Reprinted from The Princeton Theological
Review, October 1994
In the last several decades both philosophy and theology have
increasingly taken a "contextual turn." The contextual
turn begins with the observation that all of human inquiry occurs
within contexts. By itself this observation is perfectly innocuous.
It is patently obvious that each of us thinks and moves within
certain social, linguistic, and epistemic contexts. We are not
disembodied spirits living in a Platonic heaven, but flesh and
blood people living at certain concrete times and places.
Charles Sanders Peirce, the American pragmatist philosopher, saw
this point quite clearly. In responding to the Cartesian principle
of universal doubt, Peirce observed, "We must begin with
all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the
study of philosophy," to which he added, "Let us not
pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."
Although Peirce's reference to background information as "prejudices"
is perhaps a bit too strong, his general point is well taken.
We embark, not just on philosophy, but on any course of inquiry
already possessing a significant amount of background information.
This background information sets the context within which our
inquiry proceeds.
The observation that all human inquiry occurs within contexts
and is thereby constrained by contexts is uncontroversial. Nevertheless,
controversy does arise when we move beyond this simple observation,
and embrace the dogma that all human inquiry is inescapably imprisoned
within and thereby incorrigibly skewed by contexts. It is one
thing to admit that inquiry occurs within contexts and is thereby
constrained by contexts. It is quite another to assert that contexts
so bias inquiry that our beliefs about the world are invariably
warped.
Thus we see the contextual turn taking two forms, one moderate,
the other hard-core. Of these I am entirely in sympathy with the
moderate turn. Indeed, I regard human inquiry as functioning essentially
within contexts, and thus regard the recent elevation of the epistemic
status of contexts as salutary for the field of epistemology.
In particular, moderate contextualism, as we may call it, uncovers
the pretensions of positivism, which in line with the Enlightenment
vision of reason, claims the ability to settle all our questions
at the bar of Reason writ large. Against this inflated view of
human reason, moderate contextualism affirms that all instances
of human inquiry occur within contexts and must therefore acknowledge
the role of contexts in shaping how we view the world. Reason
functions within context and cannot be divorced from context.
According to moderate contextualism, reason is to context as soul
is to body.
Moderate contextualism as the view that all human inquiry occurs
within and is constrained by contexts is unproblematic. Even what
Christians regard as humankind's chief truth, that God in Christ
assumed human form to redeem the world, cannot be divorced from
the time, place, history, and culture within which Jesus moved.
Jesus was not a Platonic ideal being, but a Jew. If we fail to
understand Jesus' Jewish roots, we fail to understand the Gospel.
The problem with the contextual turn, however, occurs when this
moderate contextualism is transformed into hard-core contextualism
by being universalized and absolutized in the same way that reason
was itself absolutized in the Enlightenment. It is the absolutization
of contextualism that constitutes hard-core contextualism and
results in what I call the "fallacy of contextualism."
It is against this absolutized form of contextualism that I am
arguing in this essay.
Because the recent surge of contextualism can in large measure
be attributed to developments in the philosophy of science, especially
developments since the demise of logical positivism, it is worth
reviewing how the tension between moderate and hard-core contextualism
plays itself out in contemporary philosophy of science. The philosopher
of science Dudley Shapere has perhaps the clearest insight into
the confusion that results from conflating moderate with hard-core
contextualism. Shapere examines the shift in the philosophy of
science away from the positivism of Carnap, Hempel, and Reichenbach
to embrace the sociological and historical approaches of Kuhn,
Feyerabend, Toulmin, and their successors. Shapere casts this
shift in a broader historico-philosophical context as a shift
from philosophical views committed to an "Inviolability Thesis"
(as he calls it), to "various forms of relativism and skepticism
that have arisen so often in the history of philosophy."
According to Shapere a sure sign that an Inviolability Thesis
is operating is the presence of "a set of unalterable -metascientific
concepts'." Shapere characterizes philosophical views that
embrace an inviolability thesis as follows:
All such views have in common the idea that there is something
about the scientific (or, more generally, the knowledge-seeking
or knowledge-acquiring) enterprise that cannot be rejected or
altered in the light of any other beliefs at which we might arrive,
but that, on the contrary, must be accepted before we can arrive,
or perhaps even seek, such other beliefs. I came to call this
idea "the Inviolability Thesis." But what could be the
justification of such allegedly inviolable constituents, methods,
presuppositions, or whatever of science?
