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From: gary@sphinx.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Dubuc/ Re: Dubuc/ Reply to Stuart Gathman on causal imputation
Message-ID: <669@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Oct-86 17:06:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.669
Posted: Wed Oct  1 17:06:42 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 09:06:23 EDT
References: <3335@umcp-cs.UUCP> <970@hou2g.UUCP> <638@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <217@BMS-AT.UUCP> <654@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <1605@cbdkc1.UUCP> 1 Oct 86 21:06:42 GMT
Reply-To: gary@sphinx.UUCP (Gary Buchholz)
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 149
Keywords: Existential,Natural
Summary: A further reply to Paul Dubuc on the diversity of truth(s)

In article <1607@cbdkc1.UUCP> pmd@dkc1.UUCP (Paul M. Dubuc) writes:

>I think maybe you haven't studied enough.  There are certainly 
>fundamentalists who interpret Scripture as you say.  I see a similarity
>(as far as intellectual integrity and *modesty* is concerned) between
>that and the way rationalists (like you) take one kind of knowing
>(scientific knowledge) and treat is as the only kind.  Anything
>beyond the means of science to explain is therefore myth and illusion.

  I fully agree that there are diverse ways of "knowing" and a variety
  of things to be known.  The study of the bible is a good example.
  It [ the bible ] can function in a variety of contexts and there are
  a number of questions that can to put to it and asked of it.  The
  bible (can be seen as)/(is) a collection of historical documents from
  the 1st century A.D.  It is also a piece of literature.

  At this point one separates what is to be known and the methodology by
  which it is to be known.  The problems come when you confound
  questions and methodologies.  The bible as a collection of documents
  from the 1st century is of use to the historian only insofar as they
  are products of one particular mystery religion (Christianity) of 1st
  century Hellenism.  Its attestations of various miracles on the part
  of one Jesus of Nazareth can be used to fill out the picture of other
  pagan religions and similar claims of miracles, resurrections and 
  witnessed ascensions attributed to similar persons in the syncretism
  of the Roman world.

  The Bible as literature is quite a different matter, and to study this
  one need not consult the historian nor his methods.  In this context
  one consults the literary critic (Wayne Booth) and those who make it
  their business to understand now literature *affects* people and by
  what literary and rhetorical devices this is accomplished.

  The really interesting (to me) work being done in theology these days
  has to do with constructing theologies based on this latter point that
  literature has this "existential payoff" as far the reader is
  concerned.  The implicit sacrality of Christian Theology (religion) is the
  "magic" by which a purely constructed theology can achieve the aura of
  realism which is required for the reader to achieve some benefit.  Some
  recent books on this subject are: Narrative Theology by George Stroup;
  God the Problem by Gordon Kaufman and a very recent publication by a
  Catholic scholar (can't recall his name) entitled: Constructing local
  Theologies.

  Literature does not have to be "true" to "work".   Here I fulfill your
  requirement that science not be the only way of "knowing".  Literary
  theory and fields such as "reception theory" and "sociology of
  knowledge" have not much to gain from a "rationalism" as they deal with
  the existential human being and not with the physical world.

  Rationalism has its place in the physical world.  "Ways of knowing"
  such as literary theory, sociology of knowledge, audience criticism, 
  reception theory and the like have their proper realm in the world
  of human being which must be sharply distinguished from nature.


>On this issue of truth, I rather like the approach of Dr. Arthur Holmes
>(_All Truth is God's Truth_, _Contours of a World View_).  He's probably
>a little too balanced for those who mistake their own epistemology for
>metaphysical objectivity, but I think the man has a better appreciation
>than most for how humans need arrive at truth and particular beliefs about
>the world and about God.

  Although I have not read this book, from the title, it sounds like 
  an entry into the realm of nature from some existential "wishing"
  on the part of human being.  Again "truth" in a singular sense without
  a distinction between existential and natural.  Given this, Dr. Holmes
  (natural)worldview will probably have all the earmarks and potential
  solutions that beset human beings.  A worldview constructed by some
  untroubled mind of a physicist would probably have different 
  "contours", be more rationalistic, less existential and might put
  rationalism to good use in its proper realm.

>A rational*ist* theology spurns intellectual modesty and, I think,
>ends up in the same boat with your fundamentalist theology (though
>at different ends).

  If we are talking state-of-the-art modern theology there is no such
  thing as a rationalist theology.  Theologians aren't that stupid.

>>In a certain sense Fundamentalism is what it is because the people who
>>practice it lack intellectual options.  Van Harvey ("The Historian and
>>the Believer") uses a nice term.  He says that they lack "quality of
>>mind".  Translated, this means that Fundamentalists are stupid, and I'd
>>concur with that.
>
>I suppose if they were as arrogant as to call others stupid, they
>would obtain "quality of mind".

  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck then
  I'll call it a duck.  "Quality of mind" comes from knowing what things
  are in Reality.  Knowing is not arrogance.

>>Perhaps we "saw off the branch on which we stand" to clear the forest
>>of the dead wood that inhibits growth.  You might thank the
>>Enlightenment theologians for risking the climb and risking their lives
>>in performing the action.  Luther, as a Roman Catholic theologian,
>>certainly did some "sawing" in his time and just look what grew as a
>>result of that "clearing" operation.  You, Mr Dubuc, have chained
>>yourself to that dead old tree of Christian orthodoxy, and in time,
>>secular theology under the orders of the Western intellectual tradition,
>>in the service of "intellectual integrity", will come with the buzzsaw
>>and take care of you and the dead old tree in one fell swoop.
>
>Luther sawed while standing on the Bible.  I don't think there is
>anything that secular theology is standing on.  I rather think the
>term is a contradiction in terms.  Imagine that, by your definition
>it is rational (I'd say rationalistic) thinking about that which one
>doesn't believe to exist or believes to be irrelevant.  I'll take my
>chances with the buzzsaw.  At least I won't melt with the next rain
>or blow away in the next breeze.

  Luther did no more than replace one pope with another - the paper
  pope.  The 1864 Vatican I pronouncement of the infallibility of the
  papacy is no different than a Fundamentalist view the the Bible.  
  Both, I would say, assertions on shaky ground.

  In the literature, the term secular theology is used interchangeably
  with terms like post-modern theology and post-Christian theology.
  No one has yet come up with a good name.  Mark Taylor has suggested
  "A/theology" yet Taylors project does not encompass all the different
  types of work being done (such as Narrative Theology).  In a recent 
  journal article I saw a reference to "those who used to do theology"
  in the context of those theologians who have accepted modern
  methodologies (such as Yale Deconstruction) and have found themselves
  now lacking a subject matter.  What those theologians do now is 
  "secular theology" or "what used to be called theology"  They are
  basically those "constructing theologies" for other (less enlightened)
  persons (believers) to consume.  I have a slight problem with this.

>......  I don't think there is....
>anything that secular theology is standing on.  
>  I'll take my......
>chances with the buzzsaw.  At least I won't melt with the next rain
>or blow away in the next breeze.
>Paul Dubuc	cbdkc1!pmd

  Secular theology is standing on 2000 years of intellectual tradition
  to which religion and Christian theology can be subsumed.  
  Jesus gives this comfort at the end of the gospel of Matthew.

  "...All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.  Go, make
   disciples of all the nations.... teaching them to observe 
   everything I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you, all 
   the days until the end of the age."

  The same could be uttered by the Western intellectual tradition.

  Gary