SCM, 1973), 55-57.

15. Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974).

16. George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984).

17. R. Rhys Williams, Let Each Gospel Speak for Itself (Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications, 1987).

18. Geerhardus Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 15, emphasis original.

19. Gerhard F. Hasel, “The Future of Biblical Theology,” in Perspectives on Evangelical Theology, ed. Kenneth S. Kantzer and Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1979), 179.

20. D. A. Carson, “Current Issues in Biblical Theology: A New Testament Perspective,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 5 (1995): 17-41.

21. Heikki Räisänen, Beyond New Testament Theology: A Story and a Programme (London: SCM, 1990).

22. Of course, people who argue for the disunity of sections of Scripture offer many reasons for their judgment. Many would explicitly disavow positivism. Yet the influence of the assumption that objective (i.e., religiously uncommitted) methods are inherently more worthy (based on any one of several epistemic scales) is pervasive (see chapter 8).

23. Thomas C. Oden, After Modernity—What? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1990), 80.

24. E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 333-334.

25. Willi Marxsen, Jesus and Easter, trans. V. P. Furnish (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 16.

26. Hasel, “Future of Biblical Theology,” 189.

27. Biblical theology is narrower in focus than biblical studies, and historical theology is more restricted than historical studies. Some will see biblical theology as a subdiscipline of biblical studies and historical theology as a subdiscipline of historical studies. In contrast, I describe biblical, historical, and systematic theologies as subdisciplines of doctrinal studies.

28. See, for instance, Justo L. Gonzalez, A History of Christian Thought, 3 vols., rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1987). For a survey of recent theology, see Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson, Twentieth- Century Theology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

29. See, for example, Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrine (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1949); J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1958).

30. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1a, 2.

31. Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis, 82.

32. Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, 351.

33. Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 89.

34. Ibid., 65.

35. John Webster, “The Church as Theological Community,” Anglican Theological Review 75 (1993): 113.

36. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 51.

37. Richard A. Muller, The Study of Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 110, 172.

38. Recall Augustine on theology as wisdom (sapientia) (De trinitate, 12.22-25; 13.24-25; 14.1-3).

39. Ismael I. Amaya, “A Latin American Critique,” Evangelical Review of Theology 7 (1983): 24.

40. Abraham Kuyper, Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology, trans. J. Hendrik de Vries (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898).

41. Ibid., 54.

42. Ibid., 37.

43. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Brief Outline on the Study of Theology, trans. Terrence N. Tice, Schleiermacher Studies and Translations, vol. 1 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen, 1988). In justifying theology due to its value to ministerial skill development, Schleiermacher reflected shifts found in earlier pietist theology such as that of Johann Lorenz von Mosheim. In so doing, Schleiermacher offered considerable impetus to the development of practical theology.

44. Schleiermacher also wrote, “Christian theology . . . is that assemblage of scientific knowledge and practical instruction without the possession and application of which a united leadership of the Christian Church . . . is not possible. . . . “When this same knowledge is acquired and possessed without relation to the government of the Church, it ceases to be theological and devolves to those sciences to which it belongs according to its varied content. . . .” (Schleiermacher, Brief Outline on the Study of Theology, par. 5-6).

45. Farley, Theologia, 84-94.

46. George Lindbeck, “The Church’s Mission to a Postmodern Culture,” in Postmodern Theology, ed. Frederick Burnham (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 45.

47. Muller, Study of Theology, 35.

48. John J. Collins, “Is a Critical Biblical Theology Possible?” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, ed. William Henry Propp, Baruch Halpern, and David Freeman (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 1ff.

49. Farley, Theologia, 162-166.

50. Thomas C. Oden, Life in the Spirit, vol. 3 of Systematic Theology (San Francisco: Harper-SanFrancisco, 1992), 477-478.

51. Edward Farley, The Fragility of Knowledge: Theological Education in the Church and the University (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 31.

52. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. and rev. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 306-307.

53. On one interpretation, incommensurability, even in Kuhn himself, does not entail that the meanings of different paradigms are cut off from each other. Rather, incommensurability means that different paradigms focus on different problems and use different standards in solving those problems. In this understanding, we can translate the meanings from one paradigm into the terms of another paradigm. See the discussion in Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 85.

54. Alasdair MacIntyre, “Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative, and the Philosophy of Science,” in Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology, ed. Stanley Hauerwas and L. G. Jones (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), 153.

55. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 3, cites the elephant story.

56. Terrence W. Tilley, “Incommensurability, Intratextuality, and Fideism,” Modern Theology 5 (1989): 89.

57. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, 92-93.

58. Vincent Edward Smith, Philosophical Physics (New York: Harper, 1950), 328; Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 450, 596; Abraham Pais, Subtle Is the Lord . . . The Science and Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 13, 476.

59. See Richard A. Muller, “The Role of Church History in the Study of Systematic Theology,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 86-91, for a discussion of ahistorical thinking regarding the concept of total depravity.

60. C. S. Lewis wrote, “Every age has it own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books” (Lewis, “On the Reading of Old Books,” in God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970], 202).

61. It is also, unfortunately, a peculiar weakness of these disciplines that they lead practitioners to believe they can achieve perfect objectivity. Some Christians—lay people and scholars—naïvely confuse their goals and their results. They believe that, having pursued an understanding that is uncluttered by contemporary issues, they actually achieve it. Systematic theologians should “take heed lest you fall” seriously, for they can fall prey to the same delusion. It is not uncommon to read theologians who seem to think they fully understand God. In reality, although we seek to apprehend God as God is, we never fully succeed.

62. D. A. Carson, “The Role of Exegesis in Systematic Theology,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 52-55.

63. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

64. This is the riddle of preunderstanding (see chapter 3).

65. D. A. Carson, “Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: The Possibility of Systematic Theology,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), 70. The viability of an authority-based theological method is, of course, hotly debated (see chapter 2).

66. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951–1963), 3:245.

67. See Clark H. Pinnock’s discussion in “Why Do We Need Theology?” Christianity Today, 27 March 1981, 68.

68. Vern Sheridan Poythress, Symphonic Theology: The Validity of Multiple Perspectives in Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1987), 26.

69. Farley, Fragility of Knowledge, 48.

70. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Hermeneutic and Universal History,” in Basic Questions in Theology, 3 vols., trans. George H. Kehm (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 1:96-136.

71. Muller, Study of Theology, x-xvii.

CHAPTER 6

1. James W. Lewis, “On Wisdom and Strife,” Criterion 27 (Autumn 1988): 13.

2. Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief (New York: Basic, 1993), 16.

3. George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

4. Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, trans. G. T. Thomson (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 23.

5. John Dewey, “Academic Freedom,” Educational Review 23 (1902), discussed in Richard Hofstadter and Walter P. Metzger, The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), 336-338. George M. Marsden calls academic freedom a “sacred concept” (Marsden, Soul of the American University, 296-301).

6. See Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), 55-141.

7. Phillip E. Johnson, Reason in the Balance (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 199.

8. Peter Berger, The Heretical Imperative (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 54.

9. For example, consider the views of post-Bultmannian scholar Burton Mack regarding the source documents that allegedly lie behind the Gospels. For evaluation, see Gregory A. Boyd, Cynic Sage or Son of God? (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1995), 136-139.

10. Thomas Oden, After Modernity—What? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1990), 185.

11. See discussion in Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Between the Pincers of Increased Diversity and Supposed Irrationality,” in God, Philosophy, and Academic Culture, ed. William J. Wainwright, AAR Reflection and Theory in the Study of Religion, no. 11, ed. David E. Klemm (Atlanta: Scholars, 1996), 13-20.

12. Lewis, “On Wisdom and Strife,” 13.

13. Gerd Theissen, A Critical Faith, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 10-11.

14. Jeffrey Stout, The Flight from Authority (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981).

15. David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury, 1975), 7.

16. Gerhard Ebeling, The Study of Theology, trans. Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 4.

17. John B. Cobb, Jr., “Theology as Thoughtful Response to the Divine Call,” in The Vocation of the Theologian, ed. Theodore W. Jennings, Jr. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 107.

18. When Professor Ismar J. Peritz of Syracuse University and three colleagues founded what was to become AAR, they first called it the Association of Biblical Instructors in American Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 1922, the group’s members voted to change the name to the National Association of Biblical Instructors (“NABI” is Hebrew for “prophet”). NABI launched a journal in 1933 and (in 1937) titled it the Journal of Bible and Religion. It became the Journal of the American Academy of Religion when the society reorganized as the AAR.

19. For a full discussion of the meaning of ‘religion’, see Robert D. Baird, Category Formation and the History of Religions (The Hague: Mouton, 1971).

20. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, trans. John W. Harvey (London: Oxford University Press, 1928).

21. Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harper & Row, 1957).

22. Ibid., 68-69.

23. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion, reprint ed. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981), 4.

24. Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), xi.

25. Ernst Troeltsch, The Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions, trans. David Reid (Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1971 [originally 1902]): “If every conceivable possibility is to be taken into account, then we must also reckon with the idea that our entire Western civilization, rooted as it is in antiquity and in Christianity, might someday be thrown back into a state of barbarism. This would mean, no doubt, the end of Christianity in its present form, that is, in its relation to the person of Jesus and to its other historical foundations. But the truth and value of its personalistic understanding of redemption would not thereby be eradicated. Anyone who recalls the hundreds of thousands of years that man has already been in existence cannot fail to conclude that personalistic redemption-religion would return in different historical forms” (115-116).

