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.
…et Bell interpret.
Everyone is up in arms about Universalism and Inclucivism but the truth is that both were seen as heretical as a result of the Enlightenment (as I understand it). There were many theologians who believed in the ultimate reconciliation of all things or the idea that some people lare worshipping christ outside his knowledge (Origen, Rahner and his Anonymous Christians, Justin Martyr’s doctrine of “the sowed word” are a few). The truth is that these ideas that are viewed as liberal were once more common.
Knowing that Godwill deal out punishment for evils that men do is one thing (because he will) but knowing that God is a being that we cannot begin to understand and that his love and forgiveness is bigger than the biggest thing any of us has ever known gives me hope that, even if universalism is a stretch, people with so much love and compassion like Ghandi will be present when we go Home.
Good word, Keaton.
This fear of the idea of “truth” is troublesome to me. Once you start that journey, it’s a slippery slope.
If there is no truth, at what point do we say that Christ as Savior is a “paradigm,” and those who simply see him as a good man are proposing a modern shift to that? Which parts of the Bible are up to interpretation or paradigm shifts, and which aren’t?
I don’t blame those who see their faith as absolute truth. If your faith isn’t absolute truth to you, I fear that you have half faith or convenient faith. If everything is up to interpretation, then we begin to make God in our image, not the other way around.
I will spend all of my life seeking truth about God through Scriptures and good discussion. But in that journey I will also believe in the absolute truth of God’s Word, not in the convenience/comfort of the shifting sands of popular opinion.
Well, the Bible is put into langauge, which means that its always already an interpretation, or rather, its always already a sign, a stand in, attempting to get at, to describe, to comprehend God. So every part of the Bible is already up for interpretation, indeed, already interpreted, and reinterpreted infinitely.
More practically, we read the bible in English, but it was not originally written in English, so the act of translation is itself an interpretation. For example, Greek or Hebrew have meanings and intentions behind certain words that the english might not fully convey, and already its reinterpreted.
I think modern Christians really need to take seriously the limits of langauge–how far can langauge get us to reality before it fails? At the same time, all we have is language, which begs the question; is their reality outside of language? If so, in what ways can lanague help us understand that reality?
“He Is There And He Is Not Silent”…by Francis Schaeffer started dealing with the deconstructionalist arguments of Paulenty and Derrida way back then. The language argument of mere symbols and interpretation is a tried and true philosophy of post-modernism. The problem is that it rests on a fundamental philosophy that the universe and thus life were started by an impersonal, material force. That is fine and good, unless you are at the same time claiming to be a Christian. An impersonal beginning cannot be and is in no way a Judeo-Christian foundation and cannot be justified as such. The language decontruction argument thus falls to the floor and breaks apart as a Christian idea as its position cannot be logically held at the same time as a “Christian” position on a Personal Other beginning of life. It is either one or the other.
Language is the crux of humanity & man’s condition – but the way we approach that language and God’s Scriptures is based on fundamental philosophy. To espouse the notions of linguistic systems as merely and only interpretations is thus a first things denial of the Christian worldview. To hold that position and see the Bible as merely and ONLY “story” is to participate then in a philosophy that is not Christian and not based on a personal Creator. Science has nearly done away with the idea of objective truth (even fact) because of the teaching of the decontructionalists. In fact, they are proving Schaeffer’s predictions true – empirical science is therefore dead. It has turned into nothing more than a discipline of redressing “research” and “facts” to fit a particular sociological outlook. It has become a justification process rather than a discovery of facts about nature. With this in mind, I believe this new wave in religion, particularly American Christianity, is reflecting that view. No longer do we look for truth – we re-interpret representations of truth (language) to fit our own sociologies. In the end, this is very dangerous as it ultimately denies the Presence of a discoverable Other in the universe and is impossibly incompatible with a personal, Creator God.
A slippery slope of self-discovered “truthiness” has taken over the world. It endangers the very core of the Christian faith as well. We must recover the ideas of “true truth” from the destructive scrap heap of relativism and postmodern decontructionalism, before man reaps once again the consequences of this error: where there stands no “true truth”, a false truthiness will take hold and lead the world down a path of pain and suffering.
I can remember being a Lit. major in college (which was not that long ago) and learning about post – modernism and deconstructionism, etc. It was very damaging to my faith at the time. It really was.
I can also remember reading Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis and being so bothered by a particular section that I stopped reading the book. The section that bothered me so much was about the idea that reading scripture is an act of interpreting scripture. In my mind, I both believed in and wanted something more definitive than that. I did not like the idea that all scripture needed to be interpreted to be understood.
But now, I do not understand things the same way that I did then. The fear that I had concerning deconstructionism no longer informs my faith, or lack thereof.
I walked away from God for a few years, and now, I have begun the slow and sometimes difficult process of returning home to God. Coming back to God has not been about the relative security or insecurity of language. I’ve realized that my life without God was empty.
I’m still a long way from home, but I am encouraged as I remember the story Jesus told about the Prodigal’s father. The father, when he sees that his son is still a long way off, runs to him.
Why do I post this? Because for a long time, I’ve hidden behind the veil of intelligent people who have read the bible and have written intelligent things about it. I know now that my own faith has been so lacking, and is still so lacking. I worry so much less now about deconstructionism. I worry now about how I can take that leap of faith and trust that God is good, trust that Jesus is good, and trust that they are real.
In the end, I don’t think my faith will be built on the words written in the bible. I’ve read those words as a small child and misunderstood them so badly that my whole concept of God has been messed up. Rather, I hope my faith will be built on the trust that God is good, that he is real, that he will never leave nor forsake me. How will I “know” these things? I will know from the way that my life has changed that God is a healer, that his way is good, and that Jesus is my savior. I will “know” these things from the way my life is different now, as opposed to the way that my life was.
I respectfully disagree with the idea that language can totally capture the reality of who God is.
I respectfully disagree with the idea that “language is the crux of humanity’s and man’s condition”. I do believe that language is slippery. But I believe that it is beautiful. (I was a Lit. major and I am an English teacher, after all.) I believe that God uses beautiful things like art, language, song, nature, and many other things to reveal (in part) who he is to us. But may I not think that those things fully reveal God to me. May I recognize that language fails, that art fails, that music fails to fully capture the nature of God. May I recognize with humility that while God gave as language as a tool to know him, that we cannot understand all things about him. Perhaps the concept that language is so definitive and completely concrete allows us to believe that we understand the biblical narrative completely. Perhaps in thinking that we understand the biblical narrative completely, we believe that we understand God completely. I don’t think we understand the biblical narrative completely. I don’t think we understand God completely. Language is beautiful, and it is helpful, and informative. But all language fails before God. All understandings of God fail before the reality of who God is.
I don’t think that this means that we cannot know God. We can know God. But I don’t think that reading scripture can allow us to “know” God fully. Paul writes that we see through a glass darkly now, but that one day, we will see him and know him face to face. There is a certain humility that comes when we accept the limitation of language. That humility does not mean that language is irrelevant or that it cannot be used at all to understand who God is. That would be a rather extremist point of view, and that’s not what I’m going for here. But shouldn’t there be a certain amount of humility in all of this? Shouldn’t recognizing the fallibility of language give us an appreciation for the infallibility of God?
I lost you pretty early in response, why does post-structural semantics necessarily rely on a philosophy that the “universe and thus life were started by an impersonal, material force?” I could argue that there is a personal God, but that this God is impossible to reach via human language. I could even draw on the tower of babel narrative to suggest that perhaps our purpose as created beings is not to attempt to reach our creator and so as to make this impossible, God created the different human languages.
