Randal Rauser's Blog, page 45
October 14, 2020
October 13, 2020
God’s Call: A Response from Jeff Kilmartin
Any time a reviewer takes the time and effort to read and then write about another author’s book, that author has been honoured to a great degree. Thus, my first order of business here is to thank Randall Rauser for the time and care he took in going through this book.
With respect to the three main points of disagreement he raises, there are several things to say, beginning with the methodology of biblicism. First, in my defence I would have to say (as any normal eight-year-old might), “They started it!” Those with whom I am engaging throughout the polemic aspects of the book often explicitly assert they are seeking to follow the Bible, so I have here attempted to meet them on their own ground.
Second, I do not think I am totally open to the critique of being a biblicist. As Rauser says, I write that, “what the ‘world’ knows about mind and body needs to take a backseat to the biblical program of sanctification and transformation.” (143) Which means, to my mind, that what the world knows may often be insightful, beneficial, and so on – but when, let us say, a worldly practise comes up against a biblical practise, I think we ought to follow the biblical precept. In other words, I hope I am open to the “social sciences or other non-Christian sources of knowledge (e.g. evidence for the value of mindfulness; virtue theories of ethics) with respect to ‘transformation,’” but they need to be used with discretion. By the same token, I do not reject the three other strains of Wesley’s quadrilateral; rather, I believe that the Biblical record ought to take precedence over that of tradition, reason, and experience. (If memory serves, this was Wesley’s view as well.
For instance, if Paul tells us that practising “false humility” (a term the scholars tell us indicates ascetic activity) is harmful, then I assume he is correct, and understand that things like a personal discipline of fasting is not only needless, but also harmful (Colossians 2.18-23). To the degree that silence and solitude are also turned into “disciplines” which we now “ought to do on a regular basis,” since their advocates say they are designed to “allow us to somehow ‘find,’ or to ‘face,’ or reach an ‘understanding of himself’” (143), I think they will also be detrimental to the spiritual life.
I remember sitting through some teaching on this one morning, being told that Jesus went off to be alone and silent in order to find himself, and so on, and therefore we ought also to practise these disciplines in order to face, and to find, ourselves. I afterwards quickly went through the Gospels to find all the places where Jesus did that. Nowhere does it say he needed solitude or silence for the reasons cited. Rather, he went away to do things like mourn or to pray.
This is not to say that fasting, silence, and solitude have no place in a person’s life; naturally they all will. My worry is that to turn them into a personal ascetic practise – i.e., a spiritual discipline – is to allow them to become a hindrance to the spiritual life. To better understand why that is, please buy a copy of the book and read through pp 137-145.
Having said all that, I recognize I am a product of my Baptist culture, and the biblicist strain runs deep there. It is where I am most comfortable, and if this is the worst thing that can be said about my work, then I can live with that. Even so, Rauser is correct to push me out of my comfort zone in this area, because I believe that God’s truth can be found in all sorts of places in the world, including in non-Judeo-Christian sources.
Rauser’s second critique causes me the most pain – not because I think he is wrong, but because I fear he may be right. He says at times I am uncharitable in my polemic, and in my anger I may have sinned in this matter. Unhappily, Dr. Willard cannot be apologized to (having passed away in 2013), but I am sorry that I crossed a line here.
Even so, while my sin has no justification, I still think I was right to be angry. Rauser writes, “I don’t think his critique of Willard is fair. Nor am I persuaded that he establishes that Willard’s view of conversational prayer is ‘unbiblical … spiritually harmful, and detrimental to the spreading of the gospel. (110)” Later, however, Rauser will state that Willard’s teaching “results in the spiritualization of one’s own internal process of deliberation, but at worst it can lead to various sinful or unwise thought processes being baptized as the voice of God (72).” If this is not spiritually harmful, or potentially damaging for the gospel message, then I am missing something.
I also think I have established that Willard’s view is unbiblical, and Rauser’s own words in the second part of his blog seem to bear this out. Nevertheless, here we will simply have to disagree. Readers will need to get the book and decide for themselves.
With respect to omnicausality, I take Rauser’s critique to heart. In fact, I have been considering this, and if I write again it will be to tackle this very issue (there’s a nice bit of hubris for you). For now, I will leave it lie.