26. E.-L. Solte, Theologie an der Universität (1971), 21ff., cited in Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, trans. Francis McDonagh (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), 316.

27. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, vol. 1, part 2, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. T. Thompson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963 [1956]), 294-295.

28. See D. G. Hart, The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).

29. According to George Marsden, the dearth of evangelicals in the secular university scene resulted as much from an evangelical exodus as from a secularist coup (Marsden, “The Collapse of American Evangelical Academia,” in Faith and Rationality, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff [Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983], 219-264).

30. Gavin D’Costa, however, chides Pannenberg for ignoring other religions as dialogue partners for theology (D’Costa, “The End of Systematic Theology,” Theology 95 [1992]: 324-334).

31. Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, 301, 310, 320-321.

32. Ibid., 319-321.

33. Ibid., 323.

34. Richard A. Muller, The Study of Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 119.

35. See Peter Donovan, “Neutrality in Religious Studies,” Religious Studies 26 (1990): 103-116.

36. Wolterstorff, “Between the Pincers of Increased Diversity and Supposed Irrationality,” 16-18.

37. This is not to say that every hypothesis is true. It is to say that the sort of hypotheses provided by any discipline are possibly true. To put it negatively, no hypothesis can be known as false simply on the grounds that it represents a particular method. And this is true of evangelical theology as well. In other words, one may not simply declare that traditional Christian believing is false or irrational simply on the ground that it is religious, biblical, or evangelical.

38. Richard Lints, The Fabric of Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 331-334.

39. Augustine, De trinitate, 12.14.21–15.25; 13.19.24–20.25; 14.1.1-3.

40. David Wells, “The Theologian’s Craft,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas Edward McComiskey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 191-192.

41. Universities retained a Christian veneer until the middle of the twentieth century. Into the 1950s, some state schools even sponsored chapel and prayer! (George Marsden, The Soul of the American University, 3).

42. William E. Hordern, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1968), xvii. Hordern commented wisely, “One of the weaknesses of Protestantism today is that so few Protestants know what they believe or why.”

43. Augustine, De trinitate, 14.1.3.

44. G. R. Evans, Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages (London, New York: Routledge, 1993), 9.

45. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.1-8, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, in Library of Christian Classics, 26 vols., ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960).

46. Jonathan Edwards, “Christian Knowledge,” in On Knowing Christ (Carlisle: Banner of Trust, 1990 [originally 1839]), 9-30.

47. Ibid., 13-14.

48. See the discussion of H. D. McDonald, Salvation (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway, 1982), 65-83.

49. Clark H. Pinnock, Tracking the Maze (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 3-4.

50. Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 7.

51. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), 166.

52. C. S. Lewis is quoting the Theologica Germanica in “Learning in War-Time,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 50.

53. Abraham Kuyper, “The Dependent Character of Theology” in Principles of Sacred Theology, trans. J. Hendrik De Vries (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1954), 248.

54. “For those who are steeped in [the canonical writings], no world is more real than the ones they create. A scriptural world is thus able to absorb the universe” (George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984], 117).

55. We should not overstate this point, of course. Terrence W. Tilley argued correctly that Lindbeck’s claim is ambiguous. A person reading an ancient text must still understand it in connection to her world: “Lindbeck is surely correct to say that understanding a text ‘in its own terms’ requires no reference to ‘extratextual,’ e.g., Freudian, analyses of those texts. . . . But concretely for a reader to understand a text in any terms, those terms must be accessible in the reader’s world” (Tilley, “Incommensurability, Intratextuality, and Fideism,” Modern Theology 5 [1989]: 98).

56. Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, 326-345.

57. See Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, “The Idea of Systematic Theology,” in Studies in Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932), 56.

58. Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science, 334.

59. Ibid., 332.

60. Ibid., 326-345. Nancey Murphy also said theology can fulfill the requirements of science (Murphy, “What Has Theology to Learn from Scientific Methodology?” in Science and Theology, ed. Murray Rae, Hilary Regan, and John Stenhouse [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994]); idem, “Acceptability Criteria for Work in Theology and Science,” Zygon 22 (1987): 279-297; idem, “Theology and Science Within a Lakatosian Program,” Zygon 34 (1999): 629-642.

61. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), 335.

62. See, for example, J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995); Philip Kenneson, “There’s No Such Thing as Objective Truth, and It’s a Good Thing, Too,” in Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World, ed. Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Okholm (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995).

63. See the discussion of Imre Lakatos in chapter 9. Lakatos distinguishes the nonnegotiable hard core of a research project from its protective auxiliary belts.

64. For a virtue approach, see W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

65. Lints, Fabric of Theology, 26-27.

66. Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Is It Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Recover from Kant?” Modern Theology 14 (1998): 17.

67. Idem, “Between the Pincers of Increased Diversity and Supposed Irrationality,” 20.

CHAPTER 7

1. Thomas C. Oden, Agenda for Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 157-161.

2. See important works like Donald W. Dayton and Robert K. Johnston, eds., The Variety of American Evangelicalism (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1991); George Marsden, ed., Evangelicalism and Modern America (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984).

3. Timothy P. Weber, “Premillennialism and the Branches of Evangelicalism,” in The Variety of American Evangelicalism, ed. Donald W. Dayton and Robert K. Johnston (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 12.

4. For the contrast, see the dialogue between Michael Horton and Roger Olson in Christian Scholar’s Review 31 (2001): 131-168.

5. Michael Horton, A Confessing Theology for Postmodern Times (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2000).

6. David Wells, No Place for Truth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993); idem, God in the Wasteland (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994).

7. Roger Olson, “Postconservative Evangelicals Greet the Postmodern Age,” The Christian Century, 3 May 1995, 480-483.

8. Millard J. Erickson’s evaluation of this movement is The Evangelical Left: Encountering Postconservative Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1997).

9. Jack Bartlett Rogers, in Claiming the Center: Churches and Conflicting Worldviews (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995), tried to refurbish a very different center—a so-called “evangelical/mainstream” center. Erickson’s evangelical spectrum (where “postconservatives” are left of center) differs from Rogers’s theological continuum (where postconservatives are recruited to bolster a newly identified middle in tandem with orthodox mainliners). Rogers’s spectrum embraces all Protestants, including the mainline. So Rogers’s Protestant center includes only the left edge of evangelicalism and excludes the center of the evangelical continuum. The context of this call for a new center is his mainline denomination. More specifically, he apparently hopes to see a Protestant center emerging within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Similar to Rogers in their approach, Douglas Jacobsen and William Trollinger developed the Re-Forming the Center project to overcome what they call the two-party analysis of American Protestantism—mainline/liberal vs. evangelical/fundamentalist/conservative. Their goal has two prongs: restoring a Protestant centrist tradition (by uniting orthodox mainliners and left-leaning evangelicals) and redeeming it (by cleansing it of “racism, patriarchal ideology, anti-Catholicism, and American national chauvinism”) (Douglas Jacobsen and William V. Trollinger, Jr., eds., Re-Forming the Center: American Protestantism 1900 to the Present [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998]).

10. Gabriel Fackre, Restoring the Center: Essays Evangelical and Ecumenical (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998).

11. Paul G. Hiebert, “Conversion, Culture and Cognitive Categories,” Gospel in Context 1 (1978): 24-29.

12. Notice that adopting a centered set mentality is not at all the same thing as embracing a centrist viewpoint (whether ‘centrism’ in a particular discussion denotes the middle of an evangelical spectrum or of a broader Protestant continuum). A mentality (the options are bounded set or centered set) is a habit of mind that describes how Christians weigh the relative importance of the theological or moral correctness of particular doctrines or behaviors over against one’s moral and spiritual trajectory. This relates to how one thinks, not to the particular convictions one holds. A viewpoint (the options are liberal or traditional) is a set of particular theological ideas or beliefs. This relates more to what is thought, to what particular doctrines are embraced.

13. Rowan Williams, “What Is Catholic Orthodoxy?” in Essays Catholic and Radical, ed. Kenneth Leech and Rowan Williams (London: Bowerdean, 1983), 14.

14. Robert K. Johnston, “Orthodoxy and Heresy: A Problem for Modern Evangelicalism,” Evangelical Quarterly 69 (1997): 7-38.

15. Cited in Roger Olson, “The Future of Evangelical Theology,” Christianity Today, 9 February 1998, 41.

16. John Webster, “The Church as Theological Community,” Anglican Theological Review 75 (1993): 109.

17. From a Catholic viewpoint, David Power argued that a theology that lacked piety to invigorate it and a piety that lacked theology to guide it characterized the pre-Reformation decline. Agreement with doctrine became a sign of loyalty to the church’s power structure, and theology degenerated into a defense of the status quo (Power, “Two Expressions of Faith: Worship and Theology,” in Liturgical Experience of Faith, ed. Herman Schmidt and David Power [New York: Herder & Herder, 1973], 100).

18. Hiebert, “Conversion, Culture and Cognitive Categories,” 28.

19. Augustine, The Augustine Catechism: The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love (New York: New City, 1999), 130.

20. Ellen Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 4-5.

21. Wells, No Place for Truth, 119.

22. Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 vols., ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931–1958), 7:218-222.

23. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “From Canon to Concept: ‘Same’ and ‘Other’ in the Relation Between Biblical and Systematic Theology,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 12 (1994): 96-124.

24. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1984), 65.

25. Ian G. Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, Gifford Lectures, 1989–1991, 2 vols. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 1:44.

26. Alasdair MacIntyre, Against the Self-Images of the Age (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978).

27. Patricia O’Connell Killen and John de Beer, The Art of Theological Reflection (New York: Crossroad, 1994).

28. Sandra Schneiders, The Revelatory Text (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 11-26.

29. See Henry Cloud, How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals About Personal Growth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001).

30. Søren Kierkegaard, “The Journals,” trans. Alexander Dru, in A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. Robert Bretall, The Modern Library of the World’s Best Books (New York: Modern Library, 1946), 4-5.

31. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.5.9.

32. See Carolyn Weese, Standing on the Banks of Tomorrow: A Study of Ministry Needs of the Local Church in the Twenty-first Century (Granada Hills, Calif.: Multi-Staff Ministries, 1993), 28-30.

33. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 142.

34. Larry Crabb, Connecting: Healing for Ourselves and Our Relationships (Nashville: Word, 1997).

35. C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 2.

36. Stanley Hauerwas, Truthfulness and Tragedy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 34.

37. Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God (Nashville: Nelson, 1997), 45.

38. Dallas Willard, In Search of Guidance: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (New York: HarperCollins, Zondervan, 1993), 61-62.

39. Ibid., 209.

40. Robert J. Clinton, The Making of a Leader (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1988), 14.

41. Carla Dahl suggested this thought to me.

42. Nancy Ammerman, Congregation and Community (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997).

43. Larry Crabb, Jr., Finding God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1993), 29.

44. Robert N. Bellah, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 134.

45. Ibid., 72.

46. Ibid., 333.

47. Robert Banks, “The Biblical Approach to Community,” Christian Education Journal 13 (1993): 19.

48. Jack Balswick and Judith Balswick, The Family: A Christian Perspective on the Contemporary Home, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1999), 17-36.

49. Henri Nouwen, “Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry,” Leadership, Spring 1995, 83-84.

50. Crabb, Finding God, 17.

51. Roger Lundin, The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), 6.

52. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1954), 33-34.

53. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters—Screwtape Proposes a Toast, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 38.

54. Jan David Hettinga, Follow Me: Experience the Loving Leadership of Jesus (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1996), 37-43.

55. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 33-34.

56. James H. Cone, For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1984).

57. Letty M. Russell, Household of Freedom: Authority in Feminist Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987).

58. Gustavo Gutiérrez, The Power of the Poor in History: Selected Writings, trans. Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1983).

59. Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994).

60. Idem, “‘Community’ as a Theological Motif for the Western Church in an Era of Globalization,” Crux 28 (September 1992): 16.

61. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 25-26.

62. Banks, “Biblical Approach to Community,” 22.

63. Ibid., 19.

64. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” in Emerson: Essays and Lectures (New York: Viking, 1983), 259.

65. Bellah, Habits of the Heart, viii, 82, 154.

66. Peter Berger et al., The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (New York: Random, 1974).

67. I received these insights from Jim Beilby.

68. Basil Mitchell, How to Play Theological Ping-Pong: Essays on Faith and Reason (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), 33.

69. M. Douglas Meeks, “The Future of Theology in a Commodity Society,” in The Future of Theology, ed. Miroslav Volf, Carmen Krieg, and Thomas Kucharz (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), 257-258.

70. Diogenes Allen, “Christianity and the Creed of Postmodernism,” Christian Scholar’s Review 23 (1993): 117-126.

71. Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 111.

72. Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, 142.

73. Parker J. Palmer, To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), xvii.

74. Ibid., xviii-xix.

75. Mark Schwehn, Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 58-61.

76. Of course, there are preachers whose words rather lack intellectual content. This is no virtue. In pointing out that information is not sufficient for genuinely Christian maturity, I do not overlook that it is necessary.

77. Differences in expectation exacerbate this problem. A group of seminary professors ranked five items, beginning with the most important one for success in pastoral ministry and moving to the least: theological knowledge, character, leadership skills, communication skills, counseling skills. Some lay Christians ranked similar items this way: spirituality, relational skills, character, communication skills, and theological knowledge. Theology moved from first to last. Pastors ranked them this way: relational skills, management abilities, communication skills, spirituality, and theological knowledge. Theology remained last (“Review of Graduate Theological Education in the Pacific Northwest” [Vancouver: The M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, 1994], 48).

78. Meeks, “Future of Theology in a Commodity Society,” 259.

79. George Barna, Baby Busters: The Disillusioned Generation, rev. ed. (Chicago: Northfield, 1994), 129-142.

80. Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 78.

81. Nouwen, “Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry,” 81.

82. Crabb, Finding God, 190.

83. John Stott, The Gospel and the End of Time: The Message of 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 68.

84. Willard, In Search of Guidance, 172.

CHAPTER 8

1. Defining the word ‘science’ is nearly impossible. Most attempts at precise definition end up excluding disciplines that are commonly recognized as scientific. It is probably best just to name the disciplines we have in mind.

2. On evidentialism see W. K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief,” in God, Man, and Religion, ed. Keith Yandell (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 505.

3. See Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), 137-161.

4. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum.

5. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981 [originally 1871–1873]), 1:17.

6. See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 222. MacIntyre points out that all specific epistemological values arise within traditions.

7. Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield, The Fabric of the Heavens: The Development of Astronomy and Dynamics (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 228-249.

8. Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Optics, III.1.

9. Colin Russell, Cross-Currents: Interactions Between Science and Faith (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1985), 190-196; David N. Livingstone, Darwin’s Forgotten Defenders (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987), 185-186.

10. Pearcey and Thaxton, Soul of Science, 88-95.

11. Ibid., 39.

12. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (London and New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), 6-7.

13. Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1897), 1:v-xii.

14. Pearcey and Thaxton, Soul of Science, 20.

15. George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 188.

16. Richard H. Bube, Putting It All Together: Seven Patterns for Relating Science and the Christian Faith (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995).

17. Ibid., 102, 129.

18. Rudolf Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology,” in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 5.

19. Graham Shaw, The Cost of Authority: Manipulation and Freedom in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 282.

20. See, for example, Henry Morris, The Long War Against God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1989), 15-16.

21. Bube, Putting It All Together, 55, 75.

22. See Hugh Kearney, Science and Change: 1500–1700 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971).

23. Michael Polanyi, “Life Transcending Physics and Chemistry,” in Chemical and Engineering News, quoted in Walter L. Bradley and Charles B. Thaxton, “Information and the Origin of Life,” in The Creation Hypothesis, ed. J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 196-197.

24. John Kekes, The Nature of Philosophy (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1980), 158; Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: Macmillan, Free Press, 1925), 12-13.

25. Paul Davies, The Mind of God (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 150; J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, “Postfoundationalism in Theology and Science: Beyond Conflict and Consonance,” in Rethinking Theology and Science, ed. Niels Henrik Gregersen and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 37.

26. Thomas Torrance, Divine and Contingent Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 67.

27. Loren Eiseley, Darwin’s Century (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), 62.

28. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 18.

29. Henry Veatch, “A Neglected Avenue in Contemporary Religious Apologetics,” Religious Studies 13 (1977): 30. Deane William Ferm writes, “The principal cause of the new approach to theological thinking in modern times has been the scientific revolution” (Ferm, Contemporary American Theologies [New York: Seabury, 1981], 1).

30. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951-1963), 1:130.

31. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (New York: Basic, 1963).

32. Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution Controversies (London: Addison-Wesley, 1982), 322.

33. Basil Whilley, “Darwin’s Place in the History of Thought,” in Darwinism and the Study of Society, ed. Michael Banton (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1961), 15.

34. Larry Laudan, “The Demise of the Demarcation Problem,” in Physics, Philosophy, and Psychoanalysis, ed. Robert S. Cohen and Larry Laudan (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983), 119.

35. Stephen C. Meyer, “The Methodological Equivalence of Design and Descent: Can There Be a Scientific ‘Theory of Creation’?” in The Creation Hypothesis, ed. J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 79.

36. Bube, Putting It All Together, 167-187.

37. A classic statement of this view is Donald M. MacKay, “Brain Research and Human Responsibility,” in Horizons of Science, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 175-192.

38. Complementarity is not the only orientation that clearly excludes a God-of-the-gaps mentality. Theologians also defend compartmentalism on the ground that it disables God-of-the-gaps thinking. See Tillich’s argument in Systematic Theology, 1:130.

39. Nancey Murphy, “Phillip Johnson on Trial: A Critique of His Critique of Darwin,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 45 (1993): 26-36.

40. Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989), 45.

41. Peter Atkins, “Awesome Versus Adipose: Who Really Works Hardest to Banish Ignorance?” Free Inquiry 18 (1998): 26-27.

42. Quoted in Phillip Johnson, Reason in the Balance (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 91-92.

43. Richard Lewontin, “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark,” The New York Review of Books, 9 January 1997, 28.

44. Howard J. Van Till, “When Faith and Reason Cooperate,” Christian Scholar’s Review 21 (1991): 42.

45. Idem, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us About Creation (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 102-104.

46. Ibid., 99.

47. J. P. Moreland, “Theistic Science and Methodological Naturalism,” in The Creation Hypothesis, ed. J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 46-48.

