|
|
|
about the author...  Steve Bush (steve@reconstruction.us) is a graduate student in religion at Princeton University and a member of a small Christian community in Philadephia. His interests are Christian ethics, political theology, social theory, and epistemology. You can keep up with him here>>>.
|
The state of the debate by Steve Bush
Here are some general impressions regarding Reclaiming the Center and the state of the debate between conservatives and postconservatives.  1. Across the board, the contributors to Reclaiming the Center reject the idea that we can obtain certain, indubitable knowledge. One of my greatest hopes is that conservative evangelicals will hear this well, since I think by and large they still have a significant attachment to the impossible ideal of certainty. The belief that one possesses certitude has destructive consequences, on a personal relational level and on a political level, so this unanimous insight from Reclaiming the Center is extremely important. 2. Also on the positive side, I hope that both conservatives and postconservatives will hear James Parker III ("A Requiem for Postmodernism--Wither Now?") when he tells us that postmodernism is long since dead as a cohesive, viable intellectual project. The rest of Parker's essay can be ignored, but he is making a point about postmodernism that deserves to be heard. Indeed, as I read through Reclaiming the Center, I was often puzzled and troubled by the fact that the authors could speak of "postmodernism" as if it were something, as if it were a consistent body of thought that held a specific perspective. Can you imagine if the Christian Music industry were still producing grunge bands in order to get in on this Nirvana thing? That would be analogous to a debate in the Christian community about the merits and demerits of postmodernism in 2005. It is true that the word "postmodern" does still occur in the academy, but only casually and not as an analytic tool. No one is advancing "postmodern" as an intellectual project nor has anyone for some time, and it would be exceedingly foolish for Christians to do so in the name of "relevance." This isn't to say that particular thinkers who have been identified as postmodern (none of whom viewed themselves as participating in a project called postmodernism) aren't still read or don't have important things to say. This is just to say that we no longer talk about postmodernism, we talk about the specific views and insights of particular thinkers, e.g., Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, and we treat their body of thought on its own terms. For Christians to participate in that sort of dialogue, they will have to drop their vague references to postmodernism and display intimate knowledge with the actual works of particular thinkers. It would be best if all discussion henceforth proceeded with no further use of the term "postmodern" and then we would see much more clearly what the participants on both sides of the debate were actually saying and why they were saying it. 3. Postmodernism as epistemology. Reclaiming the Center (unwittingly) reveals a major weakness of Grenz's work and the postconservative appropriation of Rorty, Foucault, and Derrida. Postconservatives have viewed Rorty, Foucault, and Derrida primarily as epistemologists; as if their central concern were to put forth a theory of truth and knowledge. Nothing could be further from the truth and the fact that postconservatives have appropriated them on those terms reveals more about evangelicals' preoccupations with theories of truth and knowledge than it does about Rorty, Foucault, and Derrida. All three of these thinkers, particularly Foucault and Derrida, had a central concern for emancipatory projects in their thought. The fact that the evangelical debate over their works takes place at the level of foundationalist versus non-foundationalist epistemology demonstrates a troubling inability of evangelicals to recognize or interact with emancipatory projects.The next step for postconservatives will have to be to challenge the evangelical obsession with epistemology, which in turn reveals a privileging of theory over practice and philosophy over cultural, economic, and political theory. Yes I know everyone is afraid that their kid is going to stop believing in Absolute Truth, and soon thereafter convert to satanism and start doing drugs, but there are other things to talk about. 4. In the meantime, talk about truth and knowledge we must. Instead of starting with the disagreements, I'll start by specifying where the points of agreement lie. Every postconservative involved in this discussion about truth must give us an account of truth that accounts for the facts that (a) we make statements in our everyday and theological speech that can be evaluated as right or wrong, and (b) the truth or falsity of these statements is not a product of our individual or collective whim, fancy, desire or opinion. If anyone would deny either (a) or (b), they should not be taken seriously because they fail to account for how language works. I take it that no postconservative would deny (a) or (b). If that's the case, then what's all the fuss about? The precise manner in which the human mind, human body, and the ever-elusive, so-called "mind-independent reality" interrelate to make possible (a) and (b) is abstract, technical, confused, and heavily contested. Not that this discussion is unimportant, but as long as we agree that we can evaluate each other's beliefs as right or wrong, we can move on and discuss the merits and demerits of the specific doctrines postconservatives advance and put this whole "meta" discussion of truth and epistemology in proper perspective. The conservatives believe that we can only secure (a) and (b) with propositions and a correspondence theory of truth. This is their principal error, and this mistake motivates much of their work. This error certainly engenders the misguided sense of crisis that pervades Reclaiming the Center. Here's a method for discussion between conservatives and postconservatives that is more