Philosophy in Conversation with Theology

Building on what was said in my last post, I think hermeneutics provides us the key for understanding how philosophy and theology interact with one another.

There are two ways, I think, to try and do theology.  The first has often been termed "natural theology," and it goes about its work by attempting to argue from our experience of the world to a particular understanding of God.  The inherent problem, I think, for natural theology is that it will always be conducted from a particular point of view- it will always be subjective.  My critique of many of the classical arguments regarding Theism, for instance, has been that they assume too much- the cosmological argument, to take one example, assumes that since I cannot fathom an absolute infinite progression of past events, it cannot exist and there must be a first cause of everything.  Further, many presentations of that argument assume that we can draw certain conclusions about the "cause-without-a-cause": that it is a thinking, exceedingly powerful, being, for instance.  How we move from "a" to "b" in these instances will, I think, largely depend on the worldview from which we start assessing these arguments.  We interpret the information subjectively, in other words, based on our predisposition to believe one way or another.  My conclusion, at the end of the day, is that the most that "natural theology" can accomplish for us is to show that our beliefs are rational- they make sense, they are coherent with other parts of our experience.  We cannot make the further claim that they are "true" based on such arguments.

The other approach takes its starting point in revelation.  This approach takes on the image of the conversation we left off with last time.  Something or someone beyond us is saying something to us, is projecting an experience onto us, that we take in and "read" and then make part of our experience.  Revelation is an act of communication, not simply observation as in the case of "natural theology," and the process by which we receive and are affected by revelation is a hermeneutical process.  This means that how we walk away from such a revelatory encounter will be largely determined by our subjective perspective, by our point of view, by our presuppositions, etc.  Largely, it will be a result of these things, but not entirely.  Revelation starts beyond us and we encounter it.  How we "read" that encounter is I think constrained, at least in part, by the object itself.  It cannot be completely a product of our own minds because the object is not a product of our minds, it’s a medium of communication between one person and another.  Theology, on this approach then, is entirely dependent on the third axiom and everything we have said about it.

In more practical terms very briefly:

I think the problem of fundamentalism, whether it be on the right or on the left end of the political spectrum, is that it takes too much of the first approach to theology.  This often means reducing the "text" of revelation (whether it be in scripture, tradition, philosophy, or experience) to an artifact which we observe and thereby draw conclusions from.  As I have said above, whenever we do this we arrive at interpretations that are derived from the presuppositions we started with.  In any such case, what is lacking is a conversation.  This conversation does not require total objectivity in reading the "text"- total objectivity is a myth.  But it does require the recognition of the voice from beyond that is speaking to us through the medium of the "text."  We are resisting the urge to create God in our own image.  And while I will never have a fully objective view of God, in the same way that when I approach another human there will always be a hint of what I wish they were in my perception of them, by opening ourselves up to the idea that this conversation involves another person we open ourselves up to the idea that the conversation can change us.  Our ideas can be put to the test, we can have true dialogue about what we believe  and why that allows for constructive theology that is more than just a projection of our wishes onto God.

Philosophy in Conversation

One more shameless plug:  Just found out that a paper proposal I submitted to the Society of Biblical Literature has been accepted and I will be presenting it at the New England Regional Conference in Boston on April 29.  The paper is on the hermeneutics (branch of philosophy interested in how we interpret texts) of Augustine, who I am putting in dialogue with the founder of modern hermeneutics Friedrich Schleiermacher and a prominent example of post-modern hermeneutics, Yale's own Dale Martin.  This is only the second time I will have presented a paper at an academic conference, and though I am fascinated by hermeneutics I don't have nearly enough background to consider myself an expert.  So I'm a little nervous about this presentation, particularly the Q & A part, but also quite excited for it!