48. Van Till, Fourth Day, 61-74.

49. Einstein, quoted in Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 113.

50. Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random, 1980), 4.

51. Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 12-13.

52. John Polkinghorne, Beyond Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 104.

53. Etienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, reprint ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 1.

54. This may in part explain why the common person often sees science as more reliable than history. C. S. Lewis described people who think we know “a great deal about Pre-Historic [Humanity]: doubtless because Pre-Historic [Humanity] is labeled ‘Science’ (which is reliable) whereas Napoleon or Julius Caesar is labeled as ‘History’ (which is not)” (Lewis, “God in the Dock,” in God in the Dock [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970], 241).

55. Gilson, Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, 105.

56. Niels Henrik Gregersen and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, “Theology and Science in a Pluralist World: An Introduction,” in Rethinking Theology and Science, ed. Niels Henrik Gregersen and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 1.

57. Johnson cited five types of reasons that the representatives of the science education establishment use to justify their considerable social power. (1) Modern naturalism expresses the way things really are. Philosophical naturalism is true. (2) Modern naturalism is the quintessence of rationality. Rationality and naturalism are so closely connected that the controversial status of naturalism is obscured. (3) Modernism frees people from outdated modes of social organization. (4) Modernism is necessary for democracy. Scientific naturalism yields public knowledge, and so it potentially leads to peaceful resolution of social problems. (5) Modernist government is acceptable to religious people, including many Christians (Johnson, Reason in the Balance, 36-48).

58. Ernan McMullin, “The History and Philosophy of Science: A Taxonomy,” in Historical and Philosophical Perspectives of Science, ed. Roger Stuewer, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1970), 24.

59. A popular introduction to this history is Charles E. Hummel, The Galileo Connection: Resolving Conflicts Between Science and the Bible (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986).

60. Van Huyssteen, “Postfoundationalism in Theology and Science,” 25.

61. Loren Eiseley, “Francis Bacon,” in The Horizon Book of Makers of Modern Thought (New York: American Heritage Publishing, 1972), 95-96.

62. Alan Padgett, review of Theology and the Justification of Faith, by J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, in Christian Scholar’s Review 22 (1992): 98.

63. Toulmin and Goodfield, Fabric of the Heavens, 249.

64. Van Huyssteen, “Postfoundationalism in Theology and Science,” 46.

65. Ibid., 14, 25.

66. Ibid., 37.

67. J. Wentzel van Huyssteen notes that Bernard D’Espagnat has made this epistemic move (van Huyssteen, “Postfoundationalism in Theology and Science,” 17).

68. Ibid., 23.

69. For examples of his religious writings, see Isaac Newton, Theological Manuscripts, ed. H. McLachlan (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1950).

70. Hugh Ross popularized the concept of “cosmic constants.” See, for example, The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993).

71. See Pearcey and Thaxton, Soul of Science, 243-248.

72. John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him, Foundations of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2001), 537-624.

73. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (New York: Bantam, 1988), 174.

74. Francis Crick, “Of Molecules and Men,” quoted in A. R. Peacocke, Creation and the World of Science (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 118.

75. Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964).

76. J. P. Moreland, “Science, Miracles, Agency Theory, and the God-of-the-Gaps,” in In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God’s Action in History, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 132-148.

77. Alvin Plantinga, “When Faith and Reason Clash: Evolution and the Bible,” Christian Scholar’s Review 21 (1991): 30.

78. Bube, Putting It All Together, 86.

79. Pearcey and Thaxton, Soul of Science, 245.

80. Bube, Putting It All Together, 86-87.

81. William Dembski, The Design Inference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

82. Idem, “Signs of Intelligence: A Primer on the Discernment of Intelligent Design,” in Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design, ed. William A. Dembski and James M. Kushiner (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2001), 171-192.

83. LeRon Shults, “Integrative Epistemology,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 5 (1993): 132-133.

84. Ibid., 130.

85. For example, Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 12-13.

86. Bube, Putting It All Together, 86-87.

87. Plantinga, “When Faith and Reason Clash,” 29.

CHAPTER 9

1. Gordon D. Kaufman, Theology for a Nuclear Age (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985), 45-46.

2. Michael Dummett, “The Impact of Scriptural Studies on the Content of Catholic Belief,” in Hermes and Athena: Biblical Exegesis and Philosophical Theology, ed. Eleonore Stump and Thomas P. Flint (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), 19.

3. Donald G. Bloesch, A Theology of Word and Spirit: Authority and Method in Theology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 35.

4. James H. Olthuis, “On Worldviews,” Christian Scholar’s Review 14 (1985): 153.

5. John Hick, Faith and Knowledge (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1957), 127-129.

6. For example, Bruce R. Reichenbach, The Law of Karma: A Philosophical Study (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990).

7. Robert Audi and William Wainwright, Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), 9.

8. William K. Frankena, Ethics, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 10-11.

9. Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Old Tappan, N.J.: Revell, 1976), 81.

10. Donald Bloesch said, “theology and philosophy are not simply two ways of approaching reality, but they speak fundamentally of two different realities. . . . the God of the philosophers is something other than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is the difference between an idol created by the imagination and the experience of the true God” (Bloesch, Theology of Word and Spirit, 43).

11. David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order (New York: Seabury, 1975), 7.

12. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 63.

13. See William Lane Craig’s discussion of Luther’s distinction between the magisterial (i.e., master) and ministerial (i.e., servant) uses of reason (Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, rev. ed. [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994], 36).

14. Dallas Willard, “Jesus the Logician,” Christian Scholar’s Review 28 (1999): 606.

15. Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 254-271.

16. Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Can Belief in God Be Rational If It Has No Foundations?” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 176.

17. Winfried Corduan wrote, “I do not believe that there are any universally accepted significant content beliefs. Even a proposition as basic as ‘I exist’ is not universally accepted; it is denied in Theravada Buddhism. Now it is all very well to say that to deny your own existence is crazy; all people ought to subscribe to this proposition. Yet some people do not, and so we cannot appeal to it as universal common ground.

“Still universal common ground is not necessary. It suffices that between any two systems there be enough overlap to allow for dialogue. . . . two worldviews views [sic] will overlap somewhere, but it will not always be in the same place. The concern is whether two systems have some overlap. Whether the same overlap exists for a third system or not is not relevant” (Corduan, Reasonable Faith [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1993], 73).

18. See David K. Clark and Norman L. Geisler, Apologetics in the New Age: A Christian Critique of Pantheism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1990), 174-176.

19. Kevin Vanhoozer correctly wrote, “Rationality is not a matter of a particular kind of starting point but of the rules that regulate reflective discourse. Rational discourse is characterized by clarity, logical consistency, conceptual coherence, comprehensiveness, and criticizability” (Vanhoozer, “Christ and Concept: Doing Theology and the ‘Ministry’ of Philosophy,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John D. Woodbridge and Thomas E. McComiskey [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991], 132).

20. Bloesch, Theology of Word and Spirit, 43.

21. Speaking of a system of thought implies only that sets of beliefs are organized and interconnected. Barth rejected the word ‘system’ because, he argued, it implies that a pattern of thinking has become closed and arbitrary. The word suggests that someone deduced a whole set of beliefs from a single, arbitrarily chosen starting point (Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. 1, part 2, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. T. Thomson and Harold Knight [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963 (1956)], 861-863). But the word ‘systematic’ and the emphasis on a noetic structure are meant only to imply that a person’s ideas influence each other as he seeks coherence within his total sets of beliefs. No person’s believings are completely disorganized. People use rational sifting processes to rank all beliefs, to warrant accepted beliefs, and to weed out incoherent beliefs. In this sense, all persons have more or less systematic noetic structures.

22. The phrase is Alvin Plantinga’s in “Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God, ed. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 48-49.

23. Ibid., 50-52.

24. In discussing the phrase “depth of ingression” (and Lakatos’s hard core vs. auxiliary belt distinction below), the phrase “outer edge” just implies that a particular belief is not logically central or rationally primal. In Quine’s use of the “web of belief” metaphor, however, the phrase “outer edge” refers to beliefs that are warranted empirically or grounded experientially. Inner core beliefs are warranted by coherence within the internal organization of the system. Lakatos and Quine use the inner/outer distinction entirely differently.

25. Imre Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,” in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave, Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, 4 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 131. Several have adapted Lakatos to theology. See, for example, Nancey Murphy, Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990).

26. Michael J. Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987).

27. Kaufmann, Theology for a Nuclear Age, 43.

28. See Richard Muller, “The Role of Church History,” in Doing Theology in Today’s World, ed. John Woodbridge and Thomas McComiskey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1991), 82-86, on pagan sources of terminology that has since become standard for the doctrine of the Trinity.

29. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology, 3 vols., trans. George H. Kehm (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 2:139.

30. See, as examples, James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997); Ronald H. Nash, Worldviews in Conflict: Choosing Christianity in a World of Ideas (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1992). Arthur F. Holmes, Contours of a World View (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983), is the first volume in a whole series titled “Studies in a Christian Worldview.”

31. Hans Küng, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 90.

32. Alister E. McGrath, “The Challenge of Pluralism for the Contemporary Christian Church,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 35 (1992): 373.

33. Greg L. Bahnsen, “Inductivism, Inerrancy, and Presuppositionalism,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 20 (1977): 300.

34. Swinburne, Existence of God, 254-271.

35. Paul Ricoeur, “Science and Ideology,” in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. John Thompson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 227.