In fact, this is the point of much of the history of the apophatic tradition in early and medieval Christian thought (See Pseudo -Dionysius, Mistier Eckart…). That whatever God is, he cannot be known through human language–that is we cannot define God by what God is, but we may be able to hint at God by what God is not.
Ultimately, we are each only responsible for one soul before God and that is our own. The question of truth is one we must each work out through our relationship with Jesus. Remember, he is the one who does the transforming in us. If we believe him when he says that nothing and no one can snatch us out of his hand, then we can question truth all we want. He will guide and transform us through all of it. We don’t have to be afraid to challenge (or not to challenge) dogma.
Hi Shannon,
Are you differentiating “Scriptures” and “God’s Word”? Are they really the same? I ask because there is a difference to me between Jesus as God’s Word (John 1) and the scriptures which serve as a testimony to God’s Word. The person of Jesus is absolute truth…that I believe. The witness of scripture to the truth (Jesus) is a little bit tricky as it comes through the very muddy water of editing, translating, interpreting, and applying. This is not to suggest that it doesn’t hold truth and that truth can’t be mined from it, I just think it is a bit tricky than we like to suggest. At some level we all make things convenient and comfortable for us. Your thoughts?
Hi, Shannon —
I really understand the fear of the slippery slope and the desire to defend truth that you express here. Here’s how that fear has resolved for me:
I have realized that allowing paradigm shifts doesn’t mean denying absolute truth. It means admitting that we may not have understood what the truth *is* — and continuing to seek to know the truth, including continuing to consider how we read the Bible.
One of my favorite Bible verses is in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus promises that if we “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (REALLY REALLY want to know the TRUTH!), we will be filled. And he also promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to teach us. Between those two promises, we can confidently continue to search without worrying as much about sliding down the slope.
Still takes courage, though, because it really does feel slippery. Here’s to the adventure.
<3 Lori
I agree that the word of God is absolute truth. What I see is each different group believes that their interpretation is truth. My hope and prayer is that those who have divided and alienated with centuries of a cursory reading of the word research what the words used meant to the original writers. Each new generation has text proved their own ways of life. Our own American history is rift with men and women who Gera pled ion the rights of others referring scripture as their justification. A shift in paradigms I don’t know but definitely a realization and repentance of thousands.
I love this post. I have to be honest, I don’t stop by the blog that often but given the current church and theological climate, this post intrigued me.
Obviously, a first anomaly is the question of universalism. Did Christ die for us all and what happens to people who have never heard the name of Jesus? Bell’s upcoming book has ignited what has been a growing pool of questions or doubt. Our generation has been moving away from the strict rules and practices of our fathers and moving toward a grace-based faith. While this is good in understanding what I believe to be the heart of the gospel (that we are saved by grace, through faith, and not by our works), a more open focus on love and grace will naturally lend itself to a question of how the God of this love and grace could choose to save only some people and still be good.
I think that another anomaly that most Christians and churches simply refuse to address is the question of wealth. Jesus explicitly states that it is extremely difficult for a rich man to enter heaven, yet the church is so timid in approaching the topic. Specifically in America, we have become so comfortable and have such a feeling of entitlement to this wealth that any other gospel will not be accepted. We even dive into a prosperity gospel, but that is an entirely different subject. I think the American Church could use a huge awakening in terms of what the lifestyle of Christ was and how it is that we should live in response. Certainly we can not make any claims to know the truth, but a simple study of Jesus’ words and His own lifestyle would be enough to greatly offend the majority of believers in this country.
Thanks for presenting the truth in this light. It is something we need to hear right now.
Thanks, Dan! I agree with both of these. And on your second point, I wanted to add that this is what I personally struggle with the most in my own relationship to God. Wealth is so deceptive, so promising. But it doesn’t bring life or joy. But still, I’m tempted. . .
Aren’t we all!
But what is considered wealth? A roof overhead, food and clothing for my children? Or is that too much? How about a daily Starbuck’s? An occasional vacation? Who determines what is acceptable and what is excessive? If I have children, I would assume it is my responsibility to provide, at minimum, basic needs, education, etc. Or is it better to not have children and just dedicate all my resources to others. What about the fact that if no one developed any wealth, there would be nothing to help those who need help the most. It’s not as easy as just saying wealth is bad. The issue is much more complicated than that. Anomalies tend to bring out other anomalies and questions that then have to be answered as well. That is why we have the Holy Spirit, not just the Bible.
I don’t think wealth is wrong. Love of money is wrong. You can be wealthy and not love money, as can be demonstrated by a generous mindset. Likewise, you can be poor and love money, by worrying about it, being envious of others’ wealth, etc. I don’t think it’s a matter of how much you have, but how you view and treat the money you have.
Love this comment. I love that I can read something like this and have encouragement in my beliefs. When I make known to loved ones that I am not contented with financial security, they look at me as if I have lost my mind…as if I must trust God AND trust money.
Sorry, also wanted to say something pertaining to the last statement of your first paragraph. Justice is fair and Good. That is all
I agree. Justice is both fair and good. But wasn’t justice already served when God gave his only son to pay the penalty for the past, present, and future sins of the entire world? But, the question that always comes to my mind with this, is when John 3:16 says that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life, what does “believe in him” actually entail?
You bring up a good point. Christ on the cross is where Mercy (and grace) met with Justice. We must chose to accept that mercy to receive our reconciliation through justification (Justified is defined as made right).
Lately, I have been struggling with legalism, judging people’s salvation. It sucks. I think the best thing to do is to allow the Holy Spirit to be the Judge, which kind of goes along with what everyone else is saying. Who are we as imperfect people to try and unfold a perfect Truth.
I understand what you are saying. I just hate seeing one of my best friends tell me her cousin who recently hung himself is watching over her and that they will see each other again someday.
I have no clue what his thoughts were when he died, but it makes me sick to my stomach to think that there is a good chance that no. He can’t watch over her because he could be in an unimaginable nightmare, suffering in hell for eternity.
It may not be necessary for me to understand how God handles who will enter his kingdom and who will not. However, it scares me to death to think that if my best friend died today, she would be in hell. I have told her about Christ, but she chooses to follow something else. She is one of the most wonderful people I know. Why would God keep her or my other friend’s cousin from experiencing his love?
I love this posts because this is something me and friends of mine have talked about before, minus all the science stuff haha. But I love this topic because it’s something you see all the time and something that is sure to really make you think.
1. This is a difficult question. I don’t think this is answering but I don’t believe God is legalistic and religious, I believe God is relational. And Bible says the word was God, so no? But the Bible does give us guidelines and examples as to how we should live our life, so yes? Tricky question.
2. I think it’s a matter of surrendering, when we become a Christian we’re supposed to surrender everything to God, and through our walk with Christ we’re changed and shaped by the truth and love of God. I think that it could work the same way, that if we’re really surrendered
that completely to Christ and letting him work in our life than with time our ideas will grow and change in to “Godly ones?” God’s nature is supposed to change us, not the other way around.
3. I would consider this to probably be the biggest gray area of being as a Christian haha. Because we’re not supposed to judge, we’re supposed to love. What happens in a person’s personal life is between that person and God. The Bible does say that there is supposed to be evidence of our life with Christ though. Proverbs is the best example it says “Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors you heart” and it continually repeats that we should live honest and holy lives. I think that we should just do what Jesus commands us, to love others, to spread the love of God, if their saved awesome, if not than your love and lack of judgement could change that.
4. As quite a few have said, certainty gives a sense of security and even power. We want to feel like God is backing our every move or idea, even though it may not be true or line up with God. As humans we want to be right all the time, and what better way to convince ourselves and others that our way is right than to believe and claim it’s truth that God “showed” us or “lead” us to or whatever.
Again this was an awesome post, I love this topic and how it really makes you think and even makes you evaluate your own actions.
