Did he really say that?
The following
letter appeared in the March/April edition of “IDEA”, the magazine of the Evangelical Alliance. The
letter gives one of the reasons why I, as a Christian, struggle with
evangelicalism; it tells us why evangelicalism so easily topples down into fundamentalist
authoritarianism. It is a text book example of the epistemic error which is at
the heart of fundamentalism:
Thanks for your timely investigations into evangelical
identity in the Jan/Feb issue. Nowhere did that question come more sharply into
focus than in Leader’s Questions (p32) on what the word ‘evangelical’ means.
Whilst Revd Rachel Marszalek reads scripture ‘through
the lenses of reason, tradition and experience”, Dr Lucy Peppiatt perceives
scripture as “the primary authoritative lens through which and against which
all other texts, ideas, cultures etc. are interpreted and measured”
So which lens are we to use! Is scripture to be viewed
through the filter of our world or our world to be viewed through scripture? Is
the word of God to be subject to the changing culture of the world or the world
subject to the enduring word of God?
Our evangelical forbears allowed the word of God to
reign supreme in their lives, even when it cost them dear. May God enable us,
together, to do the same.
Yours sincerely
Michael Thornton.
Michael Thornton
appears to have no inkling how language actually works: The interpretation of
text is always dependent on cultural and cognitive complexes, complexes which
effectively process textual tokens. These tokens don’t contain meanings; rather
they generate meaning given the interpretative resources of the cultural and
cognitive substrate they impact. This is a general truism which applies to all
forms of language because this is what language is by definition: that is, signals which act as meaning stimuli as they
impinge upon cultural and cognitive contexts. The Bible, as a sequence of
textual tokens, also follows these principles; if it didn’t it wouldn’t be
language.
So, strictly speaking
the starting point isn’t scripture in-and-of-itself but the combination of
scripture and the substrate on which
scripture works its purposes. Thornton appears to be under the mistaken impression
that it’s a choice between scripture and substrate; he is so confounded by this
false dichotomy that he is unable to see that the two must work together to
generate meaning, a meaning that flows out of their interaction. In fact given
this truism there is a case for claiming that effective scripture isn’t in fact
the printed word, but the meanings those words evoke given the right substrate.
Thornton’s dichotomy may have been
encouraged by a misapplication of the “sola
scriptura” concept, a slogan coined during the reformation as a way of prizing
apart scripture from the authoritarian grip of Roman Catholic fundamentalism; sola scriptura could never mean scripture alone in an absolute sense,
but only in a relative sense.
The type of view
expressed by Thornton is one I frequently encounter amongst fundamentalists and
even moderate evangelicals like those represented by IDEA: I’ve long suspected
that part of the psychological complex which favors such a view is an epistemic
insecurity which prompts fundamentalist minded Christians to seek absolute jot and tittle certainty in their faith.
This temptation towards inquisitional certainty subsequently provides a basis
for the heretic purging of those Christians who disagree with the inquisitors.
The epistemic
insecurities which fuel fundamentalist jot
and tittle certainties might be assuaged somewhat if there was a clearer
apprehension that God is sovereign over the whole package of contextual
substrate and impacting word. The Divine choreographer is no doubt more than capable
of arranging things so that the interaction between symbol and context generate
potentially edifying meaning in the life of the believer. It is unfortunate that the statement by evangelical
Lucy Peppiatt has had the effect of conniving with Michael Thornton’s
fundamentalist mentality.
However, let’s
have a look at what Jason Lisle has to say on this subject. The following quote
is taken from a comment on one of his blog posts. Here Lisle was responding to
the question of a fellow fundamentalist:
Dr. Lisle says:
October 14, 2014 at 11:54 am
Zach, the answers to your questions involve the
concept of the “hermeneutical circle” or “hermeneutical spiral.” I have a book
coming out in the summer that addresses these issues in rich detail (in chapter
9). For now, I’ll have to give a shorter answer. God’s Word would have to be
true because of the nature of God; He is truth. God has “hardwired” us to know
that He exists, and to recognize His Word when we hear it or read it (John
10:27). How we respond to God’s Word will determine what happens next. If we
receive His Word with humility then we participate in the hermeneutical circle.
Basically, this means that God’s Word is sufficiently clear that we can
understand and correctly interpret much of it upon reading it. After all, God
designed our minds and knows how to write a book such that our minds can
understand it. Because of sin, we don’t instantly correctly interpret all of
God’s Word on the first reading. But the portions we do understand rightly will
help us to understand the more difficult portions. In the process of time, our
understanding improves as the Scriptures systematically sanctify our thinking.
The Bible is therefore self-interpreting. It teaches us how to interpret it.
The general
drift of this piece by Lisle is, I believe, correct, although he has expressed
it in such a way as to as to neutralize its important lessons and even
encourage the black vs white/baddies vs goodies categories preferred by the right-wing Fundamentalist mind. However, Lisle has at
least become aware of the textual boot strap problem: i.e. one can’t assign
meaning to scripture in a cognitive and cultural vacuum; that meaning can only
bootstrap from an a priori cognitive and cultural substrate on which the text
of scripture impacts. Thus the mind, in part equipped by its context, must be
correctly primed in order that it be correctly informed by the textual input
from the Bible. Moreover, as Lisle suggests, the reading of scripture effectively
feeds back into one’s priming and therefore scripture influences the understanding
of scripture; in fact Scripture becomes part of the substrate culture on which
scripture itself works. See here where I made this important point.
But fundamentalists
are not known for nuancing or epistemic humility, and so Lisle uses some
phrases that cancel all his good work by encouraging epistemic arrogance. These
phrases are stock in trade for the fundamentalist and have the effect of signaling
the old certainties about the divine authority of fundamentalist opinion.
