Fundamentalism: Whence? Where? Whither? Part 6 - Digression One: Really?

NickOfTime

Digression One: Really?

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Over several essays I have been attempting to describe the intellectual and social influences that were operating within the early fundamentalist movement. One of the earliest essays offered an overview of Scottish Common Sense Realism in which I suggested that most early Fundamentalists (among others) absorbed this philosophy from their intellectual milieu. Furthermore, I argued that Common Sense Realism had a definite and rather negative effect upon Fundamentalism.

Numbers of people have written to inform me of my several mistakes. The first is supposed to be that Common Sense Realism isn’t really anything new because people have always made their real decisions on the basis of common sense. The second is that Common Sense Realism could not have affected early Fundamentalists all that much because they were Biblicists and not philosophers. The third is that the effects of Common Sense Realism cannot be as dire as I hinted.

In the present essay I wish to respond only to the first objection. The second really requires no response except to refer the reader to the rather substantial literature on the subject.1 The third merits a separate discussion.

Is it true ordinary people (as opposed to philosophers) have always acted on the basis of common sense? One fellow in particular was quite definite. “If you see a cow in a field,” he said, “You can just point to it and say, ‘That’s a cow.’” As far as he was concerned, this is just common sense, and it describes the way that people have always thought and acted.

No.

As it happens, I have some experience with this very question. I can recall standing beside a pasture with a city boy, who pointed to the large bovine and said, “That’s a big cow.” Actually, it was not. It was a bull.

When I pointed out the disparity, his retort was, “You know what I mean!” No, I did not. The only thing that I knew was what he actually said. I could guess that perhaps his vocabulary was so limited that the word cow was the only term he possessed to denote a bovine. Or I could speculate (and this was more likely) that he either did not know how to tell the difference between a cow and a bull or that the details had escaped his attention. I did not know what he meant, and it is quite possible—likely, even—that he didn’t either. It is quite possible that his remark was thoughtless.

The declaration, “That’s a cow,” seems like a simple and straightforward act, but it is nothing of the kind. It is an elaborate act of interpretation and predication. Interpretation involves identifying several points on one’s mental grid (existence, quantity, definiteness, identity, etc.) with external realities. The act of predication connects and communicates these points in a particular way.

If the last paragraph lost you, let me restate: we never perceive reality without interpreting it. More precisely, we never perceive reality until we have already interpreted it. The only reality that we notice and the only reality that we know is always and already interpreted. In short, there are no brute facts.

Reality is always and already interpreted. The ancients understood this. It was an axiom for the Greeks and Romans. It was part of the “discarded image” of the medieval world. Prior to modernity people assumed that what we perceive is not what is, but what we have understood it to be.

Because of this assumption, people were aware that real or ultimate reality might not match their perceptions. A Greek, looking at a swan or a pile of gold, was keenly conscious that he just might be looking at Zeus. A Hebrew, encountering a stranger at his door, knew that such a visitor might be an angel, or even God Himself. A man with a sword might turn out to be Jehovah, come as captain of the Lord’s host. A hillside might appear to be empty, but who knew what chariots of fire might occupy it unseen?

For premoderns, the universe was numinous. The transcendent and supernatural were always just around the corner. The seams of reality were straining with the unperceived, and you had best be prepared.

Indeed, premoderns perceived some element of transcendence in ordinary objects. They habitually looked beyond what they saw, because every object signified something beyond itself. The perceived object was rarely or never considered as an ultimate (real) reality, but normally as a shadow or image of a greater reality. Right perception always looked through and beyond the thing to the reality that it shadowed. So, to perceive water truly was to perceive something about purity. To perceive gold truly was to perceive something about heaven. To perceive fire truly was to perceive something about hell.2

The chief characteristic of the premodern mind was its humility. Premoderns understood that the world as they perceived it was always and already interpreted. They knew that the scope of actual reality was so vast as to lie beyond their ability to grasp. Without such a grasp of the whole, they recognized that their perceptions of the particulars were so limited and local as inevitably to be misleading. They realized that particulars were meaningful only within the context of the whole, and they knew that they themselves lacked access to any immediate perception of the whole.

