Bauman | Fortress Theology and the Mirage of Paradox

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“[What] we often mean by 'education' is nothing more than some supposedly acceptable indoctrination.” —Richard Mitchell, The Gift of Fire “If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” —C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity “The basic choice is the same: to think or not to think.” —Nathaniel Branden, "Social Metaphysics"	Fortress Theology and the Mirage of Paradox I doubt that theology,1 as God sees it, entails unresolvable paradox.2 That is another way of saying that any theology that sees it or includes it is mistaken. If God does not see theological endeavor as innately or irremediably paradoxical, that is because it is not. Paradox is not a phenomenon natural to theology. Theological paradox is a mirage. When we see it — or think we do — we may be assured that somewhere along the theological path we have taken at least one wrong turn. Things theological begin to look like things paradoxical only because we have led ourselves into a hall of mirrors. We have a very good excuse for our distorted perceptions: we ourselves are distorted. When a theologian tells me that certain theological propositions appear paradoxical to us because we operate with a fallen intellect, that theologian is right. In that light, the theologian, not theology itself, leads us into the cul-de-sac. And, the theologian had better get us out, or at least try. Therefore, I admire those theologians who, once they reach a dead end, back up the bus and try another route. That theologian may find himself in a dead end once again, or he may find the one route that leads out of the maze. That route does exist. God, at any rate, seems to have found it. While it may be that we never will, we ought to continue to try. Some theologians, however, being either unable or unwilling to pursue their quarry any further, become entrenched in paradox. They learn to tolerate unremedied paradox when unremedied paradox should be shunned. Perhaps they do so because to them the prospect of going back (perhaps even to the beginning) is too unsettling and too daunting. Rather than striking out in a new direction, or rather than pioneering through uncharted territories in search of the doctrinal Northwest passage,3 they hunker down and plant settlements in comfortable valleys, having decided at last that they will never reach the sea, or even continue to try. They have forgotten that, in this case, it is better to travel hopefully and never to arrive than to settle prematurely. To that extent, then, their theological settlements are a failure of nerve. Fatigue and uncertainty have made it seem more desirable to plant roots than to look around one more doctrinal bend or to climb up and peer over one more theological hill. The spirit of pioneering thus gives way to the spirit of dogmatism. Once a pioneer becomes a settler, he starts to build fences. Fences are soon replaced by walls and walls by forts. The pilgrimage has become a settlement, and those within the walls become suspicious of those without. Outsiders think differently, talk differently, act differently. To justify their suspicions, settlement theologians begin to think that they belong in doctrinal fortresses. They develop what I call the “Ebenezer doctrine.” “Was it not the map of God — our Bibles — that led us here?" they ask. In one sense, of course, they are right. The Bible did, in fact, lead them this far. But not the Bible only. Their misreading of it is what led them into the valley of paradox. Their lack of strength and their insecurity led them to settle there and to build a fort. In despair of ever finding their way to the sea, and discouraged by the prospect of going back, they traded their theological tents for creedal tenements and their doctrinal backpacks for dogmatic bungalows. Travelling mercies were exchanged for staying mercies. That is because Fortress Theologians interpret the intellectual security they have erected for themselves as the blessing of God. The perceived blessing of God becomes to them the perceived will of God. “Hitherto the Lord has led us” becomes not only their reason for staying, but also for fighting. They become the victims of a beseiged mentality nurtured on autointoxication. Those who settle elsewhere, or those who do not settle at all, are perceived to militate against the truth of God. They must be stopped, the fortress dwellers believe. If the settlers had their way, none of us would reach the golden sea. Only there, on that distant shore, should we plant our flag, with an entire continent of theological exploration behind us and the ocean of infinity throwing waves at our feet. Only after we've seen the sun setting beyond a watery horizon, only after we've awaken to the smell of salt air and the sight and sound of sea otters playing on wet rocks, can we cease our theological quest. Lewis and Clark did not gain fame for quitting in St. Louis. Columbus did not turn back at the Canary Islands. Theologians who settle in the valley of paradox do not deserve acclaim. Nor ought they to be dogmatic. Any theology that lives comfortably with paradox cannot be labelled “the whole counsel of God.” Those that advertise their systems in this way — I could cite examples — give evidence by doing so that they are settlers now, and pioneers no longer.4 I believe such theological premature closure is due not only to the emotional weaknesses to which we theologians are subject as fallen people, but also to the systems of thought we adopt. Before I say anything else, I want to say that although I am aware that every theological traveller must proceed according to some method, or some system, I am wary of systems. They are necessary for controlled navigation. In that way they are good. But, theological systems also tend not to accommodate the unexpected, the exceptional, and the untimely — things that can be crucial to our continued theological progress. That is, rather than facing an odd fact in all its rigid wildness, they domesticate it; they tame it; they shave it down and plant it foursquare in the middle of their mental settlement. By assimilating an odd and unruly fact in this deplorable fashion, these systems have made that fact something other than itself. Theologically speaking, one of the worst possible things that could happen has happened: the road signs have been changed to fit the route as it exists in the head of the traveller, rather than vice versa. Mental maps ought to be shaped by the landscape, not the other way round. By such “faith,” some systematicians have been saying to this mountain, “Be thou removed, and be thou tossed into the sea,” and it has been done, all by divine promise, they flatter themselves to think. But, such a topographical rearrangement of the theological terrain was not included in the divine intention that we should have dominion over the earth and subdue it. We ought to abandon our theological earth movers, get out our compasses once again, and rediscover magnetic north. Fortress Theologians are dangerous because they are trying to do the inadvisable, if not the impossible. They are trying to reduce the multifarious complexities of God and his universe to the truncated confines of their own mental paradigm,5 despite the fact that the world and its Architect resolutely resist that sort of reduction. Fortress Theologians want to be map makers before they have truly been explorers. Nevertheless, exploration precedes cartography. Cartographers need to know the lay of the land before they try to reduce it to scale for drawing. In the same way, exegesis precedes Systematics. In that light, Fortress Theologians offer a pre-fabricated structure in which to place one’s theological beliefs, but they offer no viable method whereby one could actually do good theology. Their pedagogy says that about them. So long as they reduce training in doctrine to indoctrination they shall remain, and continue to produce, Fortress Theologians who are unable to extend the frontiers of theological truth. In the meantime, theological endeavor suffers because we do not need more or stronger doctrinal fortresses; we need more viable theological procedures. Put another way, I fear the theological system that has a life and mind of its own. No theological system ought to be allowed to do the work of exegesis, for example. But they do. Hard data are not explained, just explained away. Rather than the theologian having a theology, the theology has him.6 Such systems, rather than being supple and pliable, become omnivorous. They do not take the shape of the data's mold into which they ought to fit. Rather, in what looks like a feeding frenzy of cognitive dissonance, they devour every uncomfortable bit of external opposition. They beat them, grind them, and soften them until they are sufficiently palatable, and then they eat them.7 Theological systems, if they are not kept perpetually humble, will become incurably expansionistic. Theological systems, if not held in check, if not continually made receptive