At NECF consultation, Dr Leong Tien Fock presented a balanced approach, highlighting how Christians can be 'countercultural' towards both modernism and postmodernism in The Battle For Truth. Here are some excerpts:
"It is safe to assume that virtually everyone who lives in modernity has the characteristic modern mindset to some degree. At one extreme is the hardcore atheist, who denies God's existence not only in practice but also in theory. At the other extreme is the sincere Christian who does not realise that the way he approaches spiritual realities and Christian ministry is modernistic. In light of the dynamics of modernity, Rodney Clapp has pointed out that even the statement "the family that prays together, stays together" is not really innocent. For "if we worship and pray to God because that will strengthen our family, then we make worship and prayer (and God) into investment techniques [a distinctive feature of modernity] that serve our ends..."
Postmodernism is the name given to the new mindset that is replacing modernism. It rejects the basic assumptions of modernism, chief among which is the erroneous idea that human reason and senses, and hence science, is the only reliable means to truth. In this sense it is a friend to Christianity. But postmodernism has gone to the other extreme of rejecting human reason and senses, and hence science, altogether as a reliable means to truth. This extreme rejection means that there is no such thing as objective truth, whether moral or scientific. So what is true for one community, say the Christians, need not be true for another community, say the atheists. In this sense postmodernism is a foe to Christianity.
To be fair, postmodernists are not all postmodern to the same degree. Moderate ones only reject the erroneous claim that science is the only reliable means to truth. This is probably because postmodernism in its extreme form is nonsensical and cannot be consistently lived out....
Even moderate postmodernists, who still think that scientific truths are objective, often feel that moral truths are all relative. Even non-homosexuals will feel that homosexuality may be wrong in the premodern world but need not be so in the modern West...
>
We have highlighted only two effects of the combination of modernity and postmodernism. To catch a glimpse of the kind of battle for truth we are facing in the 21st century, let us say this: besides the increasing fall of Christian morality and the increasing rise of un-Christian spirituality worldwide, it is becoming increasingly difficult for non-Christians (and some Christians) just to accept emotionally (if not intellectually as well) that there is only one true religion or spirituality, let alone believe that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
...postmodernism, though a rejection of modernism, is a natural by-product of modernity. This means, as postmodernisation follows modernisation and globalisation, what first emerges will be moderate postmodernism (a culture does not jump from a scientific to an anti-scientific mindset overnight). And since moderate postmodernism is, in a sense, a friend to Christianity, the battle for truth against modernity in places where postmodernism is not yet a stronghold favours the Church. But there must be sufficient Christians who overcome the corruptive power of modernity and postmodernism. By God's grace there will be. Will you and I be among them?
Give of your best to the Master ... join in the battle for truth!
"It is safe to assume that virtually everyone who lives in modernity has the characteristic modern mindset to some degree. At one extreme is the hardcore atheist, who denies God's existence not only in practice but also in theory. At the other extreme is the sincere Christian who does not realise that the way he approaches spiritual realities and Christian ministry is modernistic. In light of the dynamics of modernity, Rodney Clapp has pointed out that even the statement "the family that prays together, stays together" is not really innocent. For "if we worship and pray to God because that will strengthen our family, then we make worship and prayer (and God) into investment techniques [a distinctive feature of modernity] that serve our ends..."
Postmodernism is the name given to the new mindset that is replacing modernism. It rejects the basic assumptions of modernism, chief among which is the erroneous idea that human reason and senses, and hence science, is the only reliable means to truth. In this sense it is a friend to Christianity. But postmodernism has gone to the other extreme of rejecting human reason and senses, and hence science, altogether as a reliable means to truth. This extreme rejection means that there is no such thing as objective truth, whether moral or scientific. So what is true for one community, say the Christians, need not be true for another community, say the atheists. In this sense postmodernism is a foe to Christianity.
