Thomas Kuhn
I’ve been reading Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and realizing it’s applicability to the ongoing conversation regarding Biblical truth. Kuhn was no philosopher or theologian, he was a scientist, but he proposed scientific paradigms should be allowed to change through a term he coined as “paradigm shifts.”
A paradigm shift would occur when scientists encountered anomalies which could not be explained by the accepted paradigm. All of this seems rather obvious, of course, and yet just like in the theological realm, scientists are not quick to let go of their paradigms. In fact, Kuhn argued when enough anomalies accrue against an accepted paradigm, the discipline in question is thrown into crisis. The crisis will then give way to a new paradigm which is not to be confused with absolute truth, but a current understanding or interpretation of absolute truth, always threatening to be changed by more anomalies. The process was designed, then, to respect truth over interpretation, or truth over the human biases that might distort truth.
He kind of looks like a heretic to be honest.
In 1900, Lord Kelvin rather presumptuously stated There is nothing new to be discovered in physics, five years after which Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity.
Paradigm shifts should not be associated with a theory of relativism. The idea is not that truth is changing, but that further study is changing our understanding of truth.
When Kuhn talks about paradigms in crisis, he isn’t kidding. Scientists who threatened existing paradigms (including Einstein) were called heretics and banned for years from presenting papers at certain universities. The tension in the sciences was much more ferocious than we are seeing in the evangelical church today.
When theologians throw out anomalies that threaten their paradigms, they respect their interpretation of truth more than truth, or worse, believe their interpretation of truth is actually truth. They use terms like Biblical and heretic to convince themselves and others that their interpretation is the real truth and others are a threat to “the gospel” or to God Himself. This sort of language isn’t helpful or respectful of anomalies, not to mention it’s behavior indicates a genuine intellectual threat that should be taken seriously, not dismissed as heresy.
What we are encountering in Christian culture today is a paradigm in crisis. Will there be a shift in the way we understand truth or read the Bible? Time will tell. But it would be arrogant of us to dismiss the anomalies. Dismissing anomalies rather than addressing them may be good for existing structures, including financial structures and power structures, but it isn’t good for truth. This does not mean anomalies have to be accepted, but rather carefully addressed in a reasonable manner.
The audience that reads this blog has been surveyed and found well educated and a rather large portion of you serve in professional ministry of some sort. So I want to open this up for questions.
What are the anomalies accruing against the widely accepted Biblical paradigm? I realize that question is vague, because I have not defined that paradigm, but perhaps leaving it open will allow a wider variety of anomalies to be discussed.
I have several of my own:
1. Is the Bible supposed to be used like a constitution? And if so, why isn’t it structured as such?
2. How do we reconcile propositional truth with the language of Christ who claims to actually be truth?
3. If to know Christ is to know truth, how do we give up the metrics we commonly use to decide whether or not somebody is a Christian? Do we create relational metrics, or simply give control over to God and just introduce people to the person of Christ?
4. Why do certain sects within evangelical Christianity claim their interpretation of truth as absolute, when their interpretation is fit with unanswered anomalies? (I suppose thats the point of this post.)
Thanks for considering these ideas.
* This article was not written in response to the new Rob Bell book. It was more inspired by Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity, in which he seemed faithful to scripture and to giving God more agency than man. I realized while I was reading the book that he was presenting anomalies that had gone unanswered by his critics and rather, was simply being called a heretic. In his book Brian presents many anomalies. Each would have to be discussed separately and that would take up too much space for this blog. And besides, they are already presented in his book. On a personal note, more troubling to me as I read the book was the dismissal of him as a heretic, or the picking apart of one or two of the anomalies and the rejection of the others that should honestly be taken seriously.
[...] From When Truth is the Enemy of Truth by Donald Miller [...]
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I really hate to be argumentative, but your post rightly ponders humans ability to fully bring to cognition all that God is through the scripture and through christ. But, than you say that any new revelation is not of christ. These two ideas are contradictory. We need to realize that just like science we are trying to describe an elephant while blind and holding only the trunk. How, can we describe the whole thing. We can’t. The only thing we can do is to question old assumptions. An intellectual and emotional journey through Gods word is the only way to attain this. We can’t rely on dead pastors and old ideas. We must rely on new revelations and ideas guided by the principles of Christ.
