For some time now I have been interested in theological semantics. Reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus thirty years ago, made me acutely aware of the problems we encounter when we try to talk about extra-worldly" things. (I include any talk about a talking about extra-worldly things as itself an extra-worldly thing.) Wittgenstein's distinction among propositions having Sinn (sense), those that are sinnlos (senseless), and those having nicht Sinn (nonsense), was for me very convincing that theology encounters significant problems in its speaking. Because I thought in those days that getting clear on semantics could be done independently from affirming or presupposing a metaphysic, I thought that there was some global problem with theological semantics. The language simply could not refer properly, it could not clearly affirm a state of affairs that one could falsify. Because I was hoping to become a theologian, the idea that the language of the trade was strictly speaking nonsense, caused me considerable discomfort.
While I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the general problem of theological language, over the the years I have gradually come to understand that a deep relationship exists between semantics and metaphysics and/or ontology. There simply are no semantic facts and judgments that can be made (or presupposed) independently of what one believes is that case. For the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, a metaphysical atomism nicely accompanies his semantic nominalism. If it is true that facts comprise the world - - "Die Welt ist die Gesamtheit der Tatsache, nicht der Dingen - - and if there are not ethical, philosophical, aesthetic and theological facts, then the propositions purporting to talk about these things must be "pseudo-propositions." They look like they are making factual claims, but are finally not doing so.
Because of the press of many matters, I have not developed adequately what I regard to be the case: The Lutheran Reformers were unreflective theological realists and the presupposition of such a realism made them theological semantic realists as well. For those who wrote, read, debated, and signed the various confessional documents, there was simply no question that the language of the documents referred to divine entities, properties, events and states of affairs. Furthermore, because they believed that a divine realm exists outside of human awareness, perception, conception and language, the language could rather unproblematically connect to it, and state what is the case (or not the case) with respect to it. Confessions-talk is thus talk "in the material mode;" for the Reformers it made truth-claims of the world, for the world of the Reformers was filled with facts about which Wittgenstein would be astonished. His judgment that human language was unable to picture in logical space the transcendent was simply an admission of what philosophers since the Enlightenment presupposed: Talk of the divine was, in general, on very problematic epistemological footing.
This epistemic liability is related to ontology: One either says that we cannot affirm p because we cannot know that p is, or that we can affirm p even though we don't know for sure that p is - -or perhaps that our criterion of "for sure" has changed. In the Reformation period, when what it meant to know "for sure" was different than the Enlightenment, one could reasonably hold metaphysical facts that later became quite unreasonable. As it goes with metaphysics, so it goes with semantics. If it is unreasonable to hold a particular metaphysics, then it is reasonable to revise our language or, like Wittgenstein, claim that there is something about our natural language that makes it the case that it naturally can refer to states of affairs of a materialist or physicalist nature, but cannot picture a theological order at all.
We theologians who learned that the theological task must go through Kant learned to neglect certain questions and to prioritize others. The possibility of theological semantics (including theological truth) had to begin with a rejection of the very possibility of theological and semantic realism. Trained in the post-Kantian theological tradition, we looked at the texts of the Lutheran Confessions with quite different eyes than those who formulated, debated, and signed them. The questions that were of interest to us were naturally about things that could be of interest to us.
None of this is, of course, necessarilya bad thing. Classic texts have a deep fecundity; their history of interpretation takes them sometimes far from the contexts in which they are written. However, when the Churches of the Augsburg Confession find themselves no longer able deeply to recognize each other, then the question arises: When has the interpretation ceased any claim to normativity? How does one determine what is normative about such normativity in this case? Is there a set of presuppositions or affirmations that grounds a normative stance on the Confessions?
My sense is that Lutherans will continue to talk past each other as long as they are unwilling to articulate their ontologies. We live in a far different context than that of Wilhelm Hermann who claimed the independence of theological assertion from metaphysics. In a time where society and culture no longer grant a continuity of theological practice and expression (through a difference of ontological interpretation), people are searching again for authentic claims. They are not looking to find some way to justify the continued use of a theological language in the face of modern philosophical and scientific developments, but rather they search for a ground or reason to employ such language at all. As it was in the beginning of the Christian tradition, so it is now: The only reason to employ the language is that we Christians regard something to be true that non-Christians do not so regard. But the question of truth is always connected to the question of being. So it is that we Lutheran Christians must ask, "What is it that we hold to be so that others don't so hold, that is what it is apart from us, and that we sense the need to tell others about? What is this thing?
The Reformers could not have entertained this question without presupposing a rather explicit theological realism. The question for us is simply this: Can we? I used to think we could, but I no longer believe this. If Christ has not risen from the dead, than we Christians are the most to be pitied.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Friday, July 01, 2011
Institute of Lutheran Theology Happenings
As many of you know, I have had the opportunity these last years to serve as the founding president of the Institute of Lutheran Theology. I have been grateful to have been able to do this. The time came a few months ago, however, for me to reevaluate what it is that I can do and can't do. With the Institute growing so quickly, it just is not possible any longer for me to serve both as President of ILT and Vice President of Academic Affairs. Accordingly, as of the June ILT Board meeting I am no longer president of this organization, but now VP of Academic Affairs only, I am very excited to be back doing mostly academic work, and am thrilled about the new person the ILT Board has selected to represent ILT as president. The announcement of this new person will come later this summer.
Many people connected with the Institute of Lutheran Theology have recently been contacted by a former staff person of ILT concerning a new start-up entitled "St. Paul Lutheran Seminary." As it turns out, two former staff members of ILT are advertising that a new seminary will be on-line this fall, and they have apparently gotten one former ILT faculty member to teach for them. Like the ILT Board and the rest of the ILT staff, I am concerned that people understand that "St. Paul Lutheran Seminary" is in no way connected to ILT. Its efforts are neither supported nor sanctioned by ILT.
Now the question arises: What motivation might there be to start a new seminary? It seems that when things like this happen within Lutheran circles, there are generally the following motivations:
One might start a new seminary because of theological reasons. However, it appears that the new entity has no theological differences with ILT. The Institute has always tried to understand Lutheran theology in the context of its origination and development, and related this theology to the contemporary intellectual horizon. I doubt if the new organization is opposed to this.
One might start a new seminary because of ecclesioloigical reasons. However, it appears that the new entity is striving to serve the same market as ILT. The Institute has always tried to serve LCMC and NALC congregations, and support as well those ELCA congregations who sense they are not being fed theologically by the ELCA seminaries.
One might start a new seminary because of structural/organizational reasons. However, it appears that the organization of ILT as a "distributed residential community" with non-geographic "Designated Teaching Centers" using the latest in synchronous technology is one with which the new entity might agree.
Sometimes it is said that if one puts three Lutherans in the same room, one gets three different theological traditions. Lutherans have traditionally privileged truth over unity. When important doctrinal/theological issues are at stake, Lutherans have historically separated from one another. However, Lutherans need not be opposed to unity. We can work together. Sometimes unity is a very good thing. ILT has always hoped that one seminary might develop to be the voice of theological conscience within present day Lutheran diaspora. I do not think the present context warrants a division or reduplication of efforts in the building of a truly confessional Lutheran seminary.
I have been working on trying to build ILT for about six years now. We have now a very fine faculty, scores of students, a great curriculum, dozens of congregations relating closely to us, and the financial stability to accomplish those things we believe that God has put before us. The future is very exciting! Let us work together in trust and love.
Soli deo gloria.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
On an Infinite Regress of Causes
The general structure of cosmological arguments is well known: Starting from general features about the world (e.g., that there is movement), these arguments proceed by pointing out that these general features must have a cause, and this cause must have a cause, and since if there were no first cause there would not be any subsequent causes, there must indeed be a first cause.
Much has been written over the years about cosmological arguments, and there are, in truth, many different types of such arguments. One must distinguish in esse arguments (arguments in the order of ontological dependency) from in fieri arguments (arguments in the order of temporal becoming). One must distinguish arguments that proceed from the fact of contingency from arguments proceeding from movement or causality. One must distinguish arguments that use the principle of sufficient reason from arguments that do not make explicit use of this principle. To enter into any discussion of the diverse array of such arguments shall not be our concern here. What I want to deal with in this post is an interesting attack by James Sadowsky on the notion that there can be an infinite regress of causes ("Can there be an Endless Regress of Cause," International Philosophical Quarterly, 20-4, 1980).
Sadowky points out that the operative principle in the cosmological argument is that "if each cause of A were itself in need of a cause, then no cause of A could exist and hence A itself could not exist." From this the argument proceeds easily: A (let us say there is motion in the world) exists and thus all of A's causes are not in need of a cause, that is, there is some cause that is itself not in need of a cause. [One thinks here perhaps of Schopenhauer's quote that the law of universal causation is like "a hired cab that one dismisses when one reaches one's destination."]
Critics of cosmological arguments oftentimes point to the obvious fact that in order for A to be, there must be some B which causes A, and in order for B to be there must be some C that causes B, and that this series can run back to infinity. Think for a moment about the infinite series of integers. For every integer I, there is some integer 'I - 1' such that I is generated from 'I - 1' by adding '1'. Any integer can be "caused" by taking the preceding integer and adding one. There is no problem with this series running back to infinity, of course. If it did not, we would have a pretty truncated mathematics.
But proponents of cosmological arguments often make claims about how an actual infinite is not possible - - after all, Aristotle said so - - and that the analogy between an infinite causal series in the world and the infinite series of integers is not great. For the infinite causal series, the operative principle specified previously holds, which does not in the generation of infinite mathematical series: If each cause of A were itself in need of a cause, then no cause of A could exist and hence A itself could not exist.
Sadowsky asks us to compare the statement of the cosmological argument that no causation can take place because each act of causation requires a previous act of causation with the following: no permission can be asked for because each asking of permission requires a prior asking of permission. Consider this statement:
1) No one may do anything (including asking for permission) without asking for permission.
Is (1) true? It seems not, for how could it be that the condition for asking for permission is itself the asking of permission. It seems that permission asking in order to do every X cannot run back to infinity, because X includes the asking of permission. The activity of asking for permission cannot run back to infinity because there would be no first asking of permission and thus no subsequent series of permission asking.
Sadowsky asks us now to consider Ryle's demolition of the so-called "Intellectual Legend": Never do anything (including thinking) without first thinking about it. Consider then (2):
2) No one ought to anything (including thinking) without first thinking about it.
Is (2) true? It seems not, for how could it be that the condition for thinking is itself based upon thinking? It seems that an infinite series of intellectual reflection based upon intellectual reflection is impossible, for how can it be that one's reflection on something (call it X) must result from X?
Although Sadowsky does not explicitly say so, he supposes that (1) and (2) are unsatisfiable, that is, there cannot be a state of affairs of every act of intellectual thinking being dependent upon anterior acts of intellectual thinking. Why? Because if there is real contingency in intellectual thinking - - if it is possible to consider propositions either shrewdly (intellectually) or stupidly - - and the condition for considering propositions shrewdly (intellectually) is a prior condition of having considered propositions shrewdly (intellectually) and not stupidly, then in order for there to be subsequent acts of intellectual consideration there must have been a first act of intellectual consideration. In other words, there is no possible world in which there can be an infinite regress in the order of prior intellectual operations as a prerequisite of subsequent intellectual operations. There must be a first intellectual operation that grounds subsequent intellectual operations, or there would have been no subsequent intellectual operations. Similarly, there must be a first permission that grounds subsequent acts of granting permission. There can be no possible world in which one cannot do anything without first asking permission, if it is true that "doing anything" includes the seeking of permission.
In (2) it is impossible to break into a series of intellectual considerations without there being an intellectual consideration not grounded in anterior intellectual considerations. In (1) there cannot be a breaking into the series of permissions without there being a first permission granting that needs not anterior permission. We have here the claim that there must be intellectual consideration that is not the result of an intellectual consideration, and a permission seeking that is not the result of a permission seeking. Now the question is simply this: is an infinite regress in the order of causes analogous to these two cases? Is it true that (3) is unsatisfiable?
3) For each and every cause, there must be a cause of that cause.
Is the denial of (3) somehow contraditory? Is it contradictory to have an uncaused causer? Or, put differently, if there must be an an unpermitted permitter, and a nonintellectualized, intellectualizer, why not an uncaused causer? Why should causality be regarded differently?
