Methodological musings

Summer is nearly over, school exam results are in, and the traditional English pastime of agonizing over the education system is in full swing. As the days lengthen and the temperature (hopefully) drops, I have to return to thinking about my little part in the great educational adventure (the masters programme at Union Schoolof Theology). Having completed a bunch of modules last year covering a range of topics, this year I am about to embark on the research methods module and then my dissertation. There are those who insist that we’ve all moved on from the days when Theology was taken seriously as an academic subject. I suspect some lurk among my former scientific colleagues. Mind you, they would probably also hold the same view (although only ever very quietly articulate it) of sociology, political studies, poetry, swathes of psychology, and other oddities. In fact, if they but knew a little bit of history (another subject area with dubious credentials) they would know that this is a very 19^th/early 20^th century view of the academy in which only science provides truthful and therefore useful knowledge. Everything else is “nonsense”; useful only in so far as it is mildly entertaining.

Before coming back to the issue of theology specifically, it’s worth just making a few rejoinders to this sort of (admittedly minority) view (see also here). The first thing to note is that scientific approaches have only ever applied to a fantastically narrow sliver of life and experience. To claim that only those things which can be measured and weighed, parameterized and counted matter, leads to an extremely impoverished view of life that no one could, or ever really has, held. To dismiss the warmth of human relationships, the beauty of sunsets, the evocations of great music (whether Elgar or E.L.O), is to dismiss the sort of thing that makes life liveable. None of these things can finally be reduced to numbers without missing something both important and wonderful. The view that only the measurable is knowable is only held in seminar rooms, and while having arguments. Then its proponents return to spouses and children and talk of love and affection (presumably genuinely), or go out and enjoy a good meal, and do not feel in any way that these are nonsense experiences that are to be dismissed.

And the notion that science is somehow self-sufficient, never requiring insights from other disciplines, is a peculiar kind of intellectual arrogance not worthy of the first-year undergraduate flushed with A-level success, who has yet to learn of his true ignorance. Where this type of attitude (articulated or not) persists among professional scientists (and where it does true professionalism and rigour are undermined) trouble is usually not far behind. You might think that clear thinking is a hallmark of science, but the literature is replete with counter-examples that a mildly competent philosopher or historian of science would be able to supply. Confusion and conflict over no more than poorly defined categories and misnamed concepts is far from unknown.

It is the philosophers of science (rarely scientists themselves) who have had to tackle how scientists actually think when engaged in effective science. Most scientists find that doing stuff is complicated enough without thinking too hard about it. In my experience it is not uncommon to bumble about in mist before finding a sensible approach to a problem. Activity rather than cool, dispassionate thought is often the preferred approach. The highly sophisticated, specialized and technical nature of most contemporary, professional science has exacerbated rather than moderated such tendencies. And all of this is prior to the really big elephant now sitting right in the middle of science’s front room – integrity. “Ethics” is not science (like epistemology it is a sub-discipline of philosophy), but “ethics” are now one of science’s big problems. This is perhaps inevitable where things like careers, salaries, and economic exploitation of scientific results are to the fore. All research costs money, and the money is usually someone else’s. This brings inevitable pressures and temptations. Things are further complicated where science and political controversy become entwined as in current debates around vaccines and climate change. Science is far from the clean, cool, rational, straightforward, always successful enterprise that some would have the non-scientist believe.

So in the complicated and nuanced world we all have to inhabit, studies of other aspects of existence have their place and I assume require an appropriate toolkit, some knowledge of the past, and strenuous efforts to discover and apply new knowledge. There is a right way to go about science, or rather right ways – it’s not as methodologically monolithic as you might think. And I’m assuming the same applies in a discipline like theology. There is even an interesting overlap in methodology, in as much as reasoned argument has the same characteristics across disciplines (a philosopher could give me chapter and verse on this). Coherence will be good and contradiction bad. Claims will be testable and tested against evidence. Interestingly, while the main object of study in theological investigation is different to that which I studied previously, there is again an overlap between my former and future efforts. If the object of study in theology is God (the only real and true one I mean), then there is a problem because there is a sense in which He is unknowable. And yet He has revealed Himself in a number of ways. Of prime importance is Scripture, the book of His words, and His primary method of self-revelation. But then we have His created order (including ourselves) – the book of His works. And that’s what I’ve been studying for all these years. In studying them, I have been studying Him.

But I take it that given the centrality of Scripture, this will be a prime focus of theological research, and therefore theological method. This raises a bit of a conundrum as far as research is concerned. The Bible has been an object of study for a long time. In my former existence a premium was placed upon revealing new things. Admittedly where I managed this, the things that were revealed were only of interest to me and a tiny handful of other people. Had they not been revealed the world would have continued spinning on its axis. But they were, in their way, novel. But is theological research about finding out new things about God in Scripture or do we know everything about Him we need and are able to know? Research would then become a matter of rediscovering the thoughts of others, a sort of history. I can see the value in this, but is it all there is? Or are there new things to be discovered, articulated and applied? I am already aware of two theological tribes which take two different, and opposing, positions on this - constructivists versus conservatives. No doubt there are others I’ve yet to encounter.