What they needed was help from outside. They needed an overall grasp of the structure of the whole, but this grasp could not be derived from their immediate perception of finite particulars. Ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle hoped to gain some glimpse of the whole through the methods of philosophical enquiry. Christians, however, believed that only God enjoyed a comprehensive view of reality. Consequently, they looked to God for a revelation of the whole. Only in view of that revelation could the particulars be placed within a context that would make the true interpretation apparent. So Christians humbled themselves, bent their minds before revelation, and accepted God and His communication as a starting point for true knowledge of the world.3

For premoderns, reality was not only ordered but also transcendent. It could not be understood from inside. It had to be viewed from above. Without the context provided by a transcendent overview, no particular could be known as it really ought to be. This transcendent overview was the Truth, and it had to be apprehended by faith.

In other words, for premoderns, truth came before facts and faith was primary. Only through faith could the Truth be appropriated, and only in view of the Truth could facts be understood rightly. The Truth provided a context without which the right facts would never be noticed or, if noticed, would never be rightly construed. For premoderns, the Truth was up there.

Modernity, epitomized by Common Sense Realism, shifted the focus from the transcendent to the immanent and, correspondingly, from the primacy of faith to the primacy of doubt.4 Moderns no longer believed that the Truth was up there; they now assumed that the truth was out there. If any transcendent reality existed, then it had to be accessed through and justified by factors within perceived reality. The priority of Truth was abandoned and facts took center stage. The priority of faith was discarded and doubt became the vehicle that drove the acquisition of knowledge. Nothing could be believed that was not a demonstrable fact, but if only enough facts could be gathered and if only they could be observed long enough, then the truth was sure to emerge.

Common Sense Realism, in particular, abandoned the priority of the transcendent. By equating perceptions with reality, Common Sense Realists did not necessarily deny the transcendent, but they did subordinate knowledge of the transcendent to the acquisition of facts. The facts were assumed to be self-interpreting. The Common Sense notion of reality was essentially “What You See Is What You Get.”

This massive intellectual shift was absorbed by American Christians during the Nineteenth Century. It was a primary component in the intellectual atmosphere out of which Fundamentalism emerged. How it affected Fundamentalism and other forms of evangelicalism is a topic worth discussing separately. To that subject we shall turn in the next essay.

1. The influence of Scottish Common Sense Realism has been a commonplace of American intellectual history since at least the mid-to-late 1970s. Ernest R. Sandeen, writing in 1970, recognizes the influence of Common Sense Realism upon Princeton theology, but does not explore it deeply, in The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millennarianism, 1800, 1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 115. Claude Welch traces the influence of Scottish Philosophy in both New England Theology (specifically Nathaniel Taylor) and Princeton theology (specifically Charles Hodge) in Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century: Volume I, 1799-1870 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 131, 202, et al. John R. Fitzmier discusses the combination of Edwardsian theology and Common Sense Philosophy to be found in Edwards’s grandson, Timothy Dwight: New England’s Moral Legislator: Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). Paul F. Boller Jr. notes the interaction of Unitarians and Transcendentalists with Common Sense Realism, and their exposure to it in the educational mainstream, in American Transcendentalism 1830-1860: An Intellectual Inquiry (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974), 42-44, 181. George M. Marsden first articulated the importance of Common Sense Realism for understanding Fundamentalism; his summary statement may be found in Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 14-16. Mark Noll exhibits primary sources that illustrate the influence of Common Sense Realism in Princeton theology in The Princeton Theology 1812-1921 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, 2001), passim. David B. Calhoun notes, “At Princeton—as in much of early Nineteenth Century Protestantism—Scottish Common Sense Philosophy reigned. Congregationalists at Yale and Unitarians at Harvard embraced it nearly as enthusiastically as did Presbyterian Princeton.” He insists that the Princetonians “saw Scottish Common Sense Philosophy as setting forth the universal and permanent truths,” Princeton Seminary: The Magnificent Testimony 1869-1929 (Carlisle, Penn.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1996), 413. For an evaluation of the relationship between Common Sense Realism and Reformed theology at Princeton, consult Tim McConnel in “The Old Princeton Apologetics: Common Sense or Reformed?” in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (December 2003), 647-671. While nearly everyone acknowledges the influence of Common Sense Realism upon American theology (and especially Princeton) during the Nineteenth Century, the exact nature of the influence is a subject of debate. See Peter Hicks, The Philosophy of Charles Hodge: A 19th Century Evangelical Approach to Reason, Knowledge, and Truth (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1997). Many of Hicks’s insights are incorporated into Paul Kjoss Helseth, “ ‘Re-Imagining’ the Princeton Mind: Postconservative Evangelicalism, Old Princeton, and the Rise of Neo-Fundamentalism,” in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (September 2002), 427-450. To see how Common Sense influenced a significant Fundamentalist leader through the Princeton tradition, see Darryl G. Hart, “The Princeton Mind in the Modern World and the Common Sense of J. Gresham Machen” in Westminster Theological Journal (Spring 1984), 1-25. James E. Bradley revisits the theme of Common Sense Realism, setting it in a broader context of influences, in “The Nineteenth Century,” in D. G. Hart and R. Albert Mohler Jr., eds., Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 148ff. Joel Carpenter notes the influence of Scottish Common Sense Realism on the Fundamentalism of the1920s through the 1940s in Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 36, 72. Mark Noll traces the influence of Common Sense Philosophy into contemporary evangelicalism and Fundamentalism in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), passim. He also has an article devoted exclusively to the subject, “Common Sense Traditions and American Evangelical Thought,” American Quarterly 37 (Summer 1985), 216-238. A recent recitation of the effects of Common Sense Realism upon evangelical theology can be found in Lindon J. DeBie, Speculative Theology and Common Sense Religion: Mercersburg and the Conservative Roots of American Religion (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock / Pickwick Publications, 2008). For an evangelical scholar who believes that the embracing of Common Sense categories was a good thing, see Robert L. Thomas, “The Nature of Truth: Postmodern or Propositional?” in Masters Seminary Journal (Spring 2007), 3-21.

