The Questioning Christian

Why people go to church

The Rev David Meara, rector of St. Bride's in London, writes in the Telegraph of the capacity crowds at Christmas time:

People come to church because they want a story to connect with, a guiding narrative that helps them make sense of human existence, and because they have found that unthinking multiculturalism and rampant secularism don't satisfy and don't work.

But if these spiritual needs are to be properly nurtured, then Anglicanism needs to rediscover its quiet, understated confidence in the balance between Scripture, reason and tradition, and to assert this in the face of an increasingly intolerant fundamentalism.

One feature that drew me into the Church of England was its generous tolerance of diverse opinions held together by the beauty of Cranmer's liturgy.

"Thou hast set my feet, O Lord, in a large room," says the psalmist, and I give thanks for the large room that is the Church of England, in which those who seek meaning and purpose can be welcomed, whatever stage of belief or unbelief they have reached. . . .

We rejoice in the Anglican via media, a church which is both catholic and reformed, with a robust outlook that puts dialogue before dogma and practical involvement in the community before theological posturing.

(Hat tip: TItusOneNine)

The underlying theological disputes won't be 'settled' any time soon

A recurring theme among some scripturalists is that the church should not proceed with 'innovations' such as same-sex blessings, women's ordination, and communion without baptism, until the underlying theological questions are 'settled.' At worst, that's merely a delaying tactic; at best, it's an unrealistic approach.

We're not going to see a 'settlement' of such theological questions any time soon. Not only do people (of all persuasions) tend to fall in love with their own opinions; in the Anglican / Protestant tradition, there are few if any penalties for bitter-enders who loudly assert their opinions, even — or especially — as a contrary consensus evolves:

• Such questions can't be resolved by empirical proof one way or another; there's no penalty of peer scorn for those who refuse to face the facts, because there are no facts, at least none that are useful;

• We have no pope who can supposedly resolve the matter by ex cathedra pronouncement; there's little or no danger of excommunication for those who refuse to conform to 'settled' theology;

• In modern Western civilization, there’s no Emperor Constantine (or Grand Inquisitor or Marshal Stalin or Dear Leader) whose minions will jail or execute dissenters from 'correct' views.'

Given these realities, we're not going to see Anglican theologians joyfully proclaiming in unison, “It’s settled — Bishop X has found the right answer!” No; what we'll see instead is the theological counterpart to the aphorism that old economic theories don’t die off until old economists do.

I guess I'm a fallibilist too

At The Lead, Ann Fontaine points us to a commencement address by philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah at Swarthmore in May 2006:

Often I find myself seated next to a stranger on an airplane who asks me what I do. Sometimes I say I'm a philosopher. The commonest responses are:

(1) An expression that combines boredom and alarm, and the end of the conversation (which leaves you with the pretzels and the soda, and the really fascinating article from the Review of Metaphysics you've been meaning to get to for a couple of years) and

(2) "So, what's your philosophy?"

To that question, I usually reply: "Everything is much more complicated than you first thought." In philosophy at least, that really is my philosophy. So, I can tell the truth and we can both get back to those wonderfully inviting pretzels.

The truth, I said: I happen to be a great believer in objective truth. But one way in which things get more complicated than you thought is that I am also a great believer in what philosophers call fallibilism.  Fallibilism is the idea that our knowledge is imperfect, provisional, subject to revision in the face of new evidence. Fallibilism says: Here's what I know to a moral certainty, know well enough to live by. But I could be wrong.

Does that sound feeble? It isn't. Fallibilism made science possible. For centuries, doctrine had held that there were demonstrative, self-evident truths, as with a Euclidean theorem, and that all else was mere opinion. Today, scientific fallibilism has spread across the globe; it holds sway even in the theocracy of Iran, where scientific and technological knowledge is revered, especially, alas, when it produces new forms of weaponry.

* * *

... [H]ow much evil is done by fanatics who can't countenance the possibility that their beliefs, sanctioned by ideological or religious authority, might conceivably be mistaken! Here, then, is one of the uncompleted tasks of our era: to spread fallibilism - not skepticism about the truth or indifference to it, but just the glimmering recognition that one may not be in full possession of it - from the empyrean of scientific fact to the hardpan of moral conviction: to make it as common as Coca-Cola.

