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Martin Luther is quoted as having once said the following on "faith":
"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding."
There is an obvious linkage between Lutheran attempts to reform the Catholic Church and modern American Protestantism. His ideas, writings and values - whether understood or not - cast a large shadow over the various Christian sects (or "denominations", if you prefer) in existence and this opinion is certainly no different.
There is a strong undercurrent of belief among those "religious" and "spiritual" men and women that insist that all knowledge, reason, sensory perception and even science must conform to what has been revealed by God via his holy "Word." I am curious to know whether or not people of faith believe that Luther is correct in this statement. Must faith be pre-eminent or dominate over all other forms of knowledge? Can knowledge derived from a separate source ever successfully challenge or contradict "faith"?
I look forward to your responses.
In my last post, I attempted to explore and contrast the differences between assumption, fact, belief and knowledge and apply them to the standard of "objective reality." I recently received this comment from a reader:
I'd like to hear more on objective reality. Your "the world is round" comment made me think...is Earth round? Obviously, we know it is round from a extraterrestrial yet intra solar system perspective. But what about from another galaxy? Our solar system is not spherical. It is a flat disc. And our Earth is a non-dimensional speck. Without rambling, I'm just curious as to how objective is reality? And similarly, how universal can truth be?
I want to: a) thank the reader for his question and, b) attempt to answer this question to the best of my ability.
One of the prevalent definitions that I have been working off of for the purposes of this blog has been that of "objective and factual reality." Let me begin by making a clear admission: all three key words in that phrase are highly debatable in terms of conception. Allow me to explain further: - Objective - the dictionary defines "objective" as "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased." The definition, however, can be deceptively straightforward. The problem is not necessarily the act of defining objectivity but achieving objectivity. It is my opinion that humans, because of their inherent first-person perspective, are not able to achieve complete objectivity. We all have limited perspectives as individuals and, as a species, our perspective is also currently limited. Whether that will change any time in the future remains to be seen. I do believe that there is a "reality" that is completely objective and free from personal bias and limited perspective, even if humans cannot perceive it. It appears to me that φύσις (physis or, crudely, "nature") is objective outside of νόμος (nomos or "human convention"). In this light one might say that nature, itself, is both objective and real because it does not conform to the biases, feelings or interpretations of human convention.
- Factual - this idea, too, is difficult to wrestle with. In modern, English-speaking traditions we understand the word fact to have the meaning of "holding a mirror to reality." From an empirical, and scientific, perspective this makes plenty of sense. There is a conflict, however, when one reads the idea of a fact in an ancient sense. The Latin word for fact - facere - means, roughly, to do or make with one's hands. It is the same Latin root that provides English words like "factory" and "manufacture". The ancient Greek analog of facere is poeio or poesis - the root word for poetry. Tying this with the previous definition, a fact is also a product of human convention because it requires a medium of communication in order for it to be shared between peoples and because it also, generally, requires an agreement between peoples to be accepted. Thus, in order to get to a place where your knowledge of the world is informed by facts, you must first come to terms with the idea of factuality and decide how you intend to deploy the word with language.
- Reality - this may be the most troubling idea of all. Every time I use the word "reality" I can feel my professors cringe. I use this word a lot, but I also try to use this word advisedly or, on occasion, by framing it in quotation marks. The English word "reality" has a Latin root in res - meaning "thinghood" or "thingness" - and in the Greek word onto - meaning "being". If that sounds confusing or pedantic to you, you're definitely not alone. How can anyone begin to define something like "being" or "thinghood"? This, of course, is the problem associated with using a word like "reality" without prefacing it with a specific definition.
Even with these logological difficulties with understanding "objective factual reality", I still think it is possible to employ the concept. If we refrain from framing our exploration of reality in a human-centered (anthropocentric) view and allow for a broader Being-centered (ontocentric) view, the idea of "reality" begins to take sharper focus. All of that is a ridiculously philosophical way of saying the following: "reality", as I understand it, is considerably larger than the human being's perspective and experience: unlimited, unaltered and indifferent to our attempts - successful or not - to understand it.