and teachable, will become imperialistic. They will colonize every fact, compatible or not, that presents itself.8 Left uncontrolled, they operate like cancer. The surest sign that a theology is out of control occurs when that theological system itself becomes the theological method, which is the hallmark of Fortress Theology. In such cases, that system usurps many prerogatives not rightly its own. That system not only colonizes biblical exegesis, it becomes its own measure of truth. What does not fit cannot be fact. If it does not fit and Fortress Theologians want it to fit, they make it fit. I say it fearfully: the worst thing about such theological methods is that they are almost always implemented unwittingly. Few theologians, if any, would either admit to the practice or endorse it. Most theologians, however, if not all, do it — me included. When we do so we fail. We must not allow our theology to be turned into a hermeneutic. We have things exactly backwards when we make external reality subject to our own particular brand of theology. In that light, I have not tried to produce a systematic theology as much as I have tried to employ a useful method for theologizing, a method that keeps its eyes and ears open, a method that is, so far as I can keep it so, more suitable for the theological traveller than the theological settler. That method encompasses several elements. First, I like the intense biblicism of John Milton. When he compiled his De doctrina christiana, he did so by making frequent recourse to the actual words of Scripture. Milton was offended by the theologians he had read who filled their books with their own ideas and crowded their Scripture references out into the margins or down into the footnotes.9 His own text, he was determined, would be comprised far more largely from the Bible itself. He employed this tactic because he was averse to incorporating any of the “sophistical subtleties” he thought had disfigured theology for many centuries. Insofar as he was able, he tried to ensure that his Christian doctrine was “drawn from the sacred scriptures alone.”10 While I do not believe that he succeeded, I am, nevertheless, impressed by his attempt. As massively biblicistic as Calvin’s Institutes is, Milton’s De doctrina christiana is more so. Calvin, for example, made a recognizable allusion to the Bible more than 5,000 times in his systematic theology. In his own somewhat smaller work, Milton reverted to Scripture more than 9,000 times. (One begins to be staggered by Milton’s biblicism even more when one recalls that his book was given its final form in his period of blindness.) To say that I admire Milton’s attempt to be biblical is not to say that I subscribe either to his views or to his misguided brand of biblicism. Unlike Milton, I do not believe in Arianism, materialism, mortalism, or polygamy — positions he thought the Bible upheld. To a great extent, Milton's attempt failed because his biblicism was sometimes of a superficial sort. He was the champion proof-texter. Being truly biblical entails much more than lining up 800 Bible verses back-to-back, as Milton does when he tries to prove that the Son is not God. On that count, I number myself among Milton’s detractors. Unlike some of his detractors, however, I can feel the weight of his arguments and appreciate the grand, even heroic, scale of his effort. I have learned to learn from Milton, even when he is wrong, because even when he is mistaken, he is often brilliant. Put succinctly, after reading Milton I am heartened and I am humbled. I, too, want to be true to the revelation of God in Scripture, but I know I am liable to error. Error prone as I am, I know that I must not build theological fortresses on ground that, upon divine inspection, proves to be shifting sand. However well I try to prop it up, a fortress built there will crumble. But biblical I must try to be. Second, I like the methodological skepticism of Descartes. By bringing all things before the bar of private judgment and doubt, Descartes was unintentionally acknowledging that while truth is singular, error is multiform. It is far easier to be wrong than right, and there are far more ways to be it. In other words, while many paths lead into the woods, only one leads through them. That being so, our first response to any alleged road sign must not be to race wildly or unthinkingly to where we imagine it points, but to ask ourselves why we ought to follow this alleged marker at all. We ought to begin, as a matter of course, by being skeptical because, as Vance Havner once said, “It’s better to believe a few things for certain than a whole lot of things that ain’t so.” Wisdom dictates that taking no turn at all is often better than taking the wrong one. Making sure of one’s marching orders is better than sleepwalking. Some theologians take this advice too far, however, and rather than being careful about where they go and to whom they listen, stop travelling altogether and set up a fort. About them I have already spoken. Here I simply say that it is better to move circumspectly than precipitously and that we ought to choose our counsellors and advisers carefully. Not every well-intentioned hand is actually a helping hand, though perhaps it is meant to be. Of course, I want to be open to help from whatever quarter it comes,11 but I want to do so in full recognition of the fact that to be skeptical is better than to be gullible. Faith must not be confused with an uncritical mind or method. In this regard, philosophy (whether Descartes’ or someone else’s) can be an exceedingly useful tool. But, like all such evaluative mechanisms, it must be handled with care. Regarding its usefulness for the Pilgrim Theologian, I want simultaneously to endorse philosophy and to identify its danger. Philosophy, doubtless, is one of the theologian's most serviceable tools, as well as one of his most seductive detours. It can help to establish the truth or validity of some of our beliefs, or it can serve to expose the errors of our adversaries. It can, in short, serve as a point of contact, or means of contact, between the believer and the unbeliever. But, though philosophy can be, it is not always (or even regularly) a preparation for faith. That is because while human beings are capable of reason, they are rarely reasonable. What goes by the name of reason is often not reason at all. What we misidentify as reason is occasionally the source of some of our most blinding error. That danger notwithstanding, however, right reason (as distinguished from reason falsely so called) is an indispensable means of searching for truth, even though on its own it is probably unable to escape incompleteness even when it does escape error. Put differently, while I believe that right reason leads to truth, I believe it must be employed — like all the tools of the Pilgrim Theologian — carefully, consistently, and in something of a negative or skeptical manner. In order to minimize its misuse, philosophy should be employed in two ways. The first, and perhaps best, use to which we can put philosophy is that use to which Socrates often put it: skeptical debunking. Philosophy can disabuse us and our opponents of intellectual hubris and baseless self-assurance because it can strip away error. In so doing, it can render its practitioners more teachable by exposing them as unenlightened. Philosophy’s second use is both less painful and more positive. While it may be, on its own, unable to supply us with much of the raw data we need for proper theologizing, philosophy is often unsurpassed in analyzing and organizing the data we have gleaned elsewhere and in other ways. Thus, with right reason as our pedagogue, we can acquire both the skeptical humility and the necessary powers of analysis that teach us to listen carefully to the truth before we venture to speak loudly on its behalf. But, before I proceed to my final point, I must add this important proviso, one that separates the methodological skepticism I endorse from the rampant skepticism that I do not.12 Methodological skepticism must be informed by, and tempered by, objectivism, the common sense belief and practice that the working relationship between mind and senses is fundamentally valid and reliable. That is, while much of what I hear identified as truth may be mislabeled, the normal function and interaction of mind and senses remain foundational to knowledge and to insight. Mind and senses are our window on the world. By them we come to know extra-mental reality, which is itself the umpire concerning the truth or error of our beliefs and assertions. The basic dependability of mind and senses (when they function normally) cannot be denied without self-contradiction and epistemological collapse.13 To deny the fundamental reliability of mind and senses is self-stultifying: such a denial can be based only upon the workings of one's mind and senses, the very validity of which the denier has rejected. The epistemology I here advocate, it seems to me, underlies the apostle John’s declaration to his readers that he was simply