Again, Rauser’s critique of my pedantic tendencies is probably on target, even if they lay in my blind spot. On the other hand, I think sayings like the one cited (“Find out where God is at work, then join him in it”) have been part of our hallowed vocabulary for so long that we give them more of a pass than they deserve. The longer these sayings have been around, the more we invest unwarranted meaning into them. So, while I will try to do better and not be so pedantic, I will continue to argue that some pithy sayings are indeed problematic.
It is gratifying to see those places where Rauser agrees with my critique and analysis, because I have a lot of respect for him. One question I would have for him concerns his definition of “conversational prayer,” which he says there is still room for. In the way Willard and others have defined it, I would still want to throw it out with the bathwater. If, however, we want to simply say that God communicates to us through the Bible, dreams, other people, and so on, I would have no problem with that (though calling it a conversation may still introduce unnecessary confusion into the mix).
Rauser has done me a great service of teaching in two respects. First, he has pointed out some things I ought to be cognizant of (being a biblicist, pedantic, uncharitable, sometimes overstating my case), and this is all helpful. Second, he has shown me how to disagree with a fellow human being in a respectful, loving, indeed supportive, manner.
Sometimes I jokingly say that sarcasm is my spiritual gift. I recall reading through the letters of St Jerome one time. I loved that guy; he was so crusty and cranky. I figured if he could be a Catholic saint, with all his ranting and raving, that gave me some kind of license to wield my sarcasm (and other things) like a club. Of course, I was wrong. Better we follow someone less prone to sudden jags of temper. Thanks to Randall for being such an example.
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October 12, 2020
How Do You Hear God’s Voice? A Review of God Calling: Spiritual Direction for People in the Real World
Jeffrey J. Kilmartin. God Calling: Spiritual Direction for People in the Real World. Wipf and Stock, 2020.
God Calling by Jeffrey Kilmartin is a spirited and somewhat iconoclastic survey of a range of topics pertaining to spiritual direction such as discerning God’s will, identifying one’s calling, praying effectively, pursuing spiritual disciplines, and engaging in spiritual warfare. It is one of those books that prompted vigorous agreement and disagreement in equal measure. In this review, I will focus on identifying some examples of each. And given that I want to end on a positive note, I will begin with the points of disagreement.
Disagreement
My biggest disagreement pertains to Kilmartin’s method which, in my estimation, evinces a significant degree of biblicism. By ‘biblicism’ I mean to refer to a theological method that attempts to derive Christian doctrine and practice solely from explicit biblical statements/precedents to the exclusion of extra-biblical sources such as tradition, reason, and experience. As Kilmartin puts it, “we Baptists pride ourselves on having the Bible as our ‘only guide for faith and practice.'” (49) Kilmartin appears to interpret that Baptistic position as requiring that for a doctrine or practice to be defensible, one must first look for a precedent for it within the Bible. Thus, if one lacks a precedent in the Bible then a view is ‘unbiblical’. For example, Kilmartin rejects the disciplines of silence and solitude based on the fact that “I do not see them in my Bible.” (142) Additionally, because he cannot see Ignatius of Loyola’s ‘prayer of disinterest’ in the Bible, he concludes “I reserve the right to remain extremely suspicious of it all.” (142) (For additional examples, see 147, 165, 177.)
The problem is that the Baptistic stance to which Kilmartin appeals is itself an extra-biblical tradition. What is more, there is no precedent in the Bible for assuming that a doctrine and/or practice must be present in the Bible in order to be acceptable to the Christian. Thus, this kind of biblicism is, strictly speaking, self-defeating since it must appeal to an extra-biblical tradition for its justification.
In my view, the biblicist stance of the book skews the analysis negatively in some important ways. For example, Kilmartin states that particular ascetic practices in the spiritual disciplines can be traced back to extra-Christian origins/precedents which he then labels as having a “pagan genesis” (141). Thus, he concludes that spiritual disciplines derive “From paganism via the Catholic monastic tradition.” (143) In this way, Kilmartin thereby rejects the value of tradition and assumes, without argument, that a precedent outside the Judeo-Christian tradition automatically taints a practice as “pagan”. Further, Kilmartin adds, “what the ‘world’ knows about mind and body needs to take a backseat to the biblical program of sanctification and transformation.” (143) What is left unclear — and disturbingly so — is whether Kilmartin is open to the insights of the social sciences or other non-Christian sources of knowledge (e.g. evidence for the value of mindfulness; virtue theories of ethics) with respect to ‘transformation’.