In your excellent post, you suggest the following as a paradigm problem:
“Is the Bible supposed to be used like a constitution?”
That’s a very particular American problem. As a non-American (one of your friendly Canadian cousins), I can tell you that this would not cross the radar of very many evangelicals on this side of the 49th. I suspect that to be the case throughout much of the world.
Not a lot of time here but my initial response to “is the bible supposed to be used like a constitution” is this? It seems like the OT people had the law (a constitution) they had to follow. Christ came to fulfill the law and give us freedom and grace. Maybe at the time of Christ there was supposed to be a shift. What that looks like, I don’t know. I’m a recovering legalistic Baptist. This is something I have been internalizing for a while now, just don’t know how the externalizing is going to end up. Any thoughts would be great.
[...] the book that hasn’t already been said more eloquently by Scot McKnight yesterday, and by Donald Miller today, in a post that is relevant to the Love Wins rumpus, even if it is actually about Brian [...]
What?
It’s interesting you pointed out this wasn’t a response to Rob Bells new book, and ironic it was posted during a time when heretic and Biblical ‘truth’ are being thrust upon him like an avalanche. I concur, we shouldn’t be afraid of new ‘truth’, in fact it should be celebrated… the further along humanity progresses, and the more humanity tries to prove various theories, the stronger the case for the Bible, and our Creator seem to get.
However, we would be wise to remember Paul’s message to the Corinthians
1 Corinthians 3:19 (The Message)
18-20Don’t fool yourself. Don’t think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times. Be God’s fool—that’s the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It’s written in Scripture,
He exposes the chicanery of the chic.
The Master sees through the smoke screens
of the know-it-alls.
I enjoy what Paul brings to the table here, “listen, you think you are wise, you can do some mathematics, or have piles of meaningless rhetoric at the tip of your tongue….give it up, Admit your three pound brain can’t comprehend the universe and give yourself over to God, be his fool!”
Now that is a truth I will hold onto!
Peter, I love what you said here, and completely agree. Jesus isn’t so much concerned with being socially relevant as He is rescuing people from sin, death, and Hell.
I believe as Christians we have to remain open vessels, willing to admit that we will never – on this side of Heaven – have complete understanding. There is always more to learn about our God. However, God does not change; His Word does not change; His attributes do not change. So, we must be careful of paradigm shifts because shifting can lead to distortion of Truth if we are negligent or careless.
It is not our jobs to judge others’ relationship with Christ. Paul tells us “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” All we can do – all we should do is spread the message of Jesus to the world. After they receive Jesus, we can worry about instruction and sound doctrine.
…but, when the Word says: “THIS is wrong,” or “DON’T do this” or warns us against something, we ought not pander in fear of offending the world. We are in it, but we are not of it…and we are called to be separate…though we are NOT BETTER.
As for universalism and inclusion…Jesus said “Narrow is the Path” and “I am the Way.” I don’t think that’s up for interpretation. I think that’s pretty explicit.
Do you have any opinions on what I replied to Clint about in a previous comment on March 7th? Just curious.
For me, the key idea in the post is this: “This does not mean anomalies have to be accepted, but rather carefully addressed in a reasonable manner.” I’m sure there are a number of challenges to doing this, but the ones that stand out to me are humility and discipline.
The challenge of humility is obvious: it takes humility to even be open to the possibility that my current understanding of God and His will may be less than 100% accurate.
The challenge of discipline is perhaps less obvious. If I’m required to maintain some openness to a differing view, then I’m foreclosed from having snap (or defensive) responses. Instead, I may be required to search Scripture, to pray, to reflect, to discuss with others — all to give the Spirit time and space to provide confirmation or revelation. (Of course, I’m not suggesting this is necessary for every little thing; discernment is required to make that determination.) This takes much more work and time than sticking to an existing position and shutting out different views.
I would posit, however, that we are the main beneficiaries of engaging in this type of examination and introspection. On the occasions when He reveals something new, we tap into knowledge that we previously lacked. On the occasions when He confirms what we already believe, our conviction becomes deepened, better articulated and likely more persuasive because it has withstood rigorous scrutiny. Either way, we come to spend more time with and better know God. (This assumes, of course, that God does engage with us and respond to us when we seek Him.) We may lose the immediate gratification that comes from an unwavering confidence of the correctness of our position, but we gain more intimacy with God and probably deeper faith.
I don’t have much to add, other than to say I completely agree with this comment.
In response to question 3, why do WE need to decide whether someone is a Christian or not (in order to create relational metrics) because the term “Christian” can mean anything from someone who considers themselves in a denomination designated as “Christian” (i.e., Catholic, Baptist, etc.) but doesn’t even go to church through much harsher restrictions such as “only if you speak in tongues”. I think “Christians” (as I’m assuming you mean in general terms those who accept Christ as their savior) need to be less hung up on labels and more on relationships. Is just saying the “Sinner’s Prayer” a confirmation that someone is a Christian even if they continue to participate in satanic rituals while someone who may never have recited it but loves God, prays, and lives their life in service to Him and others (and I don’t mean that their works has saved them but that they have a real relationship with God) isn’t? Are we helping or hurting those we want to bring to Him?
I accepted Christ as my savior over twenty years ago and have gone through different stages of “my walk” with Him. Just over a year ago, that walk took a curve. I ended up at a church where I was given your book “Searching for God Knows What”. That, in addition to “A Different Kind of Christianity”, and “Not the Religious Type” were books that really helped me understand what was happening in me. I saw a video of you once and you mentioned something along the lines of “the formulas don’t always work”. It wasn’t until I heard that that I realized that is what happened. I had been a “Christian” for over 20 years and had even seen miracles but as I “stood on the promises” or subjected myself to “do these 5 things to be victorious”, life got worse with no hope in sight. I had always loved God and believed He loved me and had even felt His presence at times but it was when Jesus became “friend” (rather than just Father or Teacher) that I experienced a more real relationship with Him and faith became relationship rather than religion. This, not label confirmation, is what people need.
In response to the other questions, the Bible is our gift (tool) for how to live what is best for us but God must remain the ultimate judge of us.
Conservative evangelical, Chuck Colson, once wrote that there are two kinds of people, seekers and those who have quite seeking. While I don’t prefer the “two types of people” preface, I do believe in the spirit of this statement. I consider myself part of the former camp of ongoing seekers. To believe in truth, whether we are talking about Jesus or his teachings, is to agree by nature that there is absolute truths. As Christians, we believe that truth is fulfilled in the person of Christ, and in his teachings. I don’t think believeing in absolute truth is a problem for most of us. I do believe “know-it-allism” is. Maybe it’s because we have more college educated Christians than ever before, or maybe it’s the IT revolution. Perhaps scientific modernity or postenlightenment methodologies have prompted us to esteem knowledge above all things. I am afraid we associate knowledge to often with truth. I know I do. Whatever it is, it appears to fuel the underlying pride in which we all suffer. I think this makes talking about any spiritual ideas tough because we want to be right. Our smarts depend on it, and therefore, so do our egos. Scriptures makes it clear though, “we see through muddy water for now”, and “now we know in part”… No doubt Jesus is the truth. How well do any of us know him though? Is there no room for growth in our paradigms of Jesus. If not, are we just relating to an idea or an actual being?
Really love this comment. Thanks, Nathan.
