Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology, and Biblical Studies)

Citation preview

POSTMODERNISM AND THE ETHICS OF THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE This book establishes the necessary integration of theological knowledge with theological ethics. It does this as a response to the postmodern critique of Christianity, as exemplified in Rorty and Lyotard. They argue that any claim to know God is necessarily tyrannical. Contemporary responses to such postmodern thinking often fail to address adequately the ethical critique that is made. This book redresses that balance by suggesting that our knowledge of God and love of the Other are so intimately connected that we cannot have one without the other. In the absence of love, then, we simply do not know God. Justin Thacker proposes that an effective theological response to postmodernity must address both knowledge and ethics in an integrated fashion as presented in this book.

ASHGATE NEW CRITICAL THINKING IN RELIGION, THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL STUDIES The Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. Headed by an international editorial advisory board of acclaimed scholars spanning the breadth of religious studies, theology and biblical studies, this open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society. Series Editorial Board: Jeff Astley, North of England Institute for Christian Education, Durham, UK David Jasper, University of Glasgow, UK James Beckford, University of Warwick, UK Raymond Williams, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, USA Geoffrey Samuel, University of Newcastle, Australia Richard Hutch, University of Queensland, Australia Paul Fiddes, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, UK Anthony Thiselton, University of Nottingham, UK Tim Gorringe, University of Exeter, UK Adrian Thatcher, College of St Mark and St John, UK Alan Torrance, University of St Andrews, UK Judith Lieu, Kings College London, UK Terrance Tilley, University of Dayton, USA Miroslav Volf, Yale Divinity School, USA Stanley Grenz, Baylor University and Truett Seminary, USA Vincent Brummer, University of Utrecht,The Netherlands Gerhard Sauter, University of Bonn, Germany Other Titles in the Series: Neopragmatism and Theological Reason G.W. Kimura Revelation, Scripture and Church Theological Hermeneutic Thought of James Barr, Paul Ricoeur and Hans Frei Richard R. Topping

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

JUSTIN THACKER Evangelical Alliance, UK

© Justin Thacker 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Justin Thacker has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Thacker, Justin Postmodernism and the ethics of theological knowledge. – (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology and biblical studies) 1. Rorty, Richard 2. Lyotard, Jean François 3. Postmodernism – Religious aspects – Christianity 4. Postmodern theology 5. Postmodernism – Moral and ethical aspects 6. Christian ethics I. Title 230’.046 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thacker, Justin. Postmodernism and ethics of theological knowledge / Justin Thacker. p. cm. – (Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology and biblical studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-6185-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Postmodernism–Religious aspects–Christianity. 2. Knowledge, Theory of (Religion) 3. Philosophical theology. 4. Rorty, Richard. 5. Lyotard, Jean François. I. Title. BR115.P74T43 2007 230.01–dc22 2007001503 ISBN 978-0-7546-6185-6

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.

For Cathi

This page intentionally left blank

Contents Acknowledgements Foreword

ix xi

Introduction

1

1

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

5

2

Perichoretic Participation

37

3

Revelation and Faith

65

4

Theological Knowing

83

5

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

99

6

Rorty and Lyotard Revisited

Bibliography Index

119 129 139

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgements This work began life as a final year dissertation at the London School of Theology. I am indebted to many of the staff of what was then London Bible College, but I would like to thank Graham McFarlane, in particular, for encouraging me to engage with Rorty and Lyotard, when I might otherwise have gone in an alternative direction. The work grew into its present form during my doctoral studies at King’s College, London and I am indebted to the late Colin Gunton, Murray Rae, Steve Holmes, Paul Janz and Oliver Davies who at different times steered me through that process. My studies at King’s would not have been possible without the generosity of a number of friends, members of St George’s Church, Hemel Hempstead as well as the Whitefield Institute, the King’s College London Theological Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Board. A number of parts of this work were presented as research papers at Kings as well as at the Whitefield Institute, and I would like to thank all of the students from those research groups whose insightful comments frequently shed light on areas that until then I only perceived dimly. Particular thanks must go to Lincoln Harvey who has always been available for conversation and challenge, and whose friendship and fellowship I greatly appreciate. Laurence Hemming and Alan Torrance, who examined the doctoral form of this work, also provided a series of very helpful suggestions, and I would like to thank Alan especially for encouraging me to seek publication. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their support, and especially my wife Cathi. Not a page of this work would have been completed were it not for her ongoing love and encouragement. She thought she was marrying a highly paid doctor, only to spend the first 7 years of our married life with a poor student. She has lived what I only write about here. To the Glory of God.

This page intentionally left blank

Foreword To draw attention to the fragmentation of contemporary theological studies has become commonplace. Biblical scholars and theologians too often fail to engage with each other in areas whether there is essential overlap. The same applies between philosophers of religion and systematic theologians as also between ‘Continental’ philosophers and those of Anglo-American or analytic credentials. Justin Thacker’s discussion of theological epistemology is a remarkable example of a study that courageously refuses to be defined by these tightly policed divisions of labour. This volume constitutes a genuinely multidisciplinary study that brings into lucid and clear-headed dialogue philosophers (both analytic and continental), theologians and Biblical scholars in a manner that serves to benefit those involved in each of these respective spheres. The controlling concern is one that is central not only to the New Testament but to the whole task of Christian theology, namely, how we understand the inter-relationship between knowledge of God, communion with God and the orientation of our lives. The controlling concern of the book is to present a participative (‘perichoretic’) account of the nature of theological knowing while simultaneously exposing the errors of the influential critiques of Christian thought which stem from the philosophies of Rorty and Lyotard. Thacker’s scholarly awareness of the essential ingredients in Pauline, Johannine and also Synoptic accounts of theological knowing lead to an interpretation of epistemology which transcends traditional dualisms between the epistemological and the ethical and the confused dichotomisations to which they have given rise within the field. Fluency in contemporary philosophical epistemology, philosophy of science as also post-modern philosophical approaches, on the one hand, and informed engagement with New Testament exegesis and dogmatic theology, on the other, contribute to cross-disciplinary analysis which is as constructive as it is theologically penetrating. Despite the intellectually challenging nature of the material, this original and highly significant contribution is clearly structured, lucidly argued and remarkably free of obfuscation. It is, in short, a pleasure to read. Professor Alan J. Torrance, St Andrews University, UK

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction It has become almost a commonplace in contemporary theology to argue, explicitly or implicitly, that the attacks against Christianity, in particular as found in Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Heidegger and Derrida, do not obtain against biblical Christianity, but only against the god of a certain kind of metaphysics. One of the most sustained and attentive arguments to this effect can be found in Eberhard Jüngel’s God as the Mystery of the World.1 But more recently too, from different dispositions and quarters, similar defences have been mounted by Merold Westphal, John Webster, Brian Ingraffia, Bruce Benson and Andrew Moore.2 I want to contribute to this exchange by focusing on an important aspect that until now has been insufficiently addressed and to do so in a manner that enables a particular kind of trinitarian response to be made. In particular, whilst metaphysics and semantics have frequently been the focus for others, my emphasis shall be on the epistemology and ethics of Richard Rorty and Jean-François Lyotard. In examining their work, I hope to demonstrate that their rejections of Christianity are not valid against a theologically constituted Christianity3 – and particularly its theological epistemology4 – but only against a 1 Jüngel, Eberhard, God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology Jüngel of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1983) pp. 126–152. 2 Westphal, Merold, Overcoming Onto-theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith Westphal (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001); Webster, John, ‘The Grand Narrative of Jesus Christ: Barth’s Christology’ in Thompson, Geoff and Mostert, Christiaan (eds), Karl Barth: A Future for Postmodern Theology? (Hindmarsh: Australian Theological Forum, 2000) pp. 29–48; Ingraffia, Brian D., Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Benson, Bruce, Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida & Marion on Modern Idolatry (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002); Moore, Andrew, Realism and Christian Faith: God, Grammar, and Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 3 In the sense that theology is that discipline which takes seriously the Barthian point, encapsulated by Jüngel, that ‘God’s being goes before the theological question about God’s being’ and therefore understands all of its God-talk in an a posteriori fashion. Theology understands itself as having nothing to say except in response to God’s enabling of its speech (which includes its prior silence). The contrast is with the kind of philosophy that assumes a certain humanistic a priori, so that even when it talks of ‘God’ it need not be in response to or out of God’s self-communication to man. Cf. Jüngel, Eberhard, God’s Being is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth. A Paraphrase (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001) p. 9. See also Alan Torrance’s discussion of Barth’s non-methodological theological method, Torrance, Alan, Persons in Communion: Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996) pp. 15–28. 4 I mean this in both senses, that is, knowledge of God and a theological account of knowledge. I am using epistemology in the broadest sense, that is, a concept of, or thinking regarding, knowledge. The use of the term that is familiar to analytic philosophy by no means implies that I share any of their methodological procedures let alone conclusions as the

2

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

form of theism that has been wedded for too long to non-theistic conceptualities. This is not to say that one cannot find such Enlightenment Christianity living and breathing in many of the churches and theology faculties in the West. Hence, this work is as much an argument against the suitability of certain forms of philosophy for the flourishing of the Church, as it is a response to Rorty and Lyotard. In that sense, then, I can agree with Ingraffia’s paraphrase of Nietzsche: ‘We should therefore, vanquish god’s shadow, the shadow god created by human reason and imagination, that we might seek the revelation of the living God in the cross of Christ’ or, as I shall go on to argue, ‘in the incarnation of his Son’. To that end, the structure of this book is as follows. In chapter one, I give a careful exposition of the challenge that Rorty and Lyotard present to Christianity. In the first place, I situate the thought of Rorty and Lyotard within a broadly postmodern framework. My purpose here is to draw attention to what distinguishes Rorty and Lyotard from other so-called postmodern philosophers.5 The suggestion is made that what sets them apart is that they have a concentration on ethics that is often missing from others. In particular, they have a concern for the ‘Other’ over against the self, which is largely absent from Nietzsche and Heidegger for instance.6 This point is then defended at length, and in the process I argue that the underlying motive for Rorty’s and Lyotard’s rejection of the Christian narrative is not an epistemological concern regarding its universal status, but rather an ethical concern regarding its practical impact. In other words, they reject it not so much because they cannot believe it (although doubtless this is also the case), but because they do not like its social and ethical consequences. As such, I argue that neither of them refuses the metanarrative qua metanarrative, but rather each of them rejects metanarratives that are violent and oppressive. The importance of this argument is that theological responses to Rorty and Lyotard have all too often focused solely on the epistemological dimensions of their following chapters will hopefully demonstrate. Such a use of epistemology is borrowed from Westphal, Overcoming, pp. 47–74. 5 It is impossible to generate a definitive list but Westphal has suggested that Rorty, Lyotard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida constitute ‘the major postmodern philosophers’. Westphal, Overcoming, p. xi. 6 So, Nietzsche writes, ‘[L]ife itself is essentially appropriation, injury, overpowering of the strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of one’s own forms, incorporation and, at the least and mildest, exploitation… “Exploitation” does not pertain to a corrupt or imperfect or primitive society: it pertains to the essence of the living thing as a fundamental organic function, it is a consequence of the will-to-power which is precisely the will of life.’ Hollingdale, R.J. (ed.), A Nietzsche Reader (London: Penguin Books, 1977) pp. 229–230. In relation to Heidegger consider the following comment from John Caputo, ‘Heidegger seems never to have noticed the widows and the poor, the lame and the lepers, the young man raised from the dead, the blind and the crippled, and the systematic work of therapeuein, of healing, of cura as healing, around which the ministry of Jesus was organized … Had Heidegger a little more care for cura as healing, had he cared more for the cross as a symbol of solidarity with the suffering other…he might have been less inclined to lend his good name and considerable genius to the Nazi nightmare.’ Caputo, John D., Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993) pp. 203, 204. See also Levinas’ sustained criticism of Heidegger along these lines in Time and the Other. Levinas, Emmanuel, Time and the Other and Additional Essays (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987).

Introduction

3

thought, and not the ethical. Yet it is my contention that in doing so they have failed to respond to the most important motivation behind their antipathy to Christianity. I locate my response to this challenge in a reappraisal of theological knowing. Chapter two begins with an exploration of the participative theologies of Morna Hooker, Miroslav Volf and Alan Torrance and argues for a perichoretic concept of theological knowing.7 What I mean by this is that our cognitive relationship to God is one in which the whole of our humanity is dynamically caught up in the Son’s relationship to the Father, such that there is neither an alienation from self, nor an alienation from God when we know him. Chapter three goes on to explore the revelatory role that Jesus Christ plays in our knowledge of God. Here, I argue, in concert with Barth, that Jesus reveals God precisely through the life and death of his historical person. However, I also note Barth’s point that the appropriation of that revelation requires more than a mere seeing of the man Jesus. That ‘more’ is unpacked by mounting the case that knowledge of God consists in, what I will describe as, a pneumatological interpretation of the person of Jesus Christ. Moreover, such an interpretation is the essence of faith. The argument I make is that faith is not something that is added to evidence to generate belief, but rather faith is the means by which we appropriate that which is already given to us. In chapter four, I then integrate the ‘participative’ account of theological knowing provided in chapter two with the revelational account of chapter three by means of an exploration of the epistemological paradigm of Michael Polanyi. The argument I pursue is that we become ‘focally’ aware of God by means of the ‘tacit’ operation of our participation in Christ. This understanding is then integrated with the main points established in chapters two and three to reach the conclusion (which must unavoidably be stated here in a highly compressed form) that theological knowing consists in a perichoretic participation in God which operates tacitly to enable a pneumatological interpretation of the revelation of Jesus Christ. I then use this framework for knowing to situate the argument of chapter five that our knowledge of God and love of the Other are radically integrated. What is meant by this is that the root of both our knowledge of God and love of the Other is our participation in the rationality of Jesus Christ. Moreover, precisely because Christ’s rationality is one that supervenes upon all our thinking and modes of being, it is impossible for our knowledge of God and love of the Other to become separated. Hence, our knowledge of God and our love of the Other are necessarily and entirely intertwined. This facet of our existence I describe as our ‘intrapersonal perichoresis’ and I mount three main arguments in support of it. Firstly, I demonstrate that in respect of knowing God (if not knowing more generally) our ethics and epistemology

7

The term perichoresis is used most often to designate the mutual co-inherence that characterises the intra-trinitarian relations. However, I will be using the term in a broader sense to indicate any form of mutual co-inherence. Indeed, I will go on to use it in at least four distinct ways: to refer to the nature of the trinitiarian relations; the form of our relationship to God; the manner in which we relate to one another; and the way that we relate to ourselves. I justify this wide understanding of the term in chapter two, where its use and meaning are discussed further. It should be clear from this that perichoretic knowing does not as such refer to knowledge of the trinitarian God, but rather indicates a theological construal of knowledge.

4

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

cannot be separated. That is, every claim to knowledge instantiates some ethical conception. The second point I make is that we cannot know God except by a participation in the rationality of Jesus Christ. Finally, I argue that the rationality that characterises Christ, and therefore the rationality that characterises us when we know God, is a rationality that is embodied in a humble love and service of the Other. The implication of this is that when we know God, we cannot do so in the absence of such an agapaeistic ethic in our lives. Hence, we only know God to the extent that we also love the Other. In the final chapter, I then use this conclusion in engagement with the problem posed by Rorty and Lyotard. The essence of my response is that Rorty and Lyotard have misconstrued the nature of the Christian narrative, interpreting it as a detached, speculative discourse. In contrast, my argument is that the Christian narrative is inherently a practical social ethic characterised by a humble love and service of the Other. As such, their argument, regarding its lack of a suitable social ethic, loses its potency. Hence, it is not so much that Rorty’s and Lyotard’s rejection of Christianity was wrong; it is more that it was misplaced. What they have rejected is the god-of-the-philosophers, but not the God-man Jesus Christ. And, as I argue in this book, it is Jesus Christ and him alone who instantiates the Christian narrative. I finish by considering some objections to the overall argument.

Chapter 1

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism Two Faces of Postmodernism Not the least of the many paradoxes that plague discussion of the postmodern is that it is, perhaps by definition, indefinable. When one peruses the cultural forms that attach themselves to the label, then Tyron Inbody’s description of it – ‘Intellectual velcro dragged across culture’1 – certainly appears apt. Indeed, it is perhaps inevitable, in a cultural phenomenon that is simultaneously anti-modernistic and hyper-modernistic, that there will at least be some tensions, if not outright contradictions, contained within. However, despite this, an indication of how one might gain a purchase on the bundle of concepts that goes under the name is provided by John Caputo. He writes, ‘“Postmodern” thinking, if it means anything at all, means a philosophy of “alterity”, a relentless attentiveness and sensitivity to the “other”.’2 In addition to this, in a footnote to this remark, he also states, ‘Lyotard’s more familiar characterization of it as an “incredulity towards metanarratives” is also very useful’.3 We have, then, two descriptions of the postmodern: a philosophy of alterity; an incredulity towards metanarratives. Of course, these two descriptions need not be seen as antitheses, and may in fact represent two aspects of the same single phenomenon. However, I have drawn attention to this polarity because of the way a number of authors have used a similar twofold conception to argue that philosophical postmodernism can be understood as lying along a spectrum with these two positions at either end. So, Edith Wyschogrod describes two distinct forms of postmodernism, the first of which she classifies as nihilistic, and the second as differential. The difference between these forms is found in the issue of faciality.4 The nihilistic postmodern sees in the face an icon that requires deconstruction. The differential postmodern understands the face as

1 Inbody, Tyron, ‘Postmodernism: Intellectual velcro dragged across culture?’, Theology Inbody Today 51:4 (January 1995) pp. 524–538. 2 Caputo, John, ‘The Good News About Alterity: Derrida and Theology’, Faith and Caputo Philosophy 10:4 (October 1993) p. 453. 3 Ibid., p. 468 n. 1. 4 The Face: A metonym coined by Emmanuel Levinas for how the ‘Other’ presents themselves to one. ‘Absolutely present, in his face, the Other – without any metaphor – faces me.’ Levinas, Emmanuel cited in Derrida, Jacques, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge, 2001) p. 125. See also Levinas, Emmanuel, ‘Diachrony and Representation’ in Caputo, John D. (ed.), The Religious (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002) pp. 76–88.

6

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

already deconstructed in expressing its vulnerability.5 Wyschogrod notes at least one factor that is important in leading to these opposing interpretations. The nihilistic postmodernism is characterised by a celebration of ecstatic unlimited desire, whereas differential postmodernism understands desire to be rightly limited by the Other. According to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, desire is a societal phenomenon controlled by those with power, as if it were a commodity to be traded. Given this circumstance, they contend, what is needed is a revolution that liberates the means of production of desire, thereby leading to a celebration of unlimited desire.6 The differential postmodern, in contrast, sees in this celebration of desire a will-to-power that tramples over the Other. This is true for the simple reason that ‘the Other can never coincide with the desire that intends him/her’. For the differential postmodern, the Other is presupposed.7 Caputo follows a similar fault line and classifies his two types of postmodernism as heteromorphism and heteronomism.8 The heteromorphic postmodern is characterised by a plenitude, an ‘overflow of an all too great fullness’.9 The heteros refers to a multiplicity of the person and the only law that governs them is an autonomy. This form of postmodernism is expressed as authentic life, will-to-power, selffulfilment and self-aggrandisement. It is postmodern because it is expressing the self without limitation, without closure. The heteronomic postmodern is different. Here, the heteros refers to the Other as the source of one’s law. This is true not so much in the sense that the Other has power over the self, but rather that the Other can never be contained or circumscribed by the self. The other is always Other, and as such breaks in, disrupts and represents something radically different: alterity. There exists an obvious parallel between Wyschogrod’s and Caputo’s descriptions, a parallel that Caputo is happy to acknowledge.10 On the one hand, then, we can recognise a philosophy of alterity that understands itself in terms of its inability to circumscribe the Other. Sensitivity to the Other is demonstrated by acknowledging the potentiality of the Other to deconstruct and critique the Self. On the other hand, we can also perceive a philosophical nihilism in which it is the Self that cannot be circumscribed. In this circumstance, resistance to closure is expressed by complete and uninhibited expression of the Self. The similarity between these positions is that both recognise the inability of the narrative to grasp the intended object. There is always, to use Derrida’s terminology, a différance, an endless deferral of meaning for the sign cannot capture the signified, or even bring it to complete presence. The distinction, however, is found in the way in which this phenomenon is afforded significance. For the nihilistic philosophers, the emphasis is located in the inadmissibility of any determinant narrative. They demonstrate such a severe

5

Wyschogrod, Edith, Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy Wyschogrod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) p. 229. See also ibid., pp. xxi, 235f. 6 Ibid., pp. 191f. 7 Ibid., p. 191. 8 Caputo, Against, pp. 42–68. Caputo 9 Ibid., p. 56. 10 Ibid., p. 263, n. 63.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

7

scepticism and mistrust, or incredulity,11 towards such narratives that all that remains is, to use Nietzsche’s phrase, the ‘will-to-power’. In contrast, for the philosophers of alterity, the locus of attention remains the Other, and the inability of my narrative to circumscribe them. Hence, for the former group it is the validity of our narratives that is important. For the latter, it is the status of the Other that matters. Wyschogrod and Caputo then go on to locate the same philosophers in each category. Nietzsche, Deleuze and Guattari are placed on the nihilistic, heteromorphic side; Derrida, Lyotard and Levinas are placed on the Other differential/heteronomic side. Derrida, in particular, is an interesting case here. He is frequently criticised by his opponents as espousing an unreconstructed nihilism, yet he is often at pains to insist that this is not what he is doing. Deconstruction is always deeply concerned with the ‘other’ of language. I never cease to be surprised by critics who see my work as a declaration that there is nothing beyond language, that we are imprisoned in language; it is, in fact, saying the exact opposite. Every week I receive critical commentaries and studies on deconstruction which operate on the assumption that what they call ‘post-structuralism’ amounts to saying that there is nothing beyond language, that we are submerged in words – and other stupidities of that sort. Certainly, deconstruction tries to show that the question of reference is much more complex and problematic than traditional theories supposed. It even asks whether our term ‘reference’ is entirely adequate for designating the ‘other.’ The other, which is beyond language and which summons language, is perhaps not a ‘referent’ in the normal sense which linguists have attached to this term. But to distance oneself from the habitual structure of reference, to challenge or complicate our common assumption about it, does not amount to saying that there is nothing beyond language.12

What this example illustrates, and what this discussion of postmodernism has been leading to, is that in reading postmodern philosophers one must always remain alert to this polarity between nihilistic incredulity and alterity. For it is frequently the case that the philosophy of alterity may not always be the most obvious feature of such writings, even when it is the underlying motive and purpose behind such philosophies. It may be the case that because a philosopher repeatedly affirms their denial of closure, that they may appear as essentially nihilistic.13 However, what is often motivating such affirmations is in fact a philosophy of alterity, for it is precisely by such denials that the Otherness of the Other is to be protected. The argument that I wish to pursue in this chapter is that this is precisely how we should understand the 11

Westphal, following Paul Ricoeur’s terminology, has usefully described postmodern Westphal philosophy as characterised by a hermeneutics of finitude and a hermeneutics of suspicion. See Westphal, Overcoming, p. 86. It is interesting to note that Lyotard’s term ‘incrédulité’ covers both these hermeneutical approaches as the French term has a broader semantic range than the English, ‘incredulity’. 12 Derrida, Jacques cited in Kearney Kearney, Richard (ed.), Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984) pp. 123, 124. 13 This, for instance, is how Jan-Olav Henriksen has interpreted Rorty. He identifies the same distinction in postmodernism as Wyschogrod and Caputo, but argues that Rorty lies on the Nietzschean side of the spectrum. Henriksen, Jan-Olav, ‘Creation and Construction: On the Theological Appropriation of Postmodern Theory’, Modern Theology 18:2 (April 2002) p. 161.

8

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

philosophies of Rorty and Lyotard. That is, their denial of universal or determinant narratives does not arise from some nihilistic scepticism, but is rather their means of fostering a philosophy of alterity.14 Indeed, the case I shall be making is that both authors self-consciously recognise a tension, if not contradiction, at the heart of their work, but this tension is permitted precisely because it contributes to the philosophy of alterity that they seek. Both Rorty and Lyotard recognise that to be absolutely consistent would lead to a form of Nietzschean nihilism that they despise, and that provides no basis for a philosophy of alterity. Hence, both authors modify their own programme such that a philosophy of alterity can be posited even in the face of what would otherwise be nihilistic. The significance of all this for theologians responding to Rorty and Lyotard is that our goal should not be to persuade them of the veracity of the Christian narrative,15 or that Christianity is not a metanarrative and therefore we can believe it.16 Rather, our primary goal should be to show that our narrative also posits a relentless sensitivity to the Other. Moreover, it does this not despite its nihilistic alter ego, but rather precisely by opposing such nihilism. We can, then, agree to some extent with the goal that Rorty and Lyotard seek though we have found a very different route to get there. Rorty’s Foundational Ethic According to Charles Guignon and David Hiley, it is Rorty’s ‘moral and social commitments that have motivated his critique of epistemology-centred philosophy from

14 In saying this, I should note that I am not necessarily taking a stand on whether their attempt to foster such alterity succeeds. My point is simply that we must appreciate that this is what they are attempting, and respond to them on that basis rather than on the basis of what they actually achieve. 15 This is the well-intentioned but misdirected approach of a variety of conservative theologians who read Rorty and Lyotard through Nietzschean eyes. See for instance, Groothuis, Douglas, Truth Decay (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 2000); Hinkson, Jon and Ganssle, Greg, ‘Epistemology at the Core of Postmodernism: Rorty, Foucault and the Gospel’ in Carson, Don A. (ed.), Telling the Truth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) pp. 68–89; Dockery, David (ed.), The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997); McGrath, Alister E., A Scientific Theology, Volume 2: Reality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) pp. 5–11. Much more appropriate responses amongst conservative evangelicals and more in line with the position I am advocating include Thiselton, Anthony C., Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self: On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995) and Middleton, J. Richard and Walsh, Brian J., Truth is Stranger than it Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (London: SPCK, 1995). 16 This is the approach of Westphal, Westphal Webster and James K.A. Smith in relation to Lyotard in particular. In contrast, my position acknowledges that the Christian narrative is a metanarrative, but argues that Rorty and Lyotard’s problem is not with the metanarrative per se, but rather with the ethical impact of our narrative. Hence, a more appropriate response to Rorty and Lyotard will be one in which the focus is on the ethical nature of the Christian narrative rather than on its status qua metanarrative. See the section in the second half of this chapter entitled ‘Lyotard’s Grand Narrative’.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

9

the outset’.17 They do not, however, particularly defend or explore this assertion. The purpose of this section, then, is to demonstrate the validity of this suggestion and to show the extent to which Rorty’s ethics really are the motivating factor behind his espousal of pragmatism. Once I have done this, I will then draw out some of the implications of this for theologians wishing to respond to Rorty’s rejection of Christianity. There are a series of inter-related points that I will make in the course of this argument. In the first place, I shall draw attention to a performative contradiction at the heart of Rorty’s thought that has been noted by many of Rorty’s critics. However, I shall then go on to propose that this contradiction is not accidental or overlooked by Rorty, but is rather the self-conscious price he pays in order to facilitate his more important aim of shoring up an ethic of social justice. The argument that I will make is this: Rorty’s overall goal is to find some way to defend a liberal ethic (which I shall define shortly). He was unable to find such a defence in realist construals of philosophy, so he turned to a philosophy of pragmatism in order to underpin this social hope. Pragmatism is capable of supporting such a liberal ethic in that it disallows the imposition of one’s views onto another, and it fosters the kind of sensitivity to the Other that Rorty seeks. Yet, at the same time, the danger Rorty perceives is that if such pragmatism is merely held pragmatically, then it can be ignored by those that do not find it socially or ethically useful. In order for Rorty’s ethical purpose to be fulfilled, Rorty cannot allow that to happen. So, his pragmatism must be held non-pragmatically. This is the performative contradiction that many of his critics have noted. However, my suggestion is that Rorty accepts this paradox precisely because his more important aim is to support the particular social ethic that he espouses. Therefore, a performative contradiction is the necessary, but accepted, cost of using a philosophy that will support his wider ethical purpose. Rorty’s Pragmatism In the book that seminally states his position on these matters, Rorty begins by attacking the representational view of knowledge.18 He mounts two principal 17

Guignon, Charles and Hiley, David R., ‘Biting the Bullet: Rorty on Private and Public Guignon Morality’ in Malachowski, Alan (ed.), Reading Rorty (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) p. 339. 18 Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Rorty Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). Of course, a number of theologians have also attacked the representational view of knowledge and language, but without necessarily descending into the kind of pragmatism that Rorty espouses. The importance of this point is that we should not be tempted to think that Rorty’s pragmatism is a necessary corollary of his denial of representation. The kind of pragmatism Rorty avers is only contingently related to the epistemological arguments he makes in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. The relevance of this is that it allows us to consider how other factors may have contributed to his adoption of pragmatism, factors such as the ethic of alterity that he seeks. Theologians who have demonstrated some disquiet with a purely representational picture of knowledge and language include Montag SJ, John, ‘Revelation: the false legacy of Suarez’ in Milbank, John, Pickstock, Catherine and Ward, Graham (eds), Radical Orthodoxy (London: Routledge, 1999) pp. 38–63. Torrance, Thomas Forsyth, Theological Science (London: Oxford University Press, 1969) pp. 19f. Ward, Graham, ‘Barth, Modernity, and Postmodernity’, in Webster, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) p. 286. Torrance, Persons, pp. 325–341. The

10

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

arguments to demonstrate the vacuity of the notion that knowledge is concerned with the mind mirroring reality. The first of these is his denial that any form of incorrigible knowledge exists.19 Rorty’s point is that for a ‘theory of knowledge’ to have meaningful content, then there must exist some benchmark of indubitable knowledge against which other knowledge claims may be assessed. According to Rorty, no such locus of privileged knowledge has been substantiated. The second point Rorty makes is that even if our knowledge consists in some kind of representation of reality, then there is no way for us to ‘get out of our skins’ to check those conceptions with the reality which they are meant to represent. There is, in other words, no means of arbitration between competing knowledge claims, for none of us has the ‘God’s eye view’ that would be needed to make the appropriate adjudications. The conclusion Rorty draws from all this is that knowledge should not be considered as the mind mirroring reality. Rather knowledge (and language) are merely tools that we use in interaction with our environment. These tools vary in how useful they are, but the best ones are not anything like accurate reflections of reality, but those that most effectively achieve our purposes. ‘Pragmatists think that the question to ask about our beliefs is not whether they are about reality or merely about appearance, but whether they are the best habits of action for gratifying our desires.’20 And if we ask how far Rorty pushes this idea, then we find that there are no limits to his eschewal of our usual considerations. ‘When we say that our ancestors believed, falsely, that the sun went around the earth, and that we believe, truly, that the earth goes round the sun, we are saying that we have a better tool than our ancestors did.’21 As a consequence, Rorty rejects the metanarrative, in the sense of an overarching story that governs how we should live, and encourages us to stop trying ‘to put humanity in a cosmic context’, suggesting instead that we embrace the ‘short-range and prudential’.22 Rorty also rejects the concept of ‘reality-in-itself’ as anything that contributes usefully to our thinking or praxis. This does not mean that he denies the existence of the external world. He is not a linguistic idealist as some of his critics have suggested, but rather a certain kind of coherentist, believing ‘as strongly as does any realist, that there are objects which are causally independent of human beliefs and desires’.23 Rorty’s point here is that even though reality is causally independent of us (it existed before we came along), it is not representationally independent of broad theological spectrum of these authors only goes to demonstrate that to question representation in no way commits one to an all-embracing pragmatism. 19 In particular, Rorty draws on Wilfrid Sellars’ attack on the ‘Myth of the Given’, as well as Willard Quine’s refutation of the analytic-synthetic distinction to make this point. He then concludes, ‘These two challenges were challenges to the very idea of a “theory of knowledge”, and thus to philosophy itself, conceived of as a discipline which centers around such a theory.’ Rorty, Mirror, p. 169. 20 Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and Social Hope (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1999) p. xxiv. Rorty 21 Ibid., p. xxv. 22 Rorty, Richard, Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers Volume 3 (Cambridge: Rorty Cambridge University Press, 1998) pp. 241–243. 23 Rorty, Richard, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) p. 101.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

11

us (it has no describable nature apart from the one that we give it).24 Or, as he says elsewhere, ‘We need to make a distinction between the claim that the world is out there and the claim that truth is out there.’25 The former of these Rorty holds to, but the latter of these he denies because ‘to say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations’.26 So, reality is the cause of our beliefs, but which particular beliefs we hold depend upon us, and not upon that reality, at least in any specific sense. In this way, the idea of reality in itself apart from our descriptions is simply a piece of Platonic jargon that we can jettison. In parallel to this, Rorty also rejects the notion of a religious narrative that purports to have any significance beyond those who willingly hold it. So he writes, Scientific realism and religious fundamentalism are products of the same urge. The attempt to convince people that they have a duty to develop…an ‘absolute conception of reality’ is…of a piece with the attempt to live ‘for God only’, and to insist that others do so also. Both scientific realism and religious fundamentalism are private projects which have got out of hand. They are attempts to make one’s own private way of giving meaning to one’s own life…obligatory for the general public.27

In principle, then, Rorty seems to have no problem with religious views that are held privately and are privately useful. His difficulty arises when those views enter the public arena. Indeed, logically, this is his position with regard to all views (whether religious or not). What matters, according to Rorty, is whether our beliefs fulfil our desires, satisfy our purposes. What we must not forget, though, is that such desires and purposes are always private and personal, and therefore the knowledge claims that accompany them must also be considered as having no validity beyond our own limited objectives. This is Rorty’s pragmatism. Rorty’s Paradox Yet, having said this, we can recognise an immediate tension, if not contradiction, arising in Rorty’s discourse. That tension becomes apparent as we consider the following question: what is the status of Rorty’s own views? Are Rorty’s views on the importance of pragmatism something useful just to him, or will they also prove fertile for others? If so, will they satisfy the purposes of all, or merely those who can be persuaded of them? To be consistent, Rorty would have to accept that his views are only useful to those that accept them, for this is precisely his definition of what it means to believe in a particular proposition – that it has pragmatic utility.

24

Rorty Progress, p. 86. Rorty, Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp. 4, 5. 26 Ibid., p. 5. 27 Rorty, Social, p. 157. For an elaboration on the same theme see also his essay Rorty ‘Pragmatism as Anti-authoritarianism’, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 53:207 (1999) pp. 7–20. 25

12

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

However, in the absence of any sense of a shared anthropology28 it is unclear why Rorty would even consider that his views might have such a wider utility, let alone why he publishes them. Even worse is that Rorty makes it clear that his purpose in publishing is precisely to persuade others to accept his position. He explains that his goal is to ‘redescribe lots and lots of things in new ways, until you have created a pattern of linguistic behavior which will tempt the rising generation to adopt it’.29 He describes his own philosophy as ‘edifying’ in contrast to the ‘systematic’ philosophy of his opponents.30 Hence, his aim is to ‘josh’ out of the old styles so that we can find something that is more ‘fruitful’.31 But the question remains, why should others find Rorty’s views useful, just because he does? If the metanarrative has been rejected, then why is Rorty positing his own?32 This inconsistency is made all the worse by Rorty’s claim that, in regard to some of his views, they are not just pragmatically ‘true’, but in fact true ‘ahistorically’. He writes, ‘I also am happy to say that when I put forward large philosophical views I am 28

Something that he has explicitly rejected. Rorty, Progress, p. 185. Rorty, Contingency, p. 9. Rorty 30 Rorty, Mirror, p. 11. Rorty 31 Rorty, Progress, p. 11. Rorty 32 It must be stressed that the point I am making here is not the hackneyed one that postmoderns are being inconsistent if they claim truth status for their own prohibition on truth. Rorty is much too careful to fall into that trap. He writes, for instance, ‘Such Such doubt cannot be resisted merely by raising self-referential paradoxes, as when one says that post-modernists contradict themselves by claiming that it is true that there is no truth. They do not say that. They say instead that certain metaphors which we once used to explicate the notion of truth – those which revolve around notions like correspondence and adequate representation – need to be abandoned. Doing so will lead us to stop playing a certain language-game, the language-game which uses the hypostatized adjective “truth”.’ Rorty Rorty, Richard, Truth, politics and ‘post-modernism’: The Spinoza Lectures (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 1997) p. 24. The point I am making is that even if truth is merely what I find useful, then why must I abandon notions like correspondence and adequate representation if I find them useful? It is perfectly consistent for Rorty to state that he will abandon them, but why must I? The only possible answer Rorty could give is that he and I are in some way alike, and if he finds it useful to abandon these notions, then so will I. But such a suggestion is dependent on a metanarrative of human nature which Rorty otherwise rejects. Rorty is left, then, with no base for his claim that we must abandon these notions other than the fact that he says so. In addition, Rorty is also being inconsistent when he chides Christians for imposing their views onto others, when he is doing precisely the same. Just as Rorty finds his views pragmatically fertile, so do the Christians, and therefore it is unclear why in his case persuasion and rhetoric are allowed, whereas in the case of the Christians it is not. Incidentally, if Rorty’s problem with the religionist is not that they express and try to persuade others of their view, but that they seek to impose them, by legislation for instance, then to some extent his critique is apt. Constantinianism is usually not the most appropriate form for the church’s engagement with the world. However, Rorty’s accusation goes further than this. He seems to reject in toto any attempt at religious persuasion. (See in particular his essay ‘Religion as Conversation-Stopper’, in Rorty, Social, pp. 168–174.) It is on this point that he is being inconsistent in saying that he is allowed to evangelise whilst others are not. Nicholas Wolterstorff has recently made a similar point. ‘Rorty thinks conversation has to stop somewhere. And is it OK for Darwinian pragmatist reasons to stop conversation but not for religious reasons to do so? If so, why?’ Wolterstorff, Nicholas, ‘An Engagement with Rorty’, Journal of Religious Ethics 31:1 (Spring 2003) p. 132. 29

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

13

making ‘claims to truth’ rather than simply a recommendation to speak differently.’33 In noting this, we must be careful to understand what Rorty means by ‘truth’ in this context. He describes it as an ‘approbative adjective’ which stands for anything which is the case whether or not anyone believes it and whether or not we are justified in believing it. This sounds very much like a traditional correspondence theory until one realises that Rorty empties this concept of any ontological weight. Hence, according to Rorty, it is not that a proposition is true irrespective of justification because it corresponds to reality, or in any other way has an ontological base. Rather to say a proposition is true is simply to claim that it is always the case irrespective of our beliefs and justifications. It is a way, in other words, of conferring a particular status on a proposition, but it is not to link that proposition to any particular metaphysical ground. Hence, when Rorty states that he is making ‘claims to truth’ he is simply saying that we really ought to believe this, that he considers it to be true for us all. Rorty’s philosophical claims then should be understood as claims that we should all believe, and that are timelessly true, but they do not have this status because they correspond to, or relate to, some non-human entity called reality. They are, in other words, metaphysically groundless, but transcendentally forceful. ‘Truth is ahistorical, but that is not because truths are made true by ahistorical entities.’34 As a theory of truth, such an idea is consistent, but what is less than perspicuous is how Rorty could know that any of his ideas have this status. At most, he can claim that they appear this way to him, but he can make no assumptions that they would appear that way to others. And in the absence of evidence that they would prove similarly fruitful to others, by what right does Rorty claim that we must believe them too? What we are left with then is this: Rorty holds that all our beliefs are not tied representationally to any non-human reality, but are simply whatever proves itself useful for us to believe. Hence, his philosophical views that espouse this doctrine are also whatever proves useful to him. Yet, despite this, and for some as yet unidentified reason, Rorty finds himself not only seeking to persuade others of his views, but also claiming that they are ahistorically true. Now, it would be possible to conclude that Rorty is simply an inconsistent and incoherent thinker as many of his critics do. However, there is another reading of what is taking place here and that is what I shall now attempt. The essence of that argument is to realise that Rorty engages deliberately in this performative contradiction because it supports his more important aim of an ethic of social justice. Rorty believes that a philosophy of pragmatism is the best possible route to the kind of ethics of alterity that he seeks. However, if one were to hold such pragmatism pragmatically, that is, as no more than that which fulfils my own personal hopes, then it would not do the work that Rorty requires. For pragmatism to achieve the social utopia Rorty seeks, it must be adhered to and propagated as if it is the only option available, in other words, non-pragmatically. Rorty’s performative contradiction, then, is the price worth paying for an effective ethic of alterity. This is the argument I shall now pursue.

33 34

Rorty Progress, p. 92, n. 16. Rorty, Ibid., p. 226.