My second disagreement pertains to Kilmartin’s tendency toward uncharitable polemics. For example, not only does Kilmartin critique Dallas Willard’s argument that God has preferences which we should seek to discern, but he labels Willard’s view (or implications that flow from it) as “foolishness” (23). While I am sympathetic to Kilmartin’s alternative advice to focus on becoming like Jesus, I don’t think his critique of Willard is fair. Nor am I persuaded that he establishes that Willard’s view of conversational prayer is “unbiblical … spiritually harmful, and detrimental to the spreading of the gospel.” (110) (I do agree, however, with his additional charge that it is unnecessary.)
Perhaps the chapter with which I struggled most was the eighth in which Kilmartin addresses “Hyper-Spirituality.” He refers to hyper-spirituality as spirituality pursued in an unbiblical or ungodly manner (146). While I agreed with several of the examples in his biblical survey, he goes on to flag “omnicausality” (166 ff.), as part of the problem. However, his definition of omnicausality appears to indict Calvinism, Thomism, and even classic Arminianism (cf. meticulous providence) as examples of unbiblical hyper-spirituality. Not only is that very implausible, but it leaves me wondering what Kilmartin’s alternative view of providence would look like.
Finally, I find at points that Kilmartin is overly pedantic in his critiques. For example, he devotes a section of his chapter on hyper-spirituality to this popular saying: “Find out where God is at work, then join him in it.” (171 ff.) While Kilmartin offers some legitimate caveats — for example, sometimes God begins to act as we set out in faith — it seems to me that his wholesale rejection of this maxim as “detrimental to the faith and practice of the church” (171) is simply overreading a pithy aphorism.
Interlude
While I have enumerated several points of disagreement, I now feel compelled to highlight that a good book is not merely one with which you agree, but one which stimulates you to serious engagement. God Calling is consistently engaging and provocative and the first part of the review should be seen as a testament to that fact. Now as we turn to the second part, we will do so with an eye to the positive side of reader engagement.
Agreement
I would argue that the central goal of God Calling is to bring spiritual direction out of the subjectivist, mystical fog and into the mundane light of day. And time and again, I find myself nodding in agreement at Kilmartin’s efforts. For example, as I mentioned above, I agree that there is far more wisdom to be found in close attention to the life of Jesus as a pattern of conformity for our own rather than on endless subjective speculations as to what God may be asking in a particular moment. (There is a perfect analogue here to the focus on cultivating ethical virtues rather than engaging in endless debate about the various pandora’s box ethical conundrums that often preoccupy professional philosophers.)
Kilmartin provides some judicious critique of the attempt to hear the voice of God speaking to the point where people appear to expect some sort of audible voice. At best, this results in the spiritualization of one’s own internal process of deliberation, but at worst it can lead to various sinful or unwise thought processes being baptized as the voice of God (72).
Equally bad, other Christians may become disillusioned and frustrated because they don’t hear God resulting in a faith that is “frustrated, challenged, confused, and sometimes even overthrown.” (68) Needless to say, this kind of theology can greatly exacerbate the problem of divine hiddenness as discussed in the philosophy of religion literature (cf. 111). I remember one specific occasion where I told an atheist friend that I experience God every day. I wasn’t meaning to suggest some sort of extra-mundane charismatic experience, but nonetheless my off-hand comment prompted this reply: “Why don’t I experience God?” Needless to say, charismatic expectations may indeed pave the road to skepticism. And so, Kilmartin is right to flag the danger such spiritual expectations can present.
While Kilmartin cautions against such incautious spiritualization, he is not a cessationist (80) and he remains open to God speaking in unique ways. The problem arises when such unusual moments are turned into expectations.
One of the best virtues of the book is the many little observations that Kilmartin makes about evangelical culture. For example, when speaking of the discernment of God’s will he observes, “Another ‘sign’ Christians seem to use is what might be called the ‘smoothness factor.’ If things run smoothly, so this theory goes, then it must be from the hand of God. If not, we can know that we have either gone ahead or lagged behind God’s ‘perfect timing,’ or have somehow missed the road.” (34) Such reasoning is indeed very common and Kilmartin’s ability to articulate and then critically examine it is very helpful. After all, once you have named the smoothness factor, you can begin to think critically about it and question whether it really deserves the weight placed upon it.