36. See Paul Hiebert quoted in Jack Rogers, Claiming the Center (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995), 178.

37. Quoted in Wesley Salmon, “Religion and Science,” Philosophical Studies 33 (1978): 176. See also Alan Padgett, review of Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology, by J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, in Theology Today 56 (1999): 254-258.

38. An excellent introduction to this debate is Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990).

39. In evangelical apologetics, evidentialism is a theory of apologetic practice that stresses Christian evidences. In the usual typology of apologetic methods, evidentialism stands in contrast to presuppositional apologetics and classical apologetics. Clifford’s epistemic principle is completely different than evidentialist apologetic method.

40. W. K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief,” in Lectures and Essays, ed. Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Macmillan, 1886), 342-346.

41. For example, one book on apologetics has an appendix titled, “Reasoning to Christianity from Ground Zero” (Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences [Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1990], 291-292).

42. Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” 59-63.

43. This may seem an odd claim, but a well-known example might help. Suppose my son is an accomplished baritonist. One day I am sitting in my living room, and I hear baritone music coming from my son’s room. With my belief-forming faculties in proper working order, I form the belief that my son is practicing. I find out later, however, that he tape-recorded his teacher demonstrating a new technique for him to practice, and now he is playing the tape. My original belief is perfectly rational. It is the belief anyone with properly functioning cognitive faculties would form in that circumstance. But with new information, I learn it is false. Or, to take another example, an illusionist’s tricks are contrived to lead people with properly functioning belief-forming processes to false conclusions.

44. Stephen J. Wykstra, “Toward a Sensible Evidentialism: On the Notion of ‘Needing Evidence,’” in Philosophy of Religion, ed. William L. Rowe and William J. Wainwright, 2nd ed. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), 434-437.

45. Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,” 115.

46. William Hasker, “Faith-Learning Integration: An Overview,” Christian Scholar’s Review 21 (1992): 234.

47. Ronald R. Nelson, “Faith-Discipline Integration: Compatibilist, Reconstructionalist and Transformationalist Strategies,” in The Reality of Christian Learning: Strategies for Faith-Discipline Integration, ed. Harold Heie and David L. Wolfe (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Christian University Press, 1987), 317-329.

48. Alvin Plantinga, “On Christian Scholarship,” Religious and Theological Studies Fellowship Bulletin 5 (1994): 18.

49. See J. P. Moreland, “Philosophical Apologetics, the Church, and Contemporary Culture,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39 (1996): 129-133.

CHAPTER 1 0

1. Langdon Gilkey, “The Pluralism of Religions,” in God, Truth and Reality: Essays in Honor of John Hick, ed. Arvind Sharma (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993), 111.

2. Gavin D’Costa, “Christian Theology and Other Faiths,” in Companion Encyclopedia of Theology (London, New York: Routledge, 1995), 292. Note that D’Costa has decided against using the standard threefold typology of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.

3. The standard threefold typology can be traced back to Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1983). Race himself argues for pluralism. But in “John Hick’s Pluralist Philosophy of World Religions” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Marquette University, 1999), Paul Eddy points out that the essence of the threefold typology was implicit in John Hick’s “Copernican Revolution” a decade earlier, for example, in Hick’s God and the Universe of Faiths (London: Macmillan, 1973).

4. William Lane Craig, “Middle Knowledge and Christian Exclusivism,” Sophia 34 (1995): 120-139.

5. This view draws on 1 Peter 3:19-20.

6. This is built on A. H. Strong’s suggestions. For discussion, see David K. Clark, “Is Special Revelation Necessary for Salvation?” in Through No Fault of Their Own, ed. William V. Crockett and James G. Sigountos (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1991), 35-45.

7. Paul Griffiths, “Modalizing the Theology of Religions,” Journal of Religion 73 (1993): 382-389; idem, “Encountering Buddha Theologically,” Theology Today 47 (1990): 39-51; idem, On Being Mindless: Buddhist Meditation and the Mind-Body Problem (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1986).

8. Idem, “A Properly Christian Approach to Religious Plurality,” Anglican Theological Review 79 (1997): 3-26.

9. Alvin Plantinga, “Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism,” in Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith, ed. Thomas Senor (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995), 194.

10. Examples of others who assume a soteriological definition are Anne Hunt, “No Other Name? A Critique of Religious Pluralism,” Pacifica 3 (1990): 45-60; John Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992); and the authors of More Than One Way? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995).

11. Eddy points out an apparent correlation between a scholar’s academic discipline and his choice about which question is more important. Philosophers of religion tend to focus on the alethic question, while contemporary theologians tend to emphasize the soteriological question (Eddy, “John Hick’s Pluralist Philosophy of World Religions,” 32, note 57).

12. Some pluralists defend the claim that there is a “common core” of truth about which the major world religions agree. There is, however, a circularity involved in supporting the claim. The “common core” thesis elevates cross-religious agreement as a criterion of truth or importance, and in so doing it weeds out the distinctive beliefs of all religions. It is not surprising to find agreement among the ideas that emerge from a sorting procedure that looks for agreement.

13. Arthur F. Holmes, All Truth Is God’s Truth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977).

14. John R. Searle, “Does the Real World Exist?” in Realism/Antirealism and Epistemology, ed. Christopher B. Kulp (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 18.

15. See Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Is It Possible and Desirable for Theologians to Recover from Kant?” Modern Theology 14 (1998): 1-18.

16. An alethic nonrealist could say that some ultimate spiritual Reality may have caused or inspired the religious writings or doctrines of contrary religions, even though we cannot detect the fact of inspiration by a divine being. Belief in inspiration would serve a purely functional purpose, that is, not to describe any true (in the sense of correspondence) doctrine, but to elicit proper attitudes, encourage certain behaviors, or shape character in some way. In this case, only meta-religious propositions that describe abstractly the purposes of life and the role of spiritual writings, rituals, or practices in helping people find those purposes are descriptively true. But the inspired scriptures or revealed words themselves are not “true,” but only instrumentally useful tools that promote religious goals.

17. See Ronald Nash, “Restrictivism,” in What About Those Who Have Never Heard? Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized, ed. John Sanders (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 107-139.

18. It is critically important to get clarity on what these persons mean by ‘inclusivism’. Those evangelicals who class themselves as inclusivists usually identify with constitutive inclusivism, and they will typically acknowledge that normative inclusivism compromises evangelical convictions. See Sanders, What About Those Who Have Never Heard? 21-55; Clark Pinnock, A Wideness in God’s Mercy:The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1994).

19. For a short synopsis of John Hick’s views, see “The Epistemological Challenge of Religious Pluralism,” Faith and Philosophy 14 (1997): 277-286; idem, A Christian Theology of Religions: The Rainbow of Faiths (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1995).

20. Gordon D. Kaufman, God, Mystery, Diversity: Christian Theology in a Pluralistic World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996). Pluralism rooted in metaphysical nonrealism is perhaps the most difficult to characterize. There are several pluralistic views that exhibit nonrealist characteristics but resist straightforward classification as nonrealist. These are primarily views which draw on aspects of Hindu thought. See Eddy, “John Hick’s Pluralist Philosophy of World Religions,” 291-351.

21. For a clear discussion of John Hick’s intellectual development see Paul Eddy, “John Hick’s Theological Pilgrimage,” in Proceedings of the Wheaton Theology Conference (Wheaton Theology Conference, Wheaton, Ill., 1992), 26-38.

22. John Hick, “A Personal Note,” in Disputed Questions in Theology and the Philosophy of Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 139. In 1980, Hick characterized his early theology as being “of a strongly evangelical and indeed fundamentalist kind” (Hick, God Has Many Names [London: Macmillan, 1980; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982], 14).

23. The impetus behind Hick’s growth in interest in religious diversity is complex. Eddy lists several factors: (1) the influence of his previously adopted soteriological universalism as part of the answer to the problem of evil, (2) his increasing interest in interreligious dialogue (including a desire to write a global theology of death and postmortem existence), (3) the influence of Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Mentor/New American Library, 1964), and (4) Hick’s move to Birmingham (Eddy, “John Hick’s Pluralist Philosophy of World Religions,” 54-55).

24. Of course, as Eddy points out, Schleiermacher himself (inconsistently?) held to the “exclusive superiority of Christianity” (Eddy, “John Hick’s Pluralist Philosophy of World Religions,” 116).

25. John Hick, Arguments for the Existence of God (New York: Herder & Herder, 1971), 117.

26. Eddy, “John Hick’s Pluralist Philosophy of World Religions,” 122.

27. Hick, Arguments for the Existence of God, 117.

28. Idem, An Interpretation of Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989), 236.

29. Ibid., 350.

30. Keith E. Yandell, “Revisiting Religious Pluralism,” Christian Scholar’s Review 31 (2002): 319.

31. Hick, Interpretation of Religion, 239.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid., 237-238.

34. Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 52-55.

35. Hick, Interpretation of Religion, 241-242.

36. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 56.

37. Eddy, “John Hick’s Pluralist Philosophy of World Religions,” 341-351.

38. Don Cupitt, “Thin Line Theism,” Times Literary Supplement, 8 August 1980, 902.

39. On the development of Gordon Kaufman’s theology, see James Beilby, “An Evaluation of Gordon Kaufman’s Theological Proposal,” American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 20 (1999): 123 146; H. Victor Froese, “Gordon D. Kaufman’s Theology Within the Limits of Reason Alone: A Review,” Conrad Grebel Review 6 (1988): 1-26.