14

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Rorty’s Ethical Vision Borrowing a phrase from Judith Shklar, Rorty repeatedly defines his liberal ethic in the following terms: ‘Liberals are the people who think that cruelty is the worst thing we do.’35 Rorty’s concern here is unambiguously the Other. He writes that his goal is for us to have ‘the ability to see more and more traditional differences (of tribe, religion, race, customs, and the like) as unimportant when compared with similarities with respect to pain and humiliation – the ability to think of people wildly different from ourselves as included in the range of “us’’’.36 And in criticising the ‘post-sixties left’ for having too narrow a conception of the Other, he writes, Nobody is setting up a program in unemployed studies, homeless studies, or trailer-park studies, because the unemployed, the homeless, and residents of trailer parks are not ‘other’ in the relevant sense. To be other in this sense you must bear an ineradicable stigma, one which makes you a victim of socially accepted sadism rather than merely of economic selfishness.37

The importance of this ethic of social justice is that it was the driving motivation behind Rorty’s decision to study philosophy in the first place. In an autobiographical section, Rorty explains that what led him to philosophy was the desire to ‘hold reality and justice in a single vision’.38 In his early years, whilst exploring this concern, Rorty also developed an interest in orchids. The relevance of the orchids is that they convinced him that reality had a certain absolute quality that was both ‘numinous [and] of ineffable importance’.39 His project then was to combine this metaphysical ground of meaning with his quest for social justice. So, he studied philosophy in the hope that he would find in it a way to fulfil these aims, specifically a way to absolutise his desire for justice. The end product of this journey was that it failed. Outside of Christianity (which he says he was too secular and too proud to accept), he could not see how you could get ‘a non-circular justification of any debatable stand on any important issue’.40 Two particular aspects of this failure of traditional philosophy stand out. The first is that philosophy was no use in generating the kind of social justice he sought. He suggests that his main problem with Plato is not the philosophical one, but rather that he was ‘no help in dealing with Nazis and other bullies’.41 Whilst acknowledging that essentialism is of value in the ‘natural sciences’,42 Rorty’s problem with it is

35

Rorty Contingency, p. xv. Rorty, Ibid., p. 192. 37 Rorty, Richard, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-century America Rorty (London: Harvard University Press, 1998) p. 80. 38 Rorty, Social, p. 7. Rorty 39 Ibid., p. 8. 40 Ibid., p. 10. 41 Ibid., p. 16. 42 Though he has since abandoned this view. See Rorty, Rorty Progress, p. 92, n. 16. 36

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

15

that it does not ‘assist moral and political reflection’.43 The second problem that Rorty had with such philosophies is that, not only were they morally impotent, but even worse they were frequently used as tools of oppression themselves. Indications of this are seen in how he describes the modernist paradigm. In his first volume of Philosophical Papers he agrees with Foucault ‘that knowledge is never separable from power’ and then goes on to explain what this means: ‘one is likely to suffer if one does not hold certain beliefs at certain times and places.’44 The whole process represents ‘the Enlightenment’s search for objectivity [that] has often gone sour’.45 A similar description is found in his second volume of Philosophical Papers where the realist is described in the following way: ‘what matters for me takes precedence over what matters for you, entitles me to ignore what matters to you, because I am in touch with something – reality – with which you are not.’46 And in the third volume of his papers, he therefore suggests that one of the reasons to adopt an antirealist position is ‘because it will take away a few more excuses for fanaticism and intolerance’.47 Therefore, Rorty abandons traditional philosophy because in the first place it does not secure the kind of justice he is seeking, and in addition it is itself implicated in the sort of injustice he is seeking to avoid. Rorty’s response to this failure of traditional philosophy was to leave it behind, for however much he wanted to ground his ethics on his philosophy, all he found was sinking sand. So, thirty years after beginning his quest, he gave up on it: ‘I gradually decided that the whole idea of holding reality and justice in a single vision had been a mistake.’48 Rorty holds on to his idea of justice, but rejects philosophy in the sense that it was a positive statement about reality. Instead, his justice becomes freewheeling, floating in mid-air, and his philosophy became in his own terms an ‘anti-philosophy’, a philosophy of pragmatism which asserts that statements and beliefs are nothing more than whatever best serves our purposes. Even more importantly, though, Rorty turns to pragmatism because not only does it avoid the negative sequelae of realist approaches, but it also acts as a more secure base for the kind of liberal ethic he espouses. In one place, he even goes so far as to define it in terms of its ethical utility. ‘Pragmatism must be defined as the claim that the function of enquiry is, in Bacon’s words, to “relieve and benefit the conditions of man”.’49 In addition, Rorty tells us that the ‘only argument’ he has for ‘putting foundationalism behind us’ is that it will help in developing the liberal utopia that he seeks.50 In light of this, it might be argued that Rorty never abandoned that quest he set out on all those years ago. Rather, he simply reconfigured it so as to ensure that reality and justice could indeed be held together, albeit reality as understood by Rorty. Furthermore, he has constructed an argument that is impregnable. For whenever one attacks his conception, he can claim, as he 43 Rorty, Richard, Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) p. 67. 44 Rorty, Objectivity, p. 26. Rorty 45 Ibid., p. 33. 46 Rorty, Heidegger, p. 74. Rorty 47 Rorty, Progress, p. 83. Rorty 48 Rorty, Social, p. 12. Rorty 49 Rorty, Heidegger, p. 27. Rorty 50 Rorty, Contingency, p. 197; Rorty, Progress, p. 176. Rorty

16

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

does, that he is being attacked from a metaphysical position that he considers invalid. In abandoning traditional philosophy for a philosophy of pragmatism, it is as if he stops himself from losing by removing himself from the game. In such a situation, one cannot defeat him, and hence he has got that absolute ground of meaning upon which he can build his concern for social justice. Rorty’s Irony In the previous section, I have shown how a concern for ethics was the driving force behind Rorty’s decision to study philosophy. I have also demonstrated that it was that same concern that led Rorty to abandon some traditional approaches to philosophy in favour of a philosophy of pragmatism. Rorty’s conclusion is that the pragmatist stance is the only one that can secure the kind of liberal ethic he desires. Yet, having said this, the connection between Rorty’s pragmatism and his liberal ethic is not quite that straightforward, as I will now explain. We have already noted the performative contradiction that bedevils Rorty’s espousal of pragmatism, and we have suggested that such a tension is tolerated because of Rorty’s deeper motivation to secure as far as possible his concern for social justice. There is, however, a further tension at the heart of Rorty’s ethics, and once again, the argument I shall make is that this tension is permitted precisely because Rorty finds that it is the most effective way to support his ethical liberalism. On the one hand, Rorty indicates that the most appropriate route to a liberal utopia is to embrace the philosophical pragmatism that he has described. However, on the other hand, he also tells us that there can be such links between one’s private irony (the term he uses at a certain stage of his writing for his pragmatism) and public hopes. So, in relation to the first pole of this dialectic, Rorty describes his ironism as the ‘most appropriate foundation for a liberal democracy’.51 Elsewhere he describes it as ‘one more nudge’ in the direction of liberalism,52 or that ironism and liberalism are ‘mutually supporting’,53 in ‘harmony’,54 ‘tailored’55 for one another. Indeed, elsewhere the connection seems even closer when he writes of the need to ‘build the rhetoric of liberalism around’ the idea of irony.56 This close connection between ironism and liberalism is made most explicit in a recent discussion of Shklar’s views on the issue. David Owen is commenting on Shklar and, after a lengthy quotation from her, indicates how she has made it clear that ‘ironism is…a (necessary?) condition of putting cruelty first’, that to be a true liberal is simply to be an ironist liberalist.57 Rorty responds to this discussion by saying:

51

Rorty Heidegger, p. 19. Rorty, Rorty, Progress, p. 58. Rorty 53 Ibid., p. 218. 54 Rorty, Heidegger, p. 135. Rorty 55 Rorty, Objectivity, p. 211. Rorty 56 Rorty, Contingency, p. 53. Rorty 57 Owen, David, ‘The Avoidance of Cruelty: Joshing Rorty on Liberalism, Scepticism, Owen Ironism’, in Festenstein, Matthew and Thompson, Simon (eds), Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001) p. 94. 52

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

17

I particularly appreciate [Owen’s] extensive quotation from Judith Shklar, which helps bring out the connection I see between liberalism and the renunciation of religious and metaphysical sources for moral convictions. I wish that I had quoted at similar length from those pages of Shklar’s in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity.58

What Rorty seems to be acknowledging here is that not only is ironism desirable for liberalism, but that in some way it is actually essential.59 Nevertheless, at other times, Rorty is just as adamant that we should perceive no link between one’s private irony and public hopes. ‘Irony is of little public use’ he tells us, and furthermore there are not ‘any argumentative roads [that] lead from this kind of philosophy to any particular brand of politics’.60 Indeed, things would be much better if ‘Liberals would not ask ironist philosophy to do a job which it cannot do, and which it defines itself as unable to do’, that is, provide a support for liberalism.61 We have, then, a further tension in Rorty’s thought. On the one hand irony (= pragmatism) is considered to be essential for ethical liberalism. On the other, there are apparently no links between the two. The solution to this tension is to look in more detail at precisely why Rorty posits this separation between one’s ironism and liberalism. The key here is to return to why it was that Rorty abandoned traditional philosophy in the first place. It will be recalled that one of the motivating factors behind that abandonment was the fact that traditional philosophy appeared to be no use whatsoever in grounding Rorty’s liberal utopia. Indeed, it often made the matter worse. Such thinking has remained with Rorty to the extent that he considers all such theoretical construals of the political or ethical situation as at best useless, and at worst positively dangerous. In other words, Rorty fears that if pragmatism is considered as the grand philosophical theory that grounds ethical liberalism, then precisely by considering it in such an abstract manner the work that is necessary will be prevented from happening. Hence, Rorty posits a separation between these two ideas precisely because in his mind this is the most effective way to secure the liberalism he seeks. This manner of thinking is made most explicit in Achieving Our Country. Repeatedly, Rorty lambasts those left-wing theorists who consider the most effective way to achieve social justice is by refining and honing the political theory that will deliver the utopia that both he and they seek. For Rorty, such philosophical navel-gazing betrays the practical impact that the philosophy was meant to achieve. We now have, among many American students and teachers, a spectatorial, disgusted, mocking Left rather than a Left which dreams of achieving our country…Members of this Left find America unforgivable, as Baldwin did, and also unachievable, as he did not. This leads them to step back from their country and, as they say, ‘theorize’ it. It leads them to do what Henry Adams did: to give cultural politics preference over real politics, and to

58

Rorty R., ‘Response to David Owen’, in ibid., p. 111. Rorty, Consider also ‘A liberal society is one which is content to call “true” whatever the outcome of undistorted communication happens to be, whatever view wins in a free and open encounter.’ Rorty, Contingency, p. 67. 60 Rorty, Heidegger, p. 132. Rorty 61 Rorty, Contingency, p. 94. Rorty 59

18

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge mock the very idea that democratic institutions might once again be made to serve social justice. It leads them to prefer knowledge to hope. I see this preference as a turn away from secularism and pragmatism.62

The last line of this quotation is the key to understanding what is going on here, for it reveals that in Rorty’s mind there are essentially two forms of pragmatism or ironism in operation. The first is what might be called pragmatist or ironist theory. It is that kind of speculative consideration which in Rorty’s mind is characteristic of Lyotard and Foucault, and which makes up most of Rorty’s philosophical writings. However, there is also, it would appear, a second form of pragmatism or ironism. This is the form that is concerned not so much with speculation, but with real-life politics, getting on with building the kind of liberal utopia that Rorty seeks. Hence, when Rorty says there is no link between his ironism and his liberalism, then he is referring to the first kind of theoretical speculation. But when he defines his liberalism in terms of epistemological consensus, or when in the quotation above he suggests speculation is a move away from pragmatism, it is the second, more handson kind of pragmatism that is in view. The problem, of course, is that it is very hard to see what distinguishes these two forms other than that one is speculative and the other is practical. This tension is one that Rorty appears to recognise too. So far I have argued that philosophy does not make much difference to our practices and that it should not be allowed to do so. But this may seem a strange position for somebody who calls himself a pragmatist. We pragmatists say that every difference must make a difference to practice.63

Whether Rorty’s answer here is persuasive does not matter for my purposes. For the point I am trying to make is that Rorty’s denial of a link between his pragmatism and his liberalism is not because he actually thinks there is no link there, but rather because he is worried that if that link is made too strong, then the project of establishing a liberal utopia will be forgotten in the face of refining more accurately the pragmatist theory that engenders it. This, as he sees it, is what has gone wrong with much contemporary Leftist thought. In its attempt to get the theory right, it has ignored the practical liberalism that the theory was meant to support. Hence, there exists a dialectical tension in Rorty’s thought here. On the one hand his theory must be strong enough to support the ethics that he envisages, but on the other it must not be so strong that the ethics is forgotten in the attempt to further refine that theory. The two poles of this dialectic can be seen in the following quotations: 62 Rorty, Country, pp. 35, 36. There is, of course, a certain irony in the fact that Rorty Bernstein criticises Rorty on similar grounds, that is, that all Rorty ultimately leaves us with is rhetoric and not any practical programme for political reform. He writes regarding Rorty, ‘Inspirational liberalism may be a healthy antidote to legalistic rights-based liberalism and to the abuses of the infatuation with theorizing by postmodern cultural critics. But without pragmatic toughness and a concrete programme for reform, patriotic inspirational liberalism too easily degenerates into an empty rhetorical hand waving.’ Bernstein Bernstein, Richard J., ‘Rorty’s Inspirational Liberalism’, in Guignon, Charles and Hiley, David R. (eds), Richard Rorty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) p. 138. 63 Rorty, Progress, p. 76. Rorty

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

19

I am not laying foundations for liberalism by claiming that recent Davidsonian philosophy of language or Kuhnian philosophy of science has demonstrated that the philosophers of the past were mistaken in asking for neutrality. I am saying that Kuhn, Davidson…provide us with redescriptions of familiar phenomena which, taken together, buttress Berlin’s way of describing alternative political institutions.64 [My emphasis]

And again, ‘Dewey seems to me to have given us the right lead when he viewed pragmatism not as grounding, but as clearing the ground for, democratic politics.’65 In this way Rorty is able to maintain that ironism is not theoretically essential for liberalism, though practically it is, as by definition, nothing else except ironism removes philosophical foundationalism in the way that is necessary. This dialectic, then, is what leads to some of Rorty’s apparent contradictions.66 But what is important to note in all of this, and what I have been suggesting, is that ultimately what is motivating all of these moves, is simply Rorty’s desire to see a community of social justice embodied. One final piece of evidence that this is ultimately the motivating factor behind Rorty’s approach is the fact that when his ironism and liberalism clash, as they occasionally do, in each case it is Rorty’s liberalism that wins the encounter. So in a discussion of Nietzsche and Heidegger where Rorty faces the challenge that their ironism does not lead explicitly to the liberal utopia that he envisages, and in fact may lead to precisely the opposite, he suggests: One can ask these men to privatize their projects, their attempts at sublimity – to view them as irrelevant to politics and therefore compatible with the sense of human solidarity which the development of democratic institutions has facilitated. This request for privatization amounts to the request that they resolve an impending dilemma by subordinating [my emphasis] sublimity to the desire to avoid cruelty and pain.67

A similar move is seen in Rorty’s discussion of Foucault, who is another ironist but not liberalist philosopher. In a telling section he describes his disagreement with Foucault as boiling down to whether one’s ironism should be sacrificed on the altar of liberalism. He states: ‘My disagreement with Foucault amounts to the claim that this decrease [in pain] does, in fact, compensate for those constraints [on ironism].’68 For Foucault, any constraint on ironism is unacceptable whatever the ‘compensation’; for Rorty the opposite is the case.

64

Rorty Contingency, p. 54. Rorty, Rorty, Objectivity, p. 13. Rorty 66 A number of authors do conclude that Rorty is being incoherent here. See for instance Haber, Honi F., Beyond Postmodern Politics: Selves, Community and the Politics of Difference (London: Routledge, 1994) pp. 49, 50, 140, n.5; Burrows, Burrows Jo, ‘Conversational Politics: Rorty’s Pragmatist Apology for Liberalism’, in Malachowski, Reading, pp. 324–326. 67 Rorty, Contingency, p. 197. Rorty 68 Ibid., p. 63. 65

20

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Conclusion and Theological Significance I began this whole discussion of Rorty by noting Guignon’s and Hiley’s observation regarding the ‘moral commitments’ that have underpinned Rorty’s philosophical outlook. Rorty himself makes similar comments when he writes that ‘there is a moral purpose behind’ his philosophical outlook,69 and that his pragmatism has an ‘ethical base’70 and an ‘ethical foundation’.71 The purpose, then, of the preceding four sections has been to explore the extent to which those commitments have led to Rorty’s particular brand of pragmatism with an eye to the fact that Rorty’s rejection of Christianity is closely tied up with his rejection of realism. In the first place, we have demonstrated that at least one of the reasons Rorty rejected realist epistemologies is that he found them morally impotent. Additionally, we saw that one of the prime motivations behind his espousal of pragmatism was the way in which he saw it as securing the kind of ethics he sought. Furthermore, we have indicated the dialectical tension that exists between Rorty’s pragmatism and his ethics, and more particularly, we have suggested that this tension exists precisely because Rorty is trying to ensure the focus always remains on practical ethics. Given these three points, we can also postulate that a more likely explanation for the performative contradiction that bedevils Rorty’s whole pragmatic approach is the fact that as much as possible he is trying to ensure that the kind of ethics he seeks is enacted. In sum, the point I am making is that ethics plays a far more central role in Rorty’s rejection of realism than at first sight may appear to be the case. The significance of this is not just that in any engagement with Rorty his ethical concerns must be taken into account. It is rather the realisation that Rorty’s main concern is not so much truth and meaning (as I have indicated, he has no qualms about positing ahistorical truth) but rather the ethical consequences of the beliefs that we hold. If our beliefs foster a sensitivity to the Other then he has no problem with our adherence to them, arguments for them, and even our holding of them with ‘universal intent’.72 Despite appearances to the contrary Rorty’s problem is not really with the nature of our beliefs, but rather with the ethical impact that they have. If Rorty can hold his pragmatism ahistorically, precisely because it engenders such attentiveness to the Other, then he should, in principle, have no problem with any discourse that does the same. Theologically, the significance of this is that Rorty does not so much reject Christianity due to the epistemological concerns he has. Rather, he rejects it due to its lack of a suitable social ethic. In the course of this rejection, Rorty mounts a series of arguments that at first sight appear to be epistemological or nihilistic, that is, they attack Christian truth claims as truth and knowledge claims. However, the argument I am making is that such tactical manoeuvres are driven by more basic ethical commitments that represent the real heart of the matter for Rorty. Rorty’s rejection of Christianity, then, goes in tandem with his rejection of realism. There are 69 70 71 72

Rorty Objectivity, p. 193. Rorty, Ibid., p. 24. Ibid., p. 33. For at the very least an ahistorical truth is one that is held with ‘universal intent’.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

21

two aspects to this. The first of these is the charge that Christianity fails to promote justice, and the second is that it positively contributes to injustice. In regard to the former of these points he quotes John Dewey: ‘Men have never fully used the powers they possess to advance the good in life, because they have waited upon some power external to themselves and to nature to do the work they are responsible for doing.’73 In relation to the second he describes Christianity as ‘politically dangerous’ and elsewhere comments, ‘[T]hose who claim to have been reborn [in Christ] do not seem to behave as differently from the way they behaved in the past as we had hoped. We have been waiting a long time for prosperous Christians to behave more decently than prosperous pagans.’74 And again in a discussion with Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff he states, ‘The only reason I can think of for objecting to Christian theism is that a lot of Christians have been bigoted fanatics.’75 Now, it is possible to read into a phrase like this merely an epistemological point about the way in which some Christians seek to persuade others of their views, a way in which we seek to ‘make one’s own private way of giving meaning to one’s own life…obligatory for the general public’.76 However, as I have already noted, this is precisely what Rorty is doing in describing his own views as ahistorically true. Either, then, he is being crassly inconsistent, or as I have suggested the primary distinction that Rorty sees between his views and the Christian’s is not an epistemological one regarding its universality or link to reality, but is rather a pragmatic and ethical one regarding the kind of society that it generates.77 If this analysis is correct then any theological response to Rorty will fail to hit home if it merely argues that truth and meaning, even universal truth and meaning are possible.78 What is required is rather a response that demonstrates the social utility and ethics implicit in Christian knowledge claims. Now, of course, such a task would be futile if Rorty’s vision of the ideal society was radically different from

73

Rorty, Richard, ‘Anti-clericalism and Atheism’ in Wrathall, Mark A. (ed.), Religion Rorty After Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) p. 45, n. 7. 74 Rorty, Social, pp. 201, 202. Rorty 75 Rorty, Richard, in Louthan, Stephen, ‘On Religion – A Discussion with Richard Rorty, Rorty Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff’, Christian Scholars Review XXVI:2 (1996) p. 178. It should be noted that he also added, ‘But of course, so have a lot of atheists.’ 76 Rorty, Social, p. 157. Rorty 77 See also Rorty, Richard, ‘Religion in the Public Square’, Journal of Religious Ethics 31:1 (Spring 2003) pp. 141–149. 78 See for instance Bruce Marshall who in response to Rorty’s pragmatism and consequent denial of a ‘God’s eye view’ writes, ‘Some philosophers regard the notion of a “God’s Eye point of view” as an essentially humorous one, useful for mocking the pretensions of epistemologies they reject. The humour is supposed to lie in the pretence that we can leap out of our conceptual schemes, our social practices, our skins, or whatever, in order to obtain a more surely veridical view of the world than these philosophers allow. But in order to obtain a God’s eye view of the world we need do nothing so dramatic; we need merely hold true the narratives which identify Jesus and organize the rest of our beliefs accordingly.’ Marshall’s point here may or may not be valid, but my point is that it fails to deal with the underlying issue for Rorty, and therefore, at best, is only a partial response to him. Marshall, Bruce D., Trinity and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) p. 169, n. 30.

22

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

the Christian’s. However, this is not the case. He clearly has a certain sympathy for the Christian ethic as outlined in the New Testament. He describes it as a text that has ‘helped make us better – [has] helped us overcome to some degree, our brutish selfishness and cultivated sadism’.79 Similarly, he refers to 1 Corinthians 13 as a ‘useful text’ in helping us articulate the kind of society where ‘love…is the only law’.80 As Christians we also want a society where ‘love is the only law’. The point of disagreement with Rorty, then, concerns largely how it is to be achieved. Rorty appears to consider pragmatism as the only possible route. My goal in chapters two to four of this book is to chart a theological path to such love. Hence, in saying this, I am not particularly taking a stand on whether Rorty’s pragmatism achieves the ethical society that it seeks. Nothing in this book turns on the outcome to that question. The whole point of the foregoing analysis is simply to demonstrate that Rorty, at least, thinks it does, and therefore any theological response that we make to him must deal with that underlying and pivotal issue.81 In this section, I have argued that despite appearances to the contrary, Rorty’s main concern with grand narratives or universal truth claims is not their lack of epistemological warrant, but rather the social ethic that they generate. Hence, Rorty rejects Christianity, not primarily because it is a claim to Truth, but because it does not foster the kind of society that he seeks. My task now is to demonstrate that a similar analysis can be made of the work of Lyotard. If I can also make the case in relation to his thought, then the implication of these findings is that if we seek to respond to the rejection of Christianity by Rorty and Lyotard we will be missing the point if we simply pay attention to epistemological issues, that is seek to demonstrate how we can reasonably believe the Christian narrative in the face of their criticisms. Rather, what is necessary is an argument that demonstrates the social ethic of the Christian narrative. This is what I shall attempt to do in chapters two to four. However, it is to Lyotard’s incredulity that we now turn. Lyotard’s Ethical Grand Narrative Recently, at least three different authors have responded to Lyotard’s rejection of the metanarrative by arguing that Christianity is not a metanarrative in Lyotard’s sense. James K.A. Smith has suggested that metanarratives are legitimating narratives based

79

Rorty, Social, p. 209. It should be noted that this quotation applies equally to The Rorty Communist Manifesto. 80 Rorty, ‘Anti-clericalism’, p. 44. Rorty 81 At least two other works have argued explicitly that Rorty’s Rorty epistemology is based upon or motivated by his ethics. Levisohn, Jon A., ‘On Richard Rorty’s Ethical Antifoundationalism’, The Harvard Review of Philosophy (Spring 1993) pp. 48–58; Rothfork, John, ‘Postmodern Ethics: Richard Rorty and Michael Polanyi’ in Southern Humanities Review 29:1 (1995) pp. 15–48. What neither of these works do, though, is use this idea to explain Rorty’s toleration of an otherwise obvious self-contradiction. In addition, neither has argued, as I have, that in light of this Rorty’s main problem is not with ahistorical truth and meaning per se, but rather with the ethical consequences of our beliefs.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

23

on universal reason, and therefore Christianity does not qualify.82 Similarly, Merold Westphal has suggested that metanarratives are second-level, legitimating narratives that arise from the human subject. In contrast, Christianity is, he contends, a first-level, non-legitimising discourse that arises from revelation.83 Finally, John Webster has suggested that Christianity is not a ‘grand narrative’ in Lyotard’s sense. His argument appears inter alia to be that – following Barth – Christianity is not a story that we possess or master. Hence, it can never be a totalising narrative under our control.84 The argumentative approach that all these authors follow is to interpret Lyotard’s metanarrative in one specific sense, and then find a way to suggest that Christianity is not a metanarrative in that sense. Indeed, Westphal goes so far as to claim that ‘Christianity is not Lyotard’s target’,85 a proposition that would be hard to defend.86 The approach that I wish to take, and the theological response that I wish to provide, is entirely different. My response to Lyotard can be understood as accepting his accusation that Christianity is a metanarrative that silences, but to point out that his advocacy of postmodernism is also a metanarrative that silences. Hence, Lyotard is not incredulous towards all metanarratives, but only those that silence in a particular manner, that is, those that are accompanied by ‘terror’. In response, in chapters two to four of this book I will argue that although Christianity silences, it only does so as an expression of love, and therefore Lyotard’s rejection of it is invalid. Lyotard’s Terror ‘The capital issue’, writes Lyotard, ‘is terror’.87 This is a key concept for Lyotard and one that recurs at crucial points throughout his writings. So, in the introduction to The Postmodern Condition, he sets out the problem he wishes to tackle by noting ‘a certain level of terror’ that is utilised by ‘the decision makers’ to cause us to conform to their programme. In the final paragraph of that book he builds his rallying cry for a new thinking on the fear that otherwise we face ‘a return of terror’.88 Similarly, in Just Gaming, the quotation with which this paragraph began is found at the end of 82 Smith, James K.A., ‘A Little Story About Metanarratives: Lyotard Smith Lyotard, Religion, And Postmodernism Revisited,’ Faith and Philosophy 18:2 (2001) pp. 353–368. 83 Westphal, Overcoming, pp. xii–xvi. Westphal 84 Webster, Grand, pp. 29–48. 85 Westphal, Overcoming, p. xv. Westphal 86 I argue this at length in my paper ‘Lyotard and the Christian Metanarrative’, Faith and Philosophy 22:3 (July 2005) pp. 301–315. On at least three occasions Lyotard lists Christianity, specifically, as one of the metanarratives to which he is opposed, and on one of these occasions he tells us that his purpose in writing is to clarify ‘The “metanarratives” I was concerned with in the The Postmodern Condition.’ Lyotard, Jean-François, The Postmodern Explained to Children: Correspondence1982–1985 (London: Turnaround, 1992) p. 29. See also Benjamin, Andrew (ed.), The Lyotard Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) p. 315; Lyotard Lyotard, JeanFrançois, Postmodern Fables (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997) pp. 95–96. 87 Lyotard, Jean-François and Thébaud, Jean-Loup, Just Gaming (Manchester: Lyotard Manchester University Press, 1985) p. 99. 88 Lyotard, Jean-François, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge Lyotard (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984) pp. xxiv, 82.

24

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

the book where Lyotard is setting out the conclusion that his previous discussion has brought him to. That conclusion – a ‘justice of multiplicity’, by which he means the inherent justice of a radical pluralism – is viewed specifically as achieving one aim: ‘it prohibits terror’,89 a terror that he tells us ‘has always been the political problem’.90 In The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, which by Lyotard’s own estimation was his most important work, the terminology, though not the concept, changes. He uses the aporia of Auschwitz as ‘a model, not an example’91 to indicate essentially that which he had formerly designated ‘terror’. The idea behind both these terms is that of oppression. At times this oppression is described as anything that interrupts the social bond and as such includes ‘imprisonment, imprisonment, unemployment, repression, hunger, anything you want’.92 At other times, the focus is less on the material and physical impact of oppression as on its philosophical impact: ‘what the terror wants is to arrest the meaning of words once and for all: a method required by the desire for truth’.93 The impact of this, according to Lyotard, is that the Other is silenced. By ring-fencing designations and discourses the voice of the Other is muted, they can no longer speak, at least in terms of gaining a hearing, and such an action is terroristic. These two aspects of terror come together in The Differend when Lyotard discusses Faurisson’s aurisson’s argument for the non-existence of the gas chambers. Faurisson suggested that to prove them would require a victim of the gas chambers to testify, as otherwise how could one know that such killing machines existed? But all such victims are dead, hence you have no witness, and therefore the existence of the gas chambers as a weapon of murder cannot be proven.94 In this example, Lyotard is seeking to highlight the intimacy that exists between physical oppression and philosophical oppression. To kill is to silence, and to silence is to kill, and Auschwitz represents the paradigm, in both senses of the word, for this mechanism. It is no surprise that Lyotard’s locus classicus for terror is to be found in the historicity of Auschwitz, for as a teenager growing up in Second World War France, the events were to have a major impact on him. In his earliest published essay, writing at just twenty-three years of age, he notes how ‘when we were young people of fifteen or sixteen with our own enigmas to explain or escape, history forced us to pay attention to its problems’.95 The specific issue that history impinged on that young mind was the devastation of the Nazi concentration camps: ‘These hollow 89

Lyotard Just, p. 100. Lyotard, Ibid., p. 99. 91 Benjamin, Reader, p. 363. Benjamin 92 Lyotard, Just, p. 99. Lyotard 93 Lyotard, Jean-François, Toward the Postmodern (London: Humanities Press Lyotard International, 1993) p. 87. 94 Lyotard, Jean-François, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (Manchester: Manchester Lyotard University Press, 1988) pp. 3, 4. 95 Lyotard, Jean-François, Political Writings (London: University College London Lyotard Press, 1993) p. 88. Lyotard was fifteen years of age in 1940. It is perhaps significant that a number of the most prominent postmodern philosophers went through at least some of their teenage years during the Second World War. Derrida born in 1930; Foucault born in 1926; Rorty born in 1931; Baudrillard born in 1929. The impact of the war and the revelations that the concentration camps must have had on those fertile minds cannot be underestimated. 90

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

25

faces plague our reflections: in the camps Europe put its liberalism to death, killed three or four centuries of Greco-Latin tradition.’96 It is interesting to note the manner in which, in this quotation and the rest of the essay, the seeds of Lyotard’s antimodernism can be found. He states, ‘We are satisfied with a philosophy of the absurd.’ ‘We have…been present at the death throes of liberalism and freedom. We are entering a middle age. The so-called civilization of progress has just completed its own negation.’ ‘We were the only ones to laugh, while the adults said…“Reason will end up being right’’’, and so he concludes with a plea for originality: ‘We don’t give a damn for tradition…Let’s choose an extravagant personal adventure.’97 If the Second World War, and particularly the holocaust, sensitised Lyotard to terror, then the Algerian war of independence and the Evenements of 1968 rid him of the idea that Marxism was the solution to that terror. Lyotard worked in Algeria as a lecturer in the early 1950s and on leaving that country he joined the French Marxist group Socialisme ou barbarie. It is in his writings of this time that Lyotard first uses the term ‘terror’ to describe the oppression and subjugation of one group by another, in this case the Algerian people by the colonial power of France. ‘The entire daily life of almost all Muslims is thus taken over and ground down by the handful of colonists: Maghrebi society is a totalitarian society, where exploitation presupposes terror.’98 However, the solution to this terror for Lyotard at this time is unquestionably Marxist; nothing but a proletarian uprising by the Algerian workers could end this problematic. Unfortunately, the events of history did not follow the Marxist rhetoric. Algeria gained independence in 1963, but there never was a workers’ revolution, and the bourgeoisie retained power, even if it was now Algerian instead of French bourgeoisie. In a similar fashion, the student uprisings in Paris in May 1968 were to prove a great disappointment to Lyotard. At first sight, here was Marxist theory being played out exactly as the textbook suggested. But it was not to last, as the promised revolution failed to take off when too many of the workers’ parties supported the government against the students. This was not what Marx had predicted, and Lyotard’s despondency at this is palpable. ‘It is time to get rid of the illusion that universal history provides the universal tribunal, that some last judgement is prepared and fulfilled in history. The events of the March 22 movement99 contributed energetically to the destruction of this religiopolitical ideology.’ In fact, it was not just the Marxist ideology that was rejected at this point, but all ideologies, indeed, ideology per se. It is no accident that Lyotard’s first major work that unashamedly adopts a postmodern100 position is published shortly after this time: Libidinal Economy (1974). In this work, he describes a society driven not by grand ideas or theories about ‘reality’, but rather one driven by desires however

96

Ibid., p. 85. Ibid., pp. 85–89. 98 Ibid., p. 174. 99 A student political group named to commemorate the May 1968 occupation of the University of Paris campus at Nanterre in response to the arrest of six members of the National Vietnam Committee on 22 March 1968. 100 According to his definition as ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’. metanarratives Lyotard (1984), Postmodern, p. xxiv. 97

26

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

transitory and incoherent they are. In it he explains why he has written it ‘…so that [our readers] consider our flight into libidinal economy for what it is, the solution to a long pain and the breach out of a difficult impasse’.101 The pain and impasse that Lyotard refers to is how to solve the problem of terror. Initially, he thought Marx had the answer, but history has demonstrated the vacuity of that solution.102 So now he turns to postmodernism instead. It is in this sense that Lyotard states that the purpose of his writing is always ‘political’ and ‘useful’.103 In his subsequent descriptions of ‘The Postmodern Condition’ he is not so much trying to tell us what to think but rather how to behave. Lyotard’s goal is to show us how to live in response to the problem that he has identified. Hence, he concludes one essay with this rallying cry: The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have given us as much terror as we can take. We have paid a high enough price for the nostalgia of the whole and one, for the reconciliation of the concept and the sensible, of the transparent and communicable experience. Under the general demand for slackening and for appeasement, we can hear the mutterings of the desire for a return of terror, for the realization of the fantasy to seize reality. The answer is: Let us wage war on totality; let us be witnesses to the unpresentable; let us activate differences and save the honor of the name.104

I have quoted at length here because contained within this passage are all the main features that the previous discussion has been seeking to highlight. Firstly, Lyotard begins with terror understood as the unethical oppression and exploitation by those in power evinced in the last hundred years or so (The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have given us as much terror as we can take). Secondly, that oppression 101

Lyotard, Jean-François, Libidinal Economy (London: Athlone, 1993) p. 117. It is worth Lyotard noting that Lyotard subsequently came to think that he had gone too far in this work, describing it as ‘my evil book’. This is an important point because if Lyotard’s postmodernism is understood via Libidinal Economy, then he would certainly be placed at the nihilistic end of the postmodern spectrum I drew earlier. However, the very fact that he recognises his mistake there, plus the more ethical direction in which he has subsequently moved, justifies my placement of him at the ethical end of the spectrum. His comments on Libidinal Economy can be found at Lyotard, Jean-François, Peregrinations: Law, Form, Event (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) p. 13. See also the discussion at the start of Just Gaming. Tim Jordan has argued that Lyotard never escaped from the political indifference that such a commitment to difference generates. Whether or not that is true is a moot point. My argument in this chapter is that he at least wanted to. See Jordan, Tim, ‘The Philosophical Politics of Jean-François Lyotard’, Philosophy of the Social Sciences 25:3 (September 1995) pp. 267–285. For an alternative view and defence of Lyotard’s ethical stance see Nuyen, A.T., ‘Lyotard’s Postmodern Ethics’, International Studies in Philosophy XXVIII:2 (1996) pp. 75–86; Nuyen, A.T., ‘Lyotard’s Postmodern Ethics and the Normative Question’, Philosophy Today (Winter 1998) pp. 411–417. For a more mediating position see Waldenfels, Bernhard, ‘Ethics in the Differend of Discourses’, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 32:3 (October 2001) pp. 242–256. 102 James Williams has noted the paradox that Lyotard’s later writings, which prohibit appeals to objective reality, are predicated upon earlier writings that do just that. Williams, James, Lyotard and the Political (London: Routledge, 2000) p. 18. 103 Lyotard, Just, p. 17. Lyotard 104 Lyotard (1984), Postmodern, pp. 81, 82.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

27

has arisen because of a desire to impose some grand narrative on the masses, and the justification for this move has come from a mistaken belief that one’s narrative in some way has grasped reality (the nostalgia of the whole and one, the reconciliation of the concept and the sensible, of the transparent and communicable experience... the fantasy to seize reality). Hence, the solution is to deny that such a grasp is possible (wage war on totality), and instead to celebrate the alternative narratives whatever they are (be witnesses to the unpresentable), indeed, celebrate alternativity per se (let us activate differences), and in doing so teach us how to live (save the honor of the name). What it means to live in this way is to live in a situation without rules, and it is to that pagan postmodern society that we now turn our attention. Lyotard’s Paganism Lyotard begins by defining paganism as ‘a name, neither better nor worse than others, for the denomination of a situation in which one judges without criteria. And one judges not only in matters of truth, but also in matters of beauty (of aesthetic efficacy) and in matters of justice, that is, of politics and ethics, and all without criteria.’105 This situation arises because there exists no metadiscourse that can adjudicate between competing language games adequately. Hence, in the absence of such a metadiscourse, we are inevitably left in a situation without rules or criteria. Each discourse has to be judged on its own terms and not by comparison, either to another discourse, or, even worse, to some imaginary metadiscourse. So, following Wittgenstein’s terminology, he tells us that ‘[Paganism] consists in the fact that each game is played as such, which implies that it does not give itself as the game of all the other games or as the true one.’106 Hence, to be pagan ‘is the acceptance of the fact that one can play several games, and that each of these games is interesting in itself’.107 This multiplication of mini-narratives,108 which Lyotard sees as the inevitable outcome of a pagan situation, is the ideal solution to the oppression that he is seeking to avoid. When his interlocutor asks why this proliferation of little stories, Lyotard responds, ‘Because they are short, because they are not extracts from some great history, and because they are difficult to fit into any great history.’109 And if they cannot be part of a great history, then they cannot oppress for, as he has already told us, whenever a discourse is part of a universal or great history ‘then it is necessarily the Terror’.110 As noted, then, the principal issue for Lyotard is that of terror, and the first solution that he proffers to deal with it is what has been described above as pagan postmodernism. This solution is essentially a political rather than an ethical one. By that I mean that though the problem is conceived of in ethical terms, Lyotard’s solution 105

Lyotard Just, p. 16. Lyotard, Ibid., p. 60. 107 Ibid., p. 61. 108 In the sense of being non-oppressive. 109 Benjamin, Reader, p. 132. Benjamin 110 Lyotard, Just, p. 92. Cf. ‘Exclusivity leads inevitably to abstraction and to terror.’ Lyotard Lyotard, Toward, p. 92. 106

28

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

is a functional, pragmatic and, in that sense, political one. If the problem is that determinant discourses oppress, then the obvious solution is to deny the validity of such determinant discourses. The process by which Lyotard comes to this conclusion consists, on his own admission, in a combination of conscious and subconscious factors. He states for instance that, ‘Perhaps your, our reservations with respect to Practical Reason are unconsciously governed by the presumption that it leads to terror.’111 Such is Lyotard’s argument for, and description of, pagan postmodernity. He views such a situation as the solution to modernity’s hegemonic narratives, characterised as it is by the delegitimation of those narratives and the proliferation of multiple mini-narratives in their place. Furthermore, he argues for this position on the grounds that there exists no external or a priori voice which can act foundationally for these narratives. Indeed, even if there were such a voice, no practical prescription could be shown to arise reliably from it. Looking at this programme, a number of inconsistencies and problems become immediately apparent. However, it is not those philosophical and logical inconsistencies that bother Lyotard the most. Rather, what troubles him is the ethical problematic that he sees accompanying his argument, and this for him is so serious it requires the abandonment or at least curtailment of what has so far been described. At this juncture, we begin to see the more telling tension in Lyotard’s work. The first clue that Lyotard has a problem is in his discussion of Auschwitz in The Differend. He describes scepticism as continually feeding off the determinations of modernity, but he also states that the results of this feeding frenzy is nothing but ‘shit’.112 He means this in two distinct ways. Firstly, the ‘shit’ of modernity is the terror that accompanies such determinations and for which paganism is provided as the solution. However, he also suggests that the rampant scepticism and nihilism of that paganism can also be designated the ‘shit’ of modernity, in that it is all you are left with once the determinations of modernity have been consumed. The point he is alluding to is that paganism represents the pharmakon of determinant discourses. The specific problem that paganism generates, what Lyotard terms the ‘essential political problem’,113 is spelled out in more detail in Just Gaming and centres on the radical scepticism that it appears to promote. Lyotard wants the paganism that prevents the oppression of metanarratives, but simultaneously he does not want the scepticism that would prevent him from rejecting oppression when he comes across it. He realises that scepticism towards universal narratives can only end up legitimating whatever narrative the local consensus arrives at. The problem this generates is that in the ethical sphere ‘what is just in a collectivity of human beings at a given moment, is that which has been convened as just’,114 and the ramifications of this are obvious: [L]ocked in this frame, one loses all capacity to make the slightest judgement about what ought to be done…A rule by convention would require that one accept, let’s get to the

111 112 113 114

Lyotard, Just, p. 92. Lyotard Lyotard Differend, pp. 91, 101. Lyotard, Lyotard, Just, p. 74. Lyotard Ibid., p. 74.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

29

bottom of things right away, even Nazism. After all, since there was near unanimity upon it, from where could one judge that it was not just? This is obviously very troublesome.115

Further on, he makes the same point calling it ‘an extraordinarily dangerous position’.116 Hence, he feels trapped, for if he chooses the route of the ontotheological117 tradition, then whilst closing the door on some abuses of power, he opens it for others. On the other hand, if he accepts fully the ethical relativism that his epistemology implies, then he has no answer to the Nazis. This situation, which Bauman has called ‘the ethical paradox of postmodernity’,118 is, of course, well described. The interesting point in Lyotard is the extent to which he is willing to modify his own argument so that somehow he can avoid it. He puts his dilemma like this: ‘I hesitate between two positions, while still hoping that my hesitation is vain and that these are not two positions. To put it quickly, between a pagan position, in the sense of the Sophists, and a position that is, let us say, Kantian.’119 Lyotard’s paganism has been described in detail, and his main problem with it noted above. Therefore, it is to Lyotard’s second solution to the problem of terror that I now proceed. If his first solution was largely political, in that its essence was a pragmatic description of how we should behave given the situation, then his second, Kantian solution is thoroughly ethical, both in terms of what drives it, as noted above, and in how he formulates it, as I hope to show below. Lyotard’s Kantianism The first issue that Lyotard addresses in formulating his Kantian solution to the problem of terror is exactly what kind of end point he is striving for. He says repeatedly that he longs for a just society, and he clearly views this as the solution to terror, but the problems that paganism appear to throw up force him to look again at what he means by justice. And in Just Gaming there appears to be an evolution in his thought as he and his interlocutor thrash out what the nature of justice in a pagan society might be. He begins with the recognition that if paganism was adopted wholesale, then justice cannot be anything other than what the sum of the community decides. ‘It amounts to the assertion that the set of prescriptions produced by the whole of a social

115

Ibid., p. 74. Ibid., p. 76. 117 In the sense of an unshakeable grounding metaphysic. Much debate (and/or confusion) surrounds the use of the term ontotheology. For Martin Heidegger, it meant understanding beings and being in terms of a grounding characteristic that becomes identified with God. This represents for him the ‘Onto-theo-logical constitution of metaphysics’. One of Heidegger’s complaints against such a framework is that it engenders an inadequate conception of god. ‘Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god.’ Heidegger, Martin, ‘The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics’ in Caputo, Religious, p. 74. 118 Bauman, Zigmunt, Intimations of Postmodernity (London: Routledge, 1992) pp. xx, xxi. Bauman 119 Lyotard, Just, p. 73. Lyotard 116

30

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

body to which the prescriptions apply, will be just.’120 However, this kind of justice as consensus brings with it a number of problems. The first has been highlighted above, namely, what is he to do when the whole of the social body chooses to adopt a programme that is thoroughly unjust, e.g. Nazism?121 The second problem that he faces though is that even with this definition of justice, the question remains as to why anyone should be just, why anyone should follow the set of prescriptions produced by the social body. As Lyotard has already pointed out, those prescriptions cannot be generated from some accurate description of human nature or society. So why, just because the social body generates them, should anyone follow them? His interlocutor puts it thus: ‘Nevertheless, I will still ask, perhaps rather stubbornly, if these statements cannot be derived, why are they kept? In other words, why must one be just?’122 This persistent line of questioning forces Lyotard to his second definition of justice. He agrees that justice must be to some degree left hanging in mid-air, and yet he needs it to have some sort of authority, so he adopts a new description. In this one, justice is no longer the consensus of the social body, but rather the transit point between two different descriptions. Lyotard draws on Kant to argue that justice is the continuation of the move that paganism/postmodernism has begun. ‘[I]t is simply a pushing to the limit, the maximization of a concept.’123 Hence, the authority of this justice resides in the fact that it is a ‘transit point’ between two different descriptions. The first indicates the current state of affairs. The second describes what takes place when that state of affairs is pushed to its limit. Hence, according to Lyotard, ‘“one ought to be pagan” means “one must maximize as much as possible the multiplication of small narratives”’.124 With this subterfuge he can claim that he has not based the prescription of justice on the description of paganism, but rather the prescription arises naturally and essentially when the description is maximised. In this way he believes, initially at least, that he has secured his goal of giving justice authority, yet without grounding it on some metaphysical base. However, once again Lyotard’s interlocutor is unpersuaded. He is unsure that Lyotard has pulled off the trick he is claiming to and so, under questioning, Lyotard brings forward his third and last definition of justice. Here it is simply a version of consequentialism. He states: ‘One regulates oneself upon the imagining of effects, upon a sort of finality. It is the imagining of the effects of what one will decide that will guide the judgement. It is the end, thus, the idea of the effect that commands, that functions as “cause”.’125 These three definitions have been presented as a development in Lyotard’s thought, and that is how they are placed in Just Gaming until this point, but from here on in it seems that Lyotard cannot decide which of the three he will finally settle upon. He switches from one to the other and under persistent questioning finishes by 120

Ibid., p. 25. Though how he would know that it is unjust according to his definition is another question. 122 Ibid., p. 44. 123 Ibid., p. 46. 124 Ibid., p. 59. 125 Ibid., p. 65. 121

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

31

saying that his concept of justice simply is. It is an ‘ought’ that cannot be explained, fully defined or grounded, but just is. He terms it a ‘transcendence of justice’.126 The essential problem for Lyotard is that he is unwilling to accept any sense of justice that does not make it also obligatory and essential. After all, the reason he set out on this programme was to find a solution to terror, and any solution that promoted terror even remotely would not be worth its name. It is for this reason that none of his earlier descriptions of justice fully satisfy, for none of them are sufficiently authoritative. Yet, it seems that the only way to make justice obligatory is to ground it somehow on ontology, something that his paganism proscribes. So, once again, he is caught in a bind. It is here that with Kant he senses a way out, and so it is to that solution that we now look. Lyotard’s Idea Lyotard’s final solution to the problem both of the nature of justice and to his original problem of terror is to invoke the idea of the ‘Idea’. Borrowing from the Kant of the second Critique he begins with the concept of a ‘suprasensible nature’, that is a society constituted by free, responsible and rational beings. If, on reflective judgement,127 that concept is maximised, then one is left with the Idea of a regulative rule, that is, in Lyotard’s case, a rule about how such a society might be fostered. This rule is not determined and is not grounded on science or ontology, but is merely the reflective maxims that are generated by our desire to see such a society maximised. This rule then acts not so much on a ‘you must because…’ basis, but rather on an ‘as if, so that’ basis. That is, it does not appeal to some ontology as the basis for its prescriptions. Rather, it suggests that you live as if it were an absolute rule so that the kind of society you desire is maximised.128 So in respect of freedom Lyotard puts it like this: Freedom is regulatory; it appears in the statement of the law only as that which must be respected; but one must always reflect in order to know if in repaying a loan or in refusing to give away a friend, etc., one is actually acting, in every single instance, in such a way as to maintain the Idea of a society of free beings.129

Hence, one is not issued with a list of set prescriptions. Rather one has an Idea, an Idea that only comes about by ‘reflective judgement’, and an Idea that only governs as one also reflects on what that Idea might mean in each and every circumstance. As James Hatley puts it, ‘The infinity of the idea does not make itself felt in history as a

126

Ibid., p. 69. Taken from Kant the idea is that a new experience has no concept with which it can be understood, and therefore an appropriate concept must be formed. The distinction is with determinate judgements in which new experiences are interpreted via pre-existing conceptual schemes. The point Lyotard is making is that we form a new concept or regulative rule that governs us, rather than utilising any pre-existing one. 128 Ibid., pp. 73–86. 129 Ibid., p. 86. 127

32

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

positive accomplishment but as the articulating of the lesser evil.’130 Furthermore, that Idea is a maximisation, but once again not a maximisation in a determinate fashion, but rather a maximisation in a regulative (as if) fashion. Hence, Lyotard can claim: [This proposal] is not even able to give us contents for prescriptions, but just regulates our prescriptives, that is, guides us in knowing what is just and what is not just. But guides us without, in the end, really guiding us, that is, without telling us what is just. By telling us: If one does such and such a thing, in the final analysis that is not compatible, if one reflects upon it in a reflective judgement, with the existence of a human society.131

In this way, Lyotard considers himself to have addressed at least some of the problems that beset him. For in drawing on Kant in this way he considers himself to have generated a set of prescriptives that are authoritative – at least practically so, for they are regulative – yet without them being grounded in some general authority beyond the self. He has his prescriptions without a prescriptor and, therefore, is able to maintain both the essential tenets of paganism – that descriptions do not govern prescriptions – and yet simultaneously has some mechanism for addressing the problems of rule by consensus. For as he tells us, he can reject Nazism and other similar injustices as they break the cardinal Kantian rule that the concept must be maximised, whereas their programme inhibits freedom rather than maximises it.132 However, a problem does remain, as he himself recognises. ‘But then my question changes to the following: What relation can there be between what I call paganism on the one hand, and the Kantian Idea of a totality of reasonable beings, on the other.’133 Lyotard’s concern is that although superficially his Kantian Idea appears to protect the main features of paganism that he cherishes, he is also worried that something essential to the characteristic of paganism will have been lost by this relation to Kant. What that might be relates to the idea of a totality. Lyotard notes that if paganism is to thrive, then it can only do so on the basis of the multiplicity of language games played by its various participants. This multiplicity is almost endless and indeed any attempt to inhibit this multiplicity is characteristically terroristic. Therefore, in paganism there can be almost no sense whatsoever of a totality. Rather, society is inherently diverse and fragmented. Yet within the Kantian regulative rule, the idea of a totality is essential, for that is what the Idea is all about. So here is a conflict and Lyotard’s initial response to it is simply to say, ‘I don’t know’ what I can do about it.134

130

Hatley, James, ‘Lyotard, Levinas, and the Phrasing of the Ethical’ in Silverman, Hugh Hatley J. (ed.), Lyotard: Philosophy, Politics, and the Sublime (London: Routledge, 2002) p. 80. 131 Lyotard, Just, p. 77. Lyotard 132 Of course, it could be argued that Lyotard’s Lyotard selection of freedom as the ultimate good is itself a form of terrorism in that it appears to be an arbitrary decision imposed by him upon us all. 133 Ibid., p. 76. 134 Ibid., pp. 93, 94.