I used to be into the bible and doing the church thing – I say it now so subtlety as if it never mattered – but I was deeply into it for a long time. Now I’m just a IT guy for a large corporation with a fascination with Theoretical Physics.
Its interesting to think both Scientists and Theologians are seeking the same Truth – but I don’t really know if we are. It really depends on the intentions of the Scientist and the Theologian – being that they are aligned.
For instance – I can say with most certainty that current Theoretical Physics are seeking the Origins of our Universe – of Space, Time, Mass, Energy, and Matter. In a way they want to know what… or who started it? With something so incomprehensible as timelessness – a time before time… before anything moved, changed, fused, decayed… before all existence – what was it and how did it become what it is now?
Now, there are various interests Theologians seek – yes some of them too seek the origins of our existence, but because of Creationism, that is already defined and not questioned(or is taboo to question)by many – thus most seek faith – faith in the Truth they believe and that has been defined. It is fair to say that the difference between a scientist job and a theologians job – the scientist spends more time seeking truth while the theologian spends more time defending his predefined absolute truth.
I can see now, that you do have a great point in that Theologians should seek Truth like a Scientist does and spend less time defending it. A brick wall will stand on its own against strong winds as long as the mason that built it was well intended on it standing. In the same respects – a respectable mason will repair any faulty work without question or hassle.
I believe scientist too try to take this humble approach to building their truth – as science too has taken a great leap into what was once science fiction – taboo to classical science 100 years ago. Scientists are now studying worm holes, time travel, dark matter, and even reversed realities where space and time switch. These things sound outrageous – but are provable.
And there lies the difference between what a Scientists finds and what a Theologian finds – proof. A scientist can prove – or predict with great certainty(given that they account for the level of uncertainty) of and event occurring in the future based on a given set of variables. A theologian can only have faith that it will happen with no certainty.
It it understandable in a world that demands truth – that theology is struggling. Theology constantly puts out faithful statements – like a salesman on TV promising you that it will never break – but it always does. With a track record like this – its no wonder people are questioning faith – they question faith like they question the reliability of their toaster. We were born into a society build on deceiving for a profit – and all to well you see televangelist too doing just the same – deceiving for a profit.
I hope one day that scientist delve so deep down the “rabbit hole” and discover that the light at the end of the tunnel is God.
@Steven: I only took 3 semesters of college physics. Perhaps my better qualification is I have helped hire 3 PhDs in physics to join my business. In any case, if you haven’t seen this, you might really like this fusion of physics and faith:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=77024018179262526#
(For those stumbling over Rob Bell, please do not click on the link).
don,
great post. a good follow up to this book would be peter berger’s “the social construction of reality”.
As well as Berger’s “In Praise of Doubt”
I always think it’s interesting how many of us try to claim a monopoly on truth when the reality is a guy already did that about two thousand years ago.
I realise we have been taught that the Bible is inerrant, but still I keep coming back to the realisation that even though it’s written about God, it was still written by human beings. Jesus himself didn’t write any of the Bible. Maybe if he had, this whole debate about whether we can consider the Bible a constitution would be answered.
I find it hard to believe that the men who wrote from the particular paradigms that existed when they were writing the scriptures are any less convinced of their particular inerrancy, or unaffected by their religion, cultures, surroundings and environments, than the men who write from the ones that are held now. If it were possible for men to know and communicate absolute truth without tainting it with their own politics, insecurities and vice, surely we wouldn’t still be debating truth. The that fact we are shows we are incapable of arriving at truth, because of the Garden, because we are people, because we have agendas and insecurities and because we think rightness is just about the most important thing in the world.
There is truth all right. But men, (read human beings) whilst ever they are grounded by human bodies, affected by human culture and embedded in human politics, are ill qualified to define what it is. That’s why the conversations are so necessary. It demonstrates our willingness to admit to God we might have been as far from truth when the Bible was written as we are now, but we’re willing to keep trying.
Written by men who were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2Peter 1:20).
Jo, your position is eloquently stated, but like Gerald, I contend that the mysteries of God are far larger than the human mind can comprehend.
