As to feeling our way to God, that can lead to easy-believism (or non-believism) and intuiting our way to God (who is real and personal as we have seen in objective evidences supplied)… intuiting our way can rather badly miss the mark.
I like the way you put that, and much else of what you wrote as well.
Empathy was a key ingredient that Penner seemed to mention a lot throughout. The ability and even desire to walk in another’s moccasins and to understand as they understand. Objectivity by itself dismisses all that as irrelevant, and yet a total dismissal of all objectivity would also be to demean and demote your neighbor’s understandings as less worthy. While all such fallible human understanding can be rightly held as provisional, it doesn’t mean we don’t take it seriously and as a potentially or partially objective insight - applying the humility to ourselves first before we apply it to our neighbor.
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In the mid-1970s, I was in my late 20s, and lived in San Francisco. My 2nd favorite hangout was the public library, a common place for a beggar to be. I wasn’t one. I remember one, some years my junior, not white, nor black, nor hispanic, nor asian; maybe native american.
- “Spare some change?” he said.
- I dug into my pockets and found some, and as I handed it to him, I said: “Here ya go, Brother.”
- Accepting the change, he looked me in the eye and said: “I’m not your brother.”
- ‘I stand corrected,’ I thought, as I walked away, and tried to figure out where to put my unwanted empathy.
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I have a neighbor who taught at the same school I did but taught physical education. He was really good at it and was a big part of why I started going to the YMCA after I retired (at least up until the plague arrived).
Anyway what you write here reminds me of a story he often told. I’m sure he told it to his middle schoolers too. He rode his bike everywhere and his story tells how someone in a car stared him down at a intersection and yelled “I don’t yield to *ssholes”. At which point Jack jumped off his bike and with a grand bow and sweep of his hand replied “I always do.”
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Naw. I don’t think it was perceived as “unwanted empathy” but that you were not fighting side by side in the same struggle for the same reasons from the same point of disadvantage with the same point of view. Bluntly, you were not qualified to see yourself as his brother, because you hadn’t experienced what he had. I believe, in his mind, you had overstepped into a space that was not appropriate for you to enter.
It’s hard to recognize what is appropriate and not in situations like the one you mentioned. Or how to best communicate our intentions. I have learned that I can’t expect what I would call “a suitable response to empathy” because I haven’t earned the trust in that person’s eyes to show it. I know that sounds absurd. But for people who have been burned “by the system” and by people who look like me, trust of people who look like me doesn’t come easy. I come off looking like the schmarmy manipulator I mentioned earlier. I have to accept that repulsive fact. I’m not trusted outright.
I work now to “be professional” and expect nothing back in return but, at best, cold formality. And I have to constantly remind myself that the situation (my giving something: money, service, help) is not about me but the needs of the other person. The situation exists without reference to me. At best I am invisible to that person.
I’m sure that was it. I offered change in response to his request, but I had the distinct impression that “he wanted his land back”, an apology, and my return to Europe.
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Probably.
It’s had to get used to the idea of having no face, no clout, no street cred with someone. But when you recognize that as a distinct possibility and think about what kind of contact YOU would want from the other, it would not be an attempt at unearned self-identification.
“I know just how you feel.”
“Yeah. No you don’t.”
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I’m finding it hard to finish with this book. Or rather leave this book. While the reading has been accomplished, there’s going to be a lot more to say for a very long time that eventually won’t appear on any discussion board.
I’ll try not to repeat (much) of what has already been discussed, but these are a few sections that I think demonstrate why books like this are dangerous, if we let them be.
[Ellipses and bracketed changes are mine for the sake of brevity.]
