"Whence Hermeneutic Authority?" Download and Dissect

Tony,
Please forgive for being blunt but I must say
bla,bla,bla,you my friend said a lot. Basically you all but say no one can know truth for certain! As you quote others who philosophy the same. Theology is in your own wording seemingly about how we see God apparently irregardless to how God reveals himself to us through His Word. Which you also all but scream that we can and should see Him differently as the culture around us evolves. So to you propose that our humanistic views of God should as well excogitate. Yes your ariticle was very, very provacitive. Yet it was all but irrelevant to Theology. Hermeneutics is a science of interpretation here concerning scripture I would assume you mean. Although you seem to determine that we need not reason nor see scripture is divinely inspired, or the fact that God does reveal himself to us definitively! (though you did mention the canon of scripture). Yes you did defend your Emergent fad or movement as you call it. Yes you defended the fact that you are not certain about nothing and that nothing is certain and certainily you bascially said nothing. Again forgive me for my bluntness but you certainly call it like you see it! Or should I say you call it like you admit you can’t see it!
Quite honestly I believe you that you can’t!

Keith B. Coates

Well, Keith, that was not helpful. Hopefully others will be more interested in genuine conversation. I’ll be back after I read the paper. Oh, I wouldn’t worry about IVP. Their exclusion of your paper probably means you’re on to something new. —Chuck

Chuck, I haven’t read the paper yet (just downloaded it), but I must say that not everything new is necessarily right. Remember that God says He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We should be leary of new views of God. If it is true that God reveals Himself, and if it is true that we cannot begin to grasp this revelation without the Spirit, then it is safe to conclude that our understanding of God which Christians have held for two thousand years will not change. If it does change, then it is not you or me, or the many people throughout variagated history, that got it wrong; it is God because He is the One who failed to reveal Himself accurrately. So I say again, new is not necessarily good, for God never fails.

Are you and Keith twins?

I hope all who comment here will read the paper, for it is very worthwhile. Here is a recent blog post I did that deals with his paper, but more of my struggles that bring me to appreciate his paper.
For a while now something has been brewing inside of me. I feel a certain disconnect with some mainline beliefs in conservative Christianity. It is not that in any way I am doubting Christianity, but more so that there are certain aspects or teachings held by many that I have trouble with. Most of these have to deal with epistemology, but some are more sporadic in nature. I struggle very much with a unified very of historical Christian doctrine. I find, in my limited studies, that in fact there is constant tension theologically found in the church. There are many who disagree about or hold conflicting views about serious theological matters. For instance, Communion or the Eucharist. All Christians ever believe in communion, but not in what it means or how it should be done. This is a significant aspect of Christianity that Christ told us to partake in, and yet for hundreds if not thousands of years Christians have not come to agreement over exactly what communion is and how it should be done. I think anyone who has any knowledge of how the councils went with the personalities, political and sociological influences present finds it hard to accept an unified view of orthodoxy as “holding fast to what has been believed everywhere, always and by all,” as said by Vincent of Lerins.
There is no such thing. The councils got together and came out with statements, but not with out disagreeing, arguing and fighting their way through them. Not with our power plays, personal egos and other influences. Some of you may be thinking that I am not trusting God enough to see them through this process of deciding what the Christian faith is. The reality is that there are millions of Godly people who disagree with each other and each says not only that they are right, but also that god has illuminated them both and guided them into their different truths. Do we believe that the councils and other historical decisions that still affect us today are inspired by God? If that is the case then people making decisions today are still inspired by God in the same way we think of inspiration of the scriptures. Then what exactly do we believe about the nature and influences of these men throughout history that we have leaned on for orthodoxy if we say no? There is a tension that is present for any and all who would engage it.
This is what has been brewing inside of me. I have struggled immensely to give language to it and to carve a path out of the tension that holds the tension and yet points to a faith-filled, Biblical and somewhat logical way of understanding and viewing our faith historically. But I have failed thus far. I have failed to put into words what I believe to be true as to our epistemological understanding as Christians and how this interacts with revelation from God. I have failed to show that God is the source of truth and in that sense truth exists outside of man, and yet individual man is so flawed by the distortion of sin through Christ that he is capable in this life of knowing many things, but no things fully. I believe in the authority of scriptures over ones life, but I also struggle with the rigid views about how they came into existence as a cannon. I have tried diligently to give words to a belief system that acknowledges the certainty of God and Christ Jesus, but gives room to the fallibility of man and his ability to uncover truth with certainty. I have tried to acknowledge that there is certainty and uncertainty in all things everywhere at all times. Not because God is certain and uncertain, but because man is always capable of being wrong and is blinded by ambitions, personalities, culture and life experiences when it comes to engaging truth so that it limits him from knowing all of something. I believe in the creeds, I believe in Christ, I believe in Scripture, but I do not always hold to certain views and see how we as Christians arrived at certain views.