It seems that the answer to this might lie in the different contexts in which intellectual considerations, permission seeking, and causing inhabit. It strikes me that intellectual considerations and permission-seekings are teleological activities. Take, for instance, the notion of an infinite series of purposes. It seems like an infinite order in the series of final causes is indeed unthinkable. If everything that occurs, occurs for the sake of something else, is it not true that there must be finally something for which all things occur. (Heidegger traces this back to Dasein, of course.) No infinite regress in the order of teleological "reasons for" is possible, for it seems, that in order for there to be subsequent "reasons for" there must be a first "that upon which all reasons are ultimately reasons for."
Most of the time, however, we regard the order of causes as a nonteleological context: A causes B which causes C, etc. In a universe without meaning or purpose, why would an infinite series of causes not be allowed? Of course, there is not a first cause on the basis of which subsequent causes are! That is the point of thinking about an order of causes purely extensionally. There is nothing unsatisfiable about (3), though there might be about (3') below:
3') For each and every reason, there must be a reason for that reason.
I think many people would dispute (3') being satisfiable on the basis of there being finally a 'brute reason or purpose' on the basis of which other reasons find their positions. (Heidegger would agree here.) We often trace human reasoning back to a human telos generally. Why did Bob do x? He had such and such reasons for doing x. But why did he have these reasons? Because he ultimately desired that some y come about, and he reasoned in ways that would eventuate in y. But why did he desire that some y come about? Reasons must stop somewhere, and one might just say that his desire for y just is. Is it reasonable? Perhaps, but it is not reasonable based upon other reasons. It is an unreasoned reason.
Sadowsky has forced us to see more clearly into what we often mean by an infinite regress in the order of causes. We mean something that is quite without meaning. It seems in an unthinking universe without value and purpose there could be an infinite series of causes. Whether a thing is or is not is not the same kind of question as whether a proposition is reasonable or not. While the second concerns a teleological context where an infinite regress is impossible, this is not so of the first. Or at least that is what one might reasonably say.
Much has been written over the years about cosmological arguments, and there are, in truth, many different types of such arguments. One must distinguish in esse arguments (arguments in the order of ontological dependency) from in fieri arguments (arguments in the order of temporal becoming). One must distinguish arguments that proceed from the fact of contingency from arguments proceeding from movement or causality. One must distinguish arguments that use the principle of sufficient reason from arguments that do not make explicit use of this principle. To enter into any discussion of the diverse array of such arguments shall not be our concern here. What I want to deal with in this post is an interesting attack by James Sadowsky on the notion that there can be an infinite regress of causes ("Can there be an Endless Regress of Cause," International Philosophical Quarterly, 20-4, 1980).
Sadowky points out that the operative principle in the cosmological argument is that "if each cause of A were itself in need of a cause, then no cause of A could exist and hence A itself could not exist." From this the argument proceeds easily: A (let us say there is motion in the world) exists and thus all of A's causes are not in need of a cause, that is, there is some cause that is itself not in need of a cause. [One thinks here perhaps of Schopenhauer's quote that the law of universal causation is like "a hired cab that one dismisses when one reaches one's destination."]
Critics of cosmological arguments oftentimes point to the obvious fact that in order for A to be, there must be some B which causes A, and in order for B to be there must be some C that causes B, and that this series can run back to infinity. Think for a moment about the infinite series of integers. For every integer I, there is some integer 'I - 1' such that I is generated from 'I - 1' by adding '1'. Any integer can be "caused" by taking the preceding integer and adding one. There is no problem with this series running back to infinity, of course. If it did not, we would have a pretty truncated mathematics.
But proponents of cosmological arguments often make claims about how an actual infinite is not possible - - after all, Aristotle said so - - and that the analogy between an infinite causal series in the world and the infinite series of integers is not great. For the infinite causal series, the operative principle specified previously holds, which does not in the generation of infinite mathematical series: If each cause of A were itself in need of a cause, then no cause of A could exist and hence A itself could not exist.
Sadowsky asks us to compare the statement of the cosmological argument that no causation can take place because each act of causation requires a previous act of causation with the following: no permission can be asked for because each asking of permission requires a prior asking of permission. Consider this statement:
1) No one may do anything (including asking for permission) without asking for permission.
Is (1) true? It seems not, for how could it be that the condition for asking for permission is itself the asking of permission. It seems that permission asking in order to do every X cannot run back to infinity, because X includes the asking of permission. The activity of asking for permission cannot run back to infinity because there would be no first asking of permission and thus no subsequent series of permission asking.
Sadowsky asks us now to consider Ryle's demolition of the so-called "Intellectual Legend": Never do anything (including thinking) without first thinking about it. Consider then (2):
2) No one ought to anything (including thinking) without first thinking about it.
Is (2) true? It seems not, for how could it be that the condition for thinking is itself based upon thinking? It seems that an infinite series of intellectual reflection based upon intellectual reflection is impossible, for how can it be that one's reflection on something (call it X) must result from X?
Although Sadowsky does not explicitly say so, he supposes that (1) and (2) are unsatisfiable, that is, there cannot be a state of affairs of every act of intellectual thinking being dependent upon anterior acts of intellectual thinking. Why? Because if there is real contingency in intellectual thinking - - if it is possible to consider propositions either shrewdly (intellectually) or stupidly - - and the condition for considering propositions shrewdly (intellectually) is a prior condition of having considered propositions shrewdly (intellectually) and not stupidly, then in order for there to be subsequent acts of intellectual consideration there must have been a first act of intellectual consideration. In other words, there is no possible world in which there can be an infinite regress in the order of prior intellectual operations as a prerequisite of subsequent intellectual operations. There must be a first intellectual operation that grounds subsequent intellectual operations, or there would have been no subsequent intellectual operations. Similarly, there must be a first permission that grounds subsequent acts of granting permission. There can be no possible world in which one cannot do anything without first asking permission, if it is true that "doing anything" includes the seeking of permission.
In (2) it is impossible to break into a series of intellectual considerations without there being an intellectual consideration not grounded in anterior intellectual considerations. In (1) there cannot be a breaking into the series of permissions without there being a first permission granting that needs not anterior permission. We have here the claim that there must be intellectual consideration that is not the result of an intellectual consideration, and a permission seeking that is not the result of a permission seeking. Now the question is simply this: is an infinite regress in the order of causes analogous to these two cases? Is it true that (3) is unsatisfiable?
3) For each and every cause, there must be a cause of that cause.
Is the denial of (3) somehow contraditory? Is it contradictory to have an uncaused causer? Or, put differently, if there must be an an unpermitted permitter, and a nonintellectualized, intellectualizer, why not an uncaused causer? Why should causality be regarded differently?
It seems that the answer to this might lie in the different contexts in which intellectual considerations, permission seeking, and causing inhabit. It strikes me that intellectual considerations and permission-seekings are teleological activities. Take, for instance, the notion of an infinite series of purposes. It seems like an infinite order in the series of final causes is indeed unthinkable. If everything that occurs, occurs for the sake of something else, is it not true that there must be finally something for which all things occur. (Heidegger traces this back to Dasein, of course.) No infinite regress in the order of teleological "reasons for" is possible, for it seems, that in order for there to be subsequent "reasons for" there must be a first "that upon which all reasons are ultimately reasons for."
Most of the time, however, we regard the order of causes as a nonteleological context: A causes B which causes C, etc. In a universe without meaning or purpose, why would an infinite series of causes not be allowed? Of course, there is not a first cause on the basis of which subsequent causes are! That is the point of thinking about an order of causes purely extensionally. There is nothing unsatisfiable about (3), though there might be about (3') below:
3') For each and every reason, there must be a reason for that reason.
I think many people would dispute (3') being satisfiable on the basis of there being finally a 'brute reason or purpose' on the basis of which other reasons find their positions. (Heidegger would agree here.) We often trace human reasoning back to a human telos generally. Why did Bob do x? He had such and such reasons for doing x. But why did he have these reasons? Because he ultimately desired that some y come about, and he reasoned in ways that would eventuate in y. But why did he desire that some y come about? Reasons must stop somewhere, and one might just say that his desire for y just is. Is it reasonable? Perhaps, but it is not reasonable based upon other reasons. It is an unreasoned reason.
Sadowsky has forced us to see more clearly into what we often mean by an infinite regress in the order of causes. We mean something that is quite without meaning. It seems in an unthinking universe without value and purpose there could be an infinite series of causes. Whether a thing is or is not is not the same kind of question as whether a proposition is reasonable or not. While the second concerns a teleological context where an infinite regress is impossible, this is not so of the first. Or at least that is what one might reasonably say.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tremendum et Fascinans
Joel 2:1-18 speaks of the "Day of the Lord." This day is "a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come." The people are waiting for the Day of the Lord perhaps as children wait for Christmas. But this is folly, for this Day will be nothing like they expect.
In the heyday of dialectical theology 90 years ago or so, theologians emphasized the totaliter aliter, of the divine, the "wholly otherness" of God. The times were indeed ripe to talk of God as that nullity which effectively judges being. They proclaimed that one cannot find God by finding Him somewhere in the field of being, no matter the lofty region He might inhabit. If God really is infinitely qualitatively different from His creation, then this difference cannot merely be some adjustment of form or quality within a common potentiality spreading from the heavens to earth. No! Divine being must be totaliter aliter than the potentiality that lies within being itself. In other words, God is wholly other than what the philosophers once called "prime matter." To speak of uncreated divine being and created being under the general category of "being" is deeply problematic, for how could God be the Krisis of the world if he retains a place within it?
No matter how we might try to think the being of divine being, it is a different type of thing we think than the being of created being. God is so radically different from created being that we use the word 'being' a bit improperly to describe Him. God and the universe form ontological antipodes: God is what the universe is not, and the universe is what God is not. This ontological gap between the creator and creature is a necessary condition for the grace-full contingency of creation itself. If the created order where merely an adjustment on the uncreated order, then the gap between the divine and not-divine narrows to the point that what God is, is no longer what the universe is not. On this view Emerson would be right in saying, "Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line, Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine." On this view, God's otherness is lost and God becomes less than God.
Why does God become less than God when God's otherness is lost? How can the asymmetrical relation of 'being other than' somehow make God other than God is? If God has a determinate being, and x regards God as other and y does not, is God more God for x than x? This is but another way of asking the realist question of God: Is God externally or internally related to His creation?
What is necessary is to distinguish God-in-Himself, versus God-in-regard-to us. While divine being has the contour it has apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language, what human beings regard to be God is deeply dependent upon how God is for them. While God is God apart from whether or not God appears distant or close to x, x will regard something as God only if God is not wholly proximate to x. What I am saying is very simple: For something to be regarded as God by person p, there must be an experience of extraordinary distance for p in the presence of this putative divinity. God cannot be God for p if p does not fear God as that before which p feels puny, is overwhelmed, and experiences shudder. For p - - and I would generalize to great numbers of people - - that which is not experienced as distant cannot ultimately be God.
The paradox of the Christian proclamation is that the Distant One, however, loves us. The experience of the divine has the character both of divine distance and proximity. While that which is not distant cannot be God, that which is not close cannot save us. The tremendum which is necessary for p to regard something as God is at the same time the fascinans by and through which humans are drawn to God. Our experience under the condition of existence is not a healthy one. What is needed is salvation from that which is not ultimately us. Just as creation is the free act of a being ontologically discontinuous from the divine itself, so is redemption a free action of a being ontologically discontinuous from human existence as such. While a God that is not distant cannot be God, so too a God that is too distant cannot save. The necessary condition for x to regard g as God is that g is distant from x; the necessary condition for x to be saved by g is that g is close to x. For human being, God purchases salvation generally by sacrificing divinity; he purchases his divinity by sacrificing His soteriological intimacy. This is the way of nondialectical assertions within the field of being.
The dialectical theologians were fond at pronouncing paradoxical phrases. None perhaps is more paradoxical than these we must make: Only the Distant One is ultimately Close to us. Only the One whose impassibility precludes the sentiment of love can ever really love us.