2. Please note that these descriptions—and indeed, this entire discussion—are an almost inexcusable simplification of the premodern metaphysical dream. Those who are interested in understanding it more comprehensively might begin with C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964). Among medievalists, Lewis’s work is regarded as a bit dated today, but it remains a very accessible introduction to the medieval mind.

3. Readers may believe that they recognize in my description the characteristics of Dutch Neo-Reformed thinking as advocated by Abraham Kuyper, Cornelius Van Til, and their followers. I confess that I find much in Presuppositionalism that rings true. What I am describing in this essay, however, is a way of thinking about reality that antedates the Reformation and that was once shared by virtually all Christians. Van Til did not invent this perspective.

4. Students of philosophy might wonder about the relationship of Immanuel Kant to the intellectual environment of the period. Kant did revert to the distinction between reality and perception (noumenon and phenomenon), but he continued to reject the priority of the transcendent and the primacy of faith. Rather than allowing faith to stand as the basis of knowing, Kant effectively divided faith from knowing and put the two in airtight compartments. Most of subsequent Western philosophy (and theology!) is a long series of attempts to resolve this division. Once Kant’s structures were in place, however, more and more of what used to be considered knowledge was redefined as faith, and faith was re-imagined as assumption. The philosophical structures proposed by Kant fostered the discipline of phenomenology and eventually opened the door for postmodernism. Kant may be regarded as the first modern to critique modernity (though some have understood Hume to be doing the same thing). The main difference between Kant and the later postmoderns is that Kant had not yet abandoned his optimism.

A Hymn to my God in a Night of my Late Sicknesse

Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639)

Oh thou great Power, in whom I move,
For whom I live, to whom I die,
Behold me through thy beams of love,
Whilst on this couch of fears I lye;
And Cleanse my sordid soul within,
By thy Christs Blood, the bath of sin.

No hallowed Oyls, no grains I need,
No rags of Saints, no purging fire,
One rosie drop from David’s Seed
Was worlds of Seas, to quench thine Ire.
O precious Ransome! which once paid,
That Consummatum est was said.

And said by him, that said no more,
But seal’d it with his sacred Breath.
Thou then, that hast dispung’d my score,
And dying, wast the death of Death;
Be to me now, on thee I call,
My Life, my Strength, my Joy, my All.