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

33

Lyotard’s Sublime Resolution He therefore sets about trying to find a solution to this problem, and there exist at least two proposed solutions. The first of these is that this is a pseudoproblem, that there only appears to be a conflict, and in reality, paganism and the Kantian Idea of justice are in fact one and the same thing. His argument here is that whereas paganism would suggest there is a multiplicity of justices (i.e. a diversity in what justice might mean), the real thing paganism indicates is a justice of multiplicity. That is, justice is conceived of essentially and only as the protection of a diversity of language games. This is true because of the very nature of language games. They are games that are played according to rules, and the role of justice is to ensure that they stick to those rules, for it is terror whenever a language game moves beyond its rules to impose itself on another game. Hence, the very nature of justice protects the diversity and multiplicity of the language games being played.135 So paganism and Kantianism can be reconciled via the idea that the totality of Kant is really a totality of diversity. However, it soon becomes clear that Lyotard is not satisfied with this solution and so a new solution is proposed. This solution centres on the idea of the sublime, and though it is mainly discussed beyond Just Gaming, there is one section in that book where Lyotard hints at what is to come. In a discussion of the problem of how to reconcile the totality of Kant’s programme with the multiplicity that paganism prescribes, Lyotard suggests that what Kant lacked was ‘not quite a fourth “Critique” but a third part to the third Critique’.136 In that critique, Kant has described the feeling of the sublime as that which occurs when the pain associated with the inability to present adequately certain things is transcended by the pleasure that occurs when those things are presented nevertheless. This situation occurs, suggests Kant, when the faculty of reason demands of the faculty of imagination sensuous representations that it does not have. This occurs, for example, when reason demands of imagination a representation of God. In such a setting, the faculty of imagination under the process of reflective judgement then generates its own images, ideas, metaphors etc., which it presents to the faculty of reason so that, nevertheless, some kind of concrete representation can be made. The pain associated with that initial failure is thus transcended by the pleasure associated with the final representation. Such pleasure through or via pain is termed the sublime. Lyotard adopts this pattern and applies it, not just to aesthetic ideas, but also to political ones. ‘One can wonder at the fact that, in the third Critique, reflective judgement is at work only on the aesthetic object and nature as teleology. Because there is yet another realm to which reflective judgement obviously applies: the realm of political society.’137 It is in this third part of the third Critique that Lyotard sets out his second resolution to the problem of totality in Kant and paganism. In general terms this ‘Critique of political judgement’ is useful in that it provides a schema in which unpresentable differends can be presented, that is by a process of reflective judgement accompanied by the feeling of the sublime. However, it also provides a solution to Lyotard’s ‘totality’ problem, for the essence 135 136 137

Ibid., pp. 93–100. Ibid., p. 88. Ibid., p. 88.

34

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

of that problem is whether one adopts as primary the pagan position or the Kantian position, then the other is always to some extent unpresentable due to the conflict over totality. The utility of the sublime is that it suggests a way in which, by a process of reflective judgement that conflict can be resolved as long as it is accompanied by this sense of the sublime. So Lyotard writes: [O]ur time, then, would induce a new type of sublime…This step would consist in the fact that it is not only the Idea of a single purpose which would be pointed to in our feeling, but already the Idea that this purpose consists in the formation and free exploration of Ideas in the plural, the Idea that this end is the beginning of the infinity of heterogeneous finalities.138

By utilising the sublime in this way Lyotard appears to have found a via media between the totality of Kantianism and the plurality of paganism. Paganism is protected because the very essence of the sublime is the presentation of the unpresentable, the goal that paganism sets out to achieve. A genuinely normative ethics is also protected however as that presentation becomes the sine qua non of ethical existence and therefore anything that would threaten that presentation can be rejected as not conforming to the sublime. However, it is just here, where Lyotard considers himself to have found his longed for reconciliation, that the threads begin to unravel. It is unclear the extent to which Lyotard recognises this, but certainly many of his commentators do. So, for instance, in the afterword to Just Gaming, Samuel Weber comments, ‘By prescribing that no game, especially not that of prescription, should dominate the others, one is doing exactly what it is simultaneously claimed is being avoided: one is dominating the other games in order to protect them from domination.’139 Indeed, it is not hard to find examples of this inherent contradiction. Weber’s comment comes in relation to the last line of Just Gaming, where Lyotard’s interlocutor states, ‘Here you are talking like the great prescriber himself…(laughter).’140 It is no accident that the book ends at this point with irony. How else could it end? Lyotard’s purpose has been to find a solution to the problem of terror, and in the final outcome he has no choice but to prescribe against it, despite himself, and particularly despite his interim solution of paganism. Hence, the sublime only works ethically by sacrificing paganism on the altar of Kantianism. It is not a marvellous weaving of those two ideas together, it is the subordination of one to the other. The crucial point to note is that when he is forced to make a choice between pagan postmodernism and ethical prescriptions, it is ethics that triumphs and carries the day. Yet, the question remains how can Lyotard do this? How can Lyotard allow himself to prescribe universally against universal prescriptions? One possible answer to that question is suggested by a quotation at the start of Just Gaming. That quotation, from the Nichomachean Ethics, runs like this: ‘The rule of the undetermined is itself undetermined.’ In using this quotation at the start, and by ending the book with ironic laughter, it may be that Lyotard is indicating to us the means by which he can make that prescription.141 That 138

Benjamin Reader, p. 409. Benjamin, Lyotard, Just, p. 105. Lyotard 140 Ibid., p. 100. 141 It should be noted, though, that this interpretation is to take Aristotle’s quotation out of its immediate context in the Nichomachean Ethics. 139

Rorty, Lyotard and the Ethics of Postmodernism

35

means is to recognise that Lyotard’s own prohibition against metanarratives is itself a metanarrative. This is evident if we consider for a moment what the status is of Lyotard’s own advocacy of postmodernism. In promoting such thinking Lyotard is seeking to silence those who hold onto the classic metanarratives whether they are the Marxist, Christian or Enlightenment narrative. He refuses their metanarrative by positing his own in return. Moreover, his narrative has precisely the universal, second-level, legitimating factors that characterise all those other narratives. Yet, once again, we can ask how does Lyotard justify this to himself? Why is his metanarrative allowed to stand, when all others must fall? The answer to this question may be forthcoming by considering this quotation from the final chapter of Just Gaming, which is entitled ‘Majority does not mean large number, it means great fear.’ Lyotard and Thébaud are discussing the problems associated with defining the kind of postmodern justice that they seek. In one place, they are trying to tie down exactly what is the problem with the metanarratives that in their eyes have plagued history. They conclude: Here one would have to ask whether a language game that becomes excessive, that falls into what I was calling pléonexia, the ‘wanting to have too much of it’, that is precisely when such a language game begins to regulate language games that are not the same as itself, isn’t such a language game always assisted by the sword? To be more precise: if a language game owes its efficacy, I would not say only, but also, to the fear of death, even if it is a minority game, it is unjust. Majority does not mean large number, it means great fear.142

Now, at first sight, it might appear from this that Lyotard’s issue with metanarratives is simply that they ‘want to have too much of it’, that is, they seek to regulate other discourses that are not properly part of their remit. Yet, such silencing of others is precisely what Lyotard is doing in his own advocacy of postmodernism. We could, of course, conclude that Lyotard is being inconsistent or incoherent. However, as with Rorty, another explanation is possible. That alternative is to look again at the last sentence of the quotation above: ‘if a language game owes its efficacy, I would not say only, but also, to the fear of death, even if it is a minority game, it is unjust. Majority does not mean large number, it means great fear’ [my emphasis]. The point Lyotard seems to be making here is that even if a narrative is not particularly grand, and is not particularly seeking to control others, at least not regulate universally, then such a narrative may still be unjust, just to the extent that its efficacy is enabled by fear. What makes a metanarrative unacceptable is not so much that it seeks to silence other discourses, for that is what even Lyotard’s own programme does, but rather that it seeks to silence by means of violent oppression and fear. Moreover, the reason why Lyotard tolerates his own metanarrative is precisely because his is not ‘assisted by the sword’ and more particularly, just like Rorty’s, it is specifically designed to generate the just and ethical society. The conclusion to be drawn here is that whenever you force another to adopt your own view or stance, then such a narrative is exactly the kind of narrative that Lyotard encourages us to be incredulous towards, but when your narrative is one that fosters the just society, even if in the process it has to silence other unjust narratives, then such a narrative is to be welcomed. 142

Lyotard, Just, p. 99. Lyotard

36

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Lyotard began his programme with the problem of terror: how to solve the intractable problem that occurs when determinant discourses use their authority in the oppression of others. His first political solution to that problematic was pagan postmodernism in which he denies any universal validity to those discourses. However, on recognising that such a solution still leaves the door open to oppression by consensus, he adopts his second more ethical solution that centres on the idea of a Kantian regulative rule. The obvious tension between these solutions he considers himself to have solved by writing a ‘Critique of political judgement’, thereby suggesting that in the sublime, Kant and paganism can be reconciled. However, as I have shown, any such reconciliation comes at a price, and the price for Lyotard is the positing of his own metanarrative in order to repudiate the metanarratives that oppress by violence. Conclusion What is important in a text is not its meaning, what it is trying to say, but what it does and causes to be done.143

In this chapter, I have been arguing for one point. Though on the surface both Rorty and Lyotard may appear as some contend to espouse a philosophy that if not nihilistic, comes close to an epistemic nihilism, in actuality the purpose of their philosophy has been to promote an ethic of alterity. Their starting point is that the violence and oppression of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is a direct result of modernity’s totalising narratives. In response, they believe that if only we adopt a philosophy of difference then such atrocities may dissipate.144 More specifically, I have argued that their resistance to totality is not primarily motivated by epistemological argument, but rather by an ethical concern for the Other. This concern is so strong a controlling factor that in both cases it leads them to reject the nihilistic consequences of their own philosophy and in the face of an apparent self-contradiction posit their own totalising narrative of alterity. The significance of this is that if, as theologians, we wish to respond to their rejection of Christianity, then neither pointing out the inconsistencies at the heart of their thought, nor demonstrating the epistemological warrant of our faith, will target the issue that is most important to both of them. What is required is a demonstration that the Christian faith is not an oppressive, violent narrative, but rather one that is characterised by love. That is precisely the task to which I now turn.

143

Lyotard, Jean-François, cited in Lash, S. and Friedman, J. (eds), Modernity and Lyotard Identity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992) p. 73. 144 Again, I must indicate that I do not particularly take a stand on whether such reasoning is valid.

Chapter 2

Perichoretic Participation Introduction In the previous chapter I have argued that the primary reason Rorty and Lyotard reject the Christian narrative is not to do with its perceived lack of epistemological warrant, but rather because of the social ethic (or lack of one) that it generates. That is, the Christian narrative is seen as one that oppresses others violently and is therefore to be refused. The purpose of this and the following three chapters is to give an account of the Christian narrative that shows this accusation to be false. I shall do this by means of an exploration of theological knowing. There are two key reasons why an enquiry in terms of theological knowing is appropriate in the present context. The first is that Rorty and Lyotard frequently frame their rejection of the Christian narrative as a rejection of specific knowledge claims, even though the real motivation behind those arguments is fundamentally ethical. In rejecting Christianity, the paradigm Rorty and Lyotard are responding to is one in which the Christian claims, by virtue of their grip on God’s own view of the matter, to be able to legislate for others how they should think and behave. The second and really crucial reason why an enquiry into the Christian narrative in terms of theological knowing is appropriate is that theological knowing is not the restricted epistemological concept that is frequently found in analytic discourse, but, as I will go on to demonstrate, it is in fact an activity that encompasses every aspect of our being. Thus, to say that we will examine the concept of theological knowing does not limit us to one arena of our being – knowledge or cognition – but rather provides us with a means to investigate a number of spheres of activity. In particular, it enables an enquiry into ethics as well as epistemology. As such, an enquiry that begins with theological knowing is able to encompass all that might go under the label of the Christian narrative. The purpose of this and the following three chapters is to provide an account of theological knowing that enables us to make the following argument: our knowledge of God and our love of the Other are radically integrated. What I mean by this phrase will become clear as the chapters progress. For now, I will say only that it revolves around a participative account of theological knowing. The purpose of this chapter is to outline that account. Chapter three will then go on to argue for a revelational account of theological knowing, and chapter four will bring these two accounts together by means of Michael Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing. The conclusion to them all is that theological knowing consists in a perichoretic participation in God which operates tacitly to enable a pneumatological interpretation of the revelation of Jesus Christ. As indicated, this framework for theological knowing will then be used to underpin the argument in chapter five that our knowledge of God and our love of the Other are radically integrated. However, before we can proceed to argue

38

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

for a participative account of theological knowing a number of clarifications need to be made regarding the description of theological knowing just provided. A Prolegomena to Theological Knowing The first point to be made regarding the above description of theological knowing is that it should not be considered as a definition in the sense that it captures or seeks to capture all that pertains to an understanding of theological knowing. The subject before us – what it means to know God – is one that no amount of theological discourse will ever, or could ever, grasp in its entirety. Against a modernist essentialism that replaces the ‘Logos with the logoi’,1 T.F. Torrance has argued powerfully that all theological terms are what Derrida would call ‘sous rature’,2 that is inadequate, open to revision, incomplete. No doubt, Torrance does not push this idea to the extent that Derrida does, but the following quotation illustrates the hesitancy with which he clings to even those concepts that in his own words have acted as a ‘linchpin’ for theological discourse.3 This is not to claim for the word homoousios that it is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reconsideration, for all authentic theological terms and concepts fall short of the realities they intend. Like any other creative ‘definition’ of this kind employed in the formulation of Christian doctrine, owing to its fundamentally semantic function, this also must be continually tested and revised in the light of what it was originally coined to signify, as well as in the light of its fertility in the subsequent history of theology.4

In other words, however adequate the description of theological knowing that is provided in these chapters, it cannot be considered as a definition. This is particularly the case in respect of our knowledge of God, for such knowledge, including its 1

A phrase used by Colin Gunton to indicate the displacement of the Logos as mediator of creation by Platonic forms (the ‘logoi’) in some medieval theology. Gunton, Colin, A Brief Theology of Revelation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995) p. 43. I am, therefore, using logoi in a different sense from Gunton to indicate that reification of theological terms and/or Scripture that would seek to displace the Logos as the ‘ground and grammar’ of meaning and truth, and that amounts to little more than another form of idolatry. Having said this, it is perhaps the case that whenever the Logos is dislocated from his position as such ‘ground and grammar’, then it is always ‘logoi’ that take his place. Cf. Torrance, Thomas Forsyth, The Ground and Grammar of Theology (Belfast: Christian Journals Ltd, 1980) chapter 6. 2 Under erasure. Following Heidegger’s Heidegger practice of crossing out ‘Being’ in order to indicate that one must use ‘Being’ even when questioning it, Derrida suggests that all signifiers suffer that fate. That is, no signifier ever fully intends the signified, and as such meaning is always deferred as ‘traces’ of other signifiers remain. All signifiers, then, are placed ‘sous rature’ to highlight their inadequacy just as signifiers. One would always want to replace them with a more adequate expression (hence erasure), but no more adequate expression is available, and so the signifier remains, but always crossed out or ‘sous rature’. Cf. Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) p. 60. 3 Torrance, Thomas Forsyth, The Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996) p. 95. 4 Ibid., p. 98.

Perichoretic Participation

39

nature and ground, occurs as we reflect in an a posteriori manner upon that which has been given to us. In contrast to most modern epistemologies, we do not seek to describe the nature or the possibility of our knowing in an a priori manner. Rather, the possibility of our knowing God is something that can only be considered in the light of its actuality. This, of course, is the point that Karl Barth makes in the very structure of his Church Dogmatics. In I/2, ‘Jesus Christ the Objective Reality of Revelation’ precedes ‘Jesus Christ the Objective Possibility of Revelation’; and in II/1 ‘The Fulfilment of the Knowledge of God’ precedes ‘The Knowability of God’. So, as Barth comments, The question cannot be whether God is knowable. Where God is known He is also in some way or other knowable. Where the actuality exists there is also the corresponding possibility. The question cannot then be posed in abstracto but only in concreto; not a priori but only a posteriori.5

If this is the case, then any articulation of the contours of that knowledge will inevitably be circumscribed and provisional just as our actual knowledge of God is similarly incomplete. The distinction I am drawing here is intended to indicate that the account of theological knowing provided in these chapters is neither exhaustive – that is, encompasses even in outline every possibility as to how God is known – nor is it prescriptive – that is, detailing even within one specific sphere precisely how God is to be known. Rather, the description provided must be considered ‘sous rature’. It should be thought of as provisional, tentative, incomplete and suggestive, rather than determinate or determinant.6 Of course, this does not mean that the case will not be argued for in as thorough and precise a manner as possible. Indeed, faithfulness to the subject matter demands this. But it is, as Westphal suggests, to acknowledge that though this approach ‘places no constraints on what we can say about the sacred’, it does place constraints ‘on how we say it’.7 It is in that spirit that I proceed. The second aspect to this description which necessitates comment is the deliberate assignation of the gerund ‘knowing’ in place of the more familiar noun ‘knowledge’. As I shall go on to argue, it is not the case that our cognitive relationship to God is one in which we possess a certain ens rationis. Indeed, it will be shown that knowledge is not a possession of ours in the usual sense of that word at all. Yet, having said this, neither am I falling foul of what some commentators have designated the ‘Barthian anxiety’ in which a fear of attributing any kind of potentiality to ourselves in respect of knowing God appears to lead to a situation where when we know God, it is not 5 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics II/1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1957) p. 5. See also Barth Alan Torrance’s extended discussion of Barth on this point. Torrance, Persons, chapter 1. 6 To some extent, then, I can share the following sentiments from A.C. Ewing. ‘This article is not intended to state what I positively believe to be true, but to make a suggestion which I think it well-worth working out…I do not think that it is the duty of a philosopher to confine himself in his publications to working out theories of the truth of which he is convinced…It is part of a philosopher’s work, as it is of a scientist’s to try out tentative hypotheses and examine their advantages and disadvantages.’ Ewing, A.C., ‘A Suggested Non-naturalistic Analysis of Good’, Mind XLVII (1939) p. 1. 7 Westphal, Overcoming, p. 294. Westphal

40

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

‘we’ who know.8 Although, such an ‘anxiety’ is apparent in Barth, it is doubtful that it is a fair criticism. Gunton comments, It is hardly surprising, in view of Barth’s contention that God can only be known by God, that he is often accused of failing to give due weight to the human response to revelation, even though he does as a matter of fact affirm very strongly the reality of the human intellectual response.9

Moreover, Barth himself provides the most apt illustration to demonstrate this. ‘[A]re we not like the man who wanted to scoop out in a sieve the reflection of the beautiful silvery moon from a pond? What can or shall we find there to investigate?’10 Barth’s point is that though we have knowledge of God as in a reflection, the moment we try to grasp that knowledge to make it our own is the moment we lose it. In addition, it should be pointed out that in the designation ‘theological knowing’ the former of these words is being used in both an objective and subjective sense. That is, ‘theological knowing’ refers to both our cognitive relationship to God, and what might be termed a ‘theological epistemology’, that is a theory of knowledge articulated in the light of theological concerns and according to theological categories. Perichoresis It is not often appreciated that the term ‘perichoresis’ was first used in theological discourse not as a description of the trinitarian relations, but rather as an explanation of how the divine and human natures were related in Christ. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, ‘Just as the natures are mixed, so also the names pass reciprocally (περɩχωρουσῶν) into each other by the principle of this coalescence’.11 Perichoresis, then, was the patristic term for what subsequently became known as the communicatio idiomatum. This usage was repeated by Maximus the Confessor who extended its range of meaning to encompass soteriological themes as well. ‘The soul’s salvation is the consummation of faith. This consummation is the revelation of what has been believed. Revelation is the inexpressible interpenetration (περɩχώρησɩς) of the believer with (or toward) the object of belief and takes place according to each believer’s degree of faith.’12 Only after this was the term explicitly13 applied to the persons of the Godhead and 8 See for instance David Cunningham Cunningham’s review of Alan Torrance’s Persons in Communion. Cunningham writes, ‘Torrance cannot seem to rid himself of what I shall call… the “Barthian anxiety” – a fear that human action, and even human initiative, might be at least partly constitutive of the theological task.’ Cunningham, David, Modern Theology 14 (January 1998) p. 155. 9 Gunton, Brief, p. 123, n. 17. Gunton 10 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics I/1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975) p. 216. Barth 11 Harrison, Verna, ‘Perichoresis in the Greek Fathers’, St Vladimir’s Theological Harrison Quarterly 35 (1991) p. 55. 12 Ibid., p. 57. 13 Randall E. Otto suggests that a foreshadow of the idea can be found in the Gospel of John, Athanasius and Hilary. Otto, Randall E., ‘The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in Recent Theology’, Scottish Journal of Theology 54:3 (2001) p. 369.

Perichoretic Participation

41

their relations one with another.14 This was undertaken by the seventh-century writer who became known to the Tradition as Pseudo-Cyril. He describes the trinitarian persons as having a ‘coinherence (περɩχώρησɩν) in each other’15 and since then, and particularly in the last century, the term has enjoyed something of a revival in conceptualising the trinitarian relations.16 The relevance of this historical trajectory is that it gives us caution if we seek to assert dogmatically that perichoresis has but one literal meaning, with all others being merely metaphorical.17 This, of course, does not mean that there is not some degree of univocity in how the term has been used across the centuries. Verna Harrison understands it as ‘interpenetration’,18 Miroslav Volf terms it a ‘reciprocal interiority’19 and Prestige designates it ‘co-inherence in one another without any coalescence or commixture’;20 the main distinction then is not in how the two or more elements relate, but rather in what the elements of reciprocity consist. So, in relation to Christ’s person, it is his natures as divine and human that interpenetrate one another. In relation to God and humanity, it is our acts that interpenetrate each other, and finally in relation to the trinity it is the persons that interpenetrate.21 Harrison also identifies a further substantial distinction in how the term has been used. This revolves around the extent to which it is understood in static or dynamic terms. The former of these is identified as a ‘mutual indwelling’ and the latter as an ‘interpenetration’.22 The distinction between these two ideas is that in the former case one begins with two (or more) fixed entities, and the perichoresis consists in the fact that some property (or properties) of each entity, whilst remaining properly of only one entity, can also be predicated of the other. This kind of static interpretation is exemplified by Randall Otto when he writes regarding the trinitarian usage: ‘Perichoresis demands an ontological basis for relations if there is to be a real

14 In saying this, I am not suggesting that the concept of perichoresis (or of communicatio idiomatum) was not evident earlier than this. My point in this section is merely to do with how the term ‘perichoresis’ has been used. I am not tracing a history of the idea. Cf. Kelly, J.N.D., Early Christian Doctrines (London: A & C Black Ltd, 1968) pp. 125–127, 264, 271, 273. 15 Harrison, ‘Perichoresis’, p. 59. Harrison 16 See, for instance, Gunton, Gunton Colin, The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) pp. 163, 164. 17 See, for instance, Randall E. Otto who is perhaps guilty of this. Otto, ‘Use’, pp. 366–384. 18 Harrison, ‘Perichoresis’, p. 54. He also notes that Prestige suggests a distinction can Harrison be drawn between the earlier Christological uses where the meaning is ‘alternation’ and the later trinitarian uses where the idea of ‘interpenetration’ is predominant. Harrison disagrees with Prestige’s analysis, and suggests that from the beginning the idea of interpenetration was evident. Ibid., p. 54. 19 Volf, Miroslav, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity Volf (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) p. 209. 20 Cited in Ibid., p. 209. 21 Harrison, ‘Perichoresis’, pp. 58–60. Harrison 22 Gunton identifies the same distinction describing the former as a ‘co-inherence’ and the latter as a ‘dynamic mutual reciprocity, interpenetration and interanimation’. Gunton, Colin, The One, The Three and the Many (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) p. 163. The Latin circuminsessio and circumincessio also reflect the same distinction respectively.

42

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

and not merely conceptual relationship.’23 And again, ‘Something must exist, it must be, in order to stand in relation.’24 The fundamental framework with which Otto is working is a substantive ontology in which esse precedes hypostasis. Personhood is something predicated of our being, rather than vice versa. It is our being as existents that is primary. In relation to God, therefore, the persons of the trinity cannot be primary, but rather receive their personhood from some more primordial essence or being of God. Hence, Otto describes the trinity as ‘the intercommunion of the three persons in the one divine essence’.25 God, according to Otto, is essentially Being, and into this Being the three persons participate and mutually indwell one another, and this is what their perichoresis consists in. In contrast to such a static approach, Gunton has articulated a much more dynamic concept of perichoresis. He writes: The central point about the concept is that it enables theology to preserve both the one and the many in dynamic interrelations. It implies that the three persons of the Trinity exist only in reciprocal eternal relatedness. God is not God apart from the way in which Father, Son and Spirit in eternity give to and receive from each other what they essentially are.26

The idea here is not so much that there is pre-existent Being from which the persons of the Godhead derive their being, but rather that the being of God only exists as it is instantiated in the persons of the Godhead, who in turn exist only as a dynamic interplay of relatedness. That is, the Son is the Son not in isolation from the Father and the Spirit, but only as he relates to the Father and the Spirit, or, more accurately, relates to the Father by the Spirit. The difference with Otto is that though he would also maintain that the Son is intimately – indeed perichoretically – involved with the Father and the Spirit, this appears to be a contingent, rather than a necessary feature of the Godhead. The distinction then between these two positions is that for Gunton it is impossible to understand or speak of God apart from in this personal dynamic of trinitarian relations, whereas for Otto it is not. One of the reasons that leads Gunton to this conclusion is his examination of the manner in which the triune economy is involved with the world (a procedure, incidentally, that exemplifies the a posteriori approach we have already mentioned). Gunton draws attention to the discussion by Frances Young and David Ford of 2 Corinthians 8:9 – ‘You know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.’27 Prior to the Christian era ‘economy’ was understood in a fairly narrow sense for the management of the household, both financial and otherwise. However, Paul took the concept and by applying it to the work of Christ on our behalf introduced ‘a new human way of being in the world’. Gunton quotes Young and Ford:

23

Otto ‘Use’, p. 368. Otto, Ibid., p. 373. 25 Ibid., p. 372. 26 Gunton, One, pp. 163, 164. Gunton 27 All scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise stated. 24

Perichoretic Participation

43

The exchange of Christ, his costly work…has generated the ‘power of Christ’, a new creation, a new currency which can, through the downpayment of the Spirit, be spent now in living the sort of life which Christ’s pattern of humility and weakness laid down.28

It is, then, God’s involvement with the world, by his Son and his Spirit that enables a new humanity to be born. Moreover, as Gunton goes on to explain, that involvement must not be thought of in static or unitary terms, but rather in dynamic and diverse categories. He points to Irenaeus’ concept of the ‘two hands’ of God as indicative of this. By means of the Son and the Spirit, God is neither divorced from this world, nor collapsed into it, but rather engages with it and relates to it without sundering his particularity. It is the Son and the Spirit who mediate God’s dynamic and diverse presence to the world. The conclusion that Gunton draws from this is that it is not inappropriate to understand God’s relation to the world in perichoretic terms. Moreover, our idea of God ad intra arises as we reflect upon such perichoretic engagement. The concept of perichoresis can thus be understood to be one which was developed by means of a movement in thought from the dynamic of the divine involvement in space and time to the implications of such an involvement for an understanding of the eternal dynamic of deity.29

We have here, then, the notion of perichoresis operating at a number of different levels. Firstly, there exists a perichoresis in God’s interactions with the world. The world can only be understood in relation to God, but similarly our understanding of God is shaped by his interactions with the world. Secondly (not in a logical or ontological fashion, of course), there is a perichoresis within the Godhead. Father, Son and Spirit are who they are, precisely because of their mutual inter-relatedness. However, there is also a third perichoretic conception that Gunton describes. He states: Let me begin with a proposal. It is that we consider the world as an order of things, dynamically related to each other in time and space. It is perichoretic in that everything in it contributes to the being of everything else, enabling everything to be what it distinctively is.30

On this basis, then, he goes on to argue for ‘the perichoresis of all things’.31 Two points need to be made in the light of this discussion. The first is that the controlling feature of any dynamic concept of perichoresis is the one highlighted by Gunton at the end of the previous quotation, namely a relational ontology. What such a concept achieves is the means by which two entities (things, objects, persons etc.) can be held in a mutual relationship without either the collapse into monism or a separation into dualism. Moreover, it is precisely by this process that each entity’s particularity is preserved. What a thing is, then, is not what it is in isolation from others. Rather, the quiddity of a thing is given by its relations to those others. With respect to persons, then, we are who we are precisely on account of who we are in 28 Young, Frances and Ford, David, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 1987) p. 175. Cited in Gunton, One, p. 158. 29 Ibid., p. 163. 30 Ibid., p. 166. 31 Ibid., p. 177.

44

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

relation to others. Hence, my particularity is protected because that distinctiveness rests upon the relations I have with others, which is precisely the concept that a relational ontology preserves. Yet, I am not separated from those others in an isolated existence, just because my existence is predicated upon my ongoing relations to those others. Finally, all of this is perichoretic because if my hypostasis consists in my relations to others, then in a significant sense they at least in part go to constitute my being, and so indwell me. But similarly, if their hypostasis is constituted by my relationship to them, then I indwell them. Such a dynamic of mutual indwelling is, as we have seen, the characteristic of perichoresis. The second point to be made is this. We have suggested that both the trinity ad intra and the trinity ad extra32 can be thought of in perichoretic terms. But if the same conception of perichoresis is at work in both these descriptions then we run into a problem. For to suggest that God’s involvement with the world is identical to the mutual relatedness of the Son to the Father, would suggest that we are one with God to the same extent that God ad intra is one. A fortiori it would also suggest that we contribute to God’s being to the same extent that God contributes to ours. This, of course, cannot be,33 and therefore at this point a distinction must be drawn. The notion of perichoresis operative both within the human world, and in God ad extra must be analogically related to the notion operating within the divine Godhead. Gunton writes: It is as this stage of the argument, however, that we be aware also of the way in which perichoresis is – only – an analogy. When used of the persons of the Godhead, it implies a total and eternal interanimation of being and energies. When used of those limited in time and space, changes in the intension of the concept necessarily follow.34

Having said this, and given the history of the term indicated earlier, it is arguable that the use in relation to the divine persons is the analogical one. The important point, either way, is simply to be clear in what sense one is using the term. In relation to the trinity ad intra there is a complete perichoresis such that the persons fully interpenetrate and co-constitute one another. In relation to the human sphere of operations, there is only a partial but mutual perichoresis. And finally, in relation to the trinity ad extra, there is neither a symmetrical interpenetration, nor a complete one.35 I shall return to this point in my discussion of Miroslav Volf below. Gunton has discussed three areas in which a perichoretic conceptuality can be seen to be in operation, but one further and final area is what might be called an intrapersonal perichoresis. This is particularly appropriate as it will be recalled that the original use of the term by Gregory of Nazianzus was in relation to the perichoresis 32 In concert with Alan Torrance Torrance, I prefer these terms to ‘immanent’ and ‘economic’ trinity for they convey a greater sense of dynamic relationality. 33 Unless one is a radical process theologian. 34 Ibid., p. 170. 35 It should be clear that this is not to divorce the act and being of God. For in speaking of the perichoretic nature of the trinity ad extra I am referring to God’s relationship to the world, and if we recognise that the ‘world’ is involved in that relationship then we cannot posit the same form of perichoresis as that which is operative in an inner trinitarian manner, unless of course we wish to resort to pantheism.

Perichoretic Participation

45

that existed between Christ’s natures.36 The problem we face, though, is that an understanding of the human person as an integrated whole is not one with which our recent tradition is familiar. For too long we have lived under the shadow of a certain form of Cartesianism: I knew that I was a substance the whole essence of nature of which was to think, and that for its existence there is no need of any place, nor does it depend on any material thing; so that this ‘me’, that is to say, the soul by which I am what I am, is entirely distinct from my body.37

However, we do not relate as disembodied minds, and there is, therefore, no reason to think we are constituted in that way either. In his exploration of the biblical account of the person, Joel Green has argued that in both the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT) the predominant view is of a unified or integrated understanding of the person. The Hebrews did not believe in incarnated souls but rather whole persons animated as body and soul. ‘It is axiomatic in Old Testament scholarship today that human beings must be understood in their fully integrated, embodied existence. Humans do not possess a body and soul, but are human only as body and soul.’38 In addition to this though, Green goes on to argue that to oppose such a Hebraic wholism with a Hellenistic dualism is too simplistic as Greek thought was not that uniform. In particular, he offers a careful exegesis of some Pauline and Lukan texts to suggest that the kind of integrated monism evident in the OT was also present in the NT. He concludes, The New Testament is not as dualistic as the traditions of Christian theology and biblical interpretation have taught us to think…the dominant view of the human person in the New Testament is that of ontological monism…New Testament writers insist on the concept of soteriological wholism.39 36 See also Stephen Need who has sought to use the Chalcedonian formulation as a framework for a more integrative understanding of theological speech and cognition. He argues that the ‘diversity-in-unity’ that joins the divine and human natures in Christ serves as a paradigm for a similar ‘diversity-in-unity’ that integrates on the one hand our human language about God, and on the other our knowledge of God. Need, Stephen, Human Language and Knowledge in the Light of Chalcedon (New York: Peter Lang, 1996). 37 Rene Descartes cited in Wood Wood, W. Jay, ‘On the Uses and Advantages of an Epistemology for life’ in Westphal, Merold, Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999) p. 20. Though this kind of thinking has plagued much of Christianity, N.T. Wright has argued that the kind of ‘anthropological duality’ in view is a pagan concept and would have been rejected by most Jews. Wright, N.T., The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992) pp. 252–256. From a very different perspective, Antonio Damasio has argued on neurophysiological grounds that Descartes’ position is unsustainable. Damasio, Antonio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (New York: Quill, 2000). My reference to Cartesianism above is intended to indicate that Descartes himself is not necessarily to blame for all that goes by his name. 38 Green, Joel B., ‘‘‘Bodies – That Is, Human Lives”: A Re-Examination of Human Green Nature in the Bible’, in Brown, Warren S., Murphy, Nancey and Malony, H. Newton (eds), Whatever Happened to the Soul: Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) p. 158. 39 Ibid., p. 173.

46

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Commenting on Paul’s benediction in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 – ‘May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved in entirety, free from blame…’ – Green writes, ‘Paul uses these three terms to repeat and expand on the idea of “completeness”… This is not a list of parts, then, but a reference to “your whole being”.’40 The conclusion to be drawn from the scriptural witness, then, is that though the human person can be described under a variety of headings, all of these aspects are fully integrated into a single undivided person who instantiates them. There is an intrapersonal perichoresis at work in our constitution. The point, then, of this whole discussion of perichoresis has been to show that, in respect of theological knowing, the concept of perichoresis is operative at a number of levels. There is firstly the intra-personal level, and on this point I will be stressing the necessary reciprocity between the fields of ethics and epistemology. I shall be arguing that under a theological paradigm no separation can be made between our knowledge of God and our obedience to God expressed in our love for the Other. This is the radical integration that has already been mentioned. Secondly, there is an inter-personal perichoresis at work. That is, knowing God is not an activity undertaken by individuals, but rather one undertaken by the ecclesia, the household of God in mutual dependence upon one another. Thirdly, there is a perichoresis in our relationship with God. Knowing God involves our participation in God’s being, and God, by his Son and his Spirit, penetrating us. The precise contours of this reciprocity, and particularly its asymmetrical nature, I will highlight shortly. Fourthly, there is a perichoresis in that the God whom we know is precisely Father, Son and Spirit subsisting in mutual inter-relatedness. In the course of this argument, my emphasis will be on the first and third aspects of this perichoresis, that is, the intrapersonal and participative perichoresis rather than the ecclesial and trinitarian forms. This is not because the other two are less important, but simply because they have perhaps already received greater attention in the literature than the aspects I wish to focus on. Finally, it must be stressed again that in using the term ‘perichoresis’ for a whole range of different relationships, I do not think that precisely the same idea is in operation. However, as I move through the material it should be clear where the differences lie. Moreover, just as the early fathers had no problem in using the same term for the interpenetration of Christ’s natures, God and the world, and the persons of the Godhead, it would seem to me, that an equivalent breadth is also not unreasonable here. Towards a Theological Epistemology In the previous section, following Gunton, I have suggested that our relationship to God can be considered in perichoretic terms. In addition, I have outlined more precisely the four distinct ways in which a perichoretic conception is relevant to our theological knowing. In the rest of this chapter, on exegetical and systematic grounds, I shall be making the case that we should conceive of our knowledge of God as a form of participation in the triune communion. 40

Ibid., p. 162.