fruitful than truth. Since the conservative evangelicals do not believe that we can know with certitude, they have to admit that whatever truth-claims they advance as knowledge could possibly be mistaken. In other words, it may well turn out that what they take to be true really isn't true, since we can't rule out various sceptical hypotheses (maybe I'm mistaken, maybe I'm deceived, maybe I'm a brain in a vat). So any debate is not really over what is and isn't true, it's about whether or not I have good reasons for what I'm claiming. This is called justification: Can I justify my belief by providing good reasons to hold it and by countering the reasons my opponents offer against the belief? So I propose that conservatives and postconservatives put the whole issue of truth on the backburner and proceed by attempting to justify to one another the specific doctrinal beliefs that matter. This will bring the whole discussion out of abstraction and into real life. The whole issue of "truth" should be a sideshow, but unfortunately it has become the main attraction. One consequence of the epistemological obsession is that one gets the impression that the whole postconservative thing is largely a debate about truth and foundationalism, whereas far more interesting conversations are happening in other arenas (theology and biblical studies) that have a far greater significance. For instance, the biblical theology that N.T. Wright is advocating involves massive reformulations of the doctrines of salvation, ecclesiology, and god that are extremely relevant for the directions postconservatives want to go. EP Sanders, NT Wright, JDG Dunn, Richard B. Hays (and many other New Testament scholars) are challenging (and have debunked) the doctrine of justification by grace through faith that Luther bequeathed, and they are reformulating soteriology along much less individualistic lines. So this book bears a far greater practical significance to postconservatives than the ethereal epistemology of Reclaiming the Center. (Oh and the epistemology of Reclaiming the Center is just plain bad, anyways. They shot for a level of discussion somewhere between academic and popular, and you simply can't pull that off for this sort of subject matter. To really get at the epistemological issues involved in this debate, you cannot rely on Reclaiming the Center; you have to go the original sources, and some sources that have tremendous bearing on the epistemology aren't even mentioned. For instance Jeffrey Stout dispatches with the whole foundationalism vs. non-foundationalism debate in Flight From Authority, but receives no mention. Robert Brandom's work has huge import for the epistemological issues, but again, it appears none of the essayists of Reclaiming the Center are familiar with him.) 5. What pray tell, is a proposition? What pray tell, is "reality"? And how pray tell do propositions correspond to reality? These are unanswered and probably unanswerable questions. Yet the conservatives have made their whole theology dependent upon the existence of propositions and the relation of propositions to "reality." The essayists of Reclaiming the Center have a gaping vulnerability in their epistemology, and because they have structured their theology to depend on epistemology, the whole structure teeters like a house of cards. They have made theological doctrines depend on biblical authority, they have made biblical authority depend on foundationalist epistemology, they have made foundationalist epistemology depend on a correspondence theory of truth, and they have made their correspondence theory of truth depend on propositions. If propositions don't exist, then down goes the foundationalist epistemology, down goes the bible, down goes their theology. So what then is a proposition? Well... no one really knows and no good account has been given. All one has to do is pull the propositional rug out from under them and their whole system of thought collapses. 6. My biggest fear here is that postconservatives will take the conservative evangelicals too seriously. Conservative theology deserves the same treatment Karl Barth prescribed for Satan: a sharp, quick glance and no more. By their own admission and by others', evangelical theology does not display intellectual rigor or creativity. By attending too much to conservative theologians, postconservatives will get trapped in debates that will cause the quality of their own work to suffer. A major advantage of postconservative theology over conservative is that the former has the capacity to fruitfully interact with non-evangelical and non-Christian thought to a much greater extent than the latter. By choosing the best and brightest non-evangelical thinkers as dialogue partners, the superiority of postconservatism over conservatism will display itself to a far greater extent than in getting bogged down in interminable debates over Reformed theology, inerrancy, or imprecise discussions of truth and knowledge. In other words, postconservatives need not remain in the orbit of conservative evangelicals by trying to defend their own legitimacy to DA Carson and Millard Erickson, rather they should patiently persist in the hard work of generating both church communities and theological productions of such quality that the validity of their approach speaks for itself. See also: Review of DA Carson's "Domesticating the Gospel" in Reclaiming the Center, part 1 and part 2.
I don't know what the writers of reclaiming the center think about the possibility of attaining 'certainty' - I have yet to read it. But I have read the Bible - it says that we can have certain knowledge - Luke 1:4 etc. I really liked this insightful article. There's a lot of excellent analysis here--especially about epistemological presumptions. I really liked this insightful article. There's a lot of excellent analysis here--especially about epistemological presumptions. I really liked this insightful article. There's a lot of excellent analysis here--especially about epistemological presumptions. AMEN. Print-friendly version of this page Mail this article
|