Wow. This is wrong. Piper or Bell: take a side: http://roborjohn.com/
Hi Don,
I’ve recently started following your blog and read some of your books, but have never commented before. I think that while “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” is a great book – and different conclusions and implications can definitely be drawn from it for how we think about how we know things, including things of faith (ie. the concept that knowledge is embedded in a tradition or network of assumptions, that faith or certain assumptions precede rational inquiry etc.) But, I would be hesitant to try and directly take its explanation of a certain understanding of scientific knowledge, which is arguing against a particular understanding of scientific knowledge and method, and using that as a model for how we think (and talk) about God, faith, the church etc. To define the debate in terms of the language of anomaly and paradigm shift is to already make a certain decision on what is fundamentally forming the way we think – if you like, it is to accept a certain paradigm, or language game that will define the debate – by accepting a language of “anomaly” you immediately lose the more traditional language of, say, “mystery”. To try and understand faith in terms of a model of a collection of data/anomaly/pardigm shift seems to repeat the same mistake as those Christians who seem to take certain earlier scientific assumptions as fundamental to their understanding of faith and truth – characterized by buzz-words like objective or absolute. The assumptions that will define the debate and the questions asked will be (and it seems frequently are) driven by the underlying models of understanding. So, I’m not sure the question, of what are the anomalies within the evangelical “Biblical paradigm” is the most fruitful way to form the question. Of course, that raises the question – what is the better way to form the question? Which, I think would be very good to explore…
Good point, TC. Language can always be used to twist understanding to ones advantage.
First I wonder if some paradigm differences happen because we approach truth with different needs. We each need reassurance about different aspects of truth both as individuals, as generations, and a cultures.Jesus meets us where we are and,while he makes his whole truth available to us,the truth each of us need most to keep moving toward Him is what we latch onto. Some of us really need him to be sovreign, some need him to be just, some need transcendence, and some stability. Some of us just need a father or a friend.
I think some of this truth-seeking also has to hinge on what we think of the Bible in the first place.It is the basis of most of what we think about God, Jesus, Christian ethics, church, etc. Ironically we must accept that the Gospel writers faithfully recorded and remembered correctly what Jesus said and that those who codified if 300 years later had spiritual guidance and scholastic basis for their decisions. Then we have to believe the that God continued to guide and inspire translators and scholars.On top of this we have to believe that his holy spirit inspires individual believers and seekers to recognize when God is using it to communicate personally and specifically.
If we can’t agree on the Bible as a source it is impossible to discuss our different takes on it’s contents. And even if we agree that the Bible is a source we then have to accept or reject the possibility that various and differing paradigms, shifted or stable, may have been derived from this same source.
It’s important to remember that God exists outside of space and time. He created what we understand the world to be. Because we are the created and our experience is limited to what we know, it becomes difficult to understand God because we do not have a reference. We sttuggle to understand anything that exists beyond our own experience.
There is historical perspective for what Don is saying. The reformation happened not just because there was a search for truth, but also because there was a political and cultural context for it to exist in. Did God change during the reformation? No, but how many perceived him did.
Lastly, theology is our description of what we understand God to be saying about himself. The persons who are doing the describing are flawed, and therefore their description of God must be as well.
I think the relevant genius of Kuhn’s ‘Structure’ is that he points out the religiosity of scientists. A new (and correct) idea is met with the same skepticism and counterattack any institutional agent would mete out to any heresy or demon-possession.
Certainly, the pharasaical response is alive and well for those who seek to defend particular theologies. Once we make something ‘significant’, we seem to automatically commit biases to defending it.
While I refer to Kuhn quite a bit (even in a worship artists meeting at my church), I think that his views are constrained in Karl Popper’s ‘falsifiable space’. If something is not falsifiable, it cannot be scientific. But some truth is not falsifiable, and requires faith to grasp. I find that ministry work inputs are 98% falsifiable, if leaders cared to dig deep enough. Assuming an incarnational Christ is a lot easier than assuming predicted consequences of halving or doubling certain items on the church budget.
As far as the Bible, it is pretty easy to see if 2 different interpretations of a passage each have integrity. The difficult challenges come when someone does not bring the faith, and thus, and obedient spirit, to the scriptures.
Don, thanks for the post; its very encouraging to me that these topics are being discussed.
This whole discussion is founded on the misguided notion that individuals are responsible to interpret ‘truth’ for themselves. This idea became mainstream about 75 years back, and goes by the name ‘Existentialism’. Prior to its going public, existentialism was born and raised in European sectarian churches, fashioned with word by our dear friend, Soren Kierkegaard. Since the Apostles, people, individuals, recognized themselves as unfit to examine Scripture and find ‘new truths’ by themselves. Their dependence for the truth of Scripture came from the long-standing teachings of the historic church. However, with the ousting of the Roman Papal system, the western Protestant churches found themselves alone in this world, theologically, and thus were forced to create a ‘new truth’ out of the only thing they had left to work with: the Bible. But not being willing to seek the theological advice of Rome, and rightly so, they were left without foundation. The only source of historical biblical knowledge remaining was found in the realm of Eastern Orthodoxy and a few writings of early church fathers in Rome. But because of the knee-jerk reaction against the Roman church, the Protestants were not willing to accept anything that looked the least bit like Popery, so Orthodoxy was dismissed, and the Protestant wing essentially cut themselves off from the historic Faith and took to sculpting truth from the Bible, which is only one half of what was intended to give truth; the other half being the church (1 Timothy 3:15 & John 16:13). This of course requires one to ask, “Who constitutes the Church?”. With this understanding I am made very nervous to find that I believe something which the historic Church does not hold to be true. We, as individuals, are not autonomous in deciphering truth.
Don, I would just like to say thanks for raising this topic. Sometimes when I read your blog posts, I start to get white-knuckled at the thought of all the trouble you’re going to get yourself into by raising some of the questions you (rightfully) raise. Thanks for writing so many blog posts that leave me white-knuckled. Thanks for having the intellectual courage, emotional honesty, and lack of concern for maintaining a certain Christian “image” that allows you to raise difficult topics and to let the chips fall where they may. Thanks for recognizing that truth will always sort itself out (eventually), and it doesn’t need our help in “shaping” it or protecting it or hiding it or controlling it or manipulating it.
Thanks for respecting real truth enough to allow this to happen, and thanks for being a space where people are encouraged to tell, discuss, debate, and then live that truth. This frees all of us to be people on the journey of being transformed by truth.
Thanks for being a part of this process for so many of us–
A friend of mine (a linguist and medievalist) just finished reading a book that explained the etymology of the word . Apparently back in the day (think King James version) the word didn’t have the same meaning and connotations that it does today. Then it meant simply faithful. It wasn’t until the 1560s that truth is reported to have meant ‘not a lie’. I feel like if everyone knew that it would clear up a lot of Bible-as-constitution thinking (which I disagree with).
