I've been mulling over Averroes' Decisive Treatise. Some may have heard of the infamous "Two Truths" theory of the Latin Averroists, in which they claimed that there is one truth for faith, and one truth for reason, and that these sometimes conflict. Now, even that much has been handed down to us largely through those prosecuting the Averroists (as far as I understand), and so is probably not the most accurate view of the Latin movement even. In addition, most of Averroes' works to be translated into Latin were his commentaries, which leave out his most well-developed position (which is in the Decisive Treatise). So, here is a summary of Averroes' position, which seems to be highly relevant to many of the issues with which I've been struggling concerned the role of the laity to theology and intellectual endeavors.
Averroes considers people to fall into three classes, which pretty much correspond to philosophers, theologians, and everyone else, according to their level of understanding. Most people don't think too deeply about things, and so what they need is rhetoric and laws to help them get through life in good Islamic fashion. Some people have more discernment, however, and these people can pick up on dialectical arguments; that is, arguments concerning consequences, but not necessarily well-grounded. Finally, some people can look into the ultimate causes of things, and these people are suited for demonstration; that is, arguing from first principles.
Now, the thing is that for Averroes, all of these should reach the same truth. Demonstration, Dialectic, and Rhetoric all should be arriving at the same place, and so there should be no disagreement about the basic matters of the faith. However, one should be careful with what information one presents to people. It takes time to think through arguments, and demonstration in particular requires a good deal of study to use effectively. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, as far as Averroes is concerned, and so people should not be exposed to things beyond their understanding. The common person should not hear about the difficulties of interpretation of Scripture, and in fact are bound to believe the literal sense of passages even in the case of a symbolic meaning (as the literal sense has some connection to the inner meaning, and the person will be closer to the truth be following this than by going out of their depth). Similarly, theologians are fine with their material, but shouldn't play around with philosophy, while philosophers shouldn't confound the theologians with their arguments.
Of course, this has been a simplified presentation; I haven't read the book for a couple months, and I'll need to get back to it at some point. While I'm skeptical about the possibility of true demonstration, or a simple tripartite division, I think that the overall structure is recognizable in today's church. This division of knowledge would hardly be popular in our society, but I can't deny that at least at some level (apart from various details and the practicality of working it out), it appeals to me, at least if any standard of orthodoxy is to hold. Anyone with thoughts to share?
2 comments:
That sounds very interesting. I agree that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing -- perhaps particularly for people who don't reflect on how little they understand. It is also difficult to know the level at which to teach and explain; for example, I've been taught some reasons to believe Isaiah wrote all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah, but I wouldn't bring that up in Sunday school. (The hard part would come if I were challenged on it in Sunday school; I would want to leave the impression, "This is a reasonable and rational belief that I hold," not "I'm smarter than you [or, I have more faith in God than you], so shut up," without loosing everybody else.)
I don't have much more time to write, but a couple last thoughts:
Is a key difference between philosophers, theologians, and everybody else which questions they consider ultimate & requiring answers?
When you say that you see that basic structure in today's church, are you thinking of laity and clergy (or, for evangelicals, pastors/church leaders and everybody else), or something else?
I think that the scheme fits the contemporary church in a couple different ways. One way is simply that of the differing levels of ability, background, and opportunity. Average Joe and Sally in the pew don't have the time to devote to searching out all of the stuff they need to get on with their lives, between job and family and whatnot. In many cases, they wouldn't really have the ability/education to do it well anyhow. So, they really shouldn't start getting embroiled in intellectual messes if they can help it.
That part seems to be pretty much the same in the various options. For the "theologians" and "philosopher", we could take educated/bright people (hopefully including the church leaders) for the one and professional academics for the other. This would continue along the lines of the time and/or ability one can devote to the topics at hand. So, it wouldn't be as much about what questions are considered ultimate, but which ones are able to be considered.
Another option would be to look more at how different people go about their thinking. There are professional theologians and philosophers, and they have different concerns; similarly, educated laypeople and pastors have their different approaches.
"Theologians" in this broad sense tend many times to be concerned with more contingent matters as well as re-envisioning the world through Christian eyes, and this is better suited for the dialectical approach.
Philosophers, on the other hand, ideally are searching out the reasons behind these things; a more advanced (and danger-prone) intellectual task, even if not overall more important for the health of the community (even the intellectual sub-community) than the other groups. Here, the distinction would seem to be how one would provide an ultimate answer for a given question, even if the questions are the same.
Post a Comment