On the Joys of Plural Perspectives

I frequently come across comments/arguments that go something like "every Christian (or insert religion of choice) group interprets the world/Scripture/whathaveyou in different ways. There are huge differences within the same group, so clearly none of this can be true. Afterall, if Christianity were true, then God would have revealed things more clearly so we wouldn't have all of these disagreements." This line of thinking goes a long way to strike at an approach to faith that sees itself as having all of the answers while everyone else in the world wanders blindly.

The problem is that it isn't close to what Jesus taught. It falls into a troublesome view of faith as a matter of propositional knowledge. If that's all that my Christian faith is, then I have a problem on my hands, as has been pointed out in places like this blog, which specifically approaches religion from this propositional standpoint. This kind of perspective, which many Christians share, assumes that the Bible is a great big book of propositional knowledge that contains "answers" to "questions."

To think this way, in my humble opinion, is a huge exercise in missing the point. The kind of knowledge the Bible has to offer is deeply personal, as is evidenced by Jesus Christ's invitation to "follow me". It is the kind of knowledge that comes from following God, not from learning propositions. The Bible is a story (or stories) of interactions between humans and God, and God's interaction in the world. It is full of surprises (after all, Jesus was nothing like the messiah the religious authorities of his day were expecting, and these were the people who had read the scriptures the most of anyone. This should give us pause before making confident pronouncements about what God will do).

Stories and propositions are very different in terms of the kind of questions that can be asked of them. Debating the probability/plausibility of God having done something in the past makes no sense, since we are dealing with something that if genuine is an historical event. There are plenty of improbable events in history. An event being rare or unprecedented or even sui generis does not make it unhistorical simply by virute of its uniqueness and improbability. This just goes to say that if we think of the Bible as telling a story, a story in which we are in the middle and still don't know the end, then we should be open to surprises and turns that we did not see or expect. This also means that any hope for confidence must rely on our confidence in the author of this story, not in our own understanding.

This means that our hope for communion with God and salvation is not based on our own propositional understanding. Encountering the God who is three persons has nothing to do with propositional understanding of the Bible and our attitudes toward it. This doesn't mean that our interpretative frameworks don't heavily influence the ways in which we try to relate to God, but it should give make us realize that our horizon is almost certainly not broad enough. If God is a person, then to know God is to know in a relational sense. This is huge. The difference between a propositional approach to God and a personal one is the difference between a conversation and an autopsy. Too many people (including other Christians) try to perform autopsies instead of engaging in conversations (that's probably a topic for another post).

The consequence of all this is that our confidence must be a confidence in God Himself, and not in how we interpret the Bible. How we interpret is important, but we must recognize that we are in the middle of the story, so any framework we have will be limited by our own human, historical, and cultural finitude. So someone else interprets the Bible differently than me. So what? We're both probably wrong about some of it. Salvation and eternity isn't riding on our propositional understanding of religion. It is about our attitude towards God, an attitude that says "not my will, but yours be done." Because God is calling us to know Him, and not things about Him, then it isn't terribly troubling that Christians disagree with each other. Our different perspectives represent our different histories, contexts, family backgrounds, etc. but none of that prevents us from connecting with the God who transcends all of these things and reaches down to us in our subjective finiteness.

All of these different perspectives shed different light and many offer wonderful insights, but we are not called as Christians to adopt a specific perspective, so we must learn to acknowledge the inadequacy of our own interpretive frameworks. We can learn from each other, especially about the need for humility. It is deeply saddening to see denominations attacking each other, because it reflects this propositionally-oriented view. I'm not saying that beliefs aren't important (I deeply love the Nicene Creed), but they aren't the whole story or even the main point. I just fear that way too many Christians have bought into a view of faith and the Bible that is foreign to what the texts contained within it teach, creating an unintentional straw-man which critics and skeptics are quick (and right) to attack. The problem is, it's a view that doesn't match up with the New Testament I read or the God who it reveals to me. Letting go of a propositional view that has sadly replaced a personal view will go a long way to helping us better understand on our own faith and making sure that we aren't following a caricature.