Forty years ago when I was farming in northwest Iowa, a farmer friend announced that the famous University of Chicago religion scholar Martin Marty was going to be speaking seventy miles away in Orange City, and he wondered if we might not want to go and hear him. Although I had not heard of Martin Marty back then, I could not pass up the opportunity to go to Orange City. As I recall, Marty was speaking on the general theme of tolerance and commitment, and telling us that mature faith possesses both. My friend Doug challenged professor Marty after the lecture: "Dr. Marty, I found your presentation very stimulating, but remain unconvinced. My own observations suggest that the more committed people are religiously the less tolerant they are, and the more tolerant they are, the less committed they are."
I recall that Martin Marty looked at my friend rather sadly, as if Doug had showed up for card night without knowing how to play. "That is not the way it works," he reiterated, "it is precisely in tolerance that one is most deeply committed." He uttered many other wise things as well, but I don't recall how anything he said provided warrant for the widely-propagated view that religious tolerance and commitment are profoundly compatible.
Of course, being good Americans in the early twenty-first century, most of us naturally pay lip-service not only to the compatibility of tolerance and commitment, but also to their direct direct proportionality. We Americans love our story. After all, America was founded on religious freedom, a freedom from compulsion to a particular religion so that one had greater freedom to practice one's chosen religion.
It was a great experiment, this founding of America. Could a country endure that tolerated many different religions, that rejected the assumption of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia: cuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion")? If Tillich is right and religion pertains to ultimate concern, then how is it possible for people with different -- sometimes radically different -- ultimate concerns to come together and agree to be governed? Far better, it would seem, the traditional view where the ruler and the ruled share the same ultimate commitment. But America not only survived, it thrived. Apparently people with different ultimate concerns can live together without compromising those concerns! So it is that we learn in America that it is precisely within the context of overarching tolerance that commitment is most deeply possible.
I remember thinking at the time, however, that Doug's question was a good one, and that the famed Dr. Marty had taken it rather too lightly. (We often underestimate the strength of challenges to our assumptions.) Perhaps Martin Marty was living so deeply in his religious tradition that he did not see the problem. How exactly does one continue to assert the truth of one's own tradition, allow others to assert the truth of their own, and not run into fundamental conflict? How does one do this if the truth about which one is concerned is ultimate?
My days on the farm was a time in my life that I was very interested in the question of religious truth. I puzzled a great deal over the question of how two or more religions might be true at the same time. I was a pretty tolerant guy in those days, and it did not come naturally to me to think that my Lutheran truth-claims were mostly all true, and those of Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims almost all false. Why would I be given the requisite epistemic priority to know the true, when those far more serious than I were not afforded the same?
So assuming that contrary religious claims might be conjointly true, what would it be by virtue of which they could be conjointly true? While I was thinking such thoughts in 1978, I admit I did not know anyone in my farming community except Doug who thought that supposed contrary statements about God's properties and relations could somehow be conjointly true. Every Lutheran I knew thought that either God created the universe in six days or did not do so, that either Jesus was born of a virgin or was not so born, and that either Jesus the Christ was the only way to the Father or was not the only way.
Later in my life I would ask undergraduate students this question: "If two people disagree on what is true, must one of them be wrong?" In the middle 1980s when I started my college teaching career most students said "yes," but by 2010 when I was finishing my tenure of university teaching they were saying, "no." Perhaps in the 1980s the few students saying "no" were thinking about philosophical or religious "truth." (Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder in aesthetics, truth is in the mind of the conceiver in philosophy or theology.) However, by 2010 students were assuming a much more expansive domain of putative truths, a domain that included the historical, scientific and even the mathematical. Be that as it may, if my college students in the late 1980s could think that contrary religious claims might be conjointly true, perhaps it was possible in a northwest Iowa farming community a decade earlier.
There are two ways, I believe, of conceiving the relationship between tolerance and commitment. The first is one that the American founding fathers could embrace. One must be tolerant of contrary claims in areas where one's epistemic limitations are the most pronounced. Since one cannot know that 'x is true', one must be tolerant of those claiming, 'it is false that x is true'. Such epistemic tolerance, however, is thoroughly compatible with the belief that 'x is true'. One can be deeply committed to the truth of a claim without knowing that the belief is true. Epistemic tolerance of x is clearly compatible with an existential commitment to ~x. Accordingly, tolerance of another's claims of truth is the proper attitude to adopt when realizing one's epistemic limitations, but commitment to one's own beliefs is, however, proper, honorable and courageous. After all, not to be committed to one's own beliefs is to live inauthentically, is to live in a way that does not own one's beliefs. (I am thinking of Heidegger's Eigenlichtkeit or "ownmostness.")
Doug and Dr. Marty would not, however, likely have affirmed this relatively traditional interpretation of the compatibility of tolerance and commitment. Both were quite aware of the intellectual and cultural horizon of the 1970s, a horizon that increasingly understood religious assertions as statements of value and not of fact. Accordingly, tolerance in things religious is assured because there is no way in principle for religious language to state what is the case apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language, and thus there is no facile way for its claims to come into conflict. Religious language (and most theological language) reports, expresses or recommends one's own psychological or existential states; it does not describe a divine realm existing on its own apart from us. Since such language pertains to human experience, every attempt to state that another's religious affirmations are false is an act of prejudice. Who can rightly say that my religious affirmations, grounded as they are in my experience, are false? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too must the truths of religion be only in the ears and eyes of its hearers and readers.
Unfortunately, this view of things, though great for tolerance, presents deep problems for commitment. If I know that my affirmation of x is a statement of value, and I know that your affirmation of ~x is a statement of value, then since values are neither true nor false, upon what grounds can one be rightly committed to to x rather than ~x? Lamentably, the search for grounds for values succeeds only in uncovering other values. (No matter how hard I have tried, I have never been able to derive an "ought" from an "is.") Are not the deep values of the grounds simply another statement of commitment? (I am committed to feeding the hungry because I value -- I am committed to -- feeding the hungry.)
Simply put, if the warranted assertibility of religious utterances is ultimately subjective, then why be committed to the particularity of their assertion when times become difficult? While one might die for truth, does one really die for value? (I am not saying that one might not die for the truth of a value.) Polycarp (69-155) was burned alive rather than renounce faith in Christ. Clearly, the great man died because he was convinced of the truth of Christ, not the value Christ had for him.
Doug's question was sophisticated in the way of the medieval question of whether or not God could make a rock so heavy that He could not lift it. Doug was asking this: If one is tolerant in one's religious assertions, then one is clandestinely understanding these assertions as not have truth-conditions. But why be committed to the assertion of a particular body of statements or the doing of a set of actions if there are no truth-conditions grounding the assertion of the statements or the doing of the actions? Alternately, if one is committed to a set of assertions or a class of actions, then one is presupposing their truth, but if this is so then why be deeply tolerant of unjustified views at odds with those that one has good reason to regard as true? Just as the property of making a rock so heavy that God can't lift it cannot properly be applied to God, so to the property of being deeply tolerant of contrary religious claims while be profoundly committed to one's own cannot properly be applied to late twentieth-century Christian believers, those no longer believing as did the Founding Fathers that tolerance pertains to epistemic humility with regard to the domain of religious fact.
Dominant strands of Lutheran theology over the past 200 years have tended to downplay the idea that there exists a realm of theological facts independent of human awareness, perception, conception and language. Kantian assumptions within theology departments at German universities undercut notions of divine substantiality and causality. As European Lutheran theology hit American shores (particularly after World War II), and comingled with American assumptions about the fact/value distinction, a Lutheran theological ethos emerged that was disdainful of Lutheran Orthodoxy, particularly it's penchant to regard confessional and doctrinal statements as affirmations of theological fact. The result was heightened tensions among Lutherans, a tension pertaining to both semantics and ontology.
While conservative traditions like the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods continued to assume that there was some objective fact of the matter about which confessional and doctrinal statements were speaking truly, the precursor church bodies which became the ELCA began leaning towards an understanding of such language that connected more to human experience. While the former thus understood tolerance as grounded in epistemic limitation, the latter came to see it as an affirmation of the particularity of the believer's cultural existence itself. Tensions ran high, and it did not help when spokesman of the former sometimes suggested that the tolerance of epistemic humility was due to a willful abandonment of the objectivity of revelation. Nor were tensions abated when the latter seemed to think that confessional and doctrinal affirmations somehow denied the authenticity of the theologian or preacher's voice, and that such affirmations simply strangled the believer's authentic religious life and practice.
The Institute of Lutheran Theology emerged, in part, because it became time for there to be an institution that was both deeply sympathetic to the starting points of the various Lutheran traditions, and that understood these starting points within the broader historical and philosophical context. It is time now that Lutherans talk seriously to each other. It is time we think together the dialectic of tolerance and commitment, time we ask together how an affirmation of both is possible. In so asking, we shall undoubtedly learn a great deal more about ourselves. Such learning is a very good thing, for it is time that we dialogue with each other in a spirit of tolerance and commitment, a spirit that shall take the truth claims of all partners seriously, while adjudicating conflicting truth claims within an ethos of epistemic humility.
Showing posts with label Truth-Conditions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Truth-Conditions. Show all posts
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Monday, June 04, 2012
Why Meaning Matters
A number of years ago when the MacNiel/Lehrer Report still appeared on PBS, there was an economist who answered a particular question using some of the technical language of his discipline. The response from the other guest was instructive. Listening to what the economist had offered, he remonstrated, "Why, that's just theological."
The economist had clearly taken a heavy hit. Calling his language theological in that context was to suggest a number of things: 1) His language was not clear, 2) His language was ambiguous, 3) His language made only dubious claims to truth, 4) His language was needlessly complex, 5) His language was useless.
I have from the beginning of my time in theology sought a particular precision. The reason for this is simply that very early on I learned how captivating theological language could be. It seemed to me that one could enter another world by using such language. When I was young it was great fun to read theology, to envision new possibilities, and to address theological problems. But something happened to me on my way to a Ph. D.
I began to realize that everything I was thinking when I was thinking theologically was comprised of propositions comprised of terms and predications of identity and attribution. I began to think that if what I was thinking was to be true, I must get very clear on what it was precisely that I was thinking so I knew what it precisely was that was to be true. This meant that I must analyze the language of my theological thinking to see what precisely it meant.
But when I began to explore what it is precisely that theological language meant, I ran up against a host of problems. Though I could use theological language correctly, - - I could use it in such ways that fit the linguistic situation (one might say, I could satisfy the appropriate stimulus/response conditionals theologically) - - I did not know exactly how my theological language related to other kinds of discourse. When talking to people who did not know how to employ theological language like I thought I then did, I started to realize that I did not always know how to translate what I was saying theologically into types of language that they grasped, language that related to the world in which both they and I lived. In this way, I began to worry about what precise claims I was making theologically and whether there was evidence to support those claims I was making.
Long ago I concluded that the more one likely agonizes over what precisely one means when doing theology, the less theology one is likely to do. Wonderful, learned and deeply evocative theology can be written without one knowing precisely what one means in the writing. This is, of course, to a degree true of all disciplines. Does one know the precise identity conditions of each term one uses in fundamental particle physics? While the answer to this is perhaps, "no," there is a difference. One has a public, objective semantic yardstick in fundamental particle physics that one does not possess in theology. This is why one can look up the precise meaning of a term in the first context but not the second. In theology, the meaning of terms and phrases depends deeply on who is employing them. In theology it is fundamentally meaning that matters.
The Institute of Lutheran Theology believes that it is critically important to grasp the semantic question in theology. We in the developed countries of the West live at a time in which great numbers of people are abandoing the use of theological language. The reason, in my opinion, is that far too many now think the language is not clear and unambiguous, that it makes dubious claims, and that is is complex and useless. For many people, in fact, the clearer the language becomes - - I am thinking now of some expressions of Evangelical theology - - the less likely many think it is to be true, and the more likely it is to be true, the less clear they believe it is. Somehow in theology, meaning and truth, the twin pillars of semantics, have become inversely proportional.
