I
I have for many years been convinced that the theological enterprise cannot survive in our age without affording to its language robust truth conditions. Contemporary men and women presuppose what Jaegwon Kim once called Alexander's Dictum, that is, "to be is to have causal powers." We don't live in the 19th century where ideas themselves are thought to have a kind of reality; we don' t live in a time in which the conceptuality of God can remain important for vast numbers of people.
In our days, people are not generally searching to find some overarching concept or principle that grounds our rational thinking about life and existence, a notion that might somehow explain why human experience is given as it is, and accordingly, somehow ground the preciousness and value of that experience. While Madonna once sung of a "material girl," we generally acknowledge that, even in our churches, the cultural primacy of the physical reigns. The new atheism talks breathlessly of its discovery of a worldview without divine agency and causality -- as if such a view of things is in any way new. There is an assumption of the causal closure of the physical among many unwashed in the complexities of the actual relations holding among experience, theory and truth, among those who simply believe that the theories of the natural and social sciences simply state the way things are.
The idea is easy enough to grasp. Consider this structure <{x | x is a natural event}, C>. This is a structure consisting of the set of all natural events and a causal operator C relating members of this set of events to each other. This structure can satisfy these two assertions: 1) For all x, there is some x (or other) that causes x, and 2) For all x, if x is caused, then it is caused by some x (or other). What is precluded by this structure is that there is an x that can be caused by some event or agency that is outside the set {x | x is a natural event}, or that x causes some event or state of affairs outside the set {x | x is a natural event}. Simply put, there are no non-physical events causing physical events, nor no physical events causing non-physical events.
In addition to the causal closure of the physical assumed by many impressed with the results and progress of the natural and social sciences, it is also supposed, though not always as clearly, by the heralds of late nineteenth century radical criticism, that human beings are somehow alienated when they fail to come to terms with the physicality of their fate. Feuerbach, Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche, all, in their own way, argued that the illusion of the traditional God connects with the fundamental alienation of men and women. Marx, for instance, argued that human value and ideology is determined by underlying economic processes, and that the concept of God simply operates to block human beings from understanding the basic materiality of their existence. The God concept sanctions prevailing ideology and functions to keep in place value ideologies grounded in the unequal distribution of economic materiality.
Most people that continue to practice the Christian life believe that there is a God and that God is active in the world, i.e., they assume that "to be is to have causal powers" and that God has causal powers. They speak about the divine design of the universe, and about the power of prayer, particularly prayers of petition. They assume that there are things that have come about that would not have come about were there no God, and that there are events and processed that have not come about that would have come about were there no God.
The structure they assume is perhaps this: <{x | x is an event}, g, C, D> where there is a set of natural events and there is God, and that there is a binary natural causal operator C linking natural events to other natural events, and a binary divine causal operator D, linking natural events to divine agency, e.g., 'Dgp' means God divinely produces event p, with p being a member of the set of all natural events.
Metaphysics remains crucial in theology because claims about that beyond the physical are by nature metaphysical, and assuming God to be with causal powers means that something beyond the physical is bringing about something physical. This is clearly a metaphysical claim. To afford to theological language robust truth conditions in an age that assumes that to be is to have causal powers means that theology must be self-consciously and boldly metaphysical. There must be intellectual honesty here. Either theological language is broadly expressive of the self, its experiences and existential orientations and possibilities, or it is a rule-governed customary discourse by and through which human communities function and operate in the world, or it is a type of discourse that non-subjectively donates possible ways of being, or perhaps it is realist in its motivations; it states what its utterers believe is the ultimate constitution of things.
One needs to think through these issues very clearly. What are either the truth or assertibility conditions of theological language if one eschews realism? Are sentences in the language rightly assertible simply because my tribe (the theological tradition) has traditionally asserted them? But clearly the assertibility condition cannot simply be 'x is properly assertible' if and only if x has been asserted by normative theologians of tradition T over time t. Why? In order even to begin to evaluate that claim we must know the identity conditions of 'normative theologian' and 'tradition' and 'time'.