40. As seen in Gordon D. Kaufman, “‘God-talk’ After ‘Death of God’,” New Review of Books and Religion 2 (June 1978): 3; idem, “God as Symbol,” in God the Problem (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972); idem, An Essay on Theological Method, 1st ed., AAR Studies in Religion, no. 11 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1975).

41. Gordon D. Kaufman, “Some Reflections on a Theological Pilgrimage,” Religious Studies Review 20 (1994): 178; idem, “What Shall We Do with the Bible?” Interpretation 25 (1971): 111.

42. Idem, God the Problem, 169-170, note 13.

43. Idem, “What Shall We Do with the Bible?” 111.

44. Idem, God the Problem, 7.

45. Idem, Essay on Theological Method, 25.

46. Ibid., 45-47.

47. Idem, In Face of Mystery (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 320.

48. Idem, “Reconstructing the Concept of God: De-reifying the Anthropomorphisms,” in The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine, ed. Sarah Coakley and David Pailin (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 95.

49. Idem, In Face of Mystery, 458.

50. Idem, “Models of God: Is Metaphor Enough?” Religion and Intellectual Life 5 (1988): 17-18.

51. Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans. G. Eliot (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 32.

52. Kaufman, Essay on Theological Method, 69, note 24.

53. Ibid., 71-72.

54. Idem, “Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions,” in The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981), 175.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid., 176.

57. M. M. Thomas, Man and the Universe of Faiths (Madras: Christian Literature Society, 1975).

58. John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths (London: Macmillan, 1973).

59. Thomas, Man and the Universe of Faiths, vi.

60. Kaufman, “Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions,” 181.

61. Idem, “Theology as the Mind’s Worship,” Pittsburgh Perspective 7 (1966): 11.

62. Gordon D. Kaufman, “Evidentialism: A Theologian’s Response,” Faith and Philosophy 6 (1989): 39-40.

63. Idem, God the Problem, 7.

64. For a thorough analysis of religious language and revelation and their relation to God, see William Alston, Divine Nature and Human Language (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989).

65. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 34-35.

66. Kaufman, “Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions,” 181.

67. Idem, Theological Imagination, 34.

68. Idem, In Face of Mystery, 458.

69. Idem, “Christian Theology and the Modernization of the Religions,” 181.

70. Edward Farley, “Thinking Toward the World: A Case for Philosophical Pluralism in Theology,” American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 14 (1993): 51.

71. Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 42.

72. See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper & Row, 1990); idem, The Evolving Self: A Psychology for the Third Millennium (New York: HarperCollins, 1993). James Beilby notes: “Kaufman has made abundantly clear [that] his continued use of God-talk is solely a function of the fact that such language continues to have organizational power for him. As such, given his epistemological standard—that of providing a ‘humanizing world-constructing’ purpose—it seems that Kaufman must accept the fact that Csikszentmihalyi has found another integrating motif. As long as ‘directed evolution’ can serve the same function . . . it seems that Kaufman could have no quarrel with Csikszentmihalyi’s dispensing with God” (Beilby, “Evaluation of Kaufman’s Proposal,” 123-146).

73. Gordon D. Kaufman, “God and Emptiness: An Experimental Essay,” in The Religious Philosophy of Nishitani Keiji: Encounter with Emptiness, ed. Taietsu Unno (Berkeley, Calif.: Asian Humanities, 1989).

74. Ibid., 83-84, 95.

75. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 42.

76. Idem, “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” Faith and Philosophy 1 (1984): 269-270.

77. Idem, “On Christian Scholarship,” Religious and Theological Studies Fellowship Bulletin 5 (1994): 18.

78. Idem, “Advice to Christian Philosophers,” 271.

79. “Exclusivism strikes more and more Christians as immoral,” wrote Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Smith, “An Attempt at Summation,” in Christ’s Lordship and Religious Pluralism, ed. G. H. Anderson and T. F. Stransky [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981], 202).

80. John Hick, “Pluralism and the Reality of the Transcendent,” The Christian Century, 21 January 1981, 48.

81. For a brief but very helpful analysis of three different contexts where tolerance plays out, see Harold A. Netland, Dissonant Voices: Religious Pluralism and the Question of Truth (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), 301-314.

82. See Daniel Taylor, “Are You Tolerant (Should You Be?): Deconstructing the Gospel of Tolerance,” Christianity Today, 11 January 1999, 42-48, 50, 52.

83. Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief, 62.

84. Ibid., 63.

85. G. K. Chesterton, The Catholic Church and Conversion (New York: Macmillan, 1950), 27.

CHAPTER 11

1. C. S. Lewis, “Myth Become Fact,” in God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970), 66.

2. See Arthur F. Holmes, All Truth Is God’s Truth (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1977).

3. Richard Bernstein rejects absolutism because he believes all knowledge is criticizable. That is, he adopts fallibilism (Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983], 12). The word ‘absolute’ scares contemporary writers. The problem is that many think a commitment to absolutism implies, not merely the claim that God possesses a transcendent perspective, but the contention that ordinary Christian theologians can fully capture the absolute divine perspective. Since God is truly infinite, his transcendent knowledge is absolute. Since this is so, no human person can capture God’s perfect knowledge entirely.

4. Gordon D. Kaufman, “‘Evidentialism’: A Theologian’s Response,” Faith and Philosophy 6 (1989): 40-41.

5. William Paley, Natural Theology (Boston: Lincoln and Edmands, 1831).

6. See Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: Free Press, 1996); William Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); idem, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1999).

7. Scott A. Shalkowski, “Evidentialism and Theology: A Reply to Kaufman,” Faith and Philosophy 9 (1992): 256.

8. Ibid.

9. A further irony is that Kaufman does boldly assert many things as true about reality (as he must). Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann point out examples. Kaufman claimed that to “try to make ourselves the ultimate disposers of our lives and destiny” is to “sin against God” (Kaufman, “Theologically Unfashionable Philosophy,” Faith and Philosophy 7 [1990]: 336).

10. Whether propositions themselves possess existence as abstract entities (Plato) or are aspects of an illocutionary act (Aristotle) is debated, and I leave that point aside. As to the exact nature of a proposition, my inclination is Aristotelian, but this is not the place to defend one particular theory of propositions against another.

11. This illustration is based on William Alston’s example.

12. Not all theologians adopt this view. John Feinberg does not agree that propositions are bearers of truth. See “Truth: Relationship of Theories of Truth to Hermeneutics,” in Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible, ed. Earl Radmacher and Robert Preus (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984), 1-50.

13. Note that this use of the term ‘proposition’ differs completely from its use in the phrase “propositional revelation.” The idea of propositional revelation emphasizes that the written utterances of the Bible are genuinely divine revelation. It denies that revelation is limited to personal revelation, the personal encounter with the Living Word, Jesus Christ. Propositional revelation denies Karl Barth’s famous view that the Bible is not revelation, but witnesses to revelatory experiences of spiritual encounter. A proper commitment to the idea of propositional revelation means only that Scripture itself is revelation. Scripture, of course, does not exhaust revelation, for revelatory experiences are possible. The point is that these experiences do not exhaust revelation. A proper commitment to propositional revelation does not entail that revelation is limited to statements (i.e., to declarative sentences) or to propositions in Scripture as I have defined them (i.e., to the conceptual dimension of declarative sentences).

14. William H. Willimon, “Jesus’ Peculiar Truth,” Christianity Today, 4 March 1996, 21.

15. See Anthony C. Thiselton, “Truth,” in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 4 vols., ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986), 3:874-902.

16. Donald G. Bloesch, The Future of Evangelical Christianity: A Call for Unity amid Diversity (Colorado Springs: Helmers and Howard, 1988), 120.

17. See Holmes, All Truth Is God’s Truth, 37-38.

18. D. A. Carson, “Recent Developments in the Doctrine of Scripture,” in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986), 26.

19. “The full Bible concept of truth involves factuality, faithfulness, and completeness. Those who have stressed one of these features in order to downgrade either or both of the others are falling short of the biblical pattern. Notably those who have stressed faithfulness, as if conformity to fact did not matter, are failing grievously to give proper attention to what constitutes probably a majority of the passages in which the word truth is used” (Roger Nicole, “The Biblical Concept of Truth,” in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983], 296).

20. Willimon, “Jesus’ Peculiar Truth,” 21.

21. Donald G. Bloesch emphasizes the transformative function of Scripture. Yet he does not exclude the importance of objective truthfulness: “The paramount question is not whether the Bible is true in the sense of being fully accurate in everything it reports, but whether the Bible leads us into truth, whether the Bible brings us truth. But the Bible could not lead us into truth unless its central claims were true, unless its overall witness were reliable and dependable” (Bloesch, Holy Scripture: Revelation, Inspiration and Interpretation, Christian Foundations [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994], 299).

22. Dallas Willard, In Search of Guidance: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993), 62.

23. Abraham Kuyper says, “No one theology can claim to be all-sided and completely developed. This is not possible, because every theology has to deal with an object that is not susceptible to an abstract intellectual treatment, and which can therefore only be known in connection with its historical development in life” (Kuyper, Principles of Sacred Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1954], 49).

24. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “From Canon to Concept: ‘Same’ and ‘Other’ in the Relation Between Biblical and Systematic Theology,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 12 (1994): 119.