To be fair, postmodernists are not all postmodern to the same degree. Moderate ones only reject the erroneous claim that science is the only reliable means to truth. This is probably because postmodernism in its extreme form is nonsensical and cannot be consistently lived out....
Even moderate postmodernists, who still think that scientific truths are objective, often feel that moral truths are all relative. Even non-homosexuals will feel that homosexuality may be wrong in the premodern world but need not be so in the modern West...
>
We have highlighted only two effects of the combination of modernity and postmodernism. To catch a glimpse of the kind of battle for truth we are facing in the 21st century, let us say this: besides the increasing fall of Christian morality and the increasing rise of un-Christian spirituality worldwide, it is becoming increasingly difficult for non-Christians (and some Christians) just to accept emotionally (if not intellectually as well) that there is only one true religion or spirituality, let alone believe that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
...postmodernism, though a rejection of modernism, is a natural by-product of modernity. This means, as postmodernisation follows modernisation and globalisation, what first emerges will be moderate postmodernism (a culture does not jump from a scientific to an anti-scientific mindset overnight). And since moderate postmodernism is, in a sense, a friend to Christianity, the battle for truth against modernity in places where postmodernism is not yet a stronghold favours the Church. But there must be sufficient Christians who overcome the corruptive power of modernity and postmodernism. By God's grace there will be. Will you and I be among them?
Give of your best to the Master ... join in the battle for truth!
Comments
It's an honor to receive comments from one of the most articulate, postcolonial and constructive (ie post-decons.) thinker of our generation. :)
Amen, I agree heartily tat tis side of heaven would never be fully 'open and friendly' to the kingdom of jesus. In trying to be buddies with mo, some christians have reduced Jesus and His agenda to unverifiable superstitions which carry moral principles nonetheless.... In trying to flirt w pomo, some christians have reduced it to just another story among thousands, with no 'universal intent'.
In both cases, the faith has been co-opted by the prevailing worldview...
I also find resonance in what you said about 'God being Subject and we being objects' in tat God's revelation in Christ and in His Word should stand in 'judgment' of our plausibility structures (not vice versa) - undercurrents of Van Til or Barth (?) here...
Also as an Asian christian, I already found streams of pomo in Buddhism, heheh... and wud not be surprised if 21st century will turn out to be the golden age of tat Asian religion! :)
My heart is warmed whenever friends remind me that the Christian faith is all about a 'knowing the person of Jesus' or 'personal relationship with God'... it is so much MORE than doctrinal correctness and true propositions about God and Jesus.
And I wanna say something even more... Our relationship involves nothing lesser than true concepts about God and Jesus also.
The proposition that "God revealed Truth in the form of a Person" is after all, either true or false.
This shud not worry us at all... i think of my relationship with Grace, it's so much MORE than me having the right head knowledge about her hobbies, home address, handphone no and past romantic history! hehehehe... But somehow, knowing true things ABOUT her helps me to relate better in a personal relationship. :)
So it is with the person of Jesus!
and yet, beign aware of the battles of our western brothers and sisters can help avoid or even heighten our awareness of what is or not helpful in our discourse with one another as asian christians.
Well, I'd try to come up with my list before the pomo workshop in CDPC! hehee...
hi Sherman! Got a question for you: -
though the problem of mo and pomo may not be our battle as Asian Christians, but do you think that there are a little bit of those influences in the Church here, since it was the Enlightenment missionaries from the West that brought Christianity here, and much of the young people here are still very much exposed to Western thought and ideas through movies, music, books etc? What do you think? So is this where the post-colonial thingee comes in? Oops.. that's more than one question! :P
It's very hard to isolate people from ideas, but we can innoculate them :)
Dear Sir,
Firstly, I'd like to thank you profusely for paying me mind and giving me your time. Secondly, I think I need to summarize your stand on the Bible. I stand to be corrected on this:
The Bible can be said to be inerrant/infallible. By the Bible, we are talking about biblical texts in form of their original autographs. Your view of what the Canon should consist of it unclear to me. It appears also that most if not all the discrepancies ( e.g. between the Deuteronomistic Kings and Chronicles) are only apparent in nature and are (mostly) a matter of copyist errors.
