Kara N. Slade The Fullness of Time

      

    Here is a reflection stimulated by my reading of The Fullness of Time: Jesus Christ, Science, and Modernity Kindle Edition, 2021 by Kara N. Slade.

         In my studies of philosophy, I weaned myself away from finding a philosopher that I thought approximated the truth. I approach philosophy as a means toward helping me think through a viewing of the world that seems right to me. Such a view of philosophy is always open to further amendments that may make me shift my perspective. What this means is that I can read both Plato and Aristotle with great profit, and not think I must choose between them. The same is true of Hegel and Kierkegaard, both of whom have perspectives that have nourished me in my intellectual journey. Hegel, for example, has a powerful critique of the “scientific human being” of his time, represented in both Rationalism (Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza) and Empiricism (Hume, Locke). His insight is correct as to the limits of the scientific method, even if his limitation to a higher form of reasoning through the dialectical method is questionable. Kierkegaard has a notion of the self with which I disagree, for he tended to think of the self as an isolated, weak, and fragmented self. In contrast, Hegel had a deeply communal notion of the self with the result that we gain our identity through encounter with the other. Reading some philosophical journal articles lately, I have become aware of my appreciation for Wittgenstein as well, as he kept pushing us as readers to see the theory-laden perspectives of philosophers that often get them into intellectual puzzles of their own making. His push to make us see how our ordinary use of language could resolve many philosophical puzzles is refreshing. Our book group readings have reminded me of how Hegel approached the process nature of the human mind or spirit and the process nature of reality through logic, while Whitehead perceived the depth of process in science in a way that everything that exists involves the polarity of the physical and mind. To see the potential for mind or consciousness in subatomic particles is a gift of scientific discovery. Science has much to teach regarding the vastness of the universe, that everything “is” only in relation to the other, that the largest other is the totality of the whole, the All, or the Universe, that human beings have a humble role in it all. At the same time, we must not lose the significance of this moment. For this reason, I have suggested that some form of process thinking that respects the influence of science and an existentialism that is keenly aware of the importance of this individual and this moment help shape a worldview that remains open to further changes. I discuss this briefly as I used the notion of Big History in a lectionary post: https://lectionarypondering.blogspot.com/2019/06/psalm-8.html

         This leads me to suggest that natural theology made errors when it saw too much of Christian theology in the experience of the world. Its errors are a cautionary tale in that way. However, a natural theology that is modest is biblical.  In assuming that it can use the word “God” and have confidence that readers will know of which it speaks is a modest form of natural theology in which it assumes some orientation of humanity toward the divine. A modest form of natural theology is the most natural reading of Paul’s sermon on Mar’s Hill, the first Chapter of John, Psalm 8, and many other passages. The fact that the various authors of the Bible felt free to utilize mythic, poetic, and religious images from Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, and Babylon says to me that the people of God always need to be open to all such aspirations of the human spirit. Luke incorporates methods and language of Greek peripatetic philosophers of his time, John incorporated Platonic images, and Paul valued the insights of Greek moral instruction (Stoics). The first millennium of the church saw the influence of Plato, and it transitioned to Aristotle. Such openness of the Christian tradition to the insights of pre-Christian authors ought to be instructive for us as we continue the theological journey. It is also the understanding of the later perspective of Karl Barth, who began to see parables of the kingdom in the world. I would also suggest that he had a deep engagement with Hegel, Kierkegaard, Buber, Heidegger, and Sartre. I see those parables in many places: Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein among them. I could add Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Marx as well. 

         Thus, when I think of an ad hoc relationship with the philosophical journey, it means that one is wide open to the successes and failures of a philosophical perspective. One develops a discerning reading of philosophers, rather than devotion to one (such as Kierkegaard) and having a shallow reading of another (such as Hegel). To do this is to use philosophy ideologically rather than to develop a perspective/worldview that remains modest and open to further adjustments.