People say that common sense is the ability to see what's in front of your eyes. But even madmen and extremists can see what's in front of their eyes; so, again, I think it's more complicated than that.

Common sense, I'd prefer to say, involves the ability to see what's in front of the other fellow's eyes. That's what makes it something we might have in common.

(Emphasis in original; extra paragraphing added.)

For more about fallibilism, see the Wikipedia article.

Ms. Fontaine suggests that "Perhaps it [fallibilism] applies to Anglicans." And to all of us.

The evolution of church doctrine about homosexuality is itself a continuation of "the apostles' teaching and fellowship"

Over at TitusOneNine, my friend Philip Snyder of Dallas writes: 

Could, for example, General Convention vote that Baptism was to be in the name of Jesus only? How about GC voting to say that Jesus is of like substance with the Father or that the Trinity is not a true statement of the nature of God, but that God is truly one person with three (or more!) masks or avatars or functions?   

... In our baptism, the first promise that we make is to continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship.  Where is the blessing of same sex unions within that teaching?  If it is not there, then why are you doing it?  If you think it should be there, why do you risk the apostles’ fellowship to impliment it before the rest of the church agrees?

I was pleased that Phil mentioned the two examples in his first above-quoted paragraph.

"The apostles' teaching and fellowship" included a willingness to let doctrines and practices evolve

Taking Phil's second example first: I thought it was generally accepted that church doctrine about the precise nature of the Trinity evolved over time, and was indeed eventually settled by being voted on in council. 

(At times back then the voting franchise seems to have been restricted to imperially-approved bishops — and the emperor himself — but that doesn’t mean we have to abide by the same restriction.) 

But the first example Phil gives, concerning baptism in the name of Jesus only, is even more interesting. As I’ve said before, if we’re to believe the reports in the Book of Acts, we must conclude that baptizing in the name of Jesus only is precisely what Peter et al. did, that is when they baptized in the name of anyone at all. This suggests unmistakably that one or both of the following is true:

Possibility A: Acts simply got it wrong in reporting that Peter et al. baptized in the name of Jesus only. In this case, we naturally wonder:

• what else in Acts and its prequel Luke might be wrong — no matter how carefully Luke investigated (see Luke 1), his sources might have misremembered or even “spun” their accounts;

• where the other scriptural authors might have erred in their writing (and there are plenty of candidates);

• what all this means for the scripturalist worldview.

Possibility B: Baptism in the name of the Trinity reflects an evolution in the church's thinking. Perhaps Acts didn't get it wrong, and the earliest church did indeed baptize in the name of Jesus only. This suggests that baptism in the name of the Trinity was a later innovation in the church’s practice, reflecting an evolution in theological thinking. We find indirect support for this view in the earliest-written gospel, that of Mark, in which the Great Commission does not contain the same trinitarian baptismal formula as the later Matthean version. 

It’s not evident that an evolution of baptismal practice either (i) originated with, or (ii) was approved by, the surviving apostles. If that had been the case, we might expect to read an account of the approval process itself somewhere, comparable to what we read of the circumcision controversy in Acts 15.

And speaking of the circumcision controversy: It was authoritatively resolved, not by Peter or any of the Twelve, but by James the brother of Jesus, who evidently was a latecomer to the church and does not have an obvious claim to authority via any dominical commission. 

Implication 1: Today's church is doing just what the early church did

Possibility B above — together with with the resolution of the circumcision controversy by James and not by any of the Twelve — strongly implies that in the early church, the apostles’ theological thinking and practices were not treated as immutable authority, but instead as the foundation for a continuing process of theological evolution.

If Possibility B is correct, and I think it is, then by engaging in The Current Disputes about homosexuality and the authority of Scripture, we are indeed continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship; that is, we are working together to study and resolve claims of new insight as they arise, just as they did. And also just as in the early church, our resolution of claims of new insight might well involve departing from the specifics of what the earliest apostles thought and did.  Cf. 1 Thess. 5.19-21:  “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies [that is, claims of new insight] with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good.”