telling them about that which he himself had seen with his own eyes, heard with his own ears, and handled with his own hands concerning the Word of Life (1 John 1:1, 3). The philosophical and procedural prerequisite for any method of knowing is that it be as fully objective as possible. This does not exclude subjectivity, which, when practiced properly, entails bringing one’s own powers of mind and soul to bear upon the study of the object in view. But it does mean that, so far as it can be, the nature of the object itself is permitted to be the controlling factor in all study, not the desires and presuppositions of the investigator. Right and wrong, true and false, all are determined by the nature of the object under examination. They are what they are; they are not necessarily what we say they are, much less what we would like them to be. Our task is not to invent right and wrong, or true and false, de novo — that has already been done. Our task is to discover them where they already are. We are discoverers and explorers, not inventors. Because such objects exist outside us, because these objects are what they are quite independent of anything we might say about them (in fact, quite independent of whether we even existed at all in order to say anything about them), because there is, in other words, an objective reality susceptible to careful analysis and to meticulous scrutiny, (processes able to yield genuine knowledge about the world in which we live), rampant skepticism is out of court. But that is not all. Rampant skepticism is also inappropriate because, as H. H. Farmer, correctly observed, “behind all our discovery of religious truth, prior to it, explaining it, causing it, is God’s intention to make His truth known to us, God’s personal, purposeful, revealing energy in our lives... [W]e entirely misconceive religion if we do not understand that it is essentially a communion, a conversation between children and their father, in which the Father’s will and desire to impart are greater than, and prior to, the children’s will and desire to question and receive.”14 “The peculiarity of all vital religious discovery,” he continues, “is that it has always in it, not only this sense of you finding something, but also of something finding you — of an activity on the other side, as it were, a deliberate will probing into your life.”15 Unlike nature, God is not merely passive to our investigations. There is in theology, though not in natural science, an intentional unveiling by the object under scrutiny. In short, the process of theological knowing entails both the work of the mind, on the one hand, and God’s active desire to be known, on the other. Rampant skepticism is out of court because God can and does, so to speak, get His point across. We must never forget “the urgency of spiritual matters...to God.”16 In short, a time comes when we must doubt our doubts. Third, I like the theological tolerance of Erasmus. Like him, I prefer those who define things too little to those who define them too much. I do this not because I am opposed to mental restraints. I am not. I am opposed only to those restraints imposed by some of reality’s self-proclaimed but deluded proponents. I know those proponents are, like me, subject both to delusions of grandeur and to the temptation to dogmatize where confident assertion is sometimes neither possible nor right. A thinker like Erasmus understands quite well that the certainties and essentials in theology are few and that the uncertainties and peripherals are many, as unsettled as that might make us feel. Erasmus preferred to find comfort where it could be gotten to manufacturing his own artificial substitutes because he knew that synthetic comfort shelters a theologian not from the cold only, but also from reality. We do better to look at things as they are and not to flinch than to pull our blankets up over our heads. Theologians like Erasmus realize that the restoration of theology is best accomplished by a humble Christian heart searching for truth in a land of theological peace, not by interminable intercamp warfare. Theological exploration is a difficult, even dicey, matter at best, one that we must not complicate by shooting at other explorers. Giving aid and comfort and modest advice to fellow travellers is one thing; to treat them like the enemy is another. This is not to say we have no enemies. We do. A lot of us just don't know who they are, and we begin to shoot at anything that moves. We have forgotten, apparently, that not only does our enemy move, but so also do our fellow travellers. They could hardly be on a pilgrimage to truth otherwise. In short, we ought to be biblical, skeptical, objective, and tolerant. That is, while we have the record of the very revelation of God in our hands, we must remember it will always be interpreted and applied by our own fallible minds. It is infallible and indefectible; we are not. We try to walk and talk according to our Bibles — and we should. But, we are lame and lisping. To such guides as we have proven ourselves to be, the best response is to be skeptical about what we hear advanced as truth and open-minded and loving toward those who advance it. We ought to listen carefully to what we are told and to evaluate it according to the best workings of our mind and senses.17 But, in so doing, we ought never to lose our love and appreciation for those whose words and ideas we so carefully scrutinize. That, after all, is what we expect from them. In other words, I eschew paradox and I advocate a skeptical and tolerant biblicism, one that wrestles with problems until they are solved and that does not quit. And why not? “The field is so spacious that...if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time would end before my way.” End Notes 1 In this context, by “theology” I mean knowledge of God and its attendant implications. 2 The astute reader will soon discern that this sentence is the theological foundation upon which the argument of this chapter is based. For reasons I will explain later, I have tried to state this proposition in a mildly Cartesian manner, one that proceeds carefully according to the strictures of methodological doubt and non-contradiction. As I have stated it here, I believe this proposition is theologically necessary. That is, I do not see how or why one would affirm its inverse and continue to theologize. I also must point out that I do not believe that the resolution of theological paradox is possible only for Omniscience. To untie difficult doctrinal knots, one need not know everything, one need only know truly and sufficiently. Insight is required, not omniscience. The possession of a finite mind does not, of itself, necessitate the presence of unresolvable paradox. Though such resolutions might be quite difficult to find, and quite time consuming as well, they can, I believe, be identified, and if not here, then hereafter, when we know more things, but not all. In other words, we require more hard work, more perseverance, clearer thinking, and more data to extricate ourselves from our theological dilemmas, not all possible knowledge. Concerning the definition of paradox, G. C. Berkouwer, A Half Century of Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1977), 150, writes: “a little time in modern discussions of paradox reveals a wide variation in understanding of what paradox is. Indeed, we can speak of widespread confusion.” When I speak of paradox, therefore, the reader should understand that I speak of actual logical contradiction. I give no place here to the idea of “apparent contradiction,” which I consider a dangerous self-deception and an intellectual no-man’s land. When two or more ideas appear contradictory they must be considered to be contradictory until they are shown not to be. That is, things are to be thought of as what they seem to be unless and until it can be shown that the appearances are genuinely misleading. “Apparent contradiction” and “unresolved paradox” too often are euphemisms for the authentic contradictions we are unwilling to face because, were they acknowledged as genuine, would show that we are wrong. In theology, as in other disciplines, we must beware of every euphemism. Put differently, I consider the category of “apparent contradiction” often baseless and useless, at best, and downright misleading and deceptive, at worst. Ideas can be labeled “apparent contradiction” (and not “actual contradiction”) only if we can, in fact, reconcile or harmonize them. If we could do that, however, they would no longer appear contradictory. In some readers’ minds, the question might arise, does not Paul himself hunker down in, even glory in, unresolved paradox in passages like Romans 11:33ff? No, he does not. Paul's point is not that God's ways are paradoxical or that somehow they are utterly inexplicable — he has just spent three chapters explaining them. His point is that God's ways are not fully known by us, but, based upon what we do know of them, are worthy of our praise nevertheless. Furthermore, we must not confuse Paul's theological conclusions or his piety, both of which are present in the passage before us, with his sometimes unreconstructed rabbinic methodology. The former are authoritative, the latter is not. What he teaches, I believe. How he arrives at some of his conclusions, I reject. That contemplation of the ways of God ought to end in praise, as Paul's does here, I heartily endorse. That paradox ought to be part and parcel of our theological method cannot be justified by reference to this passage any more than allusions to Gal. 4:22ff can either justify or require us to interpret both Testaments allegorically. The inspiration of Scripture should not be construed to mean that the Biblical writers' theological methods are always normative. One final word about the Cartesian doubt alluded to at the beginning of this note. Descartes was an inconsistent doubter. He doubted himself back to virtual bedrock, and in that he did right. But what he built upon that rock was largely unserviceable because he stopped doubting the full trustworthiness of his own conclusions and built a great and faulty intellectual superstructure as a result. 