The Limitations of Theological Truth

Why Christians Have the Same Bible but Different Theologies

Nigel Bush

• Publisher: Kregel Publications
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780825487637
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie chrétienne

Theology is based on God's true and unchanging Word, but does the Bible supply an unwavering foundation for spiritual certainties? Perhaps surprisingly, Brush contends that it does not, because, like science, it is a human discipline and subject to our limitations of knowledge, interpretation, and objectivity.In part one, Brush unpacks this contention, showing how Christians both past and present have arrived at conclusions that actually run counter to biblical teaching, and how these interpretive viewpoints have changed over time. In part two, he makes the case that flawed theological positions have resulted in views that needlessly conflict with science, and that these clashes can be resolved with more accurate formulations. Brush evenly evaluates questions including the age of the earth, the origin of life, and the end of time.Christians who wish to better understand the relationship between their faith and science will be encouraged by the great harmony that Brush sees between scientific findings and biblical teaching. As he guides readers into an awareness of the inherent limitations of our knowledge, believers can cultivate greater humility regarding these contested issues.

PART 1

THE HUMAN FACTOR QUEST

Chapter 1

HUMAN DISCIPLINES AND THEIR HUMAN WEAKNESSES

ADAM AND EVE’S WILLFUL disobedience in the garden of Eden has impacted every aspect of our human experience. How can things ever be completely right in our lives or in the world around us when we are out of harmony with our Creator? The fallen nature of mankind pervades every aspect of our lives including our imaginations and intellectual pursuits. In this context, all human disciplines are flawed because the humans who work within these disciplines are themselves flawed.

I. THE QUEST FOR TRUTH

In my introductory classes at college, I point out to my students that we, as human beings, are on a quest for truth that began as soon as we became conscious of the world around us and will continue throughout our lives until the day we die. We seek truth in all aspects of our lives, including the places we live, the jobs at which we work, the hobbies we choose, our relationships with other people, or our own self-knowledge. For example: Is this city a safe place to live and raise a family? Does this job provide opportunities for advancement? Which team has the best players and is most likely to win a championship? Will this man or woman be a good husband or wife? What career should I choose based on my talents and interests? For some, the most intensive period of this quest for truth will be during their college years when they have the opportunity to rapidly sharpen their intellectual skills and deepen their knowledge of the world around them. I also point out to my students that there are three basic approaches that humans have devised in their search for truth: religion, philosophy, and science. Of the three, religion is the oldest and science is the youngest. Unfortunately, the truths derived from each of these approaches often seem to contradict each other. Two of the primary reasons that the truths of one discipline are often out of harmony with the truths of another discipline are that each discipline confines its search for truth to a limited area and each discipline uses a different methodology in its search for truth within that area.

Scientists search for truth in the natural realm—the physical universe. The methodology they use is based on empirical evidence derived through the five senses: what we can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. Scientists have also devised various instruments that enhance these senses, such as microscopes, telescopes, stethoscopes, sonar, etc. From the scientific perspective, what you apprehend with the five senses is all there is; or at least, all there is that is amenable to scientific research. Philosophy, on the other hand, seeks truth within the confines of the human mind. One can practice philosophy by simply sitting in a dark room and thinking about the meaning of life. The methodology of philosophy is based on rules for rational thought and various techniques for achieving this end, such as induction and deduction. Religion, however, seeks truth in the realm of the supernatural. A fundamental belief of most peoples and cultures down through the ages is that there is a deeper reality behind or beyond the physical realm in which we live. What you see or think is not all there is. There are hidden laws and deeper realities that govern the visible realm. Many believe that it is in this supernatural realm that ultimate truth resides. The problem is that we are confined to the natural realm and do not have direct physical access to the supernatural realm. The only way to acquire truth from this realm is through revelation: these truths must be revealed to us by beings living in that other, hidden realm. Therefore, the methodology of religion is revelation, and all the great world religions are based on such disclosures of otherwise hidden and unknowable truths. Of course, all these revelations cannot be true since they often contradict each other. All religions, however, are founded on the claim that revelation has been received from the supernatural realm, just as all sciences are based on the claim that their theories are supported by empirical evidence.

In Hinduism, the most important scriptures are the Vedas, which were composed from the utterances of seers and sages who had received revelation from divine beings. In Islam, Mohammad heard a ringing in his ears that he came to realize was the voice of Allah speaking to him. He wrote down what Allah was saying to him and this became the Koran. In Judaism, the Ten Commandments were written on tablets of stone by the very finger of God before they were given to Moses. Knowledge of the law, and probably the early history of mankind and the Israelites, was also given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai and subsequently written down by Moses in the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis through Deuteronomy (Exod. 24:4; Num. 33:2; Deut. 31:9; John 7:19; Acts 7:38). In Christianity, God’s ultimate revelation to humanity was in the person of Christ, his only begotten Son. As Jesus said: “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49). Through Christ, God entered the natural realm and dwelt among us. As Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Christianity is unique among all the world’s religions because the Word (Christ) “became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). In other words, a door between the natural and supernatural realm was opened and God entered the natural realm of space and time in material form through his beloved Son. The existence of God could now be confirmed, not only through supernatural revelation, but also by empirical evidence: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life” (1 John 1:1). Since Christ subsequently ascended back into heaven, we no longer have access to empirical evidence for God’s existence, although we do have the testimony of the apostles who were eyewitnesses: “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (2 Peter 1:16).

II. THEOLOGY: A HUMAN DISCIPLINE WITH A HEAD OF GOLD BUT FEET OF CLAY

Humans have devised various academic disciplines to aid them in their quest for truth, whether through science, philosophy, or religion. There are a number of academic disciplines within science that seek to study the natural realm, including astronomy, geology, and biology. In philosophy, some of these academic disciplines include metaphysics, logic, and ethics. The primary academic discipline within religion is theology. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines theology as: “the study of God and his relation to the world” (Woolf 1981:1200).