This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Discussion

[Kevin Bauder] The declaration, “That’s a cow,” seems like a simple and straightforward act, but it is nothing of the kind. It is an elaborate act of interpretation and predication.
This pretty much ends my interest in the subject. I’m pretty sure we all know that something complex is going on when we observe and interpret reality. What we (who are not philosophers or students of philosophy) also know is that this “elaborate act” is easy, we do it thousands of times per second, and the vast majority of us arrive at very similar conclusions the vast majority of the time.

(Which is not to deny that, to premoderns, the world was numinous and they expected the supernatural behind every bush. But does it matter at all that they were wrong most of the time? I think it does! It’s commonly called superstition and there’s nothing Christian about it)

I didn’t find Kevin’s cow-vs.-bull example very persuasive. After moving out to farm country where we’ve lived the last ten years, I was surprised at first to discover that local farmers do not normally distinguish between a “cow” and a “bull” in conversation. That is, they call ‘em all “cows,” except when the difference matters. Sometimes is matters alot (!), but a good bit of the time it doesn’t, so ball-parking using the term “cow” works just fine. It means nothing more than “some sort of bovine.”

My original point with the cow illustration (which someone else apparently thought of as well, or used in some kind of personal correspondence with Kevin) was—and is—that most of the time people interpret what they see in a common sense way and always have (and most of the time, that works just fine).

As an example of how old common sense is, when Moses saw the burning bush, his thought process was not “I am now perceiving something that seems to be a bush aflame but may not really be.” Rather, he was curious why the “bush” (he figured what he saw looked like a bush and was a bush) was on fire but was not burned. There is no evidence that he that thought something miraculous might be happening (though likely, had he lived in the middle ages, he would have thought of that much sooner!). Only when he arrives and God speaks out of the bush does he discover that things are not what they seem. The encounter was remarkable precisely because it was not typical. Typically, we observe, do our elaborate process of interpreting in an instant (and all by ourselves), and get on with our business.

To sum up, here’s what I buy:

a. Premoderns were generally much more inclined to look to authority for answers

b. Premoderns were generally much more inclined to believe things are more than they seem

c. The Enlightenment shift to rationalism, and the Common Sense Realism that trickled down to the US contributed significantly to our way of thinking in the west and in America

d. Fundamentalists were also influenced with the result that they placed a higher value on common sense than they would have otherwise

e. I’ll even concede that the effect of c-d was a mixed bag. The influence of Common Sense Realism was not entirely positive (and I’ll grant that I may be understating that by a good bit. I’d have to read more to know.)

What I remain convinced of, though, is that

a. the philosophy of Common Sense Realism overlaps a great deal with ordinary common sense which has been around since Adam and Eve learned DIY gardening. Their new situation forced common sense on them as a matter of survival.

b. Consequently, much of the common sense perspective of Americans (and evangelicals and Fundamentalists) is healthy. Given what Fundamentalists were reacting against, their habit of leaning on common sense was often healthy, though in many ways (in hindsight) not disciplined enough.

c. The solution to Fundamentalism’s common-sense-run-amok problems is not to reject common sense entirely and urge everyone back (I’m guessing this is Kevin’s preferred alternative?) to pre-modern superstition and excessive reliance on small numbers of theological experts. Rather, it would have to lie in the direction of better disciplining our sense of self-reliant common sense. What we need are some course corrections, not a complete philosophical gutting. (Likewise for “populism”)

I believe the need for understanding, and factoring-in, complex philosophical systems is grossly neglected by some and more than a little exaggerated by others. The truth is somewhere in middle.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I enjoyed reading Dr. Bauder’s article, but it leaves me with some questions. (My training qualifies me to address this subject theologically, but not necessarily philosophically or historically.)

If I were talking to Dr. Bauder, I would ask the following questions:

- It seems as if he presupposes the rightness of premodern ways of thinking. Where in this discussion do we analyze the mysticism which dominated the Roman Catholicism of “the medieval world” vs. the literal interpretation of Scripture which was re-introduced by the Reformation?

- Why does Dr. Bauder use “the medieval world” as his baseline? I would think it would be more valuable to use the Old Testament mind for this than the medieval mind.

