Studying the Image

Critical Issues in Anthropology for Christians

Eloise Meneses

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781532636677
  9781532636691
• eBook ISBN:
  9781532636684
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Christian Theology
• Index: Social Sciences

The field of anthropology provides rich insights into the world of people and cultures. But it also presents challenges for Christians in the areas of cultural relativism, evolutionary theory, race and ethnicity, forms of the family, governments and war, life in the global economy, the morality of art, and religious pluralism. Most significantly it raises questions regarding the truth and how we can know it. This book provides the opportunity to investigate such questions with both the informed understanding of anthropological theory and ethnography, and the larger framework and commitment of Christian biblical and theological studies. So equipped, readers are encouraged to investigate for themselves the depths and intricacies of topics in anthropology that are especially relevant for Christians.

Chapter 1

How Do We Know What is True?

A Christian View of Knowledge

Two preteens, siblings, were sparring with one another in disagreement about a fact. “Yes, it is!,” said the sister. “No it isn’t!,” said the brother. “Yah-hahn!,” said the sister, louder. “No way!,” said the brother, louder still. There was a pause. “Well, in my world it is!” said the one. “Well, in my world it isn’t!” said the other, as they both burst into giggles at the solution.

These two children had learned well from their American culture.1 Disagreements over the truth of a situation can be resolved by retreating into separate worlds. But not really. The children also realized that there is a ludicrous character to the solution they have been taught to apply in situations of conflict. If reality only exists in our minds, not between us, then nothing is true at all. As is commonly the case, the children could see through the mythology of their culture to a reality beyond it.

Perhaps no issue is more critical at this time in the plural West, and in the globalizing world, than the matter of how we know things to be true. In times when people were less mobile, and cultures less influenced by each other, a psychologically innocent absorption of the beliefs and values of one’s own culture created a sense of confidence about the truth that probably made life a good deal simpler (though not necessarily better). Of course, there were disagreements among culture members. People never fully conform to their cultures’ norms, and cultures change over time. Furthermore, disagreements can be produced by the very structure of the society, as for instance with the natural tensions arising between rival political leaders. But fundamental beliefs and values about the nature of the world, the purpose of life, and the definition of good and bad behavior were generally held in common, giving a relative stability to everyone’s sense of what is true.

This is not to say that these beliefs were in fact true! Many cultures have explained unfortunate things by blaming socially ostracized members of the community as witches. Some have justified oppressing the lower strata of their social structure by insisting on a natural hierarchy of inferiority and superiority based on birth. Such beliefs provide a sense of security to the mainstream of the culture at the expense of a portion of its members. But, by presenting the world as coherent, they inculcate a sense of confidence that the world can be understood, and therefore acted upon, in a reasonably predictable way. It is this sense of confidence that is missing in the contemporary world, where colliding views of the truth, both of what it is and of how it is obtained, are creating a mockery of the notion that we can know anything at all.

A Crisis in Knowing

Our first impression of how we know things is that we “see” them. They are immediately apparent to us because we perceive them through our senses. Babies know things in this way; in fact, they are limited to this level of knowledge. The psychologist Jean Piaget has demonstrated that babies under the age of eight or nine months become distressed when their mother is hidden from their view (Piaget 1969). It is as if she no longer exists. But as they grow older, babies develop the cognitive ability to realize that their mother is not really gone when she has stepped behind another object. Instead of distress, they show signs of anticipating her return. So, while the requirement to see in order to believe is a fundamental first way of knowing things, it is quickly and necessarily followed in normal human development by another requirement, the requirement to think.

Thinking, too, is rooted in human biology and development. At base level, people around the world have the same capacity to reason (Lee and Johnson-Laird 2006). What they think about is different, of course, and the conclusions they draw vary widely because the culture-based assumptions they think with are different. Even the manner in which they reason may be influenced by cultural values (Luria 1976). But, the pure ability to reason does not differ by ethnic background, regional location, or cultural upbringing. This should not be surprising if we remember that our brains are fundamentally the same. Since it is vital to our survival to be able to use our mental capacities effectively in our interactions with one another and with nature, we are actually physically constructed to believe, in the initial instance, that the combination of our senses and our reason will produce for us clear and uncontestable truth.

The difficulty with this simple, or innocent, view of knowledge comes when we discover that others do not agree with us. How can it be that others, who also have senses and can reason, do not “see” things the same way that we do? The problem is a serious one because, again, the viability of our lives depends upon our ability to comprehend the world around us correctly. Someone must be wrong. Perhaps the easiest solution, and certainly the most commonly selected one, is to decide that others are wrong. Looking at it this way protects our sense of confidence in our own ability to function well. It has the benefit of providing a sense of security and stability to our lives.