…[T]ruth, even as edification, always involves a violent upheaval of some sort. At its deepest level, truth is prophetic, and this means it often is traumatic. Truth profoundly interrupts and disturbs our patterns of self-reliance and our staid interpretations of the world (i.e., our traditions). Because they depend upon a rupture with our preconceived notions of self-adequacy and human sufficiency, the truths of prophetic witness potentially place us at odds with, first, ourselves and, second, our community. (p. 167)
One who has been edified by the truth has also been dislocated by it and has been (or is going) through the violent process of being remade by something that is beyond the self. (p. 168)
A Christian witness has a dialectical relation with tradition as one who has received these truths but must come to own them and believe them personally. A Christian witness is one who been “apocalypsed” by the truth, if I can use that language, one who has been undone – and redone – by encountering the One who is Truth; and this has reordered the witness’s beliefs, perceptions, and practices and has made everything else relative to this event. (p. 167)
I appreciate Penner’s descriptions of edification and encounters with the One who is Truth as violent, disruptive, apocalypsing, undoing and reordering. Jesus doesn’t interact with us to affirm our comfortable thinking. However, amnesia is common, because it is comfortable. Forgetting that I have been apocalypsed by encountering the One who is Truth is very easy, particularly if I assume it only happens once.
But if I am determined to attempt to live in the truth, I think this reordering is something I need to expect to live in as a permanent state. If Truth changes me, yet is too large to be apprehended all at once in a transformative gulp from the fire hose, then I can expect more dis- and reordering of my self as well as my live. However, I can also trust the One doing that profoundly disturbing work in me.
Maybe recognizing the apocalyptic nature of Truth in my own life will also help me give more grace to the others around me going through the same, which is necessary to be a genuine member of a church community.
In relation to this, Penner lays out again, that while the prophetic witness requires the community of the church, the individuals in it should also find themselves at odds with it.
the truths of prophetic witness potentially place us at odds with, first, ourselves and, second, our community. (p. 167)
and
the witness to truth has a place from which to stand both within Christian tradition, as a representative of it, and outside it, calling it back to faithfulness. What is also true of prophets, then, is that while they challenge and even speak against their traditions, they are also more deeply committed to them than those who are comfortable in the status quo. It is precisely because they are so committed to their tradition and believe in its deepest impulses that prophets sometimes attack it. The prophetic call is always to a deeper fidelity to the founding event of the tradition, but not in such a way that controls it or even tries to make it into a univocal, monochromatic tradition. (p. 168)
This feels daunting. It’s not a place I would have wanted to sign up for, but it seems that’s where I am more and more. Learning to be at odds with, while being an effective (and even loving) witness within my own church community will require new tools I haven’t developed.
Outrageous Post Script:
The End of Apologetics would be considered a very dangerous book by many people I know. And yet it has been incredibly important to me and will be for a long time.
During yet another period of erosion and suppression of thought, continue to read dangerous books that challenge what you think you know. Some of those books are actually people, art, speeches, newspapers, any expression of thought and ideas. Read things that offer answers to questions you haven’t yet formulated. Read some books you think you don’t like. Be careful with the truths they offer.
And let those “Books” change you.
Let others do the same.
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Well, there always is the epilogue. Chapter 6?
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Yes, the epilogue is enigmatic and spot on, predictably.
Chapter 6 will be coming out in next day or so in the form of a bibliography. Slow going, because there is so much, and my brain can only handle so many citations at a time.
And your observation/restatement:
These statements are profound as we live our faith. It seems that deconstruction/reconstruction is not a one time season but rather a lifelong journey, and something not to fear or be ashamed of but rather as something to take joy in as we come a bit closer to learning truth.
I have found myself discussing this book with others, and reminding myself to value and nuture relationships, to put faces on those I am in contact with.
I was talking to my pastor about how difficult I found reading the book, and how it is like medical literature, where a couple of words convey ideas to those who know what they are talking about that would take paragraphs to explain to those of us who are ignorant, and he related how in seminary for his D. Div, there would be reading lists of such books, and he would look at it and pray, "Please, please, just one book by Billy Graham! " (Nothing against Billy Graham, but he himself bemoaned his lack of theologic training.)