3 The great advantage enjoyed by those of us who seek the doctrinal Northwest passage compared to those hardy pioneers who sought the water route to the Pacific is that the goal of our quest actually exists. Their goal did not. In stalking our prey, we are not hunting unicorns. 4 While I stand firmly against any theological position that enshrines a paradox (and then pietizes this error by reminding us that we walk by faith and not by sight), I am equally opposed to any attempt to resolve it improperly. For example, some theologians label the relationship between divine sovereignty, on the one hand, and human responsibility and freedom, on the other, a paradox. All too often, they attempt to resolve this difficulty by means of an exegetical sleight of hand. Some of the Calvinists and Arminians I have seen in action identify those Biblical passages that affirm their position as the more clear and more foundational passages and they label those that militate against their view as the unclear or “problem” passages. They then explain away the “difficult” data in light of the favorable data. Rather than explaining away half of the Biblical witness of an issue, they ought to let the Bible say what it says fully and strongly on both sides of the issue and then develop a theology that allows both sides to be fully true. That is, they ought to acknowledge that the Bible is, in some way, both Calvinistic and Arminian. They ought to acknowledge that divine sovereignty and human freedom are not mutually exclusive concepts (If they were mutually exclusive, and if the Bible taught both, the the Bible would not be inerrant.) and that this issue does not reduce to an either/or option. Inspiration is perhaps a useful parallel issue here. We say that the Bible is the Word of God in the words of men. That means that while we say that David wrote Psalm 51, we do not say that God did not. It is true to say both that David wrote the text in question and that God did. The options are not mutually exclusive. The same conclusion applies to the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. To say that God was active in the salvation of a sinner is not to say that the sinner must therefore be passive. That sinners are active agents in their own destiny is not a denigration or denial of grace. 5 As Gilbert Highet observes, Man's Unconquerable Mind (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), 57: “The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same, and they always work on the same principle. They find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to impose that on all thinking people.” Edward Carnell identifies the distortive dangers that attach to excessive systematization thus: “Whenever a systematic theologian becomes too systematic, he ends up falsifying some aspect of revelation.” Christian Commitment: An Apologetic (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 285. 6 My language here is not gender specific and should not be read as such. I speak here not of the theologian’s sex. I am well aware that women can be theologians too, and that they are equally subject to this theological failing. I do not exclude them. I employ the masculine pronoun throughout this text according to its traditional usage. Nothing chauvinistic is implied or communicated. Furthermore, as I will argue in chapter twelve, one must not misconstrue grammatical gender or intentionally generic language as gender specific. They are not. Grammatical gender must not be identified with sex. One does not make a chauvinist statement when referring to a theologian generically as “he” anymore than when one characterizes a nation, a ship, or liberty as “she.” As a literary critic and an author, I hasten to add also that I deplore the use of the ungainly “he/she” device. Our language is a clumsy enough vehicle already without burdening it further simply to satisfy the demands of a linguistic special interest group intent on misreading someone else’s words and attributing to that author a sexist content and intent he disavows. 7 For a critique of unfairly manipulating data as an immunization strategy designed to ward off an opponent's objections, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 56-58. The same point is made by Helmut Thielicke, African Diary: My Search for Understanding (Waco: Word, 1974), 31: “One cannot dispute with ideologues because their thinking does not deal with questions of truth, but rather with an interest that must be defended, come what may.” 8 The same could be said of almost every intellectual system in almost every intellectual discipline, if left to its own. 9 John Milton, Complete Prose Works of John Milton (8 vols), Gen. Ed. Don M. Wolfe, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953-1982), vol. 6, 122. 10 Ibid., 125. 11 I think here of Ben Jonson’s astute observation that no man is so foolish but that he may not sometimes give good counsel. Nor is any man so wise but that he may easily err if he will refuse all counsel but his own. 12 In opposition to such rampant skepticism, C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1967), 60-61, writes: “. . . the view in question is just the view that human thought is not true, not a reflection of reality. And this view is itself a thought. In other words, we are asking ‘Is the thought that no thoughts are true, itself true?’ If we answer Yes, we contradict ourselves. For if all thoughts are untrue, then this thought is untrue.” “There is therefore no question of a total scepticism about human thought. We are always prevented from accepting total scepticism because it can be formulated only by making a tacit exception in favour of the thought we are thinking at the moment — just as the man who warns the newcomer 'Don't trust anyone in this office' always expects you to trust him at that moment... However small the class, some class of thoughts must be regarded not as mere facts about the way human brains work, but as true insights, as the reflection of reality in human consciousness.” 13 See Ayn Rand, “Kant Versus Sullivan,” in Philosophy: Who Needs It (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1982) and Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (New York: New American Library, 1966/1967). The hermeneutical equivalent of this epistemology is (unintentionally) set out in C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961/1979). 14 Herbert H Farmer, Things Not Seen: Studies in the Christian Interpretation of Life (London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1927/1948), 35, 36. 15 Ibid., 37, 38. 16 Ibid., 45. 17 As Owen Barfield explains, Speaker's Meaning (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1967), 99-100: “...it may be that I shall have to abandon my inescapable conclusions, go back to the beginning, and set about finding out where I went wrong. But before I go to those lengths I shall want to examine very carefully exactly what it is my informant has established; and, when I have done that, I shall want to use my own judgment, not his, in deciding whether it is in fact incompatible with my own conclusion. This is likely to involve distinguishing rather ruthlessly between the observed facts and the theories erected on them... I shall want to examine the theories themselves as theories.”	“‘You all know,’ said the Guide, ‘that security is mortals’ greatest enemy.” —C. S. Lewis "The sure traveller, Though he alight sometimes still goeth on." —George Herbert “...the pilgrim must be headed back from the side paths into which he is constantly wandering.” —George MacDonald “I learned to go right, even when I went astray.” —Francis Beaumont “No matter where one goes, it often looks as if a great many theologians lack the courage to travel the road of theology to the end.” —Hendrikus Berkhof “Systematization is always the enemy of true theology.” —Karl Barth
	Copyright © 2006. Michael Bauman. All rights reserved.	Date modified: 5 July 2006 Peek-a-boos