Shapere proceeds to argue persuasively that the history of science
simply does not provide any warrant for unalterable meta-theoretic
concepts. According to Shapere such concepts are themselves learned
within scientific praxis and therefore subject to change.
But if the positivism of Carnap, Hempel, and Reichenbach lands
one in the frying pan of an inviolability thesis, then according
to Shapere the historico-sociological approaches of Feyerabend,
Kuhn, and Toulmin lands one in the fire of relativism and skepticism.
Thus Shapere writes,
The relativism into which the views of Feyerabend and Kuhn degenerate,
on the other hand, has its kindred in the various forms of relativism
and skepticism that have arisen so often in the history of philosophy. . . .
The real point of both skepticism and relativism lies in their
exposure of shortcomings in our understanding of the nature of
knowledge and of the knowledge-seeking process, shortcomings which
proponents of the Inviolability Thesis, in any of its forms, have
done nothing to alleviate.
The aim of variants on the Inviolability Thesis from Plato to
the present day has always been at least partly to counter skeptical
and relativist arguments; and despite the failures of Inviolability
counterarguments, this motivation behind them seemed to me a valid
one. Relativist and skeptical arguments have usually been as confused
and unconvincing as those of their absolutist opponents; and,
like the latter, they take no account of the evident achievements
of science.
If Shapere will have nothing to do with an Inviolability Thesis,
he will at the same time have nothing to do with the skepticism
and relativism that the demise of an Inviolability Thesis seems
so easily to engender. If there is no Platonic heaven, it does
not follow that everything is up for grabs. Shapere steers a middle
course, avoiding the Scylla of an Inviolability Thesis and the
Charybdis of skepticism and relativism.
This then brings us back to the question of contextualism. Contextualism
in both its moderate and hard-core forms, is incompatible with
any sort of Inviolability Thesis: inquiry occurs within contexts
and so cannot transcend contexts in the way demanded by an Inviolability
Thesis. Yet by engendering just the sort of skepticism and relativism
that Shapere rejects, hard-core contextualism commits an opposite
error. For it does not follow from the fact that contexts invariably
constrain and shape inquiry that objectivity is thereby lost (as
hard-core contextualism demands).
This becomes particularly evident in Shapere's work when he describes
the connection between theory and observation in science. A major
reason why logical positivism was abandoned was its failure to
find a reasonable way of distinguishing observation from theory.
Indeed, it became apparent even to the logical positivists that
observation is never observation simpliciter, but observation
relative to background information. From here it was a seemingly
small step to claiming that observation is always theory-laden
and therefore never trustworthy. With this last step, however,
Shapere has serious difficulties. As he argues,
The employment of background information [= context] in science-indeed,
the necessity of employing it-has been termed by some philosophers
the "theory-ladenness" of observation. Putting the matter
in that way has led to a great deal of perplexity: doesn't the
"loading" of observation amount to slanting the outcome
of experiment? and doesn't such slanting imply that scientific
testing is not objective, and indeed that what science claims
is knowledge is really only fashion or prejudice? Such perplexities,
and the epistemological relativism they engender, trade in part
on an ambiguity in the term "theory." For on the one
hand, that term is used . . . to refer to the
background information which enters in the conception of an observation-situation.
But on the other hand, it is also often used in reference to what
is uncertain ("That's only a theory"). Collapsing these
two senses leads to thinking of background information in science
as uncertain, and from there by various paths to considering it
arbitrary. But though it is true that the background information
in science is not certain (in the sense that it could be
mistaken, and in the sense that it involves a range of possible
error), it is not for that reason uncertain (in the sense
of being highly shaky or arbitrary). For wherever possible in
the attempt to extract new information, what science uses as background
information is the best information it has available. . . .
[The] mere possibility of doubt, as we have learned in science,
is no reason not to build on those beliefs which have proved
successful and free of specific doubt.