I have been posting this week about the Institute of Lutheran Theology. At ILT we are serious about studying theology seriously. This means, among other things, that not only God and his work in Jesus Christ is at issue for us, but also the meaning of God working in Jesus Christ. The reason meaning matters is that it is necessary for truth, and when the truth at issue is the Truth, then the meaning that matters is that which really matters.
The economist had clearly taken a heavy hit. Calling his language theological in that context was to suggest a number of things: 1) His language was not clear, 2) His language was ambiguous, 3) His language made only dubious claims to truth, 4) His language was needlessly complex, 5) His language was useless.
I have from the beginning of my time in theology sought a particular precision. The reason for this is simply that very early on I learned how captivating theological language could be. It seemed to me that one could enter another world by using such language. When I was young it was great fun to read theology, to envision new possibilities, and to address theological problems. But something happened to me on my way to a Ph. D.
I began to realize that everything I was thinking when I was thinking theologically was comprised of propositions comprised of terms and predications of identity and attribution. I began to think that if what I was thinking was to be true, I must get very clear on what it was precisely that I was thinking so I knew what it precisely was that was to be true. This meant that I must analyze the language of my theological thinking to see what precisely it meant.
But when I began to explore what it is precisely that theological language meant, I ran up against a host of problems. Though I could use theological language correctly, - - I could use it in such ways that fit the linguistic situation (one might say, I could satisfy the appropriate stimulus/response conditionals theologically) - - I did not know exactly how my theological language related to other kinds of discourse. When talking to people who did not know how to employ theological language like I thought I then did, I started to realize that I did not always know how to translate what I was saying theologically into types of language that they grasped, language that related to the world in which both they and I lived. In this way, I began to worry about what precise claims I was making theologically and whether there was evidence to support those claims I was making.
Long ago I concluded that the more one likely agonizes over what precisely one means when doing theology, the less theology one is likely to do. Wonderful, learned and deeply evocative theology can be written without one knowing precisely what one means in the writing. This is, of course, to a degree true of all disciplines. Does one know the precise identity conditions of each term one uses in fundamental particle physics? While the answer to this is perhaps, "no," there is a difference. One has a public, objective semantic yardstick in fundamental particle physics that one does not possess in theology. This is why one can look up the precise meaning of a term in the first context but not the second. In theology, the meaning of terms and phrases depends deeply on who is employing them. In theology it is fundamentally meaning that matters.
The Institute of Lutheran Theology believes that it is critically important to grasp the semantic question in theology. We in the developed countries of the West live at a time in which great numbers of people are abandoing the use of theological language. The reason, in my opinion, is that far too many now think the language is not clear and unambiguous, that it makes dubious claims, and that is is complex and useless. For many people, in fact, the clearer the language becomes - - I am thinking now of some expressions of Evangelical theology - - the less likely many think it is to be true, and the more likely it is to be true, the less clear they believe it is. Somehow in theology, meaning and truth, the twin pillars of semantics, have become inversely proportional.
I have been posting this week about the Institute of Lutheran Theology. At ILT we are serious about studying theology seriously. This means, among other things, that not only God and his work in Jesus Christ is at issue for us, but also the meaning of God working in Jesus Christ. The reason meaning matters is that it is necessary for truth, and when the truth at issue is the Truth, then the meaning that matters is that which really matters.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
An Interpretive Center
People sometimes remark that I oftentimes seem to write about putative philosophical issues rather then staying directly on task and use the theological language of our great Lutheran tradition. Why would this be? Is it that I somehow am not interested deeply in the traditional objects of Lutheran theological reflection?
No, this is not true. I believe that the center of Lutheran theology is the proclamation of the free grace of Jesus Christ appropriated in faith. When serving in the parish, I preached this each and every week. I believe that the external Word interprets itself, striking the human heart both as Law and Gospel, and that through this Word we are justified and made free lords before God and dutiful servants to one another. I believe that the great ecumenical creeds of the Church make definite truth-claims, and I routinely confess their truth. I believe that Jesus Christ was true God and true man, and believe in Lutheran fashion in the genus maiestaticum, as well as the genus idiomaticum and genus apotelesmaticum. So why talk about all of the philosophical issues if this theological core of beliefs is at the center of things?
The reason I am interested in discussing philosophical issues (mostly semantic and ontological) is because while Lutherans can still say all of the right things, they don't necessarily mean by these things what Lutherans once meant.
But why should this be a problem if all the same things are confessed? Surely there can be different philosophischen Rictungen among confessing Lutherans. After all, did not Wilhelm Hermann famously argue that metaphysics (and its variations) are irrelevant to solid, Lutheran confessional theology? Did not the young Luther scholar Wilhelm Link, (who died much too soon in the war) argue that Luther claimed the same thing? Isn't the greatness of Lutheran theology found in the freedom of interpretation in one's confessions? Surely, we ought not to confuse the left hand and the right hand of God, the hand of reason, law and philosophy, and the hand of faith, grace and theology!
Luther in his various disputations would occasionally quip that what was finally important in disputing was an agreement not merely in speech, but in the things (in res). An agreement as to what is held or asserted has been crucially important in the development of doctrine generally and within the Lutheran Confessions specifically. The question is this: How does this Lutheran commitment to the truth of propositions from the tradition and the Confessions get appropriated in our time? My considered opinion is that there is a great deal of confusion here, and my fear is that this confusion could be disastrous for the future of Lutheran theology.
When one plays baseball, one plays by baseball rules. There are three outs per side, both teams batting once constitutes an inning, and there are nine innings in a game. (I am thinking about the major and minor leagues with respect to this last point.) Proper theological language has rules as well. One must know how to use the word 'Father' and the word 'Son'. Specifically, one must be able to say 'The Son is God', 'The Father is God', without saying 'The Father is the Son'. Rules permitting the right expressions in the right linguistic circumstances and prohibiting the wrong ones in the wrong circumstances are notoriously difficult to formulate, but there is little doubt that there exist some set of rules that undergird the modus loquendi theologicus.
So far so good. One could in principle formulate a theological game as well as a game of black hole theory. Within contemporary cosmological theory, certain terms occur in particular statements and not within others. Prima facie there does not seem to be much different between the formal structure of a Trinitarian language and that language of any heavily theoretical discipline. There is a proper and improper way of using terms and phrases. The question now confronts us: Are the semantics of the two games the same?
On this there is much difference of opinion, of course. Many would say that there is extra-linguistic set of referents to which the language of black holes is anchored that is not available for the theoretical language of the Trinity. But why would this be so? Why would one think there is some res that black hole theory has the theology does not have? One would not think this - - unless one had previous opinions about what is possible ontologically for the Trinity over and against black holes.
Since the time of the Enlightenment, there has been an increasing sense in the former Christian West that the language of theology does not make truth claims. While most within popular culture - - I am not talking here about philosophers of science - - would claim that there are clear truth conditions for black hole theory, they would not, if they reflected some, claim easily that there are similar truth conditions in theology. The reason, of course, is that for tens of millions of people theological language simply can't be making truth claims because such language is an expression of individual and cultural value. There simply is no realm of theological facts such that the rules of theological language can govern a linguistic usage that can bring the language into contact with a domain of extra-linguistic referents. The fact/value distinction is wholly enshrined within contemporary culture, and this descendent from the Enlightenment must be dealt with before theological language is afforded the same opportunity to refer as the language of black holes.
My claim has been and continues to be that the interpretive center has been lost within much of Lutheran theology in the first part of the twenty-first century. The problem has been that a general cultural/intellectual commitment to the Enlightenment paradigm, especially Kant, has led millions to presuppose different semantic possibilities for that language than that which generally characterized the tradition. I am not saying that much of this is explicit. (Increasingly few people even know the name 'Kant'.) But middle school children learn that science is about facts and religion is about values. They don't know the torturous intellectual history that brought civilization to this "insight." They are taught this fact/value distinction as if it fell from the heavens. It is part of the Enlightenment paradigm, a paradigm that functions as the default ontological posit of our time. What I am saying is this: To continue to divorce theology and metaphysics and to allow the fact/value distinction to stand inviolate, is to allow theological language not to be about truth, and it is thus to allow theological language to assume a different semantics than it previously had.
The Institute of Lutheran Theology is grounded in Scripture and Confessions. It holds assiduously to classical confessional Lutheran theology. Professors at ILT are passionate about their commitment to Scriptural truth and authority as it is known and understood through the hermeneutical lens of the Confessions. While students are exposed to the great Biblical exegetes and the great theologians of the tradition, they learn the most important thing, I believe, that a school of theology can impart: ILT believes that it is true that God was in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and that because of this truth we have good grounds to preach and teach in His Name.
No, this is not true. I believe that the center of Lutheran theology is the proclamation of the free grace of Jesus Christ appropriated in faith. When serving in the parish, I preached this each and every week. I believe that the external Word interprets itself, striking the human heart both as Law and Gospel, and that through this Word we are justified and made free lords before God and dutiful servants to one another. I believe that the great ecumenical creeds of the Church make definite truth-claims, and I routinely confess their truth. I believe that Jesus Christ was true God and true man, and believe in Lutheran fashion in the genus maiestaticum, as well as the genus idiomaticum and genus apotelesmaticum. So why talk about all of the philosophical issues if this theological core of beliefs is at the center of things?
The reason I am interested in discussing philosophical issues (mostly semantic and ontological) is because while Lutherans can still say all of the right things, they don't necessarily mean by these things what Lutherans once meant.
But why should this be a problem if all the same things are confessed? Surely there can be different philosophischen Rictungen among confessing Lutherans. After all, did not Wilhelm Hermann famously argue that metaphysics (and its variations) are irrelevant to solid, Lutheran confessional theology? Did not the young Luther scholar Wilhelm Link, (who died much too soon in the war) argue that Luther claimed the same thing? Isn't the greatness of Lutheran theology found in the freedom of interpretation in one's confessions? Surely, we ought not to confuse the left hand and the right hand of God, the hand of reason, law and philosophy, and the hand of faith, grace and theology!
Luther in his various disputations would occasionally quip that what was finally important in disputing was an agreement not merely in speech, but in the things (in res). An agreement as to what is held or asserted has been crucially important in the development of doctrine generally and within the Lutheran Confessions specifically. The question is this: How does this Lutheran commitment to the truth of propositions from the tradition and the Confessions get appropriated in our time? My considered opinion is that there is a great deal of confusion here, and my fear is that this confusion could be disastrous for the future of Lutheran theology.
When one plays baseball, one plays by baseball rules. There are three outs per side, both teams batting once constitutes an inning, and there are nine innings in a game. (I am thinking about the major and minor leagues with respect to this last point.) Proper theological language has rules as well. One must know how to use the word 'Father' and the word 'Son'. Specifically, one must be able to say 'The Son is God', 'The Father is God', without saying 'The Father is the Son'. Rules permitting the right expressions in the right linguistic circumstances and prohibiting the wrong ones in the wrong circumstances are notoriously difficult to formulate, but there is little doubt that there exist some set of rules that undergird the modus loquendi theologicus.
So far so good. One could in principle formulate a theological game as well as a game of black hole theory. Within contemporary cosmological theory, certain terms occur in particular statements and not within others. Prima facie there does not seem to be much different between the formal structure of a Trinitarian language and that language of any heavily theoretical discipline. There is a proper and improper way of using terms and phrases. The question now confronts us: Are the semantics of the two games the same?
On this there is much difference of opinion, of course. Many would say that there is extra-linguistic set of referents to which the language of black holes is anchored that is not available for the theoretical language of the Trinity. But why would this be so? Why would one think there is some res that black hole theory has the theology does not have? One would not think this - - unless one had previous opinions about what is possible ontologically for the Trinity over and against black holes.