I doubt that theology,1 as God sees it, entails unresolvable paradox.2 That is another way of saying that any theology that sees it or includes it is mistaken. If God does not see theological endeavor as innately or irremediably paradoxical, that is because it is not. Paradox is not a phenomenon natural to theology. Theological paradox is a mirage. When we see it — or think we do — we may be assured that somewhere along the theological path we have taken at least one wrong turn. Things theological begin to look like things paradoxical only because we have led ourselves into a hall of mirrors.

We have a very good excuse for our distorted perceptions: we ourselves are distorted. When a theologian tells me that certain theological propositions appear paradoxical to us because we operate with a fallen intellect, that theologian is right. In that light, the theologian, not theology itself, leads us into the cul-de-sac. And, the theologian had better get us out, or at least try.

Therefore, I admire those theologians who, once they reach a dead end, back up the bus and try another route. That theologian may find himself in a dead end once again, or he may find the one route that leads out of the maze. That route does exist. God, at any rate, seems to have found it. While it may be that we never will, we ought to continue to try. Some theologians, however, being either unable or unwilling to pursue their quarry any further, become entrenched in paradox. They learn to tolerate unremedied paradox when unremedied paradox should be shunned. Perhaps they do so because to them the prospect of going back (perhaps even to the beginning) is too unsettling and too daunting. Rather than striking out in a new direction, or rather than pioneering through uncharted territories in search of the doctrinal Northwest passage,3 they hunker down and plant settlements in comfortable valleys, having decided at last that they will never reach the sea, or even continue to try. They have forgotten that, in this case, it is better to travel hopefully and never to arrive than to settle prematurely. To that extent, then, their theological settlements are a failure of nerve. Fatigue and uncertainty have made it seem more desirable to plant roots than to look around one more doctrinal bend or to climb up and peer over one more theological hill. The spirit of pioneering thus gives way to the spirit of dogmatism.

Once a pioneer becomes a settler, he starts to build fences. Fences are soon replaced by walls and walls by forts. The pilgrimage has become a settlement, and those within the walls become suspicious of those without. Outsiders think differently, talk differently, act differently. To justify their suspicions, settlement theologians begin to think that they belong in doctrinal fortresses. They develop what I call the “Ebenezer doctrine.” “Was it not the map of God — our Bibles — that led us here?" they ask. In one sense, of course, they are right. The Bible did, in fact, lead them this far. But not the Bible only. Their misreading of it is what led them into the valley of paradox. Their lack of strength and their insecurity led them to settle there and to build a fort. In despair of ever finding their way to the sea, and discouraged by the prospect of going back, they traded their theological tents for creedal tenements and their doctrinal backpacks for dogmatic bungalows. Travelling mercies were exchanged for staying mercies. That is because Fortress Theologians interpret the intellectual security they have erected for themselves as the blessing of God. The perceived blessing of God becomes to them the perceived will of God. “Hitherto the Lord has led us” becomes not only their reason for staying, but also for fighting. They become the victims of a beseiged mentality nurtured on autointoxication. Those who settle elsewhere, or those who do not settle at all, are perceived to militate against the truth of God. They must be stopped, the fortress dwellers believe. If the settlers had their way, none of us would reach the golden sea. Only there, on that distant shore, should we plant our flag, with an entire continent of theological exploration behind us and the ocean of infinity throwing waves at our feet. Only after we've seen the sun setting beyond a watery horizon, only after we've awaken to the smell of salt air and the sight and sound of sea otters playing on wet rocks, can we cease our theological quest. Lewis and Clark did not gain fame for quitting in St. Louis. Columbus did not turn back at the Canary Islands. Theologians who settle in the valley of paradox do not deserve acclaim.

Nor ought they to be dogmatic. Any theology that lives comfortably with paradox cannot be labelled “the whole counsel of God.” Those that advertise their systems in this way — I could cite examples — give evidence by doing so that they are settlers now, and pioneers no longer.4

I believe such theological premature closure is due not only to the emotional weaknesses to which we theologians are subject as fallen people, but also to the systems of thought we adopt. Before I say anything else, I want to say that although I am aware that every theological traveller must proceed according to some method, or some system, I am wary of systems. They are necessary for controlled navigation. In that way they are good. But, theological systems also tend not to accommodate the unexpected, the exceptional, and the untimely — things that can be crucial to our continued theological progress. That is, rather than facing an odd fact in all its rigid wildness, they domesticate it; they tame it; they shave it down and plant it foursquare in the middle of their mental settlement. By assimilating an odd and unruly fact in this deplorable fashion, these systems have made that fact something other than itself. Theologically speaking, one of the worst possible things that could happen has happened: the road signs have been changed to fit the route as it exists in the head of the traveller, rather than vice versa. Mental maps ought to be shaped by the landscape, not the other way round. By such “faith,” some systematicians have been saying to this mountain, “Be thou removed, and be thou tossed into the sea,” and it has been done, all by divine promise, they flatter themselves to think. But, such a topographical rearrangement of the theological terrain was not included in the divine intention that we should have dominion over the earth and subdue it. We ought to abandon our theological earth movers, get out our compasses once again, and rediscover magnetic north.

Fortress Theologians are dangerous because they are trying to do the inadvisable, if not the impossible. They are trying to reduce the multifarious complexities of God and his universe to the truncated confines of their own mental paradigm,5 despite the fact that the world and its Architect resolutely resist that sort of reduction. Fortress Theologians want to be map makers before they have truly been explorers. Nevertheless, exploration precedes cartography. Cartographers need to know the lay of the land before they try to reduce it to scale for drawing. In the same way, exegesis precedes Systematics. In that light, Fortress Theologians offer a pre-fabricated structure in which to place one’s theological beliefs, but they offer no viable method whereby one could actually do good theology. Their pedagogy says that about them. So long as they reduce training in doctrine to indoctrination they shall remain, and continue to produce, Fortress Theologians who are unable to extend the frontiers of theological truth. In the meantime, theological endeavor suffers because we do not need more or stronger doctrinal fortresses; we need more viable theological procedures.

