The greatest ideological war is being fought in Christianity today and many don’t even realize it.
The war is between what is called “Objective truth and Relative/Subjective truth”; or “Modernism and Post-Modernism”. While it is very difficult to clearly define the two positions, it is clear that neither “side” is free from problems. Both are imperfect when stretched to their ultimate degrees.
This “war” is largely the same as the conflict between Jesus Christ and the Jewish hierarchy in the first century. It asks the questions, “What is God’s truth?” “What should I believe in and how should I believe it?” The polarized positions ask “How should I act”, often only in conjunction with the Objective or Subjective starting position.
The objective truth side claims all truth rests with God and we humans can only seek to uncover it, but never truly “Know It”. The other, the subjective truth side claims that because we can never know God’s truth or have language to describe it, it is of little or no value, since human beings can’t discuss it. Therefore truth must rest within humankind as only then can we “see and discuss” it.
One can defend Objective truth only by assuming that it is possible for human beings to take up a “view from nowhere; but I don’t believe in “views from nowhere,” some argue.
I don’t believe in objective truth or relativism (AS ultimate truth), either. “Moreover, I don’t want you to believe in objective truth or relativism either, because the first concept is corrupting the church and its witness to the world, while tilting at the second is wasting the precious time and energy of a lot of Christians.”1 Nonetheless I will tilt at both.
“Postmodern thought developed in the aftermath of the Holocaust, as deeply ethical European intellectuals reflected on the atrocities their peers had perpetuated or acquiesced to. Postmodern thinkers realized that these megalomaniacs, like Hitler, used grand systems of belief to justify their atrocities. Those systems of belief – which the postmodern thinkers called “metanarratives,” but which also could have been called “world views” or “ideologies” – were so powerful they could transform good European intellectuals into killers or accomplices. They thought back over European history and realized (as C. S. Lewis did) that those who have passionate commitment to a system of belief will be most willing, not only to die for it, but to kill for it.”2 And that would be wrong on the face of it.
The post-modern thinkers defined “truth” as resting within the individual since to believe a “metanarrative” often allies one with others with whom we disagree. Additionally, objective truth is tricky. We don’t have words, nor can we ever have words, to describe Objective truth or “God’s truth”; what some have claimed is the “view from nowhere” since human’s can’t comprehend it. Objective truth also has the unfortunate tendency to say “This way is the right way”, since “God ordains” it.
Conversely, many postmodernists are stuck with the position of “It works for me”, subjective truth driven to its ultimate edge, that the “self” (small “s”) or the society is the only repository of what is “true or good”; that all that is good is subject to my view of it. One claim is that this validates the life of Hitler if he believed what he was doing was “right”, and he certainly did.
The tree would make no sound when falling in the forest without “ME” to hear it. Neither position is defensible for very long yet both are true; and I will attempt to argue for both of them in an attempt to decipher “God’s truth”.
I have found myself on both sides of the argument. When encountering Objective truth believers, I often argue for Relative truth and conversely when confronted with the “I am the center of the universe- that is my opinion and I’m sticking to it” people, I often argue for Objective truth. Do I like arguing? Decidedly, and unfortunately, so. It is the best way I know to reach concordance. But it is often quite counterproductive as it tends to polarize issues …and tick people off……
Polarization is what has happened to Christianity in the last few hundred years. One of the most unfortunate aftermaths of the Reformation was the splitting of the single method system of the Western Roman Catholic church, however much in need of reforming, into a blithering array of Protestant belief structures and denominations; subjectivism in possibly its worst guise.
We now argue over whether one has to be dunked or sprinkled in baptism. Similarly we argue over the meaning of words in scripture to the extent that we conclude “one must be a Christian to be saved”, (with “saved” defined by some version of travel to heaven rather than hell) completely disregarding or demeaning the possibility of other faiths and citizens being spiritual beings, close to God. Our arrogance to avow there is only one God, but that God only favors the man-made religion of Christianity, thus dooming every other creature to perdition is unsavory and un-Christ-like in the extreme, but a product of Objectivism in its worst guise.
