So we all know the story: Clifford comes out and says that it is wrong everywhere and at all times to believe something without sufficient evidence. James says that that isn't so; you can either try to avoid being wrong, and possibly get very little right, or you can try to take a more maximalist approach and possibly get a lot wrong. Further, we have live options which are up for discussion, and other options which are not; we do not simply argue through all ratioanlly possible options to come to a decision. So far, so good; I can't really see any other way of dealing with individual matters of belief than the way James puts it (although, even James admits that he would have put things differently if he had been talking to a bunch of Salvation Army people as opposed to Princeton-ites). But what about communities?
Can we say that within a community, there should not be some people, the intellectuals of the community, who should take more of a careful approach? I think what the matter boils down to is whether fideism is morally appropriate.
Now, by fideism, I mean that the believer has not rational basis. However, expert testimony is a rational basis for belief, and so the average believer would seem to be justified in trusting the intellectuals of the community. But what if the intellectuals have failed to do their job, and due to intellectual laziness, stubborness, hubris, or whatnot, have not adequately searched out the options?
A parallel situation I think can be seen in the military. The more that a person submits her will to the superior, the more the superior makes the moral decisions for the subordinate. Since I'm pretty sure that most of us would deny that "Just following orders" is a moral excuse, it follows that a bad decision on the part of the superior funnels down to the subordinate, and so the subordinate relinquishing of her decisions leaves these up to the other; she is not justified no matter what for her relinquishment.
So, if the average believer decides to get on with her life doing her thing and so gives up her intellectual decision to the intellectuals in the community, why should I say that she is justified if they are not so? Therefore, it would seem that bad intellectuals destroy the justification of the community.
But, if this is the case, don't these intellectuals have a duty to the community to search out matters as strictly and carefully as possible? Don't they have a duty to truly be experts in their fields, and so engage in the necessary self-criticism and the equally necessary searching out of all the other possible and well thought-out views?
What is required of the intellectuals of the community, then, and how spread-out do they need to be? Is a (local) church unjustified if it lacks an intellectual? Does it depends on the church hierarchy? Is it at all justifiably to adopt a Reformed Epistemology if there is no reason to support such an epistemology, just to have an ad hoc justification for the average believer when all else fails?
What should communities do when their arguments are terribly unpersuasive to everyone else? For example, as much as Christians talk about how no one else seems to recognize the seriousness of sin, everyone else who believes in a God has no problem seeing how God could forgive anyone God wants (whether or not God would and does are separate questions). How does this reflect on the community? If what they hold is rational, shouldn't they be able to explain it persuasively to at least some other party, even if not to everyone?
5 comments:
I overlooked this post before now.
You make a lot of good points here.
The Anabaptist (i.e., "free church"-er) in me is fighting the hierarchicalist in me (i.e., episcopalian focus on apostolic authority plus evangelical focus on right doctrine)--this has been going on for the last year or two, and the Anabaptist has overall been winning.
I'm not sure I have good answers to the problems inherent in a "free church" system, though.
I agree with you that intellectuals have a duty to the community. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the notion that these intellectuals are necessary for lay members of the community to be justified, though.
Or maybe it's that I don't think epistemic justification is always so important. True belief--or true-enough belief to work out well in practice--may be more important.
I need to reflect on this some more.
I would lean toward epistemic justification not always being that important; unlike the military example, the person participating in an intellectual mistake (rather than a moral one) is not necessarily less of a person for it.
In the case of a community which has things right, true opinion would do the same work as knowledge; it wouldn't be as trustworthy, given its accidental character, but it would guide behavior just as well as long as it remains true. So, for the community which proposes a salvific worldview, they simply end up being lucky. A universalist, therefore, could be much more lenient on issues of epistemic jusification.
But, the problem is that bad communities spring up. There are racist communities of various sorts, there are radical religious groups resorting the violence, and so on. For the people in these groups, one does have to raise the problem that their "intellectuals" have failed them, resulting in horrific behavior by the community (and so the epistemic justification really is about moral justification).
But if this problem exists in the extreme cases, then doesn't something less severe but still of the same quality (i.e. combining epistemic & moral justification) exist in churches which preach, e.g., Republicanism (or Democraticism)? After all, here we're often just pushing issues of race and violence to a larger, systemic, political level.
Amen to your last paragraph. :)
I guess the Anabaptist in me, being anti-imperialist and anti-racist as much as being free-church, can say (together with the Episcopalian in me) that good theology and bad theology matters in the churches.
