The relative unimportance of the questions biblical studies likes to address

The important things we believe or disbelieve, the truth of confessions of faith such as “Jesus is the light of the world” or “the entire Torah [from Moses to Moses via Aqiba, down to the present day] was given by God to Moses on Sinai,” are not dependent on Jesus having spoken of himself in those terms, or on Moses being able to understand the inner connection between the Torah associated with him in the Pentateuch and that same Torah as understood by Akiva.

We believe, we know certain things to be true, or not, based on Gestalt perceptions of great depth and complexity. When we read the words attributed to Moses and his tradents in Jewish tradition, we hear a voice, and the voice is distinct from all others to which we might listen. When we hear the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels, once again, a voice unlike any other voice can be heard. Within the contours of the voice of Torah or the voice of Jesus, it is possible to make out something of the historical and cultural determinedness of its components. The voice does not become less distinct and less unique in the process of this discovery. On the contrary.

That being the case, it is a priori possible for believer and non-believer alike to calmly distinguish between the narrative identities of Judaism and Christianity attested in their foundational documents and the larger history from which those narrative identities were (and continue to be) abstracted and constructed. The most that can happen is that a non-believer might conclude, as does a believer like Michael Bird, that Jesus did have messianic aspirations and that he self-consciously engaged in a career that inaugurated the kingdom of God as he hoped it and understood it. This would imply that passages like Luke 11:20 and 7:32 reflect the ipsissima vox if not the ipsissima verba of Jesus of Nazareth. The most that might happen is that a non-practitioner of Torah will conclude, and I would, that the entire Torah bequeathed to the Jewish people is an indivisible unity.

Problems arise if and only if one believes that the evidence suggests that somewhere along the line, what once was Torah became something quite else, a perversion of Torah. Or that Jesus was radically misunderstood by his followers. Claims of this kind, however, have a tenuous basis in the evidence at our disposal. It is not the case that such beliefs are totally without foundation. From a point of view within the traditions, on the basis of internal criteria, it is possible to identify perversions, but only against the background of significant continuities. On the other hand, from a point of view external to the traditions, it is easy to stand in judgment of the entire kit and caboodle. There is no getting around that. It comes with the territory. It follows from the basic realities of the sociology of knowledge.

In terms of intellectual engagement, everything hangs on addressing the historical-critical questions biblical studies likes to address in a responsible way and formulating testable hypotheses. And on one other thing: the capacity to enjoy the questions and the nitty-gritty detail in which possible answers to the questions are found.

In order to address the historical questions fairly, it helps to have a low level of anxiety about what answers might seem plausible at the end of the day. For example, if you can’t say, with Michael Bird, that “I would not be bothered at all if the historical Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah” - he can say that because he knows Jesus to be the Messiah in any case - it’s not likely that you will examine the evidence with respect to the question in an even-handed manner, or even want to.

Bibliography

Michael F. Bird, Are You the One Who Is to Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (foreword, Stanley E. Porter; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009). The quotation above is from page 162. The formulation of the part of this post concerned with what needs to be the case for a truth claim like “Jesus is the Messiah” to be seriously challenged is indebted to Bird’s appreciative quotation of a statement by Marcus Borg (p. 162, note 3).

Comments

[Charles]

Great point John. May the people of low anxiety increase.

[Alan Lenzi]

**shaking my head** You go to such lengths to intellectualize your fideism!

[JohnFH]

Hi Alan,

Nicely put. I do go to considerable lengths. The alternative would be that of not thinking my faith through.

Non-believers are faced with the same alternative. Very quickly of course the default position is not to think critically about one's own faith / non-faith, but only about that of others as part of a comforting process of redundant confirmation.

It's not difficult to show that whether one believes or not is a function of personal reactions to specific experiences, reactions in which non-rational elements play a large and usually determining role. The example of Darwin is instructive. He stopped believing in God based on a sensitive reaction to personal tragedy - a tribute, really, to his moral integrity - not on the basis of his intellectual exploits, which led some people then to refine their faith, and others to question it altogether, as is the case to this day.

Research has shown that without the gift/burden of nervous and emotional reactions to what from a rational point of view are insignificant phenomena, individuals find it difficult to make decisions at all. The part of the brain that processes information like a computer needs the non-rational input of nervous and emotional responses in order not to remain paralyzed at forks in the road.

Aware of that fact, and not embarrassed by it in the least, I go on living, inclusive of watching a sunset that is so beautiful it gives me the shivers and makes me wonder to the depth of my being how it all could be an accident.

Likewise, I am fully aware that prayer is, as an evolutionary psychologist might put it, a response to crisis that is explainable as a helpful adaptation to an environment in which crises are a regular occurrence.

