End of Apologetics - Discussion

[David]

Anyone ready to discuss this book. I am on chapter four and am loving it; I think Penner has put into words much of my own disillusion with contemporary Christian apologetics. I also suspect he goes a bit too far...though maybe I'll change my mind as I finish the book.

[Lee]

I have the book, but haven't been able to dig in yet...

[Peter]

David wrote: "Anyone ready to discuss this book. I am on chapter four and am loving it; I think Penner has put into words much of my own disillusion with contemporary Christian apologetics. I also suspect he g..."

I've read the first chapter and am ready to begin the discussion.

[Lee]

Looks to be a very interesting book so far. Good choice.

[Rod]

And I thought Apologetics was just getting going.

I'll go and read some reviews on this book - see what it is up to. I haven't come across it in my local store yet.

[David]

The hypothesis I wish to put forward is that the current apologetic debates— over the “rational foundations” of Christian theism or faith, reasons or evidences for faith in general, the sensational debates over “the New Atheism,” or evolution vs. creation— all share a similar fragmentary nature that produces the same interminable lack of consensus in moral discourse.

Penner, Myron B. (2013-07-01). End of Apologetics, The: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context (Kindle Locations 203-206). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The chief feature I mean to highlight is that speaking and thinking about God in our modern culture is fundamentally different from doing so prior to the Enlightenment. And what is more, the modern Enlightenment worldview, while perhaps not quite arbitrary, is nevertheless just one way of seeing the world— including its views of reason, knowledge, and truth— and not the preordained result of inevitable progress or the unimpeachable acme of human achievement. Unless this point is explicitly acknowledged— if we forget this— we have a corresponding blind spot in our perspective that can have devastating results. We will have a theology (and Christian witness) fraught with deep conceptual confusions that fails, to that degree, to make Christian practices intelligible— or be truly Christian.

Penner, Myron B. (2013-07-01). End of Apologetics, The: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context (Kindle Locations 212-218). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So my incentive comes from a deep conviction that the modern apologetic paradigm does not have the ability to witness truthfully to Christ in our postmodern situation. This means I will have much to say about truth later on in this book.

Penner, Myron B. (2013-07-01). End of Apologetics, The: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context (Kindle Locations 322-324). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Just a few quotes from the introduction. He is saying that modern apologetics are just that, modern. Those doing apologetics have swallowed the modern (enlightenment) view of things uncritically. It seems from this many things can be said:

1. The modern view is hostile to Christianity, so making arguments by its rules is ultimately doomed.
2. The arguments made are premodern arguments so just carrying them into a new situation is ultimately doomed
3. We live in a postmodern world so making modern-ish arguments is no longer helpful (I think he too much downplays the point that perhaps such arguments were helpful and may still be helpful to some people).

Thoughts

[Lee]

Does he actually say modernism is hostile to Christianity? He does claim that modern approaches cannot reflect "genuine" Christianity.

It's a gutsy move for Penner to claim that he is taking postmodernism as a starting point for discussion. Then a page later, he claims to be in search of truth for the sake of the gospel. He's posturing a little; he does defend postmodernism a bit in the very first chapter, and I'll bet he continues to throughout the book.

Yet the premise is intriguing. Another quote, p. 12:

"I want to take seriously [Kierkegaard's] claim that apologetics itself might be the single biggest threat to genuine Christian faith that we face today."

I am sometimes accused of postmodernism (it seems to be used as a derogatory word, ha) when I explain that objective truth is hardly the most important thing about following Jesus. So I was glad to see his definition: "Postmodernity is a condition, or set of attitudes, disposition, and practices, that is aware of itself as modern and aware that modernity's claims to rational superiority are deeply problematic."

[David]

I don't recall if he says it in those exact words, but that is what I thought he meant. If a premodern view saw truth as found in the authority (we know it is true because the church/bible says so) then the modern view overturned this by placing reason and objective argument as foundation for truth. From this view comes foundationalism (like Descartes' project) of building knowledge from the ground up. Along with this would come the view that you only are warranted in believing things that have scientific evidence.

This modern foundational, universal reason view is hostile to Christianity. But in the face of it there are two approaches:

*Go along with the premise and argue that Christianity does not the modernist demands. This is where Craig's apologetics would be - we'll start with proving God, then once we prove that we'll prove miracles, then Jesus, etc.

*Argue that these premises are false - doing just this has led to the post-modern turn in our culture.