With regard to "how universal can truth be", I can only fall back to a simple answer: truth is only as universal as reality is; which is to say that it is only universal, since truth and reality are the same. How people understand, interpret or communicate truth may be prone to mistake or manipulation, but - again - reality (and truth) is unbiased and not influenced by human convention.
In a recent post on this blog, I stated two opinions about the nature of belief in general and the Christian religion in particular. A friend of mine sent me a message asking me to explain what I meant by them. His message read:Can you explain [these ones] to me:
- "Belief, especially religious belief, is one of the only conventions in the human repertoire that will blatantly defy 'reality.' And no, that's not a good thing."
- "I'm not entirely sure that the Jesus talked about in Christian religious traditions is broadly-enough defined. In other words: Jesus is interpreted too narrowly for my tastes within most expressions of Christianity."
I will attempt to tackle these explanations as best as I can and I hope to satisfy the spirit of the request if not the actual request itself.
The first statement that I want to address is the one concerning belief. I've set out to explore - via this blog - the difference between beliefs, values, ideologies and their relationship to objective reality. Beliefs, as I've come to understand them, are based almost solely on assumptions. This is different from my understanding of knowledge insofar as knowledge is informed by commonly agreed-upon empirical facts. (At this point I could digress into a lengthy bit about the theory of knowledge, the Latin etymology for "facts" and classical skepticism, but I won't. Anyone wanting to understand more about how those three items relate to my previous statements can look those up for his/herself.) Let me explain, crudely, the difference between a belief and knowledge. "God created the Universe." This is a belief. "The world is round." This is knowledge.
Because I feel certain that I'll be interpreted this way, let me say very clearly: there is nothing wrong with having a belief. We all have them both despite and because of our expanding knowledge-base as a species. The problem that I have is when people take a belief, which is fine to have in its own right, and elevate it to the level of "unquestionable authoritative truth." It is my opinion that beliefs enrich our lives most when they are kept in their place: as beliefs. Beliefs, however, because they are often elevated to the level of "unquestionable authoritative truth" often cause believers to blatantly deny "reality" - the existence which can actually be confirmed and verified via empirically-derived factual knowledge.
I've gone round-and-round on this point almost two dozen times with friends, relatives and colleagues so pardon me as I return to it. The Book of Genesis is a beautiful collection of texts, narratives and traditions. It was (and continues to be) the basis for a number of traditions - when read literally - that blatantly defy what humans know about the Earth. The "heavens and the Earth" were not created in six, twenty-four hour periods. Humans know this. It isn't a guess. It isn't a belief. It is backed up by consistently validated, confirmed and verified facts. What's more is: these facts were originally discovered by committed and devout Christians whom, after having discovered them, did not become atheists or turn their back on Christianity but allowed this new information to expand and enrich their understanding of both the mundane and the divine. Holding to a literal interpretation of Genesis is every Christian, Jew and Muslim's right. It is, however, a profound example of how a belief leads people to blatantly defy reality. And no, I do not think that it is good for a person to deny a factually-informed "reality" for an assumption-informed belief. Especially when there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in support of one at the zero-sum expense of the other.
Turning, now, to the question of the Jesus and his relation to mainstream American Christianity, I would like to first say that I, personally, believe there is something special about Jesus in human history. This belief is informed by several assumptions: a) he actually existed as a historical figure of which there is almost no extra-Biblical empirical verification that I am aware of, b) his life had any relationship to the narratives and texts which became the canonized New Testament of the Christian Bible and, c) that the authors of the previously mentioned New Testament texts are trustworthy hagiographers and worth giving the proverbial "benefit of the doubt." I feel that it is incumbent on me to state, very clearly, that I do not treat the New Testament as "authoritative", nor do I approach the texts uncritically. In my own exegetical endeavors, I have come to a number of conclusions that would - and have - angered a number of devoutly orthodox Christians. Most Christians I know believe that, while the original texts of the New Testament were penned by men, the words are actually the direct dictation of God. My research on this question has led me to conclude that at no point in the New Testament do any of the authors claim to have been directly dictated to, outside of the Book of Revelation, which has significant - and currently irresolvable - authenticity issues of its own. (Again, there is a temptation to digress into an explanation of Paul's statement in 2 Timothy 3:16, but that will have to wait for another post if anyone is interested in hearing why it is not a claim of biblical divine dictatorship.)