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

According to Josef Pieper, A Guide to Thomas Aquinas, the seeing hell in fire and purity in water mindset was due to the prominence of Platonic and Neo-Platonic categories throughout the early medieval period. Pieper credits Aquinas with turning away from that mindset in his preference of Aristotelian categories over the reigning Platonic paradigms (although Thomas was eclectic in his philosophy). In other words, what Bauder says modernity did, Pieper claims Aquinas did. Aquinas, of course, predates modernity by several centuries. If Pieper is right, then Bauder’s narrative is at least partly spoiled. However, it is also possible to claim in the other direction that Thomas’ influence was limited, because he was not promoted to being the preeminent doctor of the Church until Trent, much closer to the chronological rise of modernity.

My Blog: http://dearreaderblog.com

Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. ~ John Calvin

Well, now I’m just waiting to see where this all leads.

My understanding is that this is supposed to be a history of the development of Fundamentalism — charting its course from it’s formation, history, and giving some guesses as to where it is heading, and why.

I can only assume that Dr. Bauder does not intend to advocate a return to the pre-modern state of mind, which is perhaps best identified with the word “mysticism”. If he is advocating that, it certainly does not fit into the scope of this article series as originally intended.

While there is a sense in which all of us might be called “mystic” as Christians (we believe in things we cannot see), there are many senses in which we are not at all. I think it’s important to note that the Reformation and the Enlightenment went hand-in-hand. I’m pretty sure the Enlightenment would not have happened had it not been for the Reformation.

While I am puzzled, since this series seems to be developing backwards in time rather than forward, I intend to see where it all leads before I try to dissect or discuss it.

[Mike Durning] While there is a sense in which all of us might be called “mystic” as Christians (we believe in things we cannot see), there are many senses in which we are not at all.

I think that a better way of saying it is that the Biblical way of thinking is “revelation-based” (as opposed to rationalism or mysticism), coming from the perspective of presuppositional apologetics and the certainty and perspicuity of Scripture.

I am also comfortable saying that such a way of operating for the average person was more likely after the Reformation than in medieval times.

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

[Mike D] puzzled, since this series seems to be developing backwards in time
I think part of the reason we’re going backwards in time has to do with the questions Paul raised in post #2. The same questions (among others) underlie my own general lack of enthusiasm for these essays thus far. (Also, it’s a “digression” to fill in some backstory)

Paul, I don’t know if this helps or not, but C. S. Lewis—whom Kevin sites as an authority in the essay—was a medievalist, and also huge fan of the “numinous” in general. I’m a fan of Lewis, myself but have so far not been won over to his view of the middle ages (which seems to be far too rose-colored-glasses to me) or his deep love (“obsession” might not be overstatement) for the numinous.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I think Dr. Bauder has done a good job in showing the distinction between Representationalism (he calls it “premodern”) and Common Sense Realism.

However, Representationalism varies greatly by degree. The superstitions of the Middle Ages are definitely toned down by the Reformers (and afterward).

In Scripture, we see something sort of in-between. We might call it, “Moderate Representationalism.”

We see a good case of double-layer Representationalism:

David decides to take a census.

Behind David’s choice was God’s anger.

God’s anger allowed Satan to incite him.

2 Samuel 24:1
Now again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”
I Chron. 21:1-2 reads:
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.”
Yet the Biblical teaching also encourages us to “learn from the ant.” We observe and draw conclusions from our observations.

Biblical Representationalism does not teach that there is an unperceived reality behind everything, but that there may be behind some things.

What you see is what you get — most of the time. But not always.

"The Midrash Detective"

[Aaron Blumer] Which is not to deny that, to premoderns, the world was numinous and they expected the supernatural behind every bush. But does it matter at all that they were wrong most of the time? I think it does! It’s commonly called superstition and there’s nothing Christian about it
As if anything other than hard-nosed “common-sense realism” is “superstition” (or “mysticism”, which other commenters here seem to think is a slander). The world is numinous, and it has nothing to do with “superstition”. I wonder how many hard-nosed fundamentalists have read and understood Barfield? Or even Chesterton, for that matter.

We flatter ourselves to imagine ourselves wiser, more advanced, and less “superstitious” than, our Godly ancestors.