[David]

Looking at chapter one - when Penner referred to Charles Taylor...well, he won me from there. Taylor's book The Secular Age is probably one of the most challenging and thought-provoking books I have read. I actually want to re-read it to better get it. It is amazing. (It also makes me realize that many of my favorite authors are Catholic or Orthodox - Taylor, David Bentley Hart).

Thus, the modern idea of a public sphere, separate from who I am in my private life - "the modern public sphere is something different from anything else that precedes it, because it is imagined as a neutral, common space free and disengaged from either the political or religious sphere....division of life into private and public is critical to the entire conception of modern life, as Taylor observes, because it enables modern societies to see themselves as capable of coming to agreement without having to appeal to political or religious authority. They imagine themselves to be engaged in “a discourse of reason outside power, which nevertheless is normative for power.”

Penner, Myron B. (2013-07-01). End of Apologetics, The: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context (Kindle Locations 491-492). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This modern public sphere leads to two points from Penner:
1. Belief that belief in God's existence can be settled objectively and neutrally without sectarian interests.
2. My beliefs about God are private and of no concern to anyone else.

To bring this back to Craig, Penner writes: "we can say the crisis of faith Craig describes appears to be generated by his embeddedness in a modern world insofar as it requires that God’s existence is not intuitively plausible and that individuals are responsible to justify their beliefs rationally for themselves."

Penner, Myron B. (2013-07-01). End of Apologetics, The: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context (Kindle Locations 512-514). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

He seems to be saying that we have crises of faith like Craig's because we believe, as modern people, that we must not just know our beliefs are true but must show them to be true in some objective and neutral way. And then Penner argues that Craig's apologetic arguments are placed in this neutral public sphere, seeking to establish things as rock-bottom true to any thinking person who enters that sphere (starting with God's existence).

Premodern world - God and the world come together; the world is an enchanted place. Thus, humans encounter the world (and God) directly.

Modern world - world as a machine, human as a free entity in this world; reason's role is to control this world-machine (world is dis-enchanted). Since humans are disconnected from world, propositions are needed to express facts of the universe. Now Christian truth, for someone like Craig, is centered on objective truth.

How do we deal with modernity? Penner gives two usual ways (and I'd love Lee's thoughts here). One way to meet the modern challenge is to update Christian beliefs, adjust in light of modern, rational investigation (Penner says this is liberal theology). The second way is to seek to defend traditional Christianity by modern standards (i.e. Bible is a valid source for universal truth). This is conservative theology. The goal of both, of all apologetics in the modern world, is to make Christian belief plausible by showing it is based on universal, objective facts.

Thoughts?

(I know this is a long post. I love philosophy and philosophical theology but books like this stretch me, I get what it is saying better by reading it once then summarizing it like this. So this can be seen as a summary for my own benefit, if nothing else:)

[Lee]

Good summary, David. I'm responding slowly because I'm not yet settled in my own thoughts after this chapter.

"Individuals are responsible to justify their beliefs rationally for themselves." This seems to be Penner's biggest beef with modernity. He's right, we do seem to feel this responsibility, and it's probably why this forum gained popularity.

I hate the word "believe." It's meaningless to me. I guess I'm trapped in modern thinking, because I feel if we MUST discuss facts objectively, then either something is demonstrably true or false, or hopefully we have enough evidence to give it an educated percentile (eg: there is a 65% chance that God exists). If we must admit we have no measuring stick to know the truth, it's dishonest to resort to that wishy-washy word "believe" which basically means "I think maybe this" or "I want it to be this".

My personal solution, which appears like a cop-out to many, is to remain agnostic. That seems the HONEST solution, rather than the wishy-washy 'believe' word. But this solution is unsatisfactory for most people, who don't feel grounded unless they can get off the fence.

My problem with Penner's book is that I can't grasp what he means when he says "believe." He seems satisfied with belief in a postmodern way, accepting that his beliefs cannot be objectively proven, or perhaps even properly described. The Truth is something you live, not something you prove with pencil and paper, yet he acquiesces to that horrible word "believe" often. Dammit, what does that mean to him, then?

re: Penner's definition of liberal theology, it's not bad at all. Liberal Christians do seek to update Christian beliefs through modern, rational investigation. But a liberal agnostic Christian like myself considers the whole 'believing' thing to be dishonest and lazy. We admit we've experienced and observed mysteries for which we do not have sufficient evidence to explain, and enjoy living in this Truth without deeming it necessary to describe ... and certainly not necessary to draw lines excluding the mormons and muslims.