But we humans need to define truth in some way. Either as God sees it or we, or our society, sees it.
When I encounter the rigid set of dogma that passes for Christianity today I am dismayed. Peter C. Moore did the evangelical community a great service when he helped us “Disarm the secular Gods”.3 But as Phillip Kenneson points out, “He left the job unfinished- hence when Moore rightly unmasked the secular god of relativism, he left her consort-objectivism- fully enthroned”. A Buddhist might argue for the “middle way” the center of yin and yang, realizing that polarized positions are untenable for obvious reasons- they don’t take the “other” into consideration. Even with love as our objective, we cannot love that which we believe is wrong, hence the dichotomy to “love the sinner and hate the sin”. Frankly, you can’t do it. If you think Islam or homosexuality is “wrong” you cannot “Love” its practitioners. You can show them kindness and compassion and hope that counts as “LOVE”, but I might suggest true love involves something more than tolerance. True love is more active than passive, more “out reaching” than tolerating.
Jesus faced this same dilemma when he came to earth. The Jewish leaders were Objectivists in that they knew God’s Law, all 613 of them, and could quote much of it. Jesus, on the other hand was more of a Relativist when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you”. Then He also suggested pulling our donkey out of the hole it was trapped in on the Sabbath. It was the “right” thing to do, He avowed. Yet how can he claim to believe in an Almighty, Theistic God, “The Father,” yet lay claim to relativism? Surely if God exists he is a perfect being containing God’s Absolute Truth?
Here then was the dichotomy and even Jesus is wishy washy about the outcome one might think.
I will later submit that he was not.
Many, including Kennisen, point out that the Enlightenment was the root of Absolutism. Locke, Descarte, Kant and others claimed a “theory of knowledge” fueled by pure reason that helped to produce “many of the dichotomies that now appear self-evident: object/subject; realism/idealism; knowledge/opinion; fact/value; reason/faith; rational/irrational; public/private. This dualistic left or right philosophical tradition has taught us to think of knowledge as a picture or mirror of the way the world really is. Such a view of “knowledge,” however creates its own special set of problems – problems rooted in our anxiety that our knowledge might not, in fact, mirror the world as it really is. In order to guarantee that no wholesale slippage takes place between our view of the world and the world as it really is, what we think we need is a theory of knowledge, a method for determining true pictures from false ones.
In short, this project of supplying language-secure foundations for knowledge, what we might call Epistemology (or even “Moral Philosophy”), is the attempt to assure ourselves that our pictures do, in fact, hook up with the world. Within such a view of knowledge, truth (or Truth) is not so much a concept as it is an entity “out there” in the world, waiting to be discovered; Truth is merely the word for the way the world really is which we are trying to picture or mirror with our knowledge. When human beings discover this Truth, picture it faithfully in their minds and mirror it accurately in their language, we say that they have “genuine” knowledge. Moreover, such knowledge is “objectively truthful” when its status as true does not ultimately depend on the testimony of any person or group of persons. Indeed, the whole point of claiming that something is “objectively true” is to say that any person, unhindered by the clouds of unreason and the prejudices of self-interest, would come to the same conclusion.”4 A thing almost never true.
If it were true we never should have left the Catholic Church, we should have “reformed it” as Luther intended. Additionally, an absolutist could claim we must be assured that our picture hooks up with the world as it “ought to be” (God’s truth). …not what it “is”(Human truth) because what it is, is flawed.
One compelling argument for subjective truth is that language is subjective. While nuances of meaning may be detected by face to face encounters the written word is stuck in print. You can’t see me wink or smile or frown. Since language is subjective the only tools we have to deal with God are reason and language, or the amorphous “Faith” (more about this in a minute). It is probably absolutely true…..wink.
