Bounded or Centered Set?
Part 3a
As I have been in my grudge match to the death with the Rule of Faith as a “rule,” one critique I regularly find myself bringing is that it creates a bounded set. My instinct has been that so conceptualizing the Christian faith is not only a category mistake but ethically disastrous.
In short, once we have defined Christianity as a set of beliefs that must be maintained in order to be faithful Christians, then Christian ethics boils down to maintaining “the faith” that is so delineated.
What should Christians do? Defend the borders.
I have recently stumbled upon the work of Paul Hiebert. Here is what he says about bounded sets:
- The category is created by listing essential characteristics something must posses in order to belong to the set
- The category is defined by a clear boundary
- The objects form a homogeneous group
- “Bounded sets are essentially static sets”
- Within Western conceptual categories, bounded sets tend to be ontological sets, reflecting an absolute, unchanging nature of reality.
Two things strike me here: the quote, point 4, is the one that I most often rail against here. Christian theology is not a static set, but something dynamically in process in the ongoing story of the church.
The church has to grow up to the fact that things are not simply givens, so we cannot take an 1800 year old statement as the defining marker of who we are and what we should do.
But here’s the other problem, as Hiebert lays it out. On point 2, the category is formed by a clear boundary.
What does this mean in practice? He says:
Most of the effort in defining the category is spent defining and maintaining the boundary. Not only must we say what an apple is, we must also clearly differentiate it from oranges, pears, and similar objects that belong to the same domain but are not apples. The central question, therefore, is whether an object is inside or outside the category.
The ethic entailed in a bounded-set system is defining and maintaining the boundary.
When we envision Christianity as a bounded-set, we are consigning ourselves to a lifetime of boundary guarding. Absent from all this, of course, are other measures of Christian fidelity–such as embodying the self-giving love of Christ or even walking in accordance with the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount.
Christianity-bounded by the “Rule of Faith” becomes, throughout Church History, a self-referential religion, concerned with keeping itself together, and keeping out the heterodox.
This is not to say, of course, that it is without biblical precedent. There were, after all, the disciples who bravely fended off the would-be intruders upon their bounded world: “Lord, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, but he was not with us, so we forbid him!”
So what is a centered set? Stay tuned…
About J. R. Daniel Kirk: Professor at Fuller Seminary, resident of San Francisco, consumer of dark chocolate, brewer of dark beer, reader of Flannery O'Connor, watcher of the Coen Brothers, listener of The Mountain Goats.Bounded or Centered Set?
Part 3b
Part 3b
…a centered set is created by defining a center or reference point and the relationship of things to that center. Things related to the center belong to the set, and those not related to the center do not. Kingship groups… are relational categories.
Relational categories.
That’s more like it.
We all belong together, not because we are circumscribed by a common speech recited on Sunday mornings that tells us how to read the Bible, but because we are all related to Christ, and to God as God’s children, in Christ.
That is a better way to conceive of our identity.
Centered sets have a couple of advantages over bounded sets in terms of being a conceptual framework for Christianity. There are two variables that this way of conceptualizing relations can account for.
One: some folks will be closer to the center than others. All might be in some sort of relationship, but there are degrees of proximity to the defining center.
Two: people might be in motion toward or away from the center.
Part of the flexibility of this is that individuals aren’t the only ones who might be related to a Christian center (= Jesus). Whole churches, denominations, or even the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church might at times be closer, at times farther, at times moving toward and at times moving away from Christ.
If Christ is the center of our set, the church resumes its rightful place as people who are always in a dynamic relationship with him rather than being erected as a static framework that, itself, defines the set.
Both in its move from the church as defining agent (Rule of Faith) to Christ (the center of our centered set), and in its recognition of the inherently dynamic nature of all relationships and reality, the centered set more faithfully depicts what Christianity is, and therefore opens up better possibilities for interpreting the Bible and acting faithfully in the world.
About J. R. Daniel Kirk: Professor at Fuller Seminary, resident of San Francisco, consumer of dark chocolate, brewer of dark beer, reader of Flannery O'Connor, watcher of the Coen Brothers, listener of The Mountain Goats. All Posts by J. R. Daniel Kirk | Share By Email
No comments:
Post a Comment