This is one to goad the fans of NTW a bit (and let's face it, it is about time!! ;-) ). Andrew Moore writes in Anvil (20/1 2003):
'In seemingly conceding to the historian the authority to judge the truth of the Gospels, and in apparently removing from the theologian the right to challenge the scientist on theological grounds, have Wright and McGrath adopted the liberal principle?...
Is Christian truth to be measured on the same scale, construed in the same terms, as scientific and historical truth? Wright and McGrath seem to want to have it both ways: they wish to grant normativity to both Christian truth and to scientific and historical truth. My argument is that this option is not open to us: Christian truth is revealed principally in the person of Jesus Christ. It is unique because he is unique.'
Might he not have a point here? Perhaps he is being unfair to NTW and AEM. And the question ought to asked - if you go down this Barthian track are you not conceding the field to the sceptics? To which Moore might reply: 'yes - but it isn't a field worth having'...
8 comments:
This is interesting. I have wondered something similar myself. But wouldn't Barth say that theology is properly and truly scientific, that is, deriving its apparatus and methodology from the nature of its object? In that sense Barth would agree that theology is 'measured on the same scale, contrued in the same terms.'
But I guess the point is that AEM and NTW are applying measurements from an alien science. Doctrine of creation would sign the cheque for that exercise though wouldn't it? (at least in some measure.)
We seem to be having the same thoughts at the same time.
http://liambeadle.blogspot.com
No Liam, Michael's just ripping off your site...
But history and science both end up being aporetic - they cannot say anything definitively - it's why form criticism was always bunk, always in search of the 'real' Jesus, and yet forever obscuring him.
Theology escapes both history and science though, and philosophy too, for that matter.
At most you could use the 'fields' to suggest that Christian truth is worth considering, at which point you move out of history or science or whatever.
Does that make sense (considering I haven't read an Barth)?
I'm intrigued drew, why are science and history both ultimately aporetic?
They have to be in order for their respective projects to continue.
An aporia creates dialogue, and so in the lack between the specific and the general, or the lack between the absent past and the traces that it leaves, there is room to write and speak about them, but not to have the final word.
Ie. Nothing can be proven at the highest level as such - it ultimately rests on somekind of dogma, which isn't opposed to rationality, but is a different kind of knowledge.
Have I explained that clearly? I'm writing that piece on Benson's Graven Ideologies and it covers some of this...
From my limited exposure to NTW I would say that Moore is being unfair when he suggests that Wright has adopted the liberal principle. In 'NTPG' Wright is highly critical of the way in which the Enlightenment has done history - claiming superior objectivity while at the same time introducing its own ideological baggage into historical readings.
He argues that there is a (critical realist) way of doing history that treats the NT texts (and other relevant data) on their own terms, without imposing a rigid, unquestionable framework that rules-out some possibilities a priori. And, if that process leads to a Jesus that is different from the one we've always believed-in then we had better go there.
I think NTW would extend Moore's assertion: "Christian truth is revealed principally in the person of Jesus Christ as known in history. Not 'history' as a reductionist Enlightenment project but as a real, feet-on-the-ground life, lived in a particular time, place, social-political context, etc..." In fact that last sentence is my best effort at recalling/paraphrasing(/butchering) what Wright said during a talk in response to this kind of criticism. It sounded like he gets it a lot.
Having said this, I think any NTW 'fans' out there will be much more familiar with his position, so I'll welcome corrections.
Thanks Drew, interesting point. Have always intended to read that Graven Ideologies book.
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