Are the assertions of theology then either descriptions of the self -- its experience and existential orientations -- or are they expressions of the self? Clearly, embracing the latter is to give up on truth, for it entails that assertibility must be understood broadly in terms of a "boo hurrah" theory of theological language. But the former alternative is not much better, for on its assumption the truth-makers of all theological language are not theological. On this view, models satisfying a set of theological assertions are not theological models at all because the sets, functions and relations of the models deal with the human. Since human dispositions, experiences, and orientations are operated upon by relations and functions, these functions and relations ultimately concern the human. The fact that such models can satisfy a class of theological statements, should give us pause about what it is we are doing when we provide theological models.
But there is another alternative, for we might hold that theological language somehow operates to disclose truth, that language, the Word, in its wording grants world and our place within it must itself be given a theological model. But it is to me unclear exactly how this model can be constructed coherently. Models or structures concern domains with functions and relations drawn upon those domains. But what can be the domain of the creative Word? Remember that revelation is not insight. Insight concerns an intellectual grasp of that which is already present. Revelation, on the other hand, is a daring grasp of what is not present, but which shows itself eschatologically. There is so much that can be said here, but I cannot in this brief essay say it. We must move to the central issue of the influence that model-theoretic arguments might have for one who in her theological semantics, is broadly speaking realist.
II
While I could only sketch briefly in the last section my prima facie reservations with non-realist construals of theological language, I will assume in this section that the reader is sufficiently persuaded by what I have said to give theological realism a try. Theological realism, simply put, is the view that God, and divine states of affairs generally, exist and have the particular contour they have apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language. Theological realism is thus a species of external realism, the view the world consists of entities, properties, events, relations and states of affairs which, broadly speaking, exists independently of our human perceptual and conceptual processing, or, more to the point, apart from our epistemic structures and capabilities. We might call this the independence thesis with regard to external realism.
I am convinced with many others that external realism makes two other important claims as well. The first is the correspondence thesis which claims that statements about the world are true if and only if they correspond in appropriate ways with how the world actually is. (Clarifying what 'correspondence' and 'appropriate' might mean here is notoriously difficult.) The other thesis of external realism one can be called the Cartesian thesis which states that although our theories about the world might meet all theoretical and operational constraints of an ideal theory, we could still be wholly wrong in our theory. Since the theory is made true (or false) by how the world is apart from us, it is always logically possible to be wrong about everything that we might say about it. Satisfying all theoretical and operational constraints does not a theory true make. Only the way the world is can make the theory true or false. The external realist thus seems committed to all of these: the independence thesis, the correspondence thesis, and the Cartesian thesis.
Hilary Putnam in his famous "Models and Reality" distinguishes among three positions in the philosophy of mathematics. These positions deal with both truth and reference in mathematics, and are thus, for him and for us, relevant to considerations of truth and reference with respect to external realism generally. These positions are:
- Platonism which, according to Putnam, "posits nonnatural mental powers of directly 'grasping' the forms" (Models and Reality, p. 24). This notion of grasping is primitive and cannot be further explicated. Those familiar with Husserl's description of phenomenological intentionality will understand this quickly.
- Verificationalism replaces the classical Tarskian notion of truth with verificational processes or proof. Mathematic assertions are not true in any deep sense, but they are assertible on the basis of other mathematical procedures. Verificationist proposals within the philosophy of science of the last century are connected to this.
- Moderate Realism, for Putnam, "seeks to preserve the centrality of the classical notions of truth and reference without postulating nonnatural powers" (Ibid.). The idea here is that mathematical assertions are true, but that their truth does not involve one in a deep process of grasping or understanding the structure of some Platonic heaven.
When I make reference to the "world," everyone, I think, has a good idea of what I am referring to. Despite that no one can, nor can there be universal agreement about, the exhaustive character and attributes of that "world," there might still much that we could say and agree about regarding that "world." The reference is opaque. We might say that "world" is a kind of rigid designator in all the manifold and even contrary descriptions. Such was certainly the case in the history of the "electron."
ReplyDeleteDoes this situation lead one to believe that there is no "world"? No, I think that the existence of the "world" is never in doubt.
I don't know if this helps. It seems that we have to explore why it is we are convinced of the "reality" of anything. I suspect that we will find confidence in many things that don't fit Johnson's paradigm (e.g., Wittgenstein's certainties, like yesterday).
