Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A Proper Biblical Epistemology v. Christian Certainty

Certainty Not (another one of those pesky pre-biblical theological decisions)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/04/certainty-not-another-one-of-those-pesky-pre-biblical-theological-decisions/

A strong dose of intellectual humility, rooted in acknowledgment of
one's own fallibility, would save the world around them a lot of trouble.

by Roger Olson
posted April 19, 2011

Some time ago I wrote here about two important theological decisions the Bible does not help us solve. The first one was (1) nominalism/voluntarism versus realism (with regard to whether God has a nature) and the second one was (2) whether the church of the New Testament was the church in embryo or the mature church. Where a person comes down on these issues inevitably influences much of his or her theology, but the Bible does not directly (or perhaps even indirectly) tell us what the right view is.

Another such pre- or extra-biblical theological decisions every thinking Christian makes and that influences his or her theological thinking is whether certainty is a human possibility. I often find myself bemused about a theological discussion or debate and then figure out that my lack of understanding my debate partner’s point of view relates to (3) our different views of certainty.

I am a fallibilist; some Christians aren’t. That is, (1) I believe, because of our finitude and fallenness, all human beings are fallible all of the time with exceptions of Jesus Christ and the writers of Scripture. I admit it is possible that some other human persons have infallible revelation, but I doubt it.

I am also convinced (fallibly!) that (2) finite and fallen human beings are not capable of certainty without an immediate, supernatural gift of certainty. And I don’t think I know anyone who has that and I’m alway suspicious of claims to it.

Two books have been especially helpful to me in this regard: Dan Taylor’s The Myth of Certainty and Lesslie Newbigin’s Proper Confidence. These are excellent, small treatments of the subject of certainty from a Christian perspective.
  • Taylor’s is a semi-autobiographical, narrative-shaped discussion of certainty. In place of "certainty" the author recommends that we settle for "the risk of commitment".
  • Newbigin says “Christian faith is not a matter of logically demonstrable certainties but of the total commitment of fallible human beings "putting their trust in the faithful God who has called them.” (99)

[Summary position]. I believe we can have blessed assurance and proper confidence in God and God’s revelation, but absolute certainty that transcends all possibility of being wrong is normally unavailable to mere mortals, at least in this life.


On Capital Punishment

We have all experienced THINKING we knew something FOR SURE and then finding out we were wrong.

Does denial of certainty amount to lack of commitment? No. Commitment takes on special significance in the absence of absolute certainty. In the absence of certainty I must sometimes take the risk of commitment to a cause, but I CANNOT take another person’s life based on my uncertain “knowledge” of their guilt (to use one example of the practical implications of my epistemology). Neither should anyone, because no one has that kind of certainty.

Am I absolutely certain that capital punishment is wrong? I can only say that I am as certain of that as I am of almost anything I believe. But of course my certainty falls short of absoluteness. To claim absolute certainty about anything is, my opinion, tantamount to claiming to have God’s own knowledge of it.

Lack of absolute certainty requires humility and humility requires circumspection in all decisions and actions. Taking another person’s life when you could be wrong about their guilt is, I believe, a sin. (That’s not the only reason I think it’s a sin, but it’s one reason.)

On the other hand, lack of certainty does not paralyze; putting someone in prison for life without the possibility of parole when you think they deserve death is an act the risk of commitment in the face of lack of absolute certainty. It leaves open the possibility of reversal of judgment if it should turn out that the person was not guilty (however unlikely that may seem).

[Captial Punishment] is just one case study in proper confidence rather than absolute certainty. I am always a little afraid of people who claim to have absolute certainty about anything. I’ve known too many people who claimed to have “the mind of God” (and really seemed to believe it!) who went off on crazy crusades involving absurdity and/or abuse. A strong dose of intellectual humility, rooted in acknowledgment of one's own fallibility, would save the world around them a lot of trouble.

None of this means we shouldn’t act. What it means is, as we act, we should be aware that we are taking a risk and that God is both our judge and the giver of mercy when, by his light and help, we do the best we can.