Once again, rather than be embarrassed by my evolutionary makeup, it sets me thinking about whether or not it corresponds to anything "out there" in some way.
This being "set to thinking" is the origin of all science and hypothesis-making thought. Aquinas's dictum really is true, sorry to point out the obvious: theology is the queen of the sciences.

Notice the natural affinity of the stance of a believer to that of a questioner. It's not just Thomas, though it's hard to think of someone in the history of thought more adept at intellectual quest.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that self-identifying agnostics are on one level practical atheists but don't want to admit it because atheism is, intellectually speaking, as ungrounded a position as theism.

Agnostics are, intellectually speaking, practical atheists nonetheless, because they have taken the wonder out of life insofar as it poses the question of God over and over again, which gets old after all if you've decided that it's a question you don't have an answer for, especially if you've convinced yourself it's a question no one can claim to have an answer for.

That makes thinking atheists even rarer than thinking theists because the truth of atheism is bitter. Think Nietzsche.

[Alan Lenzi]

"Notice the natural affinity of the stance of a believer to that of a questioner." No, I really don't. Believers usually tend to have answers, or so they think. Their questions, when they do have them, always find or eventually will find, they believe, an answer in something already "known"--i.e., god. What's the answer for suffering in the world? Jesus, accept Jesus and things will get better, or "we'll find out when we get to heaven," or "god knows what he's doing." There is a spectrum of humility and arrogance among believers. But Joe-Pew Sitter, I think, generally falls on the side of "we've got it figured out." When I surveyed my freshmen seminar about things they were unwilling to question or probe intellectually this week, the first thing mentioned: "my religion." About 2/3 of the class nodded. I guess pastors aren't doing their job instilling a sense of wonder and questioning in their kids.

"Agnostics are, intellectually speaking, practical atheists nonetheless, because they have taken the wonder out of life insofar as it poses the question of God over and over again." You talk about that which you do not know, John. Agreed, agnostics are practical atheists because they do not submit to some divine being. But the thoughtful agnostics that I know are open to the mystery of being, the universe, etc. I look at a sunset, the developing complexity of my child, the unspeakable feelings that well up in me for those I love, and I wonder how everything could be an accident. It seems so unlikely. We have ideas about where everything came from. But we know hardly anything about the ultimate origins of the universe. Agnosticism, empirical observation of the universe, reflections on our being, these are lifelong mysteries worth revisiting over and over for someone like me. I just read a chapter from a book by Karl Sagan in which he says science, even for him!, is a form of spirituality. It's a confident believer who must force everyone's experiences into a Procrustean theological bed that would deny such mystery to those of us still without answers.

My brand of agnosticism is this: I can't know there is a god based on what I've seen or thought about SO FAR. If I weren't somewhat open to the possibility of there being a god, I wouldn't be an agnostic.

[JohnFH]

Alan,

Thanks for the conversation. I'm trying to identify something in what you say that I strongly disagree with. It's not an easy task.

I don't deny what you say about popular religion. But you know better. You know that biblical spirituality is far more about the questions posed to us by circumstances and by what is taken to be the voice of God than it is about answers that solve questions like the problem of suffering.

The problem of suffering is deliberately left open in scripture, and not just in the book of Job. In the prophets, the Psalms, and from the cross, humanity's questions are allowed to stand without a straightforward answer.

I am aware that many agnostics, and most scientists including those who are atheists, are filled with Psalm 8-like wonder when they contemplate (1) the heavens and (2) humanity's place in the cosmos.

Perhaps it's true that there is no one to whom one might offer praise for this wonder.

On the other hand, the supposition that this world in which we live, governed as it is by mathematical formulae of the greatest elegance, is designed technology, that's not a half-baked notion.

By analogy with our own experience, if we went to another planet in another galaxy and found artifacts of some sort, we would immediately conclude, and rightly so, that someone made them. As for biological life, it's the most natural thing in the world to assume that they are God's artifacts, even though that tells us next to nothing, on the face of it, about who this God or divine equipe is.

Deism, apart from special revelation, is a persuasive paradigm, though subject to further verification or falsification. It is no wonder that so many of the best human minds have been deists of one sort or another.

But agnosticism, what is that? It is the opposite of a scientific attitude. It betrays a lack of courage insofar as a working hypothesis is not ventured. Of course we don't know in an ultimate sense. In some sense we are all agnostics unless we are totally deluded (more carefully put, in denial).