Implication 2: The early church "adjusted" their writings to fit their evolving beliefs and practices

Another implication of Possibility B is that the early church felt free to put words in Jesus’ mouth, viz., in the Matthean version of the Great Commission, to match the evolution of thinking and practice.

That of course raises the question: What else in the NT might have been “adjusted” by later editors to fit the then-current thinking and practice?

Here's one example, about which I've written before:

There is some evidence that Luke's gospel may have been edited to emphasize Jesus's divinity. In Luke's account of Jesus's baptism, a voice from heaven makes a statement (Lk. 3:22). In most English translations, the statement is rendered, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." 

But scholars have noted that earlier manuscripts consistently provide instead a quotation from Psalm 2:7: "and a voice came from heaven, which said, 'you are my son; today I have begotten you.'" See, e.g., footnote 8 of Luke 3 in the New Living Translation: "Some manuscripts read and today I have become your Father." 

The earlier version has decidedly different implications for the nature of Jesus. It suggests that Luke and his sources may have regarded Jesus as an ordinary mortal until his baptism, at which time he was "adopted" by God as his son. It's possible that, in order to refute this so-called adoptionist heresy, the original Lucan text may have been altered.

How can people justify intellectual assent to the Trinity, Jesus' divinity, etc.? An email exchange with the Very Rev. Nick Knisely

[Here's an edited version of an email exchange I had this morning with the Very Rev. Nicholas Knisely, a priest and astronomer/physicist who hosts the blog Entangled States, reproduced here at his suggestion.]

Where's the supporting evidence for the Trinity, etc.?

Nick, I enjoyed your essay at The Daily Episcopalian. My attention was drawn to this statement:

Now, should the primatial authority of the Episcopal Church authorize a new Prayer Book that clearly and intentionally repudiates the sovereignty of Jesus, or denies the Doctrine of the Trinity or rejects the Creeds and other historic formulations of the universal Church, then I would agree that the Episcopal Church is no longer a church and that it has come time to leave for a place that is authentically Christian.

I’ve got a serious question that has troubled me for a long time:  How can people who seek to put God first – and, by corollary, to face the facts of the reality he created – justify giving intellectual assent to any of the foregoing?   

Let me borrow the Anglican Scotist’s labeling scheme: I’m sufficiently confident of two assertions, A1 and A2, that I’m willing to make Bet B1.  I won’t here go into why I have this confidence.

• A1:  A Creator exists.
  
• A2:  The Summary of the Law is an expression of two of the fundamental building-block processes by which the universe is being created.  

(I often paraphrase the SOTL as “[A] Face the facts — that is, live in the world God actually created, not in the one ‘created’ by your wishful thinking – and [B] seek the best for others as you do for yourself.”)

• B1: The SOTL is an appropriate guide to living one’s life.

I have no such confidence, however, about the Trinity (let’s call that A3), nor about the divinity of Jesus (A4), nor about any number of other received orthodox doctrines.  I simply don’t see how sufficient evidence exists to persuade reasonable people about these assertions. (I’ve explained my doubts in some detail on my own blog, The Questioning Christian.)

Sure, some of the church fathers apparently believed A3 and A4. But they also believed, for example, that the sun revolved around the earth; that illnesses were caused by evil spirits; and that Jesus would be returning Real Soon Now. The appeal to their authority is hardly persuasive.

In legal terms, the supporting evidence for A3 and A4 doesn’t even rise to the level of “substantial evidence” (i.e., evidence from which a reasonable person could draw the posited conclusion). It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of a preponderance of the evidence, and still less beyond a reasonable doubt.

To put it in scientific terms, A3 and A4 are no more supported by competent evidence than astrology, or the four-humours model of medicine, or cold fusion.

The various defenses I’ve read of A3 and A4 strike me as pure wishful thinking, the equivalent of the old economist joke whose punch line is “first, we’ll assume we have a can opener.”

--------------------------------------------

Now on to your statement about it being time to leave the church. Suppose that two successive General Conventions were to amend the canons and the BCP to declare that one need not profess belief in A3, A4, etc., to be considered a Christian in good standing, and that the Creeds, the Trinitarian formulae, and other language dependent on A3 and A4 could be omitted from the various BCP rites.