I agree that pre-moderns were more likely to accept the supernatural and more likely to reject pure rationalism and materialism. From a Christian standpoint this was a good thing and the modernist post-Enlightenment elevation of rationalism and materialism has been a disaster from the standpoint of the Faith and Christendom. In general I agree with much of the essay. I think some of the reactions against this essay and this series actually proves Dr. Bauder’s point that modern Christians are products of their modern milieu.

But that said, I am uneasy (emotionally as much as mentally) with this series and find myself also wanting to defend Common Sense Realism and populism, and I am struggling to figure out why. (Aaron’s objections and concerns are similar to mine I believe.) Here is my best shot.

The conservative tendency has long been to eschew philosophizers with their bright new ideas and revolutionary conceptions of the good society in favor of the actual and the tried and true. Christians are likewise warned to avoid the vain philosophies of men. Dr. Bauder gets at this when he says that the pre-modern Christian looked to God and His Revelation for his view of reality. Is this not in a way a direct repudiation of philosophy? The Christian’s philosophy should be theology.

I may be misunderstanding it, but I see SCSR as in many ways a repudiation of philosophizing. It seems to me an anti-philosophy philosophy. So as such, it is the enemy of my enemy, and while maybe not my friend less of an enemy than muddle headed uncommon sense philosophy. I think an unnuanced rejection of SCSR could end up coming off like an endorsement of less grounded philosophizing.

The degree to which modern Christians have embraced pure materialism and rationalism is a problem, and if SCSR is partially responsible for that then that should be pointed out. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. To the degree that CSR espouses an anti-philosophy philosophy, I think it makes points that should ring true to Christians.

(N.B., Red: Many apologist’s book would probably address your claims adequately. Off the top of my head, I’m confident books by J.P Moreland or William Lane Craig address such objections, and they are among a throng of people who have responded to such misconceptions.

Also, Paul’s texts refers to philosophy that is “according to the elementary principles of the world” (that’s from memory, so it may not be exact), not philosophy simpliciter.)

Reflective awareness at a sufficient degree of abstraction and generality, first achieved in ancient Greece, necessarily raises questions which have since been categorized as “philosophical.” These questions are not avoidable once this degree of reflective awareness is achieved in a culture or even in an individual; they become ineliminable. And I say “achieved” advisedly, for not all cultures produced this kind of thinking: only Greece did. It is in no small part because of the kind and level of thinking this achievement opened up that natural science as well as what we call theology developed. Like it or not, classical theology is deeply bound up with early Greek philosophy, and the only way to gain a substantial grasp of early church theology - essential if one thinks doctrines like the Incarnation and Trinity are important - is to have a good grasp on philosophical categories. To this day, any mature and profound grasp of theology, of the kind say a professor of systematics should have, requires a substantial knowledge of the history of philosophy because of the enormous influence philosophy has had on theology, for good and for ill. If you imagine away all philosophy, you imagine away most theology because it loses the categories it uses to expresses itself.

The attempt to deny the importance, usefulness, and general validity (as a mode of thinking, not any particular system as such) of the philosophical enterprise, especially as a Christian, is like using the radio to decry broadcast technology: besides being a kind of practical contradiction (one must draw one that which one denies or decries), it also reflects a lack of awareness of the influences that have shaped one, and thus an inability either to be critical or grateful of one’s inheritance.

It is especially ironic for someone interested in or merely appreciative of politics to express an antipathy to philosophy simpliciter. John Locke, in case people forgot, was a philosopher, and the influential founding fathers were doing political philosophy, interacting with a massive tradition of such thought (ranging from Plato all the way through to contemporary thinkers in France and England).

The loss we experience by ignoring these truths is similar to the loss spoken of above, and it’s a loss that’s inevitable in the “common sense” mindset: one fails to realise that one’s “common sense” in matters of theology, of politics, even of cows, is a historical achievement, earned through arduous historical, intellectual, and cultural struggle, change, and development. To treat this achievement as self-evident in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, ranging from heretical theology to totalitarian governments and animistic beliefs of many primitive cultures (where people would disagree with Aaron about not just cows but also trees and rocks) is to assert one’s autonomy and independence, as if one was not so deeply indebted to or embedded in the past, or as if simply being ignorant of such an inheritance means it does not exist or that it can or should make no claim upon us.

