I'll See It When I Believe It
My wife occasionally serves up a deliciously misspoken turn of phrase. I find it delightful, especially her most recent which is the title of this post.
"I'll see it when I believe it"got me thinking because it captures an aberrant view of faith, and what it means to really believe in something. Her remark was in reference to a local meteorologist's promise of good weather in our native Oregon.
Many in the church would agree with her statement as an orthodox expression of how faith and knowledge intertwine. Martin Luther certainly did. We can paraphrase him with a simple statement, "It is always faith seeking reason." Luther believed that a cognitive AND relational knowledge of God through the Scriptures—what we would call faith—was superior to human reason. Luther did not discount human reason, but he did see it as subordinate to divine revelation. He believed that faith was an affective response of the heart to God's self-disclosure, as accessed through the Spirit and the Word, or Scriptures.
It's as if one is suddenly gifted a pair of Blue Blocker sunglasses on a blistering high plains day in the midwest. The glare and humidity that dissolve detail lift and one can see with astonishing clarity. Luther believed that the gift of faith, given by God, was like Blue Blockers. Without them, one could not see Christ by faith but could only discern the murky outlines of God's self-revelation.
His was not an anti-intellectual stance. He believed that faith, whatever it's dimensions, sanctified human reason. The cognitive tools we humans share could be employed to strengthen the case for a lively faith in God. They might even help explain the Christian faith to someone who did not share it. In fact, human reason could even discover truth that was not directly related to God's explicit revelation of God's self. But human reason, in and of itself, could not find its way to Christ.
Luther's ideas sat astride the end of the Pre-Modern Era in Christendom and the birth of a new movement in Western Civilization. It was called the Enlightenment; the Age of Reason, and those who pioneered it reversed Luther's epistemology. Human reason was now considered superior to God's revelation as observed in the Scriptures and throughout history. One no longer came to truth via trust in a truth-giver, namely God. One now arrived at truth by way of skepticism.
The prevailing meta-narrative in Luther's day was that of Christianity. God—who was revealed ultimately in the crucified and risen Jesus—is our Creator. We are His creatures. That fundamental reality defines all others. This God is apart from, but also in relationship with his creation. As such, God works in history, interacting with his creation. He's taking all of us someplace that is pre-determined by him. His creatures are, in one sense, along for the ride, whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or atheists.
This worldview is the narrative formally held by the majority of Evangelical Christians, whether they can trace its history or not. But it is a disparaged minority view.
The more prevalent idea is that one should doubt everything until it can be "objectively verified." The arbiter of truth is the individual reasoning person who doubts and pursues objective verification until no reasonable doubt remains. Have you ever wondered why the standard for guilt in a criminal case is "beyond a reasonable doubt"? Two values are resident in that standard. First, the search for truth begins by eliminating doubt. Ironically, we begin our search for truth with radical skepticism. Second, truth is never 100% knowable. The best we can do is eliminate the last vestige of reasonable doubt.
This is why an increasing number of people find Christians to be odd and untrustworthy. Certainly, some Christians exhibit bad behavior which fuels that view, but they are not the primary cause whatever Christianity's critics claim.
The more fundamental disagreement is over the question: How do we know what is true?
The tension is more than just that between Christians and those who don't follow Jesus. Christians are conflicted within themselves. They want to adopt Luther's view of truth, but they are also thoroughly shaped by both Modernity and Post-modernity. They, we, feel the internal clash of powerful, competing narratives. The first is that of the Pre-modern era. God and his prophets hand down the truth from on high. Truth is unknowable apart from God. But we are also shaped by the influence of modernity where human reason and doubt are the highway truth travels. To complicate matters further, we toss in post-modernity where human reason is even more suspect than in pre-modernity. Despair replaces doubt and truth becomes a mirage. There is no grand, once-and-for-all "truth", only truths: my truth, your truth, any truth you like tailored to any experience.
Most people in our culture have abandoned all but the last movement, Post-modernity. But most Christians, at least Western Evangelicals, live in a strange soup of all three. They have a pre-modern conviction, faith if you will, that the story of God's work in history as told in the Scriptures is essentially true. God promised an Anointed One who would usher in His Kingdom. Jesus has shown himself to be both that Messiah and King by his life, death, and Resurrection. Those things are impossible to know apart from divine revelation and its faithful transmission.
