Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The fuzzification of faith

On Oct 22, Prejean said:

***QUOTE***

As such, I consider it highly improbable, considering Who is revealed, that God would reveal Himself through text. He could do so, no doubt, but it would be a bit perverse from a presuppositional standpoint to reveal something by a method that by definition is inadequate to the task, rather like Picasso attempting to convey his artistic vision in a typed page. Requiring that much direct intervention, that much identification between the individual's volition and the Holy Spirit, strikes me as little better than appealing to private revelation. Rather than positing such a thoroughly inadequate means of revelation supplemented by such drastic intervention, I would think that it would be far more aesthetic to conclude that God did not Incarnate Himself meaninglessly, and that His ongoing revelation is (ontologically) of one kind with His Incarnation. This leads to a fundamentally Christological and Eucharistic hermeneutic, unique to Scripture. Hence, the distaste for "private judgment," which more or less presumes a presuppositionally inadequate form of revelation that must be supplemented by God's direct personal revelation of Himself.

***END-QUOTE***

Oct 24, said:

No. It's a case of God revealing Himself through a combination of text, faith, natural theology, mystagogy, community, subsequent historical development, and a host of other factors. Why that is so difficult to comprehend, I have no idea. It's only people who claim epistemic reliability based on a single source who have to worry about vicious circularity. It's that whole (solely) or (independently) that gets read into "through text" that I find objectionable. I can't discern any good reason to think that (solely) or (independently) is warranted. Certainly, the fact that it is the only written record of apostolic teaching doesn't cut it.

Quite a few problems to sort out:

1.The implication of his 10/22 statement is that the principle of textual revelation was “thoroughly inadequate.” It necessitated too much direct divine intervention to supplement its deficiencies.

Textual revelation was inadequate, not merely as a matter of degree, but a matter of kind. It’s like trying to communicate what was distinctive to one medium (painting) to another medium (the written word).

So what we needed was a whole different model of revelation. A form of revelation which is ontologically of a piece with the Incarnation.

This would be opposed to textual revelation. Not a supplement to textual revelation. But a whole different genus of divine revelation.

Now, we can certainly classify the Incarnation as a revelatory event, but by that same token, it would belong to the category of event-media rather than word media.

And one would suppose, given Prejean’s theological commitments, that an extension along the same lines would be related to the Mass and sacramental grace. Presumably, too, this has something to do with the Incarnational dimension of Byzantine epistemology.

One source of unclarity lies in Prejean's effort to fuse two divergent theological traditions--each with its own history of internal development.

For Prejean, this has more aesthetic appeal, which he treats as a theological criterion of truth. So much for his 10/22 statement.

2.But in his 10/4 statement, he substitutes a multiple-source theory of revelation, which includes textual revelation, but in combination with a host of other sources and criteria.

a) Prejean is shifting ground. He now is supplementing textual revelation with a host of other factors.

b) A multiple-source theory of revelation would have less aesthetic appeal that a single-source theory. A multiple-source theory is messy, cumbersome, complicated, and inelegant. How do you prioritize the various factors?

Conversely, a single-source model of revelation would be more elegant than a multiple-source theory of revelation. Hence, Prejean’s aesthetic criterion ought to favor the Protestant rule of faith.

b) Not only does Scripture talk about itself, not only does it contain self-referential statements about its divine identity and process of inspiration, but it comments other sources of information, such as the senses and natural revelation.

It would, therefore, be quite possible for God to direct his people to a multiple-source theory of revelation, including mystagogy, community, subsequent historical development, and so on.

Since, however, Scripture does not redirect the people of God to these supplementary sources of revelation, their revelatory identity lacks divine warrant. Rather, God directs his people to the written record of his words. Others revelatory candidates (save for natural revelation), lack divine authorization.

c) As has been repeatedly pointed out to Prejean, but he’s slow on the uptake, the argument for sola Scriptura isn’t predicated on the superior epistemic certainty afforded by the rule of faith.

It is, rather, predicated on the fact that Sola Scripture is simply the only rule of faith which God has assigned to the church. Whether it affords certainty or degrees of high probability is not the basis of the claim.

Conservative Evangelicals do go on to argue that Scripture is a source of certainty in relation to its particular function, but that claim, while important in its own right, is not the basis for sola Scriptura.

For example, to say that the senses are the only source of sense knowledge is not to quantify the degree of epistemic reliability of the senses. Whether they’re highly reliable or fraught with uncertainty, the senses are the only possible source of sense knowledge. That’s the claim.

d) As has also been pointed out to Prejean on more than one occasion, but he’s a slow learner, sola Scriptura doesn’t exist in a Deistic voice. It functions in conjunction with divine providence. Scripture not only has a doctrine of revelation, but a doctrine of providence as well. These work in tandem. Hence, the charge of vicious circularity is off-the-mark.

Sola Scriptura is, indeed, derived from the self-witness of Scripture, but the claims of Scripture are hardly limited to its self-referential claims.