I hope that did justice to your views. The rest of this e-mail will not be rendered irrelevant if I got your wrong because I'l try to deal with what you wrote in specifics. I'll try to start from the top and work my way down to the bottom:
On interpretation. You asked, "Or just bcos people have different interpretations, so bible is fallible?" I agree that it does not necessarily follow that just because interpretations are fallible, Scripture is as well. But it begs the question of how useful it is to speak of biblical inerrancy. If interpretation of Scripture is not infallible, is there practical value in saying that the Bible itself is infallible, even if in actual fact it is?
On canonicity. Although I claim that it is unclear what you consider canonical, I do have a faint idea. Pertaining to the OT, you seem to take the "Abel to Zechariah" reference in Luke/Matt to mean that Jesus accepted our OT, albeit in different order. Off the top of my head (I stand to be corrected) Abel was the first killed and Zechariah last in 2 Chron., which supposedly symbolised the first and last books in the Tanakh. But does this conclusively show that Jesus did in fact reject the deuterocanonicals? It does not seem so clear to me. If He did in fact consider the deuterocanonicals inferior to the proto-canonicals, it simpifies our discussion a great deal. Pertaining to the NT, you rightly say that most (if not all) of the NT was unofficially accepted as divinely inspired way before the official canonisation in the 300s. Overall though, it appears that your argument for the present canon is as such, "These books are canonical because they have been considered canonical by the church since the beginning." The thing of course is that the early church might have been wrong. And by no means were all the books considered canonical by everyone. Hebrews is the most famous example. Revelation another. Canticles yet another (although the Jews sorted that one out at Jamnia). The rabbinic exclusion of Ezek. 23, parts of Genesis and certain Psalms is also suspect as is the exclusion of generally the same texts from the Roman Catholic lectionary. My point is that canonicity is tricky and it appears difficult to say the least, to define a canon. Which once again begs the questions of how useful it is to say that some books are divinely inspired/inerrant/infallible. Even if some books ARE inerrant, how do we decide which ones are inerrant?
Throughout the e-mail it appears that you would like to vouch for theological inerrancy but not so much for historical inerrancy. To begin with historical inerrancy seems unlikely to be possible in the light of the differences between the Deuteronomistic history (esp. Kings) and Chronicles. And for the same reasons, theological inerrancy seems a bit shaky as well. Did God make David perform a census (2 Sam. 24) or did the Accuser (1 Chron. 21)? Was Judah punished because Josiah's goodness could not counter-balance Manasseh's sins (2 Kings) or to simply fulfill prophecy of a true prophet (Jeremiah)? The differences are both historical and theological and APPEAR to be mutually exclusive. I'm sure you'll have enlightening comments on this.
I'd like to partially defend my statement that the Hebrews did not have a solid concept of a canon. Partially only, because of course they did accept some writings as more authoritative than others. Firstly, the only time I can think of that the Jews sat down to talk about a canon was at Jamnia in 90 CE. For thousands of years, no officiation appears to have been carried out. Strangely, it is the internal evidence to which I appeal for my opinion (which reminds us that interpretation is fallible). Within the OT canon we see a lot of intertextuality, not all of which are in agreement. The Chronicler(s), for instance, did not always find it fit to agree with the Deuteronimist(s). There are many fascinating differences between Sam-Kings and Chronicles. So it seems as though Scripture was fluid to the Hebrews. The view of the writers of biblical texts do not appear to have been thought to be inerrant. Rather, room is made for criticism. About the residence in the ark. Only the tablets of the Law were in the Ark, as far as I can remember. What does that say about all the others books? I have no doubt that the individual writers and redactors of the OT texts were serious in trying to get the facts right. But does it necessarily follow that the entire OT is inerrant?