Objectivity is not lost by acknowledging the role that background
information, or equivalently contexts, play in shaping how we
acquire new information and thereby learn about the world. Moderate
contextualism closes the door on any form of Inviolability Thesis,
but at the same time does not open the door to unbridled skepticism
or relativism.
With hard-core contextualism, however, far more is at stake than
the unproblematic claim that inquiry occurs within and is constrained
by contexts. By adding that inquiry is always imprisoned within
and thereby incorrigibly skewed by contexts, hard-core contextualism
entails that we are irremediably barred from obtaining accurate,
univocal knowledge of the world. Thus according to hard-core contextualism,
our knowledge is always biased, skewed, and theory-laden. Alternatively,
our knowledge of the world is always a fictive construction to
which we must ever add the disclaimer "but of course we don't
really know what's going on."
Now there is problem with adding to all our assertions the disclaimer
"but of course we don't really know what's going on."
For if we don't really know what's going on, then we don't really
know that we don't really what's going on. G. K. Chesterton
put it this way: "We don't know enough about the unknown
to know that it's unknowable." Here then in a nutshell is
the fallacy of contextualism. It is the fallacy that results from
asserting with too much confidence that there is nothing about
which we can legitimately have confidence. It is the fallacy of
knowing too much about the very thing that's supposed to be an
object of ignorance. It is the fallacy of trying to have your
cake and eat it too.
If, as Shapere claims, "relativist and skeptical arguments
have usually been as confused and unconvincing as those of their
absolutist opponents," then the chief confusion resides in
this fallacy. The fallacy of contextualism is a fallacy of self-referential
incoherence. Hard-core contextualism makes a universal claim,
and therefore can be applied to itself. Nevertheless, when applied
to itself, hard-core contextualism strips itself of any claims
to universality: Is all of our thinking irremediably biased by
context? Then what about the very claim that all our thinking
is irremediably biased by context? And in what context is this
claim being made? As hard-core contextualists are we not all too
biased in making such claims about contexts, and if so, might
we not simply be committing a conceptual error, having made the
claim simply because we are part of a secular culture (= context)
that has bought into unbridled skepticism and relativism?
When cast in this light, the fallacy inherent in hard-core contextualism
becomes immediately apparent. Still it is amazing the different
forms this fallacy takes and the vast number of reputed thinkers
who continue to take it seriously. The next thing I want to do
therefore is present a few concrete examples of this fallacy in
action. Having presented these examples, I then want to draw several
conclusions both about the proper place of moderate contextualism
in theology and philosophy, and the proper way to safeguard theology
and philosophy from the fallacy inherent in hard-core contextualism.
Consider the following blurb on the back cover of Ronald Thiemann's
recent book Constructing a Public Theology (the blurb is
by William Placher and serves as an endorsement for the book):
In a pluralistic society . . . no set of theological
or philosophical first principles provides a starting point
on which everyone can agree. . . . Thoughtful Christians
in particular want to make their voices heard in public debate
without opening themselves up to charges of trying to impose their
agenda on everyone else.
Prima facie, this statement appears innocuous-nay, even
tolerant and generous. In our pluralistic society we have grown
accustomed to the notion that everything is up for grabs. Indeed,
for any claim made, someone else seems ever ready to advance a
counter-claim. Cicero's dictum has, as it were, come home to us
with a vengeance, to wit, "there is nothing so absurd but
that some philosopher has said it." And in our day, everyone
is a philosopher.
Now while it is perfectly true that our society no longer adheres
to any common first principles on which a consensus exists, it
does not follow that society should abjure the search for a common
set of first principles or consider it somehow progressive that
first principles are now regarded as passé. Let me stress
that a society's search for or adherence to first principles does
not entail a return to classical foundationalism in epistemology,
to positivism in science, to the glorification of reason à
la the Enlightenment, or to the exaltation of an Inviolability
Thesis (in the sense of Shapere). Presumably our society itself
constitutes a context within which common purposes and goals can
be worked out. For this reason it seems artificial to proscribe,
prior to any discussion or analysis, the search for such principles
by the society. Without such a discussion and analysis, we simply
don't know whether a society's search for first principles is
doomed to fail.