After completing my book The Limitations of Scientific Truth in 2005, I subsequently came to understand that philosophy and religion shared many of the same limitations in their search for truth that I had previously identified for science, including temporal, logical, cultural, spatial, and empirical limitations. The common denominator behind these limitations in all three disciplines was the human factor. Science is an academic discipline devised by humans and practiced by humans; philosophy is an academic discipline devised by humans and practiced by humans; theology is an academic discipline devised by humans and practiced by humans—and all humans are flawed because of their sinful nature. Therefore, the ultimate reason that the truths of science are often difficult to harmonize with the truths of philosophy or religion is that all academic disciplines devised and practiced by humans are also flawed: they are composed of mixtures of truths, half-truths, and falsehoods. If science, philosophy, or theology ever arrived at absolute truth, they would cease to change with time and would be in agreement with each other. Despite periodic bursts of optimism, this has not happened in the past, it is not happening today, nor will it happen in the future. Like the base of a rainbow, absolute truth always recedes beyond our reach every time we try to approach it through a human discipline.

The flaws in humans that practice these academic disciplines can be summarized in terms of three basic problems: (1) human ignorance—we don’t have all the facts, (2) human error—we sometimes misinterpret the facts, and (3) human bias—we sometimes distort the facts. In my earlier book, I quoted from Stephen Jay Gould concerning the very human nature of the scientific discipline: “I criticize the myth that science itself is an objective enterprise, done properly only when scientists can shuck the constraints of their culture and view the world as it really is…. Rather, I believe that science must be understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of robots programmed to collect pure information” (1981:21). This same critique can also be applied to philosophy and religion. The idea that Christian theology, because of its subject matter (God) or its reliance upon divine revelation (the Bible), is somehow purer or less prone to error than other human disciplines is also a myth. Theologians, like scientists and philosophers, are also sinners, fallen humans who have limited knowledge about that which they study, who often make mistakes, and who all have their own unique set of biases. Although the focus of Christian theology is on the divine, it is nevertheless a very human discipline that is devised by humans and conducted by humans. As Witherington has noted, “It is time, indeed it is well past time, to recognize that ‘theology’ is what we do to and with the text” (2005:245). From this perspective, the academic discipline of theology is very similar to the troubling image that King Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream:

The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. (Dan. 2:32–35)

Like the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in the book of Daniel, the discipline of theology may have a head of gold, the study of God and his Word, but it has feet of iron and clay. We are the feet of iron and clay that can easily be crushed, causing the entire structure to come crashing down into a pile of dust. Thus, Christian theology is subject to the same human limitations that afflict all human disciplines. These limitations are not in God’s Word, but in ourselves. I believe that the Bible is God’s Word, perfect, complete, and able to accomplish all things for which God made it. On the other hand, I do not believe that our understanding of the Bible is perfect or complete. Theology is a human discipline and the weak link in all human disciplines is the humans who practice those disciplines.

III. THEOLOGY’S IMPERFECTIONS MANIFESTED: A HOUSE DIVIDED

One of the most glaring examples of the limitations of theological truth is highlighted by the difference between what Jesus prayed that his church should be, and what the church has actually become. After the Last Supper, just before he left with his disciples for the Mount of Olives where Judas would betray him, Jesus concluded his prayer for the disciples with this request to his Father: “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:20–21). Far from being of one mind and one heart, a pure mirror with no imperfections that clearly reflects the love of the Father and the Son, the church has shattered into dozens of different glass shards. As we see in the writings of Luke and the apostle Paul, dissension within the church arose shortly after its founding on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 6:1, 15:1–2; Rom. 16:17–18; 1 Cor. 1:10–11, 11:18–19). Although these early arguments were settled by the authority of the apostles, similar theological disagreements and doctrinal squabbling within the church would punctuate church history for the next 2,000 years.

During the early part of the first millennium, a number of theological arguments arose within the church that ultimately had to be settled by the calling of major church councils, such as the Council of Nicaea over the Trinitarian Controversy. In this controversy, Arius contended that Christ, being the only begotten Son of God, had a beginning and was therefore not like God who had no beginning, whereas his bishop, Alexander, argued that Christ was coeternal with God and therefore of equal stature (Latourette 1953:152–153; Walton 1986: Chart 14). The Council of Nicaea decided in favor of Alexander and out of this council was forged the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance [ousias] of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance [homoousion] with the Father, through whom all things came to be, those things that are in heaven and those things that are on earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, and was made man, suffered, rose the third day, ascended into the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead. (Latourette 1953:155)

Arius was wrong, however, not only because of the decision of the Council of Nicaea, but because of what Christ had testified concerning himself: “‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.’ So the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’ Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple” (John 8:56–59). The reason the Jews were ready to stone Jesus was that he used the very same words, I am, to describe himself as God had used to describe himself to Moses: “Then Moses said to God, ‘Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you.” Now they may say to me, “What is His name?” What shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’; and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you”’” (Exod. 3:13–14).

Another division that arose within the early church was concerning the dual nature of Christ, being both the Son of God and the Son of Man, with some elements within the church stressing the divine character of Christ, while others giving more weight to his human attributes. Several church councils were held over this controversy, concluding with the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which resulted in another statement of faith, the Creed of Chalcedon: “Following the holy fathers we all, with one voice, define that there is to be confessed one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of rational soul and body, of the same substance [homoousion] with the Father according to the Godhead, and of the same substance [homoousion] with us according to the manhood, like to us in all respects, without sin, begotten of the Father before all time according to the Godhead….” (Latourette 1953:171). Other controversies arose in the early church over issues such as whether sins that were committed after baptism could be forgiven, whether th...