In the heyday of dialectical theology 90 years ago or so, theologians emphasized the totaliter aliter, of the divine, the "wholly otherness" of God. The times were indeed ripe to talk of God as that nullity which effectively judges being. They proclaimed that one cannot find God by finding Him somewhere in the field of being, no matter the lofty region He might inhabit. If God really is infinitely qualitatively different from His creation, then this difference cannot merely be some adjustment of form or quality within a common potentiality spreading from the heavens to earth. No! Divine being must be totaliter aliter than the potentiality that lies within being itself. In other words, God is wholly other than what the philosophers once called "prime matter." To speak of uncreated divine being and created being under the general category of "being" is deeply problematic, for how could God be the Krisis of the world if he retains a place within it?
No matter how we might try to think the being of divine being, it is a different type of thing we think than the being of created being. God is so radically different from created being that we use the word 'being' a bit improperly to describe Him. God and the universe form ontological antipodes: God is what the universe is not, and the universe is what God is not. This ontological gap between the creator and creature is a necessary condition for the grace-full contingency of creation itself. If the created order where merely an adjustment on the uncreated order, then the gap between the divine and not-divine narrows to the point that what God is, is no longer what the universe is not. On this view Emerson would be right in saying, "Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line, Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine." On this view, God's otherness is lost and God becomes less than God.
Why does God become less than God when God's otherness is lost? How can the asymmetrical relation of 'being other than' somehow make God other than God is? If God has a determinate being, and x regards God as other and y does not, is God more God for x than x? This is but another way of asking the realist question of God: Is God externally or internally related to His creation?
What is necessary is to distinguish God-in-Himself, versus God-in-regard-to us. While divine being has the contour it has apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language, what human beings regard to be God is deeply dependent upon how God is for them. While God is God apart from whether or not God appears distant or close to x, x will regard something as God only if God is not wholly proximate to x. What I am saying is very simple: For something to be regarded as God by person p, there must be an experience of extraordinary distance for p in the presence of this putative divinity. God cannot be God for p if p does not fear God as that before which p feels puny, is overwhelmed, and experiences shudder. For p - - and I would generalize to great numbers of people - - that which is not experienced as distant cannot ultimately be God.
The paradox of the Christian proclamation is that the Distant One, however, loves us. The experience of the divine has the character both of divine distance and proximity. While that which is not distant cannot be God, that which is not close cannot save us. The tremendum which is necessary for p to regard something as God is at the same time the fascinans by and through which humans are drawn to God. Our experience under the condition of existence is not a healthy one. What is needed is salvation from that which is not ultimately us. Just as creation is the free act of a being ontologically discontinuous from the divine itself, so is redemption a free action of a being ontologically discontinuous from human existence as such. While a God that is not distant cannot be God, so too a God that is too distant cannot save. The necessary condition for x to regard g as God is that g is distant from x; the necessary condition for x to be saved by g is that g is close to x. For human being, God purchases salvation generally by sacrificing divinity; he purchases his divinity by sacrificing His soteriological intimacy. This is the way of nondialectical assertions within the field of being.
The dialectical theologians were fond at pronouncing paradoxical phrases. None perhaps is more paradoxical than these we must make: Only the Distant One is ultimately Close to us. Only the One whose impassibility precludes the sentiment of love can ever really love us.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Theological Realism and Christology
One of our assumptions at the Institute of Lutheran Theology is theological realism, the notion that God exists and has a definite contour apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language. While this would not be a surprising claim for most believers throughout Christian history, it is somewhat of a bold claim today, 230 years after the publication of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. For most of the nineteenth century, attempts were made to talk intelligibly about God while at the same time not affirming that God is a metaphysical substance capable of sustaining causal relations with His universe. This penchant survives and is deeply presupposed in much Protestant theology, especially of the Lutheran persuasion.
Yesterday as I preached on 2 Peter 1:16-21, it struck me that no matter how robust the claim of theological realism is, the claim of Christological realism is be even more bold. Imagine claiming that Christology is objective, that it is an evidence-transcending propositional truth about the universe that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Imagine making such a powerful claim that the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ is factual, that is, that Christ's suffering, death and resurrection exist apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language! It seems to me, on reading these passages from Peter, that the claim of factuality is emphasized precisely over and against claims that the proclamation of Christ is mythological, that the proclamation somehow is a response to our inchoate religious yearnings.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I think Heideggerian thoughts much of the time. I have always been deeply convinced of the rectitude of Heidegger's analysis of human existence and authenticity in the face of the phenomenon of death. For much of my adult days I have assumed with Heidegger that death is basically a phenomenological reality, that only in life is there death, because there can be no death for death - - as Epicurus famously taught.
But while Heidegger's phenomenological analysis is deeply persuasive and penetrating on this point, because it is phenomenological it cannot deal with the relationship between the phenomenological and that which grounds the phenomenological. The reason is easy to see: To reflect and articulate the relationship between the phenomenological and the non-phenomenological is no longer to describe the phenomenological, but to conceive why the phenomenological has the contour it has.
Yet while moving beyond a phenomenological analysis may not a phenomenological analysis make, clearly it is not unreasonable to ask what grounds the phenomenology of death. One does not have to think very profoundly to answer that question: The phenomenology of death is grounded in the factuality of death. We live with one foot in nonbeing because we shall someday fully be nonbeing. A reasonable person not unduly timid about ontology would certainly assert such a thing. (Maybe phenomenological ontology is finally an ontology of the timid . . . )
When reading 2 Peter 1:16-21, it seems clear that the last testament of the writer to the truth of Christ is a testament of the factuality of Christ, that is, the writer wants us to know that the proclamation that liberates us in the face of death is itself grounded in the reality of the one that liberates us from death. Just as death is not a linguistic event but a fact as well as our phenomenon of it, to too is liberation from death not merely a linguistic event, but a fact as well as our phenomenon of it. In other words, just as my death exists apart from my awareness, perception, conception and language, so too does my liberation from death exist apart from those things as well.
Why is theological realism important? Because Christian theological realism just is Christological realism. But why is Christological realism important? Because as the writer of 2 Peter declares, "We do not follow cleverly devised myths when we made know to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty" (16).
Yesterday as I preached on 2 Peter 1:16-21, it struck me that no matter how robust the claim of theological realism is, the claim of Christological realism is be even more bold. Imagine claiming that Christology is objective, that it is an evidence-transcending propositional truth about the universe that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Imagine making such a powerful claim that the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ is factual, that is, that Christ's suffering, death and resurrection exist apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language! It seems to me, on reading these passages from Peter, that the claim of factuality is emphasized precisely over and against claims that the proclamation of Christ is mythological, that the proclamation somehow is a response to our inchoate religious yearnings.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I think Heideggerian thoughts much of the time. I have always been deeply convinced of the rectitude of Heidegger's analysis of human existence and authenticity in the face of the phenomenon of death. For much of my adult days I have assumed with Heidegger that death is basically a phenomenological reality, that only in life is there death, because there can be no death for death - - as Epicurus famously taught.
But while Heidegger's phenomenological analysis is deeply persuasive and penetrating on this point, because it is phenomenological it cannot deal with the relationship between the phenomenological and that which grounds the phenomenological. The reason is easy to see: To reflect and articulate the relationship between the phenomenological and the non-phenomenological is no longer to describe the phenomenological, but to conceive why the phenomenological has the contour it has.
Yet while moving beyond a phenomenological analysis may not a phenomenological analysis make, clearly it is not unreasonable to ask what grounds the phenomenology of death. One does not have to think very profoundly to answer that question: The phenomenology of death is grounded in the factuality of death. We live with one foot in nonbeing because we shall someday fully be nonbeing. A reasonable person not unduly timid about ontology would certainly assert such a thing. (Maybe phenomenological ontology is finally an ontology of the timid . . . )
When reading 2 Peter 1:16-21, it seems clear that the last testament of the writer to the truth of Christ is a testament of the factuality of Christ, that is, the writer wants us to know that the proclamation that liberates us in the face of death is itself grounded in the reality of the one that liberates us from death. Just as death is not a linguistic event but a fact as well as our phenomenon of it, to too is liberation from death not merely a linguistic event, but a fact as well as our phenomenon of it. In other words, just as my death exists apart from my awareness, perception, conception and language, so too does my liberation from death exist apart from those things as well.
Why is theological realism important? Because Christian theological realism just is Christological realism. But why is Christological realism important? Because as the writer of 2 Peter declares, "We do not follow cleverly devised myths when we made know to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty" (16).
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Thinking and Thanking
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger was fond of the seventeenth century Pietist phrase, “Denken ist Danken, (to think is to thank).” Heidegger writes, “Pure thanks lies in this, that we simply think that which is solely and properly to-be-thought.”
But what is it that properly ought to be thought? For Heidegger, it is Being-Itself, and thinking of this being is itself a thanking for being. Much of Heidegger's later work is a poetic exploration of the common etymology between thinking and thanking, and I recommend his ruminations to those so inclined. But what has this philosopher to do with the question of God and Lutheran theology generally? And what has thinking and thanking to do with the Institute of Lutheran Theology?
Heidegger distinguishes calculative thinking from meditative thinking, claiming that while the first attempts to grasp being, the second responds to it by “thinking after” it as it discloses itself. While Heidegger never calls Being-itself 'God', the connection is palpable. Just as light-itself lights the world, so does Being-itself radiate beings. Accordingly, Being-itself is the “ground” of all that is, a ground that cannot be investigated in the way of other things. The answer to the first question about God is that just as Being-itself is the ultimate ground from which beings arise, so too is God the creative mystery at the heart of the universe.
Heidegger realized that while being could not be grasped by human thinking - -for such thinking always presupposes being - - human thinking is nonetheless a way of be-ing. Accordingly, while the human subject cannot grasp the object (being), the object can and does call forth the subject's thinking of it. Simply put, while attempts to grasp the divine always end in failure, the divine successfully reveals itself to us. The answer to the second question about Lutheran theology is that what the law cannot do is done by the grace of God. God's revelation in our lives is something we cannot coax, engineer or guarantee. His presence is donated to us from outside ourselves, not by virtue of our own efforts at spiritual transformation.
But what has Heidegger to do with our work in the Institute of Lutheran Theology? After all, is not ILT committed to the Bible and not to German philosophy? Moreover, why do people at the Institute of Lutheran Theology concern themselves with such heavy thinking? Is it not simply enough that ILT gives it future graduates instructions for doing effective ministry? Can't we simply train pastors the way we train computer engineers, librarians and hotel/motel managers?
The Institute of Lutheran theology is deeply committed to reading and understanding the Bible. Collectively, we have a very high view of Scripture, believing its clarity and authority to be matters not of our doing. But while the source of theological reflection must always be the Bible and the tradition of its thinking, this source is always reflected through the medium of the contemporary intellectual and cultural horizon.
Reading and understanding the Bible is thus both simple and difficult. It is simple because the Bible speaks immediately to its readers as the Word of God; it is difficult because there is no methodological formula that can forever establish the exact words of that speaking. The Bible speaks as it is questioned by different readers at different times. Ultimately like Heidegger's Being-Itself, the Bible reveals its Word as a matter of grace, for it cannot wholly be grasped through application of methodological law.
I am convinced that one of the main problems facing Lutheran clergy today is that oftentimes their education denies them the freedom to think, at least to think so deeply that their thinking is transformed into thanking. While they acquire a set of skills - - they know now how to give sermons, how to plan worship and how to make hospital calls - - they aren't mentored to think what continually ought-to-be-thought: God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. This Word of grace, which cannot be established by human thinking, is itself revealed to human thinking, and in the thinking of this thought, human life becomes itself a thanking, a life lived in joyful response to the One who has Himself called such thinking into being. Faith is thus active in love.
Indeed we at ILT cannot be happy simply with teaching students what to do, until each is clear on what it is that must be thought. With an eye toward the ought-to-be-thought, students at ILT study Bible, history of church and theology, philosophical underpinnings for theology, Lutheran Confessions, and systematic theology. The objective is to think so deeply the thought that the Holy Spirit has called us to think, that we live out our deeply-thought lives in proclaiming the Good News of Jesus the Christ and in thankfully serving Him. Pastoral skills are only important if pastors believe that about which they speak. Faith is always active in love.