The fact is the Scriptures, though penned by men, were inspired by the Holy Spirit. That makes all the difference. If the innerancy of Scriptures is a question in your mind, then that provides a “moving goalpost” upon which to build your faith, it’s a guarantee for failure.
I for one am glad that scientists discovered that the Law of gravity (God’s natural law) is a constant. Imagine what would happen to planes if lift and drag, gravity, and other laws governing flight were arbitrary! Scriptures that were not innerant, and that provided for personal preference and choice would create a world of utter chaos and not love and unity.
I don’t understand why there’s this constant compare and contrast done between all of science, and Biblical theological study, as if they had anything to do with one another. True science — the pursuit of knowledge and the stripping away of assumptions as one learns more — is not what Christians are engaging in when they seek to interpret the Bible. For they start with the (astonishing!) assumption that the Bible uniquely contains objective truth about reality, handed down to humanity by God himself. And this assumption is allowed to remain in place because Christians have already decided it to be true. But when your starting point is subjective pre-existing belief, you are not engaged in the pursuit of truth. You are engaged in rationalization. Better to simply acknowledge that, and acknowledge that paradigm shifts in religion are less about new discoveries (for what is there to be discovered, really?) and more about re-aligning Biblical interpretation to fit the cultural sensibilities of the time.
Yes, the beliefs that are written in the Bible are pre-existing and believed by most people who believe in God. Sure, there is rationalization in the road of seeking/pursuing God because most often doubt finds a way to creep in. The thing is, however, that even if someone believes in the pre-existing beliefs that God has given us in the Bible, they can still be engaged in the pursuit of Truth. It is widely accepted that in the Christian belief God is Truth. During the walk of the path of seeking God one is striving to know Him more, striving to know more about the truth that is in Him. Even though much of the belief is written out in the Bible there is also much to learn through personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. Especially about the cultural things, characteristics, happenings and beliefs of the time.
Great post, Don. I often think about relationship being at the core of what is between God and man. That, like all relationships, often requires work, discussion, listening, and being willing to hear a different view, being willing to change. We can demand our right to “be heard” and offend many, or we can be willing to do the work of relationship and listen, being confident in God’s love and provision of Christ for all. I’m glad we’re unique. Blessings to you.
Great post. At first, I did wonder if it was in response to Bell’s new book, but when I read your first question in the list, I recognized the language from A New Kind of Christianity. That book has greatly impacted a lot of people including me. I don’t know that I could add any more anomolies that McLaren has not already mentioned, but if I were to put one out there, it would have to be the thing that Bell is addressing (at least for me): that God wants to reclaim EVERYTHING and EVERYONE back to Himself. It’s nothing less than “good news” to me, even though I still “can’t believe it” really. Could God’s grace actually reach further than we ever imagined before? Many evangelicals are calling it “pluralism” which is a mistake. Christian universalism is simply saying that Jesus wants to rescue everyone, that Christ died for “the world” just like the bible says. (Am I still trying to convince myself? Is it too good to be true?) I seem to go back and forth right now. But my paradigm is definitely changing, and it is sort of painful, and still super exciting.
Excellent, This is how we grow as a people. Not only do individuals grow but so do groups of people and so does our understanding of who God and Jesus are.
Three Christians walk into a bar. Fundamentalist says, “you know everyone in here is going to hell, right?”
Relativist answers, “wow, that’s awfully judgmental. You know you’re wrong in deciding who’s right and who’s wrong, don’t you? Who’s to say there is a hell. Besides, doesn’t ‘everyone in here’ mean you as well?”
“You know what I mean Relly,” replies Fundy, “you’re a Christian aren’t you. And aren’t you deciding that I’m wrong in saying what your saying? You always confuse me. What happened to Moderate anyway?”
“I think that’s him at the end of the bar next to that woman”, says Relly.
“I know her! Her name’s Prostitute!” exclaims Fundy. “I yelled at her picketing the abortion clinic yesterday.”
Fill in the rest of the story with John 4:7-42.
Thanks Don for this post. It’s my prayer that this and other related dialogue will help to peel back the layers of fundamentalistic and relativistic thinking from the truth that is Christ. I believe it will be a long and painful process but a necessary one.