Since the time of the Enlightenment, there has been an increasing sense in the former Christian West that the language of theology does not make truth claims. While most within popular culture - - I am not talking here about philosophers of science - - would claim that there are clear truth conditions for black hole theory, they would not, if they reflected some, claim easily that there are similar truth conditions in theology. The reason, of course, is that for tens of millions of people theological language simply can't be making truth claims because such language is an expression of individual and cultural value. There simply is no realm of theological facts such that the rules of theological language can govern a linguistic usage that can bring the language into contact with a domain of extra-linguistic referents. The fact/value distinction is wholly enshrined within contemporary culture, and this descendent from the Enlightenment must be dealt with before theological language is afforded the same opportunity to refer as the language of black holes.
My claim has been and continues to be that the interpretive center has been lost within much of Lutheran theology in the first part of the twenty-first century. The problem has been that a general cultural/intellectual commitment to the Enlightenment paradigm, especially Kant, has led millions to presuppose different semantic possibilities for that language than that which generally characterized the tradition. I am not saying that much of this is explicit. (Increasingly few people even know the name 'Kant'.) But middle school children learn that science is about facts and religion is about values. They don't know the torturous intellectual history that brought civilization to this "insight." They are taught this fact/value distinction as if it fell from the heavens. It is part of the Enlightenment paradigm, a paradigm that functions as the default ontological posit of our time. What I am saying is this: To continue to divorce theology and metaphysics and to allow the fact/value distinction to stand inviolate, is to allow theological language not to be about truth, and it is thus to allow theological language to assume a different semantics than it previously had.
The Institute of Lutheran Theology is grounded in Scripture and Confessions. It holds assiduously to classical confessional Lutheran theology. Professors at ILT are passionate about their commitment to Scriptural truth and authority as it is known and understood through the hermeneutical lens of the Confessions. While students are exposed to the great Biblical exegetes and the great theologians of the tradition, they learn the most important thing, I believe, that a school of theology can impart: ILT believes that it is true that God was in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and that because of this truth we have good grounds to preach and teach in His Name.
Monday, January 09, 2012
Semantics and Correlative Theology
There was once a time when I did not worry too much about how talk of God and talk of the universe as such connected. In those days I solidly subscribed to a correlative theology which linked the semantics of theological language to the semantics of human existential/phenomenological/ontological language. Theological truth and meaning had to do with human truth and meaning. The language of each could be mapped to an appropriate background language such that the discourse of theology was commensurate with that of theology. While the logical geography of fundamental ontology differed from that of theology, they could be compared. Existential questions could be given theological answers, and theological answers would invite existential questions.
Over the years I have come to regard this effort as being more or less misguided. It is not that existential questions cannot be correlated with religious answers, it is simply that when this is done, the religious answer correlated has a different meaning than it would have had were it not so correlated. How is this so?
Religious and theological answers pertain to soteriology, and what is salvific with respect to our immediate situation in the universe is not likely the same thing as what is salvific when our immediate situation is worked up existentially-phenomenologically-orntologically. (I realize that this statement needs a considerable amount of unpacking.) A corollary to what I am saying is simply that a problem with the method of correlation is that it cannot save the one that correlates. This method is to the philosophy of science what lived salvific immediacy is to the practice of science.
It is finally a question of semantics. For C (the one correlating), existential question E has a definite meaning that can in some way be addressed by theological answer T. E and T have more or less definite semantic conditions for C. Think, however, about one who has not adopted the reflexive standpoint of C. Let us call such a non-reflexive one U (standing for unable of willing to occupy the standpoint of C). For U, T has different meaning and truth conditions than for C because the truth conditions for T are ontological - - one might better say 'ontic' here because I am talking about being not the be-ing of beings - - in a way that they are not for C.
How is this so? Clearly, the truth conditions for T with respect to U are tied to what is the case in a way that T is not for C. Accordingly for C, T is true just in case T obtains. But this need not be so for C. Here T is true just in case it is appropriately linked to E. For U, T is true just in case a relationship R holds appropriately of some state of affairs S. For C, T is true just in case a relationship R' hold appropriately of some religious or theological description D that is pertinent to E. For U, T is true because of some reality that is what it is apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language. This is an extensionalist interpretation of T. For C, since T is true just because there is a reality which is what it is because of human awareness, perception, conception or language, the description of this reality becomes the most important matter. Now we have moved to an intensionalist context. (This needs more unpacking as well.)
If I have not made myself sufficiently clear in the proceeding paragraph, let me try again. The theologian who believes there is some extra-linguistic, extra-subjective ontological situation that obtains from which one must be saved, will regard the meaning of that which saves to be of a different type than the theologian who does not believe this. The move to the reflexive level is indeed a move out of the primary soteriological context. The one making the move likely has reinterpreted the meaning of the soteriological context in ways that make it true that a real ontic answer no longer is necessary or warranted in addressing that context.
The question of which we are dealing concerns the identity conditions of theological and religious statements. What makes one theological proposition semantically identical to another? Identical syntax does not an identical semantics entail, for theological propositions have different meanings within different contexts. Semantics does not supervene upon syntax unless the syntax is defined to include the very form of life of the one using the syntax. (One might then talk about a global supervenience of semantics upon syntax.) The identity of theological propositions is clearly not externally related to the philosophical (ontological) context in which they find themselves and to which they are related. The point is that the context of reflexive correlation is a very different context than immediate lived existence.
A related question of identity within theological semantics arises for the theologian who believes that the content of preaching Christ and Him crucified is somehow identical across various philosophical and metaphysical worldviews. Wilhelm Hermann argued famously that metaphysics is irrelevant to theology. That is to say, presumably, that the semantic identity of a certain set of theological statements is invariant across different ontological worldviews, across worldviews as different as nineteenth century materialism and teleological Aristotelianism. The semantics of theological propositions are indifferent to the greater philosophical context, that is, to alternate sets of philosophical presuppositions.
But this cannot possibly be the case. What a theological proposition means is fundamentally connected to the context in which it finds itself, that is, to the wider philosophical context. It is very easy to see this is true, for the truth conditions of a theological proposition does in fact change across different ontological horizons. Why?
Imagine I hold that the proclamation that I am forgiven from my sins in spite of my sin is a performative utterance issuing in the perlocution of existential empowerment in the face of fundamental anxieties. Clearly, the semantics of the declarative utterance is related to the context of a linguistic/existential structure of human existence. The meaning of the declarative statement is not related to some kind of theological states of affairs, but rather to the human existential/linguistic structure. In this way, one might say that the Word is what it does.
However, the critical question is and has always been, is the Word only what it does. Is the perlocution itself the result of a belief about the world, or can the perlocution happen without such a belief? It has always seemed clear to me that the possibility of the perlocution occurring is tied to human belief in a very proximate way. Without the belief being the belief that it is, it is not the case that the perlocution is the perlocution that it is. Responding to the gospel declaration is not like hearing the words "excuse me." While the conventions of the social situation are present in the former, they do not determine the use and response to the gospel address in a similar way.
But the deeper question has to do with truth conditions themselves. If one says "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," is it not quite different to say that the truth conditions are that God is in Jesus Christ, or alternately that they are somehow in the existential empowerment of the listener? Consider how different these two truth conditions are:
1) 'God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' is true if and only if God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.
2) 'God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' is true if and only if the utterance of 'God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' effects a particular hearer H (appropriately structured so as to be effected by the utterance), in such a way as to have existential empowerment of an appropriate kind,
While one could spend a great deal of time and effort trying to clarify (2), it should be apparent what the salient difference between (1) and (2) is. The meaning of the latter has to be defined relationally with respect to the human linguistic/existential structure; the meaning of the former can be defined by its relationship to a world that exists apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language.
Over the years I have come to regard this effort as being more or less misguided. It is not that existential questions cannot be correlated with religious answers, it is simply that when this is done, the religious answer correlated has a different meaning than it would have had were it not so correlated. How is this so?
Religious and theological answers pertain to soteriology, and what is salvific with respect to our immediate situation in the universe is not likely the same thing as what is salvific when our immediate situation is worked up existentially-phenomenologically-orntologically. (I realize that this statement needs a considerable amount of unpacking.) A corollary to what I am saying is simply that a problem with the method of correlation is that it cannot save the one that correlates. This method is to the philosophy of science what lived salvific immediacy is to the practice of science.
It is finally a question of semantics. For C (the one correlating), existential question E has a definite meaning that can in some way be addressed by theological answer T. E and T have more or less definite semantic conditions for C. Think, however, about one who has not adopted the reflexive standpoint of C. Let us call such a non-reflexive one U (standing for unable of willing to occupy the standpoint of C). For U, T has different meaning and truth conditions than for C because the truth conditions for T are ontological - - one might better say 'ontic' here because I am talking about being not the be-ing of beings - - in a way that they are not for C.
How is this so? Clearly, the truth conditions for T with respect to U are tied to what is the case in a way that T is not for C. Accordingly for C, T is true just in case T obtains. But this need not be so for C. Here T is true just in case it is appropriately linked to E. For U, T is true just in case a relationship R holds appropriately of some state of affairs S. For C, T is true just in case a relationship R' hold appropriately of some religious or theological description D that is pertinent to E. For U, T is true because of some reality that is what it is apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language. This is an extensionalist interpretation of T. For C, since T is true just because there is a reality which is what it is because of human awareness, perception, conception or language, the description of this reality becomes the most important matter. Now we have moved to an intensionalist context. (This needs more unpacking as well.)
If I have not made myself sufficiently clear in the proceeding paragraph, let me try again. The theologian who believes there is some extra-linguistic, extra-subjective ontological situation that obtains from which one must be saved, will regard the meaning of that which saves to be of a different type than the theologian who does not believe this. The move to the reflexive level is indeed a move out of the primary soteriological context. The one making the move likely has reinterpreted the meaning of the soteriological context in ways that make it true that a real ontic answer no longer is necessary or warranted in addressing that context.
The question of which we are dealing concerns the identity conditions of theological and religious statements. What makes one theological proposition semantically identical to another? Identical syntax does not an identical semantics entail, for theological propositions have different meanings within different contexts. Semantics does not supervene upon syntax unless the syntax is defined to include the very form of life of the one using the syntax. (One might then talk about a global supervenience of semantics upon syntax.) The identity of theological propositions is clearly not externally related to the philosophical (ontological) context in which they find themselves and to which they are related. The point is that the context of reflexive correlation is a very different context than immediate lived existence.
A related question of identity within theological semantics arises for the theologian who believes that the content of preaching Christ and Him crucified is somehow identical across various philosophical and metaphysical worldviews. Wilhelm Hermann argued famously that metaphysics is irrelevant to theology. That is to say, presumably, that the semantic identity of a certain set of theological statements is invariant across different ontological worldviews, across worldviews as different as nineteenth century materialism and teleological Aristotelianism. The semantics of theological propositions are indifferent to the greater philosophical context, that is, to alternate sets of philosophical presuppositions.
But this cannot possibly be the case. What a theological proposition means is fundamentally connected to the context in which it finds itself, that is, to the wider philosophical context. It is very easy to see this is true, for the truth conditions of a theological proposition does in fact change across different ontological horizons. Why?
Imagine I hold that the proclamation that I am forgiven from my sins in spite of my sin is a performative utterance issuing in the perlocution of existential empowerment in the face of fundamental anxieties. Clearly, the semantics of the declarative utterance is related to the context of a linguistic/existential structure of human existence. The meaning of the declarative statement is not related to some kind of theological states of affairs, but rather to the human existential/linguistic structure. In this way, one might say that the Word is what it does.
However, the critical question is and has always been, is the Word only what it does. Is the perlocution itself the result of a belief about the world, or can the perlocution happen without such a belief? It has always seemed clear to me that the possibility of the perlocution occurring is tied to human belief in a very proximate way. Without the belief being the belief that it is, it is not the case that the perlocution is the perlocution that it is. Responding to the gospel declaration is not like hearing the words "excuse me." While the conventions of the social situation are present in the former, they do not determine the use and response to the gospel address in a similar way.