All of this is to say something that Lutherans have always known, but that has gotten a bit obscure in our time: Being precedes doing. Over and against existentialists, pragmatists, modern day Aristotelians, and enthusiasts of the law in all its forms, Lutheran theology has always steadfastly declared what the Bible perspicuously records: While a good tree bears good fruit, good fruit does not a good tree make. More important than future Lutheran clergy learning in their classes how to do the job of being a clergy person is that they have the time (and the space) to think through what it is to called to be one who in his or her thinking has pastoral doing as a mode of thanking. God's work of faith establishes the possibility of love.
So it is that we think about many things at ILT. We consider deeply the human condition, sin, atonement, and salvation. We think about how God relates to His universe in creation, redemption and sanctification. We reflect upon how language of God relates to other kinds of language, to the words of poets and scientists. We are convinced that if our language of God cannot easily be used Monday through Saturday, it is only very oddly and parochially employed on Sundays.
We think as well that considering these things deeply is already to occupy a position of gratitude. Think of the grace involved in such thinking! To think deeply is to realize that there is something rather than nothing, and that this situation has no worldly explanation. To think deeply is to realize that we might not have been, or that we might not now be who we somehow still deeply are in time. Thinking deeply pushes us to consider the radical contingency of human existence, to think the thought that there is nothing necessary about being. But as we consider that things could have been other than they in fact are, we realize that why and how things are themselves involve grace and gift. Thinking through contingency breeds a thankfulness of what is. Denken ist Danken!
As the end of this first decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, our collective thinking at the Institute of Lutheran Theology is in truth radically oriented to thanking. After all, there is no reason to expect that a seminary starting from nothing on a financial shoestring should be successful. People thought it could not be done. How could ILT overcome financial constraints, accrediting issues, and course delivery problems?
But I am here to proclaim to you the startling, and wholly contingent fact, that it daily is being done. ILT is blessed to have high quality students, a stellar faculty, an increasing list of generous donors, and a very professional course delivery system that allows students interaction with some of the best Lutheran theologians in the English speaking world. Where else can students study with professors Jim Nestingen, Mark Hilmer, Paul Hinlicky, Robert Benne, Hans Hillerbrand, and Uwe Siemon-Netto, to name but a few? Where else can students get the opportunity at home for one-on-one interaction with professor of international reputation who will coax them daily into thinking deeply what it is that ought-to-be-thought?
Next semester ILT will be in the process of launching a second generation video delivery system that will deliver much higher quality video to anyone having a broadband internet connection. Please tune into our fifteen minute chapels every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:00 a.m. to see clearly Lutheran preachers preaching clearly the Word of God. Soon students will have greater options for accessing higher quality video during select lecture formats. Through the generosity of almost five hundred individual and congregational donors this last year, the Institute of Lutheran Theology is transitioning from a start-up seminary with a vision for tomorrow to an actually existing Lutheran graduate school filling the needs of students world-wide today.
While the universe did not have to be, yet by the grace of God is, so too with ILT: It could have failed, but it did not. Not only did it not fail, but it has the opportunity to lead the transformation of Lutheran theological education world-wide. To think about this radical contingency of ILT is perpetually to thank Him who called it forth into Being.
Through the work of the faculty, staff, students and supporters of ILT, that which ought-to-be-thought is itself humbly and thankfully being thought. To think in a sustained way about what God has done for us in Christ is to live a life of thanksgiving. It is from this ground that ILT has emerged, and it is from this ground that it is watered and will ultimately grow into full fruition. The divinely-worked faith of human thinking is always active in the divinely-worked love of human thanking. May God's faith and grace be indeed with you all this New Year!
Dr. Dennis Bielfeldt
President
Institute of Lutheran Theology
Monday, November 29, 2010
Theory Construction in Theology
For sometime now I have had the reoccurring thought that theology employs theories in much the same way as the natural sciences. Of course, with the natural sciences, theory construction and disconfirmation is patent. We know that if theory T has as a logical consequence P, and if ~P actually turns out true empirically, then there is something wrong with theory T. (Assuming, of course, that one's inferences are in fact deducible theorems of T.) It is all rather straightforward for the scientist - - or at least it seems prima facie so.
A number of years ago I was excited by some of the similarities I found between scientific theory construction and theological construction. It was to me then rather exciting to think that somehow theology uses theories. (I confess to having a bit of the natural theologian in me in those days.) But something has happened. While it is true that I am no longer much excited by the similarities between scientific and theological theory construction, it is not because the seeming similarities have faded for me. No - - it is because it seems to me now patently obvious, and not at all surprising, that theological theory and scientific theory have the same structure. The excitement has faded because there is no longer anything creative in the thought. They just are of the same kind. Let me explain with an example that is not that of natural theology at all.
I am rereading some of the Finnish work on Luther in teaching 'Luther, Justification and Deification' in the Institute of Lutheran Theology Masters of Theology program. Among the many claims made by the Finns is that Luther employs the notion of theosis as a central motif within his theology, that his notion of justification presupposes the unio cum Christo. The way that this is argued is to take a number of themes in Luther, chart the interrelationship between these themes, and then go to the Luther texts to see if perusal experience is consistent with the theory built out of the interrelationship of these themes.
For instance, they argue that the inhabitatio Christi grounds both forensic and effective justification, that the imputational notion of justification is the divine favor or gratia, while the effective notion is the divine donum or gift. While the favor of God addresses the wrath of God, the gift of God pertains to the corruption of our natures. Just as favor of God undergirds the gift of God, so the gift of God grounds the favor of God. For Luther, justification is a unitary process that includes what is often regarded by the Reformation traditions to be sanctification. God gives Himself to His creation in love, and thus all of creation is butressed by the indwelling God. But fallen creation groans in travail for salvation. This salvation is available through the gift of divine love which is the presence of Christ in the believer grasped through faith. Thus, 'x has faith' and 'x has the presence of Christ' are materially equivalent. (I thought about claiming that they were conceptually equivalent, but I can imagine x having faith without x having the presence of Christ. How is this possible? It seems that much of Lutheran Orthodoxy was quite capable of asserting the truth of the former without asserting the truth of the latter.)
Now these general assertions could be clearly stated as propositions of a theory. One would start with some statement such as 'x has the indwelling of Christ if and only if Christ gives himself to x'. One might say then that 'for any divine property P had by D, if x has P, then x has D itself''. After such definitions, one might declare as theoretical postulates that 'for any x, if x has the presence of Christ, then x is justified', and 'for all x, if x is justified, then x is both declared righteous by divine favor, and made righteous by divine gift'. That this would be tedious work, is readily granted; that it would succeed in laying bare the structure of a class of theoretical assertions is only hoped for.
Given that a theory could be structured in which the logical and conceptual relationships between the assertions of the theory were aptly displayed, the question arises as to the applicability. Is this theory applicable to theological reality itself? Is it applicable to a class of texts written within a tradition, or written by a single author? Is it applicable to the Luther texts? Here is seems that what the theory would have to have besides the internal marks of consistency and coherency, are the external characteristics of applicability, adequacy, and fecundity. I shall treat each in turn.
Theory T would be applicable to a class of texts C if and only if it were not disconfirmed by any particular assertions found within C. Theory T would be adequate to a class of texts C if there were not assertions of C that T could not in principle handle. Theory T would be fecund with respect to C if it generated a continuing program of fruitful and creative insights concerning the relationship of T to other theories.
What is different between scientific theory construction and this theological theory construction is what Heidegger called the Befragte, that which is asked questions on the basis of the theory. In natural science theory construction, nature is the Befragte; in theological theory construction it is most often a class of texts that are questioned. To find out what view Luther held, one must be content to advance theoretical models, some of which are contradicted by the texts and some of which are not, some which fit nicely into other overarching theories, and some which do not. Just as we cannot know the Ding an Sich in nature, but must model nature and build a sustainable "take" on nature given our experience with it, so too in theology, we cannot know the mens auctoritatis (mind of the author), but content ourselves with sustainable "reads" on the basis of the Luther texts themselves. Moreover, just as traditional scientific theory must not be easily discarded in favor of newer scientific theory, but generally regarded as authoritative unless directly contradicted by new empirical evidence, so too should newer theological theory not supplant traditional readings unless there is a compelling reason to do so - - a reason arising from a straightforward experience with the Luther texts themselves.
So I find these days in theology that some statements are "more theoretical" and some "less theoretical" on the basis of whether the first are "further removed" from the primary literary experience of reading the text. So too are some theological terms "more concrete" or "less concrete" as to how they cash on the basis of the particular texts. Accordingly, oftentimes the most "theoretical" of terms are those that are presupposed everywhere in our perusal experience without being asserted directly very many times at all! It is of this latter nature, it seems, that the Finnish Lutheran notion of divinization participates.
A number of years ago I was excited by some of the similarities I found between scientific theory construction and theological construction. It was to me then rather exciting to think that somehow theology uses theories. (I confess to having a bit of the natural theologian in me in those days.) But something has happened. While it is true that I am no longer much excited by the similarities between scientific and theological theory construction, it is not because the seeming similarities have faded for me. No - - it is because it seems to me now patently obvious, and not at all surprising, that theological theory and scientific theory have the same structure. The excitement has faded because there is no longer anything creative in the thought. They just are of the same kind. Let me explain with an example that is not that of natural theology at all.
I am rereading some of the Finnish work on Luther in teaching 'Luther, Justification and Deification' in the Institute of Lutheran Theology Masters of Theology program. Among the many claims made by the Finns is that Luther employs the notion of theosis as a central motif within his theology, that his notion of justification presupposes the unio cum Christo. The way that this is argued is to take a number of themes in Luther, chart the interrelationship between these themes, and then go to the Luther texts to see if perusal experience is consistent with the theory built out of the interrelationship of these themes.
For instance, they argue that the inhabitatio Christi grounds both forensic and effective justification, that the imputational notion of justification is the divine favor or gratia, while the effective notion is the divine donum or gift. While the favor of God addresses the wrath of God, the gift of God pertains to the corruption of our natures. Just as favor of God undergirds the gift of God, so the gift of God grounds the favor of God. For Luther, justification is a unitary process that includes what is often regarded by the Reformation traditions to be sanctification. God gives Himself to His creation in love, and thus all of creation is butressed by the indwelling God. But fallen creation groans in travail for salvation. This salvation is available through the gift of divine love which is the presence of Christ in the believer grasped through faith. Thus, 'x has faith' and 'x has the presence of Christ' are materially equivalent. (I thought about claiming that they were conceptually equivalent, but I can imagine x having faith without x having the presence of Christ. How is this possible? It seems that much of Lutheran Orthodoxy was quite capable of asserting the truth of the former without asserting the truth of the latter.)
Now these general assertions could be clearly stated as propositions of a theory. One would start with some statement such as 'x has the indwelling of Christ if and only if Christ gives himself to x'. One might say then that 'for any divine property P had by D, if x has P, then x has D itself''. After such definitions, one might declare as theoretical postulates that 'for any x, if x has the presence of Christ, then x is justified', and 'for all x, if x is justified, then x is both declared righteous by divine favor, and made righteous by divine gift'. That this would be tedious work, is readily granted; that it would succeed in laying bare the structure of a class of theoretical assertions is only hoped for.
Given that a theory could be structured in which the logical and conceptual relationships between the assertions of the theory were aptly displayed, the question arises as to the applicability. Is this theory applicable to theological reality itself? Is it applicable to a class of texts written within a tradition, or written by a single author? Is it applicable to the Luther texts? Here is seems that what the theory would have to have besides the internal marks of consistency and coherency, are the external characteristics of applicability, adequacy, and fecundity. I shall treat each in turn.
Theory T would be applicable to a class of texts C if and only if it were not disconfirmed by any particular assertions found within C. Theory T would be adequate to a class of texts C if there were not assertions of C that T could not in principle handle. Theory T would be fecund with respect to C if it generated a continuing program of fruitful and creative insights concerning the relationship of T to other theories.
What is different between scientific theory construction and this theological theory construction is what Heidegger called the Befragte, that which is asked questions on the basis of the theory. In natural science theory construction, nature is the Befragte; in theological theory construction it is most often a class of texts that are questioned. To find out what view Luther held, one must be content to advance theoretical models, some of which are contradicted by the texts and some of which are not, some which fit nicely into other overarching theories, and some which do not. Just as we cannot know the Ding an Sich in nature, but must model nature and build a sustainable "take" on nature given our experience with it, so too in theology, we cannot know the mens auctoritatis (mind of the author), but content ourselves with sustainable "reads" on the basis of the Luther texts themselves. Moreover, just as traditional scientific theory must not be easily discarded in favor of newer scientific theory, but generally regarded as authoritative unless directly contradicted by new empirical evidence, so too should newer theological theory not supplant traditional readings unless there is a compelling reason to do so - - a reason arising from a straightforward experience with the Luther texts themselves.