In this light let us reconsider Placher's claim that "In
a pluralistic society . . . no set of theological or
philosophical first principles provides a starting point on
which everyone can agree." Placher is making more than a
simple statement of fact. Indeed, he is not just claiming that
the members of our pluralistic society do not agree on any theological
or philosophical first principles. The latter claim is certainly
true, but holds little philosophical interest since our society
contains many criminals and mentally deranged individuals to whom
philosophers and theologians will not, at least in their academic
writing, give the time of day.
At issue is not the obvious fact that the members of our society
don't agree on anything. Rather, it is the claim that we are in
principle barred from reaching agreement. In this way our inability
to agree is itself elevated to a first principle. If you will,
it becomes a first principle that societies are properly speaking
pluralistic and therefore cannot have first principles. Such a
first principle is of course self-referentially incoherent. If
a society accepts that "no set of theological or philosophical
first principles provides a starting point on which everyone can
agree," then that society does indeed have such a first principle.
If an individual claims that any search for first principles is
doomed to failure, then this individual has already found such
a first principle (the claim itself becomes a first principle).
Self-referential incoherence is typically greeted with amusement
once it is exposed. Nevertheless, we need to recognize that whenever
an argument founders on self-referential incoherence, there is
a serious problem with that argument. Indeed, whole schools of
philosophy have crumbled under the weight of self-referential
incoherence. Among these I would point out the failure of Frege's
logicism for mathematics as a result of the Russell paradox, the
failure of Hilbert's program for showing that every mathematical
claim is decidable as a result of Gödel's theorems, and the
failure of logical positivism as a result of the self-refuting
nature of its verificationist theory of meaning.
If Placher is asserting that the search for theological or philosophical
first principles is a doomed enterprise, then Placher is guilty
of self-referential incoherence. His claim therefore has no logically
compelling force, and any conclusions he draws from this claim
become unsupportable and suspect. Thus when Placher concludes,
"Thoughtful Christians in particular want to make their voices
heard in public debate without opening themselves up to charges
of trying to impose their agenda on everyone else," this
conclusion must be evaluated on its own merits, and not as a consequence
of a self-referentially incoherent first principle that by fiat
bars first principles tout court. On its own merits, however,
Placher's conclusion carries little weight. The references to
"thoughtful Christians" and "impose their agenda"
are rhetorical moves designed to distinguish the good guys from
the bad guys, i.e., those who embrace Placher's pluralism and
those who, like myself, eschew it. Thus if we are to take Placher
seriously, the evangelization of the Roman empire by the early
Christians (to whom the epithet "thoughtful Christians"
certainly cannot be denied), would have involved the "imposition
of an agenda."
Perhaps I'm being a bit obsessive, working to death a mere blurb
of endorsement on the back of a book cover. Nevertheless, as a
blurb of endorsement it indicates to what extent the theological
community is prepared to accept the fallacy of contextualism,
and with it the relativism and radical skepticism entailed by
hard-core contextualism. After all, it is the content of a book,
not the blurb endorsing it, that is supposed to issue in controversy.
But then again Placher is not saying anything that Thiemann does
not espouse and develop in the body of his book. For instance,
on the question of pluralism, Thiemann comments:
Political and cultural diversity is a gift to be nurtured and
celebrated. The freedom upon which such diversity is based is
particularly precious and must be preserved and extended to those
who have been excluded from full participation in a free society.
In elevating pluralism to a first principle, Thiemann is guilty
of the worst sort of special pleading. Thiemann's pluralism has
no room for intolerant chaps like myself who think Christianity
makes exclusive truth claims that are binding on the world at
large. And yet, Thiemann's pluralism is to be accorded sacrosanct
status as a guiding principle of society. Woe to anyone who opposes
it. Call it pluralism, but I call it imperialism.
Next, let us consider a contextual fallacy that occurs all too frequently in contemporary literary theory. Once again Ronald Thiemann lays out the fallacy, though this time without giving his assent to it. Thus he describes the following views that have become commonplace in literary circles:
(1) Literary texts are indeterminable and thus inevitably yield multiple, irreducibly diverse interpretations.
(2) There can be no criteria for preferring one reading to another and [thus we are] cast into the darkest of hermeneutical nights in which all readings are indistinguishably gray.