With this in mind I want to point readers to read Tony Jones’s article titled, “Whence Hermeneutic Authority.” This article can be found at http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/whence-hermeneutic-authority-download-and-dissect. I will not affirm that I agree or disagree with everything written by Tony in this article, but it is absolutely worth reading. It gives some language to some thoughts and I do identify with different thoughts presented in this paper. I saddened and surprised that IVP press would not publish it, for it is beneficial even if you do not agree with everything he says.

Just for the record, Tony’s paper wasn’t rejected by the editors at InterVarsity Press – it was rejected by the Wheaton professors who determine which papers ultimately end up in the book. IVP actually lobbied strongly for the inclusion of Tony’s paper. IVP is happy to publish multiple views on various topics (as the four-views books attest), and previous conference paper books had a variety of perspectives. So I’m a little frustrated that the Wheaton folks decided not to include it, and I’m also a bit annoyed that IVP is getting blamed for it.

Thanks for fixing it! :-)

I just have a few comments. Sorry if I am more critical than positive, but you have asked for dialogue and my comments try to seriously interact with his paper.

1. He writes, “there is no orthodoxy without orthopraxy” and “there is no difference between the two.” Yet it seems to me that although true orthodoxy is never without orthopraxy, it does not follow that you can’t “speak” about orthodoxy independently. Fire never occurs without oxygen (assuming there is no strange way of doing so I am not aware of) but that does not mean that they are not two distinct things. You are right that true, orthodoxy and orthopraxy always go together, but that doesn’t mean that there is then no distinction. I realize this isn’t quite your argument in this paragraph, but I do sense something along these lines possibly there.

It seems to me similar to a conclusion one might reach about speech act theory. We do things by saying things or do things with words. On the other hand, we also say things when we do things. However, just because saying and doing become intertwined it doesn’t negate the valid distinction between saying and doing. You can’t completely collapse the one into the other. It seems to me that by characterizing orthodoxy as event and saying that thus “there is no difference between the two” you are making a similar argument. The two may belong together but it seems to me almost as if you are collapsing them into each other.

2. You seem to think that denying orthodoxy in the traditional sense is the result of acknowleding that our knowledge of God is always incomplete. The traditional view is not acknowleding the eschatology of knowledge of God. Yet at places I don’t think your argument pays enough attention to the fact that orthodoxy is only a broad framework and not a complete system of knowledge of God. An orthodox confession is not the same as a systematic theology. Systematic theology spells out much more detail and what a confession would leave as broad or vague, often a systematic theology tries to spell out. The traditional position knows that our knowledge is incomplete. We will never have a complete systematic theology (ST). Our ST is always a journey and progress both personally and historically. But this does not entail that we can’t have knowledge now of the basic facts or confessions of the Christian faith. Again basic facts understood in a basic way. I think I know what an apple is even if I can’t define it in terms of all the atoms it is made up of. We can make Trinitarian affirmations even if terms or parts of that affirmation is capable of numerous ST or philosophical expansions that are consistent with it. Orthodoxy is a general boundary and even on the issues it does speak to it does so in a manner that underdetermines the precise choice of a particular ST formulation.

If you don’t believe me on this, just read contemporary literature on the Trinity by people who would all agree with the orthodox confessions. There is endless debate of how to flesh out the details and specifics even though they already agree on the confessions. So just because one acknowledges orthodox confessions does not negate humility because of eschatology nor does it end discussion nor does it exclude the fact that people are going to flesh out different aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity or think out different implications or even try to flesh out the details in different conceptual categories based upon there cultural location.

So many (not all) of the differences you point out in your paper seem to have to do with differences over the details and not the broader picture.

3. I am also not sure that your umpiring analogy is appropriate. With Christianity it seems to me that you are claiming that we should not presume to have orthodoxy because we are in transit in our understanding until the final day when we will truly see. But this seems to presuppose that there is a right and true interpretation. But in the umpire analogy it seems that the point is that there is no right interpretation. In the Christian faith it seems to me that you are saying the epistemic situation calls for humility while with umpiring it is not merely epistemic. It seems to me that there is no single interpretation to be known ever or even possibly.

