The Challenge of Integration: What Role Social Science
and Art Criticism?
WILLIAM DYRNESS
Professor of Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, CA, USA
Re-Published* in Global Missiology, Research Methodology,
July 2006, www.globalmissiology.org
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The problem of integration across disciplines of
inquiry is certainly not new to Christian thinkers, it has been with us
since the New Testament. But this particular conversation, I take it, is being
pursued on the assumption that new resources and possibilities
have become available lately that might help Christians,
especially missiologists and evangelists, do their
work more effectively. I agree with this assessment, though it may turn
out for different reasons than other partners in the discussion. But I am
grateful to be a part of the
conversation because I too have
struggled to understand how the disciplines of art history and criticism, and more
recently, the social sciences, can be used by Christian thinkers. And I
wholeheartedly support the
underlying missiological thrust of the
conversation, since I have approached my work on theology and culture from the
perspective of one whose first teaching experience was on the mission
field—though I understand
this work in its broadest sense, that
of bringing all to the feet of Jesus and doing all to the glory of God.
My own contribution here will be divided into
three parts. First I want to make some historical observations about
the traditional approach to integration, which has been shaped, almost
exclusively, by discussions
between philosophy and theology. I
want to argue that our problem has been largely created by the shape these
conversations have taken—a shape primarily determined by their rootage in the
Greek philosophical
heritage. Secondly I want to signal
the important shift in emphasis that is represented by the contribution of non-western
theology in the last generation, especially Liberation Theology, which I
believe suggests a new
way of thinking about these things.
Finally I will make some constructive suggestions about the implications of this
which appear particularly relevant to Christian witness in the post-modern
context.
I
Let me begin by briefly making a methodological point.
Often discussions of this kind speak as if the basic
issue was: "How do we reconcile different
sources of truth, or different methods of determining truth?" Now it is
true that for us, since the epistemological turn of the enlightenment, this is
a very important question. But
I do not believe it is the most
important question for most of Christian history, nor, incidentally for most people
outside the West today. In fact I believe if we had put the question in this
way to the Apostle Paul he
would have been puzzled. Though it is hard to put
this in a transhistorical and transcultural way, I think earlier thinkers
were far more interested in conflicting notions about what is the final goal
(or good) that one seeks in
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life. To use Charles Taylor's phrase they sought that for
which one will literally live or die? And the struggle over what we are calling integration was between conflicting
notions of this goal.
Already in the New Testament Paul called
attention to the problem of differing understandings of the goal of life. Jews, he wrote, demand signs, presumably of the coming messianic
kingdom; Greeks desire wisdom; but we announce Christ crucified (I Cor. 1:22). While the Jews long for the
coming messianic rule and seek to
live their lives in anticipation of this rule, Greeks find
their end in a particular kind of wisdom, and in living a life controlled by this wisdom. Christians meanwhile find their life all
wrapped up in an historical figure, Jesus Christ who was crucified and resurrected. Notice that these divisions
are not in the first instance over different notions of truth, but over different conceptions about what is
really important, and how one should go about living life in the light of this. Notice further that both Jews
and Christians interpreted this as having to do with events; it was the Greeks who spoke of particular knowledge as
the goal of life.
Very soon however, as Christianity moved out into the larger
intellectual world, the issues came to be defined exclusively in terms of a Hellenic world view. Rather than seeing faith
in Christ--what Paul called the wisdom of God, and Greek wisdom as competing notions, the question became how
one could be understood in terms
of the other: how the event of Christ could be understood
in Greek terms. While a wide variety of positions
have been taken on this question, looked at from
one point of view, not much has changed from these first conversations
about the relationships between faith and reason or, later, between theology
and philosophy.
Justin Martyr for example believed
that these domains could be understood together, that everything that is
good and beautiful in the world is ultimately due
to the logos, the basic spiritual reality he identified with God, that
pervades all things (I Apology, I, 58-60). Tertullian by contrast insisted there
was a sharp break between
these worlds. In his
Prescriptions Against Heretics, he
asserted that truth is uniquely to be found in the Creeds
and Confessions of the Church and therefore we have no need to seek after it as
philosophers do.