I plan to publish a small article ‘on certainty’ in the coming days via my website to contribute to the dialogue.
*Like*
[...] with what he has to say but he does get me thinking which is a good thing. A recent post, titled When Truth is the Enemy of Truth, talked about paradigm shift as it relates to scientific discovery. Scientists are continually [...]
We will continue to see a growing divide in the evangelical world. The systematic theology wing (neo-calvinist-puitan-reformed-fundamentalist’s) will continue on the path of depravity, wrath, anger propitiation, limited atonement…a rigid metric approach that separates Jesus from “sound” Biblical doctrine (I’ve read comments that claim that Jesus’s parables were not doctrine, so the parable of the prodigal son can’t be used to explain our relationship with God). They believe that their interpretation of the Bible is not polluted by their personal, post-modern, enlightenment influenced tendencies. God is angry, He killed Jesus, and we are no better than filthy rags.
The emergent wing will continue to stress a more organic, fluid, personal, creative gospel. Excessive stressing of doctrine to this group will always be a warning sign of man’s propensity to be pharicitical(sp) and legalistic. They will always say that faith is dead without works (good fruit). They will claim that the Bible is a living, breathing document that is expressed most fully through human relationships. This group will tend toward a Universalist Christian approach, not meaning that eveyone will go to heaven but that the essence of Jesus Christ is, and always has been, universally available to all people. His gospel is actually love, forgiveness, grace, hope, peace. The systematic theology wing hates this. It’s namby pamby and undisiplined to them.
Additionally, I think we may see the ancient alien concept becomae more mainstream. It’s the idea that the Bible is actually describing human contact with an advanced alien culture that modified us genetically so that we are in actuality part animal (neanderthal like) and part alien (n God’s image) (aware of more sophisticated, less self-centered concepts like love, self sacrifice, peace, etc). This POV would say that Moses and Ezekiel had encounters with alien beings who passed on knowledge that we define as “holy” and supernatural.
Those that follow this line of thought still believe in Jesus and claim that the Bible makes more sense when viewed this way. Greg Boyd in the book “God at War” talks about Gen 6, the fallen “sons of God” and the “Watcher tradition”,”… where the angels “sons of God” were to be guardians and educators of humankind, instructing them in the ways of God”. I can see this gaining a foothold in the future as a way of understanding scientific advances. Don…you asked
Has anyone else ever wondered why we are told to call no man teacher when it seems like all we do as Christians is listen to someone tell us what the Bible means? If we are parts, and only parts, of a body, each part would see God’s words from a different perspective. I’m no theologian (not even sure I can spell theologian)but after years of looking for the place with all the answers, I’m convinced its in the journey and that the only person I want to listen to in complete and utter trust is Jesus. From each new vantage point I see truth, the same truth, with a different perspective. I think that’s what God means when he tells us that with all our wisdom getting, we need to get something more. We need to get understanding. I think when we understand, we love. And that is the simple mind boggling truth every single thing points to. (But don’t take my word for it)
I would add to the idea of paradigm shifts in theology that the “current” shift mentioned in the post began in the 18th century with Germans looking for a more historical view of the Bible and how and why it was created. The fundamentalist biblical interpretation is more a modern creation than a “traditional” one, a backlash to period that undermined the basic standard of Truth, the Bible. I think what is much more interesting is what motivates people to cling to unchangeable Truth with a capital “T” when dealing with fundamentalist biblical interpretation.
Why are contradicting passages and harmful and alienating prescriptions perceived as “safe” and “True”? What makes people so afraid of making biblical truth and interpretation more inclusive, more loving, and more uplifting of human dignity?
Hey Don, We met at C3 in Nashville a couple of weeks ago. I’m the guy who said I quit working on my book on story after reading million miles, and you encouraged me not to.