         Yet, it is so true that Christians need to be skeptical of anyone who says, “just trust the science.” The elevation of the scientific method into a role that it is not fit to have is a problem. Fundamentalists make this mistake when they try to prove the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus. Secularists do this when they use science to dismiss the religious quest as useful in earlier stages of human evolution but can now in the age of science cast it off. However, theology does not have to isolate itself from the influence of science and modern philosophy to avoid this problem. Science is a theory-laden practice, as are all human endeavors. Through Polanyi and Kuhn, we have become aware of the shifts in theory that have determined what scientists see. Science is not as objective as its practitioners want to think. Science can also serve political agendas, as we can see with climate change agendas, which advance a bureaucratizing of the economy that is destructive of economic growth and harmful to the poor and middle classes. We see the effects today in the farmer revolts in the Netherlands and in Sri Lanka. Using either science or a shallow understanding of the philosophical journey to advance a political agenda is not the way I want to do theology. 

         A political agenda that undermines the cultural and intellectual home of the West developed by white men is not one of which I want to be a part. To think of the western philosophical tradition as uniquely sinful and unworthy of Christian engagement in such a way as to learn from it as well as critique it is a peculiar form of self-loathing to which many in academia have succumbed, wearing such disgust as a badge of honor that expresses a self-righteous contempt for those who do not share their lofty, arrogant, and judgmental reading of the western philosophical tradition. Luke says Jesus told a parable directed at those who viewed themselves as righteous and looked upon others with contempt (Luke 18:9). Rather than opposition to the Enlightenment tradition, I see myself in dialogue with it because it expresses aspirations of the human spirit, and not just an expression of the sinfulness of the human spirit. One might even refer to it as the operation of prevenient grace. I would also see such grace operative in the African religions, India, and the ancient Chinese and Japanese traditions, but the topic here is whether the western philosophical tradition is worthy of engagement by the church and its theologians. I am decidedly on the side of an affirmative answer. Yes, the West has its sins. However, the West did not invent slavery. Not only is it in the Bible, but it was a prevalent use of tribes as they defeated other tribes in Africa and South America. Racism is not the invention of the West or the Enlightenment. It remains a deep issue among cultures like China and Japan. The failure to appreciate women is universal, as they were to keep to their subordinate place. Colonizing other lands and subjugating them is not the invention of the West, which again we see in the Bible and the rise and fall of Empires. However, as academics are prepared to continue beating up the West for its sins, usually with a conflict-based and alienating ideology devoted to a Marxist critique of liberal democracy, only now applied beyond economics to race, sexual orientation, and gender, the same people are not prepared to see that the intellectual tradition of the West has been recognizing these sins for what they are and embarking upon a journey of liberation of both oppressed and oppressor from the viciousness of this pattern and embarking upon a new journey of mutual recognition and respect. Such a notion is the the Hegelian view of the intellectual climate created by modernity. I would refer to this as the education of the West in its morality and the institutionalizing of the principle of freedom, especially its economic and political leaders. The utopian vision always blinds one to the progress made in forming a good (not perfect) society. America was recognized by both Hegel and Marx as having the potential to actualize the best of the Enlightenment idea of freedom. It still can be such a leader of the world toward mutual recognition and respect. 

         The way forward for anyone who values the religious impulse that human beings have is to value the scientific application of rationality, but not to elevate it to a status of determining truth, morality, or a notion of a good (not perfect) society. This means moving away from attempts to prove the existence of God from our experience of the world, such as we find in Aquinas, and a move toward recognizing that human beings often express their most profound aspirations in other ways, such as myth in the ancient world, and in the modern world in poetry and the arts, in stories and narratives, and in reflection upon the divine. Such expressions of rationality are attuned to the individual, the moment, the “existing individual,” as Kierkegaard would put it, as well as to the experience of wonder, amazement, and mystery. 

         I want to say this carefully. A shallow reading of Hegel is common, even in scholarly circles. Prejudicial and shallow reading of the western intellectual tradition is becoming increasingly common. I am inclined to value the insights into modernity we find in Jurgen Habermas, Stephen Toulman, and Charles Taylor. A limited reading of great thinkers like Kierkegaard and Barth, one that cherry-picks to serve a political agenda, is becoming an all-too-common approach in academia. It begins to look like a modern version of idolatry and functions more like an ideology. Reading the great philosophical minds ought to shift perspectives, but it ought never to close them.

         I reflected on matters closely related to these concerns in a lectionary post: https://lectionarypondering.blogspot.com/2019/10/jeremiah-291-4-7.html