Maybe some will think I’m weak for saying this but it comes down to the fruit that is being produced. I did not grow up in a fundamentalist home but one that did love Jesus. I was taught to search the Scriptures (the old be like the Bereans). I had a close walk with the Lord growing up. In college many of my friends starting living more “worldly”. I didn’t understand this as we all were once passionate for the Gospel. I was headed for the ministry and this frustrated me and I asked them questions as to what was going on. Their questions led me to start reading Mclaren and Bell. Wanting desperately to see my friends fall back in love with the Lord, I took to heart much of their post-modern critique of the church. I shouldn’t have. This started a five year period of doubt. I found it tough to pick up Scripture because according to this new post-modern understanding I was forming, I needed other books to understand the language of Scripture, I didn’t really know what Jesus was saying but it was something about the kingdom of God, and God was all love so if I joined in with my friends it would just be to bring Jesus to the pub or party or whatever (can be a good thing but not the way I did it). Mclaren and Bell’s books led me into a period of doubt that caused me to question things that shouldn’t be questioned. The Holy Spirit always left me with an uneasy feeling though and I could never fully accept their premise in my heart. So it began a battle of heart (the Spirit working) and head (my newfound postmodern knowledge). I wasn’t a crazy fundamentalist who was struggling to break free from his roots or anything. I genuinely loved (still do) Jesus but I was an immature guy who thought these guys sounded smart and it resonated with where my friends were at. It didn’t lead me more towards Jesus though. I may have gotten more riled up about politics and social justice but not for the glory of God. All that to say it’s the fruit of what is being said that to me can help determine if it’s truth. If the average person plainly reading Scripture looks at it from a modern and constitutional viewpoint and then goes out and re-orients his life around the Gospel and the exclusivity of Christ and lives out his faith in a loving way, what’s wrong with that? I see a lot of this postmodern slant and all these books leading many people into a lot of doubt and then answers are never given so they wait for the next book and add something else to the doubt list. They blog a lot in the meantime and get real passionate about social issues (not saying social issues are bad) but it’s NOT the Gospel. Jesus is truth. Answers are found in orienting our lives around Him. Humbly praying that the Spirit (who leads us into all truth) will guide us and then living it out for the good of our family, friends, coworkers and the world. I’m sorry but to me doubt is not the answer. I truly believe God protected me from going too deep into this postmodern question everything stuff. Being a Christian means believing in at least one absolute truth and that is that Jesus is Truth. I doubt any of us has it all right but we all have a paradigm and they all have unanswered anomalies. Whatever paradigm we have as Christians we should be maturing and not staying stuck with the same doubts for years.
Thank You
Agree. Dialogue is good, seeking us good, but looking to people/church leaders/philosophers/books to give you the real answers leads to a love of knowledge about God…. And the love of the person of God begins to fade.
I really appreciate your post.
I believe, however, that doubt and questioning are good and healthy–scary, though! For me, doubts and questions always push me closer to Jesus. He’s the one I go to first with that kind of thing. We are all unique and Jesus meets us where we are.
Nicole, thanks. I agree! I just don’t think we should be doubting the same things for years. I think as Christians it’s healthy to always have some doubt as it helps us avoid thinking we have all the answers! However, although we may always be doubting something, we shouldn’t always be doubting the same thing. Just wanted to clarify!
Don, thanks for bringing the comments back. It’s so interesting and challenging to hear all these different opinions.
Is the Bible a book about getting into heaven or avoiding hell?
Why aren’t Jesus’ undies in a knot about people who have the “wrong” beliefs? And how is it that he sees faith in them? (Even likely pagans who aren’t even bible adherents, like the Syro-Phonecian woman et al).
pd, Jesus talks time and time again in the Gospels about believing. He questioned wrong beliefs as much as he did right beliefs lived out wrongly. Beliefs matter and they mattered to Jesus. Unless, you want to totally re-interpet what orthodoxy has always held as the majority view then Jesus talked about hell a lot. I’m not willing to re-interpret that. Although the church is screwed up, I believe the Holy Spirit keeps the church from running headlong into error. If Hell as it’s almost always been understood has been a belief for most of church history, then I believe that’s God’s doing and when Jesus mentioned hell he was actually talking about hell.
Interesting post. Your paradigm shifts mentioned are much more broad than the things that first come to my mind. I tend to think within the world of propositional truth simply because no matter how we go about talking it seems that we have to discuss things in a propositional way. Here are some paradigm shifts I’m noticing.
If we really trust Scripture is the way to do life and that the teachings of the New Testament are in some way normative for us, what about the way that we do church? Why do we seem to be doing church in a way that doesn’t encourage things like everyone using their gifts while gathering, the priesthood of all believers, and the sharing of meals and communion in a way that is much more communal?
What about an eternal hell? Do we really think that it’s just to punish people in an incessant timeless existence for their sins that took place in a finite and temporal world? Do we simply call that “just” because God did it and He can do what He wants? Why does Scripture spend so much time contrasting death versus life instead of what it ‘really’ means, life in an eternal state of pain and punishment or life in an eternal state of bliss and glory. These seem more convincing and influential images.
While I do think we have to talk about Scripture with some sort of proposition, what is with Systematic Theology (http://bit.ly/ePGO9F more extensive thoughts)? The idea seems to be that the Bible is a book designed to be dismantled and reformed in a way as to proof text doctrines. The Bible was obviously written deliberately and obviously not written as a way to clearly and systematically communicate doctrinal truth. Why do our Seminarians try to force it to do this?
As important as his identification of crisis in evolving scientific paradigm, Kuhn also developed a yo-yo with a steel axle and rosewood axle sleeve that would sleep like a baby. Functional(science+toy) = ThingOfTrueBeauty.
I might have had a response, but…
A) It has taken me forever to read all of the comments, because they required my brain to work on overdrive and my fingers are sore and black from flipping through the dictionary so much. And I’m still not sure what they all mean…
B) My response would pail in comparison to all of the above ones…I have a “student” thesaurus and I obviously need an adult one so I would sound halfway intelligent.
Out of my league.. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible told me so.”
Great questions Don…enjoyed reading through it all.
Shellybell,
You got it right!
Steve
Thanks for posting this. I find that few are willing to admit that hey, we might be wrong.
Haven’t been to church in nearly a year (for many reasons, burnout and disillusionment at the top), but another reason being that no church accepts the voice of the heretic that says, “Hey, did you ever think the world might be round, slavery might be wrong, and bleedin’ people might be one of the stupidest things we’ve come up with? Just sayin’.”
Love the post. Surprised Kuhn shows up in the conversation…but glad. Some of the philosophy of science writers present some mind bending temporal truths that apply to the search for eternal truth as well. Glad some folks are making the connection.
Based on your footnote, I know you weren’t trying to enter the Rob Bell fray; but man what a mess. I think its exactly on point with what you are exploring with question 4. Not to pick on them, and not even saying I disagree with them, but the Neo-Calvanist crowd is seemingly bent on making sure that variety of Christian thought is stamped out with haste and extreme prejudice. I don’t know if its pride, or simply fulfilling a basic human need for stability, or just a personality trait of those who are attracted to the camp. I tend to think its personality (per one of your post a few months ago). It seems some need clear guidelines and markers while other need space and room to move intellectually. I suspect admiration of ambiguity and disdain for it are actually somehow tied to those personality traits.
Anyhow, thanks for returning the comments from time to time and for any who are waiting to pounce on Rob Bell…please, please at least read the book first.
Don- thank you for this. I read something today that gnaws at me: “There is more hateful person than a Christian who is convinced you have your theology wrong.” Ouch. That one hurts – mostly because it is too far too often in how Christians respond. Truth does not change, but the lense through which we view and ultimately understand does and always will. The kind of absolutism-bordering-on-blindness I’ve seen in the commentary on Bell’s book, which none of the critics has even read, reinforces at least two things for me: one, it validates the very reason to tackle this subject. After all, it’s the same kind of “Ghandi is in hell” hubris that produces theae premature attacks on Bell – someone they have no interest in seeing connect with people, even if his book turns ou to say something different from what they expect. Two, we need to be honest: this practice of shouting heretic in a crowded theater is one of the main reasons why people drawn to Jesus struggle with taking the next step and becoming Christians. They don’t want to be associated with all of the nutty an decidedly un-Christ-like things people have done in Jesus’ name. Hence the need for Christians to confess their sins to nonbelievers as yoy guys did at Reed.
2. How do we reconcile propositional truth with the language of Christ who claims to actually be truth?
It’s fascinating to see that “truth” (Grk. athetheia) is used the greatest number of times in the Bible in the book of John.
This is where Jesus amazingly, simply states:
“I am the way, the truth and the life…”
Propositional truth is “truth”, but the mystery is that Jesus says that He is this propositional truth. I know this is your take on faith in Christ, that is revealed and discovered through relationship with Jesus.