Pragmatically speaking, as resident or itinerant intellectuals, we should certainly concern ourselves more with those communities whose epistemic irresponsibility has led to their participation in the propagation of unjust systems. Likewise, in these communities, we should concern ourselves more with those cases in which this has occurred.
There can be such a thing as benign error and lucky but unjustified true belief. While these cases are unfortunate and in need of correction, we have much more pressing concerns!
So...do definitively evangelical beliefs like inerrancy, exclusivism, and the claims (and epistemology) of "the Fundamentals" deserve our attention or our primary concern? Perhaps the first question to ask is whether or not they or their interpretations/applications are causing evil/injustice in our churches. Once we have determined what is important on these grounds, then we can rock the boat by challenging as theologians and intellectuals what needs to be challenged. Where inerrancy or exclusivism is harmless, we don't have to worry so much about whether or not it is true.
In my own immediate context, I see at least two pressing concerns: unconscious & unintentional racism as harmful praxis, as well as conscious & intentional heterosexism as harmful theology potentially resulting in harmful praxis. Examining what Christian theology has to say about racism, and subjecting what Christian theology ought to say about heterosexism to careful and intense scrutiny, then, are priorities for me.
Subjecting penal substitution, biblical inerrancy, soteriology (Calvinist vs. Arminian or exclusivist vs. univeralist issues, for example) are less important, pragmatically speaking, in my community at this time as I see it, as much as I care about these issues in terms of wanting my systematic theology to make sense.
I can't say how things are in your community, or what weight you ought to give to your own questions arising out of your intellectual integrity vs. what doctrinal/theological issues might be responsible for unloving & unjust policies and actions in your community. I don't even know how well defined your community is right now, or if you're committed to one.
But I am coming more and more to understand (I think) the "postmodernist"/"emergent" notion that belonging is prior to believing. I don't think our questions are ever going to go away entirely: but for me the question right now is, or ought to be: as an intellectual (and as a musician, a teacher, and with reference to whatever my other gifts might be), how can I best serve my community as a piece of the Kingdom of God of which I am a citizen?
The difference between the Anabaptist and Episcopalian in me is probably how I will approach the doctrinal issues that I decide matter.
The "Episcopalian"/hierarchicalist approach which I believed in when I was an undergraduate would assert my authority as a knowledgeable and trained student of the Bible and theology, appeal to the confessions and creeds of the organized church of which I was a part, and appeal also to the bishops and other authorities in order to coerce other members of my church to accept my theological views. I would listen to other people only insofar as I am impressed with their credentials as fellow-intellectuals.
The Anabaptist in me is much more democratic, and presently dominant. All voices should be given weight as we interpret scripture and do theology together in community. Unlike the Methodism of my youth, there is no book of discipline which includes rules for living and articles of faith which are normative for membership in the community. Weird things thus can happen: like I can be an "Anabaptist" while believing in the validity of infant baptism and refusing rebaptism for myself. I can use anti-racist resources provided by entities associated with my denomination to teach and dialogue on this issue in my congregation. I can try to call the denominational leaders out for not giving an equal voice to gay members of the denomination, and thus failing to be good, democratic Anabaptists. But I cannot assume special authority as a resident intellectual, even while I exercise my gifts (study, teaching), nor is there an authoritative bishopric or tradition to which I can appeal to settle matters in my congregation.
It seems to me that there are two types of doctrinal problems which need addressing: those which lead more or less directly to unjust actions, and those which keep the community from reflecting on whether their actions might be unjust.
So, inerrancy may not cause racist or homophobic actions (I'm in fact pretty sure that in itself, inerrancy does nothing). But, the belief in inerrancy as it is usually held often leads to people (at least on a practical level within the pews) assuming that they already know what the Scripture says about those topics. Similarly, some views of faith and grace effectively negate any impetus to perform much-needed soul-searching, since people (at least in my church) seem to want to believe that everything has been settled.
I've become more sensitized to this aspect after working on Zen for my thesis. One of the problems that came up there was that, due to the irrational, non-dual nature of Zen thinking and the self-sufficent nature of the Zen master (to simplify matters on both fronts), Zen has had a tendency to simply adopt the social structure in which it is. Some prominent Zen Buddhists were in favor of Japanese war policy in WWII, and even Suzuki, though against the policy, did not really actively do anything about it (or at least it seems). Very similar criticisms are made of Heidegger and the Nazis.
But, are the problematic areas with Zen all that different from the view of faith I see in the church, when talking with the average person (or, more troublingly, with the pastors)? They want to have their foundations and conceptual schemata self-sufficient and resistant to reason.
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