4 comments:

  1. "Is there any way to nail this guy down on any particular issue?"

    Sure. Apply epistemic charity, assume that I am a thinking and rational person, and interpret what I say accordingly.

    For example:
    "First Prejean says it's highly improbable that God would reveal himself through text."

    In context, it was quite obvious that I was speaking of God revealing Himself ENTIRELY through text. Which means that the following:
    "Then he says that God *does* reveal himself through text, as long as that revelation is in combination with other things."
    says EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

    And, BTW, notice that Hays did exactly the same thing:
    "So what we needed was a whole different model of revelation. A form of revelation which is ontologically of a piece with the Incarnation.

    This would be opposed to textual revelation. Not a supplement to textual revelation. But a whole different genus of divine revelation."

    Did I say this? No. My point, which is the same as it has been all along, is that text as an exclusive medium is absurdly counter-intuitive. In fact, Hays even owns up to how ridiculous it is when he says:
    "A multiple-source theory of revelation would have less aesthetic appeal that a single-source theory. A multiple-source theory is messy, cumbersome, complicated, and inelegant. How do you prioritize the various factors?

    Conversely, a single-source model of revelation would be more elegant than a multiple-source theory of revelation. Hence, Prejean’s aesthetic criterion ought to favor the Protestant rule of faith."

    This is completely irrational; he's saying that more information is a bad thing from an aesthetic standpoint. The beauty of simplicity owes itself to the COMPLEXITY of what it explains, not the SIMPLICITY of what it explains. If Hays had actually studied a hard science, maybe he'd realize how incredibly stupid anyone with scientific training ought to find this statement. If things weren't hard to explain, simplicity wouldn't be a virtue; it would be a consequence!

    What's incredible is that Hays even actually ADMITTED that he hadn't made an argument here:
    "It is, rather, predicated on the fact that Sola Scripture is simply the only rule of faith which God has assigned to the church. Whether it affords certainty or degrees of high probability is not the basis of the claim."

    I interpret Scripture with Scripture because Scripture is the only rule of faith which God provided to the Church, according to Scripture, which is the rule of faith...

    Single-source revelation is viciously circular. There's no way around it. In fact, if Catholics actually made the argument (which they don't) that the Magisterium was the sole rule of faith, it would be viciously circular as well. See Hays's "argument" here:
    "Whether they’re highly reliable or fraught with uncertainty, the senses are the only possible source of sense knowledge. That’s the claim."

    This actually proves exactly the OPPOSITE of what Hays claims; if you lack a REASON to believe sense information counts as "knowledge," the fact of sensing can't give it to you. All this proves is that Hays isn't even thinking about the grounds of knowledge, which once again, is not an argument.

    And BTW, j.d., in the following, you prove that, like your compatriots, you simply can't read:
    "Then he claims that other people "read into" his first claim the words "solely" and "independently," even though it's evident that *he's* the one who has to insert those words in order to reconcile both claims with each other!"

    My point was actually exactly the OPPOSITE of what you are saying; it should have been quite obvious that I MEANT "solely" or "independently" in my original statement, at least if the reader wasn't either malevolent or stupid. My point is the same that I have been meaning all along: the notion that Scripture can interpret Scripture is ridiculously counter-intuitive, the sort of absurd nonsense that no one would believe without an absolutely compelling argument. Ordinarily, one would not assume such a thing, so it is the extremely high burden of anyone making such an implausible claim that it is even possible. Thus, anyone who believes in "letting revelation define revelation" is unreasonable by default absent making such an argument, because it is practically the definition of vicious circularity. My point is that anyone who believes something that ridiculous without an argument is beyond reason, because they obviously don't have the critical thinking capacity to question the ridiculous. It's like astrology or any other ridiculously counter-intuitive premise that one has no reason to believe. Now, if you can come up with some compelling argument for WHY you let Scripture interpret Scripture, I might give you a pass, but I've certainly never seen one. But the fact that you don't even have sufficient epistemic charity to have a reasonable discussion means I'm not flailing around with you anymore. And since, as usual, new Triablogue nitwits who interact with me have proved to be just as irrational as Hays, that's all for me. I've gotta say that you and Hays have reached new depths before; now an admission of irrationality actually somehow turns into a virtue. You've got the cult mentality down pat; you'd be good Gnostics.

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  2. Steve --

    Why try to refute Fozzie Prejean? He's the worst kind of quack -- the kind who uses words as if he knew what they meant.

    Anyone reading his text either understands he is completely out of his mind or has not idea what he is talking about. Why waste your time on something like this?

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  3. TJW --

    You should re-read my comment, and then apply it to your criticism.

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  4. TJW:
    Of course, you are right, but more importantly, you are presumptively right according to any reasonable canon of interpretation, because one must always presume against an author's dishonesty or inconsistency absent compelling evidence to the contrary. So now you see exactly why I suspect that they are simply playing games. Reasonable people just don't do what they are doing.

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