Oxymorons of Our Time, Part I
Douglas Wilson
(Editor's Introduction: The so-called Emerging Church is an attempt to make the Christian faith and the Church consistently, if not thoroughly, post-modern. If we call the Enlightenment the Modern Era, Postmodernism is its grandchild. In other words, postmodernism ("pomo" for short) is an inevitable and consistent outworking of Enlightenment rationalism.The next book that I shall blog through, Lord willing, will be John Franke's new book, Manifold Witness. This first post will consist of two parts -- the first being a quick take on the cover, title, blurbs, foreword and preface. The second will consist a brief statement of my presuppositions in conducting a review such as this.
As soon as the Enlightenment tossed out deism (the belief that the universe operates as a giant law-controlled mechanistic clock such that any god and the clock are to all intents and purposes the same) reason lost the ability to assert universal truths. Truth became necessarily atomised, personal, relative, contextual, variable and in no way "meta" or universal. Pomo has been the intellectual fashion in the West for a half-century or more and is regarded as the enfant terrible amongst old-style Enlightenment rationalists. It has done a sterling job tearing down the gratuitous assumptions and sloppy prejudices of Enlightenment rationalism, which had foolishly sought to build human rationalism upon the foundation of Christian assumptions. Oil and water have never mixed. It had wanted its cake of self-determining independence from God, while wanting to eat in a world full of structure and order. Stupido--but then again it is the fool after all who says that God does not exist.
But, like the Assyrian's of old, once the pomo armies have gone through and decimated Enlightenment rationalism Unbelief has been left with a mess. Replacing the unceasing flux with something coherent which escapes the intellectual and cultural nihilism of extreme atomistic relativity is a problem of another order entirely. Pomo leaves mankind in a nuclear wasteland. Only the cockroaches are alive.
But there always seems to be a section of the church which likes to be trendy and keep up with the latest academic fads. "Bottom up" Christianity, or the Emergent Church, or Christian historicism, or post-modern theology ("pomothot") is an attempt to reconcile the Christian faith with the post-modern wasteland.
The lastest contribution is a book by John Franke, entitled Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth. Dr Albert Mohler provides a brief review on his blog, entitled Is Truth Really Plural? Postmodernism in Full Flower.
Doug Wilson is commencing a series of blogs working through the book, providing an interactive critique.)
The cover is really cool. And the title ("join with all nature in manifold witness") is just great. I wish I had thought of it. Things go downhill from there. Tony Jones wrote the Introduction to this "Living Theology" series, one in which he tells us that "in Emergent Village, we've always wanted to talk about the best theology around" (p. ix). Given the title of the book, this should really have been the best theologies around, but old speech patterns are hard to shake. And words like "best" are hegemonic and oppressive. But other than that, Jones did okay. The books are "promoting a way of doing theology: one that is conversational, collegial, and winsome" (p. x). A way of doing theology? A way? It seems to me that there need to be manifold ways of doing theology, because around here we are getting kind of sick of this sort of totalizing winsomeness.
The blurbs provided include some of the usual suspects, but I want to note the contribution by Danielle Shroyer, pastor of Journey Church in Dallas. She points out that Franke rescues us from "rigid dogmatism" on the one hand and "'anything goes' pluralism" on the other. Well, it remains to be seen how rescued we are at the end of the day, but in the meantime let us muse on whether the author of 1 Tim. 2:12 was a rigid dogmatist or not. And what is the halfway point between rigid dogmatism and anything goes pluralism anyway? Is it "some but not all things go" pluralism?