Hermeneutics is, I think, ultimately where philosophy goes.  It is, as it were, the meta-philosophy.  Given my three axioms, at the end of the day while I think philosophy provides us with certain "basic beliefs" that we need to make sense of the world at all- beliefs like the world exists, other people exist, etc.- I ultimately think that philosophy tells us very little with any certainty.  My subjective understanding of the world is, at the end of the day, something about which I cannot have objective verification.  I cannot ever really know that most of the things I believe are true.  I can make the claim that these beliefs I hold work in a coherent way with one another- that my view of the world makes sense of everything about the world that I have experienced.  But that is not to say that I "know" these things are true.  The objectivity required for real "knowledge" is something I can simply never achieve.  This seemingly bleak, nearly skeptical picture that I have painted I have tried to temper by the idea of communication.  This idea is, I think, essential to philosophy.  As we communicate, as we enter into dialogue with one another, the ideas that we have may be challenged or supported.  Our sensibilities may be honored, or we may find ourselves offended by what others have to say to us.  All of this is part of entering into a conversation, be it spoken or in writing or perhaps in the form of art.  Hermeneutics attempts to describe how this conversation works, to provide us with a philosophy of the dialogue on which philosophy is built.

Here is where the third axiom becomes especially important, I think.  In a previous post I noted that embedded in this axiom seems to be the assumption that other people exist because for communication to happen we need more than one person.  What that also implies, I think, is that the other person is really saying something.  In post-modern hermeneutics there is a tendency to relegate meaning entirely to the realm of the "reader."  The reader creates meaning, the author or speaker and the "text" have no agency whatsoever.  I think the most simple refutation of this is the phenomenon of reading a text with which you disagree or which you find offensive.  Perhaps we can find some deep Freudian reason why I might create a reading at which I myself am offended, but I think the more straightforward notion is to say that the text, or the author, or perhaps both, really are communicating with me as the reader.  Communication is not me in a vacuum imagining what others might say, it is me listening to what someone else actually has said.

The danger to saying this is that we might slip too far in the opposite direction and endlessly ponder what exactly the other person meant.  I'm not sure that is helpful, either.  I have mentioned before that I am a bit of a musician.  As a musician, I occasionally write music (though not nearly as often as I would like).  My experience when writing a song has generally been that while the song originates with something in my experience, be it an event or an emotion or whatever, it usually takes on a life of its own in the process of being written such that at the end of the day I can say simultaneously that I deeply identify with my own music, but also that none of the songs I have written are actually about me or anyone that I know.  They have become their own entity.  I imagine that this is how many artists feel, whatever their medium.  I think this is also how much of our communication works.  The text and the author really are saying something.  But that something may not be clear, even to them.  So when we interpret a text, we interpret it based on how it affects us.  To a certain extent, that process is guided by who we are- it is part of our subjective experience.  But I also think it is the case that this process is the result of something from beyond us projecting into our experience, in a sense generating an experience for us from which we draw some meaning.

Where this leaves us, I think, is a picture of a conversation.  As I approach others with my own ideas, I have the experience of learning about theirs.  Our ways of thinking, our philosophies, enter into a conversation with one another.  From that conversation we draw some sort of meaning.  That meaning may change us in some way, impacting our own way of thinking, molding our philosophy as our experience and understanding of the world grows wider and wider.  But it may also change and impact the other person, shaping their philosophy as they too grow in their understanding.

Basic Beliefs

Our third axiom was that people communicate.  This is really not a very precise statement for a number of reasons.  To communicate seems to imply community- we need a recipient and a communicator.  We might be tempted to say that built into that axiom is the assumption that other people exist.  Built into that might be the assumption that a world beyond ourselves exists.  But for anyone who knows anything about the history of philosophy since the Enlightenment, these assumptions would be unacceptable because one of the principle questions since Descartes has been "on what basis can we claim to know these things?"  I'm going to give a whirlwind history of Modern Philosophy based on that question:

Rene Descartes marks the starting point of Modern Philosophy.  He argues that we can, via the rational process, move from a starting point of certain knowledge- that I exist- to the existence of everything else that we "know" to exist.  We can construct rational arguments that establish with certainty the existence of the material, external world and other persons with whom we communicate.  The problem is Descartes reasoning is circular and few have accepted his arguments.