Perichoretic Participation

47

In his work on human knowledge and Chalcedon, Stephen Need stresses repeatedly that a conception of knowledge in the light of Chalcedon must seek to overcome a variety of alienations that the Enlightenment tradition has bequeathed to us.41 The first is an alienation from others that echoes in an individualistic and rationalistic approach to knowledge. There is surely something wrong when our paradigm for epistemological enquiry is the lone analytic philosopher cogitating in his study. The second alienation though is from ourselves. Once again, the blame for this kind of thinking is frequently laid at the feet of Descartes, but Hume also contributed to the problem. His disjunction between ‘facts’ and ‘values’, the ‘is’ from the ‘ought’, is one that continues to plague the academy. This is evident, not just in the fact that ethics and epistemology are usually separated in both philosophical and theological discourse, but also in the fact that much scientific research resists the notion of an ethical responsibility. One of the goals of this present study is to seek a re-integration of these fields more in keeping with the legacy of Augustine and Aquinas in which truth and goodness were inseparable. One final alienation that Need discusses is that between the knower and that which is known. He draws on the work of Coleridge, Polanyi and Gadamer to find a framework in which ‘we will find that knowers know in union with the object known and that the “conversation” is personal, dynamic and non-foundational’.42 Unfortunately, it is not particularly clear that Need provides a coherent account in response to these problems,43 but nevertheless his direction of thought is to be applauded, for the one thing that seems essential in any theological account of knowing is that none of the above alienations should be evident. In order to demonstrate this, we begin with a summary statement from Barth. We cannot impress upon ourselves too strongly that in the language of the Bible knowledge does not mean the acquisition of neutral information, which can be expressed in statements, principles and systems, concerning a being which confronts men, nor does it mean entry into passive contemplation of a being which exists beyond the phenomenal world. What it really means is the process or history in which man, certainly observing and hearing, using his senses, intelligence, and imagination, but also his will, action, and ‘heart’, and therefore as a whole man, becomes aware of another history which in the first instance encounters him as an alien history from without, and becomes aware of it in such a compelling way that he cannot be neutral towards it, but finds himself summoned to disclose and gives himself to it in return, to direct himself according to the law which he encounters in it, to be taken up into its movement, in short, to demonstrate the acquaintance which he has been given with this other history in a corresponding alteration of his own being, action and conduct. We can and should say even more emphatically that knowledge in the biblical sense is the process in which the distant ‘object’ dissolves

41

Need, Human, pp. 161f. Ibid., p. 204. 43 He does not, for instance, explain how Gadamer’s ‘fusion of horizons’, Polanyi’s Polanyi indwelling and Coleridge’s ‘imaginative rationality’ cohere. He rather uncritically suggests that they do, but it is not forthcoming how this is the case. The value of Need’s analysis, then, is not so much in constructing a systematic and coherent account of theological language and knowledge, but rather in surveying some of the authors and issues that may contribute to such an account. This criticism is not meant to suggest that such a programme is without merit. 42

48

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge as it were, overcoming both its distance and its objectivity and coming to man as acting Subject, entering into the man who knows and subjecting him to this transformation.44

As will be clear, in this quotation, Barth repudiates two of the ‘alienations’ that Need referred to – our alienation from ourselves and our alienation from God. Barth is adamant that knowledge does not just affect one aspect of our humanity, but rather involves an alteration of our whole ‘being, action and conduct’. In the same section, he goes on to say, ‘It is thus inevitable that the human knowledge should have a total reference and claim and alter the whole man. This is dramatically expressed in the fact that the same word ‫ יָדצ‬is obviously used to denote the act of sexual intercourse.’45 In addition, just as our alienation from ourselves is overcome, so also is our alienation from that which we know. In this respect, it is worth noting that we are both ‘taken up into’ this other history, and yet this other Subject ‘enters’ into us. This is the perichoretic language of mutual indwelling. Barth begins this section though not in discussion of knowledge of God per se, but rather by referring to knowledge as expressed in the ‘language of the Bible’. Hence, it is to an examination of that ‘language’ that we briefly turn. Though in doing so, and particularly in my references to the ‘biblical concept of knowledge’, I am not seeking to reiterate an essentialist error. Rather, I am simply noting that this investigation provides us with a paradigm for knowledge that on a prima facie basis warrants further exploration. This is particularly the case as the concept generated is one that our Enlightenment tradition is otherwise unfamiliar with. We proceed, then, to a brief examination of the ‘biblical concept of knowledge’. In describing the OT concept of knowledge, Johannes Botterweck indicates that it encompasses a wide variety of forms of interaction with that world beyond mere intellectual apprehension. He indicates that these include ‘practical, emotional, and volitional “acquaintance” and “concern”’46 with that world. As an example he cites Genesis 39:6 where a literal translation would read that Potiphar ‘did not know anything’ in regard to his house, where the actual meaning is that ‘he had no concern for anything’.47 The implication of this is that the Hebraic concept of knowledge is not one divorced from affective attitudes, but rather one that encompasses them, and hence knowledge frequently involves aspects other than an intellectual grasp. This is particularly evident when we consider the range of events that, in the Bible, it is appropriate to consider as knowledge. As Barth noted, sexual relations are frequently described as a form of knowing (Genesis 4:1; Judges 21:12), but beyond that the Scriptures also describe childlessness (Isaiah 47:8), disease (Isaiah 53:3) and divine punishment (Jeremiah 16:21) as objects of knowledge. The significance of this is that it points to an aspect of the biblical conception of knowledge that is absent from much contemporary epistemological discussion. To know childlessness does not mean to have an adequate grasp of the concept (far less a justified true belief 44

Barth Karl, Church Dogmatics IV/3:i (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1961) pp. 183, 184. Barth, Ibid., p. 184. 46 Botterweck, G. Johannes, ‘‫ ’יָדצ‬in Botterweck, G. Johannes and Ringgren, Helmer (eds), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament: Volume V (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 464. 47 Ibid., p. 464. 45

Perichoretic Participation

49

concerning it); it means to be acquainted with it existentially, emotionally, socially and cognitively. Barth comments: So radical is the transformation which comes on man in this knowledge, so full of content is his own history in it, and so far is this intelligere from a merely ratiocinative, argumentative or even contemplative process which might be described as intellectualistic and the results of which might be attacked and denounced as empty gnosis!48

Hence, with respect to our knowledge of God, this response of the whole person indicates that it is impossible to know God objectively or theoretically. Rather, knowledge of God necessarily involves a transformation of our whole being in worship and obedience.49 So, E. Schütz comments, ‘Knowledge of God in the OT is not concerned with the speculative question of the being of God, but with the God who, working in grace and judgement, has turned to men. To know him means to enter into the personal relationship which he himself makes possible.’50 It is precisely for this reason that Paul in Galatians 4:9 brings in a stunning reversal of the usual subject-object distinction. ‘Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God…’. To the contemporary epistemologist, to know something, or even to know someone, does not necessarily have any implications for their knowledge of you. But to the Hebrew Paul, this is precisely the implication he can draw. Knowledge represents a mode of relating such that for us to know God implies a reciprocal knowledge in which we are known by God. In fact, our knowledge of God is only found in his knowledge of us, just as our relating to him is only grounded in his relating to us. So, as Schütz indicates, ‘When God knows a person or a people he chooses or elects him. This knowledge understood as election, is gracious and loving, but it demands a personal response.’51 We can see then that the error of the Gnostics was not so much to equate knowledge with salvation, for that is the predominant biblical pattern (see especially John 17:3),52 but rather to seek both that knowledge and that salvation in a world separate from our own. Schütz states, 48

Barth, IV/3:i, p. 185. Barth For a similar conception see Olthuis, James H., Knowing Other-Wise: Philosophy at the Threshold of Spirituality (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997) pp. 5, 6. See also Hart, Hendrik, ‘Conceptual Understanding and Knowing Other-Wise: Reflections on Rationality and Spirituality in Philosophy’ in Olthuis, Knowing, pp. 41f. 50 Schutz, E., ‘Knowledge’ in Schütz, C. (ed.), New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology: Volume 2, G-Pre (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1976), p. 396. 51 Ibid., p. 395. 52 This is why Downing’s Downing argument that what the Bible provides is not so much knowledge or revelation of God, but rather salvation, is misplaced. The problem Downing has is that because he feels wedded to the contemporary intellectualist understanding of knowledge – despite being aware of the Hebraic concept – he rightly concludes that what the Bible provides is not that kind of knowledge. However, if instead he had redefined knowledge along the Hebraic lines he recognised and, in particular, if he had developed the implicit links between knowledge and salvation that exist, then he would not have needed to come to the conclusion that he did. See his Downing, F. Gerald, Has Christianity a Revelation? (London: SCM Press, 1964). In other words, Downing’s mistake was not so much to reach the wrong conclusion, as to allow philosophy to set the method in which he pursued his theological discourse. 49

50

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

‘It would be uncritically simplistic to label someone a “gnostic” simply because he lays claim to gnosis.’53 Rather, the error of Gnosticism is that in seeking salvation in a realm separate from this one, they posited ‘a denial of the validity of human existence in history and the cosmos’.54 Incidentally, it is for this reason that Gunton’s defence, noted earlier, of Barth’s ascription to the human mind of a genuine knowledge of God is entirely appropriate. What Barth objects to in his denigration of reason is not the idea that knowledge of God does not involve our intellectual capacities. Rather, Barth objects when we reify those capacities and consider knowledge of God to occur solely within them or on the basis of them. In contrast, Barth’s paradigm is one in which we certainly know God with our minds, but knowing him there includes a transformation of our whole being such that to know him consists in a participation in the mind and therefore being of Christ. He writes: Knowledge in the biblical sense directly includes, indeed, it is itself at root, metanoia, conversion, the transformation of the νους, and therefore of the whole man, in accordance with the One known by him… To know him…is to receive and have the νους of Jesus Christ himself, and thus to know in fellowship with the One who is known.55

And so he goes on to note with approval that, ‘Paul was well aware what he was about when among the various things for which he gives thanks or prays in relation to his churches he almost always gives pride of place to gnosis.’56 We can see, then, that any suggestion that Barth disavowed the intellectual or cognitive appreciation of God is misplaced, but similarly we can see that any suggestion that Barth only thought in these terms is also wide of the mark. Barth strongly affirms both our actual cognitive knowledge of God, but also insists that such knowledge cannot be separated from the larger call of God upon our lives. ‘The terms faith, love and obedience are always near when reference is made to knowledge.’57 The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that the biblical concept of knowledge is one that involves a transformation of the whole self, and it involves such a transformation because it consists in a deep personal encounter with that which is known. In the predominant paradigm for biblical knowledge there is neither an alienation from the self, nor an alienation from that which is known. The precise contours of this more integrative paradigm will no doubt vary according to both the knower and that which is known. Considered merely formally, knowing childlessness is still not the same as knowing God, even though both involve our whole being in some form of mutual reciprocity.58 In respect of knowing God, though, we are given 53

Schutz, ‘Knowledge’, p. 401. Ibid., p. 394. 55 Barth, IV/3:i, p. 185. Barth 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 This, incidentally, is why the analytic approach to knowledge is so otiose. To consider that knowing a logical proposition, an empirical proposition and an ethical proposition (let alone knowledge-how, and knowledge by acquaintance) all have the same structure of ‘justified true belief’ will inevitably result in distortions of one or all. Knowing is not that kind of univocal concept, and is not susceptible to precise definition, though ‘family resemblances’ 54

Perichoretic Participation

51

some indication of what those contours might look like. In John 10:14, 15, Jesus is recorded as saying, ‘I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.’ If perichoresis is the most apt description of the inner trinitarian relationships, then it would appear in these verses that similarly it is maybe an appropriate description of our cognitive relationship to God. It is, then, to an exploration of this notion that we proceed. Perichoretic Participation Hooker The Pauline scholar Morna Hooker does not use the language of perichoresis, but her description of our interchange with Christ can certainly be understood along participative lines. Following Irenaeus, Hooker defines interchange thus: ‘Christ became what we are, in order that, in him, we might become what he is.’59 The argument is based on a close exegetical reading of a variety of Pauline texts and Hooker’s goal is to unpack what she considers to be the basic soteriological framework underlying Paul’s thought. The essence of the concept that she provides can be summarised in a series of statements. 1. The pre-existent Logos took on sinful flesh in becoming incarnate. 2. Christ then redeemed that flesh in living a life of obedience and faith empowered by the Spirit. 3. Salvation (both justification and sanctification) consists in being united with, joined to, Christ’s redeemed humanity, a union that is effected by the Spirit. The important point to note here, and one that Hooker repeatedly stresses, is that what is taking place is not an exchange, but rather an interchange. It is not the case that we and the Logos or even Christ simply swap places (exchange). Rather, Christ enters fully into our condition and subsequently transforms it. We, in return, enter not into what Christ was, but rather into what he has become, that is, redeemed humanity.60 To return then to Hooker’s paraphrase of Irenaeus, we can see why the phrase ‘in him’ has been added. It is not that we become what Christ was. Particularly, we do not become what he was in his pre-incarnate state. Rather, we participate or share in what he has become on our behalf, that is, redeemed and reconciled humanity. As indicated, Hooker presents this idea essentially as a framework for understanding are evident, and it is these that I have indicated by my description of it as ‘perichoretic’. In his examination of Polanyi’s thought, Daniel Hardy has also drawn attention to this point, noting that our modes of knowing vary ‘according to the “object” and the “subject”, the “known” and the “knower”’. Hardy, Daniel W., ‘Christian Affirmation and the Structure of Personal Life’ in Torrance, T.F. (ed.), Belief in Science and in Christian Life: The Relevance of Michael Polanyi’s Thought for Christian Faith and Life (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1980) p. 82. 59 Hooker, Morna D., From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge Hooker University Press, 1990) p. 42. 60 Ibid., p. 42.

52

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

the atonement, but in addition to this, she rightly recognises that under this model our whole idea of atonement must go beyond a simple concept of justification and extend also to the realm of sanctification or ethics. In this regard, she notes that to participate in what Christ has become on our behalf does not just mean that in some objective fashion we have a righteousness imputed to us, but rather that in an actual participative, and therefore subjective fashion, we begin to live the same kind of life that Christ lived. We become like him in the ethical construction of our lives. So for instance, Hooker utilises the same passage that Gunton drew on in articulating his concept of perichoresis as the basis for her claim that to participate in Christ cannot avoid participating ethically. We have already noted that 2 Cor 8.9 is used by Paul as an exhortation to generous giving. Phil. 2 is equally practical: the pattern of Christ’s self-humiliation is the basis of the Christian’s life and of his dealings with his fellow men. This is not simply a question of following a good example: he must think and behave like this, because the behaviour of Christ is the ground of his redemption; if he denies the relevance of Christ’s action to his own, then he is denying his very existence in Christ. He must behave like this because he is in Christ, and this is the mind of Christ.61

It may, of course, be objected that what Hooker is presenting here is Pelagian, but she is careful to distinguish herself from that position. Hooker is not arguing that if we fulfil some set corpus of good works then as a result we enter into a state of justification and reconciliation with Christ. Works are not the payment that we need to make to participate in Christ. Rather, Hooker’s point is that what participating in Christ means is that one also participates in the righteous life that he lived. But just as participating in his epistemic response to the Father means that we actually know God, so participating in his obedient response to the Father means that we also live out ethically the kind of life we are called to. In saying this, it is Christ’s obedience that we participate in. The good works being referred to are not ones that we conjure up out of our own ability or in grateful response to God’s work for us. It is indeed Christ’s righteousness and not our own that we share in. But, having said this, just because we participate and share in that righteousness means that it will be evident in the actual lived ethic of our lives. Participating in Christ’s righteousness means precisely that that righteousness will be evident in how we live our lives, just as participating in his knowledge of the Father means that we do, in our actual lives, know God. And all of this, both the life we participate in, and our ability to participate in it, is a work of God for us.62 Perhaps the difference from Pelagianism can be brought out most clearly by considering Hooker’s comments on the vexed question of the πίστɩς χρɩστοῦ. This phrase, which occurs a number of times in the NT, has traditionally been translated as 61

Ibid., p. 25. It must be noted that none of this is to reiterate or ignore the reformation debates on our justification before God. We remain justified purely in virtue of the righteousness of Christ. My point (and Hooker’s) is simply that the extent to which that righteousness is evident in our present lives parallels both our knowledge of God, and the extent to which we can be said to be properly and really participating in Christ now. 62

Perichoretic Participation

53

an objective genitive, that is, ‘faith in Christ’. Hooker notes that in Latin it retained the ambiguity that it has in Greek, but that Luther was probably the first to argue clearly that it was ‘faith in Christ’ rather than the ‘faith of Christ’ that was meant.63 However, Hooker takes us through a number of passages in which the phrase is used, arguing that it is rather the subjective genitive understanding that, if not the sole meaning, is at least the primary meaning in most of these cases, and therefore when we read the phrase we should understand it to be referring to the faith or faithfulness of Christ. One consequence of this is that faith is no longer understood as that which opens the door to salvation (faith as a work), but rather faith is that in which our salvation consists. It is because Christ demonstrated a faithful (in both senses of the word) life that we can enjoy the glory that he received. In other words, our faith is not so much something that we generate in order to enter into a relationship with Christ. Rather, our faith is but the participation or sharing in the faith that Christ has already displayed. Hence, faith is not the entry requirement for a relationship with Christ, but rather the contours of such a relationship. The paradigm being presented here is that because of Christ’s work on our behalf, a relationship with him and therefore with God has been made possible. We can of course refuse this relationship, but if we choose to become what Christ has already made possible, then the nature of being in that relationship is that we die to sin and live in obedience with him. Faith represents the contours and therefore the fruit of that relationship rather than any prior requirement to enter it.64 Hooker concludes: ‘[F]aith itself is understood in terms of conformity to Christ… Paul understands the whole of Christian existence, from the very first response of faith, in terms of participation in Christ: to believe is to share in the faith of Christ himself.’65 With this summary of Hooker’s concept of interchange in place, it is time to demonstrate its affinity with the idea of perichoresis that I outlined earlier. Perichoresis, we recall, represents a state of interpenetration involving two or more elements. In the case of Hooker’s formulation, we have on the one hand the person of Christ and on the other fallen humanity. The interpenetration is seen in that Christ, though in himself entirely without sin, entered so fully into our humanity that he became sin. Without ceasing to be God, he became also sinful man. He penetrated fully the state that we were in. As has been noted, in his own life he then redeemed and transformed that humanity by the obedience that he demonstrated, a transformation that was vindicated at the resurrection, so that the perichoresis from our side is seen in our participating and sharing fully in that redeemed humanity that Christ has made available. We enjoy a relationship with God only and precisely to the extent that we are ‘in Christ’, joined with him and participating in the redemption that he has made 63

Ibid., pp. 165, 166. Cf. also Brunner who has a very similar understanding. ‘The fruits of faith or of the Spirit are therefore precisely the tokens of faith becoming visible.’ Brunner, Emil, The DivineHuman Encounter (London: SCM Press, 1944) pp. 113, 114. Similarly, Kathryn Tanner writes: ‘Works do not so much issue from faith as a psychological state preceding and impelling them, as much as they issue continually from the overflowing of Christ’s virtues to us, as those virtues become ours in faith.’ Tanner, Kathryn, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001) p. 61. 65 Hooker, Adam, p. 186. Hooker 64

54

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

available.66 Hence, the idea of mutual interpenetration – or, in Hooker’s terminology, interchange – is evident, and what we have here is a perichoretic model of salvation. However, it must also be noted that there is not a complete mutuality or symmetry here. This is evident on two counts. Firstly, this is not a symmetrical interpenetration, in that all of the initiative is from God. It is not the case that we make our redemption possible, or even that we go seeking a redeemer or a redeemed humanity. Rather God takes the initiative in sending his Son to enter into our fallen state and so redeem it. As Hooker comments, ‘Inevitably, therefore, the relationship cannot be a mutual one, since the believer is always dependent on Christ.’67 In addition to this, there is a further sense in which an asymmetry exists in this interpenetration or interchange that is taking place. For, on the one hand, Christ, without ceasing to be who he was, becomes fully what we are. However, we do not become what Christ was, but rather enter into what he has become on our behalf. In other words, we only enter partially or participate to an extent in the person of Jesus Christ. We share in the redeemed humanity that he has made possible, but we do not share in the pre-existent divinity that he enjoyed. ‘‘‘[I]nterchange” is never a matter of straightforward exchange: it is not that Christ and the believer change places, but rather that Christ shares in the human condition in order that we may share in what he is. Christians become, not what he was, but what he is.’68 On exegetical grounds, then, Hooker has established the case for a participative account of our relationship with God. We turn now, then, to an author who reaches largely the same conclusions on systematic grounds, Alan Torrance. Moreover, an analysis of Torrance’s work will prove useful for he brings together the two elements of this participative account that I have so far described, namely our knowledge of God, and our union with Christ. As we shall see, it is in and because of our union with the Son that we can know God, and that is what the concept of perichoretic knowing is intended to indicate. Torrance Alan Torrance begins his analysis by questioning Barth’s ‘revelational’ model of theological engagement. According to Torrance, Barth does not sufficiently follow through on the kind of points that I raised earlier in discussing Barth’s concept of biblical knowledge. That is, though Barth has in place the framework for a more participative and particularly more ‘doxological’ paradigm for our relationship to God, this is not what in fact is seen. In particular, Torrance criticises Barth for persisting with Seinsweise as a description of the trinitarian identities, when a far more personal conception is required. He comments:

66

Julie Canlis has recently argued that Calvin held a similar conception. ‘Christ’s perfection lay in the unbroken relationship he maintained with the Father. It is this life of relation to which we are united and by which we are justified, for the justified life is the filial life.’ Canlis, Julie, ‘Calvin, Osiander and Participation in God’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 6:2 (April 2004) p. 179. 67 Hooker, Adam, p. 40. Hooker 68 Ibid., p. 182.

Perichoretic Participation

55

Barth’s concept of the trinitarian Seinsweisen obscures the concept of communion in God. Whereas the heart of the New Testament suggests that there is a communion between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves asking whether there is or can be communion between Seinsweisen – as Cornelius Plantinga expressed it, ‘modes do not love at all. Hence they cannot love each other.’69

Torrance’s particular problem with this approach is that it leads to too much of an emphasis on the ‘divine address’ in revelation and consequently too little emphasis on the human participation in the reception of that address.70 The metaphor being challenged is the one in which a king, speaking through his herald, simply addresses his subjects. As Torrance suggests, in such a paradigm ‘it is the prophetic and kingly offices of Christ which predominate. But it would seem that Christ’s vicarious humanity…and thus his continuing priesthood risks being subordinated.’71 We are left, then, according to Torrance, with a ‘linear’ model of revelation. The king speaks, the herald proclaims and the people listen. All of this is compounded by Barth’s preference for Seinsweise over person. For – the argument seems to be – if only Barth had adopted a more personal and communal understanding of the trinitarian dynamic, then his approach to our engagement with God may not have suffered quite so much from the epistemic emphasis that plagues it. Hence, in proposing his ‘alternative’ doxological approach Torrance writes: In sum, the strength of a doxological approach – a ‘worship-oriented paradigm’ as opposed to a ‘revelation-oriented paradigm’ – is its capacity to direct us to that event of triune communion which is conceived not as a ‘mode of being’ to be appropriated or taken on by the human subject, but as the gift of sharing in the life of the Second Adam as it is constitutive of the New Humanity – of sharing in and living out of his life lived in place of ours (his worthship), his continuing and vicarious priesthood (his worship) and in his union and communion with the Father in the Spirit.72

The point Torrance is making is that when one understands the trinity as a community of relations, an understanding that is particularly facilitated by adopting ‘person’ over Seinweise, then one is enabled to appreciate that our involvement with God consists in participation in that communion, rather than in the reception of a ‘given’. Torrance develops this idea by an examination of the role of theological language. The starting point here is that as humans we are beings who are linguistically given. He quotes Jüngel, ‘[H]umanity is socialised through language and…it is this which makes us really human.’73 Torrance’s polemic is directed against those theologians who adopt an uncritical ‘referential’ view of language. In addition, he chides those who consider thought as something existing in a pure state unadulterated by language. Following Wittgenstein (who arguably was following Barth)74 he argues

69 70 71 72 73 74

Torrance, Persons, pp. 115, 116. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid., p. 117. Ibid., p. 324. Ibid., p. 325. Ibid., p. 29.

56

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

that ‘meaning is use’,75 and thought is not expressed in language, but rather is enabled by language.76 The conclusion he draws from this is that ‘human beings are constituted by language,…they are not social beings by choice but…their very thought, forms of analysis, and reflection are socially constituted. [This Wittgensteinian approach] exposes…the extent of our semantic-linguistic sociality.’77 What this means is that there is a certain ‘givenness’ in our relations to the world. We do not exist and then seek to relate, but rather, echoing the trinitarian persons, we relate and in that relatedness we exist.78 The theological point that Torrance is driving at with all this is that our language about God should not be thought of either as naively referential, nor as necessarily metaphorical or analogical, but rather ‘as essentially creative means through which the dissimilar God comes to us in an assimilating or “theopoietic” event, articulating his own reality for our understanding’.79 In other words, our theological language, when appropriate, is not something that we construct that then attaches itself in some way to God. Rather, within the ecclesia, God ‘commandeers’ our language in such a way that it both constitutes us and causes us to dwell within his triune life.80 By means of language we are taken into the relationship of the Son to the Father, we are caused to participate in their relatedness, whilst simultaneously being changed from within to reflect that reality. It is in this mutual indwelling then that our semantic (and cognitive, volitional etc.) relationship to God is realised. This does not remove the concept of analogy, but it reconfigures it along participative lines such that it may still be appropriate to describe it as an analogia entis, as well as an analogia fidei, but probably the most apt description would be an analogia communionis.81 Two aspects of this account require further comment. In the first place, it is important to realise that Torrance is not just providing an account of theological language, but also of theological knowledge. So, for instance, he describes our ‘epistemic atonement’ as consisting in a ‘participatory communion within the intradivine communion’. And similarly, ‘The epistemic communication that takes 75

Ibid., p. 330. Ibid., pp. 337, 338. 77 Ibid., p. 341. 78 A certain parallel with Heidegger’s concept of our ‘throwness’ in the world should also be noted. He writes, ‘It is not the case that man “is” and then has, by way of an extra, a relationship-of-Being towards the “world”… Dasein is never “proximally” an entity which is, so to speak, free from Being-in, but which sometimes has the inclination to take up a “relationship” towards the world.’ Heidegger Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1962) p. 84. 79 Torrance, Persons, p. 354. 80 Talk of ‘commandeering’ is not meant to suggest that as particular persons our free will is obliterated by God’s action, but rather, in concert with Barth, that we find our freely-chosen determination in God’s determination of us. 81 ‘An analogy grounded in participative being and one which serves to integrate certain facets of the analogia fidei with others of the analogia entis. Such an analogia communionis would be grounded in a conception of triune personhood which…necessitates a primordial ontological synthesis of God’s Being and act on the one hand and God’s Being-in-communion on the other.’ Ibid., p. 308. 76

Perichoretic Participation

57

place is simply one dimension of the communion into which we are reconciled to participate.’82 The emphasis in Torrance’s text is certainly on language, but that is only because language is considered as the sine qua non of knowledge. Secondly, Torrance’s talk of ‘commandeering’, which is borrowed from Jüngel, is explained in the following manner. Gottlob Frege interpreted the sense of a term as the mode of designation of its reference. In Fregean terms one might suggest that for Barth God establishes himself (‘takes place’) as the dynamic reference of the term in such a way that its normal, everyday, specifically human sense may come to penetrate to a deeper reference in a manner which transforms and conditions anew its sense. That is, a semantic shift is generated by which the reference becomes the mode of the (re)designation of the sense! This is what Jüngel conceives as the commandeering of language.83

In other words, there exists a ‘gain to language’ when God causes our speech to concern him.84 All talk of ‘god’, then, is not necessarily language about God. Rather, talk of ‘god’ becomes speech about God, precisely when God makes it so, and in the process causes us to participate in him. Not surprisingly, this act of assimilation only takes place in the Church, yet it is not entirely divorced from the ordinary ways in which human language is used. It is a ‘commandeering’ of language rather than a replacement of it. The second aspect to Torrance’s account that requires comment is the incipient theosis that is evident. The problem here is that unless one is careful there is the danger of positing such a radical theosis that our participation in God becomes a complete identification with God. This is not remotely Torrance’s intention, but not all of the necessary qualifications are in place to prevent this understanding arising. This is brought out most clearly by his suggestion at the end of Persons in Communion that in the eschaton ‘we shall know the Son as the Father knows the Son and we shall know the Father as the Son knows the Father’.85 Even in the eschaton, to claim that we shall know just as the Father knows (notwithstanding 1 Corinthians 13:12)86 is a claim that assumes too much, but in order to demonstrate why, it is necessary to turn to Volf’s discussion of these matters.

82

Ibid., pp. 223, 224. Ibid., pp. 176, 177. 84 Quoting Jüngel Jüngel. Ibid., p. 205. 85 Ibid., p. 370, n. 117. 86 With respect to this verse it is arguable that the καθώς refers less to the quality of our knowledge and more to the manner in which we know. That is, in the eschaton we shall know directly, ‘face to face’ in contrast to now when we know indirectly ‘in a mirror’, in that our knowledge of God is mediated by an understanding of Jesus Christ. This, then, represents one of those asymmetries that affects our current knowledge of God. He knows us fully and directly, but we know him partially and indirectly. Hence, in the eschaton we may know fully and know directly, but that still does not mean our knowledge is the same as that of the Son and the Father, precisely because we are not the Son or the Father. On the meaning of the καθώς see Fee, Gordon D., The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) pp. 648, 649. 83

58

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Volf In After our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity Miroslav Volf sets out his conception of what it means to participate in Christ. Volf’s basic framework is indebted to John Zizioulas’ understanding of what it means to be a person. So, he quotes Zizioulas: ‘The person is no longer an adjunct to a being, a category we add to a concrete entity once we have first verified its ontological hypostasis. It is itself the hypostasis of the being.’87 In trinitarian terms, again quoting Zizioulas, ‘The Holy Trinity is a primordial ontological concept and not a notion which is added to the divine substance or rather follows from it.’88 However, as Zizioulas develops this ontology of personhood, explaining in particular how the person is constituted by their relation to God, distinct differences between Zizioulas and Volf emerge. Volf notes that for Zizioulas we are made into persons by our relationship with God and more than this by our participating or sharing in the relationship that Christ has with the Father. Commenting on Zizioulas he states, ‘Every person who is in Christ acquires his particular personhood through the one relationship of Christ as the Son to the Father.’89 For Volf there are two problems with this understanding. In the first place, it renders those who are outwith a relationship with Christ as ‘isolated individuals’.90 For Zizioulas communion can only take place ‘in Christ’ and therefore, apart from Christ, all one is left with is individualism. According to Volf, it may well be the case that there is a quality to the communion ‘in Christ’ that is not possible apart from that setting, but it is going too far to suggest that those outwith Christ are merely individuals and not in communion. The second and more significant problem is that Zizioulas’ understanding destroys our particularity.91 If we become persons merely by participating in the one relationship that exists between the Father and the Son, then any particularity we enjoy dissipates. Instead, we merge into one amorphous personhood, where no distinctions are possible at all. Volf comments: [A]ccording to Zizioulas every human being is constituted into a person not in the same way as Christ, but rather precisely in Christ himself. But how can every person standing in Christ be constituted in his or her particularity by the same relation of the Son to the Father? Different persons cannot really be constituted through the relation of the Son to the Father, which is common to all persons.92

87 Volf, Miroslav, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Volf Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) p. 76. See also Zizioulas, John D., Being as Communion (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985) p. 39. 88 Volf, After, p. 77. Cf. Zizioulas, Communion, p. 17. It should of course be noted that Volf for Zizioulas the principle of God is not ‘pure relationality’ but rather a person, the Father, in relation. Ibid., pp. 40, 41. 89 Volf, After, p. 86. Volf 90 Ibid., p. 185. 91 It is ironic that it was precisely our particularity that Zizioulas thought he was protecting in developing his ontology in the way that he did. See Zizioulas, John D., ‘On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology of Personhood’ in Schwöbel, Christoph and Gunton, Colin (eds) Persons, Divine and Human (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991) pp. 33–46. 92 Volf, After, p. 87. Volf

Perichoretic Participation

59

Volf notes that Zizioulas tries to resolve this problem by suggesting that in the church, the new community of which the person becomes part, a new series of relationships are formed, and therefore the particularity of the person can be protected. However, these new relationships must also be ‘identical to the relationship of Christ to the Father’,93 and therefore it is hard to see how they can represent that which secures the particular identity of persons in communion. Alan Torrance also criticises Zizioulas on somewhat similar grounds. He suggests that Zizioulas’ focus on the ‘divinisation’ implicit in our participation in the Godhead implies that ‘the hard realities of suffering, alienation, and separation’ that are part of our human existence are somehow ignored or glossed over.94 He asks, ‘Are we not compelled to take these factors seriously as ontologically constitutive of personal, creaturely identity?’95 Such a challenge certainly provides the resources to criticise Zizioulas in the way that Volf does, but as Torrance goes on to unpack the solution to this problematic, he focuses not so much on the issue of particularity, but rather on the docetic Christology that is being articulated. Hence, Torrance’s solution to this glossing over of our humanity is to assert robustly the humanity of Christ.96 I am in full agreement with Torrance that this corrective is needed; however it remains the case that the problem of particularity is unaddressed. This is precisely what Volf attempts to do. Volf does this by suggesting two moves that whilst retaining the central idea of a relational personhood do not dissolve that personhood into an undifferentiated ‘ocean of being’97 nor create a situation ‘where one ends up with human clones corresponding to Christ’.98 The first move Volf makes is to note that the particularity of the Son and the Spirit is not constituted by the same relationship to the Father, but rather by and precisely because they have a different relationship. The Son is begotten of the Father, the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and these two things are different, even if we cannot say how.99 Hence, anthropologically, we become particular beings not by participating in some identical relationship to the Father, but precisely by having a particular relationship to him. ‘Unless God’s relation to every person is specific in every case, and unless God calls every human being by name (see Gen 3:9), no human being can declare, “I believe that God created me”. It is precisely the uniqueness of God’s relation to me that makes me into a unique person.’100 In addition to this though, secondly, we are constituted in our particularity by our relationships to other people, a set of relationships that for each of us will be unique. Moreover this second web of relations is precisely the product of our first relationship with God. It is because God constitutes us as unique beings that we are

93

Volf quoting Zizioulas, ibid., p. 87. Torrance, Persons, p. 296. Incidentally, he also shares with Volf the concern that those outside the ecclesial community are being portrayed as less than persons. Ibid. 95 Ibid., p. 296. 96 Ibid., pp. 302–304. 97 Zizioulas’ phrase where he is denying that this is what his position leads to. Zizioulas, Zizioulas Communion, p. 106. 98 Volf, After, pp. 181, 182. Volf 99 Ibid., p. 182. 100 Ibid., p. 182. 94

60

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

then able to participate meaningfully in a web of further relations that continue to mark off our particularity.101 Whilst we can applaud Volf’s attempt to address the issue of particularity, there remain some problems with the solution he has provided. In placing his emphasis on the uniqueness of our relationship to the Father, it would seem that Volf is opening the door to a contingent view of the ecclesia. The strength of Zizioulas’ position is that one cannot conceive of our identity as persons apart from in and through the ecclesia. And even though Volf is similarly adamant that we are persons only in and through the church, the structure of his argument, and in particular the stress he places on our individual relationship to the Father appears to undercut these assertions. If it is my individual relationship to the Father that constitutes me as a unique person, then why do I need any further relations (within or without the ecclesia) to contribute to my particularity? Moreover, it would seem that Volf does not even need to make this move as the resources that are required to address the issue of particularity are found even within Zizioulas’ schema as already adumbrated. Volf notes Zizioulas’ suggestion that our particularity is protected precisely by means of ‘the new set of relationships’ that are ours in the ecclesia.102 However, Volf dismisses this suggestion, writing, To secure this identity, one would have to presuppose a relatively secure locus for every person within the network of communal relationships, something Zizioulas in fact does by speaking about the ordo of the laity or of bishops within the eucharistic synaxis. Yet because per definitionem several persons belong to an ordo, the particularity of each individual human being cannot be ensured in this way.103

Two comments are necessitated here. Firstly, it is unclear why in order to establish our particularity the network of relationships in which we are found must be ‘secure’. The point at issue here is not the permanency of our identity, but merely its particularity – that which marks us off from others. Such a particularity could be constantly changing and yet in no way diminish its status as such a particularity. Hence, it is a relatively straightforward task to reformulate Zizioulas’ suggestion such that our particularity is preserved precisely by means of our identity within the ecclesia. The paradigm I am proposing here is the following: my identity is found in my participation in the one relation of the Son to the Father. Yet, I participate in that one relationship not in isolation from the ecclesia but precisely by means of my participation in the ecclesia. I am in Christ by being found in his Body, that is the Church. Under such a schema, however, my particular identity is protected not because I have an individual relationship to the Father (as per Volf’s suggestion). Rather, my particular identity is protected precisely because within the ecclesia I have a particular (though changing) role as I exist in a network of relationships with all those others who are also in the body, and yet by means of that fact in Christ. There is, then, one particular relationship that we inhabit – that of the Son to the Father – but precisely because Christ encompasses the corporate personality

101 102 103

Ibid., pp. 183, 184. Volf citing Zizioulas, Ibid., p. 87. Ibid., p. 88.

Perichoretic Participation

61

of his body, we each find our identity in that body ‘as each part…working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love’ (Ephesians 4:16). One further strength of this paradigm is that it affords us a much more appropriate concept of the nature of the participative relationship in which we are involved. In particular, it highlights the crucially important, but too frequently overlooked, distinction between Platonic (or neo-Platonic) methexis and Christian perichoresis. According to some theologians, there is no problem in understanding Christian participation in terms of such neo-Platonic methexis. James Smith, for instance, notes the importance of neoPlatonic participation for the Radical Orthodoxy school of thought, describing it as ‘the crescendo of the RO symphony’.104 Even though Smith is, to some extent, aligned with that school he goes on to criticise some of its members for their unqualified adoption of such Platonism. He asks, ‘Is there really an overlap between the Platonic doctrine of participation and a distinctly Christian incarnational or sacramental ontology? Or is there in fact a deep antithesis – even incommensurability – between methexis and incarnation?’105 In a similar vein, Alan Torrance is at pains to point out the incompatibility of the Platonic and Christian conceptions: It should be clear that by participation I mean koinonia and not some kind of Platonic methexis. The New Testament does employ the term metechein when referring to koinonia...however, ...in its New Testament usage its meaning is profoundly different from that given to it by Plato when he is speaking of the participation of particulars in the eternal Forms.106

There are, at least, two important distinctions that we must draw between Platonic methexis and Christian perichoresis. The first of these concerns the issue of particularity and the second ontological primacy. Within the perichoretic participative framework that I am outlining here, our participation and our relationship are with a particular person, that is Jesus Christ. The humanity to which we are joined is not some abstract ideal or universal. It is rather the particular humanity of a particular person. In addition, this particular person to whom we are united is not dependent upon us for his existence. To say that we exhibit the redeemed humanity of Christ does not at all mean that his redeemed humanity is somehow dependent upon our presence or activity in the world. Christ alone is the redeemed one, and he does not await our participation in him to make his presence known. The contrast here is with a Platonic framework in which the particularity and ontological independence of the Form are questioned. There are, inevitably, a variety of interpretations of what precisely Plato meant by the Form, but according to at least one school of thought, the ontological independence of the Form cannot be substantiated. According to this line of interpretation, the Form is that which is instantiated in a series of particulars, but does not exist apart from those particulars.107 The theological appropriation of 104 Smith, James K.A., Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004) p. 74. 105 Ibid., p. 199. 106 Torrance, Persons, p. 356, n. 104. 107 For a good account of the debates see Fine, Fine Gail (ed.), Plato 1: Metaphysic and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) chaps Introduction, V, VII.

62

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

such Platonism is particularly evident in John Milbank’s account of our participation in Christ in which these two themes of de-particularisation and loss of ontological primacy are especially visible. So, in regard to the first of these, Milbank writes ‘that [Jesus] cannot be given any particular content’ but is rather to be identified with ‘the general norms’ of the practice of the church.108 And again, ‘The gospels can be read, not as the story of Jesus, but as the story of the (re)foundation of a new city, a new kind of community, Israel-become-the-Church. Jesus figures in this story simply as the founder, the beginning, the first of many.’109 For Milbank, Christ does not name a particular person who walked this earth, performed such and such miracles and lived, died and rose again for us. Rather, Christ represents the Form that the Church must take if it is to be authentic. As Frederick Bauerschmidt puts it, ‘for Milbank “what the gospels are about” is not Jesus-as-subject, but the origin of a form of life’.110 And just as in Plato, the de-particularisation of the Form leads to a questioning of its independent existence, so in Milbank the de-particularisation of Jesus leads to an effective denial of the reality of the incarnation. He writes ‘Jesus is presented not simply as the source of the Church, but as arriving simultaneously with the Church’ [My emphasis].111 Similarly, ‘Christ’s full incarnate appearance lies always ahead of us – if we love the brethren…, then he will be manifested to us.’112 Bauerschmidt’s criticism is again apt. ‘Milbank seeks to push all this to a new level, to posit a logical (and even temporal) priority of the ecclesial body over the natural.’113 Christ has become so identified with the Form of the Church that Christ does not exist apart from his instantiation in the Church. This is theological methexis at work. The contrast, of course, is with a robust concept of koinonia or perichoresis. The concept of participation operative here does not reduce the particularity of Christ to an abstract concept, but rather emphasises his particularity as the person to whom (rather than the thing to which) we are joined. Hence, it not the case that we instantiate the Form of Christ, rather, we find ourselves in fellowship with the person of Christ. Such fellowship is described as participative precisely because when one is in fellowship with Christ, then one finds one’s identity in his Body, but one also finds him as constituting one. But the important point to remember is that what it taking place here is a communion of persons, and not a synthesis of entities. A further advantage of this approach is that it prevents us from suggesting that when we participate in Christ, we become the subject of Christ’s actions (a tendency all too evident in Milbank). This is a point that Volf is at pains to stress. It is certainly true that when the prophet speaks on behalf of God it is the case that both the prophet as person and the Spirit as person are subjects of that speech. However, when we indwell the Spirit or Christ, it is not the Spirit or Christ as subject that we indwell,

108

Milbank, John, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997) p. 152. 109 Ibid., p. 150. 110 Bauerschmidt, Frederick C., ‘The Word Made Speculative? John Milbank’s Christological Poetics’, Modern Theology 15:4 (October 1999) p. 424. 111 Milbank, Word, p. 152. Milbank 112 Ibid., p. 152. 113 Bauerschmidt, ‘Word’, p. 424.

Perichoretic Participation

63

for that would mean that anything they do can also be predicated of us. We are never, as Volf maintains, ‘internal to the Spirit as subject’.114 There is, then, a limit on our participation in Christ, but it is a limit set by the fact that our participation is not Platonic methexis, but rather Christian perichoresis.115 We do not instantiate an ideal, rather we are in fellowship with a person. Conclusion The purpose of this chapter has been to argue for a perichoretic participative account of theological knowing. That is, our knowledge of God should be considered not as the human possession or grasping of a divine donum. Rather, our knowledge of God should be thought of in terms of our sharing or participating in the Son’s own knowledge of the Father. When we know God, it is because we enter into a pre-existing relationship – that of the Son to the Father – and join in the cognitive fellowship that the Son has with the Father. There are a number of arguments that I have mounted in support of this conclusion. In the first place, after outlining the concept of perichoresis that is operative, we turned to Barth and a number of biblical scholars to demonstrate that the ‘biblical concept of knowledge’ was one in which knowing involved the whole of our person responding to the whole of that which was given to us. In particular, we noted that knowing God does not consist in the possession of ‘facts’ concerning God, but rather consisted in the constitution of our being by God. Knowing God, then, was the description of an intimate personal relationship in which who we are is given by God. Turning, then, to the thought of Hooker, we noted how we are constituted by God in that we are enabled by him to enter into Christ’s redeemed humanity. In this way, our salvation consists in our participation in that which he became on our behalf. As such, faith is not so much a cognitive attitude that we generate in order to know God. Rather, our faith is but our sharing in the faith (and faithfulness) of Christ. Then, in examining the work of Alan Torrance, we noted his argument that our participation in God and therefore constitution by him consists in God’s commandeering of our forms of speech and thought concerning him. That is, we participate in Christ just to the extent that we are enabled to speak and think of God in ways that are appropriate. Finally, we turned to an examination of Volf to specify more precisely the nature of our participation in Christ, and to highlight its distinction from Platonic methexis. The conclusion to all of this is that knowing God does not consist in the reception of something given. Rather, it consists in our perichoretic participation in an already existing relationship, that of the Son to the Father, all of this mediated to us in and through the ecclesia. The distinction between this paradigm and more typical revelational paradigms is twofold. Firstly, under a revelational paradigm once the knowledge has been transferred, as it were, then that which is known is no longer necessary. In contrast, under this kind of participative paradigm, in the absence of that which is known 114

Volf After, p. 211. Volf, This point parallels the one made earlier regarding Hooker’s Hooker description of the asymmetrical nature of our participation in Christ. 115

64

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

there simply is no knowledge. When we understand that our knowledge of God just is our sharing in the Son’s fellowship with the Father, then the ongoing necessity of our relationship to Christ becomes paramount, because in the absence of that relationship we have no knowledge to speak of. The second distinction is that under this kind of paradigm knowing is more a state of our being, than the possession of an entity. For when we know God it is not so much that we are given something. Rather, we become something, that is, partners in Christ’s redeemed humanity. In this way, then, both of the alienations that Need identified are overcome. When we know God by means of our participation in Christ we are neither separated from ourselves nor separated from the God whom we know. It is for reasons such as this that Alan Torrance presents his own participative theology as an ‘alternative’ to the revelational paradigm of Barth.116 Yet, having said this, if we suggest that our knowledge of God is nothing but a participation in the divine communion, then one immediate criticism arises. What is the purpose of the revelation of Christ? If all that Jesus Christ does is provide the ontological conditions that enable us to know God, then is there any role at all for revelation in Christian theology? Perhaps Kierkegaard was right that ‘it would be more than enough’ if all that the contemporary generation had left for us were this declaration: ‘We have believed that in such and such a year God appeared among us in the humble figure of a servant, that he lived and taught in our community, and finally died.’117 I do not think that this is the right conclusion, and in contrast to Torrance I do not think that this participative account is an ‘alternative’ to Barth’s revelational account.118 Rather, it seems to me that both are necessary. Hence, in order to demonstrate this we turn now to an exploration of the role of revelation in our knowledge of God.

116 117

Torrance, Persons, pp. 307, 308. Kierkegaard, Sören, Philosophical Fragments (London: Oxford University Press, 1936) Kierkegaard

p. 87. 118 To be fair to Torrance, it must be acknowledged that at times he also talks of his approach merely completing or refining the work that Barth had initiated. That is much more in line with the position I am articulating here, and is to be preferred to the rather overstated talk of ‘alternatives’. Cf. Paul Molnar who in his review of Persons in Communion offers a similar criticism. Molnar, Paul, Scottish Journal of Theology 50:3 (1997) pp. 381–384.

Chapter 3

Revelation and Faith The ultimate purpose of this exploration into theological knowing is to provide a framework in which the ethics of theological knowledge can be situated. As I have indicated, the final argument to be pursued is that our knowledge of God and love of others are radically integrated. However, that argument can only be made once the appropriate paradigm for theological knowing is in place. In the previous chapter, I argued that such knowing should be considered in terms of our perichoretic participation in the Son’s fellowship with the Father. In this chapter, I will outline a revelational account of theological knowing, before bringing the two accounts together in the following chapter. Barth’s Jesu-ology Even those Christian philosophers who give pride of place to reason in our knowledge of God accept that there is some knowledge of God that is inaccessible apart from Jesus Christ, and that this knowledge is essential for real communion with God.1 The question then that presents itself is how, and not whether, Jesus Christ is related to our knowledge of God. Richard Bauckham has identified three particular ways in which theologians have construed this revelation of God in Jesus Christ. In the first place, he identifies those who consider Jesus as the revelation of God in that he ‘illustrates for us what God is like’.2 Bauckham’s problem with this approach, however, is that it renders Jesus only distinct in degree and not distinct in kind from all other persons, and as such represents a denial of the incarnation. The second paradigm, then, that Bauckham considers is one in which ‘Jesus reveals God-in-humanity as a universal possibility of human life’.3 He points to Karl Rahner as an exponent of this view, whose concept of a ‘transcendental openness’ renders the possibility of divine encounter as something latent within all of us.4 Once again, the problem with this approach is that it is unclear how Jesus is any more than the perfect human, the one in whom such divine-human encounter reaches its apotheosis. In light of these 1 So, even Richard Swinburne who notoriously has argued that the trinity is derivable in an a priori manner, accepts that knowledge of God as saviour is not possible apart from Jesus Christ. See his The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) for the first of these points and Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) pp. 72, 73 for the second. 2 Bauckham, Richard, ‘Jesus the Revelation of God’ in Avis, Paul (ed.), Divine Bauckham Revelation (London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 1997) p. 175. 3 Ibid., p. 178. 4 Rahner, Karl, Foundations of Christian Faith: Introduction to the Idea of Christianity Rahner (London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 1978) p. 53.