Lisle: God’s Word would have to be true because of the nature of God
My Comment: There is a
difference between natural language and the propositional notational language of mathematics and physics whose “truth” is intended to be independent
of any one human being and is found in consistent and correct symbolic
operations. In contrast natural language is highly connotational in nature and as such truth (or falsehood) is found
in what it generates in the cognition it impacts. Take for example the parables of Jesus: in what
sense are these “true”? Are they to be regarded as true literal histories? If
they don’t refer to literal histories does that make them false? Or should they
be regarded as edifying archetypical vignettes whose truth emerges when they
generate meaning on the appropriate human substrate? Where is God’s truth in this case? It can’t
be in the text because without interaction with a substrate it generates nothing
and means nothing. In much of natural
language truth or falsehood is an effect
rather than being resident in the text itself. The criticism often made of fundamentalism, and there are hints of it in
the way Lisle expresses himself, is that in its very literal approach to
scripture it treats the Bible like a scientific textbook. Parables are far from
scientific statements: they are signals to the reader to be appropriately and rightly creative in
their interpretation.
Lisle God has “hardwired” us to know…
It may well be
(in fact I think it is likely) we have some kind of “God instinct”, but we must
set that against the possibly that the intensity of this instinct may vary from
person to person. Moreover, this instinct may be obscured and/or weakened, perhaps
even eclipsed, by environmental influences of all sorts. So called hard wiring may actually only set up a propensity that in itself is not determinative. In using the term hard wiring Lisle has expressed the “God instinct” in typically
black and white terms, terms that are likely to appeal to the fundamentalist
sense of epistemic certainty: As the fundamentalist reads his Bible with Lisle
reference to “hard wiring” in mind he will likely be encouraged to believe he
has been “hard wired” to correctly interpret the text thus helping to neutralize
any doubts, ambiguities or epistemic humility about what he draws from the
text.
Lisle: God’s Word is sufficiently clear that we can understand and
correctly interpret much of it upon reading it. After all, God designed our
minds and knows how to write a book such that our minds can understand it.
Because of sin, we don’t instantly correctly interpret all of God’s Word on the
first reading
My Comment: It’s probably
a safe bet to infer that to Lisle and his fellow fundamentalists those sufficiently clear meanings are their
own! It’s what some fundamentalists refer to as the “plain meaning” of
scripture; any other meanings must, according to Lisle, be a product of sinful
and willful misinterpretation – notice that Lisle gives no space to plain
ordinary genuine interpretation errors when reading the Bible! In the fundamentalist universe sinful
motives stalk the world and beyond their
strict and particular fundamentalist communities those malign motives are found
around every corner – this is why fundamentalists have a weakness for
conspiracy theory.
Lisle: The Bible is therefore self-interpreting. It teaches us how to
interpret it
My Comment: Although I
agree with what Lisle has written immediately before this sentence, he has gone
too far here: Scripture is never absolutely self-interpreting; its meaning has to
be bootstrapped from somewhere as Lisle himself has admitted with his reference
to “hardwiring”. Once again we find
Lisle serving up what his strict fundamentalist audience want to hear: Namely,
that the Bible is a small, secure, self-interpreting universe. This encourages
the fundamentalist to drop outside influences in favor of the proprietary
readings favoured by his particular fundamentalist community; this is the sense
in which they implicitly understand the term “sola scriptura”. The latter phrase was coined in a time when Catholic
fundamentalism insisted on the divine authority of its reading of scripture.
Ironically Lisle and his fellow fundamentalists have a similar opinion of their
own views!
All in all Lisle
has expressed himself in such a way as to mask the important questions
surrounding the bootstrapping of Biblical meaning: The tenor of what he says would
be unlikely to budge Michael Thornton
and Lucy Peppiatt from their misleading opinions which wrongly give the
impression that scripture is a self-contained island of meaning, an independent
“lens” which has no need to call on cultural and cognitive resources in order
to generate meaning.
...to be continued
Did he really say that? As we shall see, the fundamentalist epistemic is likely motivated by fear and insecurity.
Postscript 30/6/15. A case study in fundamentalist epistemic arrogance
Who else?
In a blog post entitled 28 June 2015 fundamentalist Ken Ham writes (my emphases):
....we have an absolute authority by which all our actions must
be judged—the authority of the Word of God. God obviously is the ultimate
Judge, and He has given us His Word with which to judge actions.
....before we make a judgment, we must make sure we are judging
righteously from God’s Word and not relying on our own opinion.
Ken's post is about the validity of judging others - I wouldn't quibble with that as we all, necessarily in fact, make valued judgments on people's behavior. What interests me here is the way Ken justifies his judgments. As we know Ken Ham is a very judgmental person, constantly pronouncing God's censor on atheists and Christians alike; even that I wouldn't class as an activity wrong in-and-of-itself. Where Ken goes wrong is that he passes the buck on his epistemic responsibility in arriving at the ontological basis from whence he makes his judgments: For, as we can see from the above, in Ken's eyes he is not pronouncing his opinions, but God's opinions. He sees little epistemic responsibility in getting his interpretation of the Bible right, and gives no indication that when he "
judges righteously from God's Word" it still remains
his opinion of God's Word: Instead Ken is quite certain that his opinions are God's opinions. It is that unquestioning confidence that to his mind sanctions his prolific output of condemnation on others, and it is that which qualifies him as a fundamentalist. (See here
http://www.viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/hell-and-hamnation-ii.html). As I heard someone say: "
An evangelical is nice fundamentalist". It follows then that
a fundamentalist is a nasty evangelical!
