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BBBCanada
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 3/10/2002 12:25 PM (GMT -6) |   | I am hoping to revive this CVM book club again. So I started a new thread. I hope it doesn't cost me lots of money. 
Modes had mentioned "The Myth of Certainty" on another thread sometime ago. Ever since then, I had been wanting to pick up the book. I finally got my hands on it and I went through it with a fine tooth comb and then started to capsulize it. I will provide a link to IVP's website where one can take a look at the "Table of Contents, endorsements, cover, etc. This way, I don't have to put up on this post what is already on the web. From time to time, I will put up a review or report and that way others can see what the book is about before they decide whether they want to buy it or not. Also, C'MOM PEOPLE!! LET'S SEE SOME OF YOUR OWN REVIEWS!!  Soooooo, to get started...
First, the book is written by Daniel Taylor who is a professor of English at Bethel College in St. Paul Minnesota, the same school that Greg Boyd teaches at.
Of the endorsements on the back cover, the one I resonate with the most is by Luci Shaw--"I recognize myself on every page."
Taylor starts off the book by discussing the nature of reflection in chapter one entitled "The Nature of Reflection." Most people who reflect are "pained people." They see what goes on around them and many of them, being of a meloncholy temperment that they sometimes are, they tend to be disturbed by what they see. As Taylor says, "Looking under rocks has it's disadvantages."
For the reflective person, the enquiring mind never gives up. Take a rest, maybe, but then it comes back ablazing. Those who do reflect (everybody does, from one degree or another, some deeper than others) do so to satisfy one of the most basic of non-physical needs--the need for security.
When person "A" opposes the view of person "B", "B" may feel threatened by such opposition. The reason is because when one develops, inherits or accepts a particular point of view, it is really person "B's" securtiy that is wrapped up in that worldview that is at stake. Cognitive dissonance occurs.
Under the sub-heading, "Subcultures and the Pyschology of Belief" Taylor talks about what subcultures "look like" and how this has a bearing on beliefs. That is, subcultures, whether in the church or in the "secular world," are self-preserving. In order to preserve themselves, they usually have to belittle those who hold to opposite belief systems. The less secure
one is in their viewpoint the more one must annihilate the opposition.
From there, Taylor takes us into the chapter entitled, "The Reflective Christian and the Church." Again, we are given a dose of what self-preservation looks like but this time, in the church. Keyword? Authoritarianism. Taylor says that the weapon for authoritarianism is "legalism." Unity is replaced with unanimity. Any dissenters must be quashed.
This then leads us into the next two chapters entitled, "The Reflective Christian in the Secular World of Ideas" and "The Search for Truth and Certainty." One more time, Taylor takes us into the self-preservation of the secularist subculture, but this tiem more precisely. Tolerance is the orthodox view. That is, everything is to be tolerated, as long as one shows
"friendly diversity" as he calls it. Those who hold to absolutist views that suggest that others are in error? Weeeeeellllll, they should not be tolerated. As Taylor suggests, this is the hypocrisy of modern culture.
Taylor disscusses the role and relation of faith and reason and says that there is a false dichotomy (usually laid out by the secularist and where the Christian is duped) between them. He says that reason is elevated too much to the point that even the secularist has taken a leap of faith in reason. However, Taylor wants to strike a balance. He doesn't want to disparge reason, but just recognize it's limits. Reason is still to be preferred to the irrational. And the Christian, if anyone, should be the one to know these limits.
Faith comes into play along with reason. Not in antithesis to it. But reason becomes less operative as a primary instrument for judgement as one gets closer to the nexus of where the temporal and eternal intersect. Reason should not invade the territory of faith. As Taylor says, "In fact, reason recedes in importance in most of the truly critical areas of the human experience, largely because there are forces at work with which reason is not adequate to deal with."
Doubt, Taylor suggests, should not lead us into the direction of cynicism or smuggness as it does the secularist, but it can be made to serve faith. Why should doubt sap faith's strenght? As Taylor says, "Where there is doubt, faith has it's reason for being. Clearly, faith is not needed where certainty supposedly exists, but only in situations where doubt is possible, even present."
Later on he says that the widespread confusion of our culture is to equate truth with certainty. That is, if one gathers all of the evidence one will be able to say, "I have Truth!" But there are too many variables or forces or "humaness" at work to arrive at such conclusions. The most (best)one can do is approximate. Part of the reason for why this is so, is because even if one has all kinds of evidence, the evidence itself needs to be interpreted and
that is not done in a less than human vacuum.
Does the fact that we arrive at "approximate truth" mean that truth does not exist or that it's opposite exists--relativism? For Taylor, truth is affirmed by faith in response to the evidence that what is claimed is so. But the illusion (and danger, for isn't an illusionary life a dangerous one?) is that we can be certain. Our knowledge of reality is not only limited but is very much distorted at times. For example, Taylor says that absolutes by definition partake of infinity; they are without boundary. How is it that finite beings can have infinite knowledge Rhetorically, Taylor asks, "Can one the be said to know or "have" an absolute on which to ground one's beliefs when one only knows, at best, a sliver of that absolute?"