66

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

shortcomings, Bauckham turns to his third and final paradigm. This is the idea that ‘Jesus reveals the unique presence and action of God which is Jesus’ own history’.5 The point here is that Jesus is God, and therefore to know what God is like, to know what it means to say that Jesus is the revelation of God, we can do no more than examine the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He reveals God not because he exemplifies, even in some perfect or absolute fashion, various attributes of God, but he reveals God precisely because he is God. In articulating this idea, Bauckham draws heavily upon Barth, and so it is to Barth’s concept of revelation, and particularly the person of Jesus Christ that we now turn.6 The first thing to note in exploring Barth’s theology of revelation is his commitment to the idea that revelation is not a static ‘it has happened’ or ‘it is there’, an event that we can probe and examine at our will. Rather, revelation is itself ‘a happening’, an event-in-progress. ‘Revelation denotes the Word of God itself in the act of its being spoken in time.’7 The reason why Barth is so adamant that revelation is an event-in-progress and not a static piece of history is due to his absolute commitment to the epistemological (and ontological) priority of God. God, he tells us, can only be known out of God. There is no creaturely route to knowledge of God, even by analogy, rather God is revealed as God, only by God. Men can know the Word of God because and in so far as God wills that they know it, because and in so far as there is over against God’s will only the impotence of disobedience, and because and in so far as there is a revelation of God’s will in His Word, in which the impotence of disobedience is set aside.8

Any suggestion then that revelation might be a static ‘it has happened’ would render that revelation amenable to our enquiry and analysis, and ultimately, therefore, to our vindication. This, Barth will not allow. Revelation is something God does to and for us, not something we do to God. All we can offer in respect of knowing God is an acknowledgement and recognition that this is indeed God who is making himself known. Yet, even this work, this acknowledgement and recognition is not something that we perform, but rather something that is enabled in us. Barth defines

5

Bauckham ‘Jesus’, p. 180. Bauckham, It should be pointed out that in borrowing from Barth in this way it is not my intention to describe, let alone defend, all aspects of Barth’s theology of revelation. Rather, my goal in looking at Barth’s theology is simply to borrow from him certain crucial elements – namely, the revelation of Jesus and the gift of faith – that are crucial to any account of revelation. Hence, the theology of revelation I propose in these chapters should not be thought of as Barthian in an all-encompassing sense. There are simply too many points on which I disagree with him for it to be considered in that way. Paradoxically, to use Barth in this way is, arguably, more Barthian than a closer exegetical approach to his work. In Table Talk, in particular, he stresses that dogmatics is a living discipline that should always be relevant to the times, and therefore a merely slavish repetition of his thought should be avoided. Godsey, John D. (ed.), Karl Barth’s Table Talk (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1963) p. 12. 7 Barth, I/1, p. 118. Barth 8 Ibid., p. 196. 6

Revelation and Faith

67

faith as ‘an acknowledgement, a recognition and a confession’.9 And yet faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit, not a work that we, by ourselves, undertake. None of this means though that we are but passive recipients, blocks of clay on which God writes what he wills. Barth indicates that we do not enter into a ‘possession or a trance’10 where our own self-determination is obliterated by God’s determination of us. Rather, our self-determination finds its fulfilment in God’s determination of us. We are not merely passive in response to God. Sometimes, he tells us the right response is an ‘active, spontaneous’ one.11 Yet, having said this, God’s sovereignty is never compromised. It is God, who in reality and possibility, in form and content, makes the revelation of himself actual and therefore knowledge of God possible. It is all the work of God and not at all our own achievement. Indeed, more than this, our natural attitude toward this revelation is not indifference, but rather an outright hostility. Hence, God does not just make possible our knowledge of him, but in that process also overcomes that natural animosity we feel toward him. As is obvious from all of this, Barth repudiates any form of natural theology whatsoever. Our natural inclination renders us not just incapable of finding God, but actually opposed to God in our very being. Hence, Barth rejects the principle of an analogia entis, and would prefer instead to talk of an analogia fidei.12 There certainly is an analogy in our knowledge of God, but it is not an analogy between our creaturely conceptions, say of fatherhood or lordship, which can then be analogically predicated of God.13 Any knowledge of God can only come from God, not from our ideas or conceptions. Instead, the analogy of faith is an expression of the work that God undertakes in us and upon us. That acknowledgement or recognition (lit. re-cognition) that he generates in us provides us with an analogical understanding of his being. Echoing Paul (Galatians 4:9), Barth writes that we know God by being known by God. It is here that the analogy is seen. Our being known by God is analogously related to that knowledge of God that is generated in us. As Barth puts it, ‘[E]ven in the Christian this being known, the divine possibility, remains distinct from the human possibility of knowing; this cannot exhaust it; there is only similarity, analogy.’14 Given then that our knowledge of God can be spoken of as such an analogia fidei, what can we say about its validity and accuracy? Here, Barth cautions us regarding how far we enquire. He writes, ‘[I]t is the knowledge of God which cannot at any moment or in any respect try to understand itself other than as the knowledge made possible, realised and ordered by God alone.’15 What is important then is to recognise its origin as from God, but not to enquire beyond that, to pin

9 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics IV/1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956) p. 758. In German Barth the three verbs are anerkennen, erkennen and bekennen, all variations on kennen: to know. 10 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics I/2 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956) p. 266. Barth 11 Ibid., p. 267. 12 Though a number of authors, including Alan Torrance Torrance, have recently argued that the distinction between these concepts is frequently overstated. Cf. Torrance, Persons, chapter three. 13 Barth, II/1, pp. 76f. Barth 14 Barth, I/1, p. 244. Barth 15 Barth, II/1, p. 41. Barth

68

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

down its level of accuracy and validity, or the exact extent of its analogous nature.16 For if we try to separate it out as an object of enquiry, if we seek to enquire into its validity, then we go too far, and in the process cut ourselves off from its reality. ‘By contemplating it we should cease to hear it, we should therefore lose its reality, and with it our possibility which we wished to contemplate.’17 Hence, any examination of our knowledge of God can only come about by refusing to ‘consider ourselves’ and, instead, by resolutely ‘turning away from ourselves and turning our face, or rather our ear, to the Word of God’.18 It is in this sense then that our knowledge of God should not at all be considered as our possession or within our grasp. It is given to us in the moment, but only ‘in the moment’. That is, if we seek to grasp it or make it of ourselves, we will in that very process lose it. So, for Barth, revelation is the event of Jesus Christ. What this means is that in the historical person of Jesus Christ, and the Scriptures and church proclamation that attest him, God has chosen to make himself known. This revelation of him is not a static, past event, but is an event-in-progress, each time the believer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit apprehends that revelation as God intended it to be known. Revelation is something that happens to us, not an object that we examine. Having indicated some of the parameters of Barth’s concept of revelation it is now time to turn to the specifics, in particular the person of Jesus Christ. Oftentimes, Barth has been criticised, particularly in his doctrine of revelation, as laying such a great stress on the transcendence of God, that the immanence of God is undermined. Gunton, referring to Barth’s position, states, ‘the humanity [of Jesus] is in some way given short measure’.19 And he quotes with approval Alan Spence: ‘the breach implied here between the Word of God and Jesus the man can only be damaging for Christology for it inevitably leads to the neglect of the historical life of Christ as the basis for our knowledge of God’.20 Having noted these criticisms, though, it is certainly the case that for Barth the humanity of Christ is necessary for our knowledge of God. He states, ‘Every question concerning the Word which is directed away from Jesus of Nazareth, the human being of Christ, is necessarily and wholly directed away from Himself, the Word, and therefore from God Himself, because the Word, and therefore God Himself, does not exist for us apart from the human being of Christ.’21 The point of disagreement between Barth and Gunton, therefore, concerns how the humanity of Jesus is necessary for our knowledge of God, rather than whether it is, 16 The debate over the extent to which Barth posits a ‘given’ is relevant here. The disagreement is not over the ontological point whether in Jesus Christ there is such a ‘given’, but rather the extent to which epistemologically and semantically that ‘given’ is appropriated by us. But it is questionable whether Barth would confer validity on the debate. He may have perceived it as an attempt to pin down inappropriately the God who undeniably is ‘given’ to us. See Johnson, William Stacy, The Mystery of God: Karl Barth and the Postmodern Foundations of Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) pp. 5, 6, 31–42. Webster, John, ‘Barth, Modernity and Postmodernity’ in Thompson, Karl, pp. 15–17. 17 Barth, I/1, p. 237. Barth 18 Ibid., p. 231. 19 Gunton, Brief, p. 5. Gunton 20 Ibid., p. 5. 21 Barth, I/2, p. 166. Barth

Revelation and Faith

69

as Gunton himself appears to indicate.22 Having said this, at least one of the reasons why Barth is accused in this way is that much of his earlier writing does emphasise God’s transcendence at the expense of his immanence. Bauckham notes an ‘early stress on the “wholly otherness” of God and [a] later stress on the “humanity of God”’.23 Furthermore, this is a point that Barth himself seems to acknowledge. In his 1956 lecture, entitled ‘The Humanity of God’, he states: I should indeed have been somewhat embarrassed if one had invited me to speak on the humanity of God – say in the year 1920… We should have suspected evil implications in this topic. In any case we were not occupied with it. That it is our subject for today and that I could not refuse to say something on it is a symptom of the fact that the earlier change of direction was not the last word.24

So, in that lecture, Barth begins by stressing that it is in Jesus Christ, the humanity of God, that we learn who God is. Who and what God is – this is what in particular we have to learn better and with more precision in the new change of direction in the thinking and speaking of evangelical theology, which has become necessary in the light of the earlier change. But the question must be, who and what is God in Jesus Christ, if we here today would push forward to a better answer.25

Hence, knowledge of God is not something we can obtain apart from Jesus Christ, even his humanity, but only in Christ and through Christ. ‘Thus we have here no universal deity capable of being reached conceptually, but this concrete deity – real and recognisable in the descent grounded in that sequence and peculiar to the existence of Jesus Christ.’26 And so he goes on to say, ‘It is when we look at Jesus Christ that we know decisively that God’s deity does not exclude, but includes His humanity.’27 Barth’s point in all of this is not so much that Christ’s humanity as humanity is what reveals God, but rather that we must learn who God is only and precisely where God has revealed himself, and that is in the historical figure of Jesus Christ. We fail to realise this if we think of God’s being as having only one mode of expression, but when we appreciate that God can exist both ‘in and for Himself’, as well as ‘with and for us’, we can see that to appear as not-God is also the highest demonstration of being God.28 Hence, for God to become man is not a denial or rejection or loss of his divinity, but rather, ‘the highest proof and proclamation of His deity!’29 Any difficulty we have with this is because we begin with the wrong concept of God. We start with some particular idea of what God is like and, when confronted with the God-man, we recoil because it does not fit our prior conception, it makes no sense. But, as has already been pointed out, any knowledge and therefore any concept we have of God can only 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Gunton Brief, p. 5, n. 9. Gunton, Bauckham, ‘Jesus’, p. 183. Bauckham Barth, Karl, The Humanity of God (London: Collins, 1961) p. 34. Barth Ibid., p. 44. Ibid., p. 45. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., p. 46.

70

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

come a posteriori and not a priori. So, if in being presented with the God-man we have some difficulty fitting it in with our conceptual scheme of what God is like, that is only because we formed that conceptual scheme in the wrong way in the first place. Rather, we know what God is like, what his possibilities are, not in distinction from the God-man, but precisely through and by means of the God-man. Who God is and what it is to be divine is something we have to learn where God has revealed Himself and His nature, the essence of the divine. And if He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ as the God who does this, it is not for us to be wiser than He and to say that it is in contradiction with the divine essence. We have to be ready to be taught by Him that we have been too small and perverted in our thinking about Him within the framework of a false idea of God.30

Yet, having said all of this, the accusations of Spence, Gunton et al. are not without some justification, for there are places where Barth appears to shy away from a full embrace of the humanity of the Son, in its role in revelation, not the least of which are his repeated affirmations that the humanity of Jesus Christ is not a revelation, but rather a concealing, something that hides God, rather than unveils him. We may and must, of course, speak of a veiling of the divine majesty. By becoming flesh the Word enters the hiddenness, the ‘servant form,’ which in respect of the knowability of God undoubtedly signifies an ‘externalisation’ (kenosis) compared with the ‘divine form’ in which God knows himself.31

And similarly, he asks rhetorically: ‘Can the incarnation of the Word according to the biblical witness mean that the existence of the man Jesus of Nazareth was as it were in itself, in its own power and continuity, the revealing Word of God? Is the humanitas Christi as such the revelation?’32 And, of course, Barth’s implied answer is no. For Barth, the revelation of God is the incarnate second person of the trinity, it is the person of Jesus Christ. The revelation is not the humanity of Jesus as such. The humanity is rather that which conceals. Hence, and as a result of this veiling, the recognition that in Jesus Christ God is meeting man is something that can be lost to most. ‘As a matter of fact even Jesus did not become revelation to all who met Him but only to a few.’ And so Barth goes on, ‘revealing could obviously not be ascribed to His existence as such’. And so he concludes this section, ‘the Godhead is not so immanent in Christ’s humanity that it does not also remain transcendent to it’.33 The conclusion to all this is that what we are left with is a dialectic in the thought of Karl Barth.34 Notwithstanding Hans Urs von Balthasar’s thesis that Barth’s dialectical approach was something confined to his earlier period, it seems that here, precisely in this tension of veiling and unveiling, Barth the dialectician remains. Indeed, Bruce 30

Barth IV/1, pp. 185, 186. Barth, Barth, I/2, p. 37. Barth 32 Barth, I/1, p. 323. Barth 33 Ibid., p. 323. 34 On this dialectic of veiling and unveiling see in particular Ibid., pp. 174–181, 320–333; Godsey, Karl, p. 35. Alan Torrance also has a useful discussion of this point. Torrance, Persons, pp. 171–175. 31

Revelation and Faith

71

McCormack has argued powerfully that in fact it is this particular dialectic that is driving his concept of analogy.35 But the analogy that results is an analogia fidei, and hence it is faith that makes the difference between veiling and unveiling. Faith enables us to see, where others remain blind. What therefore becomes light to those of faith, causes blindness to those of sin. ‘It is the case everywhere that when there is unveiling there is also veiling, when God sets up His lordship it means the selfhumiliation and self-alienation of God, when He reveals Himself His hiddenness is confirmed. Revelation occurs for faith, not for unbelief.’36 The important point to realise in this is that veiling and unveiling should not be thought of as two different aspects of Jesus Christ. That is, we must not think of Christ as man as veiled, and Christ as logos as unveiled. Barth is adamant that there is one person, the God-man Jesus Christ. Hence, veiling and unveiling do not represent two different states of this one person, but rather two distinct moments in our appreciation of him.37 At times what we see is the man, at other times we see God, and it is faith that makes the difference between these moments. The upshot of all this, then, is that there is one work of God, one revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Moreover, for those with the eyes of faith, that revelation reveals God’s Godness in and through the humanity of Christ, through the condescension and love expressed therein, but for those with the eyes of unbelief that revelation can, as Barth puts it, result in ‘complete non-recognition’.38 A parallel point has also been made by Grace Jantzen. She writes, ‘No list of empirical data, whether these are taken strictly as sense data or more broadly as observation of speech and behaviour patterns could ever entail the conclusion reached by the centurion in the Gospel: “Truly this man was the Son of God.”’39 However, Jantzen dismisses those who say the solution to this problem is to appeal simply to faith, unless, that is, we construe faith in a very particular way. [A]n acceptance of the doctrine of incarnation, thoroughly worked out, entails a revision of the concept of understanding itself, seeing it as a response of the whole person, not just his cranium. This would have the corollary of seeing poetry, metaphor, and symbol, rather than physics, as the providers of paradigms for understanding and response in our epistemological theory, because they, much more clearly than scientific theory, demand from us not only our whole intellectual capacity, but our whole response as human persons.40

Yet, it would appear that Jantzen does not realise that this reconstrual of understanding is precisely, as I shall argue, how the NT and some theologians consider faith, and that is the topic of our next section.

35

McCormack, Bruce, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (Oxford: McCormack Clarendon Press, 1995) p. 18. 36 Barth, II/1, p. 55. Barth 37 George Hunsinger has a useful discussion of this point. Hunsinger, George, ‘Karl Barth’s Christology: its basic Chalcedonian character’ in Webster, Cambridge, p. 135. 38 Ibid., p. 55. 39 Jantzen, Grace M., ‘Incarnation and Epistemology’, Theology 83 (1980) p. 174. Jantzen 40 Ibid., p. 175.

72

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Barthian Faith Barth describes faith in a number of different ways, but in keeping with his emphasis that God can only be known out of God, the first thing to note is his declaration that faith is a gift of God, and not a work of man. Barth describes it thus: ‘After He has become man in Christ for us, God also adopts us, in such a way that He Himself makes us ready to listen to the Word, that He Himself intercedes with us for Himself, that he Himself makes the speaking and hearing of His Word possible among us.’41 And again, ‘the knowability of God is not the knowability of God if finally – even considered from the man’s side – it is something other than a work of God Himself’.42 It is not the case that God appears amongst us in Christ, and we generate within ourselves the ability or possibility of accepting this revelation. In contrast to Wolfhart Pannenberg, it is not natural for us to see in the face of Jesus Christ the glory of God.43 Rather, God puts within us this ability, this enabling, as a gift and by the power of the Spirit. In addition to this, this gift is not one that is given once and for all, that we then possess and can use at our will. In conformity with his emphasis on the event of revelation, Barth maintains that this gift is not so much a gift, but a loan, a loan that we can only use in the moment, and one that if not used, disappears. ‘The possibility of faith as it is given to man in the reality of faith can be understood only as one that is loaned to man by God, and loaned exclusively for use. The moment we regard it as a possibility which is in some sense man’s own, the opposite statement regarding man’s incapacity comes back into force.’44 This emphasis – that faith is not so much our possession, but rather something that in the moment happens to us – is particularly evident when Barth discusses just what it means to be conformed to Christ. Barth wants to acknowledge that to have faith, and so to know God, involves a conformity to Christ, but he is suspicious of any suggestion that would make that conformity an immanent change within us (the so-called Barthian anxiety). In being conformed to Christ, it is not the case that we, in ourselves, actually change to become more like Christ. Rather, to be conformed to Christ means that whereas before we were turned inwards contemplating only ourselves, now we are turned outwards contemplating Christ. In ourselves, as such, we have not changed, but in our relationship to Christ we have. Conformable to Christ does not mean that a man is a second Christ…Conformable to Christ means that in all his humanity…he is directed away to the one for whose sake and

41

Barth I/2, p. 221. Barth, Barth, II/1, p. 66. Barth 43 This is perhaps one of the greatest differences between Barth Barth’s theology of revelation and that of Pannenberg. The latter writes, ‘A person does not bring faith with him to the event as though faith were the basis for finding the revelation of God in the history of Israel and of Jesus Christ. Rather, it is through an open appreciation of these events that true faith is sparked.’ Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Revelation as History (New York: Macmillan Company, 1968) p. 137. Cf. also his Jesus – God and Man (London: SCM Press, 1968), pp. 33–37, 127–140; Systematic Theology – Volume 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991) pp. 189–257. 44 Barth, I/1, p. 238. Barth 42

Revelation and Faith

73

in whom he is a child of God. This directing and integrating into Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit, and in it he can hear and receive the divine revelation.45

Hence, Barth can conclude: ‘Faith is only our relationship to Him.’46 Having said this, though, Barth is not in any way seeking to limit the scope of the change that is involved in such faith. He writes, ‘Faith does not consist in an inward and immanent transformation of man, although there can be no faith without such a transformation.’47 In this way, he indicates that although faith itself is merely a relational change, the outcome of that relational change is certainly an immanent transformation of us. In addition to this, even the relational change must not be thought of in purely intellectualist terms. The transformation that turns us to Christ involves the whole of our being, and that is why Barth can be so adamant that the essence of faith – and therefore knowledge of God – is not just followed by obedience, but is itself characterised by obedience. Knowledge of God is obedience to God. Observe that we do not say that knowledge may also be obedience, or that of necessity it has obedience attached to it, or that it is followed by obedience. No; knowledge of God as knowledge of faith is in itself and of essential necessity obedience.48

The reason for this should, of course, be clear from what we have already said. If knowledge of God – as faith in the revelation of God – is to be found in our turning to Christ, and in that sense conforming to him, and furthermore, if this knowledge is nothing but our response to the prior work of God, a response that is effected in the moment by the gift of the Spirit, then such knowledge cannot but be obedience. To be conformed to Christ means to be like Christ, means to obey God as Christ did.49 To separate the knowledge of God from obedience to God is to fail to pay attention to how knowledge comes about, and to abstract it from the person of Jesus Christ and the work of God. But what is this faith that we are given, even just on loan? To use the Reformers’ terminology, does it consist in fiducia, assensus or notitia?50 On this point, Barth is clear: ‘Faith becomes faith only when it is fiducia. Notitia and assensus alone would not be faith…Nevertheless, how can faith be fiducia without also being, even as fiducia, notitia and assensus?’51 So faith is trust, but not a trust without content or object, rather it is a trust in that which is understood and believed. All three elements are important. If this is the detail that Barth provides regarding what faith consists in, and how we appropriate it, then it is necessary also to show the limits of how we understand 45

Barth I/2, p. 277. Barth, Barth, II/1, p. 160. Barth 47 Ibid., p. 158. 48 Ibid., p. 26. 49 This, of course, was the point that Hooker was making. Yet, this is not at all to say that there is no knowledge of God in the absence of Christian perfectionism. It is merely to note that our knowledge will be consonant with the degree of ethical sanctification that is evident. See chapter five for more on this. 50 Trust, assent, understanding/knowledge respectively. 51 Barth, I/1, p. 235. Barth 46

74

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

this faith; for as I have indicated, Barth is also keen to advise us that we should not enquire too far into precisely how the contours of this faith are worked out. Again, Barth is adamant that our knowledge of God is never our possession; it is something that happens to us more than something that we enact. ‘If a man, the Church, Church proclamation and dogmatics think they can handle the Word and faith like capital at their disposal, they simply prove thereby that they have neither the Word nor faith.’52 Hence, our knowledge of the revelation of God is less a knowledge, as knowledge is usually construed – that is the possession of man – but is rather our ‘expectation’ and ‘hope’.53 Furthermore, how we come to this knowledge of God will always remain a mystery, though that we come to know God we can hold with absolute certainty. Barth’s point here is that the sign of God, the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ comes to us, and then in response to that revelation we find ourselves in a state of belief, acceptance and worship. How we move from one side to the other we cannot say, beyond the fact that God has enabled it. ‘To the question how objective revelation reaches men, we cannot give a first but only, as it were, a second and consequent answer. We can answer it only by pointing to man on the far side of that necessary leap, where the reality of revelation…[is] already behind him.’54 So, how we come to believe – to have faith in God – remains a mystery, and for us to try to spell it out discursively would be to deny it.55 We can know that we know God, but how we know God is always and rightly beyond us, and these two facts together represent the ‘certainty’ and ‘mystery’ that is appropriate to all theological knowledge.56 In the final assessment then, what we are left with in the thought of Karl Barth is this: God reveals himself in the person of Jesus Christ, and not apart from that person. However, this revelation is not a simple seeing of the man Jesus by those that followed him, but rather a Spiritual perceiving in the man Jesus, the revelation of God. This perceiving moreover, is not a work of man, but rather a work of God, in the moment, that discursively we can only say has happened, but how it happens we must not enquire. Moreover, that perception is not just a cognitive change, but also represents a volitional and experiential change, and in this way the transformation in our concept of faith that Jantzen alluded to is beginning to be met. We shall use this broad framework as a launch pad for some further explorations into what faith consists in. In the first instance, then, we turn to a consideration of what it means to say we have ‘the mind of Christ’. As we consider Barth’s description of faith, particularly as it relates to our conformity to Christ, it would appear that there is one aspect we can readily applaud, and one from which we must mark some distance. To begin positively, what we can appreciate in Barth’s description of our turning to Christ, is that it is nonsensical to consider that turning or conformity as affecting only one part of our being. Rather, if under the Spirit’s direction we are conformed to Christ, then it can only be as whole persons and not as parts. There are at least two reasons why this must be the case. 52 53 54 55 56

Ibid., p. 225. Ibid, pp. 225, 226. Barth, I/2, p. 234. Barth Ibid., pp. 234f. Barth, II/1, p. 41. Barth

Revelation and Faith

75

Firstly, we need to remember that this conforming to Christ is not a work of our own, but a work of God upon us. That is, in turning us to Christ, it is the Spirit who lays hold of us, rather than we who of our volition turn to him. But if it is the Spirit who is grasping us, then what the Spirit takes hold of is every aspect of our being. It is not as though God is concerned merely with our intellectual capacities, or merely with our emotional dispositions. Rather, God in his Spirit is concerned with us all, and therefore if he conforms us to Christ, then he conforms us as whole persons and not as parts.57 The second reason why our turning and conforming to Christ encompasses the whole of our being, and not just a part, is the point made in the previous chapter that as persons we are integrated wholes and not dualistic composites. While this is the positive aspect of Barth’s analysis, where I would wish to part company from him is in his assertion that the change that takes place in us is not an immanent change, but merely a relational one. The difficulty here is that, though Barth puts in place the necessary building blocks for explaining how it is that we are conformed to Christ, he is so fearful of the idea that knowledge of God is understood as an ability latent within us that he shies away from developing in detail just how this conforming takes place. It is worth noting that McCormack suggests that Barth denies such an immanent change in the believer precisely because faith is an event rather than a static occurrence.58 But, in contrast, I would suggest that it is precisely because faith is an event that one can allow for an intrinsic change, without surrendering the principle that only God reveals God. For, if one’s goal is to protect that principle, then one can simply emphasise that the ‘inward and immanent transformation of man’ is only something that occurs in the moment. As I shall go on to argue, what turns awareness of Jesus into knowledge of God is an understanding or interpretation of Jesus that is given by the Spirit. However, that understanding is not one that is given once for all, but rather is one that occurs in the moment. It occurs in the moment precisely because it is the cognitive outworking of being conformed to Christ, and such conforming is also only something that occurs as event, and not as a static piece of history, sustained as it is, at every moment by the Spirit. Hence, if we recognise that our conforming to Christ is, as Barth emphasises, a turning that only occurs in the moment, then we can maintain that there is an immanent transformation of man, without making knowledge of God a capacity latent within us. Faithful Interpretation Earlier on, we noted Barth’s description of faith in terms of fiducia, notitia and assensus, and we commented how for Barth true faith consists in the combination of these three elements, perhaps with fiducia in the ascendancy. What was not remarked upon was the fact that in saying this, Barth appears to be advocating the position whereby fiducia, notitia and assensus, though all distinct elements in faith, can actually be held in isolation from one another. So, he describes notitia and assensus

57 58

Hunsinger ‘Karl’, p. 182. Hunsinger, McCormack, Karl, p. 17. McCormack

76

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

as being merely an ‘opinio historica,…a neutral recollective knowledge and affirmation of biblical and ecclesiastical statements’, 59 which even ‘the ungodly can have too’.60 And similarly, fiducia, on its own, in the absence of notitia and assensus, is described as ‘a trust either devoid of intellectual form or indifferent to it’.61 And so he suggests that Christian faith consists in the combination of all these elements. The difficulty with this proposal, a proposal that is often repeated, is that it fails to do justice to the biblical witness on the nature of faith, and in contrast I would advocate a line closer to that of John Baillie. Baillie sums up his position thus: ‘Christian faith (fides salvifica) consists essentially in reliance (fiducia) upon the revelation of God in Christ, that this reliance necessarily presupposes an acquaintance (notitia) with its object and also latently contains an assent (assensus) to certain affirmations that can be made about that object.’62 On the surface, the distinction between this position and that of Barth’s may not be obvious, but there is an important difference, and it is this. For Barth it is possible, though undesirable, to hold just one of the elements of faith without the others, though to do so is not to have real, full faith. For Baillie, it is not only undesirable, it is impossible to do so. The reason for this is that they both understand revelation as being primarily non-propositional, and Baillie indicates that Barth is not being true to himself in allowing for this, even theoretical, separation of notitia and assensus from fiducia.63 For both of them, the substance of revelation is personal encounter and not divinely-given propositions. The consequence of this in terms of these three elements of faith is of major significance. If revelation consists of propositions, then the intellectual response required is firstly to understand those propositions (notitia) and then make a decision regarding whether one assents (assensus) to them or not. However, if revelation is understood as some form of encounter with God, then precisely to understand that encounter is to accept it. As Augustine put it, ‘unless you believe, you will not understand’. No distinction, then, can be drawn in this case between notitia and assensus. It is no accident that when Baillie describes this phenomenon, the English translation he uses for notitia is acquaintance, for the model of knowledge he is working with is non-propositional knowledge, or knowledge by acquaintance.64 To give but one example, when one knows the smell of coffee one also and immediately assents to that knowledge in the sense that one would assent to the latent beliefs that that knowledge implies (e.g. this is the smell of coffee). The idea that one could know the smell of coffee, but deny the veracity of that knowledge is meaningless. To know a smell means precisely no more and no less than accepting that smell for what it is. Of course, it is possible to 59

Barth I/1, p. 234. Barth, Ibid., p. 235. 61 Ibid., p. 234. 62 Baillie, John, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (New York: Columbia Baillie University Press, 1956) p. 100. 63 Ibid., p. 98. 64 Baillie, Idea, p. 100. The original description of knowledge by acquaintance Baillie was made by Bertrand Russell. Russell, Russell Bertrand, ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description’ in Salmon, N. and Soames, S. (eds), Propositions and Attitudes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) pp. 16–32. This essay was first published in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 11 (1910–11) pp. 108–128. 60

Revelation and Faith

77

be deceived in this regard, to be told on your first exposure to a substance that this is coffee, when in reality it is not, but in that case one does not know the smell of coffee, one knows the smell of whatever the thing is one is smelling. One thinks that it is coffee, but one is wrong; one neither knows coffee nor assents to it. But when one does know it, then latent within that act is all the assent that one will have. In this regard, Baillie gives as an example the fact of trusting a friend, but not fully being able to say why or how or in what way one trusts that friend, one just knows that one does.65 Indeed, Baillie goes on to say that the nature and the grounds and the contours of that trust may only actually be articulated and therefore assented to when one is challenged about it. Of course, as Baillie points out, this is exactly what happened to the Tradition. He quotes Whitehead’s well-known phrase, ‘Wherever there is a creed, there is a heretic round the corner or in his grave.’66 The point being made is that the church only put her knowledge into propositional form and therefore assented to those propositions in response to being challenged. This does not mean she did not know or assent to these things beforehand, she simply had no reason to articulate them in propositional form.67 Hence, we should not so much think of notitia and assensus as two distinct parts of faith that must be added to our faith to make it complete. Rather, they are either there from the start (latently or otherwise) as part of one idea, or they are not there at all.68 Now, this is how Baillie argues in relation to non-propositional knowledge. But if it is true in that regard, then it is even more true with respect to a perichoretic model of knowledge. For in this model, to have faith and thereby know God, simply means that one is in the right kind of relationship to God, a relationship in which we know God by being known by him. Under such a framework, to exemplify notitia would mean that one is aware of and appreciates who it is that has taken hold of one. One recognises that it is God who has grasped one. But implicit within that understanding is the idea that one assents to that grasping or relationship, for precisely to reject the relationship is not to be in the relationship, and therefore there would be nothing to understand. Just as, in human relationships, it is vacuous to talk of a theoretical appreciation of them; in the same way, it makes no sense to talk of a speculative appreciation or understanding of a relationship with God. One only understands or knows the relationship when one is in the relationship which includes intrinsically the idea that one assents to the relationship. On this model, no distinction can be drawn between notitia and assensus.69 65

Baillie Idea, p. 92. Baillie, Ibid., p. 94. 67 See also Torrance, T.F., ‘The Deposit of Faith’, Scottish Journal of Theology 36:1 (1983) pp. 1–28 who reaches largely the same conclusion. 68 Cf Brunner who writes, ‘Where this confusion [that faith is primarily about believing propositional doctrines] once dominates the understanding of truth, all subsequent instruction that faith is not only holding something as true but is “also” trust and obedience is futile. It comes too late; the damage is already done: From being a fellowship of disciples the Church has become a school.’ Brunner, Divine-Human, p. 111. 69 For similar reasons fiducia also cannot be separated from those other two elements. Given that the relationship we are talking about is one in which God has taken hold of us, then it is impossible to be in that relationship without also displaying an attitude of trust, just as it 66

78

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

To spell this out in regard to one specific example: what is being suggested is that the proposition ‘Jesus is Lord’ is not something that one first understands, and then subsequently – in response to the Spirit or whatever – assents to. Rather, the proposition ‘Jesus is Lord’ is something that is latent within our experience of our relationship with God through Christ. We first of all know Jesus as Lord and then, when challenged, declare ‘Jesus is Lord’, rather than coming to the conclusion ‘Jesus is Lord’ as part of some discursive process. Furthermore, this is precisely what the Spirit does and what faith consists in. Faith, the gift of the Spirit, enables us to understand Jesus as God (amongst a whole lot of other things). It is not for us to assent to the proposition ‘Jesus is Lord’. The Spirit does not persuade us of the veracity of that proposition – or, indeed any theological proposition – rather, the Spirit causes us to exist in relationship with God and Jesus in that way. Fundamentally, faith as the gift of the Spirit is for us to understand, rather than for us to believe. We should not then think of faith or the Spirit as that which turns doubt into belief, but rather as that which turns misconception into conception or, to use NT language, blindness into sight. In terms of the NT, this idea comes out very clearly. It is not the case that Jesus presents certain ideas, enables his followers to understand them and then invites them to accept them (the propositional model). Rather, he simply invites them to know him immediately and directly. The first point to note here is one that we have already met: mere presentation with the person of Jesus Christ is insufficient for knowledge of God. The NT draws a sharp distinction between seeing and perceiving in relation to him. The former of these appears to be apprehension by the senses, whereas the latter is apprehension by the understanding. All four Gospels quote from Isaiah: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive.’70 In the Synoptics, this quotation occurs in association with understanding Jesus’ message as relayed in parabolic fashion. Mere hearing, it seems, is not sufficient to appreciate the purpose or meaning of these parables. In John, the quotation is paraphrased and made in relation to miracles, but once again the point is made that merely seeing is not sufficient for understanding their significance.71 Joel Green, in commenting on the quotation in Luke, notes: Some are enabled to understand; others, whose worldview has not been reshaped by their orientation to God’s purposes, can only puzzle over his message. In this way, Luke signals one of the leitmotifs of his narrative theology: the importance of interpretation, without which one cannot understand what they have heard (or read).72

A more stark indication of this point – for it concerns Jesus’ identity (and not just his teaching or acts) – is to be found in Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ in the Gospel of Mark. This confession occurs at the pivotal centre of the book, but it is immediately preceded by a miracle that is unique in the Gospels. Mark 8:22–26 tells is impossible to hang on to a lifeline without trusting that the rope will hold. To be in that kind of relationship is precisely to trust the relevant contours of it. 70 Matthew 13:14, cf. also Isaiah 6:9, 10; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:39, 40. 71 John 12:37–40. 72 Green, Joel B., The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) p. 326. Green

Revelation and Faith

79

the story of the blind man at Bethsaida who is healed of his affliction in a two-stage process. In the first stage, Jesus spits on the man’s eyes and touches him, but when asked whether he can see, the blind man replies, ‘I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.’73 Jesus then touches the man again, and this time his healing is complete – ‘his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly’.74 Immediately following this miracle, the narrative of Peter’s confession is described. But in concert with the blind man, Peter’s insight is preceded by a description of those who do not understand fully who Jesus is, suggesting that he might be John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the prophets. Thus, we have a situation of partial sight (men as trees walking/ Jesus as Elijah), followed by a situation of complete sight75 (perfect vision/Jesus as the Christ). A number of commentators have noted this parallel and Lightfoot writes, ‘the opening of the blind man’s eyes will symbolize also the enlightenment of the disciples by their understanding of the Messiahship of Jesus’.76 The significance of these episodes is that within these narratives it seems that real understanding requires more than bare empiricism. The people met Jesus, yet they did not understand who he was. The people heard the parables and saw the miracles, but they did not appreciate their meaning. Indeed, the episode in Mark 8:32, 33 where Peter is rebuked as Satan demonstrates that even Peter, who understood more than most and who spent more time with Jesus than most, still did not understand fully what Jesus’ role and purpose were. As Jantzen says, no amount of bare empirical data would ever lead to a true understanding of who Jesus is and, therefore, if Jesus is the primary revelation of God, who God is. Hence, it seems what is necessary to turn bare presentation with the data into knowledge of God in Jesus Christ is not so much acceptance of the data – as if we are being presented with propositions to which we must assent – but rather, what is necessary is in fact a different conceptual framework, a different understanding in which we see what before remained opaque to us. That new outlook is one that is generated by the Spirit. ‘From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.’ (2 Corinthians 5:16) Hence, what was previously seen as merely a man dying on a cross is now seen as God incarnate dying in one’s stead. So Trevor Hart writes, Since more than one way of seeing or taking things is often possible, what appears to be the case may actually change with an imaginative shift of perspective, rendering a quite distinct picture of the real. As numerous accounts of Gestalt and paradigm shifts have observed, a useful model for this is the religious ‘conversion’ in which the selfsame set of particulars is observed or experienced by the subject now quite differently because 73

Mark 8:24. Mark 8:25. 75 Though Mark 8:32, 33 makes it clear that even Peter’s understanding remains imperfect. 76 Lightfoot, R.H., History and Interpretation in the Gospels (London: Hodder Lightfoot and Stoughton, 1935) p. 91. See also Richardson, A., The Miracle-Stories of the Gospels (London: SCM Press, 1941) pp. 85–88; Guelich, Robert A., Word Biblical Commentary: Mark 1:1–8:26 (Dallas: Word Books, 1989) p. 436. 74

80

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge viewed in a wholly new light, located within a different pattern…the difference between what the eye of faith ‘sees’ and what is seen by the faithless eye is precisely a difference of interpretation.77

In light of this, it is not inappropriate to conclude that all knowledge of God is a species of interpretation, albeit an interpretation mediated by the Spirit. This is what I meant when I began chapter two by saying that the final position to which I would be arguing is that knowledge of God consists in ‘a perichoretic participation in God enabling a pneumatological interpretation of Jesus Christ’. In that chapter, I described what I meant by ‘perichoretic participation’, and in the first part of this chapter I have given an account of how it might be related to the historical events of the life of Jesus Christ. In this latter part, I am trying to put some flesh on the bones of the assertion that what is provided is a ‘pneumatological interpretation’. My point is that what the Spirit gives us that turns mere presentation with the person of Jesus Christ into knowledge of God is not the courage to assent to certain propositions (faith in contrast to certainty), or even an inward conviction that those propositions are true (faith in contrast to doubt), but rather a new understanding, a new interpretation, a new way of seeing Jesus Christ. These points have also been brought home powerfully in a recent article by JeanLuc Marion in which he offers a careful exegesis of the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35). Marion’s essential point is that faith is not something that makes up for a lack of evidence, but rather that which enables us to handle a surplus of evidence. The problem is not that we do not receive enough data; the problem is that we cannot understand that which we have received. ‘Faith does not manage the deficit of evidence – it alone renders the gaze apt to see the excess of the pre-eminent saturated phenomenon, the Revelation.’78 Marion begins by noting that on the road the two men are joined by the risen Jesus, yet they do not recognise him for who he is. This is not because there is insufficient evidence before them, but simply because ‘they cannot even imagine that this is really him’.79 This problem, of not understanding what is before one, is precisely the one, Marion suggests, that we all have in our knowledge of God. ‘God does not measure out stingily his intuitive manifestation, as if he wanted to mask himself at the moment of showing himself. But we do not offer concepts capable of handling a gift without measure.’80 And so, in an echo of Kierkegaard, Christ becomes the teacher. ‘Since they lack concepts, he trains them to a concept.’81 Specifically, Marion points to Christ’s interpretation of the Scriptures that indicate that all these things would happen to the Christ prior to his entering glory. The interesting point for our purposes is that the role that I have given to the Spirit, is precisely the role that Jesus plays here on the road to Emmaus. In each case what is being provided is the means to 77

Hart, Trevor, ‘Imagination for the Kingdom of God’ in Bauckham, Richard (ed.), God Will be All in All: The Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999) pp. 54, 55. 78 Marion, Jean-Luc, ‘They Recognized Him; and He Became Invisible to Them’, Marion Modern Theology 18:2 (April 2002) p. 150. 79 Ibid., p. 147. 80 Ibid., p. 148. 81 Ibid., p. 148.

Revelation and Faith

81

understand the events of Jesus’ life. In the one case, that interpretation is provided directly as it were by Christ himself expounding the Scriptures to the disciples. In the other, it is the Spirit who enables us – through those same Scriptures – to understand the events. But in each case, the same hermeneutical function is being played out. What is provided is ‘his meaning, his concept, his interpretation’ of the events.82 In other words, it is Christ’s mind on this matter that is being communicated. Yet, for all this hermeneutical work, the final opening of the eyes does not take place on the road, but rather in the giving of a gift, the gift of bread that signifies his life. This is not to downplay the work of interpretation, for the disciples tell us that even on the road their hearts burned within them. But ultimately, the understanding is received or perhaps acknowledged in the form of a gift, and as such the ultimate nature of faith as just that, a gift, is indicated. So Marion concludes: ‘What we lack in order to believe is quite simply one with what we lack in order to see. Faith does not compensate, either here or anywhere else, for a defect of visibility: on the contrary, it allows reception of the intelligence of the phenomenon and the strength to bear the glare of its brilliance.’83 Conclusion In this chapter, I have sought to articulate a revelational account of theological knowing. In the first place, following Barth, I have argued that we know God when we are enabled by God to receive the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. More particularly, this enabling, which constitutes our faith, is only given ‘in the moment’ and consists in the conformation of our whole person to the person of Jesus Christ. We then utilised the Reformers’ terminology to argue that faith represents not the addition of notitia to assensus, but rather the integration of notitia, assensus and fiducia, such that our faith, our conformation to Christ, is but our prior experience of God as expressed in our understanding, assent to and trust of God. Finally, we turned to the NT to argue that this understanding of faith as interpretation or understanding is biblically rooted. The conclusion that I am drawing from all these points is that our knowledge of God in the light of the revelation of Jesus Christ can be considered

82

Ibid., p. 150. Ibid., p. 150. It is important to realise that though Marion describes this gift of faith as making our reception of the ‘saturated phenomenon’ appropriate, this does not necessarily mean that our reception is adequate to, or corresponds to, the phenomenon given to us. Indeed, in a sense, God in giving himself in this way remains absent. The adequacy or not though of our reception is not the point I wish to take from Marion’s account. My purpose is simply to highlight his understanding of faith as that which makes our reception of the revelation possible (however adequate that reception is thought to be). For a discussion of that adequacy in relation to Derrida, see Marion’s contribution and Derrida’s response in Caputo, John and Scanlon, Michael J. (eds), God, The Gift and Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999) pp. 20–47. Also see Benson, Graven, pp. 188–223. For Marion’s own account of how such a revealed theology relates to phenomenology, see Marion, Jean-Luc, ‘Metaphysics and Phenomenology: A Summary for Theologians’ in Ward, Graham (ed.), The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997) pp. 290–294. 83

82

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

as a pneumatologically inspired faithful interpretation of Jesus Christ. I have, then, in this chapter presented a revelational account of theological knowing. The purpose of the following chapter is to integrate this account with the participative account of theological knowing presented in chapter two, and we shall do this by means of an exploration of the thought of Michael Polanyi.

Chapter 4

Theological Knowing

[The disciples] ask to receive his logos, his interpretation of what has happened in the intuition and which nevertheless they have neither seen, nor caught, nor understood. They at last ask him his meaning, his concept, his interpretation of the public, yet unintelligible to spectators, intuition of Easter.1 In sum, the strength of a doxological approach – a ‘worship-oriented paradigm’ as opposed to a ‘revelation-oriented paradigm’ – is its capacity to direct us to that event of triune communion which is conceived not as a ‘mode of being’ to be appropriated or taken on by the human subject, but as the gift of sharing in the life of the Second Adam as it is constitutive of the New Humanity – of sharing in and living out of his life lived in place of ours (his worthship), his continuing and vicarious priesthood (his worship) and in his union and communion with the Father in the Spirit.2

According to the first of these quotations, theological knowing takes place as we appropriate Christ’s understanding of events. According to the second, theological knowing takes place as we participate in Christ’s knowledge of the Father. The burden of this chapter is to provide a theological epistemology that embraces both paradigms. That is, it seeks to integrate elements from a participative account of theological knowing with elements from the Barthian revelational account. In this way, I hope to demonstrate that Torrance’s presentation of these accounts as ‘alternatives’ is perhaps overstated.3 But my goal in this chapter is not simply to suggest that Torrance should not have presented these options as ‘alternatives’. What I hope to do is complete the account of theological knowing that began in chapter two in order to provide a framework in which the ethics of theological knowledge can be evaluated. More particularly, I shall draw on the account of theological knowledge that has been articulated in these chapters in order to underpin my argument that our knowledge of God and love of the Other are radically integrated.