Which leads to relational truth, called the “way” (Grk. hodos) – where our journey, the process in which we decide, think and feel colors and shapes our experience of propositional truth (what you are expressing so clearly in this post as paradigm shifts). As Jesus so succinctly states, even this personal truth can only merge and intersect, if it is in connection to a relationship with Jesus.
Third, Jesus says truth is also intertwined with “life” (Grk. Zoe). This is where application – the reality of what we believe to be true, have experienced in our unique cultural and theological lenses – is visibly practiced and evidence (James. Faith w/out works is dead). I think a lot of the empahsis on the emergent church is on “the way” and “the life”, but these two are not separate or independant from “truth” – propositional truth.
It’s also thought-provoking to see that it is also in the book of John that Pilate is recorded as asking Jesus “What is truth”"
and a foreigner – woman of Samaria – asks what does it mean to worship in truth?
Jesus answers her” But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth ; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:23-24
Which leads to the last point of truth, which is that revelation of all three are delivered through the vehicle of something completely off the charts of logic: the Holy Spirit.
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth ; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak ; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” John 16:3
John is also the book that Jesus is quoted with an abundance of words about the Spirit. I think this is also why there is a trend and focus in Christianity on the spiritual disciplines, prayer, meditation and on the inward journey to get in touch with God.
Again, the Spirit too is not independently experienced apart from propositional truth.
So, in summary, it is a richness and vastness of truth in relationship with Jesus personally — that gives us what Paul says is going from glory to glory — from one generation — one culture to another — expressed uniquely that no other ones before or after it will understand.
My question is what is God saying uniquely about Himself today, in our cultural and theological lenses? This is the encouragement and power of message we want to convey in everyday language, quietly or not so quietly in our everyday lives.
“This does not mean anomalies have to be accepted, but rather carefully addressed in a reasonable manner.”
So agree. It is intellectual blindness to dismiss concerns, issues and questions as heresy. Jesus was never dismissive towards anyone’s questions or issues — and engaged everyone with more questions about truth!
He kept the dialogue going, until it went deep into the heart of who he was speaking with. And THAT — people’s hearts — is the worthwhile goal of every conversation we have. That connection with another person’s story, heart and experience of life is what we are following after, as Jesus did for those who were hungry and thirsty.
It’s just rude to do otherwise, when there is no need to disengage. Quite the opposite!
All of this debating and searching for truth is fine, but it seems to me that most are more interested in the Knowledge of Good and Evil than in the person of truth, Jesus. Many of these comments are intellectually interesting, but lacking in….well…Jesus. Jesus is not the way to discovering more truth, he is himself the truth. It is not our understanding of God or correct doctrine that will save, it is Jesus alone. He is God, he saves, we do not. I think like Adam and Eve we still feel the pull of knowledge that we may be like God, knowing good and evil.
The truth has a lot less to do with what you believe and a lot more to do with who you believe. Did Abraham have great knowledge or understanding of theology? Do you think the Centurion or the Canaanite women, who Jesus commended as having great faith had their doctrine straight? No, they just believed God. Jesus himself, not a teaching about him, is and always will be the only way to the Father.
The bible (although it was not meant for this) is but a mirror to our souls. and sometimes that reflection is pretty scary.
Some thought-provoking reading here!
One comment: as scientific evidence mounts over the centuries, scientific thought is progressing towards a greater and greater understanding of scientific truth. Can we say the same about the Church’s understanding of the truth of Christ?
My view is that to expect the same progressive inprovement in theological understanding is to give ourselves (and our society) far too much credit!
I don’t know if I am getting off topic or not but, I would like to discuss the use of caffeine (coffee). Caffeine as we know is a drug that is similar to nicotine. It’s not nearly as addicting as nicotine is but you can still be dependent on it.
About 4 months ago I quit cigarettes by the grace of God and my walk is much more intimate with Him. I also just recently fasted for three days and only drank water. After the fast I continued to abstain from caffeine for 2 and a half weeks. I noticed, when I began drinking coffee again, that I did not feel God’s precence as much, I was clouded spiritually, and I tended to be more susceptible to sinful/prideful thoughts.
Churches across the country are serving coffee. Is this something that we are blind to? Before the health risks of cigarettes were known, many christians smoked but I am sure that God didn’t want them to. Our bodies are a temple of the Holy spirit; should we be hyped up on the drug caffiene or filled with the holy spirit? Is our God not big enough to give us energy when its needed?
Please Forgive me if this is totally wrong but I feel God has told me to stop drinking coffee. Please tell me your thoughts.
If God is telling you to stop drinking coffee, then by all means, stop drinking it. My only thought is, respectfully, recognize that he is only asking this of you so don’t expect it of others. It is your journey. The question isn’t “should *we* be hyped up”, it’s “should *I* be hyped up on caffeine.” Coffee may be actually beneficial to others. We are all unique creations and respond to the world differently. Personally, I don’t drink coffee, so it makes no difference to me.
And WOW, congratulations on getting off of cigarettes, Sean. That is amazing! You’re on a marvelous path, brother!
Thanks Nicole!
Great post and thoughtful discussion. Mark Galli at Christianity Today has written an excellent article on the recently stirred waters of universalism, very much worth the read:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/marchweb-only/rob-bell-universalism.html
[...] churches have the capacity use deviant doctrines, what Donald Miller called “anomalies” on his blog post, to challenge the accuracy of our own theology. We can patiently explore the issues with [...]
[...] Miller, one of my favorite Christian authors, might be plagiarizing from my brain with his latest post. He poses these questions to his readers (of whom I am one) about beliefs commonly held by [...]
[...] When Truth is the Enemy of Truth. A conversation about some of the questions behind the questions. [...]
I love Donald Miller’s posts so much that reading them sometimes feels like a vice. To me claiming truth has and will always raise enough anomolies to distract us from time spent living it. We learn absolute truth best from the the man who is too busy loving his neighbor to engage in debates with the man holding conversations over what it means. To me anyway, the more explanation truth needs, the more it becomes fiction. And yet, like the next person, I love to read what everyone has to say about truth, and so I sit.
oops anomalies
The opposite of faith is not doubt it’s certainty… Annie Lamott
Working with students for the last 20 plus years I have seen that embracing doubt is crucial for long term faith. This isn’t directly about any one anomalie (creationism, exclusive truth claims, etc) but how we frame the conversations around them. The doubt we encourage is not doubt in God but in our systems, theology and structures. Students who are allowed to questioned are given a larger platform to build faith. One observation is that a students faith will only be as wide as the questions they are able to ask. It allows them to take Jesus with them into every part of life. This is scary to many people, hence the heretic language. Parents do understand that a “crisis of faith” is often crucial for deeper faith. My simple question to parents ” do you want your child to question the paradigm in a loving faith community or in a fraternity one night when he has few adult beverages in him?” The questions, anomalie, are absolutely in their heads. Do we have the courage to be instigators? To allow God himself to be the answer rather then our current paradigm / theology. (full disclosure: most of my ministry I have FAILED at this)
Our challenge as ministers is build a safe space for people to question, doubt and work through crisis when the paradigm starts to crumble. In fact, instigating questions about the current paradigm might be true discipleship and the fast track to being “fired”. This is why I love the Annie Lamott quote because it clarifies this issue. For some reason, it’s easy to shift certainty to our paradigm’s about God rather then in the person of God Himself. I can master a paradigm , control it and that seems much safer then a God who has real personality.
When considering the question of truth, we are possibly talking about the issue of authority: i.e., who gets to decide what is true for the rest of us? Anne Wilson Schaef’s work on addiction indicates that western society is addicted when white males get to determine the truth for the rest of humanity, in that their “truth telling” is deemed necessary to provide the structures for a stable society. But “Women’s Reality” and the reality of other cultures have shaken the dominant authoritative voice of previous generations. Yes, Jesus is the authority, but who gets to tell us what he means on the pages of the Bible? A sleight-of-hand move has us right back to the “who is the mediator/authority who will guide us?” question.