In the end, for Taylor, it is not certainty that is important, but "meaning." For according to human experience it is not certainty that exists or has ever existed or ever will exist, it is not a gift from God even, but meaning, derived from a right relationship with God that is key. And THAT, as Taylor says, comes from risk and commitment with such a relationship.
Lack of certainty is not unique to the believer, the secularist has the same problem. God may exist and the whole enterprise of belief is sound. Or God may not exist and the whole thing may be a release of certain chemicals in our brains as a result of the pop tarts we ate this morning. The point is both entail risk.
One can surrender to ambivalance and paralyzing uncertainty or one can use uncertainty as a stepping stone to the risk of commitment.
So how does one move from uncertainty to any kind of commitment? Taylor offers three ways.
Memory, community and perserverance.
Memory
Memory helps determined both our personal and corporate lives. It reminds us that God is trustworthy. That is, we can look at biblical examples when life is extremely hard and it may not mean much to those outside of the faith, but for those who are apart of this organism called the church, God's work, both corporate and personal, are not like artifacts in a museum. These recollections of the past "animate and make new the present," as Taylor says, so why not risk belief instead of unbelief? Both are risks and both (ultimately) cannot be "satisfactorily" explained.
Community
Tradition is not just creeds and theologies, but relationships as well. We struggle together or alone. But the risk is worth it. Why? As an institution, it may not be worth the risk, but the sense of meaning and solidarity is infused in the church like no where else. If we just look at others failures, then risk is not justified. However, if we focus on Christ, we can "draw strengh and daring from seeing His image reflected in the lives of even a few fellow believers" some who have the gift of quiet prayer or one who hungers after righteousness.
Perserverance
If all is uncertain anyway, why should we persist in the faith. Why not accomodate to the worlds values?
One answer is that life is uncertain for botht the secularist as well as the believer. But meaning is given in the struggle of life lived in the light of eternity. It seems that truth is really "taught" or exemplified to exist when it is pursued and lived in the concreteness of our lives rather than only in concepts and abstract arguments. For example, Jesus "embodied" truth in the story of the woman caught in adultery.
Those who make no committment, hide behind relativism. Through committment, truth is lived and is not an abstraction. As a matter of fact we should commit precisely because life is uncertain. Faith is verified and doubts removed when we commit (the point I was trying to bring across in my post to Empiress on the Mephi Shares From His Heart Part Deux thread). Our problem is not choosing right and wrong, but in not choosing (committing)at all. In reality, our security comes from risk, not certainty.
In chapter 6, Taylor moves more in a existentialist direction. His goal is to help us live out a life of risk in practical ways. A couple of examples will suffice.
Humility. If we are humble we will not become confused into defending self over truth. This means that even if others are in error, this doesn't ensure our own correctness. How one holds to truth, that is one's intentions, one's use, the position against which it is asserted, the relationship betwen truth and an equally balancing one, determine the ultimate character of our lives. The Pharisees would be a good example of this.
Patience and compassion go hand in hand with the risk of committment adn the pursuit of truth. In practice, we will develop a resistence to knee-jerk responses to particular labels that are placed upon us.
Does uncertainty and risk mean that truth is devalued. No, but one should avoid going down the road toward skepticism. Ultimately, release from doubt in this manner is that a belief, feeling, intuition or conviction doesn't need to be "defended" to be worthwhile. Taylor readily admits that this doesn't necessarily entail never defending one's position. Obviously, we should. But one ought not to become entangled in "unanswerable and unproductive struggles in either the church or the secular arena." One ought to conserve their energy. With most issues one should recognize that with "definable moments" one's mind is not easily changed.
Lastly, one should laugh and not take life so seriously. Laughter can ease "the tension of paradox, the pain of uncertainty, the fear of the future."
Should we care if we are label or are accused of "subltly" or "unknowingly" doing something dastardly, even though it may be done with good intentions? Yes, we should care, because our pursuit is for the truth and this might entail that those who label us, our detractors, might be right.
In the Epilogue, Taylor puts the finishing touches on how risk and meaning are significant for our lives. We have the unsatiable need for meaning in our lives and this is tied directly to transcience of life itself--the brevity of existence. What this means is that, one needs to find truth which is true for one's self--to construct one's life around. This may sound relativistic and individualistic, but in fact as Taylor points out, we are are unique creations before God and "working out our own lives by our best lights and what does not exist in "MY" life does not, for me at least, exist at all." Even this is done by faith. Because life is full of many different kinds of strucggles, intellectual, emotional, etc, faith is suited to meet the next challenge.
The Sticking Point For Me
What stood out most for me in this book besides reinforcing the idea that our theologies, worldviews, etc, may be incorrect, which is why I bought the book in the first place, is that "some truth" is only "embodied." That is, that some things are better caught than taught. That with probably some (most?) things in life, we will never really grasp truth, because this kind of truth can only come by experience.
One thing you can be certain about , is that making a committment to buying this book is worth the risk.
www.gospelcom.net/ivpress/title/rev/2237.html
Brandon
Hurt people...hurt people.
Edited by - BBBCanada on 03/10/2002 5:50:12 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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