Yet, most 21st Century Christians, at least the Western Evangelical kind are also thoroughly modern. They betray that much with their taste for apologetics. This is, in a sense, faith seeking reason as Luther described but it rests upon a modern skepticism. We cannot really believe unless what we have faith in can be verified through sophistry or the objective inquiry of hard evidence.
And then there's a generational split between baby boomers, who tend to be more modern, and those generations who follow. They embrace a postmodern view more fully. Younger Christians exhibit a distaste for the dictates of tradition. They are much more comfortable suspending disbelief as a function of personal experience. But experience varies. "It's subjective", some cry. No matter. Post-modernity allows for parallel "truths" which neither need to intersect or cohere. Even contradictory beliefs can be held in suspension, supported in the cradle of one's personal "truth." Post-modernity eschews coherent labels. It's entirely permissible to self-identify as a non-binary, queer Christian Buddhist, for example. Who's to say that's not possible? Tradition? No. Classical logic? Nope, not that either. Common sense. Pshtt!
That's not all bad, really. Just as modernity was a reaction to the excesses of pre-modernity, so post-modernity is an equally strong reaction to the excesses of modernity. If pre-modern times gifted us with the Inquisition, Modernity gave us the possibility of global thermonuclear war. Post-modernity merely embraces the sad absurdity of that last sentence. Ideas like good and evil, right and wrong, simply don't matter in the face of real and potential calamity. Life is really just a comical farce.
So, where does that leave us? Alone mostly, on islands of individual "truth." We seek tribal connections like bits of mercury rolling about on a tilting tabletop. Google "community". You'll find more than 9.4 billion search results. Enough for everyone. We long for connection. We long for meaning. We do not like to be lonely. We die if we're truly alone.
That's why Jesus' message is so scandalous and intoxicating. It flies in the face of all of it—all we can "know". It transcends pedestrian debates about truth. He transcends those skirmishes. Jesus defies deconstruction. For every Schweitzer, there's a Wright.
And for every wrong, there's also a right. That is his promise, that he will not abandon us to ourselves and that he will make all things right in the end. Some may ask why I believe that. Is my trust ensured by A) a divine revelation of God's love and good intentions as demonstrated by Jesus? Or B) do I rest upon the brilliant work of modern scholars who rode doubt to capture great scientific knowledge and sure faith in God? Or, is it C) simply my truth, personal and unverifiable to any but myself? Or, is it...
D) All of the above.
Many in the church would agree with her statement as an orthodox expression of how faith and knowledge intertwine. Martin Luther certainly did. We can paraphrase him with a simple statement, "It is always faith seeking reason." Luther believed that a cognitive AND relational knowledge of God through the Scriptures—what we would call faith—was superior to human reason. Luther did not discount human reason, but he did see it as subordinate to divine revelation. He believed that faith was an affective response of the heart to God's self-disclosure, as accessed through the Spirit and the Word, or Scriptures.
It's as if one is suddenly gifted a pair of Blue Blocker sunglasses on a blistering high plains day in the midwest. The glare and humidity that dissolve detail lift and one can see with astonishing clarity. Luther believed that the gift of faith, given by God, was like Blue Blockers. Without them, one could not see Christ by faith but could only discern the murky outlines of God's self-revelation.
His was not an anti-intellectual stance. He believed that faith, whatever it's dimensions, sanctified human reason. The cognitive tools we humans share could be employed to strengthen the case for a lively faith in God. They might even help explain the Christian faith to someone who did not share it. In fact, human reason could even discover truth that was not directly related to God's explicit revelation of God's self. But human reason, in and of itself, could not find its way to Christ.
Luther's ideas sat astride the end of the Pre-Modern Era in Christendom and the birth of a new movement in Western Civilization. It was called the Enlightenment; the Age of Reason, and those who pioneered it reversed Luther's epistemology. Human reason was now considered superior to God's revelation as observed in the Scriptures and throughout history. One no longer came to truth via trust in a truth-giver, namely God. One now arrived at truth by way of skepticism.
The prevailing meta-narrative in Luther's day was that of Christianity. God—who was revealed ultimately in the crucified and risen Jesus—is our Creator. We are His creatures. That fundamental reality defines all others. This God is apart from, but also in relationship with his creation. As such, God works in history, interacting with his creation. He's taking all of us someplace that is pre-determined by him. His creatures are, in one sense, along for the ride, whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or atheists.