Karl Barth wanted to hold in tension these three: the Living Word (Jesus), the Written Word, and the word preached or discussed (theology). If our Jesus is more reflective of our culture than of the Bible, then we are missing Jesus. If we read the Bible for rules and regulations, but miss a living relation with Jesus and His Father by the Spirit, we are probably missing the point of the Bible. If we are preaching so people have better lives, but they do not know Jesus or the Grand Narrative of God’s Grace in human history, we are probably not preaching with much “truth.” Truth is a relational concept in the Bible, not a rational concept from Greek philosophy, grounding “truth” in an abstract world of ideas. Truth must be lived.
Parker Palmer, in To Know As We Are Known, discusses that our word truth comes from troth, a faithful binding of persons to one another. God is truthful in that He covenants with humanity to be their God and is faithful to covenant promises. The great paradigm shift we need is to recognize that the truth of the Bible is faithful lived relations rather than abstract propositions and theories (comes from the Greek idea of the theater, to observe without participation).
Don, to address the good questions you are asking:
1. A constitution is a document for a legal society to overcome the fear of previous failures by creating a social contract to guide the masses. The Bible was produced for a religious community who was to find their identity in a covenant relation with a living God who loves them. The story of that love relation and the wisdom of living in faithful (trothful) response to that God is the power of the Bible to keep the relationship at the center, not to create systems of control and “religious experiences” that are the ever-present meltdowns away from biblical lived-faithful truth-in-relationship. We have followed Lex, Roman law, in making the Bible a constitution, rather than Torah, Hebrew law, the covenant of living in loving response to God, neighbor, and self.
2. Jesus is the great Reconciler, so we might ask how He deals with propositional truth. He seems to have a sense that there is a reality that exists (like His Father) and that our words cannot capture that reality completely (so we have to be careful about using Father of God at the same time as our human fathers). Jesus held language lightly and reality firmly. He was constantly reengaging the WORDS to get to the Reality of why the Sabbath exists, what giving is about, caring for the needy and excluded. The words are necessary tools to communicate, but inadequate to contain or finally arbitrate truth. So if our propositions are seen as tools to use in the task of collaborating to live the loving truth of God, as lived and spoken in Jesus, we have reconciled them. If we spend all our energy on the propositional reflections, they become like negatives in a film camera, that remember the truth, the reality that allowed for its creation, but has not been made into a print to “speak and evoke” new relations and conversations. Propositions are provisional to enable more faithful loving. Otherwise they are tragic – old wine-skins that spoil the new wine.
3. Knowing Christ is to begin at the point of God’s self-expression to us. If we want to know the truth about GOD, we must begin with God’s manner of engaging us, rather than creating a theology out of what makes us comfortable, secure, or elevates our culture’s ideals. That path of idolatry has plagued humanity from ancient times to the present. Jesus wants us to know a person – His Father. The Spirit wants us to hear Jesus the Shepherd’s voice so we can know the Father’s Heart and cry out “Abba,” meaning we discover the “truth” that we are beloved children. This is not a final truth to be forced onto an adoptive child, but acknowledges truth as the space that is created by the relation that allows us to grow into loving fidelity with all the struggles and doubts that are natural to the process. So, knowing Jesus as the truth is not an end; it is the beginning of the Marriage. This is best lived with the truth that each day is full of mystery. If we think we know our spouse and ask no questions at the breakfast table, we lose the truth of the relationship. If the conversation begins each day with the sense of mystery that delights in knowing one’s spouse that day, asking, “tell me what excites you about today,” then the truth will be lived each day as we keep current, and the love that comes from knowing and being known will be trothful. Jesus is the Beginning, the Spirit is the ever-renewing Presence, and the Father is the Lover of our souls who desires connection. We need not convert people, but rather to learn the language of the relational matrix that is the structure of our lives. When are we going to teach kids in school that the truth of learning the life-skills of communicating, negotiating, trust-building, etc, is more important than math/science, and to stop objectifying reality when relating is our most important skill? It is all about relationships!
4. The philosopher John Macmurray set out to find why humans war, which is kind of like why sects hold a view of the truth that puts them in a war-state with other beliefs. He found that fear is our most elemental motive – the need to survive that gives us a lens of interpreting the world in such a way that we create structures to defend ourselves (fundamentalism, scientism, provincialism, you get the idea). People who are afraid genuinely feel they are defending the truth and cannot see that their fear pushes everyone away (it is untrothful). Love is the opposite, concerned for the other rather than self (the more fear, the more self-centered, the more protective). Love creates troth, asks lots of questions, creates a bond that allows exploration and growth. So those who are lovingly free to ask questions (McLaren, Bell, etc) are living the truth that got Jesus, the Truth-Image, into trouble, because truth lovingly questions all that frustrates and violates the truth of God’s love. Fear enslaves us – makes us hide, put on masks, build walls and defense systems. That is why we need “Jazz” to call us out of the fearful shadows to dance in the streets and live the New Paradigm where lion and lamb, conservative and liberal, fundamentalist and liberation theologian…all learn to live the truth as loving and questioning to walk in the light that is the loving life of the Triune God …
Mary, thank you for this. I’m saving this post and just having a blast reading this along with John 14-16 which I’m going over repeatedly this week. I’m weary of the world’s spirit that questions and attempts to discount every message Jesus relayed to his followers. I want to know Him; thank you for this encouragement toward loving God and people and being “throthful” to the relationship He offers.
You hit a nerve, Mr. Miller, and it doesn’t surprize me that you ask such questions while reading through the Gospels again. I listen to a teacher, Andrew Wommack, and over the last couple of years I’ve felt like I’m learning everything about faith in Christ over again. Jesus really does fulfill every letter of the law, and He’s provided more than we will ever be able to discover (all the mystery!) He’s all the truth we need.
Sorry, Marty. I mistyped your name. Thanks again.
I really do understand what Miller is saying here, but… this is very typical for Miller and others who write in this trend. They love to talk philosophically and vaguely about principles for determining truth which are difficult to argue with, but when it gets down to specific issues, well, now the debate becomes something much more painful and potentially harmful.
I agree that those who simply dismiss everything they disagree with are shallow at best. I agree that historically there have been these shifts on many of our beliefs which we might currently hold dear… In our time we have seen the resurgence of Calvinism (reformed movement) in contrast with the “emergent movement,” which has all but lost it’s steam (in my view), more or less becoming synonymous with a very “liberal” interpretation of Scripture. (Incidentally, I believe the two are related, but that’s another subject.)
Then there are the rest of us… trying to hang on to what we are firmly convicted of while not being dogmatic about those beliefs which we should hold more loosely. At any rate, while Miller is right that the existence of absolute truth does not necessarily mean we can know what it is, this is a very dangerous admission when it is taken too far. Do we have a revelation from God or not? In practice, if we cannot know what is absolutely true, then it winds up not really mattering that there is absolute truth in existence. If every single thing is subject to interpretation, can we really know anything? This philosophy is similar to the uselessness of Deism. Yes, God is real, but we can’t know Him or know anything absolutely about Him, therefore He is irrelevant. Miller’s reasoning could lead to a similar place regarding Scripture, and, in fact, I believe it IS leading people to this place. It is both seductive and frightening, even to me.
If there are not non-negotiables in Scripture, then we are left with nothing at all of any consequence. In my judgment (and that is the only judgment I have), Rob Bell has traveled in to the land of non-negotiables, as has Brian McLaren. Could I be wrong? I suppose. But I don’t think so.