There are, however, two detriments to this solution. The first is that deciding we are right at the outset closes us off from further information that might alter our viewpoint in valuable ways, or even completely change our minds about the subject. If we are no longer listening for truth, we become increasingly detached from it by the “hardening of our categories.” The second is that refusing to consider what others have said leads to conflict with them. Since they too must be concerned about their ability to determine the truth, others will argue with us and be unhappy if we do not grant them a real hearing. Moreover, coming to some agreement on the matter may be absolutely necessary. For instance, the members of a society can hardly agree to disagree on the definition of murder, nor can the members of a church agree to disagree on their most central notions of God or of morality. So, as the discussion heats up, with important matters at stake, differences can lead to conflict, sometimes even to violence, and finally to separation or alienation from one another.

It is this fear, of conflict and alienation, that has caused many in Western cultures to espouse a doctrine of pluralism. Pluralism attempts to solve the problem of disagreement by privatizing some kinds of truth while coercively insisting upon others. As a result, some of our most deeply held and highly valued beliefs about the nature of reality, which are usually religious beliefs, are relegated to the private sphere of cultural life, considered subjective in nature, and therefore treated as matters on which it is best to agree to disagree. Religious matters are considered to be located in people’s minds, not in the external world; to be matters of personal choice, rather than of group consensus; and ultimately, to be about the construction of an image of reality that is personally beneficial, rather than a set propositions about truth or a model of reality.

At the same time, scientific propositions about reality are considered to be above the distortions of subjectivity. Science’s objective character is thought to derive from two sources, the scientific method, which stresses the removal of the bias of the researcher, and scientific consensus, which requires that the truth be verified by the replication of studies by other scientists. The removal of subjective bias by the scientific method in favor of a purported objectivity is believed to produce certainty and universal agreement. So, while our religious beliefs must be kept to ourselves, or expressed only tentatively as private opinions, our scientific beliefs can be stated boldly, and debated openly, since they are matters of public truth. As the missiologist and theologian Lesslie Newbigin has pointed out, “If two scientists, using the same materials, the same instruments, the same methods, under the same circumstances, conduct the same experiment and produce contradictory results, they do not embrace each other and say, ‘what a joy it is to live in a pluralist society!’”2 That is, they do not agree to disagree! Instead, they debate the matter until one or another of them is proved wrong, or until some third way of understanding emerges.

Since the 1970s, however, under the influence of the “postmodern” movement, even science has come under the criticism that it is subjective. Science is a product of Western culture, and more narrowly of the Enlightenment. Its seventeenth-century founding philosophers declared as their purpose to establish completely incontestable truth, and to develop a massive and coherent body of knowledge that would provide a universal understanding of all people and the natural world. That knowledge could be used to enhance human life through expanding technology under the paradigm of “progress.” This seems a benign and benevolent purpose. But, historically, science and technology have been used to promote the West’s power over the rest of the world, especially under colonialism. So, according to some now, science is tainted, even fundamentally flawed, by its association with people in positions of dominance. Others from other places, times, and circumstances, have had other perspectives on the truth that are equally valuable. No one is in a position to determine which “truths” are really true, and which are not, not even scientists.

The challenge to publicly agreed upon truth in the Western world has, at one and the same time, freed and empowered people from non-dominant positions or places and created a deep uncertainty for everyone. Having the confidence of holding innocent or homogeneous views is no longer possible, not even in science, and the danger of retreating into private worlds of subjectively held opinions to avoid incoherence and conflict is perhaps more real to us now, and on a more massive scale, than ever before in human history. Yet, as the children in the story above understood, pluralism is not a real answer. It can in fact be a dangerous position for a society to take. Newbigin notes that high levels of agnosticism with regard to the truth make a culture ripe to be coercively taken over by those who claim they can provide the certainty that people need to live meaningful lives.3

The Knowing Subject

Actually, the claim to our having completely objective, transcendent knowledge was false to begin with, in science and in culture generally. Only God can know us and the world he has created with perfect certainty. We, as situated human beings, are always limited in our ability to comprehend reality. Moreover, we all cast a slant on what we know that is a direct result of our cultural backgrounds, historical circumstances, and personal experiences. This has been established repeatedly by the findings of scholars in the fields of the sociology of knowledge, symbolic interactionism, and cognitive anthropology. In science, it was established in a now-classic work by Thomas Kuhn (1996), who demonstrated that scientific understanding proceeds not by an accumulation of incontestable facts, but by a series of “paradigm shifts.” Paradigms are mental models of reality constructed to incorporate a body of knowledge into an understandable whole. But as such they are products of history, of the particular configuration of knowledge of the time. During the period in which they hold sway, anomalous facts, or low-level truths that do not fit the paradigm, are simply rejected. This is actually a good thing, because in many instances such anomalies can eventually be explained without destroying the paradigm. But over time, increasing numbers of anomalies arise and the paradigm loses its explanatory power. Eventually all paradigms fail i...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: How Do We Know What is True?
• Chapter 2: Isn’t Our Way Just Natural?
• Chapter 3: Are Monkeys Our Cousins?
• Chapter 4: Who are My People?
• Chapter 5: What About Relationships?
• Chapter 6: Can We Be Christians and Still Make a Living?
• Chapter 7: Can We Be Christians and Still Love our Country?
• Chapter 8: Can Art be Evil?
• Chapter 9: Why is It All about Jesus?
• Chapter 10: Studying and Living the Image
• References