So I find these days in theology that some statements are "more theoretical" and some "less theoretical" on the basis of whether the first are "further removed" from the primary literary experience of reading the text. So too are some theological terms "more concrete" or "less concrete" as to how they cash on the basis of the particular texts. Accordingly, oftentimes the most "theoretical" of terms are those that are presupposed everywhere in our perusal experience without being asserted directly very many times at all! It is of this latter nature, it seems, that the Finnish Lutheran notion of divinization participates.
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, August 16, 2010
Luther: Justification and/or Deification?
In 1988 I attended my first Luther Congress. We met in Oslo, Norway. While there I met a young Finn named Risto Saarinen who gave me a copy of the book Thesarus Lutheri. Later I was given a copy of Luther und Theosis and I began to read.
In the early 1990s, I became quite interested in whether or not Luther was a theologian of theosis (or deification). I remember standing up at the Lutheran gathering at the American Academy of Religion one year, and talking about the new Finnish research. It was new and exciting research in America. At the next Luther Congress in St. Paul in 1993, I was in Mannermaa's seminar. I found him to be an immensely likable man, someone who was willing to question his own research, someone who would genuinely dialogue. I got to know some of the other young scholars in Mannermaa's group. They were intensely interested in theological conversation.
When working through Simo Peura's Mehr als ein Mensch, my uneasiness with the way that the Finns were reading Luther grew. It seemed to me that so much of the thesis of deification depended upon a rather small group of passages, and these mostly from the early Luther. Moreover, as I read a bit more of Augustine (and those that know Augustine), it seemed to me that deification imagery was palpable in the Augustinian tradition. I concluded that in order to show that Luther was a theologian of deification, one would have thereby to establish that he was using the imagery of deification differently from how it was employed by theologians who have generally been thought to uphold justification, not deification, as their central salvific notion.
As I considered the historical question of Luther's adherence to deification, I quickly determined that I would need to know what deification is if I were to be able to determine whether Luther held to it. I looked at the question of what deification is both semantically and ontologically. Firstly, I wanted to know the identity conditions of 'deification' so that the term could be properly applied. Secondly, I wanted to know what state of affairs would make true the claim that deification was present.
My contribution to the Mannermaa Festschrift in 1997 considered the ontology of deification. What claim could we be making about the divine/human reltionship when asserting that person p is deified? While the essay was itself speculative and inconclusive, the exercise was useful to me, for I found how little textual evidence there was to adjudicate among senses of 'deification', and I discerned that some notions of justification were not entirely unlike some notions of deification. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the boundary between 'justification' and 'deification' was becoming porous. What began as a seemingly firm distinction dissolved upon deeper reflection.
Beginning in two weeks, I will present a course entitled 'Luther: Justification and/or Deification'. The course will, as the title suggests, try to get clear on the claim that Luther is a theologian of theosis, by getting clear about what state of affairs would make true a statement about the deification of a person. Accordingly, we shall start in the course by understanding justification in the tradition generally, and the late medieval options on justification. After this we shall read some of what the Finns claim about deification. Looking specifically at the Luther texts, we shall try to answer this question: Was Luther, as Mannermaa has suggested, a theologian of theosis? Please visit the Institute of Lutheran Theology web page at www.ilt.org for details. The course is in the new ILT Masters of Theology program. This degree is designed for those wishing to study theology beyond the M. Div. level. All are welcome. Any takers?
In the early 1990s, I became quite interested in whether or not Luther was a theologian of theosis (or deification). I remember standing up at the Lutheran gathering at the American Academy of Religion one year, and talking about the new Finnish research. It was new and exciting research in America. At the next Luther Congress in St. Paul in 1993, I was in Mannermaa's seminar. I found him to be an immensely likable man, someone who was willing to question his own research, someone who would genuinely dialogue. I got to know some of the other young scholars in Mannermaa's group. They were intensely interested in theological conversation.
When working through Simo Peura's Mehr als ein Mensch, my uneasiness with the way that the Finns were reading Luther grew. It seemed to me that so much of the thesis of deification depended upon a rather small group of passages, and these mostly from the early Luther. Moreover, as I read a bit more of Augustine (and those that know Augustine), it seemed to me that deification imagery was palpable in the Augustinian tradition. I concluded that in order to show that Luther was a theologian of deification, one would have thereby to establish that he was using the imagery of deification differently from how it was employed by theologians who have generally been thought to uphold justification, not deification, as their central salvific notion.
As I considered the historical question of Luther's adherence to deification, I quickly determined that I would need to know what deification is if I were to be able to determine whether Luther held to it. I looked at the question of what deification is both semantically and ontologically. Firstly, I wanted to know the identity conditions of 'deification' so that the term could be properly applied. Secondly, I wanted to know what state of affairs would make true the claim that deification was present.
My contribution to the Mannermaa Festschrift in 1997 considered the ontology of deification. What claim could we be making about the divine/human reltionship when asserting that person p is deified? While the essay was itself speculative and inconclusive, the exercise was useful to me, for I found how little textual evidence there was to adjudicate among senses of 'deification', and I discerned that some notions of justification were not entirely unlike some notions of deification. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the boundary between 'justification' and 'deification' was becoming porous. What began as a seemingly firm distinction dissolved upon deeper reflection.
Beginning in two weeks, I will present a course entitled 'Luther: Justification and/or Deification'. The course will, as the title suggests, try to get clear on the claim that Luther is a theologian of theosis, by getting clear about what state of affairs would make true a statement about the deification of a person. Accordingly, we shall start in the course by understanding justification in the tradition generally, and the late medieval options on justification. After this we shall read some of what the Finns claim about deification. Looking specifically at the Luther texts, we shall try to answer this question: Was Luther, as Mannermaa has suggested, a theologian of theosis? Please visit the Institute of Lutheran Theology web page at www.ilt.org for details. The course is in the new ILT Masters of Theology program. This degree is designed for those wishing to study theology beyond the M. Div. level. All are welcome. Any takers?
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Singular Divine Causal Statements
To say that 'John wrecked the car' is to make a causal statement. It is to say that 'John caused the wrecking of the car'. To make such causal statements truthfully demands that there is some state of affairs (or some states of affairs), on the basis of which, it is true that 'John caused the wrecking of the car.' So what is the "stuff" that makes true the statement? What are the truth-conditions of 'John caused the wrecking of the car'?
One answer is to say that there is a substance (object or entity) John who has a particular set of properties necessary (or necessary and sufficient) for the existence of the set of properties the car has. Here the basic ontological category is that of substance, with the change of properties that substances have being causally determined by the properties other substances possess. The properties of the relevant entities can include times and places such that 'A causes B' is true on the basis of some substance S having property set P - - picked out by 'A' - - being necessary and sufficient for some substance S* having property set P* - - picked out by 'B'.
An alternate analysis construes the basic ontological facts of causation as a relation of events. On this view 'John causes the wrecking of the car' is really elliptical for something like 'John doing x causes the wrecking of the car'. Accordingly there is event E (John doing x) and event E* (the car wrecking) such that E causes E*.
One of the problems of understanding causality has been our infatuation with the Humean account of causation and the "covering law" models that derive from him. Famously, Hume argued that a statement like 'John doing x caused the wrecking of the car' must be analyzed in this way: i) John doing x temporally proceeded the wrecking of the car; ii) John doing x is contiguous with the wrecking of the car; iii) and events (or substances having properties) like John doing x are constantly conjoined with events (or substances having properties) like the car wrecking. This regularity theory of causation was regnant through much of the last century, giving rise to the notion of "covering laws." Accordingly E causes E* if and only if there is a universal generalization to the effect that 'for all y if y instantiates E then y instantiates E*. This cannot merely be an accidental universal generalization, however. It must be a nomic regularity. It must carry the force of necessity of a particular kind.
Ignoring all the important details, one might claim that the analysis of a singular causal statement presupposes universal hypotheticals, on the basis of which the singular causal statement is true. Accordingly, singular statement S is true if and only if S can somehow be seen as an instance of L: S is true by virtue of L. Of course, the standard Humean regularity theorist wants to go no further than the existence of the regularity. It is unexceptional that force between two objects equals the gravitational constant times the product of the mass of those objects over the square of their distance. This is a bare fact about the universe. That in some particular instance referred to by singular causal statement S, the mass of the two objects times the gravitation constant over the square of their distance gives the observed force is not surprising because, of course, this happens all of the time and this situation is an instance of what happens all of the time.
There are many problems with Humean accounts, but they are still held in favor by very empirically-minded philosophers who are not wont to ascribe ontological status to those entities quantified over in their theories. Anti-realists here can simply point to the fact that "this happens." This is the way that things are, and while we can have theories that might explain how those things are, those things will finally reference other "brute facts" about the way that things are. Of course, any one seriously interested in allowing 'God' to be a term in a singular causal statement cannot subscribe to a Humean or neo-Humean position on causation. If it is true that 'God caused the universe to be', this is a singular event. There is no covering law that this statement can instance. When it comes to talking about God and God's relationship to the world, we must - - if we allow truth-conditions at all to such statements - - understand the statements as both irreducibly singular and causal.
So to say that 'God's word caused the universe to be' is to claim that some state of affairs exists such that that statement is true. This state of affairs seems, plausibly, either to have to be the existence of a divine substance with properties, or an irreducible event. But clearly, God speaking cannot be ingredient in an event, if we mean by 'event' what is standardly meant by 'event'. Presumably, time began with the creation of the universe. Accordingly, so did events. Before time there could not have been events - - whatever could be meant here by 'before' - - for the precondition for eventhood was not present. Thus, it seems, we must give an analysis of the divine in terms of substance and properties. There seems to be no other way than this to proceed.
So to say that 'God spoke the universe into being' is to say that 'God's speaking caused the universe to be', and this is to presuppose as truth-conditions a substance God having the property of speaking - - whatever might be meant by that - - the existence of which is both necessary and sufficient for the world to be. This view nicely supports the counterfactual that if there were not a universe, God would not have spoken it into being.
Of course, in the contemporary theological discussion, few want any longer to analyze the semantic conditions of 'God created the heavens and the earth' in the way I have just suggested. While many would talk about the meaningfulness of the statement, they would have difficulty in specifying precisely the conditions that would make it true or false. But meaning and truth stand together. One can't have one without the other, it seems. To the degree that theologians have divorced the two, to that degree the language of theology has become, to use Wittgenstein's phrase - - a "wheel idly turning.'
The necessary condition of theological language not becoming moribund is for it to reassert its traditional commitment to truth-conditions. Such a recommitment to truth presupposes a determinate ontological situation, and it is this situation that must be investigated. What I have suggested here is very simple: To claim that "God created the heavens and the earth' is true is to claim that there is some being God exhibiting certain properties on the basis of which the universe, which might have not existed, does indeed exist. But making assertions like this takes considerable courage. Lamentably, there has been far too little courage in recent decades on the part of those within the theological guild.
One answer is to say that there is a substance (object or entity) John who has a particular set of properties necessary (or necessary and sufficient) for the existence of the set of properties the car has. Here the basic ontological category is that of substance, with the change of properties that substances have being causally determined by the properties other substances possess. The properties of the relevant entities can include times and places such that 'A causes B' is true on the basis of some substance S having property set P - - picked out by 'A' - - being necessary and sufficient for some substance S* having property set P* - - picked out by 'B'.
An alternate analysis construes the basic ontological facts of causation as a relation of events. On this view 'John causes the wrecking of the car' is really elliptical for something like 'John doing x causes the wrecking of the car'. Accordingly there is event E (John doing x) and event E* (the car wrecking) such that E causes E*.