Interestingly both Justin and
Tertullian felt that the strongest argument for Christianity was to be found in their
corporate life in the world, but when it came to debate they already accepted
the reigning dichotomy--
though they did not yet call it faith and reason.
One felt these realms were ultimately united, the other insisted that
Athens and Jerusalem have nothing to do with one another. Both agreed, however,
that these were
different realities, and this
agreement shaped their discourse.
This picture received its clearest expression in the
thought of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1275). Thomas of course
carried this distinction to the point of insisting
they implied two different "sciences" or as we would say, ways of
knowing. The one depended on principles received as revelation, the other
involved reflection by the
natural light of reason. Of the two of
course, revelation is the superior because it alone allows the person to reach his
or her highest end, which is the vision of God in heaven. But the lower way is
by no means to be
despised. In fact Thomas seems to
ground even the knowledge of revelation in the natural knowledge that is available
by the light of reason. The reason for this, at least on the reading of
Frederick Copleston, is that
f2l
knowledge begins with
the awareness of understanding of corporal things. Arguments for the existence
of
God must be made a posteriori, that is on the basis
of experience. The great advance of Thomas, as for Aristotle
on whom he is so dependent, was to allow for the possibility of real knowledge
on the basis of our
f3l
life in the world.
Though this knowledge allows a person to
reach what Thomas called their natural end, it was not sufficient by itself. Besides the fact that most people mix this knowledge with a great
deal of error, or that they may simply be incapable of pursuing complex arguments, Thomas believed it is only
through the knowledge of revelation, which is believed finally on the authority of the church, that a person
is enabled to reach their transcendent
end of seeing (and thus perfectly knowing) God.
But what is important for our purposes is to note the radical, and
unquestioned, distinction between these ways of knowing. Though Thomas took an
important step toward
affirming the value of both ways, the
scales were inevitably tipped toward the supernatural knowledge that is gained
through revelation. Only in this way is one allowed to reach the end for which
they were created: the
vision of God in heaven. The best
that philosophy can offer is an approach and support for this knowledge, which
functions "ancilla Domini", as the handmaiden of the Lord.
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The allowance by
Thomas that some people simply cannot follow a complicated argument , recalls an
ancient charge made by Galen against
Christianity. Galen, you will recall, argued that Christians resorted to "parables", as he called them, because they were unable to
follow a complicated argument. In his mind only this kind of argument led the person into the knowledge that mattered.
For Thomas the light of reason,
whatever its merits, simply cannot discover the truth that
can only be found in revelation. But this discussion recalls still another much later philosopher who discussed the relation
between the knowledge obtained by
revelation and that by reason. In his Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, John Locke argued that
revelation helps those unable to reason for themselves to
know something of the truth. But, in a critical reverse of Thomas, this knowledge received on authority lacks the
clarity and precision that human reason is
able to give it. Revelation here has become a kind of lesser knowledge
suitable to those unable to grasp truth by their own reasoning. Inevitably knowledge that revelation brings must
then be at least interpreted and
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finally judged by the natural knowledge of things. Though Locke did not
have this intention, Immanuel
Kant took a further step in arguing that
our logical processes cannot give us any real knowledge of God at all. Having found revelation discredited in the previous generation, now
Christians lose their final means to argue for God: human reason. As Michael Buckley put it in his important
discussion of these things: "The
f6l
heologians who had
deposited all their coin with [these philosophers] found themselves
bankrupt."
This reversal might appear to justify Tertullian's
warning. Once one allows philosophy a role in the process of organizing
our world, sooner or later, it will begin to take over: the handmaiden will become
the tyrant. But
my argument is somewhat different.