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Professional scientists may complain about science popularizers and all the inaccuracies, oversimplifications, or even just outright falsehoods that are published to the credulous masses, but I think this all just underscores how important are the jobs of so-called “middle management” whose jobs it is to help the common culture gain at least some connection to the work of the brightest minds (the ‘geniuses’) Those who recognize (too often with considerable arrogance thrown in) their own status among the brightest may often despise “the man on the street”, but these geniuses show the limited, highly selective nature of their genius if they do so, because that common person is, after all, a participant in society, a voter, a consumer, a parent, a decision-maker about many things like vaccines, etc. And for any of the brightest to think they can carry on their research independently of the rest of the working world would be like thinking you can have a knife edge without any other supporting substance behind that edge. It simply wouldn’t exist. Geniuses don’t even get to be geniuses without patient childhood and adolescent teachers. And nor would they live in a world where there work could mean anything to anyone (much less find application) without something of an educational “middle class” that can grasp their work enough to appreciate or even begin to apply it.
And that “middle class” is in large part created through the publishings of the “Billy Grahams” of the intellectual world - the ones who can be something of a go-between, helping the common person make connections to the more challenging concepts. Thank God for good science writers and popularizers. I doubt science would exist at all today without people like them.
Sorry that this didn’t have much to do with Penner - but I’ll bet there is a parallel to all this in the world of piety and seminary as well.
I hope to do more “chapter 6” discussion - maybe from the epilogue. Like you, @Kendel, I’m not done; even though work currently prevents me from being able to take much time here right now.
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Okay I’ll also shout out one more quote, literally the last sentences of the last chapter in the book.
The temptation for the Christian is to allow the fact that reason comes to us through others and is confirmed by them to somehow act as a substitute for hearing from God, to reduce faith to the staid reasons of an interpretive community. Instead, I want to linger in that liminal space William Lane Craig identifies (and then immediately feels the need to escape from) as the impulse to cling to Christ even if reason turns against you. Ultimately, what I find decisive for the Christian witness is not what is reasonable, what the crowd tells one to believe or to say, but the voice of God—*a wisdom whose secret is foolishness” and a “hope whose form is madness.“” When this is forgotten, suppressed, or denied and God’s existence (along with the rest of faith’s affirmations) is made out to rest confidently on the processes of human reason, we should look for the specter of Judas lurking somewhere nearby
I’ve long said I think what gives rise to and supports God belief still is real, important and dynamic. I find placing that in a liminal space entirely preferable to a supernatural one.
Regarding “liminal” google says:
relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.
But I can see where supernatural can be thought to mean essentially the same thing at least as google defines as:
- (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
“a supernatural being” adjective
Perhaps they nearly are synonymous but I do prefer the epistemic humility in identifying it from within our subjective experience, as “liminal” does, rather than the speculative category of the “supernatural” which is assumed to have no footing in our world whatsoever. The part of “liminal” said to “occupy a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold” is significant. Otherwise what exactly is the metaphysical status of the Holy Spirit and how are we who inhabit the physical world ever to come into contact with it? I understand that theology goes on to elaborate more specificity than the liminal can likely support. But anyone who can hold on to their faith fully understanding that some of how they in faith is that. The only thing lost is the cocky swagger of the traditional apologist. Good riddance.
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Mark, I will respectfully and subjectively disagree in faith as well as in good faith.
While I understand your experiences that you’ve described are real, important and dynamic, as we have discussed, they are different from mine and other Christians’ as well as other theists of different types. Just as your experiences defy complete explanation or description, so do ours.
Actually, many of the Christians I’ve met around here have demonstrate a genuine humility regarding our subjective experiences that we understand to be supernaturally grounded. Since we’ve neither see nor handled Jesus, we recognize that we are operating on faith, which is openly recognized as not sight. I am not familiar with any attempt to explain the mechanics of the operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and recognize that that is taken on faith as well, but that in faith we believe we have evidence of his work.