Bill, this is helpful, and I think you are putting your finger on something quite important. I agree entirely that reference to “the world” functions in ordinary and scientific discourse with a kind of stability that survives radical revision of its descriptive content. The electron is a perfect example: wildly different theoretical characterizations, yet no serious temptation to say that there is therefore no electron. The continuity of reference persists through theory change.
DeleteThat said, what interests me in the model-theoretic setting is precisely what licenses that confidence. As you note, reference here is opaque, and yet not arbitrary. The question is not whether the world exists, but why reference to it remains coherent and binding across incompatible descriptions and shifting inferential frameworks. That is already more than a linguistic point.
Where I would want to press further is this: the stability of reference is not secured by descriptive agreement, nor by any exhaustive grasp of the world’s properties. Rather, it presupposes a prior intelligibility condition that makes disagreement, revision, and partial knowledge possible about one and the same reality. In model-theoretic terms, this is not merely a matter of rigid designation, but of what makes determinate satisfaction possible across multiple admissible interpretations.
Your gesture toward Wittgenstein’s certainties is exactly right here. “Yesterday,” “the world,” “this body,” function not as hypotheses but as hinges. They are not inferred, but neither are they optional. My claim is that theology, if it is to speak realistically rather than expressively, must take those hinge-like commitments seriously at the ontological level rather than quietly smuggling them in at the pragmatic level.
So I take your point as reinforcing rather than undermining the project. The existence of the world is never in doubt. The philosophical work begins when we ask why it is not in doubt, and what must be the case for such confidence to be rationally possible at all.
I was scanning some neo-Marxist thinking with regard to what they call "ideology," but is probably more like Taylor's social imaginary or a worldview. What I was struck by was the use of Lacan's notion of the "Real," which he says is inaccessible because of language. I am guessing that he imagines this "Real" to be what human existence is like prior to language, in the raw, before ideas, before "ideology." Given this picture of reality, how are we to regard "religion," "God."? There is a relationship between this "Real" and "ideology." It would have to be pre-linguistic. Is it possible to think that "semantic realism" needs to explore the pre-linguistic? Just wondering out loud.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good question, and I think you have put your finger on a pressure point that runs through a great deal of contemporary theory.
DeleteLacan’s “Real” is interesting precisely because it is not nothing. It functions as a limiting concept. It names that which resists symbolization, that which cannot be absorbed into language, ideology, or the social imaginary. In that sense, it plays a role analogous to Kant’s noumenon or even Wittgenstein’s reminders that explanation must come to an end somewhere. But the price paid for this move is decisive: the Real becomes structurally inaccessible, not merely as yet unarticulated, but in principle unsayable.
From the standpoint of semantic realism, that move is already doing too much work. It treats language as a closed economy and then posits the Real as what falls outside it. But the question I am pressing is not whether there is something pre- or extra-linguistic, but whether language itself is answerable to reality in a way that is not exhausted by social mediation. Semantic realism does not deny that there are pre-linguistic conditions. Infants, animals, and even physical systems clearly stand in ordered relations prior to propositional speech. What it denies is that meaningful reference must be grounded in a prior, raw, pre-symbolic substrate.
In other words, the issue is not whether reality precedes language, but whether language is ordered by reality rather than merely imposed upon it. Lacan’s Real is mute by definition. It can disturb, rupture, or haunt discourse, but it cannot disclose itself. Theology cannot live there. A God who belongs to the Real in that sense would be indistinguishable from silence.
Christian theology, by contrast, does something far stranger. It does not attempt to climb behind language to reach a pre-linguistic absolute. It claims instead that reality has spoken—that intelligibility is not generated from below but given from above. The Logos does not bypass language; it constitutes its possibility. That is why semantic realism, at least as I understand it, does not need to excavate a pre-linguistic realm. It needs to account for why language can be true at all.
So I would say this: the Real marks a genuine anxiety about ideology and constructivism, but it answers that anxiety by making revelation impossible in principle. Theology cannot follow it there. The question is not how to reach what lies beyond language, but how language itself can be bound to what is real. That is where the real work, and the real risk, lies.