But the past does make a claim upon us; our common sense has a history, and if we wish to be humble, grateful, and critical inheritors of that history we must first know and acknowledge it, else we will be tempted to dismiss those who don’t see things from our perspective as ignoring the “self-evident” and “common sense” validity of our position. And if we wish to be humble, grateful, and critical inheritors of the Fundamentalist heritage we must be unsparing in our criticism, yet always operating out of precisely the attitude so many here do not reflect (or only so selectively): a humble awareness of and gratitude for the way the past, in this case Fundamentalism, has shaped us, especially for good but also and often for ill; and it is because of our awareness of having been so shaped that we can be both grateful and critical of our inheritance, not as arrogant adolescents but as humble and mature adults who strive always to acknowledge the debt owed to their parents and those who shaped them.

[allenjs] As if anything other than hard-nosed “common-sense realism” is “superstition” (or “mysticism”, which other commenters here seem to think is a slander).

I use the word “mysticism” to refer to an unbiblical sense of spirituality which is based on a subjective view of reality. Mysticism is a natural result of rationalism (modernism), which exalts the mind as being capable of interpreting reality apart from the Word of God. To the modernist, anything which cannot be rationally understood (i.e., miracles) must either be denied or re-categorized in some mystical way.

As opposed to either rationalism or mysticism, revelation-based thinking leads a person to interpret the world around him on the basis of Scripture (which is believed presuppositionally as the Word of God [Heb. 11:3] and interpreted literally [according to the text] — even when it does not make sense to the modern/rational mind).

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

Bauder wrote:
The chief characteristic of the premodern mind was its humility. Premoderns understood that the world as they perceived it was always and already interpreted. They knew that the scope of actual reality was so vast as to lie beyond their ability to grasp.
I think this is, in some ways, the heart of the discussion. I find this lack of humility a hallmark of Common Sense Realism. It relates to many theological and practical issues. For example, Nouthetic Counselors leave little room for what they don’t know. We can draw certain theological conclusions when, at times, when we need to simply propose theories.

Although we should be certain about the fundamentals of the faith and the obvious teachings of Scripture, we can get mighty dogmatic about not-so-clear verses or doctrines.

Part of the blight of fundamentalism is our tendency to be dogmatic about complicated gray issues that we present as black and white. We don’t like to admit that we do not know or that we are uncertain.

"The Midrash Detective"

Joseph,

Just curious — you and Charlie speak with great authority on matters of philosophy and history, and often recommend stacks of books that people should read before they can understand an issue.

You can know a lot about me because I have had an article posted on SI (http://sharperiron.org/why-i-am-dispensationalist), but some (me included) may not know anything about you.

Is there any way you can fill us in on some basics, such as highest degrees earned, and from where?? I will take your word for it, even without a last name, and would at least have some context as to where you are coming from.

Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry

Joseph, you seem to think that more words make for a better argument. Much of what you said, how we are shaped by our past and our milieu, I agree with. But I’m not sure how it addresses my point. I’m glad you brought up Locke because he furnishes a quick and perfect example of my point. I don’t like Locke. He was exactly the kind of philosophizer I am inveighing against. He was mentally conceptualizing the good society against what was, and his ideas were profoundly destructive and un-Christian. His tabula rasa idea couldn’t have been more wrong. His social contract theory was nonsense. It was purely abstract and theoretical and described no society that was or had ever been. People aren’t born atomistic individuals free to contract away some of their “rights” in exchange for mutual benefit. Only a deluded philosophizer who needs to get a real job could believe such patent nonsense. People are born into an intricate and complicated society with intricate connections from day one. This was the common sense reality. Locke’s good society was the nonsensical philosophical construct.

Now I guess you could make the point that many would now accept Locke’s individualism as the common sense position and that that makes your point that common sense is influenced by what has gone before. And you would be right, and I would agree. But that doesn’t change the fact that individualism of the Lockean sort cannot be squared with the Bible. So we were wrong originally to go with the philosopher and his philosophy against Revelation.

OK. After talking with a few friends, I believe that what Dr. Bauder is preparing for is to build a case that we are not sufficiently “revelational” in Fundamentalism. The move from pre-modern to modern cost us something (a regard for that which is not seen) just as it gained us some things.

Comments?