I find it helpful to set claims like this apart in the way
I have done here. Indeed, if one reads claims like this within
the flow of a paragraph, their self-referential incoherence is
likely to be lost. But set apart as they are here, their self-referential
incoherence becomes strikingly evident.
Although (2) is supposed to make a more radical claim than (1),
both quickly run into difficulties when we turn the hermeneutic
questions they raise back on themselves. Is the hermeneuticist
who asserts either (1) or (2) ready to admit that what he or she
is asserting is itself indeterminate? Do (1) and (2) admit no
semantic boundaries? In all likelihood a hermeneuticist who asserts
claims like (1) and (2) wants to be taken seriously and wants
the semantic range of (1) and (2) narrowly constrained. Thus for
a philosophical subversive like myself to come along and interpret
these claims differently from their plain sense would be deemed
unacceptable. But what if I choose to interpret claims (1) and
(2) as saying respectively the following:
(1¢) Literary texts are determinable and thus yield a single, univocal interpretation corresponding to the original intention of the author.
(2¢) There are sharp criteria for preferring one reading to another and thus we can always avoid the darkest of hermeneutical nights. All readings are either black or white.
Let me emphasize that I'm not endorsing (1¢)
or (2¢). My point is simply that
if one starts out by taking (1) and (2) seriously, then (1¢) and (2¢)
become legitimate readings of (1) and (2) respectively, with the
result that it becomes impossible to take (1) and (2) seriously.
In this way deconstruction becomes a tool not just for deconstructing
texts but also for deconstructing itself.
And this is why deconstruction is at base an intellectual subterfuge.
The key theoretical problem facing the literary theorist is to
characterize the relation that obtains between the reader of a
text and the text itself. In the classical conception meanings
inhere in texts and that the reader's job is to dig out the meaning
from the text, the meaning of the text typically being identified
with the intention of the author. Deconstructionists, on the other
hand, start by assuming that any meaning associated with texts
is so underdetermined as to issue in "endless labyrinths
of possible meanings." Deconstruction therefore "invites
readers to approach texts creatively and to appreciate their ability
to generate an unlimited plurality of meaningful effects."
The key word in the last sentence is "creatively." Because
the meaning of the text is so unconstrained, the reader must create
the meaning rather than discover it. And yet the writings of deconstructionists
do themselves constitute texts which can be read deconstructively.
But of course Derrida and his disciples do not want the texts
they write deconstructed in the way they are advocating that other
texts be deconstructed (i.e., something like what I was doing
above when I reinterpreted sentence (1) as sentence (1¢)).
Rather they want their texts taken seriously and read non-deconstructively.
Only after their own work is taken seriously and read using a
classical hermeneutic do they enjoin the reader to read everything
else deconstructively. This is not so much a logical fallacy as
sheer hypocrisy.
The fallacy of contextualism is frequently tied to a faulty
view of language. This faulty view of language comes up repeatedly
in feminist theology, where it is used as a tool for systematically
transforming traditional God-talk. Let us therefore turn to a
particularly apt expression of this faulty view of language as
enunciated by the feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson:
There has been no timeless speech about God in the Jewish or Christian
tradition. Rather, words about God are cultural creatures, entwined
with the mores and adventures of the faith community that uses
them. As cultures shift, so too does the specificity of God-talk.
Certainly languages are evolving, living entities-one has only
to compare the King James version of the Bible with more recent
translations into English to see how much our language has changed
in the last 400 years. Words change their meanings over time.
Grammar changes over time. Even logic and rhetoric change over
time. What's more, language itself is thoroughly conventional.
What a word means depends on convention and can be changed by
convention. For instance, there is nothing intrinsic about the
word "automobile" that demands the word denote a car.
If we go with its Latin etymology, we might just as well have
applied "automobile" to human beings, who are after
all "self-propelling" also. There is nothing sacred
about the form a word assumes. For instance, "gift"
in English means a present, in German it means poison, and in
French it means nothing at all. And of course, words only make
sense within the context of broader units of discourse like whole
narratives.
No one who reflects on the matter thinks language is in any way
fixed or ossified. But then again this is not Elizabeth Johnson's
point. Her aim is to develop a feminist theology in which she
can be justified referring to God in the feminine, i.e., as "she."