The problem is not that philosophy has been given a positive role, but
that the world picture in which philosophy was
allowed to function was fundamentally flawed. The world was understood
in terms of an overriding dualism, and the struggle between these two defined
the conversation
that we now call
"integration". The background world picture was so strong that, to
use Colin Gunton's
f7l
expression, though
Christians believe all creation is very good, "some things are more so
than others". As a
result, while Christians were holding to the
superiority of revelation, they found its connection with this world problematic.
In some of the spiritualist traditions, for example, it seemed that revelation
had severed all real
connection with this world altogether. Little by
little Christian thinking was, so to speak, painting itself into a corner,
holding to the far side of the divide where we believed God's truth had been
revealed once and for all.
Meanwhile people of good will, many
of them Christian, began to discover on their own the goodness and order of
this world. They opted for this side of the great cosmic divide as the place
where they would work
out their salvation. Little by little,
as Francis Schaeffer used to say, nature began to eat up grace. But notice what a
great reversal had taken place. Remember it was the Greek picture that gave
ultimate value to the far
side of things, the realm of ideas and reasoning,
while Christianity, in the beginning, insisted that the focus of everything
was connected somehow with the death of a man on a cross sometime around A. D.
33, a cross
clearly planted firmly on this side of the divide.
Perhaps the current crisis of integration, if we may call it that, may give
us occasion to rethink the picture we have inherited and to retrieve our
biblical heritage.
Here I have been greatly helped by Ellen
Charry who recently pointed out that Kant's antinomies may not be the disaster for Christianity that they have been made out to be.
"For [this] permits theology," she writes, " to turn its attention from strong rational proofs, on the model of basic
science, to a softer rationality that views
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ranscendent knowledge
as reliable though mutable." It is to the
exploration of this softer rationality,
growing out of a
fundamentally different picture of the world, to which I now turn.
II
Not surprisingly voices from parts of the world
that have not been shaped by western civilization have sometimes
been the means of forcing us to think differently about what we are calling
integration. For many
of these, deprived as they are of
Plato's instruction, life is perceived in terms of a single whole, the
spiritual and the material are interrelated, or even
indistinguishable. For them our quest to integrate parts of our lives
seems strange. They start with the reality of the
spirit world and work toward a proper understanding of what we call
science. They start with the community and work toward an appropriate
appreciation of the
individual. Above all they begin their search for
salvation, to give our quest for integration its proper name, in the midst
of cultural and historical circumstances that demand a response, often
literally, with life or death
consequences.
In one of the most impressive contributions to modern
theology, Japanese theologian Kazoh Kitamori, writing out of the horror of the devastation of World War II, in the midst of a
personal struggle with turberculosis,
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wrote A Theology of the Pain of God. Contrary to what Schleiermacher and liberal theology has
taught,
Kitamori argues, God cannot embrace us
immediately, for we are sinners. He must love us through his pain. "The
pain of God reflects his will to love the object of his wrath"(21). So
that the suffering of Jesus is
inevitably implied in God's
relationship with the world, if it is true that God deeply loves the world.
Jesus death becomes then in one sense an act within God,
who can finally be understood only by the "word of his cross"
(47). Here is an attempt to develop an interpretation about what is important
for a people who have
suffered such an incredible loss, by
understanding how God suffers while embracing his creation. It is an attempt
to follow Paul's insistence that our faith, our attempt to make sense of our
lives and live them well,
has radically to do with Christ and him
crucified. Notice his natural assumption that meaning is to be found in God's presence (and suffering) in this world, it is not to be sought
beyond the world. God has come to us and suffered in a redemptive fashion, we do not need to ascend to him. The
influence of this on the subsequent
f10f
development of
theology in the West, I think, has yet to be explored.
But for our purposes an even better example is to
be seen in the rise of Liberation Theology in Latin America. There a
decisive shift has taken place in theological method, and, I think, in our
approach to questions of
integration. From the beginning this theology
has embodied a fundamental critique not only of western theological
method, but more importantly, of the world picture that we have sketched.