But the deeper question has to do with truth conditions themselves. If one says "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," is it not quite different to say that the truth conditions are that God is in Jesus Christ, or alternately that they are somehow in the existential empowerment of the listener? Consider how different these two truth conditions are:
1) 'God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' is true if and only if God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.
2) 'God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' is true if and only if the utterance of 'God is in Jesus Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' effects a particular hearer H (appropriately structured so as to be effected by the utterance), in such a way as to have existential empowerment of an appropriate kind,
While one could spend a great deal of time and effort trying to clarify (2), it should be apparent what the salient difference between (1) and (2) is. The meaning of the latter has to be defined relationally with respect to the human linguistic/existential structure; the meaning of the former can be defined by its relationship to a world that exists apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
The Big Problem for Lutheran Confessionalism
Thinkers like to think about things towards which progress can be made. Philosophers of a materialist or physicalist persuasion find it relatively easy to understand how properties at higher levels might covary as a function of properties at lower levels.
For instance, biological properties distribute as a function of chemical properties, which distribute as a function of molecular properties, which themselves distribute as a function of atomic properties or subatomic properties. While there are some problems relating levels, the big problem concerns how it is that psychological properties covary with respect to neurophysiological properties.
While we may have no difficulties in general in countenancing a view of things where neurophysiological actualizations are finally metaphysically dependent upon mircrophysical causation, the notion that thoughts and decisions might ultimately metaphysically depend upon mircophysical processes is disquieting. While moderate reductions seem unproblematic throughout physical reality, the countenancing of reductions between the mental and physical involves some rather paradoxical claims, e.g., the notion that my writing these words in this blog right now themselves metaphysically depend somehow upon microphysical actualizations of various kinds.
While some philosophers here warmly embrace the "downward causality" of the mental into the physical on a mereological basis, the fundamental problem remains: If mental event m1 causes neurophysiological actualizations p2, then it seems that m1 must either itself have a physical realization or not. If it has no physical realization, then the advocate of downward causation must finally advocate a substance dualism - - something they want to avoid - - or she or he must admit that the physical realizer of m1 - - let us call this p1 -- itself causes p2, and there is no real downward causation. So the big problem is simply this: How is genuine freedom possible for an agent when the agent and his/her acts are metaphysically dependent upon microphysics? The problem is so big and intractable, that philosophers generally work on easier problems, providing in other ways the work that can advance a physicalist agenda.
We confessional Lutherans also have a problem that is so big that we really don't want to entertain it. We want to work on things that can be worked upon profitably, e.g,, Law/Gospel matters, not problems that seem intractable, problems that pertain to the truth of our theological position.
All the standard paths are open for the Lutheran wanting to talk about truth, of course. One could say that proposition p is true if and only if p describes or expresses the feelings, attitudes or the existential orientation of the one so uttering p. Or one might improve this somewhat by saying that p is true if and only if it liberates from sin and grants the freedom for the future (whatever precisely might by meant by "sin" and "freedom for the future" in this context). Or one might say that p is true if and only if it functions as a rule for the specification and use of other utterances by a particular linguistic community. Or perhaps one is less trendy and say that p is true if and only if p obtains. But then one must ask the rule specifying the condition for p obtaining.
Readers will understand that this last option asks that we think about the truth of p in broadly "cognitive-propositional" terms. For one stating that 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself' is true if and only if God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, the question is what conditions must be met in order for God to be in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. This is not an easy question, as we shall see. One could say that that there is an individual God, and individual Christ, and that the two are related by the first being in the second. But this does not help too much either, for what are the conditions for "being in"?
At this point, the discussion of the last few decades about Christian inclusivism, exclusivism and pluralism becomes relevant. One could say that there is some kind of linguistic commensurability across religions such that the same objects and events can be in principle picked out in the various religious worlds. On this view, the Christin and Buddhist would presumably disagree about whether God was in Christ obtains, but they would both understand what it means. However, if a particular kind of holism holds, then the Buddhist could not state that "God was in Christ" in the same way as the Christian, and thus the fact that it obtains for one and not the other would not entail that the very same thing would need to obtain for both in order for truth to be predicated.
The point is a basic one between internalism and externalism. Are there conditions that must be met in order for a proposition to correctly apply to a situation, conditions that are internal to the proposition in question (and its relevant context), or are they external to it? What I am asking is simply whether or not there can be some "bird's eye" factual perspective above and beyond the practico-linguistic worlds occupied by adherents of the various world religions. While this question of the priority of facts over language arises within philosophy generally, theologians must pay especially intense attention to it because, in some sense, much of what the theologian is trying to talk about is beyond what can be said to be factual in any ordinary sense. The theologian who embraces externalism must seemingly hold, as John Hick suggests, to a view that Ultimate Referent of religious and theological language lies beyond the linguistic worlds of any religion and that it is a noumenal reality to which the phenomenal fields of meaning of the various traditions point.
Lutherans do not often enter the fray on what many would regard as a "philosophy of religion" concern, but it is simply the case that some position on the inclusivism, eclusivism, pluralism issue is more cogent and plausible than others, and must thereby be adopted - - either explicitly or implicitly. While the relationship between grace and nature in some of the Catholic theological tradition sets up nicely for inclusivist views like those of Rahner, Lutheran emphasis on the discontinuity between these two seem to block any argument for being an "anonymous Lutheran." A tendency towards exclusivism seems to be in the Lutheran theological DNA, but clearly we cannot easily argue like seventeenth century Lutherans did before the "Copernican revolution" of realizing that Christian faith is one belief system among the other world religions, and that the Lutheran take on Christianity does not predominate even there.
To hold to religious pluralism is much easier when one works with an alethia account of truth as unveiling, rather than an account that supposes there is an objective reality identified by Christians as the Triune God. To the theological realist, of course, truth is not promiscuous, and it is predicated of those propositions that tend to represent most accurately that which can never be known. (While the paradox here makes this problem seems acute, it is no worse than the problem of the external world generally.)
I believe that the big problem I describe here should be regarded as such by any Lutheran thinking through the options on the table. We cannot simply decide not to engage the issue. To do that would be an example of the quietism we have so long been accused of sponsoring.
For instance, biological properties distribute as a function of chemical properties, which distribute as a function of molecular properties, which themselves distribute as a function of atomic properties or subatomic properties. While there are some problems relating levels, the big problem concerns how it is that psychological properties covary with respect to neurophysiological properties.
While we may have no difficulties in general in countenancing a view of things where neurophysiological actualizations are finally metaphysically dependent upon mircrophysical causation, the notion that thoughts and decisions might ultimately metaphysically depend upon mircophysical processes is disquieting. While moderate reductions seem unproblematic throughout physical reality, the countenancing of reductions between the mental and physical involves some rather paradoxical claims, e.g., the notion that my writing these words in this blog right now themselves metaphysically depend somehow upon microphysical actualizations of various kinds.
While some philosophers here warmly embrace the "downward causality" of the mental into the physical on a mereological basis, the fundamental problem remains: If mental event m1 causes neurophysiological actualizations p2, then it seems that m1 must either itself have a physical realization or not. If it has no physical realization, then the advocate of downward causation must finally advocate a substance dualism - - something they want to avoid - - or she or he must admit that the physical realizer of m1 - - let us call this p1 -- itself causes p2, and there is no real downward causation. So the big problem is simply this: How is genuine freedom possible for an agent when the agent and his/her acts are metaphysically dependent upon microphysics? The problem is so big and intractable, that philosophers generally work on easier problems, providing in other ways the work that can advance a physicalist agenda.
We confessional Lutherans also have a problem that is so big that we really don't want to entertain it. We want to work on things that can be worked upon profitably, e.g,, Law/Gospel matters, not problems that seem intractable, problems that pertain to the truth of our theological position.
All the standard paths are open for the Lutheran wanting to talk about truth, of course. One could say that proposition p is true if and only if p describes or expresses the feelings, attitudes or the existential orientation of the one so uttering p. Or one might improve this somewhat by saying that p is true if and only if it liberates from sin and grants the freedom for the future (whatever precisely might by meant by "sin" and "freedom for the future" in this context). Or one might say that p is true if and only if it functions as a rule for the specification and use of other utterances by a particular linguistic community. Or perhaps one is less trendy and say that p is true if and only if p obtains. But then one must ask the rule specifying the condition for p obtaining.
Readers will understand that this last option asks that we think about the truth of p in broadly "cognitive-propositional" terms. For one stating that 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself' is true if and only if God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, the question is what conditions must be met in order for God to be in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. This is not an easy question, as we shall see. One could say that that there is an individual God, and individual Christ, and that the two are related by the first being in the second. But this does not help too much either, for what are the conditions for "being in"?
At this point, the discussion of the last few decades about Christian inclusivism, exclusivism and pluralism becomes relevant. One could say that there is some kind of linguistic commensurability across religions such that the same objects and events can be in principle picked out in the various religious worlds. On this view, the Christin and Buddhist would presumably disagree about whether God was in Christ obtains, but they would both understand what it means. However, if a particular kind of holism holds, then the Buddhist could not state that "God was in Christ" in the same way as the Christian, and thus the fact that it obtains for one and not the other would not entail that the very same thing would need to obtain for both in order for truth to be predicated.
The point is a basic one between internalism and externalism. Are there conditions that must be met in order for a proposition to correctly apply to a situation, conditions that are internal to the proposition in question (and its relevant context), or are they external to it? What I am asking is simply whether or not there can be some "bird's eye" factual perspective above and beyond the practico-linguistic worlds occupied by adherents of the various world religions. While this question of the priority of facts over language arises within philosophy generally, theologians must pay especially intense attention to it because, in some sense, much of what the theologian is trying to talk about is beyond what can be said to be factual in any ordinary sense. The theologian who embraces externalism must seemingly hold, as John Hick suggests, to a view that Ultimate Referent of religious and theological language lies beyond the linguistic worlds of any religion and that it is a noumenal reality to which the phenomenal fields of meaning of the various traditions point.
Lutherans do not often enter the fray on what many would regard as a "philosophy of religion" concern, but it is simply the case that some position on the inclusivism, eclusivism, pluralism issue is more cogent and plausible than others, and must thereby be adopted - - either explicitly or implicitly. While the relationship between grace and nature in some of the Catholic theological tradition sets up nicely for inclusivist views like those of Rahner, Lutheran emphasis on the discontinuity between these two seem to block any argument for being an "anonymous Lutheran." A tendency towards exclusivism seems to be in the Lutheran theological DNA, but clearly we cannot easily argue like seventeenth century Lutherans did before the "Copernican revolution" of realizing that Christian faith is one belief system among the other world religions, and that the Lutheran take on Christianity does not predominate even there.
To hold to religious pluralism is much easier when one works with an alethia account of truth as unveiling, rather than an account that supposes there is an objective reality identified by Christians as the Triune God. To the theological realist, of course, truth is not promiscuous, and it is predicated of those propositions that tend to represent most accurately that which can never be known. (While the paradox here makes this problem seems acute, it is no worse than the problem of the external world generally.)
I believe that the big problem I describe here should be regarded as such by any Lutheran thinking through the options on the table. We cannot simply decide not to engage the issue. To do that would be an example of the quietism we have so long been accused of sponsoring.
Friday, September 03, 2010
Normativity and Theology
Some distinctions are so basic and simple that we denizens of North America tend, in general, to forget them. One such distinction is between the normative and the descriptive. While Hume famously taught that one cannot derive an "ought" from and "is," many no longer can grasp that statements about what is the case cannot entail statements about what must be the case. The only way, in fact, to get the "ought" from the "is" is to describe what is in such ways that there is an implied ought. But then one merely derives an "ought" from another "ought."
I taught for many years at a state university. Students came to there first or second class in philosophy assuming that how people behave somehow entails how they ought to behave. Perhaps the problem is the ambiguity in the word 'norm' itself. What is "normal" for human beings is that which falls within a spectrum of human behaviors. While what 85% of people do is "normal," clearly at least 5-10% is not. What is "normal" is what human beings normally do. This becomes a norm for human behavior for many, for they have never thought through the fact that normal behavior does not the normative make. Just because 90% or more of humans do a certain thing does not entail that they should do that thing. One simply cannot get an "ought" from an "is," even if what "is" is normal for human beings.