One of the problems of understanding causality has been our infatuation with the Humean account of causation and the "covering law" models that derive from him. Famously, Hume argued that a statement like 'John doing x caused the wrecking of the car' must be analyzed in this way: i) John doing x temporally proceeded the wrecking of the car; ii) John doing x is contiguous with the wrecking of the car; iii) and events (or substances having properties) like John doing x are constantly conjoined with events (or substances having properties) like the car wrecking. This regularity theory of causation was regnant through much of the last century, giving rise to the notion of "covering laws." Accordingly E causes E* if and only if there is a universal generalization to the effect that 'for all y if y instantiates E then y instantiates E*. This cannot merely be an accidental universal generalization, however. It must be a nomic regularity. It must carry the force of necessity of a particular kind.
Ignoring all the important details, one might claim that the analysis of a singular causal statement presupposes universal hypotheticals, on the basis of which the singular causal statement is true. Accordingly, singular statement S is true if and only if S can somehow be seen as an instance of L: S is true by virtue of L. Of course, the standard Humean regularity theorist wants to go no further than the existence of the regularity. It is unexceptional that force between two objects equals the gravitational constant times the product of the mass of those objects over the square of their distance. This is a bare fact about the universe. That in some particular instance referred to by singular causal statement S, the mass of the two objects times the gravitation constant over the square of their distance gives the observed force is not surprising because, of course, this happens all of the time and this situation is an instance of what happens all of the time.
There are many problems with Humean accounts, but they are still held in favor by very empirically-minded philosophers who are not wont to ascribe ontological status to those entities quantified over in their theories. Anti-realists here can simply point to the fact that "this happens." This is the way that things are, and while we can have theories that might explain how those things are, those things will finally reference other "brute facts" about the way that things are. Of course, any one seriously interested in allowing 'God' to be a term in a singular causal statement cannot subscribe to a Humean or neo-Humean position on causation. If it is true that 'God caused the universe to be', this is a singular event. There is no covering law that this statement can instance. When it comes to talking about God and God's relationship to the world, we must - - if we allow truth-conditions at all to such statements - - understand the statements as both irreducibly singular and causal.
So to say that 'God's word caused the universe to be' is to claim that some state of affairs exists such that that statement is true. This state of affairs seems, plausibly, either to have to be the existence of a divine substance with properties, or an irreducible event. But clearly, God speaking cannot be ingredient in an event, if we mean by 'event' what is standardly meant by 'event'. Presumably, time began with the creation of the universe. Accordingly, so did events. Before time there could not have been events - - whatever could be meant here by 'before' - - for the precondition for eventhood was not present. Thus, it seems, we must give an analysis of the divine in terms of substance and properties. There seems to be no other way than this to proceed.
So to say that 'God spoke the universe into being' is to say that 'God's speaking caused the universe to be', and this is to presuppose as truth-conditions a substance God having the property of speaking - - whatever might be meant by that - - the existence of which is both necessary and sufficient for the world to be. This view nicely supports the counterfactual that if there were not a universe, God would not have spoken it into being.
Of course, in the contemporary theological discussion, few want any longer to analyze the semantic conditions of 'God created the heavens and the earth' in the way I have just suggested. While many would talk about the meaningfulness of the statement, they would have difficulty in specifying precisely the conditions that would make it true or false. But meaning and truth stand together. One can't have one without the other, it seems. To the degree that theologians have divorced the two, to that degree the language of theology has become, to use Wittgenstein's phrase - - a "wheel idly turning.'
The necessary condition of theological language not becoming moribund is for it to reassert its traditional commitment to truth-conditions. Such a recommitment to truth presupposes a determinate ontological situation, and it is this situation that must be investigated. What I have suggested here is very simple: To claim that "God created the heavens and the earth' is true is to claim that there is some being God exhibiting certain properties on the basis of which the universe, which might have not existed, does indeed exist. But making assertions like this takes considerable courage. Lamentably, there has been far too little courage in recent decades on the part of those within the theological guild.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
An Evaluation of Bayer's Luther Book
Oswald Bayer's Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation is must reading for anyone interested in Luther and Lutheran theology generally. Ably translated by Thomas Trapp, this work was originally 30 hours of lectures for a general studies course at the University of Tuebingen in the Winter Semester 2001/2002. Bayer compares his work to a documentary film drawing on a deep repository of archival footage to present a topic from multiple perspectives. Like all documentaries, sustained scholarly examination must sometimes be sacrificed to achieve an orderly, organic presentation.
Bayer claims that he is bringing Luther into a conversation with other truth-seekers, e.g., Kant, Hegel and Schleiermacher (xx); he declares he is asking the questions: "What is true? Likewise: What has enduring value within the river of historical change? (xix) Accordingly, "his contemporary interpretation" is a "re-presentation in the double sense of the phrase." Firstly, the "historical subject matter,"which has determined the modern consciousness, must be brought again into modern consciousness; secondly, this subject matter must be examined from the perspective of its truth. Bayer's exploration relies upon over forty years of research into Luther texts of various genres: "sermons, treatises, written polemics, table talks, lectures and dispositions; predominant are the three genres of catechisms, prefaces to biblical books, and hymns" (xix). As expected, Bayer does not disappoint: his work with Luther is masterful, and his systematic theological emphasis is everywhere apparent. Moreover, the book is highly engaging; easily readable by those who read neither Luther monographs are systematic theology tomes for a living!
Bayer divides his presentation into an Introduction presenting the "Rupture between Ages" of the old and new eon, a four chapter presentation on Basic Themes (e.g., Luther's understanding of theology, his understanding of the sinful human before the justifying God, the Reformational turning point in his theology, his understanding of the authority of the Holy Scriptures), and finally 12 chapters dealing with Individual Themes (e.g., creation, human being, sin, Christ, Holy Spirit, church, faith, the two realms, eschatology). Everywhere Bayer emphasizes the divine promissio, the promise made and kept by God, and the content and contour of private and corporate life lived on the basis of that promise.
There is so much to be praised in this book, and I am sure that most readers will be as thrilled by its publication as the both Mark Mattes and Steven Paulson are, both of whom are capable theologians contributing endorsements on the text's back cover. I enjoyed reading the book, and I learned from it as well. Bayer does succeed, I think, in combining sound Luther research with systematic theological investigation. But frankly Bayer's own question haunted me in the reading of the text: Is his interpretation true? What of sixteenth century are we leaving behind in finding that of "enduring value within historical change"? Moreover, is Bayer's own systematic program true? Is it internally coherent and consistent, externally applicable and adequate, and sufficiently fruitful for further research? I have lately been quite fascinated by the realization of the dissimilarity between the ontological and semantic presuppositions of theology in Luther's time, and the ontological and semantic presuppositions of interpreters of Luther's theology in our own time. I believe, in fact, that the emergence of the Kantian paradigm in theology over the last two centuries has made it difficult sometimes to understand Luther's theological work on its own terms. More importantly, however, the hegemony of that paradigm has made it difficult for contemporary theologians to engage deeply the fundamental questions of theology, questions that go to the heart of the question of whether or not theological language has truth-conditions.
With respect to this text, I wish to offer constructively four questions, questions that arise for most Christian believers today who have not learned the standard theological moves routinely practiced by theological practitioners downstream in the Kantian tradition. The four are these:
Bayer claims that he is bringing Luther into a conversation with other truth-seekers, e.g., Kant, Hegel and Schleiermacher (xx); he declares he is asking the questions: "What is true? Likewise: What has enduring value within the river of historical change? (xix) Accordingly, "his contemporary interpretation" is a "re-presentation in the double sense of the phrase." Firstly, the "historical subject matter,"which has determined the modern consciousness, must be brought again into modern consciousness; secondly, this subject matter must be examined from the perspective of its truth. Bayer's exploration relies upon over forty years of research into Luther texts of various genres: "sermons, treatises, written polemics, table talks, lectures and dispositions; predominant are the three genres of catechisms, prefaces to biblical books, and hymns" (xix). As expected, Bayer does not disappoint: his work with Luther is masterful, and his systematic theological emphasis is everywhere apparent. Moreover, the book is highly engaging; easily readable by those who read neither Luther monographs are systematic theology tomes for a living!
Bayer divides his presentation into an Introduction presenting the "Rupture between Ages" of the old and new eon, a four chapter presentation on Basic Themes (e.g., Luther's understanding of theology, his understanding of the sinful human before the justifying God, the Reformational turning point in his theology, his understanding of the authority of the Holy Scriptures), and finally 12 chapters dealing with Individual Themes (e.g., creation, human being, sin, Christ, Holy Spirit, church, faith, the two realms, eschatology). Everywhere Bayer emphasizes the divine promissio, the promise made and kept by God, and the content and contour of private and corporate life lived on the basis of that promise.
There is so much to be praised in this book, and I am sure that most readers will be as thrilled by its publication as the both Mark Mattes and Steven Paulson are, both of whom are capable theologians contributing endorsements on the text's back cover. I enjoyed reading the book, and I learned from it as well. Bayer does succeed, I think, in combining sound Luther research with systematic theological investigation. But frankly Bayer's own question haunted me in the reading of the text: Is his interpretation true? What of sixteenth century are we leaving behind in finding that of "enduring value within historical change"? Moreover, is Bayer's own systematic program true? Is it internally coherent and consistent, externally applicable and adequate, and sufficiently fruitful for further research? I have lately been quite fascinated by the realization of the dissimilarity between the ontological and semantic presuppositions of theology in Luther's time, and the ontological and semantic presuppositions of interpreters of Luther's theology in our own time. I believe, in fact, that the emergence of the Kantian paradigm in theology over the last two centuries has made it difficult sometimes to understand Luther's theological work on its own terms. More importantly, however, the hegemony of that paradigm has made it difficult for contemporary theologians to engage deeply the fundamental questions of theology, questions that go to the heart of the question of whether or not theological language has truth-conditions.
With respect to this text, I wish to offer constructively four questions, questions that arise for most Christian believers today who have not learned the standard theological moves routinely practiced by theological practitioners downstream in the Kantian tradition. The four are these:
- Is it possible to build systematic theology and a Luther interpretation on the basis of the primary use of theological language being performative?
- Is it possible to account for the authority of Holy Scriptures in terms of the existential effect the texts have upon their readers?
- Is it possible to deal with creation, either systematically or in Luther interpretation, without raising explicitly the causal question?
- Is it possible to have Christian faith, (e.g., the faith of Luther), in the absence of explicit metaphysical commitments?
All of these questions are weighty, challenging, and clearly take us beyond what would normally be discussed in a review. However, each is incredibly important to evaluating the ultimate success of Bayer's Luther interpretation. If, as Bayer and many assume, existence is linguistically-constituted, then divine promises make all the difference in the world, not only to who we ultimately are, but to whom God ultimately is. If the being of the Word is a function of what the Word does, then one needs to be excruciatingly clear about the identity conditions of what the Word does, and those conditions that merely accompany, but do not determine, what the Word does. But seemingly, what the Word does is deeply dependent upon the cultural horizon of the time, a horizon itself constitute by presuppostional ontological, semantic and epistemological commitments. It is simply obvious that the Word will strike the heart differently if the auditor believes that there is actually a God that exists apart from human awareness, perception, conception and language, a God who cares, who loves, and who ultimately is causally efficacious in salvation.
Perhaps this is enough said for now. I whole-heartedly recommend Bayer's book for general reading, and for use both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Bayer on What Makes the Bible become Holy Scripture
Bayer believes that Luther's foundational thesis, Sacra scriptura "sui ipsius interpres," is not primarily a claim of the hermeneutical circle: the parts interpret the whole, and the whole interprets the parts. It is instead a statement of the effect the text has on one reading, hearing and interpreting it. Bayer, in fact, the text is best translated as, "the text itself causes one to pay attention" (Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Introduction, p. 68). Bayer writes:
"The authority of Scripture is not formal but is highly material and is content driven. It is the voice of its author, who gives; who allows for astonishment, lament, and praise; who demands and fulfills. Scripture can in no wise be confirmed as having formal authority in advance, so that the content becomes important only as a second stage of the process. The text in its many different forms - - particularly in the law's demand and the gospel's promises - - uses this material way of doing business to validate its authority" (69).
This statement accords well, of course, with Bayer's claim that the Word is what it does. Bayer is stating that which to many contemporary theologians is obvious: There are no properties of the text that establish its reliability outside of the meaning of the text. That is to say, there are not syntactical or causal facts about the text considered apart from its meaning, that would properly dispose one to believe that what the text announces is true.
