nlt@duke.UUCP (N. L. Tinkham) (07/08/85)
[*] Belatedly (work has been hectic lately), I am replying to Gary Buchholz's article on relativism and political utility in religion. First, relativism: [Tinkham:] >> I have indeed heard conservative writers (Lindsell, for instance) argue >> that if one rejects the inerrancy of the Bible, one must also reject >> much of orthodox Christianity. In my judgement, this does not follow. [Buchholz:] > This does follow if in fact one has some sense of "historical > consciosness". This 19th century "revolution" (or revelation) in > philosophy set all things in radical relativism. It was the > recognition that *all* understanding and interpretation is historically > conditioned and determined. The bible, set in this context, becomes > just another of mans speculative attempts to understand the world and > there is nothing to set it over any other of mans speculative > attempts. Seen through the eyes of "historical consciosness" there is > nothing to give the bible any priority, primacy or authority as > *the*(only and true) way to construe the world and Reality.... > First century Man is not like us in the 20th. The set of > interpretive categories used in the 1st century are not ours, they are > radically different. Their understanding is different so one ought be > careful regarding what they tell us "happened" and the causal factors > that they assign to certain events. It is a different interpretive > system completely. If I understand Gary's argument, he is stating that different cultures understand, organize, and describe their world experiences in significantly differing ways; and further, that these cultural differences are so great that it is futile for one culture even to attempt to understand the writings and traditions of another culture. I agree with the first of these statements but disagree (though I could be proved wrong) with the second. Yes, a first-century resident of Palestine would understand and interpret the world differently, to a large extent, than I as a twentieth-century American understand and interpret my world. And yes, it is very important to take this difference into account when reading writings from the first century (similarly, when reading writings from medieval Europe, or ancient China, or any other culture not my own). The task, then, is to work to understand the philosophy, culture, and language-use of the writer, in order to understand (at least partially) what the writer intended to communicate and to understand the context in which it was spoken. Gary, I think, claims that this task is impossible; I am not yet convinced. (Gary gives the example of the doctrine of the Trinity, which in the creeds is stated in terms of a Greek metaphysical system not generally used by twentieth-century thinkers. I can think of other doctrines which, in their traditional statements, share this problem. In these cases, the essential truth to be preserved is not the Greek metaphysical system, but rather the understanding of God which the early and medieval writers tried to express, using the best language and metaphysics they knew of.) Finally, we turn to the subject of the political usefulness of beliefs. Gary makes the following statements: > The astute political leader with some theological talent may find > "usefulness" an interesting observation and so interesting an > observation that it is the controlling factor in his doing theology.... [Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart are mentioned as examples.] > I hope all this (politically) "useful" theology was not by accident. > If it was how much better could this (theological/political) task be > accomplished if it were done consciously and systematically. If this > has been a systematic endeavor then I'm glad for those theologians who > have put thier heretofore academic( = "..having no practical or useful > significance") education to good use. If this has not been a conscious > systematic endeavor then divinity school students may want to "pray" for > a revival of religion in America - or maybe create one. Gulp. Uh, we seem to have a disagreement on moral standards here. In my mind, the act of deliberately teaching religious falsehoods in order to deceive one's audience for one's own personal or political gain is one of the most heinous acts a person can commit (i.e., if I were making a list of evil human actions, it would rank high on that list, along with such acts as rape and torturing babies). So I would certainly hope that the TV evangelists have committed only the relatively minor error of mistakenly identifying their political beliefs with God's will. If the deception is deliberate, then their "error" is much more serious. N. L. Tinkham duke!nlt