You mentioned that biblical writers had theological agendas. Do we then have to adopt their theology? If OT writers had a view of God that was more powerful than benevolent, what do we then believe? If OT writers believed in mythological creatures with wings ( i.e. cherubim), do we then believe that? NT writers often quote the OT, interpreting them through Christian lenses, do we adopt their point of view? Satan in the OT was not a specific ontological creature. Rather it was a title given to a part of the heavenly machinery, somewhat like today's Catholic devil's advocate (cf. Job 1, Zechariah 3.). By the NT, Satan was ontological and personal. Whose theology do we adpot? The OT had no afterlife theology, the NT does; do we reject one view for another? Does Scriptrue then become outdated? Superceded by other biblical writings? In a sense, superceded by itself.
I backtrack to what you said about how the original autograph is inerrant whereas the copid texts need not be. How do we define, "the original text"? Not all copies of John have the story of the adulteress nearly being stoned. Many scholars consider the ending of Mark an editorial attachment. Isaiah is thought to be a composite of 3 prophets. Perhaps Zechariah was too. Individual biblical texts have been redated and edited and added to it seems. It would be easier if we said, "Biblical scholars are wrong," but is that defensibly true? In the light of biblical scholarship, what can we say about the "original autograph"?
In an aside, I find it interesting that the Ketuviim rarely mentions the written prophets. When writing about the 8th century, scarely any mention of the 8th century minor prophets were mentioned. Why is that? Were these writing prophets only considered authoritative many years after their ministries? From a "history of religion" perspective, the people who wanted these prophets "in" "won" in the end and they are therefore in the canon. Not all of them pass the criteria in Deuteronomy of true prophets, but there we have them in our canon.
On sanitising Scripture. You mentioned a difference between a depiction of the world that was in reality violent and often sexual as opposed to the blatant exploitation of media for fiscal purposes. Well, I have no contention with the times in which biblical writers included violent or sexual historical episodes. People raped other people. Some men raped men. Fair enough. But what about pornography in the name of theology? Ezekiel 23 depicts God describing Israel and Judah as prostitutes who get fondled etc. Is pornography justifiable if it is to make a theological point? I agree with you that Christians should not pooh-pooh all nudity and violence in the media. Your citation of Schindler's List makes a marvelous point. I guess the next step is to ask when we CAN pooh-pooh the media.
You raised a good question. Why can't we preach both a Christ crucified and a Bible inerrant. I suppose there's no reason why we can't. But I scarce see a reason why we should. The early church did not see a reason to preach a Bible inerrant. The only thing that comes close is 1 Tim 3:16. The Creeds never mentioned the Bible at all. You'd think if they included Pilate's name, they'd at least say something about the Bible. the truth is, the Church survived well for hundreds of years without ever having to appeal to an inerrant, infallible Bible. What they did have was the oral teaching of the church and a bunch of useful texts to bring the near history closer to their present. I guess my stand on it is not that "The bible is NOT inerrant," rather than, "Does it matter whether the Bible is inerrant or not?"
Again, you're right. I concede that not being penultimate does not necessarily entail being fallible. Of course saying that the Bible is not the ultimate source of truth allows us (if we wish) to believe that it's fallible without catastropic ramifications.
"If the final authority is with God..." Well, there are no logical reasons why the Bible cannot be infallible. In modal philosophical terminology, there are possible worlds in which the Bible is infallible. There are no inherent contradictions in the CONCEPT of an infallible Bible. But is the reality as such? Is the actual world a world in which the infallibility of Scripture is obtained?
" I dun suppose that we must insist on an errant map in order to honor God." No, we don't. But I'm not insisting that the Bible is errant.