4. On your interview on the Al Mohler program you seemed to indicate that certain doctrines only come into existence at a certain time in church history. Yet I would be curious to see studies of this sort on various doctrines that pay attention to at least several key points. First, a doctrine can be held by somebody just with brief phrases even if they never reflect on it further. Second, a doctrine can be implict in other things they hold in which case the doctrine isn’t completely new. Third, just because you don’t find the precise terms that we use today in explicating the doctrine doesn’t mean the same idea is not expressed in different words. Fourth, as Moore pointed out, just because the issue doesn’t come to debate until a certain time doesn’t mean that it wasn’t held before then.

5. That confessions are to be sung and lived doesn’t mean that we can’t have definitive content in them that we take to be orthodox. Even if people disagree at times that doesn’t prevent us from affirming them as orthodox. OT confessions were poetic but nevertheless they had definite content and the fact that perhaps only a remnant got things right didn’t negate the fact that the faithful continued to affirm orthodox faith in Yahweh. They may have not understand everything but they did truly understand some things and that is what they affirmed.

6. It is not enough that there may have been politics with the decision of Chalcedon to question it. It has also stood the test of time. You might reply, “Well they have done so by force and politics and powerplays.” Yes but those who have defended it have come up with good theological and exegetical arguments. To which you might respond, “Yes but those arguments and the rationality used there was influenced by culture, upbringing, and so forth.” Yeah, but we can say this about anything. I could say this about your argument. To which then you could say this about my argument about your argument. Where does this really get anybody to simply say they were influenced by culture, upbringing, and so forth?

7. I am not sure that the echoing on the sermon on the mount is the best idea. Much of the point of the “you have heard… but I say to you…” in the sermon on the mount seems to be the authority of Christ. At least for me the allusion brings in associations of authoritative pronouncment. I am hoping that is not what you intended so I thought I would mention it for at least consideration in future presentation of the paper. However if you don’t see those associations then please disregard my comment.

It is indeed a shame that the powers-that-be at Wheaton rejected Jones’ essay, thus denying his ideas opportunity of receiving critique from a wider audience – for a much wider audience these ideas merit, if only for the reason that this intellectual movement in evangelicalism is growing in strength. The deconstructionist trend welling up within the ranks of evangelical Christianity is on the one hand greatly troubling. Jones takes issue with those who find the embracing of this critical ethic just another form of “liberalism” in Christianity and understandably so because the Emergent folks are devout believers. Unfortunately, however, it’s true. Evangelicals are, as usual, half a century or so late (at least) to the philosophical party. What we’ve seen take place in mainstream Protestantism over the last century and a half is hitting us now in our precious evangelical backyard. the folks at Wheaton, of all people (the home of the renowned CSL library for goodness sakes) should be the first to take up this challenge – especially since it’s brewing up right in their own kitchen. What are they afraid of up there? That they are insufficiently equipped to absorb the Emergent message and respond adequately? Do they fear an exposure of their own intellectual foundations? I shouldn’t think this is warranted, but perhaps these days, it isn’t. Would advancing an effective rebuttal of Jones force mainstream Evangelicals to come face to face with their own first principles, their own hermeneutic, and realize that it is desperately wanting? Are these first principles as shaky as Jones seems to think they are? For want of the Wheaton intelligentsia’s scholarly and erudite critique then, this unscholarly and unwashed laymen will venture a critique of his own:

What I recognize here is a voice on the edge of despair. I know, because I’ve been there myself. Tony Jones is a courageous man, and his resolve to try to live as a Christian, to live with faith in a world where all religion and faith, where God Himself, has been killed is, well, damn near heroic. In the world Tony Jones inhabits, (and this world is oh so very real to him) there is no rational justification for faith, no rational justification for religion and Christianity especially – at least on the basis of what we conventionally call “reason”. When Western Civilization was doubted (Rene Descartes, a good Catholic BTW unwittingly led the charge) and ultimately abandoned, Christianity went with it because Western Civilization is utterly bound up with Christianity. Tony Jones surely knows it – he’s done his reading. (all deconstructionists worth their salt have certainly done their reading). Jones has seen the deconstruction of all the metanarratives. He’s a true son of Nietsztche in this regard. He knows, like Nietszche, that “God is dead”, that religion and Christianity are, effectively dead – at least, as we have traditionally known them, in the eyes of our contemporaries. But Jones, unlike Nietszche, will not merely lie down and surrender to this state of affairs. He will hold his belief in “The Christ Event” anyway. And he’ll hold tightly, with all of his might, as long as he can – because he is damn near heroic. He’ll present no rational foundation for such belief mind you. He’s far too reasonable a man to believe in reason. He believes because the Christ Event has meaning. For those who find meaning in the Christ-myth, faith is possible. Naturally we still need to have reason around. It’s useful for things like doing math, trying court cases, and arguing with your wife. But for the higher things, reason cannot help us. It is too easily subordinated to the power motive. Truth claims, in the end, are a disguised play for power because by nature the one who possesses truth has power. It’s a cliché and everyone knows it. History proves it, modernity proves it.