1

Marion ‘They Recognised’, p. 150. Marion, Torrance, Persons, p. 324. 3 Ibid., pp. 307, 308. It is certainly the case that Torrance’s paradigm is a necessary corrective to some elements in Barth’s theology, and in that sense contributes to the framework Barth had put in place. However, to describe it as an ‘alternative’ suggests that one has to adopt either one approach or the other. As I hope to show in this book, the two can be considered as compatible with each filling out the description provided by the other. And therefore, it is not about choosing between them, but rather embracing both. 2

84

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Personal Knowledge The task of the present chapter will be pursued by means of an exploration of the epistemological paradigm of Michael Polanyi. For, as I shall argue, it is in a theological appropriation of his concept of ‘Personal Knowledge’ that a synthesis may be achieved of the participative and revelational accounts of theological knowing already described. In order, though, to give an idea of how I intend to appropriate Polanyi’s account of knowing for theological purposes, let me draw your attention to the following example. At present, I am touch-typing on a laptop keyboard, and I am using my knowledge of the keyboard layout to do this. One of the primary insights of Polanyi’s work is that we use such knowledge most effectively when we do not attend to it, but rather when we attend from it to some distal concern. In this particular case, then, I type most effectively when I attend to the words and sentences that I am seeking to construct, and allow my knowledge of the keyboard to operate tacitly in the background. If, instead, I were to focus upon that tacit knowledge and consider the individual locations of the letters, then my ability to type effectively would be severely compromised. The point, then, is that for much of our knowledge, the most appropriate use of that knowledge does not occur by focusing upon such knowledge explicitly, but rather by allowing such knowledge to operate tacitly as focally our attention is directed toward something else. The theological argument that I wish to make is that our participation in Christ represents just such a form of tacit knowledge. That is, our participation in Christ operates most effectively when it functions in a subsidiary manner to enable our reception and interpretation of both Christ and the world. We know God, not so much when we concentrate focally upon our participation in Christ, but rather when we allow our participation in him to condition our reception of both his revelation and the world. In this way, theological knowing requires both our participation in Christ and a revelatory account of theological knowledge. However, these two events are not additive in the sense that each provides a portion of our knowledge of God. Rather, each of these events is incomplete and inadequate in the absence of the other. They work together to enable us to know God in Christ. Positivism and Intellectual Passion Our starting point for an analysis of Polanyi’s thought is his recognition that our most important and accurate forms of knowledge do not take place according to the positivist paradigm in which a proper objectivity necessitates a bracketing of the self. Rather, according to Polanyi, our most appropriate knowledge, and in that sense a true objectivity, is found in the exercise of our ‘intellectual passions’ or subjectivity.4 Hence, subjectivity and objectivity are not in opposition in the pursuit of knowledge. Rather, both are overcome by the concept of the personal.

4 Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy (London: Polanyi Routledge, 1962) pp. 132–202.

Theological Knowing

85

[T]he act of knowing includes an appraisal; and this personal coefficient, which shapes all factual knowledge, bridges in doing so the disjunction between subjectivity and objectivity. It implies the claim that man can transcend his own subjectivity by striving passionately to fulfil his personal obligation to universal standards.5

Polanyi wrote in the 1950s when the influence of logical positivism was perhaps beginning to wane, but nevertheless the preceding two decades had seen its dominance in British philosophy. It is against this outlook in particular that Polanyi writes: [M]odern man has set up as the ideal of knowledge the conception of natural sciences as a set of statements which is ‘objective’ in the sense that its substance is entirely determined by observation, even while its presentation may be shaped by convention. This conception, stemming from a craving rooted in the very depths of our culture, would be shattered if the intuition of rationality in nature had to be acknowledged as a justifiable and indeed essential part of scientific theory.6

Polanyi had worked as a natural scientist and the position to which he was fundamentally opposed was the idea that ‘objective’ knowledge was obtained by the dispassionate reception of sense data as delivered by the instruments of scientific enquiry. Polanyi details a whole series of examples to indicate that even empirical scientific knowledge is dependent upon a variety of different forms of ‘intellectual passion’. One of the specific examples that Polanyi cites is Einstein’s discovery of relativity and its relationship to the Michelson–Morley experiment which purportedly demonstrated that the speed of light was the same irrespective of the velocity at which an observer was moving.7 Polanyi points out that the traditional textbook description of this relationship is that Einstein entertained the idea of relativity only on the back of the empirical evidence supplied by Michelson and Morley. Such a procedure fits in entirely with the positivist outlook that was in the ascendancy. However, this is not, Polanyi argues, what actually happened. Rather, ‘Einstein had speculated already as a schoolboy, at the age of sixteen, on the curious consequences that would occur if an observer pursued and kept pace with a light signal sent out by him.’8 Polanyi’s point is that this major discovery of twentieth-century science was not one arrived at inductively from an examination of the empirical evidence. Rather, Einstein’s theory was discovered by a process of intuition and rational reflection that illustrates, according to Polanyi, the inherent rationality of the universe. He concludes: ‘[M]odern physics has demonstrated the power of the human mind to discover and exhibit a rationality which governs nature, before ever approaching the field of experience’.9 Polanyi’s purpose in this is not to argue that science proceeds by a process of pure rational reflection. Rather, he is merely demonstrating the limited

5

Ibid., p. 17. Ibid., p. 16. 7 I say ‘purportedly’ because Polanyi argues that despite the results of this experiment invariably being presented in this way, they in fact did not demonstrate what they are held to demonstrate. Ibid., p. 12. 8 Ibid., p. 10. 9 Ibid., p. 15. 6

86

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

role that so-called objective empirical evidence plays even in the development of empirical science. In another place, Polanyi gives a further example of the kind of empirical finding that is largely dependant on intellectual rather than empirical effort. He notes that the anatomist’s knowledge of the three-dimensional structure and interrelation of organs, blood vessels and nerves within the human body is not one that is arrived at by empirical means, but rather ‘their mutual relation inside the body can be grasped only by a sustained effort of the imagination’.10 Of course, that effort is predicated upon a series of two-dimensional images, but the three-dimensional conception is not merely the sum of those images, but is rather, in the human mind at least, the product of a creative heuristic act. The anatomist in an act of such ‘intellectual passion’ imagines the topography, and yet it is precisely in that imagination that a more accurate reflection of reality is obtained.11 We can see then that Polanyi’s positing of the ‘intellectual’ in addition to the empirical is not in the sense of an a priori epistemology, and hence a reiteration of the seventeenth-century debates on these matters. Rather, by intellectual, Polanyi simply means an activity of the mind in distinction from the merely passive reception of empirical data. As already noted, then, Polanyi does not understand the subjective and the objective to be in opposition. Rather, both are subsumed within the category of the personal. Personal knowledge is the position which recognises that our most meaningful cognitive contact with reality takes place as both the self and the world are inherently related. The nature of that relation will vary according to the nature of that which is known. But the important point is that true knowledge does not occur when we stand apart from the world and consider it dispassionately. Rather, true knowledge, when it takes place, is the result of an active and passionate intellectual engagement with the world. It is this point that marks out how Polanyi differs from the critical realist position. According to critical realism, the self is viewed as that which mars an otherwise pristine hold upon reality. Hence, the goal of the critical 10 Polanyi, Michael, Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969) p. 124. See also his discussion at Polanyi, Personal, pp. 88, 89. 11 I vividly recall the heuristic benefits of such imaginative acts in my struggles as an undergraduate medical student to learn the anatomy of the pelvis and the brain. Indeed, frequently I could only identify particular aspects of the two-dimensional images by first recalling the three-dimensional concept that I had imaginatively constructed. Hence, although the two-dimensional images were relevant to my construction of the three-dimensional concept, once that concept was formed the two-dimensional images were no longer necessary, and it took a greater effort to recall them. The relevance of this is that it demonstrates that the resulting gestalt is both more than and supersedes the sum of the parts. This kind of example illustrates perfectly what Polanyi means by tacit knowledge. See below for further discussion. Furthermore, this kind of imaginative contact with reality is also perhaps what Trevor Hart is indicating when he writes, ‘One of the key functions of imagination is the presentation of the otherwise absent. In other words, we have the capacity through imagination to call to mind objects, persons or states of affairs which are other than those which appear to confront us in what, for want of a better designation, we might call our “present actuality” (i.e. that which we are currently experiencing). I do not say “reality”precisely because the real itself may well prove to be other than what appears to be actual.’ Hart, ‘Imagination’, p. 54.

Theological Knowing

87

realist is to identify such subjective factors in order to distil as much as possible an objective view of the world, whilst recognising that such a pure objectivity is always beyond them. Polanyi’s framework is markedly different. For Polanyi, it is only in the exercise of our subjectivity that a true objectivity is realised. Therefore, our purpose should not be to deny the self, but rather to exercise our subjectivity in the most appropriate manner given the nature of the cognitive relationship before us. However, if some form of ‘passionate participation in the act of knowing’12 is what is required for knowledge, how are to we avoid the collapse of such efforts into a mere subjectivism? The problem to be addressed is that if the grounds of knowledge are provided by our own heuristic efforts, and if in the absence of such efforts, little knowledge is forthcoming, then it is hard to see how knowledge does not reduce merely to those efforts, and therefore knowledge becomes nothing but the kind of pure subjectivity that Rorty and Lyotard espouse. The response to that question is crucially dependent on Polanyi’s concept of indwelling. However, before that facet of his thought can be described, we need, in the first instance, to explore just what he means by tacit knowing. Tacit knowing I have indicated that Polanyi considers our subjectivity as the ground of our knowledge, but what I have not yet made clear is that Polanyi understands that subjectivity to be operating in the main tacitly. He draws a distinction between focal and subsidiary awareness by giving the example of the blind man who uses his stick to negotiate the environment. At such a time, the stick becomes an extension of the man. It is not the focus of his attention. The environment external to the stick is the focus of attention. But nevertheless the stick is contributing epistemically and in a subsidiary manner to the man’s ability to function.13 Tacit knowing, then, is the integration of such focal and subsidiary factors such that the former is held before us by the tacit operation of the latter. So, the blind man’s use-of-the-stick-in-negotiating-his-environment is an example of such tacit knowing. There exists a from–to dynamic at play here. We attend to the focal, by attending from the subsidiary. Or, as Polanyi sometimes puts it, ‘we always attend from the proximal to the distal term’.14 In addition, there are two forms of this tacit integration that Polanyi identifies. The first of these occurs when the focal represents merely the coherent integration of the sum of the proximal parts, such as when a scientific theory seeks to encapsulate all of the evidence that contributes to it. The second form of tacit integration occurs when the focal, though dependent on the subsidiary parts, is not merely the coherent sum of those parts, but something more. As an example of this he cites the stereoscopic integration of normal vision. The three-dimensional images with which we are familiar are not merely the sum of the two-dimensional images that each eye provides, but rather the integration of those images into something 12

Polanyi Personal, p. 17. Polanyi, Ibid., pp. 55f, 59. Polanyi, Polanyi Michael, The Tacit Dimension (New York: Anchor Books, 1967) pp. 12, 13. 14 Polanyi, Knowing, p. 141. 13

88

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

else.15 Tacit knowing, then, represents the tacit integration of subsidiary parts into focal wholes, and tacit knowledge represents the sum of this procedure, that is, the focal wholes which are dependent upon the subsidiary parts. However, Polanyi also recognises a distinction between such tacit knowledge, and what he terms explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is that which is focally before us and is specifiable by us. Polanyi’s point here is that even though our knowledge may be focally before us, that does not mean that it is necessarily specifiable or explicit. There are, once again, at least two reasons for this. In the first place, we may be unable to specify our knowledge in the sense that we cannot identify the particulars that contribute to the whole. We can state what the whole is, and we may be aware tacitly of a range of particulars that contribute to that whole, but we cannot specify them, and hence such knowledge is tacit, not explicit. The second reason why we may not be able to specify our knowledge is because we cannot even state what the whole is. We may know that it is there, we may even be aware of it focally before us, but we cannot state explicitly what it is.16 A complicated three dimensional structure may be an example of just such a whole. However, there will also be times when we can specify the knowledge that is before us, though Polanyi is at pains to point out that when we have such explicit knowledge, it does not exist tout court, but only as it is grounded in tacit knowledge. At the very least, this is because by definition all explicit knowledge is dependent on language, and language is crucially dependent on tacit factors. So, he can conclude, ‘While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence, all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. A wholly explicit knowledge is unthinkable.’17 And, as he repeatedly states, ‘we know more than we can tell’.18 This dynamic of the tacit integration of proximal parts into a focal whole is also interpreted by Polanyi in terms of a theory of meaning. His argument here is that what gives anything meaning, whether a word, a percept or a skill, is that we attend from subsidiary elements to the focally integrated meaning of those particulars. Hence, he describes the tip of the blind person’s stick as the focal meaning or ‘semantic function’ of the stick.19 Meaning is achieved as we see through the proximal elements in order to attend to the distal and focal element. There are, again, two varieties of 15

Ibid., pp. 139–141. Polanyi, Personal, p. 90. 17 Polanyi, Knowing, p. 144. Iain Paul draws on this aspect of Polanyi’s work and notes a parallel with Calvin’s distinction between ‘cordial’ and ‘intellective’ approaches in our knowledge of God. The former represents tacit knowledge, and the latter explicit knowledge. He writes, ‘All Christian knowledge is now known to be shaped and sustained through the inarticulate, suprarational faculty which we share in Christ, in whom we find our true selves or persons.’ There are a number of similarities between Paul’s appropriation of Polanyi and my own. However, probably the most significant difference is that Paul does not develop the idea of our participation in Christ in quite the same sense as I do. For Paul, ‘participation‘ simply means that we are wholly committed (both tacitly and explicitly/cordially and intellectually) to our knowledge of God. Paul, Iain, Knowledge of God: Calvin, Einstein and Polanyi (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1987) pp. 141, 142, 146f. 18 Polanyi, Tacit, p. 4; Polanyi, Knowing, pp. 131–134. Polanyi 19 Ibid., p. 145. 16

Theological Knowing

89

this. In the first place, there may be one subsidiary element which we see through to one focal element. The meaning of a word is the classic example of this. That is, words do not carry their meaning in themselves, yet we cannot ascertain a particular word’s meaning in the absence of that word. Hence, we see through the word to its meaning. (It should be noted that this is the case whether that subsequent meaning is understood in Wittgensteinian, causal or referential terms.) The second variety of meaning occurs when the meaning is given not by one particular, but by a multitude of particulars. That is, we integrate a variety of elements in order to ascertain the joint meaning of them all. Polanyi suggests a physiognomy as an example of this. The face has meaning for us, but only as we see through the particular elements that go to make up that face.20 The point of all this is that meaning is achieved for us only as we see through, or integrate together, subsidiary elements in order to achieve a focal and distal goal. Moreover, it is in this tacit framework for knowing that Polanyi’s ‘perichoresis’ is evident, as I will now go on to show. Indwelling and Perichoresis ‘We may be prepared to consider the act of comprehending a whole as an interiorization of its parts, which makes us dwell in the parts.’21 Michael Polanyi is not a theologian and unsurprisingly never uses the language of perichoresis, yet undoubtedly his framework of knowledge is one that encapsulates a perichoretic conception. Knowledge takes place as we both indwell that which is known, and it indwells us. He writes: Our subsidiary awareness of tools and probes can be regarded now as the act of making them form a part of our own body. The way we use a hammer or a blind man uses his stick, shows in fact that in both cases we shift outwards the points at which we make contact with the things that we observe as objects outside ourselves. While we rely on a tool or a probe, these are not handled as external objects…We pour ourselves out into them and assimilate them as part of our own existence. We accept them existentially by dwelling in them.22

The point Polanyi is making is that our subsidiary awareness of particulars is not necessarily something that happens naturally. In order to use a tool or a word, or to recognise a face, or to perform a skill, we must deliberately attend from the proximal to the distal. And this volitional movement involves an extension of ourselves into those elements, and the reception of those elements into us. We must indwell them, as they indwell us. One cannot use a tool by focusing on the tool, one can only use a tool by focusing on the task to be achieved, and, in this regard, words, skills and percepts are all versions of tools.23 In addition, such an act of interiorisation and assimilation represents a facet of our commitment to the art and act of knowing. 20

Polanyi Personal, p. 58. Polanyi, Polanyi, Knowing, p. 148. 22 Ibid., p. 59. 23 The similarity with Heidegger’s Heidegger distinction between Zuhandenheit and Vorhandenheit will, of course, be obvious. Heidegger, Being, pp. 199f. Charles Taylor is one of the few Heidegger scholars to draw explicit attention to this connection between Heidegger and Polanyi. See Taylor, 21

90

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge Like the tool, the sign or symbol can be conceived as such only in the eyes of a person who relies on them to achieve or to signify something. This reliance is a personal commitment which is involved in all acts of intelligence by which we integrate some things subsidiarily to the centre of our focal attention. Every act of personal assimilation by which we make a thing form an extension of ourselves through our subsidiary awareness of it, is a commitment of ourselves; a manner of disposing of ourselves.24

Having indicated what is meant by the processes of interiorisation and indwelling it is now possible to clarify precisely how the proper exercise of our subjectivity results in an appropriate cognitive contact with reality. When Polanyi suggests that such contact may be realised, he is not simply claiming that if we want our conceptions to have this status, and if we try to ensure that they have this status, we will be successful in our quest. Rather, his point is that what the faithful exercise of our ‘intellectual passions’ consists in is what we might call the perichoretic process of interiorisation and indwelling as just described. The assumption, then, that Polanyi makes is not that the faithful attending of one’s rationality to the external validity of one’s knowledge will necessarily result in that knowledge having such validity. Rather, the assumption being made is that if one allows reality to indwell one, and if one seeks to indwell reality, then in that process an imaginative rationality may well construct a conception that turns out to be an apt reflection of reality. This assumption cannot be argued for in deductive fashion, but Polanyi can point to a whole series of examples – the surgeon’s knowledge of anatomy; the practice of a skill; the meaning of a word – where this kind of explanation appears the most appropriate, and it is on that basis that he commends it to his readers. The theological significance of all this is threefold. In the first place, Polanyi has reminded us that knowledge does not take place in the passive reception of a pure given. Hence, knowledge of God does not consist in the passive reception of divinely revealed propositions. Fiducia is not merely assensus. In the second place, the most appropriate exercise of our knowledge does not take place when we contemplate it explicitly, but rather when we allow it to function tacitly and in the process attend from it to some distal concern. The theological point I shall be making is that we know God just to the extent that we allow our participation in Christ’s rationality to function tacitly in this manner. That is, we do not know God by considering explicitly, as it were, our participation in him, but rather we know God just as that participation governs our interactions with both his revelation and the world. Thirdly, such knowledge can function tacitly only as we indwell it, and it indwells us. The theological relevance of this is simply to highlight the perichoretic nature of our participation in Christ. It is to an exploration of these points that we now turn.

Charles, ‘Engaged Agency and Background in Heidegger’ in Guignon, Charles (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) pp. 317–336. 24 Polanyi, Personal, p. 61.

Theological Knowing

91

Theological Knowing In the previous section, I have provided an overview of Polanyi’s concept of personal knowledge. In this section, I now want to integrate Polanyi’s paradigm for knowing with the theological accounts of knowing already described in chapters two and three, for it is my contention that Polanyi provides a framework in which we can see the participative and revelational accounts so described brought together. The essential point of relevance here is that rather than seeing participation in Christ as something distinct from the appropriation of the revelation of Christ, Polanyi can help us see how participation in Christ is the ground of a right understanding of Christ. And similarly, understanding the revelation of Christ is possible through a participation in Christ. On this account, therefore, rather than participation and revelation being viewed as ‘alternatives’, they are in fact different perspectives on the same single event. Tacit Participation in Christ’s Rationality In his account of theological knowledge, T.F. Torrance suggests that each particular field of enquiry has its own ‘mode of rationality’ by which we understand that field. Hence, science has one such mode of rationality, and theological enquiry another. Moreover, the proper exercise of such rationality consists in the humble submission before that which is presented to one such that one adopts the mode of rationality that is germane to that which one is considering.25 Moreover, these ‘modes of rationality’ do not exist in the abstract, but rather are embodied within the objects or events that we are considering. Given, then, that human enquiry has myriad different objects and encounters a variety of different subject matters, it is obvious that the human mind, on this account, is composed of a welter of different modes of rationality. Such modes do not necessarily conflict with one another (though they might), but the important point is that appropriate knowledge is only gleaned to the extent that we identify and utilise the right mode in our enquiry. The proposal that I want to make in this section is that when we know God in Christ, it is because we participate in the mode of rationality that Christ himself possesses, and therefore we understand Christ as he understands himself, and that is what knowing God consists in. However, in addition, the mode of rationality that pertains to Christ is unlike any other mode of rationality in that it does not just pertain to our experience of the crucified one, but necessarily pertains in different ways to every experience that we have, including those that are not directly about Christ. In this way, it is a mode of rationality that supersedes and trumps all other modes of rationality. What all this means in practice I shall spell out as we proceed. As has already been indicated, Polanyi understands explicit human knowledge as resting upon a bedrock of tacit knowledge that provides its meaning. Explicit knowledge that was not so rooted would be meaningless, for it is the tacit dimension that enables the meaning of the explicit knowledge to become apparent. Moreover, that tacit dimension obtains as we indwell and are indwelt by that which we are attending 25

Torrance, T.F., God and Rationality (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 93.

92

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

to. We both go out into it, and it enters into us such that its mode of rationality (to use T.F. Torrance’s phrase) becomes operative within us tacitly and therefore engenders meaning for us. The suggestion I would like to make is that the event of theological knowing is one in which we are focally aware of God by means of the tacit operation of our participation in Christ.26 Hence, just as objects in the empirical world have meaning for us as we indwell and are indwelt by those objects, so Christ as God has meaning for us to the extent that we participate perichoretically in Christ. As already indicated, Polanyi’s language of indwelling parallels my perichoretic terminology. Both ideas represent a mutual interiorisation or participation. What is apparent, then, is not that our participation in Christ constitutes as such our knowledge of God, but rather that our participation in Christ provides the ground or means by which knowledge of God is possible. As such, our participation in Christ represents our tacit knowledge of God. However, such tacit knowledge becomes focally or explicitly meaningful to the extent that we see through it, or by means of it, to some distal conception, that is, the revelation of Christ. For what I am suggesting is that we can understand the revelation of God in Christ, we can see Christ as God, and so gain knowledge of God, only by means of the tacit operation of our participation in Christ. It is by being in Christ, by participating in his mode of rationality, that we are enabled to see Christ as Christ (or God). Our participation in him, then, becomes the ‘ground and grammar’ of our meaningful reception of his revelation. Hence, participation and revelation are merely two aspects of the same single event. It is participation in Christ that enables us faithfully to receive the revelation, and we can only receive the revelation to the extent that we are participating in Christ. Just as explicit knowledge cannot be separated from the tacit knowledge that makes it possible, so our reception of the revelation of Christ cannot be separated from our participation in Christ. However, is the converse possible? That is, would it be possible to have a wholly tacit knowledge, or a participation in Christ, that has no focal or explicit aspect? The answer to this question must be in the negative for the simple reason that our participation in Christ is not an aspect to our being that, like my knowledge of a keyboard layout, I only draw upon in certain circumstances. Rather, our participation in Christ necessarily affects the whole of our being just because Christ is concerned with the whole of our existence. Therefore, even when the explicit focus of attention is not Christ or God, our participation in Christ will still impact how we think and behave in relation to the world. In this sense, we can never experience a pure tacit knowledge of God. There is always some focal or explicit conception.

26 John Puddefoot has developed a similar conception in which we are focally aware of God by means of our tacit participation in the Scriptures and the ecclesia. Puddefoot, John C., ‘Indwelling: Formal and Non-formal Elements in Faith and Life’ in Torrance, Belief elief, pp. 28–48. My description here is not in contrast to, but rather grounds his description. That is, our participation in the Scriptures and the ecclesia is only possible by means of our participation in Christ, a point that Puddefoot also suggests. Ibid., pp. 47, 48.

Theological Knowing

93

Imagination and Conceptual Metaphors I have suggested that our participation in Christ involves a sharing in Christ’s mode of rationality. However, it is necessary to explore this idea in just a little more depth. The point being made here is that as we are united to him in the way that was described in chapter two, we come to share in his mode of rationality, and therefore begin to think as he thinks. We take on the mind of Christ and so understand that which is before us, just as he also understands it. This is what it means to participate in Christ, or to have the mind of Christ. The work of the Spirit is to enable us to think as Christ thinks, by causing us to participate in his mode of rationality. Yet, how is it possible for us to think with or through the thoughts of another? Some recent work in both the philosophy of mind and cognitive linguistics may help us here. The Cambridge philosopher, Jane Heal, has addressed herself to the problem of other minds – that is explaining how we might know what others are thinking – and in the process has proposed a version of what has come to be known as the ‘simulation’ model of knowing.27 Under this paradigm, we know what others think by imaginatively placing ourselves within their thought world such that we replicate within ourselves both what and how they might think. As a result, discovering what another might think becomes simply a matter of introspecting our own thoughts once we have conditioned ourselves to think as they do. She writes, When we think about another’s thought or actions we somehow ingeniously exploit the fact that we ourselves are or have minds. What we do is to make our own mind in some way like the mind of the one we seek to predict or understand. We simulate his or her thoughts, we re-create in ourselves some parallel to his or her thought process.28

And again, What I endeavour to do is to replicate or re-create his thinking. I place myself in what I take to be his initial state by imagining the world as it would appear from his point of view and I then deliberate, reason and reflect to see what decision emerges.29

In saying this, Heal is not just arguing that we can discern the content of another’s thoughts by such imaginative replication. Rather, she is suggesting that to some extent their mode of thinking is echoed within us. That is, we can learn to think as they think, and not just learn to think what they think. The important point here is that this mode of thinking need not be one of which we are explicitly aware. What matters in thinking another’s thoughts is not that we can consciously examine such a pattern of thinking, but simply that such a pattern of thinking is indeed taking place. For as long as we are thinking in the same manner as the other, then given the same inputs we will generate the same outputs as they have and so come to know the content of their thought. 27

Heal’s preferred term is co-cognition. Cf. Heal, Jane, Mind, Reason and Imagination Heal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 28 Ibid., p. 29. 29 Ibid., p. 14.

94

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

The importance of Heal’s account is that it suggests one possible means by which we may come to think as Christ thinks, and in that sense participate in his mode of rationality. Participation, here, does not mean some form of quasiphysical transformation in which my mind is replaced by the mind of Christ. Rather, participation means the process in which the Spirit enables me to simulate the thought processes of Jesus Christ. Just as my created humanity enables me to replicate the patterns of thinking that another possesses, so my pneumatologically enabled rationality enables me to think as Christ thinks. As indicated in chapter two, though, this is not a transformation that takes place apart from the ecclesia. Rather, just to the extent that I am found in the ecclesia, and therefore participate in the ecclesia’s forms of thought as they are embodied in a variety of practices, so I will be found participating in the mode of rationality of Christ. Yet, having said this, one cannot make a simple identification between the church visible, and the body of Christ. Rather, the ecclesia participates in the rationality of Christ just to the extent that it truly submits itself before Christ, and therefore adopts his mode of rationality in all its practices. T.F. Torrance’s point is relevant here. We come to know that which is before us only as we take on board the rationality that is embodied in that which we seek to understand. In similar fashion, the ecclesia only becomes the body of Christ to the extent that it humbly submits itself before, and appropriates, the rationality or way of thinking of its Lord, Jesus Christ.30 Moreover, the importance of Christ’s fully human nature, and therefore fully human rationality, becomes evident here. In enabling me to think as Christ thinks, the Spirit is not transforming my mind or thought processes into something other than human. I am not being taken into a non-human cognitive world. Rather, the work of the Spirit is to enable me to replicate the very human thought processes of the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ.31 It is in this way that the particularity of Christ for our salvation is especially important. In sharing the mind of Christ, I am not participating in some Platonic idealised Form of rationality. Rather, I am participating in the mode of rationality of one very specific person – the incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. But having said this, we still require some more detail on just what this ‘mode of thinking’ or ‘mode of rationality’ consists in. What is the pattern of thinking that is replicated within us when we know another? In answer to this question, the work of the cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson may help us. Lakoff and Johnson argue that most of our thinking takes place in terms of conceptual metaphors, which arise from our embodiment and operate largely in the tacit realm. So, for instance, they describe the front-back metaphor which originates in response to our bodily configuration, in that we can only see in one direction, tend to move in one direction and usefully interact only with things that are ahead of us. They point out that if humans were floating spheres who could perceive in all directions then we 30 Hence, I am not suggesting that our participation in Christ is merely our repetition of his pattern of thinking without any ontological consequences. For who we are is given, at least in part, by how we think, and therefore to think as he thinks by means of our participation in the ecclesia is to be ontologically transformed ourselves. 31 This is not to deny that such thought processes are also divine. It is simply to say that they are, at least, human.

Theological Knowing

95

would not necessarily have the concepts of front and back.32 But precisely because our bodies are arranged in this particular way, we develop a conceptual metaphor such as this. Their point is that metaphors like this work to condition both our experience of the world and how we interact with it. So, with respect to the front-back metaphor, it conditions our language – ‘this is the front of the house’, ‘the cat is in front of the tree’ – and it also conditions the manner in which we interact with our environment. We both build our houses with fronts and backs and experience them as having such fronts and backs because of the tacit operation of this conceptual metaphor. Lakoff and Johnson go on to give a whole series of examples to illustrate that much of our thinking and speaking is unconsciously governed by such conceptual metaphors. If we apply this understanding Christologically, then to think with the mind of Christ can be viewed as our imaginative participation in the conceptual metaphors with which he thinks, conceptual metaphors that are embodied in the practices of the church just to the extent that it is truly the body of Christ. In the previous chapter, I suggested that we do not know that Jesus is Lord, unless we had already experienced Jesus as Lord. ‘Jesus as Lord’, then, can be understood as one of the conceptual metaphors with which Christ thinks. Therefore, our knowledge of Christ as Lord is dependant upon our participation in that particular aspect of his rationality. To give another example, let us consider the metaphor of the ‘Other as neighbour’. The paradigm that I am presenting is one in which what participating in Christ’s mode of rationality means is that this is a metaphor that conditions our thinking in the same way that it conditions that of Christ. In practice this will mean that we do not see and treat the Other as Other, but rather we see and treat them as our neighbour. But the important point is that this conceptual metaphor may never come to explicit attention. What I am proposing is not that we form the propositional belief – the Other is my neighbour – and then apply that belief in a deontological fashion to all our experiences of the Other. Rather, the proposal is that a metaphor such as this governs how we think, speak and behave, whether or not it ever comes to explicit attention. Indeed, for such a metaphor to come to explicit attention requires that it was operative tacitly in the first place. Assimilation and Adaptation There is a further important distinction to be drawn between our human acts of knowing another, even of sharing in their mode of rationality, and our participation in Christ’s rationality. In describing the subsidiary frameworks by means of which we conceptualise the world, Polanyi draws a distinction between a process of assimilation and a process of adaptation. Assimilation is that event where we already possess a conceptual framework that is appropriate for the experience before us. The experience may be relatively novel, but it can be interpreted according to pre-existing conceptual categories. In contrast, adaptation is that situation when we possess no suitable concept, and therefore our existing conceptual framework must be modified in order for us to understand the phenomenon before us. Polanyi argues, 32 Lakoff, George and Johnson, Lakoff Johnson Mark, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999) pp. 34f.

96

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

however, that to varying degrees, both these processes are in operation in every act of knowing.33 Theologically, what must be realised is that in knowing God what is taking place is an event of pure adaptation. When we participate in the mind of Christ and share in his mode of rationality, there is nothing within us that can be modified in order to provide this way of thinking. Rather, we must adopt a whole new way of thinking that until this point was alien to us.34 To participate in Christ does not involve a modification of our minds, but rather a transformation of them. Moreover, such a transformation does not just involve the acceptance of an entirely new mode of rationality, but rather as T.F. Torrance has pointed out, the renunciation of our previous ways of thinking. In theology we are certainly engaged in a movement of thought…in which we are faced with what is so utterly new that we have to step beyond what we already know in order to apprehend it and can assimilate it into our knowledge only through repentant rethinking of all our presuppositions.35

Therefore, when we participate in the mind of Christ we both receive that which is new, and lose that which would be in conflict with him. Yet, having said this, it might be thought that I am contradicting the point I made in chapter two that when we participate in Christ we only participate so far, that our union with Christ has limits placed upon it, and that our particularity is not abolished in this event of communion. But there is no contradiction here, for when I say that this event is one of pure adaptation, I am not suggesting that our whole conceptual framework is transformed to become the conceptual framework that Christ possesses. The point I am making is that even though the mode of rationality we require in order to know God in Christ is a way of thinking that is entirely new to us, our participation in that mode of rationality does not obliterate all of our pre-existing modes of rationality, even if it will require the renunciation of some. To put this in the language of Lakoff and Johnson, we will need to give up some of the conceptual metaphors that previously we possessed, but not all of them. In addition, the conceptual metaphors that we gain in adopting the mode of rationality of Christ do not obliterate or replace all of our pre-existing conceptual metaphors, but only some. If we were previously a twenty-first-century North European, we will continue to possess and use the conceptual metaphors that pertain to being a twenty-first-century North European. We do not lose our cultural–linguistic heritage when we participate in the mind of Christ. However, what does take place is the adoption of a series of metaphors that are entirely new to us, and that require the ke-gnosis (see n. 35 below) of some, but not all, of our pre-existing ways of thinking. But more than this, it is not just the case that the mode of rationality that pertains to Christ is one which takes its place alongside, for instance, the mode of rationality that pertains to our language, 33

Polanyi Personal, p. 105. Polanyi, This point does not contradict the earlier one regarding the full humanity of our Spiritenabled rationality, for it is simply acknowledging that the full humanity in which we participate is the full humanity of Jesus Christ, a humanity that apart from our redemption is alien to us. 35 Torrance, Rationality, p. 178. NB. Ke-gnosis (pronounced kenosis) might be an appropriate term for such epistemic self-denial. 34

Theological Knowing

97

or science, or mathematics or whatever. Thinking as Christ thinks is not just another way of thinking that we apply as and when we choose, for the mode of rationality of Christ is one which supersedes all other modes of rationality in the sense that it impacts every aspect of our lives. In sum, it is by the tacit operation of this mode of rationality that we are enabled to see Christ as Lord and God. When we participate in Christ, we no longer view the man on the cross as just that, but rather we see him as the Son of God dying in our stead. We understand or interpret the event before us precisely in these terms, and we do this because it is Christ’s understanding, Christ’s hermeneutic, that we inhabit in these circumstances. Hence, the belief that Christ is God is not one that is arrived at by a process of deductive inference. Rather, the belief that Christ is God is one that is implied by our focal experience of Christ as God. When we participate in the mind of Christ, we understand this particular event in the way that Christ understands it, we experience it in a particular way, and our theological beliefs are those that arise necessarily from that experience. In short, we know Christ as the Son of God dying in our stead, and in response we form the belief that Christ is the Son of God dying in our stead. The propositional belief is derived from the preceding experience, and the preceding experience is but our focal awareness of Christ in light of the tacit operation of our participation in him.36 Conclusion I began chapter two of this work by indicating that I wanted to give an account of theological knowing in the following terms: theological knowing consists in a perichoretic participation in God which operates tacitly to enable a pneumatological interpretation of the revelation of Jesus Christ. That account is now complete. In the first place, in chapter two, I argued that our knowledge of God involves a perichoretic participation in the Son’s relationship to the Father. In chapter three, I outlined a doctrine of revelation and argued that our theological knowledge was dependent upon a pneumatologically given interpretation of Jesus Christ. Finally, in this chapter I have shown how the participative and revelational accounts may

36 To some extent this parallels Baillie’s conclusion that ‘It is this direct awareness (our knowledge of S) that is primary, our propositional affirmations (our knowledge that S is P) being secondary and derivative and always more tentative.’ Baillie, John, The Sense of the Presence of God (London: Oxford University Press, 1962) p. 88. The distinction I would draw between my account and Baillie’s is that he interprets the direct awareness as a form of Russellian ‘knowledge by acquaintance’. It should be clear that my Polanyian account is not the same as this, not least because it is hard to see how, on a Rusellian interpretation, that error is possible in such knowledge by acquaintance. For Polanyi error is possible precisely because our ‘intellectual passions’ may not, and indeed frequently are not, exercised faithfully. Incidentally, this interpretation of Polanyi is in contrast to Sue Patterson who in her response to Janet Martin Soskice’s defence of perspectivism assumes that Polanyi is committed to a complete ‘dead-end’ relativism. Patterson, Sue, ‘Response by Sue Patterson’ in Regan, Hilary and Torrance, Alan J. (eds), Christ and Context: The Confrontation between Gospel and Culture (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993) p. 69.

98

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

be harmonised using Polanyi such that we are focally aware of God by means of our tacit participation in Christ’s mode of rationality. The distinctive feature that Polanyi’s concept of knowing has added to this theological account is the idea that our knowledge is most appropriate when it is dependent upon the tacit operation of the indwelt features of that which is known. If we recall the example with which this chapter began, my knowledge of the keyboard layout is being used most appropriately when it operates tacitly as focally my attention is directed towards some other concern. Moreover, such a tacit function is only possible by means of a process of indwelling or interiorisation in which the layout is not held explicitly before me, but rather comes to condition the way in which I act. In a similar fashion, then, Polanyi helps us see that our participation in Christ need not in itself constitute our knowledge of God. Rather, our participation in Christ operates tacitly, conditioning our thinking and behaviour, such that as we encounter Christ and the world we respond appropriately and in that process know God. Therefore, we can conclude that theological knowing is a perichoretic participation in God which operates tacitly enabling a pneumatological interpretation of Jesus Christ. The purpose, though, of this account of theological knowing is to provide a framework in which to situate the argument that our knowledge of God and love of the Other are radically integrated. This, then, is the task of the following chapter.

Chapter 5

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge Introduction Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7, 8

The purpose of this chapter is to argue that our knowledge of God and our love of the Other are radically integrated. This proposal is meant in the strongest possible sense. That is, I am not merely suggesting that our knowledge of God should be followed by our love of others, or that our knowledge of God is accompanied by our love for others. Rather, the proposal being made is that our knowledge of God and our love of the Other are to a large extent the same single phenomenon viewed simply from different perspectives. They are radically integrated. Hence, in the presence of knowledge of God, there will, of necessity, also exist a love for the Other. And in the absence of such love there can be no knowledge of God. One implication of this is that our knowledge of God and love of others must go in tandem so that we know God just to the extent that we love others. Precisely what I mean by all this will be both explained and defended in this chapter. Then, in the following final chapter, we will demonstrate how such a conclusion answers the objections that Rorty and Lyotard have raised towards Christianity. There are a number of different arguments that I shall make in pursuit of this conclusion, but they can be grouped under three broad headings. In the first place, I shall argue for what in chapter two I designated an ‘intrapersonal perichoresis’. The point being made here is that in knowing God we utilise a mode of rationality that has both epistemic and ethical consequences. That which enables us to know God is also that which enables us to love God and love the Other. As such, our explicitly epistemic and ethical responses to God represent merely the surface phenomena of a single underlying way of being. The second main argument to be made is that the mode of rationality that we adopt in knowing and loving God is precisely the mode of rationality of Jesus Christ. Our knowledge (and love) of God is only possible to the extent that we participate perichoretically in Christ and his way of thinking. Finally, the third main argument is that the rationality of Christ in which we participate is one that is paradigmatically loving. In particular, such love is exemplified in his actions as the humble servant. In short, what we will see is that to know God involves the use of a rationality that has both epistemic and ethical consequences; secondly, that the rationality that we require is that of Jesus Christ; and thirdly, that the rationality of Jesus Christ is one which is suffused by love of the Other, particularly as exemplified in humble service. The conclusion we reach is that when we know God it is by means of the exercise of a rationality that is inescapably loving and humble. Hence,

100

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

it is impossible for us to know God in the absence of love, just because that which enables us to know is also that which enables us to love. The reason why the presence of this rationality makes it impossible for our knowledge and love to be separated is that the rationality operates as a success factor.1 That is, to possess the relevant rationality just means that it will be expressed in both our knowledge of God and love of the Other. Thus, it is impossible for the two aspects to be divorced. Intrapersonal Perichoresis In this section, I shall argue for what I have termed our ‘intrapersonal perichoresis’. The essential point here is that every act of knowing or every element of knowledge instantiates some ethical conception. Knowing is never neutral with respect to ethics, but rather embodies, whether implicitly or explicitly, some ethical stance. The theological significance of this is that the ethical attitude associated with knowing God is one characterised by a humble love and service of the Other. Hence, it is impossible for us to know God in the absence of such love. There are two principal points to be made in support of this notion of intrapersonal perichoresis. The first is to reject the ‘faculty psychology’2 that Descartes bequeathed to us in favour of an understanding of the human person in which our ethics and our epistemology are necessarily intertwined. The second is to recognise that knowing God involves the response of the whole of our humanity. A merely intellectual appreciation of God is simply impossible. In support of the first of these points, we return initially to the ‘biblical concept of knowledge’ that was outlined in chapter two. Integrating Ethics and Epistemology Part 1: Knowing Evil and Knowing God In chapter two, we noted how even in our knowledge of empirical matters our whole person was involved such that to know another or a disease or childlessness did not merely indicate our epistemic appreciation of these points, but rather our practical, ethical and emotional engagement with them as well. This point regarding the ethical implications of our knowledge is particularly evident if we consider the phenomenon of knowing sin. According to the biblical paradigm, knowledge of sin is not merely a matter of holding specific beliefs concerning it, but is rather to be existentially engaged with it. In Genesis 2:17 God commands against eating of ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. However, to gain knowledge of evil cannot simply mean the possession of new information concerning the nature of sin. Rather, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree, and so gained knowledge of evil, they were in fact engaging in sin, as the biblical account indicates: ‘for in the day you eat of it you 1 For what it means to operate as a success factor see the discussion of Zagzebski’s work on the virtues below. 2 The term used by Lakoff and Johnson for the Cartesian approach that separates our minds and our bodies in respect of reasoning. See discussion below. Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy, pp. 16, 17. The Humean disjunction of facts and values can be seen merely as an extension of this approach.

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

101

shall die’. Therefore, in relation to evil, the relationship we are meant to have is one of ignorance. According to this biblical paradigm, then, knowledge never means the neutral possession of facts, but indicates rather our whole person engagement with that which is known. The fact that our usual understanding of knowledge struggles to accommodate this conception can be illustrated by how Psalm 101:4 is translated. The NRSV has a close rendition which reads: ‘Perverseness of heart shall be far from me; I will know nothing of evil.’ The Hebrew verb there in the second half of the verse is the usual verb for knowledge, ‫יָדﬠ‬. However, if we examine most modern translations, the verb for knowledge is changed to one with which we are more familiar. So, the NIV states, ‘I will have nothing to do with evil.’ And the CEV indicates, ‘I won’t be dishonest or deceitful.’ The point here is not to quibble with the translations but rather to use them to illustrate that the reason they have abandoned the word ‘knowledge’ is not because we are unfamiliar with it, but because the Hebrew concept of knowledge that makes it a perfectly apt word in this situation is so different from our usual conception, and therefore the language needs to be changed. If, then, our knowledge of sin or evil suggests that it is not so easy to divorce our epistemologies from our ethics, then this is even more evident in terms of our relationship with God. For in this respect to know God is synonymous with obeying him, and not to know him equates with sin. So, in Jeremiah 22:16 Yahweh declares: ‘He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is not this to know me? says the LORD.’ And Judges 2:10f indicates the reverse of this, i.e. that to abandon God’s ways and to turn against him is to ‘not know the LORD’.3 Botterweck sums this up by commenting that knowledge of God and fear of Yahweh are interchangeable concepts and then adds: ‘‘‘To know Yahweh” refers to a practical, religio-ethical relationship…All who are upright of heart know him.’4 And, as we have already noted, Barth can conclude, Knowledge of God is obedience to God. Observe that we do not say that knowledge may also be obedience, or that of necessity it has obedience attached to it, or that it is followed by obedience. No; knowledge of God as knowledge of faith is in itself and of essential necessity obedience.5

The significance of these points is simply that, according to the biblical paradigm, epistemology and ethics are not two distinct disciplines in which, for instance, our knowledge of God and our obedience to God can be separated. Rather, the Bible envisages such a close identity between the two that to know God is to love God, and to know evil is to participate in evil. Yet, having said this, the scriptural witness does not particularly indicate to us how it is that our knowledge of God and obedient response to him are intertwined. It states that they are, but it seems that we might have to look elsewhere for an explanation of this phenomenon.

