Dichotomies and Dualisms be Damned!

I sent selections of my second chapter to one of my professors for comments, and he replied with a recommendation to read a couple of books, articles and then look to tightening up the chapter. His comments are helpful and good, but at times I wonder if there is a difference between tenacity and tedium (perhaps that is what makes PhD such eggheads – in their tenacity they become tedious). Be that as it may, I have just finished reading Beyond Liberalism & Fundamentalism: How Modern and Postmodern Philosophy Set the Theological Agenda by Nancey Murphy. Murphy is trying to do two things: (1) describe the roots and the reasons for the “liberal / conservative” differences in theology, and (2) advocate for a shift in theology due to the influence of postmodern thought.

Murphy goes well into the differences between the liberal/conservative camps – i.e. empirically, epistemologically and theologically. She does a good job in showing not only the differences, but the common root assumptions that both camps carry leading to the differences. It is the fault of modernism that we have a right wing and a lift wing. It is the fault of the idea that there is a foundation, a reductionism approach to the world that finds the lowest common unit and then builds everything else up upon that root. If one maintains such a view of the world, then one will either assume that what one sees is real (i.e. Common Sense) leading towards a conservative view of God and theology or the assumption that what one experiences is real leading towards a liberal view of God and theology. We have a dichotomy that we cannot escape if we hold to a modernistic view of the world.

The postmodern view looks not at reducing everything to the basic unit, but at the networks and organizations which exist (obviously she is referring to a more Anglo-American understanding of Postmodernism rather than the French deconstructionist understanding… obviously). In this approach we consider how things exist within systems or cultures and the ways in which they are connected. Language becomes very important al la Austin and Wittgenstein focusing not on what a word means but rather how a word is used. Thus truth exists within a community as it is discussed by the community. We are not forced into a dichotomy of liberal and conservative but instead exist within the identity of the community as it can be discerned through the context of the community itself. (did that make any sense?)

Yet, says I, what about the reality that within the Christian community we have words like “liberal, conservative, left, right, etc.” What of the reality that we use these words in very specific ways, in very specific contexts that delineate a dichotomy of one kind or another? Even within a local Christian community, like a church, you will find individuals describing themselves as liberal or conservative. You will have churches embracing one descriptor or another, and the labels, at least within the current American religious landscape, point to a dichotomy. Is a holistic view of community a first order speech-act that only occurs at the level of the academy, i.e. theologians in the know, and the dualism is relegated to a second-level speech act? If so, does the dichotomy disappear, or is it put into a different context?

Perhaps the challenge is one of changing our language. With a “nonreductive physicalist” view of reality, an understanding that the whole is greater than the parts, how can we change our language to more honestly reflect such an understanding of reality? I think Murphy is pointing to a dissonance that occurs and exists in the contemporary Christian culture due to the modern assumptions. Her claim is that such a dissonance will not exist when one is considering theology with postmodern assumptions. Right now we are forced into a dualism/dichotomy of either God is intervening in history or is an imminent part of history. Either the Bible is the infallible word telling us exactly what to do, or it is just an inspired history book. Either humanity is only saved through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, or Jesus is just one of many ways to salvation that we can find in the world. If these are our choices, then I am ready for a different way of talking and being Christians.