Certainly Not: Part Six

Using an analogy, I argued in the last post that conversation is the best way to respond to Theological Fallibility. So what exactly does it look like to "leave an access door to the foundation" of your Theology? There are two things I would mention.

1. Welcome Dialogue from Different Perspectives

Take any chance you can get to talk to someone of a different faith. I firmly believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, so why would I spend the rest of my life only talking to people who believe the same thing? As a Christian, I should not be ashamed of the Gospel, I should be going into all the world to make disciples. However, don't miss the blessing that comes from witnessing - dialogue. You can leave that access door open and re-examine your foundation. When people ask you those hard questions about your faith, it's time to perform a little maintenance. Why does God allow evil? Can I trust the Bible? Does the New Testament display antisemitism?

Is dialogue risky? Of course. You could take the "easy" way out, and just seal off your access door - just don't be surprised when nobody wants to come and visit your house.

2. Welcome Books from Controversial Authors

It can be exhausting to read something you don't agree with. Your emotions run high, and you sometimes wish you could just sit down with the author and give them a piece of your mind. However, the attitude which most troubles me is the attitude that says, "I only have something to learn from those who are orthodox (agree with me)." Truth be told, and I'm speaking from personal experience, you can learn a lot from people you don't agree with. Believe it or not, the only smart people in the world are NOT people who believe the same thing as you.

Two words of caution:

First, sin, even false ideas, can be very appealing. In your quest for truth, you must remain committed to it. If you lack wisdom, ask God who gives to all men liberally. Fear God - this is the beginning of wisdom.

Second, I am not suggesting that you must read/watch moral filth in order to be more educated. I made a commitment to my wife to stay faithful to her, I don't need to frequent pornographic websites (for example) in order to "keep the access door open". Don't forget - there is black, gray, and white areas. My commitment to my wife is one area in which I am not ashamed to say I'm, "close-minded".

As I think back about this series, I certainly realize I don't hold all the answers to our Theological Fallibility. There are still lots of unanswered questions in my mind, and dots I have yet to connect. It's funny, a small part of me honestly feels like writing a rebuttal against myself! I've done the best I can to build a foundation, but let's just say I'm leaving the access door open.

Certainly Not: Part Five

The best way to respond to Theological Fallibility, is not blanket uncertainty, or passive humility, or perpetual openness. The best way to respond to Theological Fallibility is, conversation.

I mentioned in my last post that the response of conversation is a sort of "modified openness". To me, the risk of openness is that it lacks a solid foundation. However, the risk of being close-minded is that it leaves the foundation unexamined for large periods of time. Allow me to use an analogy.

I recently purchased a house (actually, the bank purchased a house, and I am now their slave for 30 years). Obviously, my house has a foundation. It's a solid stone/brick foundation with no major cracks, and it passed inspection with flying colors. The foundation of my house is completely sealed off except for a small access door on the south side of the house. Now, I would be an IDIOT if I said to myself, "I've got a good foundation, it's passed inspection, and I don't see any problems, so, I think I'll seal off the access door." Imagine what would happen to my home if I was unable to access the underbelly of my home for 30 years! What a tragedy!

Even though I'm glad my house has a solid foundation, I've already been down there to check things out a half-dozen times since we moved in. Why? Because good houses need maintenance. I know that the "fallibility" of a home requires constant action on my part.

Do you see the connection between houses and Theology? Someone who is perpetually open minded shoots themselves in the foot because they refuse to build a solid foundation on which they may build a house. Someone who is close minded is like the person who seals off the access door to the foundation of their house, thus leaving their foundation to rot. The position of conversation tries to build a foundation (and a good one too), but leaves an access door. This person is willing to go down with a flashlight and perform maintenance on their foundation. Make no mistake, this person has a foundation, they just know that the harsh reality of life requires constant tweaking and improving.
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Part Six of this series will look at the practical outworking of a person who responds to Theological Fallibility with "conversation".

Certainly Not: Part Four

I apologize for my tardiness in continuing my series on "Theological Infallibility". The basic question is this - "How should I respond to the inherent uncertainty that comes with being human while building a Theology?" I mentioned that uncertainty seemed to strong a response, and that humility was more of an attitude than a proactive response.

Another possible response is, "openness" (yes, it's a word). In today's society, if you want to insult someone just call them, "close-minded". You can bet money that everybody who's trying to be somebody is remaining "open" to all the options. But what exactly does it mean to be open. It's a little hard to define.

The idea of being open in your Theology basically means that you're unwilling to "close" the door of your mind and thus become "bias" towards a certain position. Someone who is truly open, won't build a theology based on a solid foundation, because he/she must remain open (free from commitment) even in regards to foundational issues.

However some would argue that the whole idea behind opening your mind is so that you can eventually close it. In other words, you open your mind to all the options, weigh the evidence, and make a decision - case closed (pun intended). Others find virtue in remaining perpetually open to all options, regardless of how strong the evidence points towards something.