19 Responses
  1. Zach says:
    Great Post! Particularly in regard to epistemology and acting (particularly from a Christian perspective) I’ve always found Reinhold Niebuhr to be top dog; having and not having the truth, the struggle for justice, etc (I have to admit I find the late Niebuhr top dog in most things). What’s your take on Niebuhr? Do you recommend/have found helpful a Christian ethicist who covers this topic well (the extent of our knowledge and how we should act, i.e. ethics)?
    • Roger says:
      I find Niebuhr helpful. A recent Niebuhr-like treatment of Christian social ethics is Making the Best of It by John Stackhouse.
  2. K Gray says:
    Two topics relating to certainty: spiritual knowledge and other knowledge.
    Spiritual knowledge – “Now faith is being sure [assurance] of what we hope for and certain [conviction] of what we do not see.” I do not know Greek so maybe someone else knows whether or not this approximates certainty.
        • K Gray says:
          Professor Olson, do you have any comment on Hebrews 11:1? Also, Jesus promises, and Paul explains, the Spirit will disclose truth to men, as taken from God’s mind. If God chooses to reveal and disclose certain truths, and grants spiritual knowledge, wisdom and understanding more and more (to those who have), should mature Christians remain less-than-certain of those things, e.g. Jesus will return? Maybe this is an issue of semantics. That’s why I was asking about the Greek in Heb. 11:1, for example.
          Ben – Truth for today: Jesus is risen! :)
          • Roger says:
            Perhaps it is an issue of semantics. I don’t know any human being who, in the deepest recesses of his or her thoughts, doesn’t occasionally have a doubt about something revealed. 
  1. Jerry L says:
    Roger, we certainly can agree on this point. A belief in our own fallibility would go along way towards solving many of the useless arguments we have regarding issues of theology. I am always leery of pronouncements from the left, right or middle that they some how, outside of clear scriptural mandate, know the mind of God on a particular issue, this usually results in my asking for a clearly laid out argument from scripture.
    It is also why I think many Evangelicals/Post-Evangelicals/Liberals/You Name the Group, fail us when they don’t also look to the wisdom of nearly 2,000 years of church thinking on many these very same issues, while I am confident that the catholic (small c intentional) church has not always been right or in a position to speak to every issue a little attendance to the wisdom of the whole church might have saved us many an argument. This is one of the reasons I am ill at ease regarding arguments about, capital punishment, just war and many other topics. I can’t fail to listen to Yoder any more than I can to Agustin.
  2. Aaron says:
    “Dan Taylor’s The Myth of Certainty and Lesslie Newbigin’s Proper Confidence.”
    – Agreed, great books!
  3. jc_freak says:
    This is my favorite post from you thus far. You have managed to capture something that has always been true for me that I have never thought to articulate, but is at the heart of much of my interactions with other people.
    One of the things that I have been working on in my life is actually taking those risks of commitment that you are talking about. Because I recognize the possibility of being wrong, it therefore means that I often don’t want to act, and I usually prefer decisions that are reversible or at least alterable.
    But what I have become aware of over time is the need of decisiveness(and I mean ‘need’ in the literal sense). This has driven me to take more risks, and to be comfortable walking out on even important issues confidently on probablies and maybes.
  4. Ian Paul says:
    Thanks for this–I love your differentiation between proper confidence and absolute certainty. I wonder if this debate relates to James Smith’ ‘The Fall of Interpretation’ arguing that hermeneutics is pre- not post- lapsarian as an element of human finiteness not human sin?
  5. Taylor says:
    Dr. Olson, I’ve not read Taylor or Newbigin’s books, but I’ll have to add them to my list. A couple of summers ago, I took my Wednesday church crowd through Alister McGrath’s book “Doubting” which includes a marvelous chapter entitled, “Doubt and the Vain Search for Certainty.” The church responded very well to the study. Not only is it freeing to recognize that having faith is not the same thing as being certain, but, like you wrote, it also helps us to live with more humbly with one another.
    • Roger says:
      I’m sure you’ve heard this, Taylor, but I’ll put it here anyway (for others’ benefit). Fred Buechner wrote that “Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith–it keeps it moving.”
  6. Joel Naranjo says:
    I completely agree with you, dr. Olson. For long time i’ve struggled with the issue of certainty, and come to the conclusion that epistemological humility (that would be a fancy way to put it) is actually a christian virtue. But I’m not that sure that the Bible doesn’t say anything about it. When I read passages like Proverbs 9:8 or 21:11 I see that a mark of the wise is willingness to be corrected. And this would imply that the wise is willing to recognize the possibility of being wrong, and therefore would be open to listen closely to other people opinions, to ponder them and even change his mind if there are good reason for it. I’m not sure many people have passages like this in mind when it comes to theological discussions…
  7. Adam L says:
    Hey Dr. Olson!
    Great post!
    I was wondering if you could speak more about why you exempt the writers of scripture from fallibility. I can understand the logic when it comes to Christ (who is God), but I’m not sure how that could be claimed of non-divine beings (such as authors of scripture).
    Thanks!
    Adam
    PS – Great blog! Wow, I didn’t even realize you had one!
    • Roger says:
      Hi, Adam. By faith I accept that God granted the prophets and apostles special inspiration that resulted in infallibility in matters pertaining to salvation. If others have also written or spoken infallibly on such matters (or any other matters) I’m not aware of it.
  8. James W. says:
    How certain is certain? Its only relatively certain, and, yes, fallibly certain, and yet certain. When it arrives, it comes as a gift from God. I have searched my whole life for certainty. It arrived through my baptism with the Holy Spirit. It came as a great surprise, and it is my life’s watershed moment. It happened when I struggled to let go of my heart’s attachment to worldly things, and when I asked Him to fill me with His Spirit. I now carry with me the gift of certainty concerning God’s love for you and me and the presence of his Holy Spirit in our lives.


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