The loss of the "ought" probably is inevitable in a democratic equalitarian culture where one voice is prized as highly as the next. Clearly, the loss of the "ought" is connected with relativism with respect to truth. If one "ought" not hold one position more so than the next, it is difficult to understand the semantic field for truth. When doing mathematics one solves the equation is properly and truly or improperly and wrongly. Those who do it wrong "ought" to have done it properly. Grading mathematics examinations presupposes that the student "ought" to solve the problem this way and not this way.
Maybe it is because the natural shows "no echo of the normative" (Davidson) that we present-day devotees of naturalism have such a difficult time with truth. And if truth in mathematics is problematic for contemporary naturalism, how much more is truth in theology. How can it be so, for instance, that a notion of justification within theology thought and taught these last 1000 years is the position that one "ought" to hold. Given that Augustine, Thomas and Luther taught differently on justification, which one, or which elements of these thinkers views are right, are what rational agents ought to hold true? Surely serious work in theology must eschew the descriptive in favor of the normative. It is not merely that A taught x and B aught y and C taught z, and we must document this, but rather that A wrongly taught x, while B rightly taught y. Theology is thoroughly normative. To give up on the normative makes the descriptive task of church history merely one of reporting. While the historian in this case might say the C agreed with D, she cannot say that D rightly agreed with C.
Theology must always include the normative. Like philosophy, theology survives as a remnant to a by-gone era before statistical methods and the new "science of man" turned questions to human regularities (norms) of behavior. Theology, in its commitment to "oughts," does indeed suggest that the natural is not all that there is. There must be, besides are world, a world of the "should have been," a world of what would be ideal and beneficent, a world of the very Created Order of God, a world mirroring the ultimate design features of deity prior to its dissolution into what is, before its Fall into existence. That we only catch glimpses of this world seems reasonable to we creatures of this Fall.
I taught for many years at a state university. Students came to there first or second class in philosophy assuming that how people behave somehow entails how they ought to behave. Perhaps the problem is the ambiguity in the word 'norm' itself. What is "normal" for human beings is that which falls within a spectrum of human behaviors. While what 85% of people do is "normal," clearly at least 5-10% is not. What is "normal" is what human beings normally do. This becomes a norm for human behavior for many, for they have never thought through the fact that normal behavior does not the normative make. Just because 90% or more of humans do a certain thing does not entail that they should do that thing. One simply cannot get an "ought" from an "is," even if what "is" is normal for human beings.
The loss of the "ought" probably is inevitable in a democratic equalitarian culture where one voice is prized as highly as the next. Clearly, the loss of the "ought" is connected with relativism with respect to truth. If one "ought" not hold one position more so than the next, it is difficult to understand the semantic field for truth. When doing mathematics one solves the equation is properly and truly or improperly and wrongly. Those who do it wrong "ought" to have done it properly. Grading mathematics examinations presupposes that the student "ought" to solve the problem this way and not this way.
Maybe it is because the natural shows "no echo of the normative" (Davidson) that we present-day devotees of naturalism have such a difficult time with truth. And if truth in mathematics is problematic for contemporary naturalism, how much more is truth in theology. How can it be so, for instance, that a notion of justification within theology thought and taught these last 1000 years is the position that one "ought" to hold. Given that Augustine, Thomas and Luther taught differently on justification, which one, or which elements of these thinkers views are right, are what rational agents ought to hold true? Surely serious work in theology must eschew the descriptive in favor of the normative. It is not merely that A taught x and B aught y and C taught z, and we must document this, but rather that A wrongly taught x, while B rightly taught y. Theology is thoroughly normative. To give up on the normative makes the descriptive task of church history merely one of reporting. While the historian in this case might say the C agreed with D, she cannot say that D rightly agreed with C.
Theology must always include the normative. Like philosophy, theology survives as a remnant to a by-gone era before statistical methods and the new "science of man" turned questions to human regularities (norms) of behavior. Theology, in its commitment to "oughts," does indeed suggest that the natural is not all that there is. There must be, besides are world, a world of the "should have been," a world of what would be ideal and beneficent, a world of the very Created Order of God, a world mirroring the ultimate design features of deity prior to its dissolution into what is, before its Fall into existence. That we only catch glimpses of this world seems reasonable to we creatures of this Fall.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Prolegomena to a Robust Lutheran Theology - - The Problem III
In theology, truth ought always to be at issue. Yet in many Protestant congregations, it seems like it is no longer important what people believe. Many Protestant pastors, and some lay people, no longer regard theological language as in principle either true or false. Instead, what is held up as being important is how the people in the congregation get along, how they feel, and what they do, or shall do, in the community. Although all might confess the same creed, what is meant be their confessions can vary from person to person and from community to community. It is not clear what is being asserted, or whether anything at all is being asserted. For some, theological language clearly operates as if it expresses no propositions at all.
To make matters even more confusing, we live in a very relativistic age. If two people disagree upon what is beautiful, must one of them be wrong? Most would agree that clearly "beauty lies in the eye of the beholder."
But what about goodness and truth? If two people disagree upon what is good, must one of them be wrong? Twenty years ago my college students would divide upon whether one person must be wrong in such a situation. But times have changed. Now my informal surveys of student opinion show that almost 90% now think that "goodness lies in the hand of the doer'. Just as aesthetics has been subjectivized, so too has ethics. What is right for me is no longer what is right for you - - yet somehow there is something right for each of us.
Truth itself is under attack: At least within the undergraduate university population, truth has been relativized along with beauty and the good. What is true for x may not be true for y. While A is true for x, not-A is true for y. All of this is extremely problematic, for it is not at all clear we can even use 'right' and 'true' correctly, if we strip each of any normative status. Accordingly, it is not at all clear that 'x is true for A, but not-true for B' does not express a contradiction, an assocation of words that cannot pick out a class of objects or actions in any possible world.
The problem is a very profound one. Even if we can hold onto truth, and even if we do believe that classes of statements do succeed in stating the facts, we are confronted with the old distinction between facts and values. Grounded in the work of Logical Atomism, and the harder edge of the Enlightenment critique, this distinction succeeds in placing all of the big questions, the theologcal questions, in the realm of subjective value.
Some statements are said to express facts, and facts are supposed to be objective, about the world, and concerned with truth and reason. Values, on the other hand, are thought to be subjective and about ourselves. Values concern our feelings, and are neither right nor wrong. Accordingly, value judgments are neither true nor false.
While many regard scientific language as having truth-conditions, many deny that the sentences of theology have the same truth conditions. An expression has a truth condition if and only if it states the contour of the world were it to be true. Thus, 'the cat is on the mat' is true if and only if there is a cat, a mat, and the cat is on the mat - - these are its truth-conditions. But does theological language actually state what the world must be like if the statements of theology are to be regarded as true? Is 'God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' true if and only if there is a God, this God is in Christ, and this God is reconciling the world unto Himself, or does theological language lack truth conditions entirely?
The dominant theological tradition within academic theological circles the last 60 years has uniquivocally said, 'No' - - our theological language lacks truth conditions entirely. And even if it were somehow to retain them, the theological language is not really about the divine after all. This certainly would have surprised Martin Luther, who believed one could actually claim certain things true and certain things false of the divine. (Luther was, as it turns out, a semantic realist - - but more of that later.)
There are so many confusions we face. People profess belief in God, but do not know what they mean by the term 'God'. They use theological language, but yet regard their assertions as being merely "true for them." They pray to God to change things, but do not really believe that God is, or even can be, causally active in the universe. Many people, usually with some deeper theological orientation, deny God's presence in nature even though they claim that he remains readily available in His Word. The effect, of course, is to disconnect the Word of God (Christ) from the reality of nature completely. Finally, people believe that that Scripture has authority, that it confronts us as witnessing to the Lordship of Christ, but they really don't think through what could be the grounds of that authority. Why is this book authoritative because it witness to Christ and another ancient book not because it witness to another God?
It is time that we re-think the issues. We simply must as Lutherans reflect again upon the very presuppositions of our theology. Such a "thinking after" (Nachdenken) theology shall demand deeper ontological, semantic, and epistemological reflections than has recently predominated in theological thinking. In order to get clear about what claims are made in theology - - or even that any claims are made - - we must return again to the basics. We must ask ourselves what the possibilities of the world are upon which we map our theological language. We must ask ourselves about the mapping function itself: What is the naming function by which our theological language putatively refers to elements in the world? Finally, we can ask how we might know that the world has a definite ontological contour, and how this world might be referred to by theological language.
We shall not begin as we have begun theology in the recent past; we shall not begin with the epistemological question. Instead, we shall return to the presuppositions of the Reformers themselves: We shall ask the ontological and semantic questions first, seek clarity on them, and only afterwards move to other questions. In theology, at least, we must affirm the ancient view that epistemology recapitulates ontology, and not the converse. How the divine world is, is not itself constituted by our knowing of it, but rather our knowing of it, is conditioned by how the divine world is.
To make matters even more confusing, we live in a very relativistic age. If two people disagree upon what is beautiful, must one of them be wrong? Most would agree that clearly "beauty lies in the eye of the beholder."
But what about goodness and truth? If two people disagree upon what is good, must one of them be wrong? Twenty years ago my college students would divide upon whether one person must be wrong in such a situation. But times have changed. Now my informal surveys of student opinion show that almost 90% now think that "goodness lies in the hand of the doer'. Just as aesthetics has been subjectivized, so too has ethics. What is right for me is no longer what is right for you - - yet somehow there is something right for each of us.
Truth itself is under attack: At least within the undergraduate university population, truth has been relativized along with beauty and the good. What is true for x may not be true for y. While A is true for x, not-A is true for y. All of this is extremely problematic, for it is not at all clear we can even use 'right' and 'true' correctly, if we strip each of any normative status. Accordingly, it is not at all clear that 'x is true for A, but not-true for B' does not express a contradiction, an assocation of words that cannot pick out a class of objects or actions in any possible world.
With the problem of truth now raised in such a stark matter, the tension between relativism and the possibility of doctrine arises. It seems that theology has always held certain things to be true of God, and claimed other things not to be turue. The Apostle's, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds have historically made truth-claims about God and His relationship to human beings. But what exactly does 'claiming these creeds true' now mean. Does it mean these creeds merely strike us well, that we simply like how they somehow make us feel, or that we are members of the Lutheran tribe, and Lutherans say such things?
The problem is a very profound one. Even if we can hold onto truth, and even if we do believe that classes of statements do succeed in stating the facts, we are confronted with the old distinction between facts and values. Grounded in the work of Logical Atomism, and the harder edge of the Enlightenment critique, this distinction succeeds in placing all of the big questions, the theologcal questions, in the realm of subjective value.
Some statements are said to express facts, and facts are supposed to be objective, about the world, and concerned with truth and reason. Values, on the other hand, are thought to be subjective and about ourselves. Values concern our feelings, and are neither right nor wrong. Accordingly, value judgments are neither true nor false.
While many regard scientific language as having truth-conditions, many deny that the sentences of theology have the same truth conditions. An expression has a truth condition if and only if it states the contour of the world were it to be true. Thus, 'the cat is on the mat' is true if and only if there is a cat, a mat, and the cat is on the mat - - these are its truth-conditions. But does theological language actually state what the world must be like if the statements of theology are to be regarded as true? Is 'God is in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself' true if and only if there is a God, this God is in Christ, and this God is reconciling the world unto Himself, or does theological language lack truth conditions entirely?
The dominant theological tradition within academic theological circles the last 60 years has uniquivocally said, 'No' - - our theological language lacks truth conditions entirely. And even if it were somehow to retain them, the theological language is not really about the divine after all. This certainly would have surprised Martin Luther, who believed one could actually claim certain things true and certain things false of the divine. (Luther was, as it turns out, a semantic realist - - but more of that later.)
