Relativism—Ancilla Theologiae et Fidei? Not so Fast!

8/10/2019 RelativismAncilla Theologiae et Fidei? Not so Fast!

1/25

258

CTJ 49 (2014): 258282

RelativismAncilla Theologiaeet Fidei? Not so Fast!

Eduardo Echeverria

So those who use the works of the philosophers in sacred doc-

trine, by bringing them into the service of faith, do not mix waterwith wine, but rather change water into wine.1

The Dutch neo-Calvinist philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd once wrotethat authentic Christian philosophizing does not cut itself o from thehistorical development of philosophical thought. Dooyeweerd adds, areformation of philosophical thought from the Christian point of view is not creation out of nothing. Indeed, he acknowledges that his ownsystematic philosophy is wedded to that development with a thousand

ties, so far as its immanent philosophic content is concerned, even thoughwe can nowherefollowthe immanence philosophy.2Dooyeweerd, like somany other Christians throughout the ages, is, arguably, working herewith the Augustinian spoils from Egypt trope because Dooyeweerdsown philosophical work found wisdom and truth in the philosophicalwritings of Kant, neo-Kantians, and phenomenologists. But, as ThomasGuarino rightly adds, All such wisdom, however, the traditional spoilsmetaphor insists, must ultimately be disciplined by, and incorporatedinto, the revelatory narrative. Athens, whatever its own insights into truth,must ultimately be chastened by Jerusalem.3In other words, by saying

1 St. Thomas Aquinas, Faith, Reason and Theology, Questions I-IV of his Commentary onthe De Trinitateof Boethius, translated with Introduction and Notes by Armand Maurer(Toronto: Pontical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1987), q. 2, a. 3, reply to 5.

2 Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol. I, The NecessaryPresuppositions of Philosophy, trans. David H. Freeman and William S. Young(Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1969), 117-118. J. K.A. Smiths earlier work is

inuenced by Dooyeweerd. For example, his Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida,Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007); idem, TheFall of Interpretation: The Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic, Second edition(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012).

3 Thomas G. Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology(NewYork/London: T&T Clark,


2/25


3/25

CALVIN THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

260

creaturehood includes a robust account of contingency and dependence(CCC, 32). Indeed, throughout this book he repeatedly returns to the the-sis regarding the contingent character of our existence (CCC, 16-17, 29-30,32, 35, 36, 40, 59, 81, 84, 95, 98, 101, 105, 107, 108-110, 121, 174, 180). Against

this background, he states the aim of his book is to explore the implica-tions of this basic intuition about creaturely contingency and dependencefor our accounts of knowledge and truth (CCC, 36).

Intriguingly, notwithstanding this emphasis on the creations contin-gency, Smith never actually tells us what it means to say that contingencymarks the creation as a whole.7The closest we come to understanding whatSmith means by contingency is when he contrasts it with Gods necessity.Says Smith, Everything created depends upon the Triune Creator who,alone, is necessary (CCC, 36). Again, he writes, God alone is not contin-

gentis necessary and independent [aseity] (CCC, 109n43; Smiths italics).And again, We take [God] to be noncontingent and absolute (CCC, 112).So whereas the world exists contingently, meaning thereby that it mightnot have existed and hence exists by divine choice, God exists necessarilysuch that it would be impossible for him not to be. Furthermore, becausecreation as a whole is marked by contingency, on Smiths view, thingscreated do not seem to have natures or essences, of how things that Godcreated have to be necessarily, and hence Smith seems to be slouching,

even if somewhat cautiously, towards nominalism (CCC, 102-114).8

Heunderstands that traditional Christian theology has been wedded to real-ist metaphysics, and not the metaphysical view of nominalism that rejectsthe notion of Platonic universals, Forms, the Augustinian/Thomistic doc-trine of divine ideas, in short, the nature or essences of things. So Smithrejects essentialism, that is, the idea that things have essences, or natures,and are property-bearers.9 Still, he wants to hold on to a sacramental

7 He does tell us what marks Gods special revelation as contingent (CCC, 110-111).

8 I want to be fair to Smith on this matter of nominalism. He cautiously distances himselffrom metaphysical realism, stating that while [he] thinks that a creational ontology will befundamentally a participatory ontology insofar as it describes the relationship betweenthe Creator and creation, [hes] less convinced that this requires a Christian metaphysicto alsosubscribe to a specially Platonic account of the Forms to account for things like theessence of treeness. It seems to [him] that a broadly participatory account of the Creator/creation relation is separable from the specics of a Platonic theory of the Forms (103n30).So, if I take account of his cautious rejection of metaphysical realism and his apparent move-ment towards nominalism, my criticism of Smith should be read as a probing assessmentrather than a denitive one. This is particularly the case since the constraints of this article

review prevent me from examining Smiths earlier discussion of nominalism in IntroducingRadical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004)and its consistency with this new book on relativism.