Bayer labors, of course, to defend the text's autonomy. The meaning of the text is not established or constituted in the act of interpreting it. The external meaning of the text confronts the reader and transforms her. The Bible is the Holy Scripture because of the power the Bible has to, as Luther says, "draw the individual into itself, and into its own power" (71).
Bayer thus makes the following claims:
Imagine two texts s and p. (We shall allow s to be the bible and p to be some other text.) Now imagine cultural context c, such that s in c is part of a sufficient condition for bringing about existential meaning m, meaning that is of a life and death matter to me. (We can surely admit that the Holy Spirit does most of the causal lifting in this.) Now imagine p in c*. Clearly, there is no reason that p should not form part of a sufficient condition for m apart from the de facto non-operation of the Holy Spirit. It seems, thus, that Bayer's position, and that of all who suppose this way of moving forward, presupposes that as a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit will not provide casual input for p, even if He does so for s. The reason that the Bible is the Holy Scriptures, instead of some other book, is that the Holy Spirit is effective in it for realizing m, but not for the other book.
When one thinks somewhat carefully about these matters, one must thus distinguish between the descriptive observation that the Bible, and many other books, can strike readers with existential truth, and the prescriptive claim that the Bible ought so to strike one as having existential truth. Until we can give an analysis of why the Bible ought so to strike one as donating being and the meaning of one's being, we have not engaged the issue of what the claim to formal authority was trying to answer.
I can well imagine a time where the Bible does not strike many people as giving existential truth. This time has indeed happened in much of the first world. In what position is then the theologian left who has rejected all claims to establish the text's normative status solely in its effects upon people? Theologically, one must then say that the Bible is not the Holy Scriptures any longer, that it no longer has a normative claim upon us. One must wait then for new books that can engage the salvific situation of humankind. Those books, like those before, will be evaluated by their effects upon us, and thus new truths - - whatever we might now mean - - will be laid before us.
It is a tough time to be a theologian. It is important that we always realize how much is lost when we move forward in ways meant to avoid the problematics of Modernity.
"The authority of Scripture is not formal but is highly material and is content driven. It is the voice of its author, who gives; who allows for astonishment, lament, and praise; who demands and fulfills. Scripture can in no wise be confirmed as having formal authority in advance, so that the content becomes important only as a second stage of the process. The text in its many different forms - - particularly in the law's demand and the gospel's promises - - uses this material way of doing business to validate its authority" (69).
This statement accords well, of course, with Bayer's claim that the Word is what it does. Bayer is stating that which to many contemporary theologians is obvious: There are no properties of the text that establish its reliability outside of the meaning of the text. That is to say, there are not syntactical or causal facts about the text considered apart from its meaning, that would properly dispose one to believe that what the text announces is true.
Bayer labors, of course, to defend the text's autonomy. The meaning of the text is not established or constituted in the act of interpreting it. The external meaning of the text confronts the reader and transforms her. The Bible is the Holy Scripture because of the power the Bible has to, as Luther says, "draw the individual into itself, and into its own power" (71).
Bayer thus makes the following claims:
- The authority of the text is wholly constituted in the meaning the text has with respect to my life.
- The meaning of the text is objective; it exists apart from my act of interpretation.
- The Spirit is involved in the delivery of the meaning of the text to me.
Notger Slenczka sums it up very well when talking about the normativity of the text: "The normative function of Scripture demonstrates its claim to be normative by basing it on the way it is existentially verified when it interprets itself, in the way Scripture conveys its own intended meanings" (quoted in Bayer, 77).
Generally, I am sympathetic with what Bayer, Slenzka, and many contemporary theologians suppose: The authority of the text is established by its effect on its reader. I am sympathetic because I know the problems of trying to argue for an artificer/artifact causal relationship between God and the text. However, if one could trace some kind of causal chain back from the text to God, as was done in former years, then some type of authority would be established such that the text's claims might be deemed reliable. When I say 'reliable' I am not claiming that each and every proposition of Scripture is timelessly true - - however, we might want to unpack that - - but simply that there is some epistemic warrant for regarding the text as saying what is generally the case with respect to the divine and God's relationship to human beings. My reflections often take me in this direction:Imagine two texts s and p. (We shall allow s to be the bible and p to be some other text.) Now imagine cultural context c, such that s in c is part of a sufficient condition for bringing about existential meaning m, meaning that is of a life and death matter to me. (We can surely admit that the Holy Spirit does most of the causal lifting in this.) Now imagine p in c*. Clearly, there is no reason that p should not form part of a sufficient condition for m apart from the de facto non-operation of the Holy Spirit. It seems, thus, that Bayer's position, and that of all who suppose this way of moving forward, presupposes that as a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit will not provide casual input for p, even if He does so for s. The reason that the Bible is the Holy Scriptures, instead of some other book, is that the Holy Spirit is effective in it for realizing m, but not for the other book.
When one thinks somewhat carefully about these matters, one must thus distinguish between the descriptive observation that the Bible, and many other books, can strike readers with existential truth, and the prescriptive claim that the Bible ought so to strike one as having existential truth. Until we can give an analysis of why the Bible ought so to strike one as donating being and the meaning of one's being, we have not engaged the issue of what the claim to formal authority was trying to answer.
I can well imagine a time where the Bible does not strike many people as giving existential truth. This time has indeed happened in much of the first world. In what position is then the theologian left who has rejected all claims to establish the text's normative status solely in its effects upon people? Theologically, one must then say that the Bible is not the Holy Scriptures any longer, that it no longer has a normative claim upon us. One must wait then for new books that can engage the salvific situation of humankind. Those books, like those before, will be evaluated by their effects upon us, and thus new truths - - whatever we might now mean - - will be laid before us.
It is a tough time to be a theologian. It is important that we always realize how much is lost when we move forward in ways meant to avoid the problematics of Modernity.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
"Signum Philosophicum est Nota Absentis Rei, Signum Theologicum est Nota Praesentis Rei."
The words mean "the philosophical sign is a mark of an absent thing; the theological sign is a mark of a present thing." The proposition is recorded in the Tischreden of Luther (WATR 4.6666.8f), and it is used by Oswald Bayer (Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Introduction to state a general principle in Luther's semantics: "The signum itself is already the res; the linguistic sign is already the matter itself (52). For Bayer, the promissio that is the center of Luther's theology is unpacked by equating the word in language with the reality itself. In promises, words are not given either extensional (or even intensional) interpretations, but themselves are their own reality. This view of things - - which I have elsewhere termed the donational view of language - - is thought by Bayer to be the deepest presupposition of Luther's theological semantics, a view which Bayer claims is akin to the view countenanced by Austin in his 1955 Harvard lectures later published as How to Do Things with Words: the notion of performative language. Bayer writes:
"In contrast to every metaphysical set of statements that teach about the deity, this assertion [e.g. "To you is born this day a Savior"] declares that God's truth and will are not abstract entities, but are directed verbally and publicly as a concrete promise to a particular hearer in a specific situation. 'God' is apprehended as the one who makes a promise to a human being in such a way that the person who hears it can have full confidence in it" (53).
In evaluating this we must remember, of course, that it has proven difficult in practice actually to distinguish clearly performative and constative assertions. Bayer's position, however, supposes they can be compartmentalized. He goes on to say, in fact, that the performative sentences of promissio, for Luther, must be sharply distinguished either from the descriptive or the imperative. Quoting again:
" . . . one cannot take the promise, which is not a descriptive statement, and transform it into a descriptive statement. Secondly, one cannot take the promise, which is not in the form of a statement that shows how something ought to be done, and transform it into an imperative. . . . the truth of the promise . . . .is to be determined only at the very place that the promise was concluded; more accurately, where it was constituted. This means it is located within the relationship of the one who is speaking . . . . and the one who hears. . . . If it is correct that the one individual is in the position of hearer in the relationship that is constituted by this promise, and if that is verified, it excludes the possibility that he himself can verify the promise. . . . To seek to verify this oneself would be atheism; it would be no different than for me to try to verify myself in my own subjective piety or if I would seek to verify myself by means of a defined atheism. In such situations a human being wants to speak his own truth about himself, but he makes God into a liar in the process" (54-55).
There are a number of claims made here that must carefully be distinguished and examined. That there are such statements as "I promise to pay you $1000" is, of course, true. That such statements cannot be fully analyzed into a set of descriptive statements is true as well. Reporting is a different linguistic activity than promising. And that such statements are not themselves reductively analyzable into a set of imperative statements is true also. However, one must distinguish between a reduction of the performative to the descriptive and the imperative, and an unpacking of the palpable presuppositions that the performative has, presuppositions that are statable in terms of the descriptive and imperative.
In "I promise to pay $1000", the following statements are putatively presupposed: "I exist," "you exist," "$1000 exists," "I ought to pay you $1000." The first three sentences are descriptive, and the fourth imperative. Now notice that here the verba of the sentence do not themselves constitute the rem, but presuppose definite res: the existence of two agents, and the taking on of an obligation. This is not to say that 'x promises z to y' can be reduced to the existence of x, y and z, and a set of imperative statements concerning the three. There is more to promising than the taking on of an obligation. However, an obligation is nonetheless presupposed in the promising.
With regard to the promise of salvation "to me," it would seem that the same structure of presuppositions obtain: God exists, I exist, and some state of affairs to which 'salvation' properly applies exists (at least in a possible world) such that God is under obligation to bring about salvation to me. (This is rather jarring, of course, to think of God being under obligation, but it does seem like promising demands it. Maybe it is "analogical obligation" . . . . It seems that if God were to retain impassibility, promising could maybe not be attributed to God at all.)
But let us examine more close what Bayer has to say about truth and verification. He claims that the "truth of the promise is determined where it is constituted," in the one speaking and hearing. But what exactly, is this to mean? Clearly, Bayer here is not talking about a correspondence, coherence, or even pragmatic notion of truth. In fact, we are told, that the individual cannot verify the truth of the promise. To do so, moreover, would involve one in atheism. This claim demands analysis.
If 'Bob promises to pay me $1000 on April 1' and does not do so, he has broken his promise. This much is clear. Moreover, we would not normally say that his promise is true or false. It was, to use Austin's language, an "infelicitous' performative utterance, but it was not false. Truth or falsity does not append to promises qua promises. So it is not clear what the "truth of the promise" is supposed to mean. One could say that the promise was made, the promised being kept presupposed some state of affairs S, such that if S does not obtain then the promise is broken. Or alternately, one might say that the descriptively-stated presupposition for the keeping of the promise did not obtain such that that statement is not true. But this is not to say that the promise was false; it merely was not broken. One could then state whether it was true that the promise was broken. Such statements about promises have definite truth conditions; we can easily verify when they might be true or false. Bayer does not seem interested, however, in the truth-value of statements about felicitous performative promise statements, but rather about promises themselves.
Bayer's discussion of verification is quite an independent issue from putative presuppositions of promise-making. It might be atheism, I suppose, to claim that we can verify the truth of the descriptive statements that state of affairs S obtains such that S makes true the truth of the statement, 'God has kept promise P'. But I am not sure anything could finally count against the claim that God's promises are kept. One might, in fact, claim this as an analytical truth, or better, a rule by which we play the language-game of the Christian God. Clearly, there are a number of issues that Bayer needs to clarify.
Personally, I have always been chary of the move to an exclusive analysis of fundamental theological assertions in terms of performative utterances, a move that does not presuppose metaphysical and philosophical assertions like these:
What Luther was talking about in the Tischreden concerns the ontological situation, not the semantic one. Luther knows that the language of theology must always refer to that which is present because, God truly is ubiquitously present in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Later in the text, Bayer makes clear, for Luther, that philosophy knows neither the efficient or final cause of this world. Perhaps Luther's statement quoted at the beginning of this post has more to do with this, than a general denial of extra-linguistic signification in the primary assertions of theology.
"In contrast to every metaphysical set of statements that teach about the deity, this assertion [e.g. "To you is born this day a Savior"] declares that God's truth and will are not abstract entities, but are directed verbally and publicly as a concrete promise to a particular hearer in a specific situation. 'God' is apprehended as the one who makes a promise to a human being in such a way that the person who hears it can have full confidence in it" (53).