3 4 5

See Schütz, ‘Knowledge’, p. 396 for a discussion of this point. Botterweck, ‘‫יָדﬠ‬, p. 469. Barth, II/1, p. 26. Barth

102

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Part 2: Metaphors and Ethics In the last chapter, we unpacked the notion of ‘mode of rationality’ by means of a brief discussion of Lakoff’s and Johnson’s work on conceptual metaphors. What was not particularly highlighted in that chapter is their suggestion that such metaphors do not just impact one sphere of our thinking, but rather affect all facets of our existence. Lakoff and Johnson decry what they term the ‘faculty psychology’ that considers the human mind as a composite of different powers in which, for instance, the faculty of reason is divorced from our embodiedness. They point to a whole series of experiments which demonstrate that ‘reason uses and grows out of [our] bodily capacities’.6 But their point is not just that reason is embodied. Rather, all our human capacities – perception, motion, emotion, will, morality – are necessarily interlinked and intertwined. So, for instance, they point to experimental work that demonstrates the inherent connection between our practical reasoning and our emotions.7 The conclusion they draw from this is that ‘moral deliberation always requires emotional monitoring and an interplay of affect and reason’.8 The explanatory hypothesis that they offer for this interplay is that both our moral reasoning and our practical reasoning are dependent upon shared conceptual metaphors that cut across many of the traditional faculty boundaries. They write: Since most of our moral understanding comes, via metaphor, from a broad range of other domains of experience, and since we apply those metaphors to a number of different experiential domains, we should be wary of trying to compartmentalize ethics. The crossdomain mapping of the metaphors suggests the intricate web of connections that impose our moral ideas on other aspects of our lives, including considerations that are technical, scientific, political, aesthetic, religious, and social.9

The point of this is that the conceptual metaphors that constitute our rationality and so govern how we think do not just impact one sphere of life, but rather all. If we return to the forementioned ‘Jesus as Lord’ metaphor, then we can see how this might work. To have such a metaphor contributing to one’s rationality means that as one encounters Jesus one’s response will be both epistemological – in terms of forming 6

Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy, p. 17. Ibid., pp. 326, 327. Cf. Damasio, Damasio Descartes’, Chapter 9. Damasio concludes this work by writing, ‘The facts that I have presented about feelings and reason, along with others I have discussed about the interconnection between brain and body proper, support the most general idea with which I introduced the book: that the comprehensive understanding of the human mind requires an organismic perspective; that not only must the mind move from a nonphysical cogitum to the realm of biological tissue, but it must also be related to a whole organism possessed of integrated body proper and brain and fully interactive with a physical and social environment.’ Ibid., pp. 251, 252. The parallel between this description and the intrapersonal perichoresis I described in chapter two is, of course, obvious. For an extended discussion of the close ties between recent scientific work and an integrated theological anthropology see Brown, Warren S., Murphy, Nancey and Malony, H. Newton (eds), Whatever Happened to the Soul: Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998). 8 Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy, p. 327. 9 Ibid., p. 333. 7

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

103

the belief ‘Jesus is Lord’ – and ethical – in terms of submitting oneself in reality to the Lordship of Christ. What I am suggesting here is that it is not the case that one forms the propositional belief that Jesus is Lord, and then seeks to apply it to one’s interactions with God and the world. ‘Jesus is Lord’ is not a principle that requires application. Rather, ‘Jesus as Lord’ is a conceptual metaphor that governs how we think and behave. Lakoff and Johnson are keen to point out that such metaphors operate largely in the tacit realm, or what they call the ‘cognitive unconscious’.10 Therefore, the importance of this metaphor does not reside in its explicit articulation, but rather in the way in which, or the extent to which, it conditions all of our thinking and action. The point I am making is that an appreciation of how conceptual metaphors such as this function may give us an indication of what the Scriptures mean when they make it clear that our knowledge of God and ethical response to God are simply two facets of the same single phenomenon. The single phenomenon is simply the rationality or conceptual metaphors which govern our thinking and praxis. Hence, knowledge of God and love of him and others are intertwined precisely because both are dependent upon a rationality that is instantiated in a metaphor such as the metaphor of ‘Jesus as Lord’. Part 3: Virtue Theory I have suggested that the concept of ‘conceptual metaphors’ and particularly their embodiment in the cognitive unconscious may provide an explanation of the biblical dictum that our knowledge of God cannot be separated from our ethical obedience to him. However, some contemporary work in virtue theory may also provide us with a parallel explanatory account of how it is that our ethics and our epistemology are so closely related. Ever since Ernest Sosa coined the term in 1985,11 there has been an increasing interest in what he termed ‘virtue epistemology’. The essence of such virtue approaches is that the focus of evaluation is no longer the belief or belief states, but rather the person holding the belief. Zagzebski, who has arguably developed the most thoroughly worked-out virtue epistemology, identifies a series of parallels between approaches to epistemology and moral theories. So, just as deontological and consequentialist approaches in ethics focus on the moral ‘act’, so traditional epistemologies focuses on the belief. In contrast, both virtue ethics and virtue epistemologies focus on the person performing the act, or holding the belief, and construct their evaluation around them, rather than the detached act or belief.12 Zagzebski goes on to mount a series of arguments as to why a virtue approach to epistemology might be fruitful, including, in particular, how it deals effectively with some of the problems that have beset traditional epistemology. As a result of this analysis, she concludes by defining knowledge thus: ‘Knowledge is a state of cognitive contact with reality arising out of acts of intellectual virtue.’13 Examples

10

Ibid., pp. 9f. Sosa, E., ‘Knowledge and Intellectual Virtue’, The Monist 68 (1985) pp. 226–245. Sosa 12 Zagzebski, Linda, Virtues of the Mind: Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Zagzebski Ethical Foundations of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 6–8. 13 Ibid., p. 270. 11

104

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

of such intellectual virtues would include open-mindedness, fairness, humility, diligence, care, insight and so on.14 One consequence of this approach is that a close link is made between the socalled intellectual and moral virtues. This link is brought home by Zagzebski when she draws a series of parallels noting how some moral virtues require intellectual virtues for their operation, e.g. honesty; how some intellectual virtues require moral virtues for their operation, e.g. patience is necessary for thoroughness; and finally how some moral and intellectual virtues are essentially the same virtue in operation, e.g. humility. The point of her analysis is to demonstrate that no sharp dividing line can be drawn between these different types of virtue. Zagzebski thinks that we should consider the intellectual virtues as simply a ‘subset’ of the moral ones.15 The distinction between the moral and intellectual virtues, furthermore, is no more significant than the distinction between one moral virtue and another.16 The connection between this work on virtue theory, and the ‘mode of rationality’ or ‘conceptual metaphors’ that have already been described, is that all of these descriptions can be considered as ways of conceptualising the world. A ‘mode of rationality’ conceptualises our experience in that it governs how we interpret that experience. A ‘conceptual metaphor’ performs the same function in a more precise manner by conditioning how we respond to a particular phenomenon. The virtues can also be considered in a similar way. This is particularly evident in Zagzebski’s more recent work which focuses specifically on virtue ethics.17 In that work, she describes the virtues as emotions that motivate. More particularly, such emotions are described as ‘thick affective concepts’ in which a cognitive appreciation of the situation is intertwined with an affective, and therefore ethical evaluation.18 As an example of this, she considers the issue of rudeness. 14

Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 139. 16 Ibid., pp. 158f. 17 Zagzebski, Linda, Divine Motivation Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Zagzebski 2004). On the application of a virtue approach to Christian ethics see especially the works of Stanley Hauerwas: A Community of Character: Towards a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981); Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). For the original proposal of virtue ethics in relation to an Aristotelian – Thomistic approach see the works of Alasdair McInytre: After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1982); Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988) and Porter, Jean, The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics (London: SPCK, 1994). For a specifically biblical and theological defence of a virtue ethics approach to Christian ethics see Kotva, Joseph J., The Christian Case for Virtue Ethics (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1996). For a critique of Macintyre’s and Hauerwas’ approach to Christian ethics from a Christian standpoint see Smith, R. Scott, Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge: Philosophy of Language after MacIntyre and Hauerwas (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). Interestingly, Trevor Hart has suggested that Barth’s ethics might even be understood in this way. ‘Significantly, the ways in which Barth describes the ethical context could more readily be allied to an account of personal formation in terms of the inculcation of virtue than to Biggar’s preferred model of systematic reflection.’ Hart, Trevor, Regarding Karl Barth: Essays Toward a Reading of his Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1999) p. 86. 18 Zagzebski, Divine, p. 63, n. 12. Zagzebski 15

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

105

When I see something as rude, I feel offended at the offensive features of the situation, and those features cannot be fully described independently of their being intentional objects of the feeling of offence. That is, there is no purely descriptive feature of the object of offence that adequately captures that which is offensive. This is not to deny that the cognitive grasp of purely descriptive features of some situation, together with my emotional dispositions, causes my emotional response; in fact, I believe that this is probably the case…It is simply to say that to see something as rude is not just to see it as having those descriptive properties, nor is it to see that something has caused me to feel offended, nor is it to see the two together. It is to see it as the intentional object of the feeling of offence. I do not just feel offended by the rude behaviour, I feel offended at it.19

In every emotional evaluation of a situation, then, there are affective and cognitive construals at play, both of which together give us the sense in which we see the intentional object of our evaluation. To use the above example, the virtue of decency causes us to interpret the event ethically – in that we feel offended by the rudeness – and epistemologically – in that we postulate that this is a rude event. The point, though, is that both these construals are dependent upon the single virtue of decency that causes us to respond to the world in this manner.20 In order to demonstrate the relevance of all this for our knowledge of God and ethical response to the Other, I will take as an example a virtue or concept that is particularly germane to both: humility.21 If we consider humility in respect of knowing God, the first point to note is that no distinction can be drawn between humility as an intellectual virtue and humility as a moral virtue. With regard to the operation of the intellect, humility will express itself as a recognition that we do not fully know God, that however much we are acquainted with the Scriptures and Traditions of the church, there is always more for us to learn regarding God. Indeed, it is the recognition that much of what we think we know is in error and needs revision. My point, though, is that it is not as if this single virtue can be displayed towards God without also displaying it towards others. The fundamental reason for this is that humility reflects one’s attitude towards oneself. It is an approach that realises one’s limitations and acknowledges them. Now in relation to God, such an attitude issues forth in the conclusion that one has nothing of value to offer, and in relation to others that what one has to offer is limited, but the fundamental attitude is the same: an attitude of a right appreciation of one’s own gifts and abilities. Hence, as a virtue, no fundamental distinction can be drawn between humility before God and humility before others. Of course, how the virtue is worked out in practice will differ, but the virtue behind the action, the virtue that motivates the action, is essentially the same. 19

Ibid., p. 64. Interestingly, Zagzebski also develops this idea in terms of our participation in the emotions, and therefore virtues, of Christ. ‘The New Testament focuses primarily on emotions as motives that give us both an impetus to act in characteristic ways and a new way of looking at things. If we had the emotions of Christ, we would see things differently, and that is why we would act differently.’ Ibid., pp. 239, 240. Cf also Ibid., pp. 245–247. 21 For a similar discussion of humility as an epistemic virtue see Roberts, Robert C. and Wood, W. Jay, ‘Humility and Epistemic Goods’ in DePaul, Michael and Zagzebski, Linda (eds), Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003) pp. 257–279. 20

106

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

I have described humility in terms of its functioning as a virtue and noted how it impacts both our knowledge of God, and our response to the Other. However, it is also possible to make this description in terms of conceptual metaphors or ‘modes of rationality’, for here humility is simply the phenomenon of understanding the Self rightly in relation to the Other. The conceptual metaphor at play is a ‘Self as rightly appreciated’ metaphor. Such an idea is metaphorical precisely because we do not usually evaluate ourselves rightly, but tend to think of ourselves in ways that supersede our actual gifts and abilities. When we are humble, then, the metaphor that is governing our thinking is one which conditions us to think of ourselves more appropriately, particularly in relation to the Other. Such a metaphor conditions our cognitive response to God in that it causes us to recognise that by our own abilities or powers we cannot know God. And similarly, such a metaphor governs our response to the Other as it prevents us from lording it over or seeking to dominate the Other. The important point, though, is that it is precisely the same metaphor at play whether it is in our cognitive response to God, or our ethical response to the Other. In this section I have been seeking to defend the notion of an ‘intrapersonal perichoresis’. I began by noting the Bible’s description of our knowledge of God and of evil as involving both epistemic and ethical dimensions. I then suggested an explanatory framework for this phenomenon in terms of conceptual metaphors and/ or virtues. In essence, both these descriptions can be understood as recognising that we have underlying, tacit traits which cause us to construe the world and respond to the world in particular ways. The significance of these descriptions is that it is the same metaphor or virtue that leads to both our epistemic and ethical evaluation. In other words, it is the same metaphor or virtue that governs both what we believe and how we behave. It is for this reason that our ethics and our epistemology are radically integrated. And therefore, it is for this reason that we can identify an ‘intrapersonal perichoresis’ at the heart of our knowing and being. All of this, though, is just the first point to be made in defence of the idea of an ‘intrapersonal perichoresis’. For the second argument to be made is that when we know God, such knowledge cannot help but involve every aspect of our humanity. Whole Person Knowing Part 1: Constituted by God At least one reason why knowing God represents a demand upon the whole of our humanity is the exegetical point made in chapter two that when we know God it is because we have been constituted by God’s knowledge of us. If our knowledge of God consists in God’s knowledge of us, and if God’s knowledge of us constitutes us as beings in relation to him, then inevitably our knowledge of God cannot help but impact every sphere of our existence. In support of this argument, we have already noted Paul’s reversal in Galatians 4:9 in which our knowledge of God is presented in terms of God’s knowledge of us. The reason Paul can make this statement is that both the OT and NT emphasise repeatedly that God’s knowledge of us is expressed in his call and election. Botterweck notes this in relation to Yahweh’s election of his people and his choosing of the prophets. In both circumstances, the call is described

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

107

in terms of God’s knowledge.22 In relation to the NT, we see the same language being used when Jesus, in discussing those who do not obey the will of his Father and who for that reason are not entering the kingdom of God, declares, ‘I never knew you’ (Matthew 7:21). As Ronald Fung indicates in commenting on the verse from Galatians, ‘Being known and acknowledged by God…has the same sense as being called (effectually) and chosen.’23 The point, though, is that God’s effectual call upon us is one which changes our being so that we exist in relation to him. Hence, our knowledge of God consists in this acknowledgement of God’s call upon us. The priority in every sense lies with God, and therefore our knowledge of God is not something that we possess with God as the intentional object of our intellect. Rather, our knowledge of him is merely our submission and response to his knowledge of us expressed in his call and demand.24 This, of course, is the point that Barth has laboured in stating that all our knowledge of God is nothing but ‘an acknowledgement, a recognition and a confession’.25 However, Barth is also clear that this response to God involves a radical alteration in our being such that who we are is now given by the God to whom we respond. This is evident in Barth’s affirmation that our knowledge of God consists in our turning to Christ and being conformed to Christ, and that such a work of turning and conformation does not just involve one aspect of our humanity, but rather involves the whole of our lives. When the Spirit causes us to be like Christ, he does so as persons and not merely as intellects. In addition to this, as was noted in chapter three, Barth points out that in responding to Christ as Lord, we must recognise that he is Lord over every aspect of our lives. It is not simply the case that Christ is Lord over our minds, or our emotions or our will but, as the command indicates, ‘You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30). The point, then, is that both because we are single, undivided persons, and because Jesus Christ is a single, undivided person, when we come to face the reality of Christ – and so gain knowledge of God – we meet with him in every aspect of our existence. Part 2: Trump Metaphors I have suggested that the scriptural witness points to our knowledge of God consisting in God’s constitution of us by means of his knowledge of us. In addition, I have followed Barth in arguing therefore that our knowledge of God is nothing but our response to and submission before his call upon the whole of our lives. But once again, the question remains, how is all this possible? In what sense does God’s knowledge of us and our acknowledgement of it constitute us? At this point, it is worth reminding

22

Botterweck, ‘‫יָדﬠ‬, p. 468. Fung, Ronald K., The Epistle to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) p. 189. 24 In this sense, the paradigm I am presenting shares a number of similarities with Heidegger’s description of knowledge as a mode of being. He writes, ‘Knowing is a mode of Dasein founded upon Being-in-the-world.’ And again, ‘In knowing, Dasein achieves a new status of being towards a world which has already been discovered in Dasein itself.’ Heidegger, Being, p. 90. 25 Barth, IV/1, p. 758. Barth 23

108

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

ourselves of the way in which Alan Torrance described our cognitive participation in Christ. He suggested that we were brought into fellowship with God, and so constituted by God, by means of a theopoietic act in which God commandeered the meaning of our language. The paradigm Torrance presented was one in which humans are who they are by virtue of the language they use, and so God constitutes us, and therefore causes us to participate in him, by taking hold of our language and giving it (and us) the divine meaning. Therefore, as we in obedience respond to that divine meaning and make it part of our lives, so we become who we are in Christ, and in that way participate in the Son’s fellowship with the Father. If we transfer this framework to the issue before us, we see the following description appear. Who we are is given, at least in part, by the rationality or conceptual metaphors that we utilise. God’s effectual call upon us is exercised as he, by his Spirit, enables us to adopt the rationality or metaphors that Christ possesses. In this way, God commandeers our modes of thinking such that they are in conformity to him. Moreover, this theopoietic work constitutes us as children of God precisely because the rationality of Christ or the conceptual metaphors in which we participate are those that are trump and supervene upon all our thinking and acting, as I will now explain.26 Once we reflect upon the conceptual metaphors that govern our thinking, it becomes apparent that some of these metaphors are relatively restricted in scope, applying only in particular circumstances, whilst others apply more broadly across a whole range of situations. So, the ‘affection is warmth’ metaphor has a relatively small range of potential applications, whereas the ‘causes are forces’ metaphor is almost limitless in scope. In this sense some metaphors are more basic than others.27 My suggestion, though, is that the conceptual metaphors of Christ are those that act in the most primary sense in that they cut across or impact all of our thinking and acting. To give an example of what I mean by this, consider the metaphor of ‘Objects as created’. In order for us to see anything in the world, we require some tacit idea of what the nature of the external world is like. In this sense, we require an ontology 26 A further parallel between the description given by Torrance and the one I am developing here in terms of conceptual metaphors is that both of us interpret this work of God as generative of a new understanding. For Torrance, when God commandeers our language there is a ‘gain to theological language’. (Torrance, Persons, p. 204.) Similarly, metaphors (whether conceptual or linguistic) can be understood as that which provides a gain to understanding or language. Soskice, for instance, describes metaphors in the following terms, ‘A metaphor is genuinely creative and says something that can be said adequately in no other way, not as an ornament to what we already know but as an embodiment of a new insight.’ Soskice, Janet Martin, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) p. 48. It should be noted that Soskice restricts metaphors to the linguistic realm, and therefore denies that concepts can be metaphorical. I, of course, can see no reason why we should accept this. Just as a linguistic metaphor is to ‘speak of one thing in terms of another’, so a conceptual metaphor is to ‘think of one thing in terms of another’. 27 Both of the examples given are taken from Lakoff’s and Johnson’s work, but they do not particularly highlight this issue of scope in the way that I am, even though it is implicit in their work. Philosophy, pp. 45f. In addition, it must be noted that my description of some metaphors as basic should not be confused with their description of ‘primary metaphors’ or ‘basic categories’. Both of these notations are referring to a different aspect than the one I am indicating. Cf. Ibid., pp. 26f.

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

109

whether or not the ontology we are working with is explicitly formulated.28 Such an ontology could be along idealist or realist lines, but some such idea is necessary for us to see anything as something. If we had no such ontology, then the sensations that we receive would be perceived as random and incoherent patches of colour and light. Just as we require the concept ‘book’ in order to see a book as a book, we also require some kind of concept of what reality is, in order to see reality as just that (i.e. existing independently of us/the product of our minds if one is a realist or idealist respectively). The suggestion I am making, then, is that when we participate in Christ’s rationality, the ontology we work with or the conceptual metaphor that governs our thinking is a metaphor of createdness. What this means, is that in every interaction we have with the empirical world, as well as seeing whatever we are seeing just as a book, a chair, a table etc., we also see this thing as a created book, a created chair, a created table and so on. Createdness or the ‘Object as created’ metaphor cuts across all our other categories of thought. It does not replace those other categories. We still see these other things as books, chairs and tables etc. However, what it does do is condition how all of our thinking, perception and interaction with the empirical world takes place. This is what I mean when I say that the rationality of Christ is trump or that it supervenes upon all other modes of rationality. It does not necessarily mean that it replaces them (though it might when they are in conflict for instance) but it does mean that the rationality of Christ impacts them. We can now see, then, how our participation in Christ’s rationality constitutes us as beings in relation to God. To share in the conceptual metaphors of Christ does not mean that we are given some new insights into the world that can be placed alongside our pre-existing beliefs and practices. Rather, to share in the rationality of Christ means that we participate in a mode of thinking that necessarily cuts across every other aspect of our thinking and being. Being in Christ does not sit in parallel with other aspects of our humanity. Rather, it transects all other aspects such that at whatever plane one examines the Christian, the mode of rationality of Christ is evident. It is in this way, and for this reason, that our participation in the rationality of Christ constitutes us as persons in a way that our participation in other rationalities does not. The conclusion to be drawn, then, is that when we know God in Christ we do so as whole persons, and not as disengaged intellects. In this chapter, I am trying to draw on the theological epistemology outlined in chapters two to four to argue for the radical integration of our knowledge of God and love of the Other. The first point I am making in defence of that notion is the idea that in knowing God our ethics and epistemology are necessarily integrated. In the last two sections I have in the first place argued that, in respect of knowing God and knowing evil, no dichotomy can be drawn between our ethical response and our epistemological response. In the second place, in the last section, I argued that knowledge of God requires a whole person response on our part. In both sections, I 28 For similar reasons, we also require some form of tacit anthropology in every act of knowing. This is a point that Charles Taylor has made. He writes, ‘Nothing could be a percept without a surrounding sense of myself as a perceiving agent, moving in some surroundings, of which this bit of yellow is a feature.’ Taylor, Charles, ‘Rorty and Philosophy’ in Guignon, Charles and Hiley, David (eds), Richard Rorty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) p. 165.

110

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

provided an explanatory hypothesis for these phenomena in terms of our participation in the mode of rationality or conceptual metaphors of Christ. The essence of the point I am making here is that if we know God we do so by utilising a rationality or way of being that has both ethical and epistemological consequences. Moreover, those consequences arise in tandem from the one rationality that governs our beliefs and our behaviour. The question that remains, then, is not whether our knowledge of God involves our ethical response to others, but what kind of ethical response is implicated by our knowledge of God. This is the question to which we now turn by means of an exploration of the rationality of Jesus Christ. The Rationality of Christ The argument to be made in this section of the chapter is twofold. In the first place, I shall rehearse briefly the reasons why we should think of our theological knowing in terms of our participation in the rationality of Christ. Following on from this, I shall explore more closely the nature of Christ’s rationality, particularly with respect to the ethic it instantiates. The purpose of this discussion is to enable us to appreciate more clearly just what it might mean for us, ethically, to participate in the rationality of Jesus Christ. Participating in Christ The first point to be made is to reiterate Hooker’s argument that what our salvation consists in is a participation in the faith (and faithfulness) of Christ. Hooker’s argument is that faith is not so much something that we generate in order to believe, or even a gift that we receive and then possess. Rather, our faith is simply our participation in the faith of Christ. The second point of relevance here is to note Gunton’s and Torrance’s arguments that we should understand our involvement with God in participative terms precisely because the God whom we know is himself a divine communion of persons. If God were a statically located thing, then perhaps it would make sense to understand our relationship to God in a linear fashion. But this is not the God whom Christians worship. Rather, the nature of our God, just as the communion of three persons in one, means that our fellowship with God must consist in our participation in that divine communion. One cannot know, in the sense of rigidly fix, that which is dynamic; one can only participate in the movement that is taking place. It is the nature of God, then, that leads us to conclude that our cognitive awareness of God must be along participative rather than speculative lines. The final point of relevance here is simply that even on a revelational model of theological knowing, there is no means by which the revelation that is given provides knowledge as such of God in the absence of a pneumatological hermeneutic that enables us to see in the face of Christ the glory of God. The points, then, that Hooker, Gunton and Torrance have been making is that for us to know God requires a participative account of theological knowing. I have developed this idea more particularly in terms of our participation in Christ’s own rationality. We simply cannot think our

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

111

own way to God. Rather, God is the ground or condition of our knowledge of him, and that ground or condition is the rationality of Christ. If the rationality of Christ is the pivot upon which all our knowledge of God rests, then the final task before us is to enquire a little further into the nature of the rationality before us. Two brief points are worth stressing at the outset. In the first place, whatever the precise nature of Christ’s rationality, at the very least it must be a fully human rationality. As such, like all human rationalities, it will display the characteristics that we have already alluded to. In particular, it will demonstrate the intrapersonal perichoresis that is characteristic of all human knowing. The second point is that the faith of Christ represented both a cognitive and an ethical response to the Father. Christ’s faith and faithfulness are inseparable as both represent the obedient response of the Son to the Father. (This is the point that Hooker was making.) The rationality of Christ is then one that is both epistemic and ethical. Epistemologically, we of course know that the Son knows the Father completely, but what precisely is the nature of the ethical dimension of the rationality of Christ? We shall answer this question by means of a further exploration into ‘the mind of Christ’. The Mind of Christ Revisited In Philippians 2, Paul records the following hymn: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited (ἁρπαγμòν), but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

In his analysis of this hymn, N.T. Wright explores a number of interpretations of the difficult term, ἁρπαγμòν. Although this debate is popularly understood as polarising into a res rapta or res rapienda view of the word,29 Wright takes us through a whole series of views demonstrating that these two alternatives are not the only ones and that the terminology surrounding them has frequently shifted or been misapplied. As a result, he ends up listing ten different possible interpretations, but argues strongly for a view that is derived largely from R.W. Hoover. The essence of that view is that the thing in question is something not to be exploited for one’s own gain. Wright writes: 29

The former expresses the idea that equality with God was Christ’s by right, and therefore it was not robbery for him to grasp at it; the latter indicates the view that Christ did not grasp at an equality that he did not already possess.

112

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge The idiom refers, Hoover argues, not to the act of acquiring something (whether before the time envisaged, i.e. res rapta, or after, i.e. res rapienda), nor to the act of clinging on to it in a grasping way. It refers to the attitude one will take towards something which one already has and holds and will continue to have and hold, specifically to the question of whether that attitude will or will not consist in taking advantage of this possessed object.30

I will not rehearse the arguments that Wright (and Hoover) mount in defence of this position, but rather I want to draw attention to the conclusions that Wright reaches from this analysis about the person of Jesus Christ. ‘Over against the standard picture of oriental despots, who understood their position as something to be used for their own advantage, Jesus understood his position to mean self-negation…divine equality does not mean “getting” but “giving”. It is properly expressed in self-giving love.’31 In consequence of this, Wright argues that a re-evaluation of our concept of God is necessitated. If what it means to be equal with God is precisely that one empties oneself, and gives of oneself, then incarnation and crucifixion are no longer viewed as a loss of divinity, but rather the ‘appropriate vehicles for the dynamic self-revelation of God’.32 We are reminded, here, of Barth’s point that the incarnation is not a reduction in divinity, but rather ‘the highest proof and proclamation of His deity!’33 Wright then moves on to draw out the ethical implications of this. He argues that the hymn of Philippians 2 occurs in a paraenetic context, but his point is that the exhortation continues right to the end of the hymn precisely because to be God, to express God’s character, is simply to demonstrate the kind of humble agapaeistic love that characterises Christ. ‘If you are really in Christ, indwelt by the Spirit,34 inspired by the divine love, prove it by acting this way, the way of divine self-abnegation…. It is not merely the imitation of Christ: it is the outworking of the life of the Spirit of God.’35 And so Wright goes on, ‘As God endorsed Jesus’ interpretation of what equality with God meant in practice, so he will recognize self-giving love in his people as the true mark of the life of the Spirit.’36 ‘God acknowledged Christ’s selfemptying as the true expression of divine equality; he will acknowledge Christian self-abnegation in the same way.’37 The most important conclusion to be drawn from this is that what it means to participate in ‘the mind of Christ’ is that we refuse to exploit for ourselves, or take advantage for ourselves, that which is at our disposal. If the nature of Christ is one of self-abnegation, then for us to participate in him, for us to think as he thinks, means that we too will follow the path of humble service. More particularly, what it means to share in the metaphor of ‘Jesus as Lord’ is that we submit ourselves both to him and his will. And if his ethic was one characterised by service of the Other, then so must ours also. As such, that which enables us to 30 Wright, N.T., The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991) p. 78. 31 Ibid., p. 83. 32 Ibid., p. 84. 33 Barth, Humanity, p. 46. Barth 34 Note the perichoretic language! 35 Wright, Climax, p. 87. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., p. 97.

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

113

know Christ and so know God is also that which could not be further removed from tyranny or oppression. It is, rather, defined by an ethic of unconditional and selfsacrificial love.38 Radical Integration The previous parts of this chapter have made three main points. In the first place, I have suggested that when we know God we utilise a mode of rationality that is inherently both ethical and epistemological. Our cognitive response to God, then, cannot be separated from our ethical response to him. Secondly, I have suggested that we can only know God by participating in the rationality of Jesus Christ. There is no knowledge of God apart from our sharing in his mode of thinking. Finally, I have suggested that the rationality of Christ is characterised primarily by self-sacrificial service and love of the Other. The conclusion we can reach, then, is that when we know God it is because we participate in the agapaeistic rationality (that is, a rationality suffused by love of the Other) of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the root of both our thinking about God and our response to the Other is the one rationality of Jesus Christ. In other words, our knowledge of God and our love of the Other are radically integrated. This, it will be recalled, is the conclusion that this chapter is driving towards. Yet, having said this, the following objection to this conclusion might arise. I have suggested that our knowledge of God and love of the Other cannot be separated precisely because both are dependent upon our participation in the one rationality of Jesus Christ. However, given the phenomenon of akrasia, is it not possible that though we participate in Christ’s rationality, and therefore are able both to know God and to love the Other, what we in fact do is exercise that rationality in respect of our knowledge of God, but not in respect of loving others? Hence, we could love the Other, but in practice all we do is know God. An answer to this challenge is now necessary. Jesus as Lord There are at least two reasons why our knowledge of God cannot be divorced from our love for the Other in the manner described above. The first is that arguably the most basic or primary metaphor that is relevant in our knowledge of God is the metaphor of ‘Jesus as Lord’.39 As such, this metaphor cuts across all other categories, including especially the ethical and epistemological. Hence, it is impossible for us to know that Jesus is Lord without us at the same time knowing Jesus as our Lord. This 38 Dietrich Bonhoeffer Bonhoeffer, of course, made precisely the same point in describing Jesus as ‘the man for others’. Moreover, he describes the Christian life as a participation in such an ethic of alterity. ‘Our relation to God is not a “religious” relationship to a highest, most powerful, and best Being imaginable – that is not authentic transcendence – but our relation to God is a new life in “being there for others”, in participation in the being of Jesus.’ Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison, (London: SCM Press, 2001) p. 143. 39 N.T. Wright for instance has argued that the essence of the gospel message was simply ‘Jesus is Lord’. Wright, Tom, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

114

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

is the case because in the absence of an experience of Christ’s Lordship over one’s life the meaning of the term ‘Lord’ is empty, at least empty of theological content. Of course it is possible for one to say or believe that ‘Jesus is Lord’ without knowing Jesus as one’s Lord, but what is not possible is to say or believe that proposition with any kind of theological content in the absence of a personal experience of Christ’s Lordship over one’s life. This, I would suggest, is what Paul was indicating when in 1 Corinthians 12:3 he makes the paradoxical statement: ‘No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.’ Of course, it is perfectly possible to say these words in the absence of the Spirit, but what is not possible is to say these words in the absence of the Spirit. What I am suggesting is that we cannot use these words with the meaning that the Spirit gives them except by that same Spirit enabling us to participate in the rationality of Christ. The reason for this is that unless we are participating in Christ, we literally do not know what these words mean. We, of course, know what they mean in the cultural-linguistic context in which we find ourselves, but we do not know what they mean in the mind of Christ, we do not have the divine meaning that is provided by God (Torrance’s commandeering of our language) and it is only by a participation in him that we can share in that meaning. Now, of course, that divine meaning is one that finds its embodiment in the conceptualities and practices of the ecclesia. And such a divine or ecclesial meaning will not entirely be divorced from the meaning that is found in the cultural context in which the relevant church exists. However, there will remain a distinction, a difference that marks out the extent to which God has commandeered the use of these terms or phrases for his own purposes. An appreciation of this sheds some new light on George Lindbeck’s infamous discussion of this phrase. Lindbeck has argued that when the crusader cries ‘Christus est Dominus’ in the context of cleaving the infidel’s skull, then the proposition being articulated is false.40 The reason for this is that the meaning of our words is given not just by the semantic content and context, but also by the whole cultural-linguistic context in which such words occur. Lindbeck has argued that religion, which includes both doctrines and modes of life, represents the grammar for first order religious propositions. Hence, for a first order proposition such as ‘Jesus is Lord’ to be true, it must be in accord both with the propositional content of that statement, but also with the religious grammar that governs it. So, when a proposition such as ‘Christus est Dominus’ is found to be not in accord with that religious grammar – for the pragmatic context in which it is found denies that grammar – it can be declared as false.41 Andrew Moore seems to miss the point of what Lindbeck is articulating here when he suggests that in this setting all that has happened is that the crusader’s actions have betrayed his words, and that the proposition can remain true despite this.42 Lindbeck’s point is that the meaning of the crusader’s words is given just as much by what he does as by their propositional content, and therefore 40 Lindbeck, George, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Lindbeck Age (London: SPCK, 1984) p. 64. 41 Ibid. 42 Moore, Realism, p. 148. See also my review of this book. Thacker, Justin, International Moore Journal of Systematic Theology 6:2 (April 2004) pp. 219–223.

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

115

as a meaningful proposition, they are false. The language being spoken is not so much Latin as Crusaderism, and the meaning of the words is something like ‘Christ authorizes me to cleave the skulls of infidels.’ Such a proposition is false, and therefore we need not be concerned in declaring that ‘Christus est Dominus’ is also false in this context.43 Returning then, to the issue before us, we only know that Jesus is Lord with the theological meaning that Christ would give those words, when we participate in the rationality of Christ, and therefore know Jesus as our Lord. Hence, the inadequacy of Lindbeck’s description is simply that it is a partial and incomplete account of what is taking place here. It is not that our cultural-linguistic religious context makes up the grammar of faith, but rather that the rationality Christ does. As such, Christ, of course, impacts both our doctrines and our modes of life (and to that extent Lindbeck’s analysis is useful), but our union with Christ does not reduce to just those doctrines or those modes of life, though it does include them.44

43 See also Nicholas Healy’s Healy discussion of the same point. He argues that the crusader’s cry need not be seen as false if we construe its meaning as given more by its ‘Spirit-informed intention’ rather than by its ‘action-context’, and if the intention was simply to declare faith in God, rather than a declaration of ‘triumph’. Healy, Nicholas M., ‘Practices and the New Ecclesiology: Misplaced Concreteness’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 5:3 (November 2003) p. 292, n. 26. 44 Incidentally, one consequence of this point is that two people may ostensibly have the same beliefs, but those beliefs actually be radically different. Wittgenstein addressed this issue when he wrote, ‘How do I know that two people mean the same when each says he believes in God?... Practice gives the words their sense.’ Hence, his solution is to suggest that the meaning of the words is given by their social context. If meaning were restricted to what was consciously ascertainable then Wittgenstein might have a point, but as I have suggested, this is largely not the case. And theologically, the point I am making is that the meaning of our words is given by God as we participate in him, whether or not that meaning comes to ours or anyone else’s explicit attention. Cf. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980) 85e. Of course, Wittgenstein has also been followed by a number of theologians who have developed what Nicholas Healy calls ‘the New Ecclesiology’. According to this paradigm, our theology is constituted not by abstract speculation, but rather by church practices. The position that I am presenting here is to a large extent consonant with this approach, though it has two major points of difference. The first is that I have such a strong Christological focus that I locate theological meaning, not exclusively in ecclesial practices, but in the practices of Jesus Christ. This is not to deny that the church participates in those practices just to the extent that it is the body of Christ, but my point is that such practices have a theological meaning only to the extent that they do participate in the practices of Christ, and not because the church as such performs them. This point marks out where I differ from D.Z. Phillips. The second major point of difference is that I recognise that to some extent theological meaning may be located in the tacit realm. It is not always necessary that we can articulate our theological meaning – either because it is located in our explicit practices, or because our intention is transparent to us – for it to have a theological meaning. Rather, our proclamations may be truly theological without all of that meaning coming to our explicit attention. (This point distinguishes my proposal from that of Nicholas Healy who criticises the ‘New Ecclesiology’ for failing to pay sufficient attention to the intentional aspects of meaning). Cf. Phillips, D.Z., Wittgenstein and Religion (London: Macmillan, 1993); Healy, ‘Practices’. A line much closer to the one I am drawing (apart from the tacit element) is taken by Stanley Hauerwas in his Gifford lectures. Hauerwas, Stanley, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology (London: SCM Press, 2002) chapter 8.

116

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

However, could it not be suggested that we can participate in Christ’s rationality and therefore know Jesus as our Lord, though we know this only in the sense that we feel ourselves as under the call of God. In other words, we know what Christ’s Lordship over our lives means, but we do not respond to that call in actuality. In such a situation, we would then know God, but not love the Other, and therefore my argument for their inseparability would fail. My response to this point – and this is the second reason why the argument stands – is to recognise that our participation in the rationality of Christ operates as a ‘success factor’, as I will now go on to explain. Virtues as Success Factors Participating in Christ’s rationality, or more particularly, the metaphor of ‘Jesus as Lord’, does not mean that we hold this metaphor before us and consciously choose whether or not we apply it in our thinking or praxis. I have already stressed that these metaphors, just to the extent that they instantiate our modes of rationality, operate in the tacit realm, or what Lakoff and Johnson call the ‘cognitive unconscious’. Indeed, we bring these metaphors to explicit attention only because they have already been operative tacitly within us. Hence, such metaphors are not principles that we choose to apply or not, rather they are more akin to a cognitive skill that we cannot help but utilise in the relevant circumstances. In this sense, they are more similar to, for instance, the skill of understanding another language fluently. When one has that skill, and one hears that language being spoken, one cannot choose to understand or not understand what is being said – the relevant skill is simply applied whether one wants it to be applied or not. In a similar fashion, if we truly participate in the rationality of Christ, we are given a whole series of such cognitive skills or conceptual metaphors that we do not choose to apply or not. Rather, we find these metaphors operating tacitly within us and being applied unconsciously in the relevant circumstances. Moreover, precisely because the ‘Jesus as Lord’ metaphor is arguably the most basic of such metaphors, it will be applied in all our interactions with God and others, irrespective of our explicit choices.45 To think Christologically, then, is perhaps equivalent to being able to think in a second language. And just as one cannot help but understand that second language when one hears it, one cannot help but respond Christologically in one’s interactions with others. The point of this, then, is that if we do participate in Christ’s rationality, then it is impossible for us to exercise that rationality only in respect of our knowledge of God, and not in respect of our interaction with others, for to possess the rationality means that it will be applied in all the relevant circumstances. This is precisely what I meant when in the introduction to this chapter I described our participation in Christ’s rationality as a success factor. The terminology is taken from Zagzebski who, in outlining her concepts of virtues, describes them as being a ‘success term’. She goes on to explain, ‘A person does not have a virtue unless she is reliable at bringing about See also the work by Reinhard Hütter, Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). 45 This is not to deny human free will. We can, of course, refuse to adopt this particular metaphor. My point is simply that if we do accept it, then a corollary of accepting it is that it impacts both our ethical and epistemological responses to God and others.

The Ethics of Theological Knowledge

117

the end that is the aim of the motivational component of the virtue.’46 The point she is making is that to possess the virtue does not mean that one may or may not apply the virtue depending on how one feels that day. Rather, to possess the virtue means that one does successfully apply the virtue in the relevant circumstances. Zagzebski is not here denying human free will. Rather, in the same way as I am, she is simply making the point that what it is to possess the virtue is that one will apply it successfully. The notion of having a virtue, but not using it, is empty. In parallel, then, my point is simply that what it is to participate in the rationality of Christ is simply that such a rationality will impact both our cognitive response to God and our ethical response to others. The notion of participating in the rationality of Christ, but not using it, is empty. The obvious question that this begs, though, is what about those many times when we do not act (let alone think) Christologically? It is here that we must face up to the consequences of the paradigm that I am presenting. That consequence is that we only know God to the extent that we love others. Hence, in the absence of love of others and yet apparent knowledge of God, we should not conclude that we need to add to our knowledge obedience. Rather, we should conclude that our knowledge of God is lacking. Hence, the metaphor of ‘Jesus as Lord’ is not one that we either possess or do not possess in toto. Rather, the point being made is that we only possess that metaphor, or we are only participating in Christ’s rationality, to the extent that such a metaphor is exemplified in the lived ethic of our lives. The very fact that few of us do exhibit the kind of agapaeistic ethic to which we are called only demonstrates that we hardly know God at all. An important consequence of this is that a pervasive humility should accompany all our assertions regarding God or his will. As the writer of 1 John puts it, ‘Whoever says, “I have come to know him”, but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist.’ It is, then, a brave theologian who claims to know God. Conclusion In chapters two to four, I argued that our knowing God consists in our perichoretic participation in God operating tacitly to enable a pneumatological interpretation of the revelation of Jesus Christ. In this chapter, I have argued that our knowledge of God and love of the Other are radically integrated. The fundamental insight that links these two points is that our knowledge of God consists in the mode of rationality that governs our interactions with Christ and the world. We have knowledge of God when that which governs our thinking and behaviour is the one rationality of Jesus Christ. We do not know God when that which governs us is our own rationality divorced from the rationality of Christ. More particularly, we know God just to the extent that our thinking, being and praxis are governed by the conceptual metaphor of ‘Jesus as Lord’. When such a metaphor operates within us, we respond to the revelation of Christ appropriately as well as respond to the Other lovingly. The corresponding belief in God and love of the Other may appear on the surface as distinct phenomena, but their unity is evident in the single metaphor or rationality that has generated them. Hence, 46

Zagzebski, Virtues, p. 136.

118

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

our knowledge of God and our love of the Other are located in our participation in the one rationality of Jesus Christ. From an exclusively theological point of view, that has been the argument of this book. However, in addition to this theological conclusion, this work has also sought to respond to the rejection of Christianity by Rorty and Lyotard. Therefore, in the final following chapter, I shall show how this Christological conclusion also provides a response to the accusation that they mount.

Chapter 6

Rorty and Lyotard Revisited Introduction In the previous chapter I have drawn on the account of theological knowing established in chapters two to four to argue that our knowledge of God is inseparable from our love of the Other. The purpose of this final chapter is to put that conclusion to constructive use by revisiting the accusations that Rorty and Lyotard have levelled towards Christianity and which we explored in chapter one. That chapter argued that the primary reason Rorty and Lyotard rejected Christianity is not because of the epistemological status of the Christian metanarrative, but rather because in their view it is a narrative that oppresses others violently. There exist two tasks before us. In the first place, I need to show the connection between my account of theological knowing and what Rorty and Lyotard term the Christian narrative. Secondly, I need to show that my account of the Christian ethic – in particular, love of others – accords sufficiently with their vision of the ideal society. If both of these points can be established, and if we accept the conclusion reached at the end of the previous chapter, then I will have shown that Rorty’s and Lyotard’s main reason for rejecting Christianity is invalid. Following on from this, in the final part of this chapter, I shall deal with some potential objections to the arguments raised in this chapter. The Christian Narrative and Love On the first of these issues, the important point is to recognise that for both Rorty and Lyotard, the Christian narrative represents a bundle of beliefs, concepts, practices, language-games, and written and spoken narratives. It is not restricted to merely one sphere of operation but includes them all. (Rorty does not use the language of narrative or metanarrative particularly, but nevertheless all of these elements are present at different times in his critique of Christianity.) The issue, then, is whether my description of theological knowing can encompass such a large range of activities. The answer to this is, of course, in the affirmative, for one of the points I have been at pains to make in my discourse is that theological knowing does not restrict itself to narrow epistemological concerns. Rather, theological knowing indicates just one window onto the single event of our relationship with God by means of our participation in Christ. As I have argued, that relationship and that participation do not just impact our beliefs or our concepts, but rather affect every aspect of our existence in relation to God. I have unpacked that relationship in terms of our cognitive and ethical responses to God, but that does not exclude other areas

120

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

such as Christian worship. The conceptual metaphors that are ours by means of our participation in Christ not only change what we believe and how we respond ethically, but they also affect, for instance, our liturgical or doxological practices. As such, they enable us to be the body of Christ, for it is by them that we are one in Christ. Therefore, in terms of its form, the account of theological knowing I have provided overlaps sufficiently with what Rorty and Lyotard mean by the Christian narrative, or simply Christianity. However, what about the second point before us? In what sense can the Christian ethic be identified with the ethic that Rorty and Lyotard seek? The issue, here, is the following. It may well be the case that Rorty’s and Lyotard’s principal reason for rejecting Christianity is because of its failure to secure the social ethic they seek. In addition, it may well be the case that the Christian narrative is inherently and necessarily tied up with love of others. But if ‘love of others’ bears no resemblance at all to the social ethic that Rorty and Lyotard seek, then even though I may have made some worthwhile points regarding the nature of Christian knowledge claims, I will have failed to respond adequately to the rejection of Christianity by Rorty and Lyotard. A simple test case of the antipathy I envisage here can be found in the issue of abortion. For Rorty and Lyotard, to adopt a pro-life stance on this issue would be precisely to oppress women violently. For most Christian ethicists, to adopt a prochoice stance is precisely to fail to love the foetus. All the parties would agree, then, that we must love others, and that we must not violently oppress the Other. Indeed, at that generic level, these statements are clearly in accord. The problem comes at least on the issue of abortion, once one starts defining who counts as an ‘Other’. For Rorty and Lyotard, the only relevant Other here is the woman. For the Christian, the only relevant Others are the woman and the foetus. Does this test case, then, demonstrate that the argument I have pursued fails? I do not think it does, and the reason is as follows. In rejecting Christianity, it is not the case that Rorty and Lyotard have rejected Christianity simpliciter. The reason their rejection has particular weight is that they have rejected Christianity for reasons that the Christian would agree with. That is, in arguing that much of Christianity has engaged in unethical behaviour, Rorty and Lyotard present a powerful case precisely because many Christians would agree that in the examples Rorty and Lyotard cite, unethical behaviour is in evidence. So, in suggesting that the Inquisition or gaybashing are not particularly good examples of loving one’s neighbour, I can only agree with Rorty and Lyotard that in that sense Christianity stands condemned.1 However, if we have a radically different vision of what a social ethic looks like, then in that circumstance the accusation of Rorty and Lyotard bears significantly less weight. During his campaign against slavery, one of the arguments Wilberforce faced was that he was denying the ‘rights’ of the slave owners, and that in doing so, he was acting unethically. As the history of his campaign indicates, though, such an accusation did not concern him. As Michael Banner has noted, in relation to ethical deliberation there comes a point where we simply have to stand

1

These are two of Rorty’s Rorty examples.