Put another way, I fear the theological system that has a life and mind of its own. No theological system ought to be allowed to do the work of exegesis, for example. But they do. Hard data are not explained, just explained away. Rather than the theologian having a theology, the theology has him.6 Such systems, rather than being supple and pliable, become omnivorous. They do not take the shape of the data's mold into which they ought to fit. Rather, in what looks like a feeding frenzy of cognitive dissonance, they devour every uncomfortable bit of external opposition. They beat them, grind them, and soften them until they are sufficiently palatable, and then they eat them.7 Theological systems, if they are not kept perpetually humble, will become incurably expansionistic. Theological systems, if not held in check, if not continually made receptive and teachable, will become imperialistic. They will colonize every fact, compatible or not, that presents itself.8 Left uncontrolled, they operate like cancer.

The surest sign that a theology is out of control occurs when that theological system itself becomes the theological method, which is the hallmark of Fortress Theology. In such cases, that system usurps many prerogatives not rightly its own. That system not only colonizes biblical exegesis, it becomes its own measure of truth. What does not fit cannot be fact. If it does not fit and Fortress Theologians want it to fit, they make it fit. I say it fearfully: the worst thing about such theological methods is that they are almost always implemented unwittingly. Few theologians, if any, would either admit to the practice or endorse it. Most theologians, however, if not all, do it — me included. When we do so we fail. We must not allow our theology to be turned into a hermeneutic. We have things exactly backwards when we make external reality subject to our own particular brand of theology.

In that light, I have not tried to produce a systematic theology as much as I have tried to employ a useful method for theologizing, a method that keeps its eyes and ears open, a method that is, so far as I can keep it so, more suitable for the theological traveller than the theological settler. That method encompasses several elements.

First, I like the intense biblicism of John Milton. When he compiled his De doctrina christiana, he did so by making frequent recourse to the actual words of Scripture. Milton was offended by the theologians he had read who filled their books with their own ideas and crowded their Scripture references out into the margins or down into the footnotes.9 His own text, he was determined, would be comprised far more largely from the Bible itself. He employed this tactic because he was averse to incorporating any of the “sophistical subtleties” he thought had disfigured theology for many centuries. Insofar as he was able, he tried to ensure that his Christian doctrine was “drawn from the sacred scriptures alone.”10 While I do not believe that he succeeded, I am, nevertheless, impressed by his attempt. As massively biblicistic as Calvin’s Institutes is, Milton’s De doctrina christiana is more so. Calvin, for example, made a recognizable allusion to the Bible more than 5,000 times in his systematic theology. In his own somewhat smaller work, Milton reverted to Scripture more than 9,000 times. (One begins to be staggered by Milton’s biblicism even more when one recalls that his book was given its final form in his period of blindness.)

To say that I admire Milton’s attempt to be biblical is not to say that I subscribe either to his views or to his misguided brand of biblicism. Unlike Milton, I do not believe in Arianism, materialism, mortalism, or polygamy — positions he thought the Bible upheld. To a great extent, Milton's attempt failed because his biblicism was sometimes of a superficial sort. He was the champion proof-texter. Being truly biblical entails much more than lining up 800 Bible verses back-to-back, as Milton does when he tries to prove that the Son is not God. On that count, I number myself among Milton’s detractors. Unlike some of his detractors, however, I can feel the weight of his arguments and appreciate the grand, even heroic, scale of his effort. I have learned to learn from Milton, even when he is wrong, because even when he is mistaken, he is often brilliant. Put succinctly, after reading Milton I am heartened and I am humbled. I, too, want to be true to the revelation of God in Scripture, but I know I am liable to error. Error prone as I am, I know that I must not build theological fortresses on ground that, upon divine inspection, proves to be shifting sand. However well I try to prop it up, a fortress built there will crumble. But biblical I must try to be.

Second, I like the methodological skepticism of Descartes. By bringing all things before the bar of private judgment and doubt, Descartes was unintentionally acknowledging that while truth is singular, error is multiform. It is far easier to be wrong than right, and there are far more ways to be it. In other words, while many paths lead into the woods, only one leads through them. That being so, our first response to any alleged road sign must not be to race wildly or unthinkingly to where we imagine it points, but to ask ourselves why we ought to follow this alleged marker at all. We ought to begin, as a matter of course, by being skeptical because, as Vance Havner once said, “It’s better to believe a few things for certain than a whole lot of things that ain’t so.”

Wisdom dictates that taking no turn at all is often better than taking the wrong one. Making sure of one’s marching orders is better than sleepwalking. Some theologians take this advice too far, however, and rather than being careful about where they go and to whom they listen, stop travelling altogether and set up a fort. About them I have already spoken. Here I simply say that it is better to move circumspectly than precipitously and that we ought to choose our counsellors and advisers carefully. Not every well-intentioned hand is actually a helping hand, though perhaps it is meant to be. Of course, I want to be open to help from whatever quarter it comes,11 but I want to do so in full recognition of the fact that to be skeptical is better than to be gullible. Faith must not be confused with an uncritical mind or method. In this regard, philosophy (whether Descartes’ or someone else’s) can be an exceedingly useful tool. But, like all such evaluative mechanisms, it must be handled with care.

Regarding its usefulness for the Pilgrim Theologian, I want simultaneously to endorse philosophy and to identify its danger. Philosophy, doubtless, is one of the theologian's most serviceable tools, as well as one of his most seductive detours. It can help to establish the truth or validity of some of our beliefs, or it can serve to expose the errors of our adversaries. It can, in short, serve as a point of contact, or means of contact, between the believer and the unbeliever. But, though philosophy can be, it is not always (or even regularly) a preparation for faith. That is because while human beings are capable of reason, they are rarely reasonable. What goes by the name of reason is often not reason at all. What we misidentify as reason is occasionally the source of some of our most blinding error. That danger notwithstanding, however, right reason (as distinguished from reason falsely so called) is an indispensable means of searching for truth, even though on its own it is probably unable to escape incompleteness even when it does escape error.

Put differently, while I believe that right reason leads to truth, I believe it must be employed — like all the tools of the Pilgrim Theologian — carefully, consistently, and in something of a negative or skeptical manner. In order to minimize its misuse, philosophy should be employed in two ways. The first, and perhaps best, use to which we can put philosophy is that use to which Socrates often put it: skeptical debunking. Philosophy can disabuse us and our opponents of intellectual hubris and baseless self-assurance because it can strip away error. In so doing, it can render its practitioners more teachable by exposing them as unenlightened. Philosophy’s second use is both less painful and more positive. While it may be, on its own, unable to supply us with much of the raw data we need for proper theologizing, philosophy is often unsurpassed in analyzing and organizing the data we have gleaned elsewhere and in other ways. Thus, with right reason as our pedagogue, we can acquire both the skeptical humility and the necessary powers of analysis that teach us to listen carefully to the truth before we venture to speak loudly on its behalf.