Enrique Dussel, for
example, the best known historian of
the movement, points out that western history has been shaped by
Greek thinking which was not only foreign to Latin
America, but even, he argues, to biblical thinking. For the Greeks,
he notes, reality lay in the idea outside of history, so they were never able
to get beyond the
anecdotal in history— recall Galen's
sneer about Christians' "parables". This was institutionalized,
Dussel argued, in Constantinian Christianity, in which
"Christendom" was the earthly shadow of the heavenly form.
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In both cases "mankind is not seen as dependent on historical
happenings". For the biblical
writers, by
contrast, the meaning of what was happening was to
be found in history and only in history—recall the OT insistence
on remembering what God had done. So for Latin American theologians, Dussel
concluded, the meaning of their painful and oppressive history
must be sought within history and the obedience that is required
must somehow respond to that history.
This means that theology as it had been done in the West
would not meet the needs of this situation. As the best known protestant theologian of the movement, Jose Miguez Bonino put
it, the concreteness of the
problems posed served as an implicit critique of the
abstract character of western theology—for its sweet
tooth for the far side of the divide. They wanted to
assure themselves that the questions posed represented "a
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real problem, the solution of which was demanded by a concrete and
active engagement." But what tools
were available to them to assess and interpret
their concrete situation? Traditional theological method with its philosophical
bias was not felt to be useful. Meanwhile Christians from many different
backgrounds were
becoming active in the many movements for
liberation that proliferated during the 1960's. As Miguez Bonino describes
the process, it was this movement on the part of many people toward political
involvement that
proved to be the starting point of a
new theological reflection.
How could they make sense of the situation in which they
found themselves? Miguez Bonino notes that theologians began to turn to the social sciences for help in
understanding their situation. "The new sociological categories provided the scientific structure necessary to
grasp, analyze, and carry forward a phenomenon for which theologians had no categories: the revolutionary
practice of a growing number of
Christians" (69). Of course critics soon
pointed out the dangers inherent in this move. First in starting with the historical
situation, do we not risk making this situation in some way normative? What is
left of the authority
of Scripture as God's word from
outside of my situation? Second, these Latin theologians seemed to be
saying: theology made use of philosophy in the past, this
does not provide the help that we need therefore we will replace philosophy with the social sciences—history, sociology,
anthropology, as the handmaidens of
theology. But is it not naive simply to replace philosophy with social
science method? Does not the latter
itself rests on certain philosophical assumptions
about the nature of reality? These are valid questions, but my response
is to ask another question: are these limitations inherent in empirical methods
of analyzing and
describing social reality, or are
they reflections of the philosophical milieu in which these methods have developed?
We will want to argue that the limits of social science method in fact reflect
the rationalism and
elitism of enlightenment philosophy,
which in turn are reflective of the defective world picture we have sketched,
rather than something fundamentally defective about social analysis.
I will say more in a moment about the
limitations of social science method, but here I want to call attention to the radical shift that is implied by the claims of liberation theology.
One of their major critiques is against the "dualism" that is implicit in traditional theology, and that we
have described above. Gustavo Gutierrez
critiques those who would question whether he is
confounding social and personal sin with humanizaton as an historical
process, by pointing out that he is seeking to assert a fundamental unity of
these realms--God is
interested both in forgiving human sin and in delivering people
from unjust social structures (discussed in 70). But the
more important claim for our purposes is the assertion that history is the
inevitable context for
theological reflection. "The
only point of departure is the concrete situation," claims Miguez Bonino.
"It is therefore very urgent to...assume the historical
character of theology. We do theology `beginning from concreteness,'
from `particular realities'". (72). This seems to me to be a simple
statement of fact, but one
with great theological implications,
especially for our discussion of integration. How is it possible for us ever
reflect theologically outside of some particular
historical situation? And if God's purposes embrace the whole of his
creation, why is it not possible to develop this line of thinking in a
biblically responsible way? And if
this is true, moreover, how can we avoid making
better use of the social sciences in our work? This questions leads us
naturally to consider how positively this discussion may contribute to our
problem of integration.