At any rate, I’m not a fan of the term “heretic.” I prefer to hold out hope for them that they will see their error before they are held accountable for leading so many astray. May God keep us all tethered to the truth of Scripture. And I pray that the most important things continue to be held as “absolutely true” by Christendom (or whatever you want to call it) as a whole.
Truth is Truth.
It is also very true that the full awareness or understanding of God is impossible for man. God is beyond all full understanding. God says so.
But, God has also revealed Himself in Scripture through Christ. In order to understand the truth He presents, we must first admit that we cannot understand without God’s revelation. If that revelation is through Scripture, then this is how man must submit to who God is.
The idea that God somehow reveals the truth about Himself in other “new” ways is contrary to what Scripture says. Nothing is new outside of the Scriptural revelation of God, His Son, and His Holy Spirit.
God can do what he wants, when He wants, and how He wants.
But to contradict Himself as revealed in Scripture is contrary to His revealed nature in Scripture.
Let the Christian faith not go down the road again of discovering a “new” revelation from God.
This IS heresy. Always has been heresy. Always will be heresy.
Bryant –
How do you integrate what you’re saying here with Biblical truths like “the heavens declare the glory of God,” “we know the unseen things of God by that which he has created,” and the statement that all the things Jesus did and said could not possibly be contained in all the books in the world? It seems to me, from these statements, that there is more that we can know about God than what is contained in Scripture, even if (and it’s a big “if”) we’re reading Scripture 100% correctly. But I’d like to know what you think.
“What is truth?” It is a good question. A question that even jumped out to Pontius Pilate. Consider an old Jewish principle that…Truth = Reality. Truth is what is. Now reread, while substituting the word Truth with Reality. I love it.
Don, your post is timely and necessary, as always! And, can we all just agree on the fact that the pic posted of Kuhn is rad? I mean COME ON! Rocks my fricken face off!
As both a pastor and a seminary student, I frequently hear my colleagues express angst and anger over the current paradigm’s rejection of metanarratives as sufficient for knowing truth. What I continually go back to and what gives me hope in ministry is that, as a Christian, I am not saved by a meta-narrative. I am not saved by the modern churches paradigm for knowing truth. I am saved by the person of Jesus.
Anomalies have no place in any system claiming absolute knowledge. Relationships, however, have room for anomalies. God is a God of grace and as you infer from your question, there is hope in the act of introducing people to Jesus and trusting him for what happens after that.
This is not to say that we should just ignore anomalies, but the existence of anomalies aren’t insurmountable for a relationship with the living Christ to overcome and work through. That is the walk of faith.
Cody –
I’m not sure I understand you. It sounds like you’re saying that even if anomalies seem to exist, we should continue to believe as we believe, without adjustment. Would you say that when we see many anomalies, it might be time to take another look at what we believe, because it might not be the truth?
I’m having trouble following. Are you saying that Christians interpret the Bible according to a cultural paradigm, and we’re looking at anomalies occurring within that Christian cultural paradigm? Or do wish for readers to offer anomalies like Jesus being an anomaly as he acted as a servant or broke traditions to act out of love, or “sweet reason” (I like that, sweet reason)? Or maybe something else entirely? If the first, I don’t get it; I don’t get the premise. If Christians believe that the Bible is truth because we know and love Jesus whom John describes as the eternal Word, and by whom we receive grace and truth, then why would we interpret scripture in terms of a cultural paradigm? Shouldn’t it be the opposite, that is, shouldn’t we interpret culture in terms of what God reveals through scripture? If, however, you are speaking of the aforementioned Jesus sort of anomaly, then I say those happen quite a bit. I tend to think Jesus likes to throw curve balls that challenge our self-centered ideas of what it means to be a Christian. I like it when He does that, scripture makes more sense, and I feel closer to Him, I always want to feel closer to Him.
This is why Evangelicalism in its present form will not endure. Too many anomalies….
Let me say first, I love the blog. I wish I could sit with a group of you erudite individuals on a recurring basis and discuss the theological and philosophical truths one can derive from mans accumulative knowledge and its application in theological realms. Yet, for me, Absolute truth exists with God alone. The questions of why we are here and what our Father is trying to accomplish through us always looms in the balance. My first and main concern is (very selfish I admit) that I can accomplish his expectation for me (salvation and redemption), so that I may not be disappointed with a face to face encounter and find myself falling short of His expectations. Yes, I want to know why my fellow Christians hold fast to dogma and shun anyone that presents a plausible paradigm other than the one Church tradition placed in their lap, and why the artful reach for an original theological thought within the walls of our modern church is usually met with the outcast frown of disbelief and disclaim of a heretic paradigm. Most Christians do not want to think. It is very hard for one to change there paradigm. The nature of a paradigm is that it is hard to recognize and identify that one even has one at all. Much less the where with all to change it, thus abdicating its once close held truth can feel like anathema. The more one reads and studies, then the more one feels the incepted agnostic thought that we can never know the real truth of the matter. However, His truth and its application is what I seek.
“What are the anomalies accruing against the widely accepted Biblical paradigm?”
Great question, something I think about more and more these days. I don’t know where I stand on all of these but these are my some proposals:
1. the free market and capitalism of America’s Christians is directly contrasted by Jesus’ actions and assumptions through scripture. Many of our churches sell Books and host farmer’s markets…and people are okay with it. (We even create a whole bunch of garbage with disposable coffee cups.)
2. most of our church’s budgets go toward administration, property related costs, technology and salaries…not the church’s people or people they should feel compelled to support (poor, widows, etc.), that is in contrast to scripture but widely accepted as reality.
3. prayer is often peripheral in our communities…we are too busy to pray.
4. paradigms seem to exist about “sin”, acceptableness and willingness to get into messy lives…Jesus would have had no problem hanging out with homosexuals, porn stars and homeless (no implications intended). I wouldn’t feel comfortable hanging out with porn stars.
5. we have no problem accruing wealth, gathering up material things, and pursuing the American Dream all while going to church on Sundays. If our treasure is truly in heaven, what are we doing? If becoming a Christian inspires a spirit of generosity, are we Christians? What does Jesus-inspired generosity look like, really? I believe “how much is too much?” is the wrong question. Isn’t it instead: can I out-give God?
6. “healing” is a conversation-stopper, too. He heals, really, today and every minute if we are open to it. But that is not “safe” so we don’t talk about it.
7. it seems like a safe, sanitized, mild-mannered Jesus is who our culture is comfortable with. When I read scripture I see a man who is destabilizing, brilliant, direct, sometimes on the verge of sardonic, immediately intimate with his company, incredibly aware and amazingly compelling just to name a few things.
…I should probably stop.
I could go on and on.
Bummer Sherri, are you directly having a bad church experience, or are you just commenting on the overall state of the Christian church in America? I hear you on the “safe” factor. Wish you could come to my church, last week we watched a clip from Empire of the Sun, that part when Christian Bale is all excited on the roof because he sees the “Cadillac of the sky”(big plane) coming to rescue him from the internment camp, but this guy tries to call him back to safety down below. And my Pastor tied this in to Galatians; he said “Paul is ‘steamed’ when those who’ve received grace and freedom shrink back behind the barbed wire and watch the power pass by just beyond their frightened, dirt-hugging reach. But, he’s really ‘steamed’ with those voices who corrupt the Gospel and steal away the riches of God’s grace.” (Does that make sense? Sorry, I’m an INFP, so symbolism is easier for me than philosophy). Anyhow, I feel really blessed by my church, that is, by people there. I know my church is highly imperfect just like the overall church in America, but my Pastor reminds me that we are sometimes very different people in one community and that church is a place of offerings; I guess sometimes you just get to work and do what you think God has called you to, acting lovingly, passionately as one affected by Jesus.