Side note: The problem with deconstruction criticism is that the deconstructionists never think an author means anything. Of course as a notion we can accept that the author probably had some good reason for writing what he did, but his reader can never know it, or if he can know it, he must suspect it due to the phenomenon known as “historical conditioning”. The project of the deconstructionist critic is in the end a kind of cynical intellectual history. Schools of interpretation are just so much academic power play in the attempt to establish intellectual hegemony by one scholar or party of scholars over other scholars, and thusly over the rest of the miserable proletariat.

Now, these guys are very smart. Derrida was a very smart guy. Goes without saying he had read most everything. One wonders, though, with all this brain power going for them, if it ever dawns on the deconstructionist to suspect themselves of guilt in the very same power game they accuse every other critic/scholar of playing? If every author’s mind is ultimately closed to everyone but himself, and if every critic is playing power games, then it’s useless to hope for enlightenment from literature. Dead men having nothing to teach us. One starts to think perhaps this recognition is exactly what the deconstructionists hope to achieve with their critical philosophy. Knowledge is all “process”. You can never arrive at any sort of destination. So you see then what this approach does when applied to theology by theologians who embrace the deconstrcutionist ethic. It destroys theology. It renders it useless for service to the Church. It’s a hobby or diversion – all excercise. Jones all but says as much himself. And this is why a deconstructionist studies – to prove that study is useless for determining absolutes, ultimates, objective truths – all the sorts of things that religion by nature depends upon. And Christianity, of course, depends upon the ability of humans to know things not only with certainty, but with certitude. Once the possibility of certitude is abandoned, Christianity is effectively abandoned. The fideist position maintains religious certitude but disavows the involvement of the reasoning mind in the process of doing theology and thusly determining orthodoxy. The fideist position tries to render itself impervious to critique by arming itself against reason. But one cannot so easily escape the constant rap, rap, rapping of one’s own mind at the chamber door of credulity – unless one is prepared to disavow one’s own mind. But then you see where that leaves us…

Tony Jones should argue with his wife more often – it might just save his soul.

If you wanted to cross out IVP on the website, why not just edit it rather than draw a line through it so everyone knows about it?

Framewords: Cultural Reactionary Epochs Explicated, With Concluding emphasis on the necessity of Cultural/Epistomologic Framework Transcendence, and an avoidence of the eventual- Nihilism

I have a working theory that both the modern and the so called postmodernist churches are looking at each other from the wrong perspective and the failure to relate with one another is more of an issue of segmented epistimological frameworks in terms of cultural history, rather then one being straightforwardedly wrong vs the other. Allow me to explain: Postmodernity is in revolt against Modernity, whereas Modernity is itself once and still presently in revolt against Premodernism/Classicalist (or perhaps the Mythological) Each are merely Cultural Reactionary Epochs that are revolting against the prior cultural understandings of openly valid and accepted epistomolological appropriations of ideology/truth/expereince that coopt “Framewords” such as Modernism, Postmodernism to illustrate their respective “World Views” or idological assumptions of how to approach not just cultural but the entirety of knowledge and experience. Each reject the concerns and enterpretive methodologies of the prior Epistimological Frameworks of the prior cultural Epoch. Each age or epoch potentially entails valid telelogical eloborations and spiritual/mortal/cultural extrapolations that are prone to rejection by the proceeding epoch that declares it’s precedent epoch’s understandings foundationally invalid. The subsequent alienation compounds past alientations; and a valid argument can be made that Postmodernity is not only alienated from Modernity but also Premodernity as well. The only valid and comprehensively applicable epistimological framework is one that is transcendent accross all Reactionary Cultural Epochs, and – with the strongest possible affirmation attending – this is the ONLY truly adequate presentation that can be made of the church and the Scripture: that it must be here that it gets it’s identity and foundation – it can be understood partially, but not comprehensively, through which ever culturally presently-modern mindset or epochial epistimological framework is currently in Reaction/Rejection of the Priors (for now, Postmodernism). The term “World View” is a potentially vauge term that is usually used to reference one’s own limited Epistomological Framework which is usually limited because of the constraint of it’s attendent Reactionary Cultural Epoch underwhich it is accepted by the individual in question: Modernists only understand Modernism, Postmodernists only understand Postmodernism, and Classicists/Mysticists only understand the Classical or Mythological. To constrain the voice of the Church and Scripture through the Limitations of one’s one cultural/epistimological approximation’s rapes the Gospel and violates it. The Gospel and subsequently the Church must speak above and through, not just Postmodern Mindsets – but also Modern Mindsets, and Classical Mindsets as well.