III
My argument is that Liberation Theology, with all
of its flaws, has pointed us in a fundamentally sound direction:
to understand theology as rooted in our life in this world and fundamentally
involving a practical
response to this situation. In seeking instruments
to help them make progress they grabbed onto what, initially at
least, appeared helpful, a somewhat radical reading of sociology. But what
choice did they have here? Not
much, it turns out. For it has now
become clear that the social sciences as they have been traditionally practiced
were fundamentally flawed by the world picture in which they were born, which
had opted for this
side of the cosmic divide as the locus of truth and
meaning. God of course had been left stranded at the other side.
This has led Stan Gaede to propose that only a naturalist can operate with full
integrity in this world
f131
view: "All
others are condemned to live a life of philosophical schizophrenia--or to
convert".
One tactic used by some Christians and championed
by Peter Berger, himself a Christian sociologist, is what is
called "functional atheism". That is while describing the social
reality one describes it as if God did not
exist, even though we might actually believe that he
does--one has to suspend those values while she/he does
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sociology. It appears that
orthodox social scientists do not want God mucking about in this order of
things
challenging the order they seek. But what if there
is no way of properly understanding the vicissitudes of this order,
especially its widely influential religious dimensions, without acknowledging
the active presence of
God? What if in fact it is God's
appearance in Christ, who the NT calls the mediator of creation, that gives this
order its value in the first place? This has been well argued by Gregory Baum.
He refers to Clifford
Geertz' well known definition of
religion: "A system of symbols which act to establish powerful, pervasive and long
lasting moods and motivations in men, by formulating conceptions with such an
aura of factuality
r151
that the moods and motivation seem uniquely realistic." On the face of it
this seems like a promising
definition, until one realizes, as Baum points out, that
it excludes religious experience and even the presence of the sacred. It focuses on the function not the
reality of religion. To this Baum responds: "It seems to me unlikely that faith in the substance of the great religions should make
no difference at all in the sociological
investigations of these religions." On the contrary, he argues:
"The faith of sociologists that a religious
tradition expresses something of the divine creates
a special sensitivity to this religion, a greater awareness of
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its hidden meanings, and above all a sense of its
forward movement."
But these problems of social science methodology,
important as they are, do not get at the central thrust of
my argument. In the rise of the social sciences
themselves, especially one might note, in the recent explosion of work in sociology and anthropology of religion, something critical is
taking place. As Gregory Baum points out, in spite of their many disagreements, social scientists fundamental
work from a common premise: society
r171
affects our consciousness. "Thought...is
socially grounded." Though we do not have time to pursue this
here, philosophy in our century has taken a
similar turn in its emphasis on practice and philosophy of
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language, a turn that Christian philosophers have
found extremely useful. In all these movements we have
what we might call a critical turning to
the concrete. Reality is given its own integrity which is in some way revelatory of truth, even if for the Christian it is only God's action
and presence in that order which finally provides the key.
To illustrate the importance of these developments let me
refer to my own field of study that of the visual arts. In assessing a work of art the classic mistake is to privilege the
idea over the material form in which tha idea appears. Poets and painters then are asked to "explain"
their work. But this is just what they are unable to do. The work must in some sense explain itself, "make sense"
to our eyes or ears. Not that intellectual elements are excluded, they are present as a part of the processes both
of creating and experiencing art. But the idea, if it is successful, is incarnated in the material—it finds its
reality precisely in its embodied shape.
Now the best art has always pointed beyond itself to some
larger meaning, or better, it has embraced a larger whole as when Dante sketched out the whole of human history in his
Divine Comedy or Michelangelo
captured something essential about God's relation with
humanity in God's finger reaching out to Adam. One
of the more interesting developments of our own century is
the move toward a minimalist portrayal of reality, as in Donald Judd's set of cement squares or Mark Rothko's black
canvases. But even here artist's make a claim about the nature of things. Indeed they have become allied with
important schools of philosophy and their turn toward the concrete. Arthur Dante in fact claimed recently
that the artists' pushing of the
boundaries of acceptable materials beginning in the 1970's
indicates that "art had turned into
f191
philosophy." What, they are asking, is the limits of our
experience and investment in the concrete world?