Baruch Spinoza follows Descartes in claiming that we come to our knowledge by the "rational process" of constructing arguments.  But he modifies the conclusion a bit- we don't have knowledge of a world of matter existing outside our minds, we have knowledge of a world of ideas in our minds (think the Matrix).

John Locke isn't satisfied with Descartes.  He thinks we come to all our knowledge not by reasoning but through our empirical/sensory experiences.  But through those experiences we really do know the external, material world as it is.

George Berkeley offers a critique of Locke that ends up with a similar conclusion as that of Spinoza- our experience doesn't show us an external, material world, it shows us a world of ideas in our minds.

David Hume critiques this entire project by claiming that the categories necessary for us to put together our "knowledge" of the world cannot be demonstrated rationally or empirically.

Immanuel Kant responds to Hume by acknowledging that the categories cannot be demonstrated empirically to exist beyond our minds but then claims that they are part of our subjective experience- we understand the world through the grid our minds create using these categories.

Now, this whirlwind tour is based on a rigorously academic method called "squinting" (technical term given by Miroslav Volf).  There are a lot of details left out of this story and that's because for our purposes right now the details aren't as significant.  There are just a couple of things that I want to draw attention to.  First, I want to note the back and forth between "realism" and "idealism" that happens in this history- the claim that we can really, with certainty know what the material, external world is like using a particular method gives way each time to a weaker claim- we can know a world of ideas through that method.  Both Spinoza and Berkeley want to argue that this world of ideas is the real world, but with Kant we get a change: the world of ideas that our minds put together is not the same world as the external world that exists beyond us.  The difference between the two creates a "transcendental divide" between our experience and reality- we always know our experience, we do not know the world beyond our experience.  This has essentially gotten us back to the first axiom. 

Second, I want to notice what Kant suggests about the categories through which we understand the world.  First I have to acknowledge that there are some differences of interpretation here.  Some of Kant's followers, such as Hegel and many of a more analytic persuasion, want to extract from Kant a way of knowing what the "real world" is- Hegel by means of an idealism not entirely unlike that of Spinoza or Berkeley (at least on my best attempt at reading Hegel, who is a strong contender for most confusing philosopher ever), others by means of something like what Locke and Descartes wanted to do before Hume got a hold of them.  I think in both of these cases that the project is headed in the wrong direction and the essential insight Kant gives us has been missed, the first axiom ignored or overlooked.  Perhaps this is because on the basis of that axiom it does not really seem like we can know anything- my first person experience could be a complete illusion, like Descartes feared.  If I am only able to know my first person experience, how will I ever escape the possibility that it is an illusion?  I think what Kant says about the categories is actually extremely helpful in answering that question.  What Kant seems to suggest is that we cannot operate in a "world" in which that possibility is true.  In other words, there are some beliefs that are so central to our understanding of the world that we have to accept them even if there is no definitive (or empirical) proof of their being true.  By writing his Meditations, Descartes betrays that he believes an external world exists that contains people who can understand what he wrote.  He may hypothetically call that world into doubt, but he has not really doubted it so long as he continues to write for it.  That Hume picks up a pen to write his critique of causation betrays that he actually believes in causes, else why does he think that the ink will actually reach the page?  Before I am accused of a logical fallacy here, the point is not that such assumptions invalidate their arguments about our hypothetical doubt of these things.  The point is to give credence to the idea that we simply cannot do anything without these assumptions being present.

The conclusion of this is that while we are viewing the world subjectively, from a first person perspective that could in fact be an illusion, the possibility of it being an illusion, the possibility of it being completely false, is one that we need not entertain seriously.  There are certain beliefs, beliefs we might call basic beliefs, that are so central to our understanding of the world that we simply must believe them if we want to make sense of anything else.  So our third axiom can stand- we can believe that there is a world beyond us and that it contains people with whom we communicate because without such beliefs we simply cannot make sense of anything in the world.  It will be up to a later post to explore a bit more what the third axiom might imply and how we might use it.