But, before I proceed to my final point, I must add this important proviso, one that separates the methodological skepticism I endorse from the rampant skepticism that I do not.12 Methodological skepticism must be informed by, and tempered by, objectivism, the common sense belief and practice that the working relationship between mind and senses is fundamentally valid and reliable. That is, while much of what I hear identified as truth may be mislabeled, the normal function and interaction of mind and senses remain foundational to knowledge and to insight. Mind and senses are our window on the world. By them we come to know extra-mental reality, which is itself the umpire concerning the truth or error of our beliefs and assertions. The basic dependability of mind and senses (when they function normally) cannot be denied without self-contradiction and epistemological collapse.13 To deny the fundamental reliability of mind and senses is self-stultifying: such a denial can be based only upon the workings of one's mind and senses, the very validity of which the denier has rejected. The epistemology I here advocate, it seems to me, underlies the apostle John’s declaration to his readers that he was simply telling them about that which he himself had seen with his own eyes, heard with his own ears, and handled with his own hands concerning the Word of Life (1 John 1:1, 3).

The philosophical and procedural prerequisite for any method of knowing is that it be as fully objective as possible. This does not exclude subjectivity, which, when practiced properly, entails bringing one’s own powers of mind and soul to bear upon the study of the object in view. But it does mean that, so far as it can be, the nature of the object itself is permitted to be the controlling factor in all study, not the desires and presuppositions of the investigator. Right and wrong, true and false, all are determined by the nature of the object under examination. They are what they are; they are not necessarily what we say they are, much less what we would like them to be. Our task is not to invent right and wrong, or true and false, de novo — that has already been done. Our task is to discover them where they already are. We are discoverers and explorers, not inventors. Because such objects exist outside us, because these objects are what they are quite independent of anything we might say about them (in fact, quite independent of whether we even existed at all in order to say anything about them), because there is, in other words, an objective reality susceptible to careful analysis and to meticulous scrutiny, (processes able to yield genuine knowledge about the world in which we live), rampant skepticism is out of court.

But that is not all. Rampant skepticism is also inappropriate because, as H. H. Farmer, correctly observed,

“behind all our discovery of religious truth, prior to it, explaining it, causing it, is God’s intention to make His truth known to us, God’s personal, purposeful, revealing energy in our lives... [W]e entirely misconceive religion if we do not understand that it is essentially a communion, a conversation between children and their father, in which the Father’s will and desire to impart are greater than, and prior to, the children’s will and desire to question and receive.”14

“The peculiarity of all vital religious discovery,” he continues, “is that it has always in it, not only this sense of you finding something, but also of something finding you — of an activity on the other side, as it were, a deliberate will probing into your life.”15 Unlike nature, God is not merely passive to our investigations. There is in theology, though not in natural science, an intentional unveiling by the object under scrutiny. In short, the process of theological knowing entails both the work of the mind, on the one hand, and God’s active desire to be known, on the other. Rampant skepticism is out of court because God can and does, so to speak, get His point across. We must never forget “the urgency of spiritual matters...to God.”16

Third, I like the theological tolerance of Erasmus. Like him, I prefer those who define things too little to those who define them too much. I do this not because I am opposed to mental restraints. I am not. I am opposed only to those restraints imposed by some of reality’s self-proclaimed but deluded proponents. I know those proponents are, like me, subject both to delusions of grandeur and to the temptation to dogmatize where confident assertion is sometimes neither possible nor right. A thinker like Erasmus understands quite well that the certainties and essentials in theology are few and that the uncertainties and peripherals are many, as unsettled as that might make us feel. Erasmus preferred to find comfort where it could be gotten to manufacturing his own artificial substitutes because he knew that synthetic comfort shelters a theologian not from the cold only, but also from reality. We do better to look at things as they are and not to flinch than to pull our blankets up over our heads. Theologians like Erasmus realize that the restoration of theology is best accomplished by a humble Christian heart searching for truth in a land of theological peace, not by interminable intercamp warfare. Theological exploration is a difficult, even dicey, matter at best, one that we must not complicate by shooting at other explorers. Giving aid and comfort and modest advice to fellow travellers is one thing; to treat them like the enemy is another. This is not to say we have no enemies. We do. A lot of us just don't know who they are, and we begin to shoot at anything that moves. We have forgotten, apparently, that not only does our enemy move, but so also do our fellow travellers. They could hardly be on a pilgrimage to truth otherwise.

In short, we ought to be biblical, skeptical, objective, and tolerant. That is, while we have the record of the very revelation of God in our hands, we must remember it will always be interpreted and applied by our own fallible minds. It is infallible and indefectible; we are not. We try to walk and talk according to our Bibles — and we should. But, we are lame and lisping. To such guides as we have proven ourselves to be, the best response is to be skeptical about what we hear advanced as truth and open-minded and loving toward those who advance it. We ought to listen carefully to what we are told and to evaluate it according to the best workings of our mind and senses.17 But, in so doing, we ought never to lose our love and appreciation for those whose words and ideas we so carefully scrutinize. That, after all, is what we expect from them.

In other words, I eschew paradox and I advocate a skeptical and tolerant biblicism, one that wrestles with problems until they are solved and that does not quit. And why not? “The field is so spacious that...if I should spend all my pilgrimage in this walk, my time would end before my way.”

1 In this context, by “theology” I mean knowledge of God and its attendant implications.

2 The astute reader will soon discern that this sentence is the theological foundation upon which the argument of this chapter is based. For reasons I will explain later, I have tried to state this proposition in a mildly Cartesian manner, one that proceeds carefully according to the strictures of methodological doubt and non-contradiction. As I have stated it here, I believe this proposition is theologically necessary. That is, I do not see how or why one would affirm its inverse and continue to theologize. I also must point out that I do not believe that the resolution of theological paradox is possible only for Omniscience. To untie difficult doctrinal knots, one need not know everything, one need only know truly and sufficiently. Insight is required, not omniscience. The possession of a finite mind does not, of itself, necessitate the presence of unresolvable paradox. Though such resolutions might be quite difficult to find, and quite time consuming as well, they can, I believe, be identified, and if not here, then hereafter, when we know more things, but not all. In other words, we require more hard work, more perseverance, clearer thinking, and more data to extricate ourselves from our theological dilemmas, not all possible knowledge.

Concerning the definition of paradox, G. C. Berkouwer, A Half Century of Theology (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1977), 150, writes: “a little time in modern discussions of paradox reveals a wide variation in understanding of what paradox is. Indeed, we can speak of widespread confusion.” When I speak of paradox, therefore, the reader should understand that I speak of actual logical contradiction. I give no place here to the idea of “apparent contradiction,” which I consider a dangerous self-deception and an intellectual no-man’s land. When two or more ideas appear contradictory they must be considered to be contradictory until they are shown not to be. That is, things are to be thought of as what they seem to be unless and until it can be shown that the appearances are genuinely misleading. “Apparent contradiction” and “unresolved paradox” too often are euphemisms for the authentic contradictions we are unwilling to face because, were they acknowledged as genuine, would show that we are wrong. In theology, as in other disciplines, we must beware of every euphemism.