How could we, with any intellectual rigor, justify abandoning TEC on that basis? Doing so would seem to be acting on a whim, at least in the absence of modestly-persuasive evidence that A3, A4, etc., are in fact true.

Regards,

--D. C.

Nick's response: Some things have to be taken on faith

Thanks DC. 

Your question deserves more of an answer than I've got time... and for that I apologize. But I wanted to acknowledge it.

I do stand by what I wrote. The moment the Church acts to authoritatively deny the divinity of Jesus is the moment I'm out of here. But I don't know that such a statement is provable logically - rather it's one that has to be taken on faith. [Emphasis mine - DCT] 

What you seem to be arguing for is either a form of Unitarianism (as distinct from Unitarian Universalists) or a form of Arianism (though I'm not sure you'd give Jesus the sort of divine origin that Arius and his disciples gave to Jesus.)

Arianism is probably the more difficult to argue against - at least biblically. The Trinitarian belief that the Church holds is dependent on Arianism not being true - so if it wouldn't make sense to argue against the Trinitarian view if the Arian one hadn't been disproven.

How familiar are you with the patristic writer's arguments against Arianism?

(And I wonder if this is worth posting to a blog and having a more public discussion about?)

A reply: Acting on unsupported faith can be irrational and wrongful

[I didn't email this next part, but instead am posting it per Nick's suggestion.]

Nick, when you referred above to having to accept assertions A3 and A4 on faith, you put your finger on a fundamental issue.

My concern is not primarily whether someone believes Assertion A to be true purely on faith without supporting evidence. I think we have to recognize that we have little if any control over what we believe to be true or not true.

Suppose "Alice" happens to believe in astrology, and that our fates are influenced by the positions of the stars at our birth. I would probably think she's a bit nuts, but that she can't help what she believes. (She might think the same about me.) Without more, good manners would doubtless keep me from saying anything.

My concern comes when someone acts (or omits to act) solely on the basis of unsupported faith. It's one thing for Alice to believe in astrology; it'd be another thing entirely for her to urge others to shun "Bob" on grounds that he was born under the wrong astrological sign. If others were to follow Alice's urging, they would not only be acting irrationally, they would be doing a possibly-grievous wrong to Bob as well.

It's not hard to extend this line of argument to The Current Disputes.

Authority doesn't supplant personal responsibility

In a discussion at TitusOneNine last night, a commenter asked me, "... what authority is there in this matter? ... Do you submit to any authority?" I've had similar questions from scripturalists on other occasions.

The craving for authority

I don't fully understand the craving for authority that seems to prevail among some scripturalists. As one of my liberal commenter friends put it the other day (sorry, I can't remember who it was; Ross, maybe?), these "scrips" seem to think, in stark black-and-white terms, that:

• either we must have an authority that is eternally preeminent, in which we can be absolutely certain, and to which we owe all obedience;
• or (supposedly) we can't reliably know anything at all.

[These folks don't seem to believe you can provisionally know things, perhaps not with absolute certainty, but with enough confidence to warrant cautiously making our bets that way, and then we can learn from our mistakes to try to do better next time. For these people, it's almost as though we never have more than one shot to get it right; that life is a snapshot, not a movie.]

At the risk of making a sweeping generalization, I conjecture that this attitude may arise from —

• a conviction of utter human depravity;
• combined with fear of making a mistake;
• plus a shaky trust in God.

Some people seem so persuaded of the wretched unworthiness of humanity — including their own — that they lack the confidence to make moral judgments without the security blanket of what they deem "authority." I also strongly suspect there's an element of terror at work here as well: a fear that even an honest mistake will "provok[e] most justly Thy wrath and indignation against us ...."

[This, even though collectively we learn from our mistakes, albeit imperfectly, and over time, learning of various kinds has led to essentially all human progress.]

I daresay there may be a dollop of weak faith involved, too: a lack of real trust that, in the very long term, things are going to turn out unimaginably well.

Authority is for guidance, not for slavish obedience

It was still a thought-provoking question the commenter posed: Do I submit to any authority? 

My answer had to be yes, of course I do — but always subject to my personal, non-delegable duty (to God? to my fellow man? to conscience?) to make the best judgments I can about how to conduct my life. As my wife said once, God gave us brains, and presumably expects us to use them.