I wrote a blog post that addresses some of the same questions you raised here, particularly the difference between propositional truth and Christ as the truth. The root of the issue, in my view, is kerygma:
http://www.midnightoilproductions.com/2010/01/if-church-ran-the-movie-biz-story-and-the-bible/
– Len Wilson
Sr Leadership Editor, Abingdon Press
I would like to add a question in here if I may. I wonder, we have only had a mass availability of the scriptures for about 75-100 years. Before the industrial revolution one had to go to a church to hear the word. Now everyone has access. So is the paradigm shift simply that God’s truth is only now available to the common man as it was in Jesus’ time (i.e. the disciples not the scholars). I am very conservative by nature and upbringing. I am in process of formal education, which I must say doesn’t ask many questions it rather assumes the truth in known and guides you in a catechism sort of way to answer the questions correctly. I’m not down on education, i love it actually, but we have to understand, in my estimation that we worship a big God. First, if it’s His Word to us, we can trust that He will keep it pure (so forget about man being able to taint it). Second, God’s word is His, not ours to define, which is why I’m ok with the paradigm shift as Don explains it(not changing of truth but the way we are understanding it). Third, I don’t like comparisons of Science and Theology because theology begins with God’s word, Science begins with mans words based on others men’s words, based on theories that are yet to be proven in many cases, and there are no objective standards on which to base their results. On this topic I have no issues admitting Christianity is 100% based of faith in God’s word as He has given it to us through Holy Spirit Inspired hands of men. Science on the other hand has no issues trusting in former Scientific theories, but that is still faith. I’m simple, so if I’m wrong about my conclusions, i wouldn’t be surprised. Finally, I’ll simply state that discussions like these are the essence of our Faith as I see it. When someone claims to know the truth, I usually take a couple of steps back, as we are finite beings who never need to be sure of what we know. Paul even tells us we can only know in part. Being convinced of something is far different than knowing something. I am thankful that believers can discuss what they are convinced of, but we must be careful to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into the Truth, which will not be fully known until Christ Returns. Thanks for this opportunity to share.
@Brandon: I really liked your post. I agree with your views quite a bit. I’ve left two comments that I think align with what you’ve said and questioned (search for “caveat” on this page and on the previous comment page). My brief answer to your question: the Word is pure by definition, but we need to ask/seek/knock in order to find and realize. The paradigm shifts arise from the varied socioeconomic, cultural, artistic, and technological contexts of the day for the seeker of Truth. Just as Jesus had to drink untreated well water, He had to communicate in the context of his public ministry. Same goes for all those following who came before Him, and afterwards.
David Dark said this in his book, “The Sacredness of Questioning Everything,” “only a twisted, unimaginative mindset resists awe in favor of self-satisfied certainty.” I love that. I don’t know why followers of Christ could ever presume to claim to know the truth fully and completely when God himself said that he is beyond our comprehension. Any God I can fit inside my head is no God at all but rather something I created myself for comfort.
[...] about the status quo in certain realms of my systems of faith. In a recent post on his blog, Donald Miller discusses the common tendency among many believers to claim to have the corner on the market when [...]
My responses to the numbered points that Don brought up:
1. Why would anyone even begin to think that the Bible is like a constitution? That’s absurd. As far as the New Testament goes, the gospels tell the story of Christ (or rather, the important parts), the epistles are used to explain doctrine and practice (generally as a response to doctrinal misunderstanding and bad practice, and never as stand alone pronouncements (thereby showing a huge error in the way the Vatican handles things, but I digress), and lastly, there’s Revelation, a prophecy. Where could one possibly get constitution from this? This isn’t even a question of conservative of liberal theology. The Bible is not a constitution. That’s it. That doesn’t make it less or more binding than if it was. This is simply a definitional issue. Use Merriam Webster if don’t believe me that no matter your theological outlook, the word “constitution” makes no sense here. The Bible is not a consitution, but it’s commands and injunction are binding. And they’re not burdensome (1 John 5:3). End of story.