There are so many confusions we face. People profess belief in God, but do not know what they mean by the term 'God'. They use theological language, but yet regard their assertions as being merely "true for them." They pray to God to change things, but do not really believe that God is, or even can be, causally active in the universe. Many people, usually with some deeper theological orientation, deny God's presence in nature even though they claim that he remains readily available in His Word. The effect, of course, is to disconnect the Word of God (Christ) from the reality of nature completely. Finally, people believe that that Scripture has authority, that it confronts us as witnessing to the Lordship of Christ, but they really don't think through what could be the grounds of that authority. Why is this book authoritative because it witness to Christ and another ancient book not because it witness to another God?
It is time that we re-think the issues. We simply must as Lutherans reflect again upon the very presuppositions of our theology. Such a "thinking after" (Nachdenken) theology shall demand deeper ontological, semantic, and epistemological reflections than has recently predominated in theological thinking. In order to get clear about what claims are made in theology - - or even that any claims are made - - we must return again to the basics. We must ask ourselves what the possibilities of the world are upon which we map our theological language. We must ask ourselves about the mapping function itself: What is the naming function by which our theological language putatively refers to elements in the world? Finally, we can ask how we might know that the world has a definite ontological contour, and how this world might be referred to by theological language.
We shall not begin as we have begun theology in the recent past; we shall not begin with the epistemological question. Instead, we shall return to the presuppositions of the Reformers themselves: We shall ask the ontological and semantic questions first, seek clarity on them, and only afterwards move to other questions. In theology, at least, we must affirm the ancient view that epistemology recapitulates ontology, and not the converse. How the divine world is, is not itself constituted by our knowing of it, but rather our knowing of it, is conditioned by how the divine world is.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Prolegomena to a Robust Lutheran Theology - - The Problem II
As we talked about in the last post, "metatheology" is a second-order discourse investigation the meaning, grounds, and truth-conditions of the first-order discourse of theology. Clearly, in order to evaluate theological statements, one first must understand what is meant be them, i.e., one must assign to them a semantics or "intepretation." Furthermore, in order to make any meaningful progress in theology, one must first understand what conditions would have to obtain in order for one's theological assertions to be true.
But many would no doubt claim that agreement on first-order theological statements is difficult enough. Why even try to move to agreement upon second-order statements, when the first-order ones remain nonspecified? While metatheological inquiry into the truth and meaning of theological utterances is crucially important, merely holding to the assertions of the historical faith is difficult enough today. It is precisely because of this difficulty that there have been myriad and divers attempts over the last 150 years ago to state clearly the content of the Christian faith.
In the early 1900s, a trans-denominational Protestant movement, worried about the drift away from a specifiable normative content to Christian faith, produced a list purportedly displaying necessary conditions for the general content of the Christian faith. They asserted that authentic Christianity must believe in these:
◦The virgin birth and deity of Christ;
◦The substitutionary theory of atonement;
◦The bodily resurrection of Christ;
◦The physical return of Jesus Christ in the Second Coming;
◦The inerrancy of Scriptures.
Without these five assertions, they thought, the content of the Christian faith could not itself be defined as Christian faith. (I am not here advocating that belief in Scriptural inerrancy is a necessary condition for Christian belief, but merely reporting what was promulgated by this group.)
In addition to these assertions, Lutherans might add other content statements that specify authentic Lutheran expressions of the Christian faith. George Forell has provided the following list:
—Justification by grace through faith;
—The theology of the cross;
—Law and gospel proclamation;
—The simul iustus et peccator;
—The assertion of the Infinite being available in and through the finite (finitus capax infiniti).
This is a very good list, I believe, and those who advocate all five should probably be regarded as holding to a Lutheran theological position.
It is clear then that one could be concerned about the contour of the faith. Those so concerned about contour locate those assertions necessary and sufficient for Christian faith to be Christian faith. Speaking philosophically, they are concerned with discerning the “identity conditions” of the faith, that is, they are interested in ascertaining those properties of the Christian faith without which it ceases to be Christian faith.
To reiterate, however, the point I am making is not that the general contour of Lutheran confessional is in doubt. Lutheran theologians continue to hold to the specific language of the tradtion. The problem, however, is that that the contour of the tradtion is polyvalent, and Lutheran theology has failed here to pay enough attention to this polyvalency.
Clearly, he central assertions of theology can sustain multiple meanings depending upon what one believes actually obtains, i.e., the possibility of meaning is tied to one’s ontological commitments. If one believes that the universe is a kind of place where there can be a God that exists as a being over and against it, then 'God’ might be understood, as Ockham understood it, to refer to a supreme being having all positive predicates to the infinite degree. However, if one blieves that the universe is not the kind of place where it is either in principle possible, or likely, that there exist a being existing on its own that can in principle exist apart from it, then 'God' might be defined, as Schleiermacher defines it, as the “whence of the feeling of absolute dependence,” or much later, as Tillich understood it, as “the depth of being.”
One's ontological presuppositions deeply influence what can be meant by a true sentence. Standardly, we claim that sentences express propositions, and these propositions are a statement of how the world might be. To say that a proposition is possible is to say that there is a possible world in which the world is the way that the proposition states it. To say that a proposition is necessary is to say that in all possible worlds the world is the way the proposition states it. To say that a statement is true is to say that in the actual world the world is the way the proposition states it, and to say that a statement is false is to claim that in the actual world the world is not the way the proposition claims. Clearly, to know whether a theological sentence is true, false, possible or necessary requires that we know what proposition is stated by the sentence, it is to know how the world must be in order for the statement to be true. The meaning of the sentence consists simply in this grasp of how the world must be in order for the proposition expressed by the sentence to be true.
Luther claims in throughout his disputations that the res (the things denoted by language) are more important than the verba (the words of language themselves) in understanding the articles of faith (articuli fidei). In order to know what an article of faith really is, one must know what is claimed in the article, one must know how the world would have to be were the article of faith to be true. It is to this question of truth that we now must turn.
But many would no doubt claim that agreement on first-order theological statements is difficult enough. Why even try to move to agreement upon second-order statements, when the first-order ones remain nonspecified? While metatheological inquiry into the truth and meaning of theological utterances is crucially important, merely holding to the assertions of the historical faith is difficult enough today. It is precisely because of this difficulty that there have been myriad and divers attempts over the last 150 years ago to state clearly the content of the Christian faith.
In the early 1900s, a trans-denominational Protestant movement, worried about the drift away from a specifiable normative content to Christian faith, produced a list purportedly displaying necessary conditions for the general content of the Christian faith. They asserted that authentic Christianity must believe in these:
◦The virgin birth and deity of Christ;
◦The substitutionary theory of atonement;
◦The bodily resurrection of Christ;
◦The physical return of Jesus Christ in the Second Coming;
◦The inerrancy of Scriptures.
Without these five assertions, they thought, the content of the Christian faith could not itself be defined as Christian faith. (I am not here advocating that belief in Scriptural inerrancy is a necessary condition for Christian belief, but merely reporting what was promulgated by this group.)
In addition to these assertions, Lutherans might add other content statements that specify authentic Lutheran expressions of the Christian faith. George Forell has provided the following list:
—Justification by grace through faith;
—The theology of the cross;
—Law and gospel proclamation;
—The simul iustus et peccator;
—The assertion of the Infinite being available in and through the finite (finitus capax infiniti).
This is a very good list, I believe, and those who advocate all five should probably be regarded as holding to a Lutheran theological position.
It is clear then that one could be concerned about the contour of the faith. Those so concerned about contour locate those assertions necessary and sufficient for Christian faith to be Christian faith. Speaking philosophically, they are concerned with discerning the “identity conditions” of the faith, that is, they are interested in ascertaining those properties of the Christian faith without which it ceases to be Christian faith.
To reiterate, however, the point I am making is not that the general contour of Lutheran confessional is in doubt. Lutheran theologians continue to hold to the specific language of the tradtion. The problem, however, is that that the contour of the tradtion is polyvalent, and Lutheran theology has failed here to pay enough attention to this polyvalency.
Clearly, he central assertions of theology can sustain multiple meanings depending upon what one believes actually obtains, i.e., the possibility of meaning is tied to one’s ontological commitments. If one believes that the universe is a kind of place where there can be a God that exists as a being over and against it, then 'God’ might be understood, as Ockham understood it, to refer to a supreme being having all positive predicates to the infinite degree. However, if one blieves that the universe is not the kind of place where it is either in principle possible, or likely, that there exist a being existing on its own that can in principle exist apart from it, then 'God' might be defined, as Schleiermacher defines it, as the “whence of the feeling of absolute dependence,” or much later, as Tillich understood it, as “the depth of being.”
One's ontological presuppositions deeply influence what can be meant by a true sentence. Standardly, we claim that sentences express propositions, and these propositions are a statement of how the world might be. To say that a proposition is possible is to say that there is a possible world in which the world is the way that the proposition states it. To say that a proposition is necessary is to say that in all possible worlds the world is the way the proposition states it. To say that a statement is true is to say that in the actual world the world is the way the proposition states it, and to say that a statement is false is to claim that in the actual world the world is not the way the proposition claims. Clearly, to know whether a theological sentence is true, false, possible or necessary requires that we know what proposition is stated by the sentence, it is to know how the world must be in order for the statement to be true. The meaning of the sentence consists simply in this grasp of how the world must be in order for the proposition expressed by the sentence to be true.
Luther claims in throughout his disputations that the res (the things denoted by language) are more important than the verba (the words of language themselves) in understanding the articles of faith (articuli fidei). In order to know what an article of faith really is, one must know what is claimed in the article, one must know how the world would have to be were the article of faith to be true. It is to this question of truth that we now must turn.
Prolegomena to a Robust Lutheran Theology - - The Problem I
I claim that there is a deep problem infecting Lutheran theology as it is now commonly conceived and practiced. But what is the problem? Why claim that we must reclaim our Lutheran heritage? Has it been lost? Don't many Lutherans still base their judgments on Scripture, Creed and Confession? Are not many still good Christians, living out their justified life in the world? Why fix something that is not broken?
But it is broken. Within the ELCA we have witnessed the adoption of the Formula of Agreement, the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, and Called to Common Mission. The first claims that fundamental theological agreement has been reached with the Reformed churches on the sacraments, even though Lutherans and the Reformed have traditionally claimed a difference on the ontological status of the Christ's "real presence" in the sacraments. The second claims that there is now fundamental theological agreement with the Roman Catholic tradition on the doctrine of justification, even through Lutherans and Catholics continue to disagree on the very nature of justification, the first claiming that one can be totally sinful while justified, the latter disagreeing. The third claims that there is agreement with the Anglican tradition on the conception and practice of the historic episcopate, even though Lutherans and Anglicans continue to disagree even upon what the ontological status of the church really is.
Things are not much better in other Lutheran traditions. The new Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ have successfully structured themselves ecclesially so that all governance is local. Ironically, however, those clammering to leave the ELCA because of its theological drift now find themselves in an ecclesial community where there are vast differences of theology and practice from congregation to congregation. Enthusiasm, the doctrine against which Luther repeatedly inveiged, is practiced and advocated openly within some circles. Far from a "working theology" based in the Lutheran Confessions, the theology of many within LCMC seems more at home in the American Evangelical Movement in general.
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has its problems as well. While the confessional starting point has never been in doubt in Missiouri, we find now an emerging church growth movement and methodology seemingly developing in marked tension with that confessional starting point. Issues of ecclesial authority abound, and the Ablaze program has generated discord and controversy within traditional confessional circles.
It seems that doctrinal pluralism infects much of the expression of North American Lutheranism, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Many in the pews no longer know even what it is to be Lutheran. Generations of downplaying catechetical content has eventuated in a scores of Lutherans who have not the vaguest knowledge of what classical Lutheran theological teaching really is. Pastors trained weakly in Lutheran systematics and homeletics abandon law and gospel preaching for the greener pastures of prophetic utterance, practical advise, and the sure and steady assertion that "God loves you."
But what exactly is the problem?
