Combination Models

Thus far, I've been dealing with single-method approaches to gathering theology from Scripture. This will strike many as being implausible; why not make use of all of our methods? I will be focusing on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (WQ) in this discussion, but I think that most other models will fare in a like fashion.

I take a model like the WQ to be both descriptive and normative. Whatever we say, we actually use tradition, reason, and experience in reading Scripture; insofar as we are doing Christian theology, we have to deal with Scripture as well, in that it has been the background for all further theologizing, whatever our normative commitments may be. We use experience and reason, because we need to appropriate Scripture ourselves and not merely relate the words on the page. We use tradition, because we come from a community (or communities) which has taught us how to read Scripture.

This, I believe, leads to the normative use of the WQ: since we use all of these things, we ought to use them well. Once we realize that reason, experience, and tradition are always applied to Scripture, whether we like it or not, how can we stand around using them poorly? The alternative would be to approximate a Scripture-only position, trying to pare away the other poles. But these other poles are the conditions under which Scripture is actually meaningful! Scripture cannot mean anything to us unless we ourselves understand it, in our present circumstances, within our community.

So, from here, the next alternative may be to emphasis one of the poles over the others. Traditional Protestant groups have raised Scripture above the others, but then this falls victim to the discussions at Sola Scriptura and Inerrancy. So, we have the remaining three poles, although we still would want to say that Scripture functions is a way distinct from the others; the other poles are ways of appropriating Scripture. To emphasize experience is to fall victim to the comments in Pragmatism, and reason leads to many of the comments concerning Logic.

To sum up these discussions: reason leads to the possibility that we've cut up the world incorrectly (and it may well me that any world-cutting is only good for particular uses), and so any theoretical theology could be toppled due to its consequences, no matter how solid it appears to be; modus tollens is applicable whenever modus ponens is. Experience leads us to formulate ways of approaching given ends, but cannot give us the ends in the first place. Reading Scripture alone (and thus, emphasizing our reading of Scripture, even while trying to claim to put Scripture itself above the other poles) ignores the complexities of the hermeneutical situation (such as the difference between divine and human authorship, and ad hoc references to tradition). I haven't written specifically about the pitfalls of tradition, but it shares with all the rest the pitfall that it, raised above the others, removes itself from critique; however, we can see that all of these need critique.

Therefore, it seems at least that any theological foundationalism is flawed. We never have pure Scripture, pure reason, pure experience, or pure tradition. If any of these attained, we would be right to use it as our foundation. The arguments for any view are quite cogent when the messiness of life is removed. As such, we end up with a theological coherentism, which seeks to create the most coherent framework for theology.

Under such a view, we have to start somewhere in building our webs of beliefs. We don't methodologically emphasize a view, but we do take one to begin our journey. From here, I cannot say that my reasonings should convince others of RC; but I regard it as a legitimate view in light of the discussion. At very least, it is as valid vantage point for theological discussion as other views, in particular since they've acknowledged the way that tradition has changed over the years (my main problem with EO is that they still put up the "unchanged since the 1st century" line; even though I have more specific doctrines that I disagree with in RC, I actually like the way in which they play out in RC better than in EO).

I think that the traditional Protestant view has been tried and found wanting, which is why I have spent the most time refuting it. My reason has convinced my that there are at least some reasons for looking at RC, in particular because (currently, at least) it seems to be the church which supports the intellectual life the most.

Experience shows me that most people really are not good at getting doctrine right, and at least here in America want to go about spreading their own views anyhow; either (a) there is a way short of vast intellectual effort which will help them to the right view, (b) the right view doesn't really matter, or (c) most people are morally culpable for not searching out their own faith. I think that (b) ends up with the same problem discussed in Pragmatism, that there has to be something set in place in order to decide which end people should seek, even if this is being good people (and what being a good person entails) and loving others (whatever love may be). And as one of my major problems with traditional Protestantism is that it is awful at listening to what others have to say (if they can't understand RC, Barth, liberals, atheists, and so on, enough to get those positions correct even while sharing similar cultural circumstances, why should I expect them to get Paul correct?), I wish to listen to others when they tell me that I would be putting too great a burden on them with (c); at any rate, I am too arrogant to be the one to bring up the issue. Therefore, I personally am left with (a). This, tied together with an attempt to take tradition seriously and not just when it supports my own view, is what is leading me to RC.