My point is that these developments are full of promise
for the Christian thinker and teacher, especially for the evangelist and missionary. This turning toward the concrete is, in my
view, a turning in a decisively
Christian direction. Our faith, remember, rests not on
certain timeless ideas, but on critical events: creation, the invasion of reality in Jesus Christ and the waiting on tiptoes of
creation for his return in what Scriptures
call "glory". Perhaps this material
turning will push us in a direction that allows us to recapture our birthright.
To lay out briefly my argument, let me close by making a
number of theses statements which I can only briefly elaborate, but which have great implications for what we call
integration. First our work across disciplines must
start from distinctly Christian premises. I do not mean to dismiss the entire history of
integration as fatally compromised. To the contrary I
believe much of it represented important efforts toward contextualizing the Christian message for those inhabiting other world
views (some of Thomas' most
important work for example was in the form of a handbook
for missionaries to Islam). But the constructive advances that were made were built on distinctly biblical premises—one
thinks of the doctrine of creation in the early church, the role of the incarnation in the Eastern tradition,
or the idea of Grace and the priesthood of all believers in the Reformation. This Christian particularism was the
point Paul was making to the
Corinthians (in I
Corinthians 1), and it must be our starting point today. On the other hand, we
could point to moments in our history where the presentation of
Christian truth was compromised by adopting world
r201
pictures ultimately incompatible with the Gospel. We must start with the
triune God who made the world
to display his glory, became part of it in the
redemptive life and work of Jesus Christ and who works in it by the Holy
Spirit to bring all creation to its final end of glorifying God through Christ.
But the second thesis I want to make is that these
Christian premises are never made in isolation from the concrete
circumstances in which we live.
Christian life and practice must be explained in particular historical
and cultural terms. In each case, the constructive advances made in
the history of the church
responded to particular historical situations
which called forth this Christian response. But note that we do no make
this claim for strategic reasons—because this is the way to get people to
listen to us. We do it for
theological reasons. Because God
himself has created this order, redeemed it in Christ and works in it by his Spirit
to bring about his purposes. We take this order seriously because God does! He
has opted for this side
of the divide! Here is where our
theological practice has, I think, been most deficient. For theological education
and theology more generally has clearly privileged the "idea", to the
extent of making Scripture
itself into a set of ideas. One might
say that Scripture is not so much a timeless truth as it is a description of God's
project in which he is engaged and which he invites, even calls, us to join.
My third thesis follows from the second. What is called for today is a theology
of the concrete that reflects on and challenges our century's turn toward the concrete. We have argued
that our theology, since the NT,
reflects on and seeks to explain certain events in history
in which God has acted creatively and redemptively, which are faithfully described and explained in Scripture. Our
discussion of these events are important, but at the end of the day they are only pointers to these events—indeed the
multiplicity of Scriptural imagery itself indicates the inexhaustibility of God's work. The events always do more
than we can say. As Paul says of the decisive return of Christ, toward which all reality tends, "What no
eye has seen nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those that love him—these things
God has revealed through his
spirit" (I Cor 2:9). Again John says it does not yet
appear what we shall be but "when he is revealed, we will be like him for we will see him as he is" (I Jn. 3:2).
But this speechlessness does not imply passivity.
Flowing from these events, and consistent with them, are certain
sets of practices which they are meant to entail. Christian truth in the form
of ideas are important but
these are always subordinated to the
embodiment of this truth in our lives and our communities, just as God
himself became flesh and blood in Jesus Christ.
Here Bonhoeffer saw clearly the direction that theology (and ethics)
needed to go. The Church, he noted in his Ethics, has failed to master the social, economic, political and
educational problems.