Maybe the best way to elaborate on this would be to discuss some hypothetical examples:

Circumstances may alter the worth of authority

Suppose the authority in question is a state statute that says drivers have to stop at red lights. Ordinarily, of course I'll submit to that authority.

But circumstances may alter the analysis. Years ago, my wife went into labor with our first child in the middle of the night. On the way to the hospital, I drove just a wee bit faster than the speed limit, and (carefully) jumped several red lights along the way. I had to make a decision: would it be be "better" to deal with the possible consequences of disobeying the law, or with the possible consequences of delay in getting to the hospital. I cautiously chose the former.

[Everything turned out fine at the hospital, by the way; in hindsight, I probably didn't need to drive fast nor to jump the lights. But that's in hindsight, which wasn't available to me at the time; I had to make the best decision I could, on the basis of the limited information I had. If I ever found myself in a similar situation, I might well do things in much the same way.]

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes — even authorities

If the authority were a doctor telling me he needed to amputate both my legs, I'd listen carefully, but I'd also want a second opinion, and in the end I'd make the decision myself. Doctors are human, and sometimes make mistakes. Unthinking obedience to their authority might end up crippling me for life, for no good reason.

Authority is a means to an end, not an end in itself

Suppose the authority were a harbor chart approved by the Coast Guard. Now suppose I knew the chart was slightly outdated because recent storms had altered the ship channel in a few places.

In that situation, I'd consult the chart in navigating the harbor, but I wouldn't slavishly follow it. No other mariner would ever fault me for this attitude; at the end of the day, what matters is whether I brought the ship safely into port, not whether I followed the charts sufficiently well. (See also "Submarines and Scripture: You Can't Always Trust Your Navigational Charts.")

Moral choices can't be delegated

Suppose the authority were the Gestapo in the Germany of, say, 1940, ordering me "in the name of the law" to reveal where Jews were hiding or be shot. I hope I'd have the courage to tell them where to stick their orders.

If I were to obey the Gestapo's orders, on grounds that German legal authority required me to do so, the war-crimes tribunal would not be interested in my defense that "I was only submitting to authority!"

We can't pass the buck for our personal responsibility

Perhaps it's the military subculture in which I was raised and came to adulthood: I happen to believe that each of us is ultimately responsible for our own actions, for doing the "best" we can with what we've got.

"Authority" is useful for guidance. In fact, in many situations, following authority may well be the the most responsible thing you can do. This will very often be the case with the authority of Scripture.

But authority or no authority, in the end it's you and I who are individually accountable — to each other, and quite possibly to God — for how we conduct our own lives.

Science: not facts, but a state of mind

Amanda Schaeffer reviews NY Times science reporter Natalie Angier's new book, The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science:

... "Science is not a body of facts. Science is a state of mind," she writes, noting that researchers typically recognize the provisional nature of discoveries, revel in skepticism and are spurred by uncertainty (even as they project authority and credibility to the general public).

"Working scientists don't think of science as 'the truth,' " Darcy Kelley, a neuroscientist at Columbia, tells her. "They think of it as a way of approximating the truth."

Nobel Laureate David Baltimore adds, "As our concepts become more precise, more sophisticated, the absolutes become less absolute."

(Extra paragraphing added.)

Theologians, take note.

Philip Jenkins talk on global schism

The Pew Foundation Web site has the transcript of a talk entitled "Global Schism: Is the Anglican Communion the First Stage in a Wider Christian Split?" The talk was by Penn State professor Philip Jenkins; it was followed by Q&A with some high-powered journalists. (Hat tip: Entangled States.)

 Professor Jenkins identifies two factors as big influences on the theological conservatism of African Christians:

• First, he says, in many ways Africans live in an Old Testament world, and so the Bible speaks to them very differently than it does to Westerners.
• Second, the rise of Islam.

Excerpt (emphasis mine):

Why are African churches so conservative? * * * One big reason for that is the biblical world makes sense [if you're in the Global South]; the Bible reads like it is describing the world you know immediately. ... You're dealing with people who live in, in many ways, an Old Testament world. Many Africans may not know themselves a world that practices nomadism and polygamy and blood sacrifice, but their parents did. You don't have to go far down the road to see people who are still doing these things.