Rorty and Lyotard Revisited

121

our ground.2 My point here is that for the argument I am pursuing to work, it is not necessary that Rorty’s and Lyotard’s vision of the ethical society overlaps perfectly with the Christian ethic I have identified. There will always be some points of difference. All that is necessary is that there is some overlap. For at that point of overlap the argument will have potency, and where there is no overlap the lack of argumentative potency should not trouble us, precisely because at that point we do not consider their accusation to have any potency either. In other words, what is required is that in those areas where we recognise the strength of the argument of Rorty and Lyotard, we require a counter-argument that also has strength. But in those areas, where from our perspective their argument has no potency – the equivalent of Wilberforce denying the rights of the slave owners – then we are not required to provide a counter-argument, as there is simply no argument to counter. All of this is no more than saying that arguments have strength, and therefore require a reply, only when they are recognised as arguments. The task that is left to us, then, is to demonstrate that there is a sufficient degree of overlap between the Christian ethic and Rorty’s and Lyotard’s ethic for the argument I have pursued here to have sufficient potency. The first point to make here is that at the most general level there is clearly a good degree of agreement between the kind of society that Rorty and Lyotard seek, and that instantiated by Christ. Rorty’s most frequent description of the liberal ethic he seeks is found in this phrase which he borrows from Judith Shklar. ‘Liberals are the people who think that cruelty is the worst thing we do.’3 And he then goes on to unpack this idea for us by stating, My utopia…is to be achieved not by enquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers. Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people.4

Such a description chimes perfectly with the ‘Other as neighbour’ metaphor that earlier on I have suggested characterised the Christian ethic. Indeed, as noted in chapter one, Rorty states explicitly at times that he has a degree of sympathy for the Christian ethic as outlined in the NT.5 Furthermore, if we burrow down to some of the examples Rorty cites of unethical behaviour, we can also find ourselves in complete agreement. I have already mentioned our shared antipathy towards gaybashing and the Inquisition, but in addition, as we noted in chapter one, Rorty also calls to account the hypocrisy of ‘prosperous Christians’.6 In particular, what Rorty has in view here is a kind of right-wing fundamentalism which ‘teaches that for the US government to give a helping hand to the children of unemployable and unwed teenage mothers

2

Banner, Michael, Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) p. 64. See in particular his criticism of David Cook in the footnotes of this page. 3 Rorty, Contingency, p. xv. Rorty 4 Ibid., p. xvi. 5 Rorty, Social, p. 209; Rorty, ‘Anti-clericalism’, p. 44. Rorty 6 Rorty, Social, pp. 201, 202. Rorty

122

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

would [be to] “undermine individual responsibility”’.7 I entirely agree with Rorty in this critique, for I cannot see how in the light of the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25) any Christian could make this kind of claim. At a broad level, then, and even on some specific points, the Rortian ethic is entirely in agreement with the Christian ethic where ‘love of others’ is central. The same point can be made concerning Lyotard’s view of the ideal society. He defines the terror to which his whole programme is opposed as ‘the fear of death’. Moreover, such death is precisely ‘imprisonment, unemployment, repression, hunger, anything you want’.8 Violent oppression, then, is anything that is used in order to force the people to play the game you want them to play. In relation to this, it is important that we recall the point made in the previous chapter, that the rationality to which we are united is the rationality, not of the tyrannical lord, but rather the rationality of the humble servant. The paradigm of Christ is one in which we not only do not oppress by means of an unjustified discourse, but also we do not even take advantage of that which is rightly ours. The Christian ethic on view here is one in which we protect the rights of the Other precisely by denying our own rights to ourselves. In becoming man, Christ chose not to exploit that which was rightly his by virtue of his equality with God, and in the same way, we are called to not take advantage for ourselves whatever might be rightly ours by virtue of the Christian narrative in which we exist. As Bonhoeffer put it, ‘This community of strangers possesses no inherent right of its own to protect its members in the world, nor do they claim such rights, for they are meek, they renounce every right of their own and live for the sake of Jesus Christ.’9 In all our relationships to the Other, it is the concerns of the Other that remain paramount. Yet that description of alterity will no doubt raise in the reader’s mind the following challenge to the argument I have presented. The sensitivity to the Other that both Rorty and Lyotard espouse is not merely concerned with protecting the Other from violent physical oppression. It is, in addition, concerned with protecting the Other from linguistic oppression. That is, one displays an insensitivity to the Other both when one physically inhibits their freedoms – gaybashing, Inquisition, imprisonment etc. – as when one inhibits their ability to speak freely. As Lyotard indicated, to silence is to kill, and to kill is to silence. Moreover, one silences simply by declaring that one’s own discourse is determinant of what the Other may say. It is no doubt true that this strand of thinking is present in the narratives of Rorty and Lyotard, but the whole point of my argument in chapter one was to demonstrate that at times both of them posit such a determinant discourse themselves. So, in respect of Rorty we find this statement, Pragmatists need not deny that true sentences are always true…Stout rightly rebukes me for these suggestions and says that pragmatists should agree with everybody else that ‘Slavery is absolutely wrong’ has always been true – even in periods when this sentence would have sounded crazy to everybody concerned…All that pragmatists need is the

7 8 9

Ibid., p. 204. Lyotard, Just, p. 99. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, The Cost of Discipleship (London: SCM Press, 1959) p. 99.

Rorty and Lyotard Revisited

123

claim that this sentence is not made true by something other than the beliefs we would use to support it – and, in particular, not by something like the Nature of Human Beings.10

Similarly, in advocating his universal prescription against universal prescriptions we find Lyotard even acknowledging that such a prescription is itself ‘violent’.11 It is no accident that these expressions of determinancy are to be found in relation to universal ethical prescriptions. The point Rorty and Lyotard seem to be making is that determinant discourses are inherently violent except in one specific circumstance: when the determinant discourse itself is one that prohibits the use of violence against Others. It is as if there is a hierarchy of concerns here. The first step on this hierarchy is Rorty’s and Lyotard’s concern to allow the Other to say whatever they feel, uninhibited from any discourse that would seek to silence them. However, the next step on the hierarchy is the actual physical violent oppression that frequently accompanies such linguistic oppression. This practical (in contrast to linguistic) oppression must be stopped at all costs, even at the cost of a limited form of linguistic oppression. Therefore, if one’s discourse is one that prohibits such practical violence, even at the cost of a small amount of linguistic ‘violence’, then that is the price worth paying. The relevance of this for our purposes is that the Christian narrative is precisely one of those determinant discourses. It is determinant because it does render some other discourses invalid, and in that sense seeks to silence them. However, if they were to be consistent, Rorty and Lyotard could not disallow this discourse precisely because, as I have argued, the main feature of our narrative is an agapaeistic ethic in which love is characterised by humble service of the Other. As such, the Christian narrative, if taken seriously, not only prohibits the terror but actually represents the antithesis of any narrative of violence. It is perhaps for this reason that we find even Rorty giving a cautious blessing to the Christian narrative. Having encouraged us to read the NT as an ‘appeal to what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”, rather than [an] accurate account of human history or of human destiny’, he goes on to say, ‘If one treats “Christianity” as the name of one such appeal, rather than as a claim to knowledge, then that word still names a powerful force working for human decency and human equality.’12 The point of my analysis is that ‘Christianity’ is precisely not a claim to knowledge in the sense that Rorty means here – that is, a detached spectatorial account of human history or destiny. Rather, as I have argued, ‘Christianity’ is a relationship to God in which we are united to Christ such that our faith is expressed in beliefs and assertions, but just as much in our ‘relentless sensitivity to and love of the Other’. In conclusion, then, Rorty and Lyotard reject Christianity because of its lack of an effective ethic. In response, I have argued that the Christian narrative, by means of the concept of theological knowing, is inherently and necessarily a practical ethic characterised by love and service of others. Hence, to a large extent that which Rorty and Lyotard seek in a narrative, indeed, that which justifies them in positing their 10 11 12

Rorty Progress, pp. 225, 226, n. 42. Rorty, Albeit in quotation marks. Lyotard Lyotard, Just, p. 100. Rorty, Social, p. 205.

124

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

own metanarrative, is also that which can be found in the Christian narrative. As such, their rejection of the Christian narrative is not so much false as misplaced. They have interpreted the Christian narrative purely as a claim to knowledge, when in fact, as I have argued, it is just as much, and inherently and radically so, a practical ethic for society characterised by humble love and service of the other. Final Considerations Having now concluded my response to Rorty and Lyotard, I will finish by briefly dealing with some objections that may be posed towards the argument pursued in this chapter. The first charge to be met is that all I have done is defined the problem away. That is, if any narrative (religious or otherwise) wanted to escape the critique of violence levelled towards it, all that would be required is that they claim the following. ‘Narrative X is not subject to that ethical critique, because narrative X is defined as the narrative that is best for society.’ Of course, if my argument has no more weight than that, then it is a fairly poor argument as almost all narratives would define themselves in that way. However, there are a number of reasons why that is not all that I am doing here. In the first place, my argument has not been that the Christian narrative is ‘the best for society’, but rather that it is characterised by an agapaeistic ethic which is expressed in humble, loving service of the Other. The important point, here, is that the ethic I have argued for is one that Rorty and Lyotard also agree with. In this sense, it has content in a way that the bland ‘the best for society’ does not have. Hence, if any other narrative did want to pursue the kind of argument that I have pursued here, what they would have to show is that their narrative is defined by an ethic that is at odds with the critique being levelled at them. To illustrate this, let us take one specific example of a fellow metanarrative that comes up for opprobrium from Rorty and Lyotard: the Marxist narrative. Both Rorty and Lyotard criticise Marxism in broadly similar ways to their critique of Christianity. Therefore, if the Marxist narrative is to escape that critique in the way that I have, it will need to show that Marxism is defined by, and not just associated with, a love of the Other that refuses and prohibits any acts of violence or intimidation against the Other. There are many variations on the Marxist narrative but it would be impossible, I would suggest, to claim that its essence is such a narrative of love and service of the Other, even in theoretical form. Hence, the reason my argument has weight is because I have shown that a necessary and inherent feature of the Christian narrative is the kind of ethic that Rorty and Lyotard seek. The second point that needs to be made is that I am not simply defining Christianity as humble, serving love, I am demonstrating why and how this is the core of Christianity. The crucial point here is that Jesus Christ is accepted as paradigmatically good by both Christians and those who critique the Christian narrative. It is precisely for this reason that Rorty can be in accord with the NT ethic. My point, then, has been to show that Christianity as exemplified in the followers of Christ does not consist in assenting to a series of propositions that the founder laid down. Rather, my purpose has been to show that we are only Christians to the extent that we are made to be like our founder, and this in the strongest possible sense, in

Rorty and Lyotard Revisited

125

that we are enabled to participate in him. In this sense, then, it is true that the only real Christian is Jesus Christ. The rest of us are merely approximations. Yet, to the extent that we are ‘in him’ is the extent to which we truly are Christians. The point of this, then, is that any narrative that sought to follow a similar trajectory would have to show at least three things. Firstly, their narrative would need to be founded upon a paradigmatically good person which all persons in the debate agreed was good. Secondly, it would have to show that being a follower of this narrative does not so much consist in holding to the teachings of this person, but rather consisted in being like the person in the ethical construction of their lives. Finally, it would have to give some account of how such a participation in the founder was possible. I have demonstrated that all three of these requirements are met in Christianity, but I am unsure how a non-trinitarian, non-incarnational narrative could do the same. The second main objection to be dealt with here is one that Rorty himself raises. ‘Just as the Christians have counselled patience, and assured us that it is unfair to judge Christ by the mistakes of his sinful servants, so the Marxists have assured us that all the “Marxist” regimes so far have been absurd perversions of Marx’s intent.’13 The issue here is that even if the argument I have pursued has some validity, then surely what matters is not this theoretical approach that I have taken, but rather what those who call themselves Christians actually do in practice. Even if what I have suggested is plausible, unless one actually sees Christians exhibiting the ethic of Jesus Christ it has little potency as an argument. This objection clearly has some weight. If the only people to call themselves Christians were those whose lives bore no relation to the ethic of Jesus, then I too would reject the Christian narrative as a wonderful story, but one that had no practical relevance. The unfortunate problem for the church is that those whose lives do love and serve in the way I have indicated are also those who tend not to shout the loudest, and therefore are not as such the public voice of Christianity. Nevertheless, even Rorty is willing to admit that despite the numerous bad examples there are also those who have demonstrated that the narrative of Christ has the practical relevance he seeks.14 The problem we face, then, is that before us is a mixed picture. All of those in the frame claim to be Christians, but only some of them demonstrate an ethic which might incline us to adopt their narrative. How are we to respond in the circumstance? I want us to address that question by asking us to consider the following parable. Imagine a community of people stuck on a desert island. The island has only limited resources and the community know that they need to find some way to escape. Amongst the community there are a group of people called the philosophical boat-builders. This subgroup of the community claims that they can help the whole community get off the island. They say that they know how to build boats, that the island has all the resources that they need to build boats, that there is no physical limitation preventing them from building boats and that boats will enable the community to get off the island. In short, they can provide a means of escape. However, when the community asks this group to go ahead and build the necessary boats, what the group actually does is write research papers, hold conferences and give lectures, all 13

Ibid., p. 202. ‘The use of Christian doctrine to argue for the abolition of slavery…shows Christianity at its best.’ Ibid., p. 206. 14

126

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

on the topic of boat-building, but none of them actually builds boats. When asked, the group members declare that they can build boats, that they have all they need to build boats, and that they agree there is a need to build boats; but what they continue to do is write papers, hold conferences and give lectures. How should the rest of the community respond? It would appear that there are two options available. One is to take the philosophers at their word, and believe that they do indeed know how to build boats, but to conclude that boat-building is perhaps not as useful to the community as was first thought, and so go and look for another group, perhaps the plane-builders, who might be able to help. The alternative response is to suggest that the group members are lying. They do not really know how to build boats, and so in response go look for a group that really does know how to build boats.

The argument I am pursuing here is that Rorty and Lyotard represent the first kind of response, whereas the second is more appropriate. Christian knowledge claims, I have suggested, are inherently practical. They are instantiated (not just expressed) in acts of loving service. Just as knowing how to build boats is seen in actually building boats, so knowing God is seen in our service to the community. Hence, when we come across those who claim to possess this knowledge, but never actually serve their communities, or even worse, oppress them, then the only rational conclusion is not that Christian knowing is of no use (the response of Rorty and Lyotard), but that these people do not actually have the knowledge they claim to have. Just as it is meaningless to say ‘I know how to swim in theory’, so I am suggesting it is meaningless to say ‘I know God in theory’.15 Our knowledge of God is instantiated in our response to those around us. Returning, then, to the accusation that Rorty levels, if one can recognise that boat-building is an inherently practical exercise, then it is rational to conclude that those who do not build boats do not have the relevant knowledge. Similarly, if one accepts the argument that Christianity is an inherently practical exercise, then, it is rational to conclude that those who do not love their neighbours are not Christians. The implication of this is that I am not asking Rorty to suspend his judgement over Christ whilst he waits for the sinful servants to sort their lives out. Rather, I am asking him to recognise who Christ’s servants are in the first place. My suggestion is simply that both he and Lyotard have lumped together both those who actually know how to build boats and those who merely claim that they do. What is required, to use a biblical analogy, is that we separate the wheat from the chaff. The point of this argument is that the wheat can be recognised not by what they say, but by what they do, and not the least of the reasons for this is that this is precisely what their founder said: ‘You will know them by their fruits’ (Matthew 7:16).

15

Brad Kallenberg has recently made a related point in relation to appreciating Anselm’s ontological argument. He suggests that only when one participates in the prayerful attitude that Anselm displayed does the argument achieve its purpose. In this context, he writes, ‘It seems patently ridiculous to assert that a spectator to religion could coach would-be martyrs or saints. Expertise for coaching in these fields necessarily requires participation.’ Kallenberg, Brad J., ‘Praying for Understanding: Reading Anselm Through Wittgenstein’, Modern Theology 20:4 (October 2004) p. 538.

Rorty and Lyotard Revisited

127

Conclusion The primary reason Rorty and Lyotard have rejected Christianity is not the epistemological issue of whether or not we can hold the Christian narrative with sufficient warrant. Rather, their main motivation has been the perceived lack of a suitable ethic that comes in its wake. I have suggested that if we are to propose a theological response to Rorty and Lyotard, we can only do so effectively by addressing this ethical critique. In chapters two to four of this book, I have provided an account of theological knowing that provides a framework in which the ethical argument of chapter five could be situated. That argument was that our knowledge of God and our love of others are radically integrated because both are dependent upon our tacit participation in the rationality of Jesus Christ. The conclusion I draw from this is that we only know God to the extent that we also love others. It is not that loving others enables us to know God. Rather, it is that loving others represents the contours of what it means to participate in Christ, and hence know God. Therefore, in the absence of such love, we simply do not know God. The implication of this argument is that it is impossible to use Christian knowledge claims in the oppression of others, precisely because Christian knowledge claims are inherently and necessarily instantiated in our love and service of others. That which enables us to know God is also that which causes us to love the Other. This argument has been put to constructive use in engagement with Rorty and Lyotard in this final chapter. The point I have made is simply that Rorty and Lyotard have misunderstood the nature of what it means to be a Christian or to know God. Christianity is not a theoretical discourse, but is rather a practical agapaeistic activity which is characterised by self-sacrificial service for the other. As such, their rejection of it for ethical reasons is not so much wrong, as misplaced, for what they have rejected is the kind of speculative, rationalistic approach to God that has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. With that thought in mind, I shall conclude then with a prayer that Barth provides in this context. Lead us not into temptation – into the temptation of an objectivist consideration of God’s secondary and primary objectivity; a disinterested non-obedient consideration which holds back in a place which it thinks secure. Lead us not into the temptation of the false opinion that Thou art an object like other objects which we can undertake to know or not just as we wish, which we are free to know in this way, or even in that. Lead us not into the temptation of wanting to know Thee in Thy objectivity as if we were spectators, as if we could know, speak and hear about Thee in the slightest degree without at once taking part, without at once making that correspondence actual, without at once beginning with obedience.16

16

Barth, II/1, p. 26. Barth

This page intentionally left blank

Bibliography Baillie, John. The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1956. ——. The Sense of the Presence of God. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Banner, Michael. Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics I/2, translation edited by G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956. ——. Church Dogmatics IV/1, translation edited by G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956. ——. Church Dogmatics II/1, translation edited by G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1957. ——. Church Dogmatics IV/3:i, translation edited by G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1961. ——. The Humanity of God. London: Collins, 1961. ——. Church Dogmatics I/1, translation edited by G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975. Bauckham, Richard. ‘Jesus the Revelation of God’ in Divine Revelation, edited by Paul Avis, London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 1997, 174–200. Bauerschmidt, Frederick C. ‘The Word Made Speculative? John Milbank’s Christological Poetics’. Modern Theology 15:4 (October 1999), 417–432. Bauman, Zigmunt. Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge, 1992. Benjamin, Andrew (ed.). The Lyotard Reader. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Benson, Bruce. Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida & Marion on Modern Idolatry. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002. Bernstein, Richard J. ‘Rorty’s Inspirational Liberalism’ in Richard Rorty, edited by Charles Guignon and David R. Hiley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 12–138. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. London: SCM Press, 1959. ———. Letters and Papers from Prison. London: SCM Press, 2001. Botterweck, G.Johannes. ‘‫ ’יָדﬠ‬in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament: Volume V, edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986, 448–481. Brown, Warren S., Murphy, Nancey and Malony, H. Newton (eds). Whatever Happened to the Soul: Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998. Brunner, Emil. The Divine–Human Encounter. Tr. Amandus Loos. London: SCM Press, 1944. Burrows, Jo. ‘Conversational Politics: Rorty’s Pragmatist Apology for Liberalism’ in Reading Rorty, edited by Alan Malachowski, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990, 322–338.

130

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Canlis, Julie. ‘Calvin, Osiander and Participation in God’. International Journal of Systematic Theology 6:2 (April 2004), 169–184. Caputo, John D. Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. ———. ‘The Good News About Alterity: Derrida and Theology’. Faith and Philosophy 10:4 (October 1993), 453–470. ——— (ed.). The Religious. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002. Caputo, John and Scanlon, Michael J. (eds). God, the Gift and Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. Cunningham, David. Review of Alan Torrance’s ‘Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation’. Modern Theology 14 (January 1998), 155–156. Damasio, Antonio. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New York: Quill, 2000. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Tr. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. ——. Writing and Difference. Tr. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, 2001. Dockery, David S. (ed.). The Challenge of Postmodernism: An Evangelical Engagement. Grand Rapids: Baker Books. 1997. Downing, F. Gerald. Has Christianity a Revelation? London: SCM Press, 1964. Ewing, A.C. ‘A Suggested Non-naturalistic Analysis of Good’, Mind XLVII (1939). Fee, Gordon D. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987. Fine, Gail (ed.). Plato 1: Metaphysic and Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Fung, Ronald K. The Epistle to the Galatians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988. Godsey, John D. (ed.). Karl Barth’s Table Talk. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1963. Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997. ——. ‘“Bodies – That Is, Human Lives”: A Re-Examination of Human Nature in the Bible’ in Whatever Happened to the Soul: Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature, edited by Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy and H. Newton Malony, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998, 149–173 Groothuis, Douglas. Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism. Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 2000. Guelich, Robert A. Word Biblical Commentary: Mark 1:1–8:26. Dallas: Word Books, 1989. Guignon, Charles and Hiley, David R. ‘Biting the Bullet: Rorty on Private and Public Morality’ in Reading Rorty, edited by Alan Malachowski, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990, 339–364. —— (eds). Richard Rorty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Gunton, Colin. The One, the Three and the Many. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ——. A Brief Theology of Revelation. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995.

Bibliography

131

Haber, Honi F. Beyond Postmodern Politics: Selves, Community and the Politics of Difference. London: Routledge, 1994. Hardy, Daniel W. ‘Christian Affirmation and the Structure of Personal Life’ in Belief in Science and in Christian Life: The Relevance of Michael Polanyi’s Thought for Christian Faith and Life, Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1980, 71–90. Harrison, Verna. ‘Perichoresis in the Greek Fathers’. St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 35 (1991), 53–65. Hart, Hendrik. ‘Conceptual Understanding and Knowing Other-Wise: Reflections on Rationality and Spirituality in Philosophy’ in Knowing Other-Wise, edited by James Othuis, New York: Fordham University Press, 1997, 19–53. Hart, Trevor. Regarding Karl Barth: Essays Toward a Reading of his Theology. Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1999. ——. ‘Imagination for the Kingdom of God’ in God Will be All in All: The Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann, edited by Richard Bauckham, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999, 49–76. Hatley, James. ‘Lyotard, Levinas, and the Phrasing of the Ethical’ in Lyotard: Philosophy, Politics, and the Sublime, edited by Hugh J. Silverman, London: Routledge, 2002, 75–83. Hauerwas, Stanley. A Community of Character: Towards a Constructive Christian Social Ethic. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. ——. Character and the Christian Life: A Study in Theological Ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994. ——. With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology. London: SCM Press, 2002. Heal, Jane. Mind, Reason and Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Healy, Nicholas M. ‘Practices and the New Ecclesiology: Misplaced Concreteness’. International Journal of Systematic Theology 5:3 (November 2003), 287–308. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Tr. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1962. ——. ‘The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics’ in The Religious, edited by John D. Caputo, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002, 67–75. Henriksen, Jan-Olav. ‘Creation and Construction: On the Theological Appropriation of Postmodern Theory’. Modern Theology 18:2 (April 2002), 153–169. Hinkson, Jon and Ganssle, Greg. ‘Epistemology at the Core of Postmodernism: Rorty, Foucault and the Gospel’ in Telling the Truth, edited by Don Carson, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000, 68–89. Hollingdale, R.J. (ed.). A Nietzsche Reader. London: Penguin Books, 1977. Hooker, Morna D. From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Hunsinger, George. ‘Karl Barth’s Christology: its basic Chalcedonian character’ in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, edited by John Webster, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 127–142. Hütter, Reinhard. Suffering Divine Things: Theology as Church Practice. Tr. Doug Stott. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

132

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Inbody, Tyron. ‘Postmodernism: Intellectual velcro dragged across culture?’ Theology Today 51:4 (January 1995), 524–538. Ingraffia, Brian D. Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Jantzen, Grace M. ‘Incarnation and Epistemology’. Theology 83 (1980), 170–177. Johnson, William Stacy. The Mystery of God: Karl Barth and the Postmodern Foundations of Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997. Jordan, Tim. ‘The Philosophical Politics of Jean-François Lyotard’. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 25:3 (September 1995), 267–285. Jüngel, Eberhard. God as the Mystery of the World: On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One in the Dispute between Theism and Atheism. Tr. Darrell Guder. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1983. ——. God’s Being is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth. A Paraphrase. Tr. John Webster. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001. Kallenberg, Brad J. ‘Praying for Understanding: Reading Anselm Through Wittgenstein’, Modern Theology 20:4 (October 2004), 527–546. Kearney, Richard (ed.). Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. London: A & C Black Ltd, 1968. Kierkegaard, Sören. Philosophical Fragments. Tr. David Swenson. London: Oxford University Press, 1936. Kotva, Joseph J. The Christian Case for Virtue Ethics. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1996. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Lash, S. and Friedman, J. (eds). Modernity and Identity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992. Levinas, Emmanuel. Time and the Other and Additional Essays. Tr. R.A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1987. ——. ‘Diachrony and Representation’ in The Religious, edited by John D. Caputo, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002, 76–88. Levisohn, Jon A. ‘On Richard Rorty’s Ethical Anti-foundationalism’. The Harvard Review of Philosophy (Spring 1993), 48–58. Lightfoot, R.H. History and Interpretation in the Gospels. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935. Lindbeck, George A. The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. London: SPCK, 1984. Louthan, Stephen. ‘On Religion – A Discussion with Richard Rorty, Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff’. Christian Scholars Review XXVI:2 (1996), 177–183. Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Tr. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. ——. The Differend: Phrases in Dispute. Tr. Georges Van Den Abbeele. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988. ——. Peregrinations: Law, Form, Event. New York: Columbia University Press. 1988.

Bibliography

133

——. The Postmodern Explained to Children: Correspondence 1982–1985. Tr. Julian Pefanis and Morgan Thomas. London: Turnaround, 1992. ——. Libidinal Economy. Tr. Iain Hamilton Grant. London: Athlone, 1993. ——. Political Writings. Tr. Bill Readings and Kevin Paul Geiman. London: UCL Press, 1993. ——. Toward the Postmodern. Edited by Robert Harvey and Mark S. Roberts. London: Humanities Press International, 1993. ——. Postmodern Fables. Tr. Georges Van Den Abbeele. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Lyotard, Jean-François and Thébaud, Jean-Loup. Just Gaming. Tr. Wlad Godzich. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985. Malachowski, Alan (ed.). Reading Rorty. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Marion, Jean-Luc. ‘Metaphysics and Phenomenology: A Summary for Theologians’ in The Postmodern God: A Theological Reader, edited by Graham Ward, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997, 279–296. ——. ‘They Recognized Him; and He Became Invisible to Them’. Modern Theology 18:2 (2002), 145–152. McCormack, Bruce L. Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. McGrath, Alister E. A Scientific Theology, Volume 2: Reality. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. McIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. London: Duckworth, 1985. ——. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: Univesity of Notre Dame Press, 1988. Marshall, Bruce D. Trinity and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Middleton, J.Richard and Walsh, Brian J. Truth is Stranger than it Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age. London: SPCK, 1995. Milbank, John, Pickstock, Catherine and Ward, Graham (eds). Radical Orthodoxy. London: Routledge, 1999. Milbank, John. The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997. Molnar, Paul. Review of Alan Torrance’s ‘Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation’. Scottish Journal of Theology 50:3 (1997), 381–384. Montag SJ, John. ‘Revelation: the false legacy of Suarez’ in Radical Orthodoxy, edited by Milbank, Pickstock and Ward, London: Routledge, 1999, 38–63. Moore, Andrew. Realism and Christian Faith: God, Grammar, and Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Need, Stephen. Human Language and Knowledge in the Light of Chalcedon. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. Nuyen, A.T. ‘Lyotard’s Postmodern Ethics’. International Studies in Philosophy XXVIII:2 (1996), 75–86. ——. ‘Lyotard’s Postmodern Ethics and the Normative Question’. Philosophy Today Winter (1998), 411–417.

134

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

Olthuis, James H. (ed.). Knowing Other-Wise: Philosophy at the Threshold of Spirituality. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997. Otto, Randall. ‘The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in Recent Theology’. Scottish Journal of Theology 54:3 (2001), 366–384. Owen, David. ‘The Avoidance of Cruelty: Joshing Rorty on Liberalism, Scepticism, Ironism’ in Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues, edited by Matthew Festenstein and Simon Thompson, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001, 93–110. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Jesus – God and Man. Tr. Lewis Wilkins and Duane Priebe. London: SCM Press, 1968. ——. Revelation as History. Tr. David Granskow. New York: Macmillan Company, 1968. ——. Systematic Theology – Volume 1. Tr. Geoffrey Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991. Patterson, Sue. ‘Response by Sue Patterson’ in Christ and Context: The Confrontation between Gospel and Culture edited by Hilary D. Regan and Alan J. Torrance, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993, 63–72. Paul, Iain. Knowledge of God: Calvin, Einstein and Polanyi. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1987. Phillips, D.Z. Wittgenstein and Religion. London: Macmillan, 1993. Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy. London: Routledge, 1962. ——. The Tacit Dimension. New York: Anchor Books, 1967. ——. Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Porter, Jean. The Recovery of Virtue. London: SPCK, 1994. Puddefoot, John C. ‘Indwelling: Formal and Non-formal Elements in Faith and Life’ in Belief in Science and in Christian Life: The Relevance of Michael Polanyi’s Thought for Christian Faith and Life, edited by T.F. Torrance, Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1980, 28–48. Rahner, Karl. Foundations of Christian Faith: Introduction to the Idea of Christianity. Tr. William Dych. London: Darton Longman and Todd Ltd, 1978. Richardson, A. The Miracle-Stories of the Gospels. London: SCM Press, 1941. Roberts, Robert C. and Wood, W. Jay. ‘Humility and Epistemic Goods’ in Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, edited by Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003, 257–279. Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. ——. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ——. Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. ——. Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. ——. Truth, politics and ‘post-modernism’: The Spinoza Lectures. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam, 1997. ——. Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-century America. London: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Bibliography

135

——. Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers Volume 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ——. Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1999. ——. ‘Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism’. Revue Internationale de Philosophie 53:207 (1999), 7–20. ——. ‘Response to David Owen’ in Richard Rorty: Critical Dialogues, edited by Matthew Festenstein and Simon Thompson, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001, 111–114. ——. ‘Anti-clericalism and Atheism’ in Religion After Metaphysics, edited by Mark Wrathall, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 37–46. ——. ‘Religion in the Public Square’. Journal of Religious Ethics 31:1 (Spring 2003), 141–149. Rothfork, John. ‘Postmodern Ethics: Richard Rorty and Michael Polanyi’. Southern Humanities Review 29:1 (1995), 15–48. Russell, Bertrand. ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description’ in Propositions and Attitudes, edited by N. Salmon and S. Soames, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, 16–32. Schütz, E. ‘Knowledge’ in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology: Volume 2, G-Pre, edited by Colin Brown, Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1976, 390–409. Schwöbel, Christoph and Gunton, Colin (eds). Persons, Divine and Human. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991. Smith, James K.A. ‘A Little Story about Metanarratives: Lyotard, Religion and Postmodernism Revisited’. Faith and Philosophy 18:2 (April 2001), 353–368. ——. Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004. Smith, R. Scott. Virtue Ethics and Moral Knowledge: Philosophy of Language after MacIntyre and Hauerwas. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. Sosa, E. ‘Knowledge and Intellectual Virtue’. The Monist 68 (1985), 226–245. Soskice, Janet Martin. Metaphor and Religious Language. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. Spence, Alan. ‘Christ’s Humanity and Ours’ in Persons, Divine and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological Anthropology, edited by Christoph Schwöbel and Colin Gunton, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991, 74–97. Swinburne, Richard. Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. ——. The Christian God. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Tanner, Kathryn. Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001. Taylor, Charles. ‘Engaged Agency and Background in Heidegger in The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, edited by Charles Guignon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 317–336. ——. ‘Rorty and Philosophy’ in Richard Rorty, edited by Charles Guignon and David Hiley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 158–180. Thacker, Justin. ‘Lyotard and the Christian Metanarrative’. Faith and Philosophy, July 22:3 (2005), 301–315.

136

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

——. Review of Andrew Moore’s ‘Realism and Christian Faith’. International Journal of Systematic Theology April 6:2 (2004), 219–223. Thiselton, Anthony C. Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self: On Meaning, Manipulation and Promise. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995. Thompson, Geoff and Mostert, Christiaan (eds). Karl Barth: A Future for Postmodern Theology. Hindmarsh: Australian Theological Forum, 2000. Torrance, Alan. Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996. Torrance, T.F. Theological Science. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. ——. God and Rationality. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. ——. The Ground and Grammar of Theology. Belfast: Christian Journals Ltd, 1980. ——. (ed.) Belief in Science and in Christian Life: The Relevance of Michael Polanyi’s Thought for Christian Faith and Life. Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1980. ——. ‘The Deposit of Faith’. Scottish Journal of Theology 36:1 (1983), 1–28. ——. The Christian Doctrine of God. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996. Volf, Miroslav. After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Waldenfels, Bernhard. ‘Ethics in the Differend of Discourses’. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 32:3 (October 2001), 242–256. Ward, Graham. ‘Barth, Modernity, and Postmodernity’ in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, edited by John Webster, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 274–295. Webster, John. ‘Barth, Modernity and Postmodernity’ in Karl Barth: A Future for Postmodern Theology? edited by Geoff Thompson and Christiaan Mostert, Hindmarsh: Australian Theological Forum, 2000, 1–28. ——. ‘The Grand Narrative of Jesus Christ: Barth’s Christology’ in Karl Barth: A Future for Postmodern Theology? edited by Geoff Thompson and Christiaan Mostert, Hindmarsh: Australian Theological Forum, 2000, 29–48. Westphal, Merold (ed.). Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999. ——. Overcoming Onto-theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith. New York: Fordham University Press, 2001. Williams, James. Lyotard and the Political. London: Routledge, 2000. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. Wolterstorff, Nicholas, ‘An Engagement with Rorty’, Journal of Religious Ethics 31:1 (Spring 2003), 129–139. Wood, W. Jay. ‘On the Uses and Advantages of an Epistemology for Life’ in Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought, edited by Merold Westphal, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999, 13–27. Wrathall, Mark A. (ed.). Religion After Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2003. Wright, N.T. The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991. ——. The New Testament and the People of God. London: SPCK, 1992.

Bibliography

137

——. What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997. Wyschogrod, Edith. Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Young, Frances and Ford, David, Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 1987), 175. Zagzebski, Linda. Virtues of the Mind: Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ——. Divine Motivation Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion. Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985. ——. ‘On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology of Personhood’ in Persons, Divine and Human, edited by Christoph Schwöbel and Colin Gunton, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991, 33–46.

This page intentionally left blank

Index

abortion 120 alterity 5–7, 9, 13, 36, 113, 122 analogia fideii 67, 70 analogy 44, 56, 66–7, 70, 126 Augustine 47, 76

Einstein, Albert 85–6, 88 ethics consequentialist approach 103 deontological approach 95, 103 postmodern see postmodern, ethics

Baillie, John 76–7, 97 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 70 Banner, Michael 120 Barth, Karl 1, 3, 9, 22, 39–40, 47–50, 54–6, 63–4, 66–76, 81, 83, 101, 104, 107, 112, 127 Barthian anxiety 39–40, 72 dialectical theology 70 humanity of God 68–70 theology of revelation 66–73 Bauckham, Richard 65–6, 68, 80 Bauerschmidt, Frederick 61–2 Bauman, Zygmunt 28 Benjamin, Andrew 23, 27, 33 Benson, Bruce 1, 81 Bernstein, Richard 17 biblical concept of knowledge 47–8, 50, 63, 100 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 113, 122 Brown, Warren 45, 102 Brunner, Emil 53, 77 Burrows, Jo 19

faith 3, 36, 40, 50–53, 63, 66, 70–75, 77–81, 101, 110, 115, 123 Fee, Gordon 57 Feuerbach, Ludwig 1 Fine, Gail 61 Foucault, Michel 2, 8, 14, 17, 19, 24 Frege, Gottlob 56 Friedman, J. 35 Fung, Ronald 107

Canlis, Julie 53 Caputo, John 2, 5–7, 28, 81 conceptual metaphors 94–6, 101–6, 108–9, 116, 119 Cunningham, David 40 Damasio, Antonio 45, 102 Derrida, Jacques 1–2, 5–7, 24, 38, 81 Descartes 44–6, 100, 102 Dockery, David 8 Downing, Gerald 49 ecclesia 46, 56, 59–60, 63, 92, 94, 114

Ganssle, Greg 8 Green, Joel 45, 78 Gregory of Nazianzus 40, 44 Groothuis, Douglas 8 Guelich, Robert 79 Guignon, Charles 8, 17, 19, 90, 108 Gunton, Colin 38, 40–44, 46, 49, 52, 58, 68, 70, 110 Haber, Honi 19 Hardy, Daniel 50 Harrison, Verna 40–41 Hart, Hendrik 49 Hart, Trevor 79–80, 86, 104 Hatley, James 31 Hauerwas, Stanley 104, 115 Heal, Jane 93–4 Healy, Nicholas 115 Heidegger, Martin 1–2, 14–16, 19, 28, 38, 56, 90, 107 Henriksen, Jan-Olav 7 Hiley, David 8, 17, 19, 108 Hinkson, Jon 8 Hollingdale, R.J. 2 Hooker, Morna 2, 51–4, 62–3, 73, 110 humility 3–4, 42, 64, 91, 99–100, 103–6,

140

Postmodernism and the Ethics of Theological Knowledge

112–13, 117, 122–4 Hunsinger, George 71, 75 Hütter, Reinhard 115 imagination 1, 32, 47, 86, 121 Inbody, Tyron 5 Ingraffia, Brian 1 Irenaeus 43, 51 Jantzen, Grace 71, 74, 79 Jesus as Lord 77, 95, 102, 113–14, 116–17 Johnson, Mark and Lakoff, George 94–6, 100–103, 108, 116 Johnson, William Stacy 67 Jordan, Tim 25 Jüngel, Eberhard 1, 55–7 Kallenberg, Brad 126 Kearney, Richard 7 Ke-gnosis 96 Kelly, JND 41 Kierkegaard, Sören 64, 80 knowledge by Acquaintance 76 as interpretation 80 as justified true belief 50 as salvation 49 koinonia 61–2 Kotva, Joseph 104 Lash, S. 35 Levinas, Emmanuel 2, 5, 7, 31 Levisohn, Jon 22 Lightfoot, R.H. 79 Lindbeck, George 114–15 linear model of revelation 55 Louthan, Stephen 21 love of the Other 3, 37, 84, 98–9, 109, 113, 117, 119, 123–24 Lyotard, J-F 1–8, 17, 22–37, 87, 99, 117, 119–24, 126–7 on Auschwitz 23–4, 27 on Christianity 22 differend 23–5, 27 justice 29, 34 Kantianism 28–35 Marxism 24–5, 34, 124–5 metanarrative 2, 5, 22–3, 25, 28, 34–5 paganism 26–9, 33–5, 45

terror 23–7, 29–30, 32, 34–5, 121, 123 McCormack, Bruce 70, 75 McGrath, Alister 8 McInytre, Alasdair 104 Malachowski, Alan 8, 19 Malony, H. Newton 45, 102 Marion, Jean-Luc 1, 80–81, 83 Marshall, Bruce 21 methexis 60–63 Middleton, J. Richard 8 Milbank, John 9, 61–2 mind of Christ 52, 74–5, 93–7, 111, 113–14 mode of rationality 91–9, 101, 104, 109, 113, 117 Molnar, Paul 64 Montag SJ, John 9 Moore, Andrew 1, 114–15 Murphy, Nancey 45, 102 Need, Stephen 44 Nietzsche, Friedrich 1–2, 6, 8, 19 notitia 73, 75, 77, 81 Nuyen, A.T. 25 Olthuis, James 49 ontology 30, 41, 43, 58, 61, 108 oppression 14, 23–4, 26–8, 35–6, 113, 121–3, 127 Otherness see alterity Otto, Randall E. 40–42 Owen, David 16 Pannenberg, Wolfhart 72 Patterson, Sue 97 Paul, Iain 88 perichoresis 2–3, 37, 40–41, 43–6, 48, 50–54, 60–63, 65, 77, 80, 89–92, 97–100, 102, 106, 110, 112, 117 definition of 40–41, 43 different levels of 46 intrapersonal 100, 106 Phillips, D.Z. 115 Pickstock, Catherine 9 pneumatology 3, 37, 80, 97–8, 110, 117 Polanyi, Michael 3, 22, 37, 47, 50, 82, 84–92, 95–8 assimilation and adaptation 57, 90, 95 indwelling 41, 43, 47–8, 56, 87, 90, 92, 98

Index passion in knowing 84 personal knowledge 84–5 tacit see also tacit knowledge 84 Porter, Jean 104 positivism 85 postmodern 2, 5–7, 17, 24–6, 34 definition 5 differential 6 ethics 2 nihilism 5 Puddefoot, John 92 Rahner, Karl 65 rationality 3, 90, 95, 99, 109–10, 113, 115–17, 127 relational ontology 43 revelation 3, 37, 54, 63–5, 81–4, 91, 98, 110 non-propositional 76 revelation as event 66 revelation as event in Barth 68 revelation of god 65 Richardson, A. 79 Ricoeur, Paul 6 Roberts, Robert C. 105 Rorty, Richard 1–22, 24, 35–7, 87, 99, 108, 117, 119–27 irony 10, 15–6 liberal ethic 8 performative contradiction 8 pragmatism 9, 11, 15 reality-in-itself 10 social justice 18 truth 12 Rothfork, John 22 rudeness 104–5 Russell, Bertrand 76 Schwöbel, Christoph 58 Shklar, Judith 13, 16, 121 simulation model of knowing 93–4 slavery 120, 125 Smith, James K.A. 8, 22, 60 Smith, R. Scott 104 Sosa, Ernest 103

141

Soskice, Janet Martin 97, 108 Spence, Alan 68, 70 Success Factors 116 Swinburne, Richard 65 tacit knowledge 3, 37, 84, 86, 87–9, 91–2, 94–5, 97–8, 103, 106, 108, 115–16, 127 Tanner, Kathryn 53 Taylor, Charles 90, 108 Thacker, Justin 115 theological epistemology 2–3, 37–40, 46, 50, 62–3, 65–6, 81–4, 91–2, 96–100, 105–6, 109–10, 117, 119, 123, 126–7 theosis 57 Thiselton, Anthony 8 Torrance, Alan 1–2, 39–40, 44, 54, 57–8, 61, 63, 67, 70, 97, 107 Torrance, T.F. 9, 38, 91–2, 94, 96 trinity 1–3, 40–42, 44, 46, 51, 54–7, 125 trump metaphors 107 truth 10–12, 20–23, 26, 38–9, 47, 77, 117 Virtue 103–5 virtue epistemologies 103 virtue ethics 103–4 Volf, Miroslav 2, 41, 44, 57–60, 62–3 Waldenfels, Bernhard 25 Walsh, Brian J. 8 Ward, Graham 9, 81 Webster, John 1, 8–9, 22, 67, 71 Westphal, Merold 1–2, 6, 8, 22, 39, 45 Wilberforce, William 120–21 Williams, James 25 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 26, 55, 115, 126 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 12, 21 Wood, W. Jay 45, 105 Wrathall, Mark 20 Wright, N.T. 45, 111–14 Wyschogrod, Edith 5–7 Zagzebski, Linda 100, 103–5, 116 Zizioulas, John D. 57–60