Put differently, I consider the category of “apparent contradiction” often baseless and useless, at best, and downright misleading and deceptive, at worst. Ideas can be labeled “apparent contradiction” (and not “actual contradiction”) only if we can, in fact, reconcile or harmonize them. If we could do that, however, they would no longer appear contradictory.

In some readers’ minds, the question might arise, does not Paul himself hunker down in, even glory in, unresolved paradox in passages like Romans 11:33ff? No, he does not. Paul's point is not that God's ways are paradoxical or that somehow they are utterly inexplicable — he has just spent three chapters explaining them. His point is that God's ways are not fully known by us, but, based upon what we do know of them, are worthy of our praise nevertheless. Furthermore, we must not confuse Paul's theological conclusions or his piety, both of which are present in the passage before us, with his sometimes unreconstructed rabbinic methodology. The former are authoritative, the latter is not. What he teaches, I believe. How he arrives at some of his conclusions, I reject. That contemplation of the ways of God ought to end in praise, as Paul's does here, I heartily endorse. That paradox ought to be part and parcel of our theological method cannot be justified by reference to this passage any more than allusions to Gal. 4:22ff can either justify or require us to interpret both Testaments allegorically. The inspiration of Scripture should not be construed to mean that the Biblical writers' theological methods are always normative.

One final word about the Cartesian doubt alluded to at the beginning of this note. Descartes was an inconsistent doubter. He doubted himself back to virtual bedrock, and in that he did right. But what he built upon that rock was largely unserviceable because he stopped doubting the full trustworthiness of his own conclusions and built a great and faulty intellectual superstructure as a result.

3 The great advantage enjoyed by those of us who seek the doctrinal Northwest passage compared to those hardy pioneers who sought the water route to the Pacific is that the goal of our quest actually exists. Their goal did not. In stalking our prey, we are not hunting unicorns.

4 While I stand firmly against any theological position that enshrines a paradox (and then pietizes this error by reminding us that we walk by faith and not by sight), I am equally opposed to any attempt to resolve it improperly. For example, some theologians label the relationship between divine sovereignty, on the one hand, and human responsibility and freedom, on the other, a paradox. All too often, they attempt to resolve this difficulty by means of an exegetical sleight of hand. Some of the Calvinists and Arminians I have seen in action identify those Biblical passages that affirm their position as the more clear and more foundational passages and they label those that militate against their view as the unclear or “problem” passages. They then explain away the “difficult” data in light of the favorable data. Rather than explaining away half of the Biblical witness of an issue, they ought to let the Bible say what it says fully and strongly on both sides of the issue and then develop a theology that allows both sides to be fully true. That is, they ought to acknowledge that the Bible is, in some way, both Calvinistic and Arminian. They ought to acknowledge that divine sovereignty and human freedom are not mutually exclusive concepts (If they were mutually exclusive, and if the Bible taught both, the the Bible would not be inerrant.) and that this issue does not reduce to an either/or option.

Inspiration is perhaps a useful parallel issue here. We say that the Bible is the Word of God in the words of men. That means that while we say that David wrote Psalm 51, we do not say that God did not. It is true to say both that David wrote the text in question and that God did. The options are not mutually exclusive. The same conclusion applies to the relationship between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. To say that God was active in the salvation of a sinner is not to say that the sinner must therefore be passive. That sinners are active agents in their own destiny is not a denigration or denial of grace.

5 As Gilbert Highet observes, Man's Unconquerable Mind (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), 57: “The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same, and they always work on the same principle. They find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and action that will (they believe) cover everything; and then they try to impose that on all thinking people.” Edward Carnell identifies the distortive dangers that attach to excessive systematization thus: “Whenever a systematic theologian becomes too systematic, he ends up falsifying some aspect of revelation.” Christian Commitment: An Apologetic (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 285.

6 My language here is not gender specific and should not be read as such. I speak here not of the theologian’s sex. I am well aware that women can be theologians too, and that they are equally subject to this theological failing. I do not exclude them. I employ the masculine pronoun throughout this text according to its traditional usage. Nothing chauvinistic is implied or communicated. Furthermore, as I will argue in chapter twelve, one must not misconstrue grammatical gender or intentionally generic language as gender specific. They are not. Grammatical gender must not be identified with sex. One does not make a chauvinist statement when referring to a theologian generically as “he” anymore than when one characterizes a nation, a ship, or liberty as “she.” As a literary critic and an author, I hasten to add also that I deplore the use of the ungainly “he/she” device. Our language is a clumsy enough vehicle already without burdening it further simply to satisfy the demands of a linguistic special interest group intent on misreading someone else’s words and attributing to that author a sexist content and intent he disavows.

7 For a critique of unfairly manipulating data as an immunization strategy designed to ward off an opponent's objections, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 56-58. The same point is made by Helmut Thielicke, African Diary: My Search for Understanding (Waco: Word, 1974), 31: “One cannot dispute with ideologues because their thinking does not deal with questions of truth, but rather with an interest that must be defended, come what may.”

8 The same could be said of almost every intellectual system in almost every intellectual discipline, if left to its own.

9 John Milton, Complete Prose Works of John Milton (8 vols), Gen. Ed. Don M. Wolfe, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953-1982), vol. 6, 122.

11 I think here of Ben Jonson’s astute observation that no man is so foolish but that he may not sometimes give good counsel. Nor is any man so wise but that he may easily err if he will refuse all counsel but his own.

12 In opposition to such rampant skepticism, C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1967), 60-61, writes:

“. . . the view in question is just the view that human thought is not true, not a reflection of reality. And this view is itself a thought. In other words, we are asking ‘Is the thought that no thoughts are true, itself true?’ If we answer Yes, we contradict ourselves. For if all thoughts are untrue, then this thought is untrue.”

13 See Ayn Rand, “Kant Versus Sullivan,” in Philosophy: Who Needs It (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1982) and Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (New York: New American Library, 1966/1967). The hermeneutical equivalent of this epistemology is (unintentionally) set out in C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961/1979).

14 Herbert H Farmer, Things Not Seen: Studies in the Christian Interpretation of Life (London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1927/1948), 35, 36.

17 As Owen Barfield explains, Speaker's Meaning (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1967), 99-100:

“...it may be that I shall have to abandon my inescapable conclusions, go back to the beginning, and set about finding out where I went wrong. But before I go to those lengths I shall want to examine very carefully exactly what it is my informant has established; and, when I have done that, I shall want to use my own judgment, not his, in deciding whether it is in fact incompatible with my own conclusion. This is likely to involve distinguishing rather ruthlessly between the observed facts and the theories erected on them... I shall want to examine the theories themselves as theories.”