—Is it that Lutherans no longer speak of the centrality of Christ?
—Is it that Lutherans no longer speak of the authority of Scripture?
—Is it that Lutherans now set out to reject their traditional Confessions?
—Is it that Lutherans no longer claim to believe in God?
No! Suprisingly, the assertion and profession of beliefs seem quite the same. Preaching and teaching still talk about Christ; church, syodical, and churchwide constitutions still declare the authority of Scripture; and the Confessions are elevated as normative texts for our tradition. Moreover, pastors, leaders and people in the pews generally continue to assert belief in God. Unlike Europe, Americans still overwhelmingly report that they believe that God exists, that there is an after life, and Christ has died for their sins. So what is the difference? What has happened? It is my conviction that while the assertion of beliefs have remained relatively constant, what has changed our the presuppositions about the meaning and truth of these assertions.
Every sudent who has ever taken an introductory logic course knows the difference between syntax and semantics. Syntax deals with the form and structure of language (its "grammar"), while semantics concernces the meaning and truth of language (its "interpretation"). Accordingly, we must distinguish the mere assertion of a locution from that which is meant by the locution. For instance, I can utter the following:
1) I sat in the bank.
2) I sat on the bank.
(1) is clearly true if I mean by 'bank' 'that building where I go to deposit and withdraw money'. It is false if I mean by it 'that upon which I sit when I fish in the creek'. Conversely, (2) is clearly false under the first interpretation ('that building where I go to deposit and withdraw money') and clearly true under the second intepretation. I believe that the elementary distinction between the syntax and semantics of theological expressions has been lost generally within theology, and most decidedly within the practice of most Lutheran theology.
Related to the question of an expression's meaning is the question as to its truth. Again, every introductory logic student is aware of the question of a statements truth conditions, that is, they are aware of the question as to what conditions must exist in order for a statement to be true. Logic students know that the truth conditions for 'p & q' is the truth of p and the truth of q. They learn that standardly the truth conditions for p itself (e.g., 'snow is white') just is that state of affairs such that snow is white. The truth condition of an atomic sentences like 'the cat is black' just is a specification of what the world would have to be like for the sentence to be true.
Although we do not routinely use the term, the word 'metatheology' should be reserved and used for that second-order investigation about the meaning of, and the truth-conditions for, theological assertions. Just as metaethics explores the meaning, conditions and grounds of normative ethical assertions, metatheology deals with the meaning, conditions and grounds of theological statements. For too long within the practice of Lutheran theology, there has been a rush to talk about the truth of theological statements - - and the agreement of such statements with other statements - - without first investigating even what those statements mean, and without specifying what the world would have to be like were those statements to be true.
But it is broken. Within the ELCA we have witnessed the adoption of the Formula of Agreement, the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, and Called to Common Mission. The first claims that fundamental theological agreement has been reached with the Reformed churches on the sacraments, even though Lutherans and the Reformed have traditionally claimed a difference on the ontological status of the Christ's "real presence" in the sacraments. The second claims that there is now fundamental theological agreement with the Roman Catholic tradition on the doctrine of justification, even through Lutherans and Catholics continue to disagree on the very nature of justification, the first claiming that one can be totally sinful while justified, the latter disagreeing. The third claims that there is agreement with the Anglican tradition on the conception and practice of the historic episcopate, even though Lutherans and Anglicans continue to disagree even upon what the ontological status of the church really is.
Things are not much better in other Lutheran traditions. The new Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ have successfully structured themselves ecclesially so that all governance is local. Ironically, however, those clammering to leave the ELCA because of its theological drift now find themselves in an ecclesial community where there are vast differences of theology and practice from congregation to congregation. Enthusiasm, the doctrine against which Luther repeatedly inveiged, is practiced and advocated openly within some circles. Far from a "working theology" based in the Lutheran Confessions, the theology of many within LCMC seems more at home in the American Evangelical Movement in general.
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has its problems as well. While the confessional starting point has never been in doubt in Missiouri, we find now an emerging church growth movement and methodology seemingly developing in marked tension with that confessional starting point. Issues of ecclesial authority abound, and the Ablaze program has generated discord and controversy within traditional confessional circles.
It seems that doctrinal pluralism infects much of the expression of North American Lutheranism, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Many in the pews no longer know even what it is to be Lutheran. Generations of downplaying catechetical content has eventuated in a scores of Lutherans who have not the vaguest knowledge of what classical Lutheran theological teaching really is. Pastors trained weakly in Lutheran systematics and homeletics abandon law and gospel preaching for the greener pastures of prophetic utterance, practical advise, and the sure and steady assertion that "God loves you."
But what exactly is the problem?
—Is it that Lutherans no longer speak of the centrality of Christ?
—Is it that Lutherans no longer speak of the authority of Scripture?
—Is it that Lutherans now set out to reject their traditional Confessions?
—Is it that Lutherans no longer claim to believe in God?
No! Suprisingly, the assertion and profession of beliefs seem quite the same. Preaching and teaching still talk about Christ; church, syodical, and churchwide constitutions still declare the authority of Scripture; and the Confessions are elevated as normative texts for our tradition. Moreover, pastors, leaders and people in the pews generally continue to assert belief in God. Unlike Europe, Americans still overwhelmingly report that they believe that God exists, that there is an after life, and Christ has died for their sins. So what is the difference? What has happened? It is my conviction that while the assertion of beliefs have remained relatively constant, what has changed our the presuppositions about the meaning and truth of these assertions.
Every sudent who has ever taken an introductory logic course knows the difference between syntax and semantics. Syntax deals with the form and structure of language (its "grammar"), while semantics concernces the meaning and truth of language (its "interpretation"). Accordingly, we must distinguish the mere assertion of a locution from that which is meant by the locution. For instance, I can utter the following:
1) I sat in the bank.
2) I sat on the bank.
(1) is clearly true if I mean by 'bank' 'that building where I go to deposit and withdraw money'. It is false if I mean by it 'that upon which I sit when I fish in the creek'. Conversely, (2) is clearly false under the first interpretation ('that building where I go to deposit and withdraw money') and clearly true under the second intepretation. I believe that the elementary distinction between the syntax and semantics of theological expressions has been lost generally within theology, and most decidedly within the practice of most Lutheran theology.
Related to the question of an expression's meaning is the question as to its truth. Again, every introductory logic student is aware of the question of a statements truth conditions, that is, they are aware of the question as to what conditions must exist in order for a statement to be true. Logic students know that the truth conditions for 'p & q' is the truth of p and the truth of q. They learn that standardly the truth conditions for p itself (e.g., 'snow is white') just is that state of affairs such that snow is white. The truth condition of an atomic sentences like 'the cat is black' just is a specification of what the world would have to be like for the sentence to be true.
Although we do not routinely use the term, the word 'metatheology' should be reserved and used for that second-order investigation about the meaning of, and the truth-conditions for, theological assertions. Just as metaethics explores the meaning, conditions and grounds of normative ethical assertions, metatheology deals with the meaning, conditions and grounds of theological statements. For too long within the practice of Lutheran theology, there has been a rush to talk about the truth of theological statements - - and the agreement of such statements with other statements - - without first investigating even what those statements mean, and without specifying what the world would have to be like were those statements to be true.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A Lutheran Theology of Nature
Lutheran theology has suffered these last 200 years from a turning away from nature towards a single-minded concentration upon value. The work of the German Protestant theologian Abrecht Ritschl (1822-89) is characteristic of this turn. Ritschl held that God is knowable only through Christ, and that theology must therefore concentrate on ethics and repudiate metaphysics. Of course, by repudiating metaphysics, Ritschl found it difficult to situate divine reality into the reality of nature. Metaphysics is concerned with those most basic generalities presupposed by experience as such. If God’s reality is denied metaphysical reality, then God is not part of the “basic generality” of what is, and if this be so, then God clearly cannot connect to nature.
The disconnect between God and nature in Ritschl is just the working out of the trajectory set by Kant a hundred years before. God is, for Kant, clearly not the kind of being who can sustain causal relationships with natural entities, or that can be ingredient in natural states of affairs or events. By placing God within the Ideals of Pure Reason, Kant took Him out of nature entirely. Such a de-divinization of nature nicely left nature as a natural object to be studied and explored on its own. Following previous Enlightenment thinkers, Kant’s move gave nature autonomy over and against the divine. Though Kant struggled mightily in the Critique of Judgment to bring back teleology and the non-natural generally into the world, much of the subsequent philosophical, scientific, and theological trajectory did not buy it. Theologians in general had to find a place for God outside of nature; they had to find a place for God within human experience generally, within the ontological depths of the structure of human being itself.
Lutheran theology has drunk deeply from the trough of Kant. In so doing, it has paid precariously little attention to nature for the last two hundred years. Although it can claim one of the greatest of all scientists, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), it has for centuries been quite unconcerned with natural reality, preferring the safety of reflecting on human experience. In thinking about this, it now occurs to me that the general marginalization of Lutheran theology may have everything to do with this disconnect from natural science. If God cannot be found in nature, why think He can do much even - - if He is somehow found in the depths of the self?
I believe the time is right for Lutheran theology to retrieve the early Enlightenment idea of there being two books: the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture. If the Book of Scripture can be reclaimed as something that has a particular internal clarity which places Christ as its center, why cannot the Book of Nature be read with an internal clarity that places the Creator God at its center? Of course, there are many reasons not to read either book in that way. My point is, however, that if Lutheran theology wants to retain a discourse that is to survive, it has to give its discourse robust truth conditions. These conditions are given when claims can be made about Christ that are finally not indexed to claims about communities reading a text in a certain way, or when claims are made about divine causality that themselves are not indexed to claims made about individuals interpreting things in a particular way.
What would happen if we began with the presupposition that the whole of Scripture interprets its parts, the parts support the whole, and that the whole is about Christ? What would happen if we began with the presupposition that the whole of nature interprets its parts, the parts support the whole, and that the whole is finally about a God who creates?
Now, of course, there are all kinds of wonderful arguments about how misguided these approaches would be. There is no slam-dunk evidence after all that God is required as a theoretical causal entity within a most basic scientific theory of nature. I readily concede this and add that, thinking in this way, there is no evidence as well that Christ is required as the central notion of all of Scriptures, and that such a Christ actually justifies the ungodly. Critical reflection seems to dislodge the centrality of Christ from Scripture just as it takes a creator God out of the universe.
But, of course, we should not be surprised that critical reflection does such a thing. The primal question of all of humanity is the question of the serpent, “Did God really say it?” Yes, indeed, did God really speak in Scripture, and does He say anything in nature? We have as Lutheran theologians assumed that he speaks only in the first book, and rather obscurely there at that. But what would happen if we started with the assumption that He does so speak? Why would it be any more difficult to find God the Creator working in and through nature than God the Redeemer working though and in Scripture? It all has to do with how we read things. Can we speak about the “internal clarity of nature” analogously with the “internal clarity of Scripture?” I see no reason ultimately to justify the assertion that the serpent’s question is more effective against the former rather than the latter. It is time to get serious about theology again, or simply to move onto other projects. I am not moving on.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Towards a Lutheran Theological Semantics I
While syntax deals with the form and structure of a language, semantics deals with its meaning and truth. When considering the general question of the semantics of a language, one must get clear on the meaning of the terms of that language, and the meaning and truth of sentences comprised of those terms. Terms having meaning apart from other linguistic units were called by the medievals categorematic terms. Terms not possessing meaning on their own (e.g, 'is', 'of') were called syncategorematic terms. In establishing the semantics of a language, one has to specify the meaning of a class of primative terms, and then show how the meaning of those terms contribute to the meaning of sentences in which those terms are ingredient.
In ascribing a semantics to theological sentences, one routinely examines their truth-conditions. The truth-conditions of a statement are those conditions which must obtain if the statement is to be true. For instance, the truth conditions of 'the cat is on the map' are those conditions which must obtain if 'the cat is on the mat' is true. These conditions simply are the state of affairs of there being a cat, a mat, and the relation of the cat being on the mat. Simply put, 'the cat is on the mat' is true if and only if the cat is on the mat.
