Thinking theologically (4)

Contemporary Battles

As we must not lose sight of the unity of truth, neither must we lose sight of the unity of error. There is a unity of truth, a unity of falsehood and a unity of the human person in which the battle is fought out. None of these unities must be allowed to be fragmented even though we need to distinguish between different elements in all three.

Now we look at falsehood. It comes from the Devil, the father of lies, and is therefore primarily a spiritual battle. We wrestle not against flesh and blood (Eph 6:12). Its great purpose is to steal the glory of God and destroy his work. It has taken multiple forms over the millennia and affects us in body and soul. It affects all creation. Its presence in the flesh and in the world means that the Christian life is a daily battle.

It takes particular forms in different generations and we need to take a brief look at those forms in which opposition to the truth is apparent today. Some have been around a long time but are still strong or even particularly strong today; other enemies are more recent (and yet nothing is new!).

1. Rationalism

Rationalism enthrones reason over revelation. The Christian asserts the importance of reason, indeed even its supremacy among gifts God has given us, but always subordinate to revelation. It is how we receive and understand revelation; it is not a source of truth in itself. Rationality is part of being human; rationalism idolises reason.

2. Postmodernism

Postmodernism is (rationalistic) modernism run to seed. It recognises that reason cannot tell us what truth and meaning are. Instead of striving for them (as does modernism, which is still with us), it makes a virtue out of necessity and says ‘there is no absolute truth, there are no metanarratives out there’. It glories in irrationality. The Christian will agree with much that postmodernism tells us about the inability of reason to do what rationalists have long proclaimed, but it will not at all approve the solution that postmodernism proposes.

In the field of literary criticism, where postmodernism began in its self-conscious form, we are left with the notion that the text means what the reader wants it to mean. Everything is a matter of interpretation; thinking merges into imagination as objective controls are absent.

3. Relativism / pluralism

Relativism is the denial that there are absolute truths or values (that is, that certain things are true for all people everywhere always); or that if there are such truths or values they are beyond our grasp, either at present or permanently. Pluralism (in this context) is the idea that all religions are of equal validity, which is the corollary of relativism.

It is worth pausing here to ask: what impact do these three positions (rationalism, postmodernism and relativism/pluralism) have on ‘thinking’?

In view of what we have said above: rationalism rejects revelation as ultimately authoritative, so reason has nothing to respond to; it has to find out truth itself. Such a task is beyond it and leads to despair – despair which has been evaded but not answered in the last century by existentialism (finding meaning, for example, in the assertion of the will) and more lately by postmodernism.

Postmodernism spells the death of thought because it exalts unreason.

Relativism meanwhile more subtly destroys true thought because every potential system of truth is reckoned to contain a virus that says ‘this is not true except for me and those who happen to agree with it’. Truth demands to be universalised and the impulse of logic is destroyed when it is seeking truth but has to regard it as mere opinion. Allen Bloom in 'The Closing of the American Mind' argues that the ‘supervalue’ of ‘openness’ or cultural egalitarianism is actually closedness. It commits us to the acceptance of the status quo and prevents reason pursuing knowledge as it should.

John Owen said: ‘Without “absolutes” revealed from without by God himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice, right and wrong, issued from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. We could never know who God is, how he may be worshipped, or wherein true happiness lies’ (Biblical Theology, p xl).

4. Pragmatism

The ‘what works rules’ principle that relies on results to validate practise. Not wrong in every situation, it nonetheless substitutes calculation for true thought. As in other cases, the loss of something absolute and objective changes true thinking into something else – creating truth, meaning or one’s own reality, and here – calculation.

5. Mysticism

The Christian faith certainly rejoices in mystery, for God takes the believer beyond the limits of reason, and faith grasps what reason cannot. But Christianity is not anti-rational or irrational. The gospel is called a mystery, says Owen, only because the reality of the gospel as revealed to men exceeds human reason and the Holy Spirit instructs the believer in Scriptural mysteries which are beyond the comprehension of the natural mind (Bib. Theol, p 11). To the believer is made known the ‘mystery of his will’ (Eph 1:9) by a ‘spirit of wisdom and revelation’ (1:17).

The mysticism often regarded today, however, as implicit in religion is anti-intellectual. There is the ‘inner voice’ kind of mysticism seeking and relying on new ‘revelations’ instead of humbly receiving what God has said and meditating on it; but also a mysticism of the emotions, with worship for example not so much accompanied by music as driven by it. It is the pursuit of experience apart from revelation, by-passing the mind.

6. Fragmentation

I referred earlier to the fragmentation of knowledge, against the Christian view of the ultimate unity of all truth. Scholars and academics in all manner of disciplines are specialising in smaller and smaller areas of their subject, with the result that any connecting principles between them are obscured.

7. Amusement culture

Neil Postman dissects the triviality of TV culture in 'Amusing Ourselves to Death'. He observes, ‘I believe I am right in saying that Christianity is a serious and demanding religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether’ (p 124).

These ‘enemies’ are serious not so much because they are substantive attacks on Christian faith and doctrine (though some of course are), but because they undermine the process of thinking itself.