Kilmartin is also attentive to the ways that subjectivist accounts of spiritual direction and discernment can go awry. And while he may overstate the concerns at times, he is often spot on. For example, he warns of how the subjectivist tendency to ‘hear God’s voice’ is often used to solicit donations: “Pulling on heart-strings is a time-honored way of getting donors to part with their hard-earned cash, but for many Christians asking them to pray about such a matter is manipulation and constitutes spiritual abuse, since they will take their newly acquired guilt feelings and attribute them to God.” (41)
I will conclude with one additional insightful point. Kilmartin warns that “the teaching about ‘conversational prayer’ sanctions the cocooning and isolation of individuals, and encourages an unbiblical ‘Jesus ‘n Me’ attitude.” (108) While I think there is still room for conversational prayer in the Christian life, his point is well taken. Much that passes for spiritual direction today does conform to the individualist, consumerist, and subjectivist patterns of this world. On this and many other points, God Calling offers a distinct perspective on spiritual direction and discernment that is sure to enlighten and challenge. My thanks to Jeffrey Kilmartin for provoding a review copy of the book.
You can pick up your own copy of God Calling at Amazon.com where the Kindle version is a mere seven bucks.
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October 11, 2020
A Succinct Statement of Atheist Self-Defeat
Dan Barker says: “None of the ‘evidences’ [for God] proves a supernatural being, so those who continue to believe are acting irrationally.” (Godless, 90)
Assuming that Barker’s claim that there are no proofs for God (i.e. proof by logical necessity or beyond a reasonable doubt) is true, which evidences against God disprove a supernatural being?
None, of course.
So atheists, by Barker’s standard, are irrational.
But here’s the next question: does Barker have evidences that prove that proof is the standard required for rationality? Of course not.
So it turns out that Barker’s position is self-defeating.
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October 10, 2020
The Problem with the Offering of Isaac
When Abraham expressed the willingness to sacrifice Isaac, he did so on the belief that God would raise Isaac back up and thereby be faithful to his covenant. The belief that God is faithful is laudable. The problem is that Abraham believed God was commanding an action — child sacrifice — that was considered to be morally heinous as a test of God’s faithfulness.
People are often not shocked by the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac) as they should be because it is familiar to them. So let’s recast the story in the terms of the unfamiliar. Imagine how shocking it would be if Abraham had a daughter and God commanded that she should be raped by a Philistine. And Abraham acceded to the request based on the belief that God would restore his daughter’s virginity miraculously in parallel to the belief that God would restore Isaac’s life miraculously (e.g. by miraculously restoring the hymen seal). And so, Abraham takes his daughter on a journey into the wilderness to meet the Philistine, all while anticipating her rape followed by the miracle to come. And God intervenes and prevents the rape.
Is that an inspiring story?
The question the reader must consider is this: are actions like child sacrifice and rape moral atrocities? The answer, surely, is yes. The second question is this: could a morally perfect being command actions that are moral atrocities as a means to test one’s faith in that being? Further, could that morally perfect being command those actions with the intent that the human person believes they were indeed being asked to carry out a moral atrocity such that expressing the willingness to do so would constitute a morally laudatory exercise of faith on the part of the human person?
If you say “Yes” to that second question, you are saying that it is possible that God would command moral atrocities as tests of faith such that the willingness of human agents to carry out those moral atrocities constitute morally laudatory exercises of faith.
That is an extraordinary conclusion for it means that, in principle, God could command an endless list of moral atrocities: child-killing and sacrifice (e.g. partial dismemberment, draining of blood from the corpse), rape, torture and mutilation, cannibalism, as tests of faith wherein God could act supernaturally to restore the prior state subsequent to the atrocity.
Conversely, if you conclude that this is not possible, you have powerful extra-biblical reasons to conclude that, however you choose to read the Akedah, it should not be read as constituting an affirmatory answer to the second question.
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October 8, 2020
October 6, 2020
Atheists having conversations with their inner Christian
I believe that Christians should be willing to have a conversation with their ‘inner atheist,’ that inner voice of questioning and doubt. But that goes both ways: atheists, too, should be ready to have a conversation with their inner Christian.
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October 5, 2020
October 4, 2020
Conversations with the Graceful Atheist
I was recently interviewed on The Graceful Atheist Podcast. It’s a great podcast: in a time of loud voices and hardened opinions, David does a first-rate job of encouraging thoughtful and meaningful conversation across deep ideological divides. Check it out!
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