Now in considering these truth-conditions, the question arises as whether or not one can specify evidence transcending truth-conditions. While it is in principle possible to have a perceptual causal connection to cats sitting on mats such that one can truly know when or if the requisite conditions are fulfilled such that 'the cat is on the mat' is true, this is not so with regard to most theological statements. What causal connection can one have to states of affairs like 'there are three distinct persons united in one divine being or essence'? How could one ever be said to know this is the case? Those who for this reason reject the possibility of evidence transcending truth-conditions are antirealist with respect particular classes of statements. While language like 'there are three distinct persons in one divine being or essence' are perhaps warrantably assertible, they have no truth-conditions, for the condition for the possibility of truth-conditions cannot be met. To accept the possibilty of evidence transcending truth-conditions for a class of statements is to be realist with regard to that class of statements. The question is this: Should Lutherans accept a realist construal for their theological language? Over the last 200 years Lutherans have progressively become less and less sanguine that theological language has truth-conditions, and that is thus can be given a realist construal.
In ascribing a semantics to theological sentences, one routinely examines their truth-conditions. The truth-conditions of a statement are those conditions which must obtain if the statement is to be true. For instance, the truth conditions of 'the cat is on the map' are those conditions which must obtain if 'the cat is on the mat' is true. These conditions simply are the state of affairs of there being a cat, a mat, and the relation of the cat being on the mat. Simply put, 'the cat is on the mat' is true if and only if the cat is on the mat.
Now in considering these truth-conditions, the question arises as whether or not one can specify evidence transcending truth-conditions. While it is in principle possible to have a perceptual causal connection to cats sitting on mats such that one can truly know when or if the requisite conditions are fulfilled such that 'the cat is on the mat' is true, this is not so with regard to most theological statements. What causal connection can one have to states of affairs like 'there are three distinct persons united in one divine being or essence'? How could one ever be said to know this is the case? Those who for this reason reject the possibility of evidence transcending truth-conditions are antirealist with respect particular classes of statements. While language like 'there are three distinct persons in one divine being or essence' are perhaps warrantably assertible, they have no truth-conditions, for the condition for the possibility of truth-conditions cannot be met. To accept the possibilty of evidence transcending truth-conditions for a class of statements is to be realist with regard to that class of statements. The question is this: Should Lutherans accept a realist construal for their theological language? Over the last 200 years Lutherans have progressively become less and less sanguine that theological language has truth-conditions, and that is thus can be given a realist construal.
Friday, December 08, 2006
On Truth-Conditions in Theology
In his influential book, The Nature of Doctrine, George Lindbeck discusses three general semantic approaches to theological and religious language. The cognitive-propositional approach assumes that theological statements have truth values because they either state what is or what is not the case. The experiential-expressivist strategy understands theological statements to be somehow expressive of human attitudes and orientations. Finally, the cultural-linguistic approach believes that theological statements are rules assumed by the theological community, rules that are themselves neither true nor false, but which ground further employment of theological and religious language. Of these three approaches, only the first grants robust truth-conditions to theological language.
Contemporary theology, of course, has deep problems with ascribing truth-conditions to its language. Ever since the days of Kant, the academic elite in Europe has been engaged in the project of doing theology without assuming God to be real - - or at least not "real" in the way that other things in the universe are real. God is either an ideal of human reason or an abstract object who is incapable of having causal relations with the universe. Tillich spoke of such a god as the "ground of being" or the "depth of being" in order to distinguish this being from any beings within the "structure of being." Of course, causal relations hold only among beings within the structure of being. (I will simply ignore the question here as to whether the Tillichian structure of being is a noematic structure or a structure existing apart from the noematic entirely. As it turns out, for our question this distinction is not important.)
Since God is not a being within the structure of being, statements about God cannot have truth-conditions in the way that statements about other objects in the universe can. If statements about such a God are to be true or false, they must somehow correspond to what is so within the structure of being, or be consistent and coherent with the language of other theories that themselves deal with the structure of being. However, if Kant is right, then God cannot be known as a member of the class of all beings, and thus a fortiori cannot be referred to by a language having definite truth-conditions. The assumption, of course, is that giving an extension to theological language involves the specification of a divine domain, divine properties, and relations (ordered n-tuples) having at least one term taking on a divine value, and the other (or others) the value of a member of the class of non-divine things. But dyadic (two-place) causal relations between God and any non-divine entity are clearly precluded by the Kantian starting point.
If theological language has no truth-conditions because it has no non-linguistic, non-mental domain to which it could refer, then it's use must serve some other function. Schleiermacher was perhaps the first clearly to grasp that theological language could be retained but assigned some other function. Instead of it having truth-conditions as if it were about something, it could be expressive or poetical, in its first-order use, and regulative and diagnostic in its second-order use. For Schleiermacher and many after him, theological language is neither true nor false, but rather expressively or regulatively adequate. Simply put, theological language is important not because of what it says about God, but what it expresses about us -- our experience and our condition. Theological language is thus not about God, but rather presents, evokes or displays the self. Instead of theos-logos, it is anthro-logos -- albeit, in a most roundabout way.
The problem with this should be apparent. Theological language that is merely expressive of the self or human experience does not have an extension and hence cannot be semantically relatable to entities within the universe. Such language is "doing something else" than claiming an object or ordered n-tuple is a member of a set; accordingly, it is doing something else than making a claim of truth. But surely this question is crucial: Does the term 'God' refer to a divine entity or does it merely express the self, and its aptitudes and orientations?
The reason why the question is crucial is apparent. Because human beings are beings who can pro-ject ahead of themselves various possibilities of being -- one of whose possibilities is the possibility of there being no more possibilities -- and because the referent of 'God' has traditionally been conceived to be an entity with salvific, causal power -- an entity causally-relatable to the human possibility of there being no more possibilities -- the very reason for employing 'God' is seemingly taken away when an extensionalist theological semantics is denied. One might go so far as to declare that whatever is referred to by 'God' is not referred to properly if the entity in question has no causal power. (On such a non-extensionalist construal, one might say that the entity in question has no causal power in each and every possible world in which it is ingredient.)
Since humans experience their death in the midst of life, the question of the reference of God is all important. Who, or what, can deliver a person from eternal death? Here the word 'deliver' has causal overtones. Only a being having causal power can liberate somebody from death. Why? The reason rests with the meaning of 'liberate'. For P to liberate x from y is for P to bring about a state of affairs of x in regard to y that would not have been brought about without P. (P cannot be said to free x from y if it were in x's power to get rid of y.) It is precisely this notion of bringing about a state of affairs that would not have been brought about otherwise that captures the causal relation. (Giving an analysis of 'cause' is, of course, a very difficult matter and we won't go into it here.)
A salvific, causal being is precisely the kind of being traditionally referred to by 'God'. Since we cannot deliver themselves from death, expressions of the self are improperly employed in combatting the critical salvific issues of human being. Moreover, these expressions may violate the very logic of theological discourse. How might this be so?
Theological language developed with a semantics that specified as its universe of discourse both worldly and divine objects, properties, relations, events and/or states of affairs. The point of such language was to claim satisfiability of a class of ordered pairs (or ordered n-tuples) by elements of this domain. So the question is simple: Does the criterion of application of 'theological language' extend beyond the semantics of traditional theological language to something quite different? I think a strong argument can be made that employment of a wholly different semantics properly precludes application of the term 'theological language' entirely. Accordingly, whatever it is that non-cognitive, non-propositionalist theologians now do, they do not do theology.
Contemporary theology, of course, has deep problems with ascribing truth-conditions to its language. Ever since the days of Kant, the academic elite in Europe has been engaged in the project of doing theology without assuming God to be real - - or at least not "real" in the way that other things in the universe are real. God is either an ideal of human reason or an abstract object who is incapable of having causal relations with the universe. Tillich spoke of such a god as the "ground of being" or the "depth of being" in order to distinguish this being from any beings within the "structure of being." Of course, causal relations hold only among beings within the structure of being. (I will simply ignore the question here as to whether the Tillichian structure of being is a noematic structure or a structure existing apart from the noematic entirely. As it turns out, for our question this distinction is not important.)
Since God is not a being within the structure of being, statements about God cannot have truth-conditions in the way that statements about other objects in the universe can. If statements about such a God are to be true or false, they must somehow correspond to what is so within the structure of being, or be consistent and coherent with the language of other theories that themselves deal with the structure of being. However, if Kant is right, then God cannot be known as a member of the class of all beings, and thus a fortiori cannot be referred to by a language having definite truth-conditions. The assumption, of course, is that giving an extension to theological language involves the specification of a divine domain, divine properties, and relations (ordered n-tuples) having at least one term taking on a divine value, and the other (or others) the value of a member of the class of non-divine things. But dyadic (two-place) causal relations between God and any non-divine entity are clearly precluded by the Kantian starting point.
If theological language has no truth-conditions because it has no non-linguistic, non-mental domain to which it could refer, then it's use must serve some other function. Schleiermacher was perhaps the first clearly to grasp that theological language could be retained but assigned some other function. Instead of it having truth-conditions as if it were about something, it could be expressive or poetical, in its first-order use, and regulative and diagnostic in its second-order use. For Schleiermacher and many after him, theological language is neither true nor false, but rather expressively or regulatively adequate. Simply put, theological language is important not because of what it says about God, but what it expresses about us -- our experience and our condition. Theological language is thus not about God, but rather presents, evokes or displays the self. Instead of theos-logos, it is anthro-logos -- albeit, in a most roundabout way.
The problem with this should be apparent. Theological language that is merely expressive of the self or human experience does not have an extension and hence cannot be semantically relatable to entities within the universe. Such language is "doing something else" than claiming an object or ordered n-tuple is a member of a set; accordingly, it is doing something else than making a claim of truth. But surely this question is crucial: Does the term 'God' refer to a divine entity or does it merely express the self, and its aptitudes and orientations?
The reason why the question is crucial is apparent. Because human beings are beings who can pro-ject ahead of themselves various possibilities of being -- one of whose possibilities is the possibility of there being no more possibilities -- and because the referent of 'God' has traditionally been conceived to be an entity with salvific, causal power -- an entity causally-relatable to the human possibility of there being no more possibilities -- the very reason for employing 'God' is seemingly taken away when an extensionalist theological semantics is denied. One might go so far as to declare that whatever is referred to by 'God' is not referred to properly if the entity in question has no causal power. (On such a non-extensionalist construal, one might say that the entity in question has no causal power in each and every possible world in which it is ingredient.)
Since humans experience their death in the midst of life, the question of the reference of God is all important. Who, or what, can deliver a person from eternal death? Here the word 'deliver' has causal overtones. Only a being having causal power can liberate somebody from death. Why? The reason rests with the meaning of 'liberate'. For P to liberate x from y is for P to bring about a state of affairs of x in regard to y that would not have been brought about without P. (P cannot be said to free x from y if it were in x's power to get rid of y.) It is precisely this notion of bringing about a state of affairs that would not have been brought about otherwise that captures the causal relation. (Giving an analysis of 'cause' is, of course, a very difficult matter and we won't go into it here.)
A salvific, causal being is precisely the kind of being traditionally referred to by 'God'. Since we cannot deliver themselves from death, expressions of the self are improperly employed in combatting the critical salvific issues of human being. Moreover, these expressions may violate the very logic of theological discourse. How might this be so?
Theological language developed with a semantics that specified as its universe of discourse both worldly and divine objects, properties, relations, events and/or states of affairs. The point of such language was to claim satisfiability of a class of ordered pairs (or ordered n-tuples) by elements of this domain. So the question is simple: Does the criterion of application of 'theological language' extend beyond the semantics of traditional theological language to something quite different? I think a strong argument can be made that employment of a wholly different semantics properly precludes application of the term 'theological language' entirely. Accordingly, whatever it is that non-cognitive, non-propositionalist theologians now do, they do not do theology.
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