The Existential Project

We do things for reasons.  This is not quite an axiom, but it seems to be a pretty fair description of how most human behavior works, particularly "higher level" tasks.  I don't just build a house on a whim without any intention of ever using it.  Likewise, I think we study certain topics and ask certain questions for reasons.  I don't just wake up one morning and compulsively research the chemical make up of six different amino acids.  If I should ever find the desire to know such information (not very likely), there would be some reason motivating that quest.

This all, I think, follows from the second axiom I laid out.  We as people think about the world that we experience.  Thinking is a worthless activity if it doesn't make some sort of sense.  We don't think strings of meaningless syllables, we think words and sentences, we think in a way that we "understand," and wrapped up in that concept is the idea of coherence.  For us to meaningfully understand the world, to think rationally about it, we have to organize our thoughts in some way that makes coherent sense.  Sometimes that drives us to study something more, to ask questions that as of yet we don't have answers to, to engage in some sort of academic exercise to "fill in" gaps in our understanding of the world.  As a product of our observation, the questions that people will ask and seek the answers to are often very different from one person to the next, a reinforcement perhaps of the first axiom.

A very basic question that we might ask is "why?"  Why do we seek knowledge at all?  Why do we try to understand the world?  Why do we ask questions?  Why am I even asking this question? This "why" question I think is what justifies the philosophical enterprise.  Some have answered that we seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge.  That to me sounds like the pretentious self-justification of someone in an ivory tower with no connection whatsoever to the real world.  But perhaps I am just not profound enough a thinker.  A better answer seems to me to be that we seek an understanding of the world because that understanding helps us to do things in the world.  But what things exactly are we trying to do?  I teach a group of fourth graders, and when I ask them why they might want to go to college someday the answer is usually some derivative of "so we can get smart and make lots of money."  In their mind, knowledge aids us in acquiring wealth.  That is certainly not an uncommon conception.  But is it a good one?  To me it seems very shallow and self-absorbed.  Admittedly, this is my predisposition as a Christian toward a particular conception of ethics in which helping others is more important than acquiring wealth for myself.  Perhaps that conception is wrong, perhaps Nietzsche is right and such ethics only results in my weakening myself and shackling myself down.  Perhaps we posit instead that the reason we pursue knowledge is because it allows us to gain power and influence over other people.  One critique of knowledge offered by some Post-Modern thinkers is exactly along those lines- knowledge is just a tool used by the powerful to oppress the weak.  As a graduate student studying theology and philosophy, I have a bit of a hard time buying that one, but perhaps that is just self-serving.  Perhaps I am the oppressor and I resent someone calling my bluff.  Another suggestion might be that we seek an understanding of the world because it helps us to solve our problems, to fix things, to end conflicts, etc.  This was the battle cry of the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries.  If we look at history since then, two world wars, several genocides, and the atomic bomb later, it doesn't seem like many problems have been solved.  But perhaps I'm just being too cynical.  The most ancient proposal, and the one that I find the most compelling, is that we seek an understanding of the world because such an understanding allows us to be moral people, to live a moral life.  It is important to note that moral does not just mean for the ancients things like not lying or not killing your annoying neighbor and her cat (I don't have such a neighbor, just to allay any suspicions).  For them it is rooted in the idea of a "telos" a goal toward which we are moving.  We all have such a "telos," they would argue and the moral life is the one that steers us toward fulfilling that goal or purpose for our lives.  The critic will argue that anyone who believes such silliness is being overly spiritual.  Who can really believe that everything or everyone has a purpose?  That's just an ancient myth, our modern conceptions know better.  We can build atomic bombs now, we don't need to appeal to such stories to tell us how to live our lives.