25. George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984).

26. Richard L. Kirkham, Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), 24-25.

27. Kirkham also speaks of a third project, the speech act project. Discussion of this goes beyond the purposes of this chapter, but I will come back to speech act theory in chapter 12.

28. Kirkham, Theories of Truth, 106.

29. Blanshard’s example of a complete “system of truth,” Euclidean geometry, is just as troubled because mathematicians have developed not one but three internally coherent yet mutually incongruent systems of geometry (see chapter 8). Maybe Blanshard means to say only that there is but one coherent set of beliefs (i.e., the set of all true beliefs) and that this coherent set of beliefs is what we define as truth. If so, his definition is a tautology. That is, it is logically no different than saying “A husband is a married man.” Of course, tautologous definitions are true (in fact, they are necessarily so), but from a practical point of view they are incomplete. See Brand Blanshard, “Coherence as the Nature of Truth,” in The Nature of Thought, 2 vols. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1948), 2:264-269.

30. William James, Pragmatism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), 97.

31. Ibid., 106.

32. Ibid., 34.

33. Rebecca Chopp, “Feminist and Womanist Theologies,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, ed. David F. Ford, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997), 398.

34. Graham Shaw, The Cost of Authority: Manipulation and Freedom in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982); idem, “The Vulnerability of Faith,” in God and Reality: Essays on Christian Non-realism, ed. Colin Crowder (London: Mowbray, 1997), 62.

35. Idem, “Vulnerability of Faith,” 63.

36. This counterexample parallels those given by Edmund Gettier to the “justified true belief” account of knowledge. See his classic essay, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23 (1963): 121-123.

37. C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974), 108-109.

38. This example is Huston Smith’s. See his “The View from Everywhere: Ontotheology and the Post-Nietzschean Deconstruction of Metaphysics,” in Religion, Ontotheology, and Deconstruction, ed. Henry Ruf (New York: Paragon, 1989), 60.

39. Blanshard, Nature of Thought, 2:268.

40. William Alston, A Realist Conception of Truth (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996).

41. Charles S. Peirce, “The Logic of 1873,” in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 vols., ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931–1958), 7:319.

42. Idem, “Fraser’s Edition of the Works of George Berkeley,” in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 vols., ed. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931–1958), 8:12.

43. Peirce, surprisingly enough, explicitly endorses the idea that it does not matter how final consensus is reached. “If a general belief . . . can in any way be produced, though it be by the faggot and the rack, to talk of error in such a belief is utterly absurd” (ibid., 8:16).

44. Hilary Putnam does not pretend that every case is such that ideal epistemic circumstances exist. Rather, Putnam suggests that “truth is an idealization of rational acceptability” (Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981], 55). That is, we speak of truth as if there were such a thing as an epistemically ideal circumstance.

45. Alston, Realist Conception of Truth, 201.

46. Kirkham, Theories of Truth, 50-51.

47. Some have tried to avoid the consequence by replacing the word ‘true’ in the phrase “justified as true” with ‘assertable’. But this will not do. One possibly relevant sense of ‘assertable’ is that a sentence is physically assertable (i.e., a person possesses the physical capability to state the proposition).

Obviously, this is not enough. Not all physically assertable propositions are either true or justified.

The only other sense of ‘assertable’ is that a sentence is justifiably assertable. But then the proffered replacement for “justified as true” is “justified as being justifiably assertable.” That does not constitute progress. See Kirkham, Theories of Truth, 51.

48. J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (New York: Penguin, 1977); Louis P. Pojman, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 3rd ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1999).

49. William Alston, “Realism and the Christian Faith,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 38 (1995): 39.

50. In addition to deconstruction and Wittgenstein’s legacy, another movement entails that theology cannot refer meaningfully to God. This is logical positivism. Positivism says that propositions are meaningful if and only if they are definitions (tautologies) or are empirically verifiable. Propositions about God are neither tautologous nor verifiable, so they lack meaning. I will not devote attention to positivism. Positivism is self-referentially incoherent. It is dead and buried—although you can sometimes catch a faint whiff of it hanging in the air.

51. Millard Erickson, Postmodernizing the Faith (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1998), 19.

52. The fact that deconstruction arose in a discipline other than theology parallels the fact that postmodernism originally began in another discipline—architecture—and then migrated into other fields including theology.

53. Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, ed. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye (London: P. Owen, 1959).

54. “Structuralism,” in New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 664-665.

55. Interestingly, the term ‘deconstruction’ bothered Derrida, and early on he used it only rarely (Jacques Derrida, The Ear of the Other, trans. Peggy Kamuf [New York: Schocken, 1985], 85).

56. Ibid., 86-87.

57. For a helpful discussion of Derridean deconstruction see Christopher Norris, Derrida (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 18-20.

58. Jacques Derrida, The Derrida Reader: Writing Performances, ed. Julian Wolfreys (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998).

59. Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, trans. and ed. Colin Gordon (New York: Pantheon, 1980).

60. Jean-François Lyotard, Political Writings, trans. Bill Readings and Kevin Paul (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).

61. Merold Westphal, “Postmodernism and Religious Reflection,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 38 (1995): 128.

62. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random, 1968), 267.

63. Gary John Percesepe, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being Postmodern,” Christian Scholar’s Review 20 (1990): 129.

64. David Ray Griffin, “Series Introduction,” in David Ray Griffin et al., Founders of Constructive Postmodern Philosophy, SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (New York: State University of New York Press, 1993), viii-x.

65. Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

66. Mark C. Taylor, Deconstructing Theology, AAR Studies in Religion, no. 28 (New York: Crossroad; Chicago: Scholars, 1982), 96-97.

67. Westphal, “Postmodernism and Religious Reflection,” 135.

68. I deliberately titled this section “The Legacy of Wittgenstein” to avoid discussing which interpretation of Wittgenstein is most faithful to Wittgenstein himself. I do not care to answer that question. Examples of the debate over the “real” Wittgenstein are legion (Jordan Curnutt, “Huang on Wittgenstein on Religious Epistemology,” Religious Studies 34 [1998]: 81-89; Joseph M. Incandela, “The Appropriation of Wittgenstein’s Work by Philosophers of Religion: Towards a Re-Evaluation and an End,” Religious Studies 21 [1985]: 457-474; Hugo Meynell, “Doubts About Wittgenstein’s Influence,” Philosophy 57 [1982]: 251-259; John Churchill, “Wittgenstein on the Phenomena of Belief,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 16 [1984]: 139-152).

69. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997).

70. Idem, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuiness (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974).

71. Wittgenstein declared that his later work, Philosophical Investigations, is best understood if we place it against the background of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In fact, it denies much of what is said about truth and language in the Tractatus, and constitutes the denial of an entire philosophical tradition of which the Tractatus is deemed by many to be the culmination.

72. Examples of words that depend on their context for meaning are ‘use’ (Gebrauch), ‘employment’ (Verwendung), or ‘application’ (Anwendung).

73. “Ludwig Wittgenstein,” in Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 914.

74. Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958), 100-101.

75. D. Z. Phillips, Religion Without Explanation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976), 147.

76. Idem, “Epistemic Practices: A Reply to Wainwright,” Topoi 14 (1995): 99.

77. Ibid., 100.

78. “Conceptions of how the world is should be distinguished from our conception that there is a way the world is independent of our practices” (William Wainwright, “Theism, Metaphysics, and D. Z. Phillips,” Topoi 14 [1995]: 90).

79. Phillips, “Epistemic Practices,” 98.

80. Wainwright, “Theism, Metaphysics, and D. Z. Phillips,” 88.

81. Phillips, “Epistemic Practices,” 103.

82. This is not to say that belief in God does not have an important attitudinal component. Of course it does. This is to say only that belief in God is not reducible to an attitude.

83. C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1967).

84. See Paul Copan, True for You, but Not for Me (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1998), for a popular level discussion of these issues.

85. This goal for truth parallels Paul Moser’s distinction between the semantic project and explanatory project for epistemic justification. See his Philosophy After Objectivity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 60-61. This construal of the goal of the metaphysical project comes very close to what William Alston attempts to do in Realist Conception of Truth. See especially pages 33-37. Entailed by a minimalist proposal is a rejection of any requirement that a viable correspondence stance toward truth must give a full theoretical account of the nature and function of propositions or specify the exact nature of the correspondence between proposition and reality. I assume that while both of these projects are worthwhile, the failure to accomplish them does not require abandoning the insights contained in the correspondence intuition regarding truth. I take a minimalist approach precisely because I do not think that evangelical theology requires any particular stand on these issues.

86. More specifically, it denotes an affirmation about an intuition regarding truth that closely resembles that propounded by Paul Horwich (who coined the term ‘minimalism’). My usage is more specific than Horwich’s. In defending a minimalist correspondence approach to truth, I do not intend to endorse Paul Horwich’s work fully although there are certain affinities between his proposal and mine (Paul Horwich, Truth [Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990]).

87. Dallas Willard, “The Three-Stage Argument for the Existence of God,” in J. P. Moreland, Kai Nielsen, et al., Does God Exist? The Great Debate (Nashville: Nelson, 1990), 203.

88. See Alston, Realist Conception of Truth.

89. Donald Davidson, “Indeterminism and Antirealism,” in Realism/Antirealism and Epistemology, ed. Christopher Kulp (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 109. I understand that Davidson’s negative evaluation of antirealism does not entail his endorsement of (in his own words) “some vague position called realism,” still less the “characterization of realism in terms of correspondence” (110).