The dogmatically correct delivery of the Christian
proclamation is not enough; nor are general ethical principles;
what is needed is concrete instruction in the concrete situation. The spiritual
forces which sustain
the Church are not yet exhausted. The
Christians of the world have come closer to one another than ever
f211
before. They must join together in performing the tasks of
speaking the word of the Church.
Now it may be argued that I appear to argue for an
immanent form of truth which denies transcendence. This is not
the case. What I deny is what Colin Gunton calls a false transcendence which
stresses distance rather
r221
than difference. The ultimate dualism
is between God and his creation, not between God's world and our
world. God has committed himself
irrevocably to this order and calls his people to participate with God, in a transcendence of difference not of distance. By faith in Christ and
through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we are rooted in God at the same time as we are also rooted in this created
order. It is this earth which God wills to cover with his glory as the waters cover the sea. This suggests that
practices that embody God's purposes for this order "transcend" the naturalism that pervades modern
culture, they say more than our words about
what God is up to. But this also means that it is our artists and
musicians who might have the last word, as they have so frequently in Christian history (and in Scripture!). For
these are able to gather up the thinking, feeling and experiencing of our world in a kind of aesthetic wisdom, that
is actually a way of knowing and no
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simply an ornament.
So we find allies among those foraging through this
world order in search of something solid, that for which
they will live or die. If it cannot be found here,
it cannot be found at all. In this we concur, and we have much to
learn from their work, more perhaps that at any time in recent memory. But our
practices can transcend the
world—as Paul says, wood, hay and
stubble will be burnt up, the precious stones will endure, because ultimately
they reflect the presence and actions of God. Here we part company with our
naturalist friends.
This is because this concrete order of
things has been decisively transformed by the coming of Jesus Christ and
finds it final meaning in that visible return to which Scripture points.
But we make one proviso to this alliance, that
relates to our starting with distinctly Christian premises. Gregory
Baum in the discussion to which I referred above notes that it the larger
definition of religion
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espoused by Geertz and others at least makes it
"easy to be in dialogue with them." The danger is that we
might be so relieved that they take religion
seriously that we overlook the defects of the world picture they
carry with them: remember for these
"scientists" there is nothing on the other side of the divide, indeed
there is no divide at all. One can find many
illustrations of this danger today. In many places around the country
sociologists of religion are studying the positive
role that religion plays in the recovery of community and the development
of what they call "civic culture". John Delulio and others are
showing with great skill the critical
role that faith communities play in
our decaying cities and the need to empower believers to do better what they do
naturally. Government money is now being made available for these groups to
carry out their social
mission, something unheard of even a
few years ago.
There is indeed much here to celebrate in this new
appreciation of Christian communities, but there are caution flags
as well. At the end of the day many of these researchers (and the foundations
that fund them)
are not interested in the religious
motivation or the faith of these groups at all, but merely in their social function.
But this view in the end patronizes religion, and belittles the faith of
believers. For we say, quite
apart from all the undoubted social
good that results from lives reflecting God's presence, the most importan practice
of all is the moment when that small store front church gathers to hear the
word and respond in
prayer and praise. Like the art work,
or the events of Scripture, those practices do more than we can say. Indeed
this event, which we call worship, in some critical sense is that central point
of integration toward
which all our work and witness tends,
anticipating as it does the eternal chorus of praise that surrounds the throne of
God.