2. I would say we reconcile those two things by acknowledging that God’s Word = God’s self expression. And Jesus Christ is God’s self expression. And God expresses this Word through human words, too. Indeed, when God says let us reason together in Isaiah, He immediately reasons by talking about our sinfulness and His cleansing us thereof. The idea that Jesus Christ can’t be shared to us by words, by history, or by verbal/textual accounts of history is something no one buys into. And thus, no matter how God’s Word reaches us, it stays His Word, as long as it is accurately expressed. The reason then, why we call the Bible the word of God, is because we are certain that the Scriptures are an accurate transmission of that Word, and thus, when we read them, we end up reading God’s Word. When I’m reading Exodous, I am reading an account of God’s interaction with mankind — an interaction that culminates in Christ and turns out really to have been part of the revelation of Christ to us, all along. If something points to Christ, it is a part of the revelation of Christ to mankind, it is thus considered a part of God’s Word (and it can be transmitted through Scripture, through preachers, etc — but Scripture is a sure thing).
How does this pertain to #2? Easy. If God’s Word can be a person, and can be expressed to us in words and history in such a way that it remains God’s Word (despite taking radically different forms), then certainly, the same can hold for Truth. And if this fact changes someone’s outlook on what truth really is, then they probably had a mistaken conception of truth in the first place.
#2, like #1, seem to me to be very odd questions — questions that are spoken only because the audience Don is speaking to really needs to be better attuned to the fundamentals of their faith. Perhaps it’s just because I’m outside the current debate, but I just have to say that if these “anomolies” really are things that a vast part of Christendom has to wrestle with, than a large section of the Kingdom of God is much more greatly confused in their theological thinking than I thought.
3. How does the fact that knowing Christ is knowing Truth cause us to need to give up metrics we currently use to determine whether or not someone is a Christian — and what are these metrics? Last time I checked, I think there are many metrics that many denominations use to determine whether or not we think someone might be a Christian. But the basic thing is to go definitional. The word Christian means Christ-follower. And one is officially a Christ follower only if they believe that Jesus of Nazarath is the Christ, or the Messiah, whose coming was prophesized in the Old Testament. And people (read: most people) only believe this if they believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection for our sins and our salvation (and despite Arians, one could also make a case that God’s oneness is related to Jesus’ Christship, but this would take a long time… so, I’m not going there). So, if someone doesn’t believe that Jesus died for their sins, rose for their salvation, is the Christ, and the Son of God, I’d say that we could say that they aren’t Christian — with only a little additional reasoning to supplement what I have here stated, that is.
Now, how does knowing Christ and Truth impact a change in our response to what is merely a definitional question? Is Don really trying to ask something about the precise metrics by which we can tell that one recieves Christ’s forgiveness of our sins? And didn’t reformers (whether Luther, Calvin, or otherwise) answer this 500 years ago when they said that we are saved by grace through faith alone? Or is Don merely asking how we should share Christ to people? If that’s the question, well, then the answer is simple: there are as many ways to share Christ as there are people who ever have and will be saved — and then some. Perhaps what Don is trying to get at, is a question of what people actually need to intellectually comprehend in order to be saved. But no one can answer this.
We can say when we think we know someone is saved, and we can say when we think they aren’t, but we can’t for-sure know, and thus, there will always be some gray area, someway, somehow. And as a result, our ministry to others should always be suited to that person’s needs — whether it’s bringing them into a church, inviting them to an open-ended Bible discussion — or whatever (different people react well and poorly to different things — I know church might not have done it for me, but an IBD (investigative bible discussion) sure worked. Really, the possibilities are endless and must be taken on an individual by individual basis. And at the end of the day, God saves, not us.
4. If any sect claims a broad based interpretation as absolute, they are probably wrong. Certain things might be able to be claimed to be absolute, but probably not the whole gamit of belief that any one denomination holds to. If someone is being completely closed off to even discussing views on faith they’ve never heard of before, then I question why we’re even focusing on them.
Conclusion:
At the end of the day, I feel like all of these questions are aimed toward a narrow audience, within a narrow little bubble, that speaks a certain language, and acts as if its theoligical ponderings are the only ones that have ever happened — or are the most important ones.
In truth, Christianity is currently in mulitple paradigms. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism are so very far apart, that to speak of one paradigm here (if one even views all three of those groups to be Christian (and not just one or two)). And if we’re focusing on Protestantism alone (which is indeed where I like to focus (Catholics and Orthodox are wrong on both authority and justification (but in different ways) imo), then we have to recognize that Protestantism itself might even contain mulitple Christian paradigms at once. And it’s not just mainline and evangelical. There are multiple paradigms outside of both of those categories, inside of both of those categories, and stretching between both categories. Indeed, if paradigms are the way we view Christian truth, this should be obvious. And that these last few facts have been overlooked is the chief reason why this whole post and discussion seem terribly inward to me, a casual onlooker.