The inventiveness of humanity and the productivity of science and technology do occasionally throw up genuinely new issues which require theological reflection. One example would be nuclear weapons which placed the means of planetary destruction in human hands for the first time. A current example would be the current controversy over gender, what it is and whether it is fixed or fluid; such questions would simply never have occurred to previous generations. But is this fundamentally about generating new truth, or applying old truth to new issues? Novelty may not be as novel as it first  appears. And if some claim is made that a really novel theological truth has been discovered, is this a good thing or simply danger sign?

These are the questions to be batted about next week. Some hard thinking to do. It’s unlikely to be dull.

Messiness and main things

It can be very easy to fall out with people, something all human beings seem to have a talent for. Sometimes religious people in general, and Christians in particular (particularly those at the Protestant/Evangelical end of the spectrum) get singled out for being key exemplars of this propensity. Given that, it is worth pointing out that the Monty Python joke about “splitters” has much more to do with politics than religion, suggesting that this really is a human, not specifically Christian, frailty.

Unity is of course important. In philosophy it has been a matter of debate from Plato and Aristotle forward. In politics, it is valued because of the perception that people don’t vote for divided and disunited political parties (a rule most recently restated by Nadhim Zahawi, Boris’ final chancellor). More importantly for me, it is enjoined by the Psalmist  (Ps 133:1 – “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity”) and prayed for by Jesus (John 17:21 – “..that they may all be one..”). But unity is one of those odd things that while important, is not really of value in an of itself. Just as faith can only ever be as strong as its object, so unity is only of value where there is something (or someone) to unite around. This brings us back to splitting.

One of the accusations constantly thrown at the Reformers in the sixteenth century was essentially that they were “splitters”. They were introducing division into the church that had no business being there. The point was often made that it would not end well; once a splitter, always a splitter (partly the Python’s point). It was predicted that once the split had occurred from Rome there would be other splits, until the whole reforming project ran into the sand. Where previously there had been glorious unity under Rome, there would be all these fissiparous protestants, both defacing the beauty of the church, and generally causing lots of trouble. And it did rather look like this for a while. Except for a couple of things.

The unity of Rome was both around the wrong object and was in part illusory. The human institution of the church, with its accretion of prelates and both extrabiblical and unbiblical ritual, with its devotion to international politics and political rather than spiritual leadership, had moved so far from the church as instituted at Pentecost as to be unrecognizable. It had become a barrier to the saving truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not its doorway. Even so, even Luther recognized a high threshold for secession, and his original intent was reform rather than schism. That door, if ever open, was swiftly closed against him. In any case, Luther faced a situation in which no-one was entirely sure what the truth really was that everyone was supposed to unite around. He was active during a period of theological pluralism, when even for key ideas (including some that would become hotly contested like justification) the right line was often ill-defined. The production of Erasmus’ new translation of Scripture, a great improvement on the Vulgate, had the effect of showing up that in certain areas what had become accepted truth was far from it. The institution, when challenged, reacted with hostility. A split became both inevitable and unbridgeable where truth was defined by God in His Word, as opposed to a human institution.

And while it still looks to some that chaos was the result, chaos that is still with us, this is surprisingly deceptive. That central role of Scripture as defining truth has another important aspect to it. Some things are both true and necessary – get them wrong and the consequences can be eternally disastrous. Deny them, and the outcome is likely to be as unpleasant. It is clear that Jesus is not just a great teacher or prophet, but God and man. As hard as this is to get our heads around, undermine, redefine or deny the truth of who Jesus is, relegate the truth of His life, death and resurrection to opinion, and the Gospel is emptied of its transforming relevance and power. This hypothesis has, as it happens, been tested in contemporary Europe (including the UK) and North America, and the results may be clearly observed. However, it is less clear whether it is necessary for Christians to meet at 10.30am every Sunday morning, sit in wooden pews and sing songs written prior to the nineteenth century only accompanied by a pipe organ. In the New Testament there is teaching about some of things we should do as Christians, and in some cases the way in which we should do them. But there is surprisingly little practical detail, leaving ample scope for a legitimate spectrum of practice. This has not prevented some Christians from falling out over details that Scripture simply does not supply.

John Newton, former trafficker in human slaves, writer of “Amazing Grace” and latterly Church of England vicar and rector wrote “If a man is born again, hates sin, and depends upon the Saviour for life and grace, I care not whether he is an Arminian or a Calvinist.” I think Newton puts it rather well. Essentially he was saying that we should keep the main things the main things, and not fall out over the other stuff. And this was the genius of the eighteen century revival and awakening. Even though there were fallings out, and the big one was the Calvinist/Arminian division between John Wesley and George Whitefield (the one referred to by Newton, and one that still exists today), there was an underlying unity in the Gospel. Even the division between Wesley and Whitefield should not be overstated; they found a way to work if not together then at least with a degree of harmony. Wesley famously preached Whitefield’s memorial sermon in 1770.

Of course there will always be a legitimate debate about what the main things actually are, and where the border really is between main and secondary issues. I think Newton summarises them well. There are primary issues, those necessary for salvation, and then there are secondary issues. We can debate these, and perhaps we should, but we should not be falling out about them. Because some have fallen out about them in the past, we find a range of different groups, and it can all look a bit messy. And yet I have always found so much in common with fellow believers in, and followers of Jesus, that there has always been a degree of unity for all to enjoy. This unity, based on God’s Word, is the sort of thing experienced at places like Keswick.

Keep the main things the main things and it turns out things are not as messy as they first appear.