So how do we deal with modernity as Christians? We don't. We enjoy the good of past tradition, reject the bad, appreciate the mystery, and embrace the diversity of religious experience and--ugh--beliefs.

[Peter]

David wrote: "Looking at chapter one - when Penner referred to Charles Taylor...well, he won me from there. Taylor's book The Secular Age is probably one of the most challenging and thought-provoking books I ha..."

Having read Chapter 1, I must admit that my sympathies lie with Craig. I think Penner misunderstands Craig and other modern apologists. Craig and J. P. Moreland are apostles (sent ones) to Modernists and so they have to argue and speak the Modernist language and deal with Modernist assumptions and presuppositions. That determines what they pull out of their philosophical tool box.

On the other hand, while criticizing Craig, Penner doesn't really commit himself to any position (perhaps it's coming).

I am old enough to have grown up with a Modernist value set and have seen it transform to a Postmodern one. Both perspectives have problems. From where I sit, for Modernists, they believe the group with the most airtight, comprehensive theory wins the debate.

It seems to me, for Postmodernists, the argument doesn't matter (words can mean whatever you want them to mean), but the story has significance.

So Modernists simplify, trim, and dismember the data set so that they can achieve an airtight explanation ... there was an old chestnut about a physicist who was asked to describe a cow. He began by saying, let's assume a cow as a perfect sphere of uniform density ...

With Postmodernists, I wonder if they actually believe in truth and reality apart from the words they use to talk about them. Perhaps Craig's claim that Postmodernism as a species of antirealism is justified.

Penner, Myron B. (2013-07-01). End of Apologetics, The: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context. Baker Publishing Group. Page 38.

An interesting read. I do wonder where Penner is going with this line of argument.

[David]

Later in the book he talks about the difference between what you believe and how you believe. Maybe that will help (not sure if you are there yet).

Your quote from Penner (about individuals being responsible to justify their beliefs rationally) makes me think of Plantinga and the argument that belief in God is a "properly basic belief". It is the sort of philsoophy that stretches my brain. I also wonder how much pragmatism fits in with Penner's view.

What I like most about Penner's argument is his point that there is no neutral public space where we can bring our beliefs and objectively discern them - because there is no neutrality and objectivity. To pretend there is such is to enter a stacked game.

I have no problem with "beliefs" - you say "We admit we've experienced and observed mysteries for which we do not have sufficient evidence to explain, and enjoy living in this Truth without deeming it necessary to describe". I would agree up to the word truth. Then I would say there is nothing wrong with trying to describe it. That is only natural. I think the problem is when we make our description of that truth primary.

I am a rather orthodox Christian - bodily resurrection, Trinity, dual-nature of Christ, salvation by grace. In this I differ from you Lee. But (I hope) my beliefs about such things, specifically my beliefs about who Jesus is, make me say I think Jesus is okay with having disciples who are agnostic. When I read the gospels I see Jesus with a bunch of relatively clueless followers. I think the church should be a place where we live as disciples, admitting we don't have it all figured out.

[Peter]

David wrote: "Later in the book he talks about the difference between what you believe and how you believe. Maybe that will help (not sure if you are there yet).

Your quote from Penner (about individuals bei..."

David, I agree that Penner's observation about the presence of bias in all views is a good point (the assumption of objectivity in the public place is flawed). However, biases are like error bars around data points, we can acknowledge them and so still approach the truth despite our biases. The real danger is for me to assume I have none.

[Lee]

The most insightful comment Penner has made is that Craig, himself, admitted that he came to faith not by reason but by experience. btw, I'm on page 106 and the description there of a witness for Christ finally gets to the point with excellent examples of proper "apologetics" (no words need be spoken).

[David]

Peter, I think it is deeper then that. Maybe a difference needs to be made between a simple bias (I've grown up in southeastern PA so I am biased towards PA Dutch cooking, all things Penn State University and the Philadelphia Eagles) and the cultural lens we look through. Acknowledging bias may be easy, but I don't think the postmodern critique of the modern philosophy is simply to say, "hey, you're also biased". Though that is part of it.

Maybe our culture is the lens we look through and biases are where we tend to look. It is easier to learn to look differently then to put on a new set of lenses.

I have to think about it more - I agree with your point on bias but I do think there is more to it then that. Maybe the fact you use scientific terminology (data points) reflects a scientific way of looking at the world that you (and I) have inherited from our modern culture.