CHAPTER 12

1. Merold Westphal, “Plantinga: The Sober Truth,” paper presented at the AAR/SBL national meeting, San Francisco, Calif., 1997.

2. Key passages on analogy are: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 13, and Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 32. Because this was an important subject for Thomas, there are many other passages in which the topic is raised.

3. William P. Alston, “Aquinas on Theological Predication: A Look Forward and a Look Backward,” in Reasoned Faith, ed. Eleonore Stump (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 145.

4. Ibid., 148.

5. Frederick Ferré, Language, Logic and God (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 68.

6. F. C. Copleston laid out the dilemma of agnosticism and anthropomorphism in Contemporary Philosophy (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1966), 96.

7. Alston, “Aquinas on Theological Predication,” 149; see Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 13, 5.

8. Gregory P. Rocca, “Aquinas on God-Talk: Hovering over the Abyss,” Theological Studies 54 (1993): 650-659.

9. Two very important works on Thomistic analogy are: Ralph M. McInerny, The Logic of Analogy: An Interpretation of St. Thomas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961); Battista Mondin, The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963).

10. Some philosophers have held that in proper proportionality, we do in fact have knowledge of three terms. Thus only one term is unknown. A classic expressing this view is Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, God, His Existence and His Nature: A Thomistic Solution of Certain Agnostic Antinomies, trans. Don Bede Rose, 5th ed. (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1934).

11. Ferré, Language, Logic and God, 72-73.

12. Ibid., 76-77.

13. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, III, 1a, 13, 5.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., I, 13, 2.

16. Mondin, The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology, 37-38; David Burrell, Analogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973), 119-124; Alston, “Aquinas on Theological Predication,” 145-146.

17. Ferré, Language, Logic and God, 74.

18. E. L. Mascall, Existence and Analogy (London: Longmans, Green, 1949), 113-115.

19. Terrence Tilley, Talking of God (New York: Paulist, 1978), 46.

20. William P. Alston, “Can We Speak Literally of God?” in Divine Nature and Human Language (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 40.

21. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, 13, 3.

22. Idem, Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 32, 3.

23. Alston, “Aquinas on Theological Predication,” 166-167.

24. This illustration comes from Jerry Fodor, Psychological Explanation (New York: Random, 1968), 15-16, as quoted in Alston, “Can We Speak Literally of God?” 50.

25. William P. Alston, “Functionalism and Theological Language,” in Divine Nature and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theology (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 71.

26. I have space for only one brief example. The possibility of predicating any term to God may shift, depending on which feature of God’s qualitative uniqueness is in view. So the number of possible discussions here is very large.

27. See Alston, “Can We Speak Literally of God?” 54-63.

28. Idem, “Functionalism and Theological Language,” 72.

29. Idem, “Aquinas on Theological Predication,” 175.

30. Idem, “Functionalism and Theological Language,” 65.

31. In Latin, proprie. Alston notes that the main reason for translating proprie as “literally” is that the main contrast to proprie is “metaphorically” (“Aquinas on Theological Predication,” 147, note 2).

32. Richard Swinburne, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 20.

33. Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 37-42.

34. Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God (Nashville: Nelson, 1997), 35-46.

35. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951-1963), 1:238.

36. Idem, The Courage to Be (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952), 186-190.

37. Mark Kline Taylor, Paul Tillich: Theologian of the Boundaries (San Francisco: Collins, 1987), 23.

38. Stanley Hauerwas, Truthfulness and Tragedy: Further Investigations in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 34.

39. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 90.

40. Paul Lauritzen, “Is ‘Narrative’ Really a Panacea? The Use of ‘Narrative’ in the Work of Metz and Hauerwas,” Journal of Religion 67 (1987): 322.

41. For a helpful though dated essay see Gabriel Fackre, “Narrative Theology: An Overview,” Interpretation 37 (1983): 340-352. This entire issue of Interpretation discusses narrative.

42. Gary L. Comstock, “Two Types of Narrative Theology,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1987): 688.

43. Hauerwas, Truthfulness and Tragedy, 34.

44. William C. Placher, Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1989), 165-166.

45. Aristotle, Poetics, 21.

46. Cicero, De Oratore, 3.37.

47. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, part 1, chapter 5.

48. George Berkeley, “On Motion,” in The Works of George Berkeley . . . Including His Posthumous Works, 4 vols., ed. A. C. Fraser (Oxford: Clarendon, 1901), 1:501. See also idem, “Principles of Human Knowledge,” in The Works of George Berkeley, 1:239-240.

49. I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 93.

50. Mark Johnson, “Introduction,” in Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, ed. Mark Johnson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 27.

51. Ibid., 28.

52. Substitution theory is in essence a subtype of comparison theory. So for our purposes, I will stick with the discussion of the two main theories of metaphor.

53. Johnson, “Introduction,” 24.

54. Mark Johnson and George Lakoff, “Conceptual Metaphors in Everyday Language,” in Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, ed. Mark Johnson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 286-325.

55. Kevin Vanhoozer, “Semantics of Biblical Literature,” in Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon, ed. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986), 51-104.

56. Sallie McFague, Speaking in Parables: A Study in Metaphor and Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).

57. Idem, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).

58. Idem, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).

59. Idem, Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001).

60. Ted Peters, “McFague’s Metaphors,” Dialog 27 (1988): 131-140.

61. McFague, Metaphorical Theology, 194.

62. Idem, Life Abundant, 171.

63. William P. Alston, “Irreducible Metaphors in Theology,” in Divine Nature and Human Language (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 35-37.

64. Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: Macmillan, 1961 [originally 1906]).

65. William G. Lycan, Philosophy of Language (New York: Routledge, 2000), 209.

66. Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who Is There (Chicago: InterVarsity Press, 1968).

67. Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism, Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

68. Janet Martin Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985).

69. Alston accepts that God is infinite, incorporeal, and timeless. But he denies God’s simplicity, and he denies that “God is not a being.” (That is, he accepts neither that God is Being-itself nor that God is the ground of Being.) (Alston, “Functionalism and Theological Language,” 64.)

70. McFague, Metaphorical Theology, 4.

71. Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1:242.

72. Alston, “Irreducible Metaphors in Theology,” 35-37.

73. George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984).

74. See Nancey Murphy, Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity, 1996).

75. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd ed., ed. J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975).

76. John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

77. See Kevin Vanhoozer, “From Speech Acts to Scripture Acts: The Covenant of Discourse and the Discourse of Covenant,” in After Pentecost: Language and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Craig Bartholomew, Colin Greene, and Karl Möller, Scripture and Hermeneutics Series, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001), 1-49.

78. Nancey Murphy, “Textual Relativism, Philosophy of Language, and the Baptist Vision,” in Theology Without Foundations, ed. Stanley Hauerwas, Nancey Murphy, and Mark Nation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 245-270.

79. William P. Alston, Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000).

80. Richard Swinburne, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 18, 37-38, 55.

81. John Searle, Mind, Language and Society: Philosophy in the Real World (New York: Basic, 1998), 146-152. See Frederick Ferré, Language, Logic and God, 58-61, for an early example.

82. Paul M. van Buren, Edges of Language: An Essay in the Logic of a Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 135.

83. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 94-132.

84. Deborah Tannen, I Only Say This Because I Love You (New York: Random, 2001).

Table of Contents

Introduction by General Editor

Preface

Introduction: Evangelical Patterns in Theology

CHAPTER 1     CONCEPTS OF THEOLOGY

I. Historical Perspectives

A. Patristic Beginnings

B. Medieval Modifications

C. Reformation and Post-Reformation Developments

II. Contemporary Options

A. Shapers of Contemporary Theologizing

B. Current Trends in Theologizing

C. Traditional Protestant Perspectives

III. Context and Content Revisited

A. Plotting the Options

B. The Contextual Pole

C. The Kerygmatic Pole

IV. Conclusion

CHAPTER 2     SCRIPTURE AND THE PRINCIPLE OF AUTHORITY

I. The Principle of Authority

A. Authority in the Evangelical Tradition

B. Authority as Testimony

C. The Burden of Evangelical Hermeneutics

II. Three Objections to the Authority Principle

A. The Abusive Nature of Appeals to Authority

B. The Circularity of Appeals to Authority

C. The Irrationality of Appeals to Authority

III. Authorizing Theology

A. Confirmation

B. Principlizing

CHAPTER 3     THEOLOGY IN CULTURAL CONTEXT

I. Theology in the Newly Globalized Situation

A. Culture and Globalization

B. Praxis and the Emergence of Contextualization

C. Hermeneutical Roots of Contextualization

II. Evangelical Contextualization

A. A Decode/Encode Model of Contextualization

B. A Dialogical Model for Evangelical Contextualization

III. A Case Study: Contextualization and Multiculturalism

A. The Promise and Peril of Multiculturalism

B. Theology and Cultural Diversity

CHAPTER 4     DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES AND THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

I. Perspectivalism

A. The Concept of Perspectivalism

B. The Scope of a Perspective

C. Perspectivalism as a Feature of Deconstructive Postmodernism

II. The Inadequacy of Perspectivalism

A. Different Kinds of Relativism

B. A Critique of Perspectivalism

III. Perspectivalism and Foundationalism

A. Foundationalism