The foreword is by our old friend Brian McLaren. He introduces the book as "wonderful," i.e. full of wonder, and for four reasons. The first is that Franke writes clearly and beautifully. The second is the wonder of self-criticism, coming from a white male Christian theologian. The third is that a theologian in the Reformed tradition actually takes semper reformanda seriously. The fourth goes like this here:
"That for human beings, truth is inherently plural. John asserts this, not because it is fashionable (it's the very opposite among his guild in the theological academy), but rather because he believes it is true, and is willing to suffer the scorn of some of his peers for this truth as he sees it. He asserts the plurality of truth, not as a capitulation to non- or anti- Christian thought, but rather as an expression of profoundly Christian thought -- and specifically, of emergent, missional, and trinitarian Christian thought. In so doing, he gently implies that the dominant alternative view -- that white, modernist, Western Christian scholars and institutions have a monopoly on truth -- is actually a capitulation to modes of thought and power that have betrayed the life and gospel of Jesus Christ" (p. xii).
Okay then. I have no complaints (at least not yet) about his first point. The second is that if McLaren thinks that if white guy theology is incapable of self-criticism when it has been riddled with liberal self-loathing and guilt for, oh, a century or more now, then he needs to get out more. The third point is that much abused phrase semper ref. Granted that our Reformed base camp is only half way up the slope, and that we have a long ways to go yet, saying semper reformanda as we climb, it does not follow from this that falling down the mountain is something that never happens to people. And as some theologians bounce their way down to the foothills, looking for all the world like a disappearing wheel of cheese, the phrase semper deformanda comes to mind.
As for the fourth point, let us boil that cabbage down. For human beings, "truth is inherently plural." Okay. Is that truth plural? Or is it singular? I have no doubt that this is going to come up again and again throughout this book, but that is no reason not to bring it up at the front end. The reality is that some truths are singular and some truths are plural, and they aren't the same ones. You can tell which are which by looking at the verbs. Until we get some fixed principle of integrating and distinguishing the two from these guys --some principle other than AcademicTrendyCool, I mean -- the whole thing will remain a sophomoric joke. But more on this later.
And now for my second point. As I have reviewed other pomo books, these following principles have come into play, but I thought it would be wise to lay my cards on the table, something I don't mind doing if there are four aces involved.
1. Principle One: Unless a theologian agrees with Aristotle's basic laws of thought, and agrees with them with all his heart and with sincere affection, he ought not to be allowed within fifty yards of Trinitarian argumentation.
These laws of thought are three: The law of identity says that A is A. The law of contradiction says that A is not not A. And the law of the excluded middle says that every proposition is either true or not true. A denial of any one of these would open the door to every Trinitarian heresy imaginable. To despise Aristotle at this point is to despise God's revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ. There is no way to be a Hebraic Christian, in short, without exulting in these Hellenistic thought forms.
Please note that I am not saying that Aristotle laid down some rules that God in His glory is somehow obliged to obey. I am saying that God has revealed His nature and character in the things that are made, and that some pagan thinkers like Aristotle saw these things more clearly than do some baptized Christians in the Emergent Muddle.
The law of identity means that the Father is the Father. The law of contradiction means that the Father is not not the Father. And the law of the excluded middle means that "the Father begets the Son" cannot be both true and false. Deny any of these and you are doing theology like a silly young juggins.
2. Principle Two: Before we agree to enter into a theological "conversation" it is crucial to find out who we are talking with. It should have mattered to Eve more than it did, for example, to settle who she was talking with when the question of forbidden fruit came up. The parties to the conversation determine the acceptable boundaries of what should be conversed, and so it follows that our duty is to fight with some people and converse with others.
The besetting sin of rigid dogmatists (and I wish McLaren were making these jokers up, but alas) is to fight with their fellow soldiers instead of with the other army. But this grievous failing (and it is one) is not a premise from which we may extract the non-existence of the other army. At least we cannot do this unless we have denied the laws of thought, see above.
3. Principle Three: Disputing the deception that is involved in pomothot is not the same thing as rejecting the truth that lies on the surface of some of their slogans. There is an orthodox sense in which plurality and unity do cohere together. See Vern Poythress' Symphonic Theology. Rejection of the pomo version of macedoine salad without the bowl is not tantamount to saying that ultimate truth is like an infinite block of granite, monolithic and dead. Summed up, there really is a manifold witness.
Posted by Douglas Wilson - 11/7/2009
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