Just one example out of a great many: ... Psalm 126 is a psalm that is widely quoted, and it goes like this: "The man who goes forth into the fields in tears weeping to sow the seed will bring the sheaves again in joy." You understand perfectly well why a farmer would bring the sheaves again in joy; he's celebrating harvest time.

But why do you weep while you're sowing? "It's obvious," they said to me. "Whoever wrote this psalm was writing at a time of famine, like we had a couple of years ago. You've got the corn that's left, and you can do one of two things with it. You can feed your family with it, but if you do that, you're not a farmer anymore [because you have no seeds left] and you have to migrate to the city and become a beggar, and what's going to happen to your children and so on. Or you can take the corn literally out of the hands of your hungry children and use it as seed corn and sow it. That's why a farmer weeps while sowing the corn. It's obvious."

As I said, it wasn't obvious to me, but there are any number of examples like that where the Bible describes a world that makes immediate, intuitive, documentary sense in a way it can't for us. It's almost as if every passage comes with – (unintelligible) – at the end. You have texts like the Book of Ruth, for example. The Book of Ruth is all about a society destroyed by famine where the men have left because they can, and the women are left behind with the children, and the world is held together by people being loyal to clan ties. Can't think of why that would be relevant in large chunks of Africa.

Point is, people [in the Global South] take the Bible very seriously as a source of authority. Yes, the Bible accepts the existence of slavery – this is true – but it doesn't order it or command it. And the Bible, as far as they can tell by superficial reading, does describe homosexuality as an evil, therefore it is wrong and therefore if you want to ordain gay clergy, you are running directly against the authority of the Bible. That's the reason for the Anglican split.

Continuing revelation might be like crossing the street

Traditionalist commenter The Gordian at T19 opines that "continuing revelation" supposedly cannot contradict previous revelation. But recall the “revelation” that our parents gave us when we were toddlers: Thou shalt not go in the street, ever, unless mamma or daddy holdeth thy hand. Months or years later, they gave us an additional, contradictory revelation: Thou may cross the street if thou lookest both ways first.  The difference, of course, is that our toddler selves couldn’t be trusted to respond appropriately to the later, more-nuanced revelation; as we matured, our parents eventually judged us ready for it.

Does God work that way, instructing us in different ways as our civilization matures? I don't know. What I do know is that we can't rule it out. Many traditionalists decree categorically that God would never, ever change his instructions, even if the situation — and we — were to change. That kind of presumption strikes me as being way, way above our pay grade.

Obeying the church guarantees obeying the Lord?

Pope Benedict XVI is quoted by Ruth Gledhill as saying, in effect, that Roman Catholics' obedience to the Church is their guarantee of being obedient to the Lord.  That sounds uncomfortably like the old Navy saying that the captain may sometimes be wrong, but he's always the captain. 

Within limits, that principle is OK  for situations like a ship at sea.  On a ship, a less-than-perfect decision, promptly made and carried out, is likely to be way better than a flawless decision that takes forever to arrive at, or that never gets made or carried out at all. 

Even at sea, the obedience principle has limits.  Moreover not every realm of life is like being at sea. 

To paraphrase something my wife once said, God gave us brains and consciences, and we have to assume he expects us to use them at least some of the time.

Here's an excerpt from Gledhill's quotation of then-Cardinal Ratzinger:

[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in 2001:]  I have always been much impressed by something Harnack said in a discussion with Peterson, a Protestant theologian who at that time was moving towards converting to Catholicism; Harnack answered the questions of his younger colleague by saying: it is obvious that the Catholic principle of Scripture and Tradition is better, and that it is the correct principle, and that it implies the existence of a given authority in the Church; but even if the principle in itself, the Catholic principle, is correct, we are better off living without an authority and without the actions such an authority might take. He had confidence that the free use of reason in studying the Scriptures would bring men to the truth, and that this was better than being subject to some authority which could equally make mistakes.  That is true, authority can make mistakes, but being obedient to that authority is for us the guarantee of our being obedient to the Lord.

(Emphasis added.)