What can be easily agreed upon by both the most devout and obstinate Christian and the most obstinate atheist is this: Jesus occupies an unprecedented place in human history. Major religious movements and traditions - as well as anti-religious movements and traditions - are devoted to him. Nearly everyone in Western society since him (or, at least, the birth of his movement) has been forced to think about him and come to some kind of understanding about him. Very few men, if anyone, have ever occupied this level of importance in human history: with all due respect given to Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and any individual whose religious patron I have not referenced. The claim that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus" set off a firestorm of controversy for a reason! In Western tradition - perhaps in all human tradition - no one is, or has been, bigger than Jesus. As Saul Silver might claim: Jesus is "the apex of the vortex" of Western spirituality.
It is both because of this and despite this understanding that I believe that Jesus is "too narrowly interpreted" for my tastes within most expressions of the Christian tradition. In my personal research into primitive Christianity, I have found that the earliest Christians were deeply divided over the nature of Jesus. Was he only human? Was he human at all? Was he to be understood only as a Jewish rabbi? Was he to be understood as the last of the Greek demigods? Despite the revisionist history that comes with the canonized New Testament, there was no monolithic movement which embodied a set orthodoxy of Christianity before - in the very least - the third century AD/CE. There were Ebionites, Paulines, Alexandrians, Romans, Nestorians and Donatists, just to name a few! The name "Christian" was given to anyone that followed the teachings of Jesus, according to the tradition they were exposed to.
"Orthodox Christianity" in a very real sense - despite the beliefs of many American protestants - is still not a settled question and, in my historical opinion, never has been. Deep-seated divides over what is "legitimate" within Christianity have not, to this day, been settled by anyone. From the earliest disputes between James and Paul to the Ebionites versus the Paulines, to the Pelagians versus the Augustinians, to the Roman Catholics versus the Eastern Orthodox, to the Roman Catholics versus the Protestants, to the Calvinists versus the Arminians... the divides continue, mostly because each side believes that they have an exclusive claim to the truth about Jesus. It is partly because of these exclusive claims - which are deterministically closed-minded about other interpretations about Jesus - that I claim that most expressions of Christianity interpret Jesus too narrowly.
Another reason that Christian interpretations of Jesus, in general, "turn me off" is that even with all of the intra-Christian dissent about Jesus, Christianity as a whole applies the same attitude about interpreting Jesus against "non-Christians." In short: Christians believe that you have to be a card-carrying Christian in order to contribute to a faithful understanding of Jesus. This, to me, is both odious and senseless. I feel that Jesus, according to my belief in his special-ness, is far too large of a personality in human history to be closed-minded about. Let me clarify further: the more solid and inflexible your beliefs become about Jesus, the more narrowly you interpret him - the smaller he becomes. I speak from vast personal experience on this matter. It is my opinion that the more you try to define something like Jesus (whether as a person, an ideal, or simply an idea), the more you attempt to contain him... the more you attempt to limit his being and inspiration. Despite his obviously central role within Christianity, most expressions of that tradition - to me - do far too much defining, limiting and containing for my tastes. I prefer to believe that if Jesus is "the apex of the vortex", then he won't mind any of my attempts to find his inspiration, example and the wonder he represents in "unlikely" places.
Feel free to leave any comments that you feel are appropriate. As always, please leave the light on.