I understand that there are other types of experiences one might deem as spiritual but not supernatural, which also defy mechanical or physical or a clear psychological explanation. Not everything we experience can be explained. I am used to living with that.
Christians understand our theological statements to be our best attempts to summarize in some organized fashion, the most important teachings from our Scriptures regarding God, the relationship between God and humans, and how we ought to live our lives. We are also all too aware that that is fairly limited in comparison to the questions that remain.
We recognize that our attempts go summarize what is available to us are flawed, because there are so many variations. While it’s easy to simply rest in one tradition and go with that, it ignores an awful lot. However, if sticking in one tradition allows a Christian to live a genuinely good and purposeful life, then I think that’s adequate. Not everyone is plagued with the same questions and needs.
If I understand you right, you are saying that Christians must recognize that we are operating on faith, and that’s it.
I am unaware of anyone who would deny this. But maybe I haven’t asked them the right questions. Or I’m making assumptions. The revelation that I have to work with is explicit about the absolute necessity for faith. I am not aware of any other biblical teaching on the matter. I believe that’s what Penner was getting at invoking Judas.
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And not all Christians’ experiences are subjective. They can be personal, but still very objective. Who first comes to mind is Phil Yancey (and not Maggie ; - ). There is no humility at all in an a priori denial of the existence of the supernatural, especially for a subjective reason.
Fair enough. But is it the reasonableness of my preference for liminal over supernatural over which you disagree? If so is it because you think both are required?
My hunch is that we both think liminal applies but you go further to take that as personally grounding belief in the historical events central to Christian belief which must certainly be supernatural if true. I don’t disparage that but without the prior inclination to link what is liminal to the historical and supernatural it simply doesn’t connect for me. I’m not questioning it’s doing so for you. What I’m really saying is I find meaning in what remains outside our rational grasp even without the biblical back story.
I don’t think anyone else should be as content with what I believe as I am but that is just how it is. Certainty will remain out of our reach in either case. But admittedly your view comes with a rich tradition and community structure with a common cause (at least in principle). Those are real advantages and I’m happy for you. But I sense you’re questioning how the liminal disconnected from the backstory can possibly be at all like what believers experience.
Maggie was certain in her correctly justified true belief and it was well within her reach, and ours. That is not swagger but epistemic honesty, as opposed to its opposite.
(ETA: “correctly” above, directed to those who want to play Gettier. ; - )
The Christian nods knowingly (but hopefully without too much cocky swagger) and replies that God had an idea about how to do just this … cue all the theology of incarnation. The pilot program for the unveiling of that whole project was launched about two thousand years ago .
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That’s exactly my situation.
The impulse is hard to detect above flatline. It’s like I’m treading water, deaf in the still dark over the abyss, hopelessly yearning to Him out of reach. My favourite film of 2015 was All Is Lost. Are you yearning back Mate? Can you reach down?
We will all live and die not having the impulse reciprocated.
Well I didn’t have your experience of being all in before being all out. So I guess you have (had?) more to deal with and surely much disappointment. From the perspective you had there would be an expectation of something like reciprocation.
But when I believed it was based on no book learning and no theological instruction that I can recall. And by the time I could read we didn’t go to church anymore. Reason took over and booted out the beliefs I’d acquired somehow. But not before I’d acquired the habit of reflection and the expectation that insight and inspiration could come of quiet and patience. Happy to say I’ve never lost that.
So later I wondered, so where do those things come from if it isn’t You Know Who. That got me to wondering how we’re wired and that habit prevented my having the idea that all there is is me my thoughts and what I could learn. Much later, Not all that long ago really, started wondering if it was grounding that habit and helping it make sense which had given rise to God belief. Of course another possibility is that it really was an amazing being with enormous goodwill toward people who does it all. Either way life is better not feeling it all comes down to my own efforts, and gifts always have and probably always will be given whether by that One or something innate distributed amongst us all. I’m not a big fan of Occam’s Razor; but I’ve never known who/what it is and I mostly just don’t need to know.