I haven’t read Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity, but I love challenging questions, so I thought I would take a stab at the questions you posed.
1. Is the Bible supposed to be used like a constitution? And if so, why isn’t it structured as such?
The Bible does seem much more a narrative, a story. Perhaps we are meant to relate to the people in it and to God.
2. How do we reconcile propositional truth with the language of Christ who claims to actually be truth?
I don’t know that I entirely understand your question. But I’ll say that I think Christ wants us to relate to Him. To invite Him into our everyday lives. To talk to Him. To listen for His voice. To have on-going, interactive, conversation with Him. And if that’s so, then He Himself – as a living, relational part of our lives – would be what we are looking for.
3. If to know Christ is to know truth, how do we give up the metrics we commonly use to decide whether or not somebody is a Christian? Do we create relational metrics, or simply give control over to God and just introduce people to the person of Christ?
I vote for the latter. I’d like to spend my time encouraging people towards Christ – no matter where they are at (everyone could use encouragement now and then).
I think there’s a whole line of psychology that studies how humans like to put things in categories to help process the world around them.
[...] are excellent questions that deserve serious thought. A few weeks ago, Donald Miller posted about dealing with anomalies in our belief systems. Our doctrines about Hell and election do raise important questions that [...]
[...] Let’s talk briefly about truth. I’m not one of those people who hold the opinion that there are no absolute truths. Truth is not relative. I firmly believe this to be true. What is relative, however is our understanding of truth. For great insight on the interpretation of truth and paradigm shifts, check out Don Miller’s Blog. [...]
In Bonhoeffer’s book on Ethics, he wrote (paraphrased) that the goal of Christian ethics is to not know ethics, but know only God.
Ethics, while valuable, are often misused as replacement for God, the person who only knows to follow and listen to God perfectly has no need of ethics. Until that perfection is obtained, they only serve as an imperfect pointer towards God.
The same can be said for Christian ‘truths’. When we meet Christ, we will have no need for ‘truth’ as everything we need to know will be standing right in front of us. Our earthly goal is to submit to that state more and more. The goal of our attempt at theology should be to gradually subdue our minds to this end.
I believe these points address your questions 2 and 3, and indirectly, 1.
I appreciate Bonhoffer a great deal, obviously, but when I read quotes like that of his, I am often perplexed. I don’t believe the goal of Christian ethics is to know only God. Proverbs is filled with ethics that have been adopted by Christians that are about being wise regarding women and money and alcohol. I think we like to summarize things to make them more clear, and when you summarize a series of ideas putting God as the end or aim, most people who love God hardly want to refute the summary. But in this case, as in many quotes from Bonhoffer, I fear it’s oversimplification.
Perhaps many have already mentioned this (apologies for not reading through 200 comments), but in answer to this question, “What are the anomalies accruing against the widely accepted Biblical paradigm?”, the one coursing through me lately is the chasm I see between the people in my tradition/life believing (by demonstration) that our primary Way as worshipers is one of knowing what to believe, whereas the biblical demonstration seems to me that Way is one of believing it, and this expressed through living (humility, service, worship, thanksgiving, kindness, etc., and that before we get to actual “works”).
That was an intense run-on sentence, one that possibly makes little sense outside my head. Regardless, thank you for adding an encouraging perspective to some thoughts/beliefs gaining traction in my soul but which receive little encouragement elsewhere. It’s easy to feel dubbed the heretic if not making “what you believe to-the-Nth-degree” the primary issue these days. Thank you for musing out loud.
Thanks, Don–we are indeed in a kind of crisis in Christian culture, at least in this country. The anomaly that most interests me is #2. Theologians (including myself) tend to make an idol of propositional truth in the same way, perhaps, that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day made an idol of the Law. We defend those idols of doctrine, interpretation, and tradition with such zeal! And hurt each other a lot along the way.