At this point in the conversation, agnostics usually fess up to being atheists in the sense of having atheism as their working hypothesis. I think you admit that that is your working hypothesis, but since you wish to hold on to the sense of wonder that wells up within you - and I don't blame you - you don't try to reconcile the irreconcilable. In that sense believers and non-believers may travel in different boats, but on close inspection, the boats of both seem to be made by the same manufacturer and are about equally sea-worthy. And both boats look kind of puny in the midst of a hurricane, of which life is full. I hope the metaphor is not too obscure.

For the rest, I realize full well that the best scientists who happen to be atheists make their science into a religion. Sagan is a great example. I think that makes perfect sense. In conversation with someone like Sagan, I know myself to be in dialogue with another believer. The only difference is that he believes in a religion that is apparently very different from mine, but if I try simultaneous translation - as did the ancients per Mark Smith according to his book "God in translation" - I am not at a loss for words. I wonder if that makes any sense to you.

For the rest, I hope you take the clueless believers who populate your classes and shake them up until they learn to doubt. Because doubt, suspicion, and finally, self-criticism, are motors of knowledge. They are not the only pathways to knowledge, but without them, we really can't travel. We are dead in the water.

[Alan Lenzi]

Just a couple of thoughts.

"But agnosticism, what is that? It is the opposite of a scientific attitude. It betrays a lack of courage insofar as a working hypothesis is not ventured."

No, it is suspension of final judgment due to lack of credible data. That is a very solid intellectual option that more people should try. Sometimes we simply can't make a judgment on certain matters due to the nature or the absence of good evidence. And when the stakes are unbelievably high, as it is when lots of people claim to know an unverifiable all-powerful being's mind, suspension of judgment is a responsible option. My "practical atheism," my working hypothesis as you say, is really simply an absence. I have left the "god" space in my thinking open out of necessity because I have not (yet) found good reason to fill it with some deity.

Science isn't a religion in any sense of the word if "religion" is going to be a useful category for looking at human activity. One may be an ideological materialist, but science (an investigative method and its results) is not a religion.

I don't ever challenge my students' faith or religion head-on. It would be too easy to bully them. Issues that come up in some classes may provoke a thoughtful, open student. But I rarely get anyone (at least in CA) that gets super, super upset with what I say in class. Maybe I should be more provocative.

[JohnFH]

Always a pleasure to go back and forth.

I am confident that you are respectful of the views of your students, even when they differ greatly from your own. They are fortunate to have you. If you provoke them to think about their unexamined premises in a context of respect, you will of course be giving them a great gift.

[Ranger]

Alan and John,
Thanks for the wonderful post, and insightful discussion.

I've always been afraid to admit that I'm a fideist, but I am. It would be easier if there was such a thing as neutral rationality to interpret/discover/discuss these big questions, but that's a myth and undercuts the non-fideist position (whether Christian or not). Many atheists don't get this, some agnostics do, and most Christians haven't thought about it enough.

I think those of us who are more Reformed and hold to revealed theology can't help but be fideists. I enjoy naturally theology, but only in the sense of Torrance/McGrath, where it serves to interpret the world from within the community of faith. Thus, fine-tuning makes sense, because the world is created. Not, the world must be created because we have discovered fine-tuning. Ultimately, my Calvinism confesses that my faith comes from God alone. That makes me a fideist. Probably not in the derogatory tone that some intend with the term, but accurate nonetheless. The other necessary end of my Calvinism is that I don't/can't/wouldn't dare think that I have completely figured out God. In that sense, I'm agnostic, but an agnostic saved by grace through faith in Christ. I continually seek that knowledge but know it cannot be found in the world apart from mystery and revelation...and that brings me back to fideism.

[JohnFH]

For a demonstration that fideism is also the way of science, see Wolterstorff's classic Reason within the Bounds of Religion.

[Alan Lenzi]

I was once a Calvinist, Reformed, the whole bit. (I graduated from WTS-Philly.) The weak link in the system is their ability to deal with biblical criticism thoughtfully. Guys like P. Enns, who encouraged them to do so, get the axe. I know, it's complicated. But that's how I see it. Why is it this way? Because for MOST believers--scholars included, their questions are strictly bounded and always already answered by presuppositions that cannot be changed (because they MUST have been delivered once and for all in revelation or the holy spirit or, even worse, the "confession"). This does not seem intellectually honest to me. There are some who will admit to doubts and questions. But they tend to be viewed with suspicion. I recall a discussion in an apologetics class about certainty of the truth of Christianity. When I expressed the idea that I didn't know how we could feel such certainty, it was like the whole class went silent. I thought they were going to start praying for me! Ha! (I suppose good Calvinists would say that I must not have had the "witness of the spirit" because, looking back, I have not persevered; so I was/am not elect. If it makes them feel better, I guess that's the answer. Of course, people who believe in crop circles always have answers, too.)