The very title of her book leaves no doubt on this point: She
Who Is. But how does Johnson justify such a change in our
language about God? It certainly isn't enough to say that language
evolves, that words are conventional, and that the meaning of
language depends on context. Rather, Johnson needs the much stronger
notion that language is incapable of conveying enduring senses
which are expressible over time and translatable from the past
into the present.
Where then is the fallacy of contextualism in all this? In denying
that there is "timeless speech about God in the Jewish or
Christian tradition," Johnson certainly does not mean that
her own pronouncements about the nature of language and the impossibility
of timeless speech about God are not to be taken in a timeless
sense. The problem is that if language is incapable of expressing
"timeless senses," then any claim about language which
claims language cannot express timeless senses becomes uninterpretable
and meaningless. Language is evolving. The publication date of
Johnson's book is 1992. It is now 1994. At least two years have
elapsed since Johnson wrote the above passage which denies such
a thing as timeless speech. How then can I know what Johnson meant
two years ago if language cannot convey timeless senses?
But that was only two years ago, you say. Then please explain
to me what distinguishes the two years since the publication of
Johnson's She Who Is from the two-thousand years since
the publication of the Gospel. Why should we not attach the same
disclaimer to Johnson's writings which she seems to attach to
the Scriptures, namely, that her writings have no timeless sense?
Is it because Johnson and we are part of the same culture? But
she is a feminist theologian and I am an evangelical mathematician.
What then does it mean to say we are part of the same culture?
Indeed, theologically I view myself as much closer to Paul and
the New Testament than I do to Johnson and her form of feminist
theology. I submit therefore that Johnson's denial that language
can convey timeless senses is incoherent. If language cannot express
timeless senses, then speech occurring two seconds ago or two
millennia ago are equally inaccessible to our cognitive faculties.
Having now described the fallacy of contextualism in some detail
and given a few concrete examples showing how this fallacy operates
in practice, I want in this final portion of the essay to turn
to a somewhat different question, namely, What is it that keeps
this fallacy alive? As a strictly logical matter, the fallacy
of contextualism represents an egregious blunder which once noted
can be duly dismissed. Nevertheless, the persistence with which
this fallacy rears its head, and the multiplicity of guises which
it assumes should lead us to ponder why it is that this fallacy
keeps being reincarnated.
Once Aristotle formulated his logic, there was no longer any question
about whether a given syllogism was valid or invalid. Moreover,
anyone who proposed an invalid syllogism was henceforth laughed
to scorn and considered an uneducated boor. Not so the purveyors
of the contextual fallacy. They remain some of the brightest lights
on the literary, philosophical, and theological landscape. How
is it that they manage to keep their reputations intact despite
committing what on closer examination is an inexcusable error?
To be sure, the error is often concealed, being cloaked in a morass
of terminology and notation. Yet at other times the contextual
fallacy is not so much concealed as proclaimed and celebrated.
This is likely to occur in those theologies that revel in contradiction
and think faith cannot be faith unless it embraces the absurd,
as though logical clarity and precision were somehow inimical
to faith.
A thorough-going pragmatism often underlies the fallacy of contextualism.
If all that is interesting is happening in my own little context,
and if no one outside my context is entitled to rebuke or correct
me, then the fallacy of contextualism serves to affirm my way
of life and give me the autonomy to do as I please. Autonomy and
self-determination are watchwords of our age. They are the principal
goals of self-realization. They are psychological desiderata to
which the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations
give their seal of approval. Pragmatism as it were tells us, "Yes
it is a logical fallacy, but it feels so good. It lets me do what
I want. It is liberating. How can something that feels so right
be so logically wrong?" And so we are encouraged not to take
the fallacy too seriously. It does useful work. It encourages
pluralism and diversity. It keeps us in step with the times.
It seems, however, that there is a deeper issue at stake here,
deeper than the rationalizations offered by pragmatists on behalf
of the fallacy, and deeper also than the logical critique offered
against the fallacy earlier in this essay. The deeper issue concerns
both the nature of contexts and the nature of human rationality.
Hard-core contextualism and the fallacy of contextualism that
it engenders view contexts as essentially bent in on themselves.