The conclusion that I am about to reach (if I want to keep my new years resolution to make these posts shorter) is in some ways not a very happy one.  The conclusion is that because we are subjective, we cannot start off with a ready answer to this question.  There is not another axiom to be found here that would take the form of "the pursuit of knowledge is for purpose x."  That, it turns out, is one of the questions that we must each wrestle with as we attempt to make sense of the world.  What purpose does the knowledge we seek hold for us?  At its heart, however, I think this question pushes toward a deeper question: what sort of person am I that I want this knowledge?  What is it that I want to do that requires this understanding?  That question points toward a project we can call "existentialism"- the project of shaping our own existence, of determining the kind of person that we are going to be.  To do this requires that we have an understanding of the world and our place in it, it requires a "philosophy" in the very general terms that I have sketched it.  But it also requires that we take ownership for the shape of that philosophy, for the way in which we approach the world, for the knowledge that we seek.

Three Axioms

I think perhaps the most fundamental philosophical statement that can be made, an axiom , if you will, that must be assumed at the very start of our philosophical endeavors, is that people are subjective.  By this I mean that we always see things from a first-person perspective.  I cannot exit myself and understand things in a perfectly objective way.  The story I tell is always "my story" from my perspective.  I think this is one of the most important insights that we can glean from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.  So while I believe that there is a world "out there" beyond myself, and that this world exists objectively in a certain way, I also believe, following Kant, that I do not have access to that world directly.  I only have access to my perspective on that world.  And that perspective will always be my subjective, own perspective.

So far, this sounds like a case for a pretty drastic relativism.  But that, I think, is a bit too quick of a conclusion, and I believe that if we really follow such relativism to its end it actually negates the value of our selves and our perspectives and results in a kind of nihilism in which everything becomes meaningless.  But I don't think that is the only option- another axiom I might claim is that we as humans are rational beings.  By rational I don't mean anything particularly specific, I'm not attempting to describe a system of logic or analysis.  I am merely wanting to say that we are thinking beings.  We don't just react to stimuli, like a worm being prodded with a stick, we actually think about the world we experience and the way we are going to act.  Not always do we think well about it, not always can we articulate our thoughts about it in anything that resembles a clear manner.  But we do think about it.  Part of what it means to think about things, I would argue, is for our thoughts to make sense (if only to ourselves), to be coherent.  Thoughts are not just random jumbles of information, we do in fact "systematize" them in a certain way.  Again, not trying to argue that we always do this by a particular logic or that we always do this well.  But I would argue that as rational beings we think about the world, and our thoughts form some sort of coherent understanding of the world from which we operate in our first person, subjective experience.

This idea of coherence is, I think, the way from which we escape a complete, nihilistic relativism and what gives rise to the philosophical enterprise.  Here we have to assert another axiom- that we humans are capable of communicating with one another.  That does not imply that communication is always perfect, that misunderstandings do not arise.  Nor does it say anything about the form of that communication, whether or not it follows a particular pattern, etc.  But on a whole, we are able to communicate in a way that is meaningful, in a way that allows the communication to be constructive and to continue.  In this communication, we frequently talk about the world we experience, from our own subjective points of view, and discuss the differences between these points of view.  This communication adds a new layer to our understanding- we now have more input about which we have thoughts that must be worked into our system in some way.  As this process continues, it turns out that coherence becomes more and more rigorous of a standard so that certain ways of thinking about the world become much more favorable than others- we call these  particular systems "schools of thought" or perhaps "worldviews."  Given that we are all subjective, our own understandings will be nuanced, but broadly speaking will fall under the umbrella of some such "school."  We will each hold to our particular system of beliefs because it "makes the most sense to us" from our first person perspective- in other words, it seems the most coherent with our experience of the world.  We may have reasons or arguments for thinking this way and reasons or arguments for thinking another system is not coherent enough.  We now have a full-fledged philosophy.