This, often called “correspondence theory” of truth, that truth is “out there” and we must seek to discover it, engenders methodological doubt in the mind of the both the relativist and the absolutist. It’s God’s truth not ours. We are always in doubt, because we can never truly “KNOW IT”.
“Epistemology” attempts to deal with the language nature of things at their limits of truth. “What is truth” it asks? What are its limits? The field is littered with the bodies of moral philosophers and theologians who failed to answer its questions.
This “correspondence” theory of truth resulted in a series of disastrous arguments within the church. Is the body and blood of Christ at communion the “ACTUAL body (Catholic) or the SYMBOLIC body (Protestant). The dichotomy between Faith v. Works which so occupied the reformers in the 16th century is another example. The answers to these questions in the mind of many must be one or the other because of our Cartesian heritage through the Enlightenment.
Truly, the questions at first seem incompatible we can’t rationally hold both positions, we have to choose, and from that choice flows ideology and dogma.
A friend has referred to the following exchange between Luther (German Catholic) and Zwingli (Swiss Protestant) when meeting in the town of Hesse (Luther’s ballpark) in October 1529. They did not agree on whether Christ was present in the sacramental elements of the Eucharist. The meeting was an attempt to resolve their differences. Luther began the debate by writing in chalk on a tabletop, "This is my body" Matt. 26:26.
The Zwinglian response; "is" means "represents" or "stands for." As proof he
offered John 6:63. "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I
have spoken to you are spirit and they are life."
Luther: I rest content with what Christ says, and He says: This is my body. Not even
the devil can change that. Therefore believe in the pure word of God and glorify
Him.
Zwingii: We urge you too to give up your preconceived opinion and glorify God. I do
not give up my text either, and you will have to sing another song.
Luther: You are speaking in hatred.
Zwingii: Then let John 6:63 cure your ignorance.
Luther: You are trying to overwork it.
Zwingii: No! No! This text will break your neck.
Luther: Don't brag. Our necks don't break so fast. You are in Hesse now not in
Switzerland.
{The Columbia History of the World, Garraty & Gay ed. pp. 525-6)
My friend asked, “Are not these great theologians misguided by their insistence on their own
absolute truths?” The answer is “Absolutely, (wink) but for some timely reasons due to the impending schisms”. (One wonders how much ale they were downing at the time of the exchange).
This is what Christianity has become……. A “belief” oriented structure……. “What is it you believe, we ask? Our Christian churches are awash in belief structures. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your personal savior”, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as Lord”, “are you ‘Born again’”; all questions designed to determine what it is that you believe.
I would submit that was not Christ’s way. He neither asked the Jews to abandon the (absolutist) Law. In fact, He said He had come “to fulfill it”; nor did he tell us that God wants us to do only what we think is subjectively right. Christ, like Buddha, tried to straddle a middle ground. He called on us to dwell in the Kingdom of God, thus asking us to love the father, yet love our neighbor as ourselves, a decidedly “faith v. works” based, subjective position. In short he is asking us to do BOTH, NOT EITHER OR NEITHER; to be both Subjective and Objectivists, one might think. I contend, he IS asking us to do both. First, accept the Objective truth that God exists and is good (Objective truth) through Faith. Second, know that our treatment of others is just as important (Subjective truth) through deeds.
1 John 4:20- 5:
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
NIV
Matt 22:36-40
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
NIV
If we are truly following Jesus we cannot choose between these two alternatives. We must accept both, which we have already affirmed, seems impossible. The secular Humanist or Atheist can only accept the latter, subjective, position. For her/him there is no former objective position. That is her/his curse. Only subjective truth can exist for her/him. She/he has no supernal truth to turn to. She/he can gussy it up by saying it is the “society” that defines truth, but that is not very satisfying if one lives in a society of cannibalism or Nazi Germany, Australia during the aboriginal wars, or the United states during the Indian wars. “Society” is a capricious mistress.
But most of us are believers in one way or another. And that, I believe, is the crux of the matter and why I call myself a “First Century Christian”.