[JohnFH]

I had different teachers. One of them was John Linton (see left sidebar far down for a link to a tribute). He delighted in getting us to lose our faith in the hopes of restoring it on firmer foundations.

In any case, Alan, in the Apologetics class session of which you speak, I would have supported you. I guess you know that by now.

[Ranger]

Alan/John,
That's terrible, but not surprising. The ironic part is that before WTS was even established, their Dutch Calvinist brothers were laying the foundations for a devastating critique of the Cartesian certainty using the very Calvinism that WTS seems to pride itself in.

I took a different route in my studies. I started at a school of religion where the intellectual mocking came from the other side of the fence. By the end of my four years, I was as close to apostate as you can get without making that leap of doubt.

Amazingly, due to location/finances I went to a conservative grad school. Despite having a flawless GPA in my undergrad, I still had to retake some basic classes. I decided this would be my opportunity to really challenge these conservative professors, and hopefully pose new questions for my classmates that they surely hadn't thought of themselves (my assumption of their ignorance was often wrong, but that's another story).

Surprisingly, these conservative professors often seemed to know my questions before I asked, and addressed them in the lecture. When they would open up discussion, I would ask (sometimes hostile) questions, but they graciously answered and offered fresh insights that I hadn't considered before.

I remember when we came to Genesis 1 and my professor said he interpreted the passage as a polemical poem against the alternative creation myths, which still taught us something about the way God communicates to people in a cultural context. Of course, some of my classmates found this radically liberal, but I found it radically conservative because he claimed that God could still speak through ancient language and cultures. I pressed him, and he listened and pressed back, and as we went back and forth he became a friend who was willing to listen outside of class, answer questions and also give spiritual insight. It's because of professors like this who listened to my questions and doubts that I began to hear the voice in Genesis 1 again...more clearly...or maybe for the first time altogether.

[JohnFH]

Ranger,

I agree with you about your professor being the real conservative. The fact that then he was also a giving and open person was a winning combination.

[Alan Lenzi]

The certainty that I heard about at WTS was rooted in their (extremely flawed) presuppositional apologetics.

Ranger, I wonder if your prof. or you would say Gen 1 is a polemical MYTH (it isn't poetry) against the alternative creation myths. This is the real rub for me. Christians implicitly or explicitly treat the Bible differently when there is no reason whatsoever beyond their own faith claims.

Well, there are lots of issues to talk about. But now's not the time, I suppose. It's been interesting.

[Ranger]

Alan,
He probably wouldn't use myth for the same reasons I wouldn't, which Chris Brady recently laid out in response to his recent post on the chapter. He said:

"My issue with using the term “myth” is that fundamentally, as well as in popular perception, it has the meaning of “a commonly held yet false belief.” So to say, as we often do in religious studies circles as a kind of special pleading so as not to offend, “it is a myth, but it contains deep and eternal truths” may make sense in our little circle, but to the average person it just sounds nonsensical."

I agree with the average person...it's nonsensical, yet I also believe Genesis 1 has deep and eternal truths. The chapter is definitely not a standard Hebrew poem, or anything like what we would think of as historical or scientific writing. Thus, I prefer just calling it story, and also like how John Sailhammer called it a non-musical "hymn" to the Creator. To me, story doesn't imply complete falsity, and thus doesn't carry the metaphysical claims that using myth brings.

[Ranger]

Let me clarify though, that from a humanities standpoint, I know that the meaning of myth does not equate to the popular meaning of the term. I wouldn't oppose you using the term to teach a class on the subject, and would understand what you meant. At the same time, if I were teaching it I might try to explain that the usage in my class doesn't necessarily carry the metaphysical claims that the common usage carries.

[JohnFH]

I will FYI this to Chris. He may choose to interact with the exchange.

[Colin Toffelmire]

John and Alan,

I have nothing of substance to add to the discussion, but I would like to tell you both how very much I admire the way you've disagreed with one another. My experience with these kinds of discussions, particularly online, has been that they are usually mean-spirited and seldom helpful. Quite the opposite was the case here. It was refreshing to read two people disagreeing so strongly with one another while remaining considerate.

After John's initial response to Alan's virtual headshake I posted on my own blog about how much I appreciated his response. I've ammended that post to direct my (very, very few) readers to this conversation, which is, I think, an excellent example of how religious/philosophical dialogue should proceed.

[JohnFH]

Colin,

Thanks for chiming in. And thanks for alerting us to your blog.

[Alan Lenzi]

Colin, thanks for speaking up. I hope I don't disappoint you with my next post on the "m-word."