An example of this reactionary/rejecting process is Modernism reapprorations of Classiciscism’s understanding of the Scripture’s Authority and reenterpreting it as authority=innerancy; whereas innerancy is a scientific term and not a spiritual terms. The scientific inclination’s of Modernism’s mindset assumes that there is no Authority without quantifiable scientific Innerancy; and therefore is forced to tip it’s hat toward’s disbelief, in an affront to the true nature of faith and a subseqent march towards Natural Theology which much of Present Evangelical Theology has a crack-like addiction to. Postmodernity likewise has a revolt against Scientific/Spiritual absolutes because of it’s alientation from Modernism’s epistomological framework that entails the understanding of truth and absolutes in a concretely approproated abstraction.

The logical outworking of successive epistimological alienations progressively weaken each generation’s epistolmogical groundings and while they are trumpted as being strongerm they are in fact more frail the frailty that preceeded them, and it is not enough for adherentes of prior Reactionary Epoch to mindlessly criticism them – for they themselves suffer from the same ideological reactionary/rejecting blight and can only further themselves by embracing a mindset, which is likewise the cure for those that both preceeded them and proceeded them in prior and following Culturally Reactionary Epochs, that of a MetaModern or transecentently minded ideological mindset.

The answer is not another existing Frameword such as Classicism nor is it a return to Modernity – and, no, it is not Postmodernity. The neologism needed- is not another new idea -rather it it a reembracement of prior rejected appropriations. The only valid and whole epistomological framework is one of a transcendent or Metamodern ideological framework that lives and embraces the ideological understandings of both Classicism, Modernism, Postmodernism and whatever ism that evolve in terms of further subseqent cultural reactions. Failure to addess continued epistomological rejections/alienations will result in a complete ontological breakdown and the end result will be nothing less then complete and rampant Nihilism because when the next generation begins to also reject Postmodernity – there will be nothing left to reject.

Respectfully Submitted,
matthew lipscomb
myspace.com/winebibber

I agree Tony, it seems as if perception is local, relative for the person doing the understanding within a context they find themself.
With this as a structure of belief is knowledge then only an individualistic endeavor to create meaning out of random occuring events? Some persons may attempt this.
Others will give alliance to an authority they believe evokes meaning from events. These various guides have many names; a few persons would identify the creator of the firmament upon which they stand as god.
Understanding may be local but is defined by the source one identifies and serves as giving direction and revealing meaning from the midst of events.
An intriging discussion then isn’t the tension between our different languages of understanding of the Bible but rather what understanding of the Biblical god do you recognize being the source of your interpretation.
Whence hermeneutic authority- it depends on the language of the god you serve when you are listening. It always has.

I can’t do justice to your claims in this context, Tony. But I will say I find it odd that there isn’t at least a “hat tip” in your piece to Walsh and Middleton’s Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be (IVP, 1995), p. 31, where they cite the exact same quotes of the “umpires” that you do on your p. 5 (they’re drawing on Walter Truett Anderson, whom they cite). Walsh & Middleton go on to engage Scripture as its own self-critical norm in ways that I’ve yet to see “emergent” folks do (see esp. they’re chapters 5-6).

I cannot pontificate like those in the previous posts as I am not nearly as schooled or erudite. All I can do is ask, Herman Who?

Bottom line, there is nothing new under the sun. ReMixed Gnosticism using today’s vernacular. I tire…

I see some very good comments on this site. Maybe my comments will add to the value. If you are interested, Tony, go to my blog on Xanga as noted above.

Tony, Good Stuff. Everyone, your critics included, are doing/believing/teaching what they think is best or closest to the heart of God. You are different from your critics in that you are honest about it.