This worldview is the narrative formally held by the majority of Evangelical Christians, whether they can trace its history or not. But it is a disparaged minority view.
The more prevalent idea is that one should doubt everything until it can be "objectively verified." The arbiter of truth is the individual reasoning person who doubts and pursues objective verification until no reasonable doubt remains. Have you ever wondered why the standard for guilt in a criminal case is "beyond a reasonable doubt"? Two values are resident in that standard. First, the search for truth begins by eliminating doubt. Ironically, we begin our search for truth with radical skepticism. Second, truth is never 100% knowable. The best we can do is eliminate the last vestige of reasonable doubt.
This is why an increasing number of people find Christians to be odd and untrustworthy. Certainly, some Christians exhibit bad behavior which fuels that view, but they are not the primary cause whatever Christianity's critics claim.
The more fundamental disagreement is over the question: How do we know what is true?
The tension is more than just that between Christians and those who don't follow Jesus. Christians are conflicted within themselves. They want to adopt Luther's view of truth, but they are also thoroughly shaped by both Modernity and Post-modernity. They, we, feel the internal clash of powerful, competing narratives. The first is that of the Pre-modern era. God and his prophets hand down the truth from on high. Truth is unknowable apart from God. But we are also shaped by the influence of modernity where human reason and doubt are the highway truth travels. To complicate matters further, we toss in post-modernity where human reason is even more suspect than in pre-modernity. Despair replaces doubt and truth becomes a mirage. There is no grand, once-and-for-all "truth", only truths: my truth, your truth, any truth you like tailored to any experience.
Most people in our culture have abandoned all but the last movement, Post-modernity. But most Christians, at least Western Evangelicals, live in a strange soup of all three. They have a pre-modern conviction, faith if you will, that the story of God's work in history as told in the Scriptures is essentially true. God promised an Anointed One who would usher in His Kingdom. Jesus has shown himself to be both that Messiah and King by his life, death, and Resurrection. Those things are impossible to know apart from divine revelation and its faithful transmission.
Yet, most 21st Century Christians, at least the Western Evangelical kind are also thoroughly modern. They betray that much with their taste for apologetics. This is, in a sense, faith seeking reason as Luther described but it rests upon a modern skepticism. We cannot really believe unless what we have faith in can be verified through sophistry or the objective inquiry of hard evidence.
And then there's a generational split between baby boomers, who tend to be more modern, and those generations who follow. They embrace a postmodern view more fully. Younger Christians exhibit a distaste for the dictates of tradition. They are much more comfortable suspending disbelief as a function of personal experience. But experience varies. "It's subjective", some cry. No matter. Post-modernity allows for parallel "truths" which neither need to intersect or cohere. Even contradictory beliefs can be held in suspension, supported in the cradle of one's personal "truth." Post-modernity eschews coherent labels. It's entirely permissible to self-identify as a non-binary, queer Christian Buddhist, for example. Who's to say that's not possible? Tradition? No. Classical logic? Nope, not that either. Common sense. Pshtt!
That's not all bad, really. Just as modernity was a reaction to the excesses of pre-modernity, so post-modernity is an equally strong reaction to the excesses of modernity. If pre-modern times gifted us with the Inquisition, Modernity gave us the possibility of global thermonuclear war. Post-modernity merely embraces the sad absurdity of that last sentence. Ideas like good and evil, right and wrong, simply don't matter in the face of real and potential calamity. Life is really just a comical farce.
So, where does that leave us? Alone mostly, on islands of individual "truth." We seek tribal connections like bits of mercury rolling about on a tilting tabletop. Google "community". You'll find more than 9.4 billion search results. Enough for everyone. We long for connection. We long for meaning. We do not like to be lonely. We die if we're truly alone.
That's why Jesus' message is so scandalous and intoxicating. It flies in the face of all of it—all we can "know". It transcends pedestrian debates about truth. He transcends those skirmishes. Jesus defies deconstruction. For every Schweitzer, there's a Wright.
And for every wrong, there's also a right. That is his promise, that he will not abandon us to ourselves and that he will make all things right in the end. Some may ask why I believe that. Is my trust ensured by A) a divine revelation of God's love and good intentions as demonstrated by Jesus? Or B) do I rest upon the brilliant work of modern scholars who rode doubt to capture great scientific knowledge and sure faith in God? Or, is it C) simply my truth, personal and unverifiable to any but myself? Or, is it...
D) All of the above.
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