In evaluating this we must remember, of course, that it has proven difficult in practice actually to distinguish clearly performative and constative assertions. Bayer's position, however, supposes they can be compartmentalized. He goes on to say, in fact, that the performative sentences of promissio, for Luther, must be sharply distinguished either from the descriptive or the imperative. Quoting again:
" . . . one cannot take the promise, which is not a descriptive statement, and transform it into a descriptive statement. Secondly, one cannot take the promise, which is not in the form of a statement that shows how something ought to be done, and transform it into an imperative. . . . the truth of the promise . . . .is to be determined only at the very place that the promise was concluded; more accurately, where it was constituted. This means it is located within the relationship of the one who is speaking . . . . and the one who hears. . . . If it is correct that the one individual is in the position of hearer in the relationship that is constituted by this promise, and if that is verified, it excludes the possibility that he himself can verify the promise. . . . To seek to verify this oneself would be atheism; it would be no different than for me to try to verify myself in my own subjective piety or if I would seek to verify myself by means of a defined atheism. In such situations a human being wants to speak his own truth about himself, but he makes God into a liar in the process" (54-55).
There are a number of claims made here that must carefully be distinguished and examined. That there are such statements as "I promise to pay you $1000" is, of course, true. That such statements cannot be fully analyzed into a set of descriptive statements is true as well. Reporting is a different linguistic activity than promising. And that such statements are not themselves reductively analyzable into a set of imperative statements is true also. However, one must distinguish between a reduction of the performative to the descriptive and the imperative, and an unpacking of the palpable presuppositions that the performative has, presuppositions that are statable in terms of the descriptive and imperative.
In "I promise to pay $1000", the following statements are putatively presupposed: "I exist," "you exist," "$1000 exists," "I ought to pay you $1000." The first three sentences are descriptive, and the fourth imperative. Now notice that here the verba of the sentence do not themselves constitute the rem, but presuppose definite res: the existence of two agents, and the taking on of an obligation. This is not to say that 'x promises z to y' can be reduced to the existence of x, y and z, and a set of imperative statements concerning the three. There is more to promising than the taking on of an obligation. However, an obligation is nonetheless presupposed in the promising.
With regard to the promise of salvation "to me," it would seem that the same structure of presuppositions obtain: God exists, I exist, and some state of affairs to which 'salvation' properly applies exists (at least in a possible world) such that God is under obligation to bring about salvation to me. (This is rather jarring, of course, to think of God being under obligation, but it does seem like promising demands it. Maybe it is "analogical obligation" . . . . It seems that if God were to retain impassibility, promising could maybe not be attributed to God at all.)
But let us examine more close what Bayer has to say about truth and verification. He claims that the "truth of the promise is determined where it is constituted," in the one speaking and hearing. But what exactly, is this to mean? Clearly, Bayer here is not talking about a correspondence, coherence, or even pragmatic notion of truth. In fact, we are told, that the individual cannot verify the truth of the promise. To do so, moreover, would involve one in atheism. This claim demands analysis.
If 'Bob promises to pay me $1000 on April 1' and does not do so, he has broken his promise. This much is clear. Moreover, we would not normally say that his promise is true or false. It was, to use Austin's language, an "infelicitous' performative utterance, but it was not false. Truth or falsity does not append to promises qua promises. So it is not clear what the "truth of the promise" is supposed to mean. One could say that the promise was made, the promised being kept presupposed some state of affairs S, such that if S does not obtain then the promise is broken. Or alternately, one might say that the descriptively-stated presupposition for the keeping of the promise did not obtain such that that statement is not true. But this is not to say that the promise was false; it merely was not broken. One could then state whether it was true that the promise was broken. Such statements about promises have definite truth conditions; we can easily verify when they might be true or false. Bayer does not seem interested, however, in the truth-value of statements about felicitous performative promise statements, but rather about promises themselves.
Bayer's discussion of verification is quite an independent issue from putative presuppositions of promise-making. It might be atheism, I suppose, to claim that we can verify the truth of the descriptive statements that state of affairs S obtains such that S makes true the truth of the statement, 'God has kept promise P'. But I am not sure anything could finally count against the claim that God's promises are kept. One might, in fact, claim this as an analytical truth, or better, a rule by which we play the language-game of the Christian God. Clearly, there are a number of issues that Bayer needs to clarify.
Personally, I have always been chary of the move to an exclusive analysis of fundamental theological assertions in terms of performative utterances, a move that does not presuppose metaphysical and philosophical assertions like these:
- There is a God
- This God has intentionality towards His creation
- One attitude of divine intentionality is promising, and promising keeping
- Agents exist who are so constituted as to be cable of being promised to by God.
- The ontological and semantic situations are different than epistemological one: Truth is logically distinct from verification
What Luther was talking about in the Tischreden concerns the ontological situation, not the semantic one. Luther knows that the language of theology must always refer to that which is present because, God truly is ubiquitously present in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Later in the text, Bayer makes clear, for Luther, that philosophy knows neither the efficient or final cause of this world. Perhaps Luther's statement quoted at the beginning of this post has more to do with this, than a general denial of extra-linguistic signification in the primary assertions of theology.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
On the Performative, the Constative, and a Peculiar Move within Lutheran Theology
It has become commonplace within Lutheran theology to downplay the notion and use of descriptive true/false statements. While it is true that in natural languages we regularly assign both intensions and extensions to account for meaning and truth-conditions, there is a strong recent tradition in Lutheran theology that does not want to do this. Here we are told confidently that much of the language of Scripture is playing quite a different kind of game entirely, quite a different kind of game than uttering statements having truth-conditions. Citing How to do Things with Words, John Austin' text from over 60 years ago, some theologians find in performative utterances the key to unlock what it is that theology is doing when it is doing what it is doing most fundamentally.
The idea is simple enough: Constative utterances say something and performative utterances do something. Theological utterances are uttered between the demand of the law and grace of the gospel in the concrete existential situation of the believer before God. Thus, instead of the language about God being about truth and falsity, it is at best "felicitous or infelicitous.' For Austin, the marks of felicitous performative utterances include:
Of course, Austin himself knew that the distinction between the constative and performative was difficult to maintain. Take for instance the claim, 'there is a dangerous animal here.' While it seems structured as a constative, in certain circumstances is it not elliptical for the putative performances: 'I bet there is a dangerous animal here'; 'I guarantee that there is a dangerous animal here'; or 'I warn you that there is a dangerous animal here'?
Because of this problem, Austin was working at his death upon clarifying the distinction between the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary as a substitute for the previous distinction. In stating what is by means of a locution, one is doing so with illocutionary force, that is, one is normally assuring, or warning, or ordering, or expressing an intention. The perlocutionary subsequently deals with the effects of the illocution in the feelings, thinkings, or actions of the audience, speaker, or other person.
We could at this point talk about how Searle revised his teacher's theory, but for our purposes what is important is to see that illuctionary acts make use of locutions in order to bring about a perlocution. That is to say - - using the early vocabulary - - a performative utterance has propositional content, an intensional or extensional meaning. Furthermore, the utterance presupposes facts and conventions, many of which can be explicated if one were to take the time. For instance, to say 'I bequeath my watch to my brother' with sincerity, presupposes that I have a watch, that I have a brother, that I intend a situation of my brother having a watch, and that there is a social convention whereby of bequeathing such that the state of affairs of my having my watch will give way to my brother legally possessing it.
Within some of these quarters of Lutheran theology an explication of religious and theological statements is given in terms of performative utterances in order, I believe, to escape the thorny question of truth. Thus, to say that "I declare unto you the entire forgiveness of all of your sins in the name of Christ Jesus' is not thus to commit oneself to any specifiable ontological situation involving divine states of affairs, relations, properties, and events. It is rather a performance that, to use Austin's later terminology, has a perlocution. The hope is that the utterances can existentially empower without suggesting any "death-dealing metaphysics."
But a moment's reflection shows how wrong-headed it is to think that perlocutions are somehow psychologically independent of what is being asserted. If one has a social convention of bequeathal, it makes all the difference in the world to the perlocutions generated in the inheriting brother by this illocutionary act, whether he does have, in fact, a brother, and whether or not the brother has something to bequeath.
Analogously, having one's feeling and emotions affected by the declaration of forgiveness of sins has everything to do with whether one believes one has sins, and whether or not Christ is thought to be the kind of being that could in principle forgive them.
While Scripture is filled with what Austin would have at one time called performative utterances, this does not mean that one can escape the truth game. Truth pro me is still truth. I will be dealing with some concrete texts in coming posts. My purposes are entirely constructive. We must as theologians grasp the contemporary philosophical situation with respect to the philosophy of language, if we are going to be making moves in the philosophy of language that are to accomplish such heavy theological work.
The idea is simple enough: Constative utterances say something and performative utterances do something. Theological utterances are uttered between the demand of the law and grace of the gospel in the concrete existential situation of the believer before God. Thus, instead of the language about God being about truth and falsity, it is at best "felicitous or infelicitous.' For Austin, the marks of felicitous performative utterances include:
- The existence of conventional procedure governing the utterance of certain words in certain situations;
- The situations being appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure invoked;
- The procedure being executable by the participants correctly and completely;
- Where to inaugurate the procedure depends upon the person inaugurating it to have certain thoughts and feelings, the person so inaugurating it must have certain thoughts and feelings, and all the participants involved must have the appropriate thoughts and feelings;
- The participants conducting themselves accordingly.
- 'I do' - - as in the course of a marriage ceremony.
- 'I name the ship the Queen Elizabeth' - - as uttered when smashing the bottle against the hull.
- 'I give and bequeath my watch to my brother' - - as occurring in a will.
- 'I bet you a sixpence if it will rain tomorrow.'
Of course, Austin himself knew that the distinction between the constative and performative was difficult to maintain. Take for instance the claim, 'there is a dangerous animal here.' While it seems structured as a constative, in certain circumstances is it not elliptical for the putative performances: 'I bet there is a dangerous animal here'; 'I guarantee that there is a dangerous animal here'; or 'I warn you that there is a dangerous animal here'?
Because of this problem, Austin was working at his death upon clarifying the distinction between the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary as a substitute for the previous distinction. In stating what is by means of a locution, one is doing so with illocutionary force, that is, one is normally assuring, or warning, or ordering, or expressing an intention. The perlocutionary subsequently deals with the effects of the illocution in the feelings, thinkings, or actions of the audience, speaker, or other person.
We could at this point talk about how Searle revised his teacher's theory, but for our purposes what is important is to see that illuctionary acts make use of locutions in order to bring about a perlocution. That is to say - - using the early vocabulary - - a performative utterance has propositional content, an intensional or extensional meaning. Furthermore, the utterance presupposes facts and conventions, many of which can be explicated if one were to take the time. For instance, to say 'I bequeath my watch to my brother' with sincerity, presupposes that I have a watch, that I have a brother, that I intend a situation of my brother having a watch, and that there is a social convention whereby of bequeathing such that the state of affairs of my having my watch will give way to my brother legally possessing it.
Within some of these quarters of Lutheran theology an explication of religious and theological statements is given in terms of performative utterances in order, I believe, to escape the thorny question of truth. Thus, to say that "I declare unto you the entire forgiveness of all of your sins in the name of Christ Jesus' is not thus to commit oneself to any specifiable ontological situation involving divine states of affairs, relations, properties, and events. It is rather a performance that, to use Austin's later terminology, has a perlocution. The hope is that the utterances can existentially empower without suggesting any "death-dealing metaphysics."
But a moment's reflection shows how wrong-headed it is to think that perlocutions are somehow psychologically independent of what is being asserted. If one has a social convention of bequeathal, it makes all the difference in the world to the perlocutions generated in the inheriting brother by this illocutionary act, whether he does have, in fact, a brother, and whether or not the brother has something to bequeath.
Analogously, having one's feeling and emotions affected by the declaration of forgiveness of sins has everything to do with whether one believes one has sins, and whether or not Christ is thought to be the kind of being that could in principle forgive them.
While Scripture is filled with what Austin would have at one time called performative utterances, this does not mean that one can escape the truth game. Truth pro me is still truth. I will be dealing with some concrete texts in coming posts. My purposes are entirely constructive. We must as theologians grasp the contemporary philosophical situation with respect to the philosophy of language, if we are going to be making moves in the philosophy of language that are to accomplish such heavy theological work.
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