I've just read the entire article fairly carefully (for really the first time). I have two brief comments, the first regarding Husserl. There is much debate as to the extent that Husserl is a "realist." He certainly has strong idealist tendencies. One could almost take Husserl as being consistent with a kind of coherence version of truth, and thereby not far from Putnam's critical realism. What possibly saves him from this is the powerful influence of intuition and passive synthesis. IOW, it is not clear to me how intentionality addresses the realist problem. Does one really require a realist conviction for intentionality and Heideggerian involvement to work?
ReplyDeleteAnd that brings me to my last point. The problem addresses here is "external realism," and, as you mention, its scope is larger than theology. In particular, it will influence all the so-called sciences. Can the sciences, most especially the hard sciences, survive without realism? Practical arts, like engineering, aren't influenced. Their criteria is the observables and whether the science "works." Can the hard sciences survive on instrumentalist attitudes? To me, it seems, that the priests of physics must be realists, even if no one else takes their ruminations to be "real."
One needs to ponder this. What persuades these abstract thinkers of the invisible that they are touching reality? Beauty, completeness, simplicity?
Maybe this is where intentionality comes in. If I can intend God from what is given, is that enough; and if the horizon of this God coheres complex and manifold experience, is that enough.
John Warwick Montgomergy was my mentor for my masters in philosophy. He wrote a book title Faith Founded on Facts. The idea, as I remember it, is that "facts" can never be sufficient for faith, but that faith without facts is groundless. Isn't the way of all phenomenology, of all experience? Experience is intrinsically transcendental.
Bill, thank you for this careful and generous reading. These are exactly the right pressure points, and I appreciate how you frame them.
DeleteOn Husserl: I agree that his status as a realist is deeply contested, and for good reason. One can certainly read him in a coherence-friendly or even Putnam-adjacent direction if intentionality is treated primarily as a noetic–noematic correlation internal to consciousness. In that register, intentionality by itself does not solve the realist problem. Where I think Husserl resists collapse into coherence theory is precisely where you point: intuition, passive synthesis, and the givenness of sense prior to judgment. Those moments suggest that meaning is not freely constituted, but received under constraint. Still, I would agree that Husserl never fully secures realism, and that Heideggerian involvement alone does not require a realist conviction in any robust metaphysical sense. One can have involvement, coping, and even disclosure without committing to mind-independent truth.
That is why my appeal to intentionality is limited. I do not treat it as a solution to realism, but as a symptom of something realism must explain. Intentionality presupposes directedness toward something that purports to be more than merely internal, but it cannot by itself guarantee that what is intended is real. In that sense, intentionality raises the question of realism rather than answering it.
Your second point, about the sciences, is crucial. I agree with you entirely that instrumentalism is parasitic. Engineering can live quite happily with “whatever works,” but the hard sciences cannot sustain themselves on that diet indefinitely. The actual practice of physics assumes that its entities, symmetries, and laws are not merely calculational devices but disclosures of how things are. As you nicely put it, the “priests of physics” behave as realists even when their public philosophy hedges or retreats.
What persuades them is telling. It is rarely observation alone. It is beauty, simplicity, unification, explanatory depth—criteria that are not themselves observable. These are marks of intelligibility rather than of mere prediction. That fact alone suggests that realism is not an optional add-on, but an implicit commitment built into scientific reasoning itself.
This is where I think your final remarks are especially insightful. If intentionality allows one to “intend God” from what is given, and if that intention coheres and orders manifold experience, is that enough? Phenomenologically, perhaps it is unavoidable. Experience is indeed intrinsically transcendental. It always outruns what is strictly given.
But theology cannot stop there. Coherence, horizon-unification, and experiential depth may render belief intelligible, but they do not yet render it true. That is why Montgomery’s dictum still matters. Facts are never sufficient for faith, but faith without facts loses contact with reality altogether. Phenomenology can describe the structure of encounter; it cannot by itself underwrite the claim that what is encountered is who Christians confess.
So I would say this: phenomenology shows us that experience always points beyond itself. Semantic realism asks whether that “beyond” is merely a function of our horizons, or whether it corresponds to something that gives itself rather than being projected. Theology enters precisely at that juncture—not by abandoning phenomenology, but by refusing to let transcendence dissolve into coherence alone.
In that sense, I agree with you: experience is intrinsically transcendental. The open question, and the one I am trying to keep open rather than prematurely close, is whether transcendence is finally grounded in the structure of experience or in the Logos who addresses it.