I must conclude that Dogma or Ideology, whether it be based on what I believe God wants or what I want, is unacceptable as an either/or, alone. Neither a society nor Faith alone can dictate truth as a belief structure. I also must conclude that what I want is imperfect and unacceptable due to the presence of others. And what God wants is unknowable no matter how much we suspect we know it. It is “Faith” based. Therefore my only tool is not reason or Faith alone rather it is Love and unlimited compassion which Jesus, Buddha and Krishna all sought.
So what must we believe in? My answer would be whatever you want as long as it is consistent with Love. The motto of the Disciples of Christ comes to mind. “In essentials unity, in non-essentials freedom and in all things love.” (They do not concur on what is an essential)
What I am suggesting is that Christianity should not be solely about BELIEF structures, but rather, action structures. That our belief systems are shaped by factors often beyond our control and imperfect at best; shaped by many factors out of our control. That when we think we “Know”, we do NOT know. Jesus solution was to attempt to act in a way that would be consistent with the Godly virtue of unlimited compassion and love. He left the love of God up to the individual, “spirituality” and choice of religion or non-religion, if you will, both Jews and Gentiles, so to speak. Spirituality, that is, relationship with God, knows no religion boundaries nor societal standard. This would be a death blow to objectivism in its rigid form but Christ, through his first greatest commandment insists we look to spirituality with God not bound by religious labels. God is neither a gentile nor a Jew. Those are manmade structures.
The conclusion is that it is not what we believe but how we ACT that defines Christianity.
You do not have to accept my dogma, nor I, yours. You don’t scorn me if you disagree with me nor I, you. You don’t judge me…God, or time if one is a Buddhist, will do that.
It is not necessary for us to abandon the study of Moral Philosophy nor Theology.
On the contrary, we need to argue about right and wrong in order to see it better.
I often put a Coke can in front of students to give a lesson from the Lakota Sioux. I suggest the can is “Truth”. Each of us sitting in a circle can see one perspective of the can. Some see the logo, others the label and still others the ingredient list. No one perspective is complete. So the Lakota Sioux warrior before becoming a member, must travel throughout the Medicine Wheel (The World) to gain further perspective. But no matter how much perspective one gathers only God would be able to see the bottom of the “Truth can”. It is hidden from us.
Some leaders of the Emerging Church movement recognize the dignity of the individual to decide for himself about God, but also affirm something out there beyond humankind exists and needs to be dealt with. That is in sync with both Christ’s and Buddha’s teachings.
To suggest I could currently define this movement is wrong. I could not. (absolute truth-wink)
That which I can attest to, is that the Emerging Church movement is subjective, BUT NOT COMPLETELY relativist, and objective WITH LITTLE OR NO DOGMA.
It recognizes the dignity of the individual to decide for himself but suggests it is God powering the processes of life; clearly dualistic concepts. But isn’t that what Jesus two greatest commandments were?
The love of God is clearly Objective and the love of man is clearly Subjective.
Our BELIEF system cannot solve the dilemma. To say “I exclude you from the conversation if you don’t believe thusly” is wrong. To say “I or my society decides who is acceptable” is wrong as well.
I am reminded that the Constitution of the United States is a document specifically designed to protect the rights of the MINORITY not the majority. The founders somehow knew that we, individually, must be protected so that society might be protected. It is a concept in complete concordance with Jesus’ teachings.
The process for followers of “The Way”, the First Century Christian, and all humankind, is not what you believe, but rather, that the motive, the means and the ends, need to be acts of love and compassion and kindness toward everyone. Many of our churches need to abandon the dogma of “my way or the highway” and embrace Love. It is all we really have.
John P. Middleton
Footnotes and Bibliography
1 & 2 Philip Kennison, “There is no Such Thing as Objective Truth and It’s a Good Thing Too”
1 “Christian apologetics in the postmodern world”, Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis L. Holcomb
2 Brian McLaren, unknown correspondence, letters to a colleague
3. Philip Kennison, ibid
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