"In fact, we may consider if it does not dishonor Him more if we just
assume he gave us a misleading and unreliable map to himself?" The presumption made here is that God gave us the Bible. This is unclear. We may well slap a "I trust the Bible because I believe it exists in the form that God wanted it to be in, so it must be good," on this problem, but that will lead us to plain old fideism. If, by definition, the 66 books Protestants call the Bible is "the divinely inspired word of God" then it must be infallible. It is this definition which I challenge. No, allow me to correct myself. It is the meaning of this definition which I challenge. Even at the pit of doubt, I would concede to the inspiration of Scripture. But not the dictation of it from the anthropomorphic lips of God to the fleshy hands of men.
I have certain similarities with Barth in that he says that biblical testimony is grounded in historical fact but that fact is unknowable. Actually, that reminds me of Gregory of Nyssa in that he broadly spoke as if God was largely unknowable. Anyway, I don't see how we CAN know the nitty gritty details. Perhaps you could elucidate that point. How far can we say we know the nitty gritty details in biblical testimony?
To answer your questions:
"How do we know that even the big picture is accurate?" In a nut shell really we can't. I think (and I'm not sure yet) that I'm some what of an agnostic epistemologically. We can't really know anything for sure, except that we exist. Cogito ergo sum. And since Kierkegaard, it seems as if we don't HAVE to know anything. Which is quite funny, actually. Anyway, my last blog entry deals with what justifies our faith. Read that for a treatment of this question. Read it thinking, "The big picture is accurate because..."
I have a heap of things to say about the whole historical Jesus fiasco. If it weren't so disturbing it'd be funny. Actually, it's funny anyway. Especially the Jesus Seminar. Crickey.
Yea, I know Jesus wasn't the only one vying for the Messiah job. And I have reasons (compelling enough to me) to believe the disciples got the history right. Again it's in my blog. And after writing that entry, I discovered a book by Alister McGrath that summarised why I found it reasonable to believe what I do. It's called Jesus: Who He is and why He matters. I reckon I could've written that book, but he beat me to it and did a better job of it than I ever could.
"If Paul could be ditched, why not Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?"
In effect, they could be ditched. We rely on the teaching of the catholic, apostolic Church. We don't NEED an inerrant, infallible Bible. It'd be great, but we don't NEED it. The Church didn't have one for decades. There was no official one for centuries. But we always had the teaching of the Church: Christ and Him Crucified. It's scary as heck, but we could survive with a purely oral tradition.
"If Adam is mythical, why not Gen 1:1 too a mythical account similar to epic of Gilgamesh ?" Excellent point. How DO we decide what's myth and what's historical fact? If we can't establish good criteria, then we must either accept it ALL as fact or DISMISS ALL as fiction? But are both these alternatives plausible? Textual criticism endeavoured to determine the genre of specific biblical texts, but it didn't do a great job because the Church still asks, "Was Job history?" "What about Jonah?" Are we allowed to make arbitrary decisions about the historicity of biblical stories? If not, we have to accept the whole Bible...every word in it as absolutely, inequivocally true. In fact, we must deny all contradictions, inconsistencies and difficulties in Scripture. Furthermore, it is difficult to say that God allowed copyist errors. Wouldn't God make sure we got it pure if He wanted us to say it was inerrant? It's not like God spoke to the writers and then stopped worrying about the Bible there. It seems like we have a Catch 22 on our hands.
And again, you're right. To accept what we like and reject whatwe don't like would be theological imperialism of the worst kind. We would be projecting our 21st century values on a millennia old text. Anachronism to the max.
Concluding statements. You made a very interesting comment that I would like to explore further. This in fact might be the key statement of both your and my treatments of this subject, "...B iblical inerrancy deals with the 'voice of Jesus' not necessarily the actual words he used... so in reality, the doctrine of inerrancy is much more flexible and fluid that critics made it out to be." I fail to see how this differs from my view that the GIST of a certain passage of Scripture is true although the specifics might not be. The VOICE of Jesus, not the words of the Evangelists. The FEELINGS of God, not the poems of the prophets. The COMMANDS of the Lord, not the composers of the Law.
In amo Jesu,
Jon.