Two Epistemological Pieces to the Emergent Puzzle

On the one hand, the Emergent conception of Modernism is hopelessly simplistic in its ascribing both Foundationalism and a kind of isolationist Stoicism to the Cartesian revolution in Modern Philosophy. Now I have no problem with laying these as faulty consequences of Descartes’ rationalism. What I do mind is when we equate the sum total of confessional, Reformed Christianity to these tendencies, and call it part of the “Modern Church.” Much could be said about the sociological reasons that the Emergent crowd over-generalizes in this way. But here I will deal only with the philosophical problems. On the other hand, there are some careful distinctions that have to be made here. In reading the fourth chapter of D. A. Carson’s book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, it became clear to me that we need to treat this in two parts if we are to be fair—first, the historical over-generalization to which I just referred; secondly, the legitimate differences one may detect between a pre-modern epistemology and a modern epistemology. For there we would find at least one significant difference. The trouble comes when the post-modernist acts as if things such as objectivity, propositions, systems, and the like did not “suffocate” the church until Protestant Scholasticism started to follow the lead of Descartes.

According to Carson, the legitimate difference between the two paradigms may be summarized thus: In the pre-modern (i.e. classical Christian) view, there is a metaphysical statement about knowledge and an epistemological statement about how such knowledge is attained. As to the metaphysical, “all human knowing is necessarily an infinitesimally small subset of God’s knowledge.” As to the epistemological consequence of this, “our knowledge depends on revelation—i.e., on God disclosing some part of what he knows, however that revelation is accomplished” [p. 88]. On this, both the classicalist and the presuppositionalist would find agreement, though they will still disagree on our starting point (but that is subject for another writing). Carson further distinguishes between an earlier pre-modernism and a late brand as the difference between an “open” universe (i.e. open to supernatural invasion, as well as to pagan or magic superstition) and a “controlled” universe (i.e. rational and regular, but still vulnerable to supernature). Within this latter push, the thinking Christian chose between Deism and something like British Natural Theology—evidential, but unnecessarily dismissive of the reality of evil. But certainly absolutism, as such, can never be seen as the thing that separates pre-modern Christianity from its modern successor. Of course, how we conceive of the sources or avenues or subject-matter of certainty will go a long way to discerning what is really at stake here. The modern view is made up of six elements, according to Carson: 1) cogito ergo sum—the “I” as the starting point; 2) foundationalism—the project of founding all of human knowledge (or at least some academic discipline) on a clear and distinct axiom; 3) methodological rigor; 4) certainty was possible and to be desired; 5) truth is objective; 6) increasingly naturalistic [pp. 93-95].

As to the postmodern textual criticism known as the hermeneutical spiral, we may well ask whether or not all of reality—including the realm in which such overarching methodological principles exist—are not “texts” in which we bring our same selves into the mix that we brought into our Pauline studies. If so, then the principle is self-refuting. Carson questions the “spiral” by asking, “is it fair to give the impression that in our hermeneutical circle we always remain at the same distance from the text? Does the hermeneutical circle always have the same radius? Would it not be truer to our experience to say that the radius of the circle gets a little shorter with time—i.e., that we start to spiral into the text?” [p. 119]. The one committed to an objective Word need not question the reality of such a “circle,” but he must point out that the spiral must be overcome. If it were not, then no rationality would be possible—in or out of Scripture. I venture into the subject of textual ambiguity to show what the battle over certainty is really about.

Now I want to put both pieces of the epistemological puzzle together and say that it is much ado about nothing. Because the differences between pre-modern Christianity and modern Christianity (as the Emergents conceive) is not finally over the objectivity and systematic nature of truth, we can begin to see that the difference is likened unto the difference between infancy and adolescence. It is the same genetic structure, but with a combination of some positive gains in knowledge and negative accrual of error. Please do not read that to say that a more Cartesian way of expanding on the medieval project was an “improvement” or “the right direction.” Rather, I want to suggest that improvements and right directions should be taken, and that if and when this is ever done, it will involve a mind driven by objectivity and system. In short, what is called “pre-modern epistemology” (particularly the Christian kind) is really just the first tracings of the perfect circle; but both they and today’s classicalists are persuaded that the circle is indeed perfect. The flashes of certainty that are graciously deposited into our minds are meant to convict [Rom. 1:20] to awe [Ps. 19:1] and to evangelize [Acts 17:23]. The classical apologist, for example, is committed to the same species of ideas as Descartes, and he can do so by viewing a portion of epistemology as a psychological history—we just do begin with ourselves experientially—as in fact part of epistemology is committed to studying. He can do this without committing to the metaphysical proposition that knowledge as an objective entity or state of affairs begins in us and not in God. This, it seems, was not Descartes’ point. Nor does it matter, since it is not as if the classicalist is doting over The Discourse on Method. This, incidentally, is where Presuppositionalist errs—that and in wrongly attributing to Aquinas and subsequent classicalists a view of Romans 1:19-20 that has natural theology burning on its own fuel apart from grace.