There are a lot of things I like about the idea of being open in your Theology. (not to be confused with Open Theism which denies God's ability to know the future) However, being open comes with a lot of risks. I am much more attracted to, and will discuss in the next post, a modified position, which I call - conversation.

Certainly Not: Part Three

If you're just tuning in, I've been talking about what I call, "Theological Fallibility". Basically, the idea is this - we know, due to our imperfect nature, that we must be wrong in some area of our theology (we just don't know which area). So, how do we respond to this troubling theological pickle?

I've already dealt with the response of Uncertainty, so what about the response of Humility? Humility recognizes it's insignificant place among a sea of theological perspectives. Simply among Baptists there can be a wide divergence of views, but when you broaden this out, the artist of Evangelicalism begins painting with even wider brush strokes. Adjust your telescope, and you can see the countless stars of denominations within the galaxy of Protestantism. As your perspective broadens even more, you see the tree of Christendom branching out into Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. As if this wasn't divergent enough, you realize all the above are cheaply categorized as "Christian" and (to the western mind) it's them against Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism...the list goes on and on.

With so MANY different views, how could I possibly claim that I have somehow escaped error, and am a virtual color commentator of the acts of the almighty God (if there is one, says the Atheist). The theologian, pinned between the rock of human fallibility and the hard place of divergent opinion, is driven to his knees. We realize our tiny, insignificant place among such a significant majority.

Thus, humility isn't really a response, it's more of an attitude. It's an attitude taken by somebody who's been put in their place. However, as important as proper perspective, and an attitude of humility is in this task of building a theology - it still doesn't answer the question of how to proactively respond to our theological fallibility. Indeed, we must keep looking for a better way - a way forward.
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Part Four of this series will continue our journey towards finding a proper response to our Theological Fallibility.

Certainly Not: Part Two

So basically, the idea so far is that the imperfect aspect of our humanity demands that we are wrong in some area of our theology. The problem is, we don't know what those areas are, and we'll never reach a perfectly tuned theology. I'm assuming that you're with me up to this point, the area in which we might diverge is in how to respond to this quite troubling realization of our fallible humanity. How should we respond?

There are four (probably more) ways to respond to our "theological fallibility"...

1. Uncertainty
2. Humility
3. Openness
4. Conversation

First, let's look at uncertainty. This response is a glass-half-empty, pessimistic theology. Uncertainty avoids making propositional truth claims (especially metanarratives), and can never fully define with certainty the finer (even essential) points of it's theology. Uncertainty doesn't like an ABC ducks-in-a-row theology, and is skeptical of any matter-of-fact theologian. Uncertainty revels in the mystery of God, and doesn't like to put Him in a box, no matter how over-sized. This type of person openly admits to not having everything figured out - and is perfectly content to keep it that way.

I think this response - blanket uncertainty - fails in it's inability to differentiate between black, gray, and white. For example, I KNOW my wife's name is Emily. I KNOW she's 4' 11''. I KNOW she is an interpreter, and I KNOW that she is (at this moment) sleeping soundly in another part of the house. What may not be as tangible is her love for me, respect of me, and loyalty to me. I know these latter things are true, I just know experientially as opposed to intellectually.

What's interesting to me is that the most certain things in life (e.g. that wall is blue) are the most inconsequential. It is the not-as-certain things which carry the most weight (e.g. does my wife really love me?). But I digress, the point is that there are some things which we can be certain about, and then there are other things which require a bit more caution (duh). Thus, blanket uncertainty is like pulling out a rocket launcher during a rubber band fight - slight over-reaction.
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Part Three will take a look at some other ways to respond to this "theological fallibility" dilemma.

Certainly Not: Part One

I would assume, and I think this is a safe assumption, that if you asked a crowd of about 300 people to raise their hand if they thought something they believed was false - no hands would go up. Nobody thinks something they believe is wrong, otherwise - they wouldn't believe it.

However, if you asked that same group of 300 people to raise their hand if they thought they were perfect, again, not a single hand would go up. So, how do we reconcile these two commonly accepted truths, 1) we aren't perfect AND 2) as far as we know, we don't believe anything that is wrong?

The implication is this: Though I can't pinpoint it exactly, my humanity dictates that I must be categorically wrong in some area or another of my theology/belief system.

When I was a data entry clerk, I entered thousands and thousands of keystrokes into a computer. Common sense tells me that, though I didn't know it at the time, I MUST have made a few mistakes while typing. It's like that with our theology. Our humanity guarantees that we've made a mistake, we just don't know where.

Maybe our source was wrong, maybe we aren't coming at it from the right perspective, maybe we've misinterpreted a passage, maybe their is a textual variant, maybe our presuppositions are getting in the way, maybe we're thinking with wrong categories, maybe there is still more information to be discovered, maybe, maybe, maybe. How are we supposed to build a theology on a bunch of "maybes"?
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Part two of this series will look at four possible responses to this dilemma - Uncertainty, Humility, Openness, and Conversation