Notes
r1l In Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity
(Harvard, 1989), p. 21. Moral frameworks, he says, are shaped for people by "qualitative
distinctions, in relation to which they will literally live or die."
r2l
"The immediate and proper
object of the human intellect in this life is the essence of material
things." A History of Philosophy:
Medieval
Philosophy (New York: Image Books, 1962),
VolumeII, Part 2, p. 44. He acknowledges he differs from many modern interpreters of
Thomas, who, influenced by philosophy since Kant, begin their expostion with
Thomas's theory of knowledge. This is
not, Father Copleston believes, where
Thomas would want us to begin. For him philosophy begins with our experience of
the world.
r3l
Note that Aquinas grounds this
quest in the fact that reality is dependent on God, a view Colin Gunton
believes, represents a kind
of platonic drag. He does not seek to
ground i t more appropriately in Christ as the mediator of creation. See The Triune Creator: An Historical and Systematic Study (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 101. He goes on to say: "The
outcome being that a dualism is
built into the doctrine of creation."
f41
- - "Even as regards those truths about God which human
reason can investigate, i t was necessary that man be taught by a divine
revelation. For the truth about God, such as reason can
know it, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors." ST.1,1. In Anton C. Pegis, ed.
Introduction to S t. Thomas Aquinas (N.Y.: Modern Library 1945), p. 4.
f51
"For the knowledge we have that this
revelation came at first from God can never be so sure as the knowledge we have
from the
clear and distinct perception of the agreement or
disagreement of our own ideas." An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding. Ch
18. 4. (London: Collins, 1960). A. D. Woozley ed.
f61
At the Origins of odern Atheism (New Haven: Yale, 1987), p. 358.
f71
Colin E. Gunton. Op.cit., p. 47.
f81
By the Renewing ofyour inds: The Pastoral Function of
Christian Doctrine (Oxford Univ Press,
1997), p. 10.
f91
Original Japanese edition 1946, ET 1946 Richmond:
John Knox. Page numbers in the text
f101
The influence for example on Jurgen Moltmann is
clear as can be seen by the references to this work at critical points of his
book
The Crucified God
(1974).
f111
History and the Theology of Liberation: ALatin American
Perspective (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1976),
p. 19,20.
f121
Doing Theology
in a Revolutionary Situation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), p. xxiii., and
subsequent pages in the text.
f131
Where Gods ay Dwell: On
Understanding the Human Condition
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), p. 57. He notes the
schizophrenia sometimes characterizes the naturalist as
well in the event God shows up in this order, while meanwhile the convert banishes God to the other realm. One is condemned then to bad science or
bad theology! P. 87.
f141
See especially Invitation to
Sociology: A Humanistic Discipline
(N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962) and The Sacred Canopy (N. Y.
Doubleday: 1967).
f151
"Religion as a Cultural System" in
Interpretation of Religions (1974) in
Gregory Baum, Religion and Alienation: A
Theological Reading of
Sociology (N.Y.: Paulist, 1975), p. 254.
f161
Ibid, p. 263. This leads him to suggest that
theology then can provide a "critical prolongation of sociological
concepts." 264.
f171
Ibid., p. 1. Interestingly about the time
Liberation Theologians were making their discovery, Baum took off two years to
study
sociology. His study surprised him: "I found that the
sociological tradition contains basic truth absent from philosophical and theological thought, truth that actually modifies the very meaning of
philosophy and theology." Ibid.
f181
See for example the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.
L. Austin and Mark Johnson and the Christian philosophers represented in
Alvin Plantinga, e t al. in Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame, 1983). Nicholas Wolterstorff for example in that book
describes truth
about being a father or mother as being
"situated", so that gradually hierarchies of forcefulness emerge. In
understanding these
realities, he argues, "these facts of our nature are
the end of the matter. Deeper we cannot go", 174.
f191
In "Museums: Making it new", A. L.
Huxtable, New York Review, April 22, 1999, p. 15.
f201
This is the point of Michael Buckley's At the Origin of odern Atheism. Op.cit.
f211
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Ethics (New York: MacMillan, 1965),
edited by Eberhard Bethge, p. 354.
f221
Op.cit. pp. 39, 62.
f231
This was John Ciardi's argument 25 years ago about
the role of Shakespeare and Dante, in Saturday Review, April 8, 1972, p.
22. f241
Op.cit., p. 257.
Editors Note: Original paper presented at the ETS Annual
Meeting, Nov. 17, 1999. Permission granted to republish paper in Global Missiology.