According to hard-core contextualism, contexts are autonomous
little worlds alienated from other contexts and incapable of interacting
coherently with them. Hard-core contextualism, as it were, takes
the alienation humans experience on account of sin and corruption,
and elevates it to a philosophical principle. For Augustine the
sin and corruption of the self consisted in the self being bent
in on itself. Hard-core contextualism elevates, glorifies, and
transfigures this corruption, taking the contexts in which humans
live, move, and have their being, and turning them in on themselves.
This is bad. As Christians we live, move, and have our being in
God. We are therefore not to have our vision focused on our own
little contexts, but rather to open our contexts to God and the
world. In short, we are to be in communion with other contexts.
The Christian view of contexts and human rationality is therefore
quite different from the view advanced by hard-core contextualism.
On the Christian view, contexts are not bent in on themselves,
but are fundamentally open, embracing the world and seeking to
learn from it. Yes, we operate within contexts; but we are able
also to reflect on our contexts and broaden the scope of our contexts
so as to embrace and enter other contexts. Reinhold Niebuhr referred
to this ability of ours as "self-transcendence."
There is no context which God does not simultaneously inhabit
and transcend. At the root of the fallacy of contextualism is
the notion that we can have our own little world into which no
one else can intrude, not even God. Pride undergirds this thirst
for autonomy, this desire to be masters of our own little worlds.
Curiously, though this thirst for autonomy is almost always advertised
as setting us free, it invariably accomplishes the opposite. For
the autonomy that bends contexts in on themselves is an autonomy
of isolation and solitary confinement. This sort of autonomy is
wholly incompatible with the freedom offered to humanity by God
in Christ. Instead of imprisoning us in our contexts, God has
created us so that we can interact with and learn from other contexts.
Christianity has never been a religion of the self. The first
commandment is a commandment to worship God and God alone. Corrupted
as it is by sin, the self, when it turns in on itself, discovers
nothing of enduring hope or value. To see this, one has only to
consider the logical outworkings of religions which do make the
self rather than God the center of their attentions. In both Hinduism
and Buddhism "the chief end of man" (to use a phrase
from the Westminster catechism) is not "to glorify God and
enjoy him forever," but to have the self absorbed into Brahman
or annihilated in the void so that it can escape the weary cycle
of reincarnation. In either case the goal is to do away with personal
identity.
To this the Westminster catechism responds that "the chief
end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." But
how is this goal to be accomplished? The eighth chapter of Mark's
Gospel begins to answer this question: "If any want to become
my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose
it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake
of the gospel, will save it." (Mark 8:34-35) Our first step
then is not to turn in on ourselves, but to turn outward and to
God.
But once we have turned outward and to God, where do we go? To
this Gregory of Nyssa responds that we go on to perfection-yet
a form of perfection that is dynamic and progressive rather than
static. For Gregory of Nyssa perfection is identified with ever-increasing
growth in the knowledge of God. Indeed, as finite beings perfection
is never something we attain once and for all. Rather perfection
is a matter of continuing growth in the knowledge of God. Now
this view of Christian perfection is incompatible with any view
of contexts which treats them as isolated, mutually inaccessible
compartments.
In conclusion, let me offer a few predictions about what we can
expect from the fallacy of contextualism in the future. First,
I predict that this fallacy will not go away, despite brilliant
refutations of it like the one you have just read. The practical
benefits of this fallacy are simply too great for people to let
mere trifles like logic and truth get in the way and prevent them
from enjoying its benefits. Second, we can expect ever more sophisticated
versions of this fallacy, which are so richly ornamented in terminology,
notation, and all manner of scholarly appurtenances that the job
of exposing the fallacy of contextualism will require increasing
care and diligence. Third and last, I predict that hard-core contextualism
will be employed with increasing vigor as a weapon against traditional
Christian thinking. The attack will come chiefly in the name of
pluralism, diversity, and tolerance, and will challenge Christianity
at every point where Christianity stands in opposition to the
secularization of culture and society. To put the matter in a
by now familiar idiom, the goal will be to transform the Christian
context into the secular context. In this respect Romans 12:1-2
provides a decisive corrective.
Copyright © 1994 William A. Dembski. All
rights reserved. International copyright secured.
File Date: 11.15.98