For me, a contemplative way of life is the only way out of the mess, because unless we develop spiritual disciplines that teach us to submit our thoughts and ideas and words to God, then we will always butcher the truth and miss the Truth standing right in front of us.
Don, I agree that we must be very careful when we present our interpretations of scripture, which is truth (John 17:17), as truth itself. “So-n-so’s Systematic Theology” is not truth. However, as Christians and teachers we MUST do our very best to teach the Truth (scripture) in the most understandable way possible. Jesus did this in His time on earth (Luke 24:27). Scripture is hard to interpret but our reaction should never be doctrinal ambiguity. I think we need to do our very best with the power of the Holy Spirit to interpret Truth and teach it. The Holy Spirit will direct the preaching of God’s Word. In my opinion, Mclaren and Bell should be more clear about what they believe instead of hiding in the shadows of doctrinal ambiguity too afraid to come into the light. It takes reading their books and articles for weeks and months before one can glean a few doctrinal axioms and even then they are cryptic at best. Give me a “What I believe” page on the blog, guys. As a pastor, this is greatly appreciated. I don’t have the time to read 30 books in order to get a doctrinal foundation from you. I don’t want to dismiss anyone as a heretic and I won’t unless it’s clear heresy against the gospel. However, I’m not going to encourage students to follow someone just because they talk about Jesus and love. You tell me the substance of the foundation and then I’ll them explore the house. Thank you.
1 Corinthians 1:27 NIV
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
The problem is sometimes we are trying to hard to have all the wisdom of God without the character of God.
A paradigm we seem to not be able to break is the idea of church. Why does every church service look alike? Sure there are different variances of this, but they always seem to be the same.
Why do we have the hierarchy of power within the church structure now?
Sometimes I think it’s better to be foolish and live more simple than to have all the wisdom of the more educated and wise theologians of our day.
The more I learn the more I realize I have no real answers.
It’s tough to interact with this article because of the way it is written.
An anomaly is simply something that deviates from a rule. Dismissing anomalies instead of addressing them is certainly not good. But most theologians I know and have read or studied with don’t do that. What I see for the most part is the desire to harmonize apparent anomalies with what we already seem to have really good reason to believe.
Miller’s examples are impossible to address well because he admittedly doesn’t define what he calls the “widely accepted Biblical paradigm”.
1. I don’t think the first one is a “widely accepted Biblical paradigm” at all.
2. The second one is self-contradictory because while Christ does claim to be the truth he does so with language that makes a claim which means he uses propositional truth to claim to be the truth. There is no anomaly there and never has been. It’s just the way language is used poetically and flexibly and yet still capable of propositional truth.
3. The third one seems sketchy to me also. Do you know anyone who talks about metrics for deciding whether anyone is a Christian? No balanced and humble person thinks we can judge for sure and yet no reader of the bible thinks it is impossible to come to some sense of the reality of a person’s faith in light of how the Bible describes authentic Christianity.
4. The fourth one is not an anomaly at all. The fact that some sects claim absolute truth when their interpretations contain unanswered anomalies is just a fact. It doesn’t prove anything about truth or the nature of truth. It maybe says something about us.
Einstein is a great example of someone who led to a paradigm shift but that level of paradigm shift is not too common and many of the previously well-established truths were not destroyed but adjusted and harmonized within that paradigm shift. The Protestant Reformation under Luther and Calvin might be seen as a paradigm shift in theology. The Copernican revolution was a shift that included both theology and science. I think good theology has often handled these shifts and we are continually learning more and growing. But it takes more than an odd “anomaly” of two to bring about a paradigm shift. It takes a comprehensive theory that does a better job than the old paradigms of harmonizing all the data.
I know Miller didn’t write this about Rob Bell but he does mention him. I think it is interesting when I read Bell recently what was clear to me is that it is Bell who is throwing out the anomalies that threaten his theory. He ignored the difficult passages and issue relating to hell. The reputable evangelical theologians I read who were responding to Bell were the one who are trying to harmonize all the data and address all the anomalies thoughtfully.
I don’t see the evidence in this article that there is a paradigm in crisis. Maybe some people are in crisis. But I suppose time will tell.