9 Again, to be fair to Smith, he rightly says that nominalism [is] not an idealism; thenominalists [does] not deny a real world. In other words, while we set up a supposed


4/25

261

RELATIVISMANCILLA THEOLOGIAE ET FIDEI? NOT SO FAST!

ontology, which arms and guards two things: (1) the reality and inde-pendence of the transcendent God on whom creation depends for its exis-tence; and (2) the participatory relation of created reality in God (perActs 17; Col 2) (CCC, 106; Smiths italics).

Most signicant, the implication of contingency for our accounts ofknowledge and truth is that realist epistemologies of truth and justica-tion, which purport to make claims about the way things really are, accord-ing to Smith, inate our creaturehood to Creator-hood. Claims aboutabsolute truth, or objective truth, such as we nd in correspondencetheories of truthall of which claim that our language or justied beliefhave a connection to reality just in case they correspond to some featureof reality have an inability to honor the contingency and dependenceof our creaturehood. Smiths charge would presumably include meta-

physical theologies of the Trinity and Incarnation. In short, all theserealist accounts of knowledge and truth, claims Smith, are nothing lessthan epistemologies of independence, which will always be inappropri-ate for (dependent) creatures (CCC, 16, 30, 109; Smiths italics). In short,adds Smith, we cant achieve Godlike knowledge and hence truth thathuman beings could say [articulate] could never be absolute, absolved ofall relations, since as creatures we are inherently relational and depen-dent. To pretend otherwise is to pre-tend to divinity (CCC109n43; 182).

In the remainder of this section, and in preparation for the next, I nowwill raise some critical questions about Smiths fundamental concern inthis book. Let us call the view that Smith defends, contingentism.10Contingentism claims that there are not necessary truths, and thus thatevery truth we entertain is contingent.11 Let me be clear here. Smithdoes hold that all human knowledge is contingent. What is not clear iswhether he thinks that either necessary truths are not a possible object ofknowledge or there are no such truths to know. If the former, he espousesepistemological contingentism; if the latter, metaphysical contingentism.Presumably epistemological contingentism would include the truths oflogic, such as the principles of excluded middle and of contradiction, asthese would not be necessarily true. This entails denying that of a proposi-tion and its negation, necessarily, one is true and the other is false. Doesntthis lead to trivialism, the conclusion that every proposition is true (and

dichotomy between realism and nominalism, we shouldnt too hastily conclude thatnominalism denied reality, even divinereality (CCC, 103n31).

10 I am following Randal Rauser, Can There be Theology without Necessity? HeythropJournal45 (2003): 131-146.

11 Rauser, Can There be Theology without Necessity? 131.


5/25


262

false) [?]12Now, coupled with Smiths cautious move toward nominalismand his corresponding rejection of essentialism and metaphysical real-ism, we may ask him for clarication on whether he thinks that Godssovereign freedom has the ability to change the truth of any proposition

by actualizing any state of aairs or its negation.13

Skeptical implica-tions abound here, surely. Presumably Smiths contingentism would alsoinclude the denial of necessary truths, such as, All triangles have three sides.

What about the truth, God exists? Admittedly, as we saw above, Smitharms the proposition that God exists necessarily. And yet he doesntthink that we can know that God exists necessarily. Notice he doesntsay, as Aquinas did, that God exists of necessity, although his existenceis not self-evident to us.This comparison of Smith with Aquinas will notwork since Aquinas only argued against Anselm that the proposition

God exists necessarily is not self-evident to us. Aquinas didnt argue, asSmith seems to do, that we couldnt know in any sense whatsoever thatGod exists necessarily. So, perhaps Smith holds that God exists neces-sarily but that this proposition is not a possible object of knowledge. Inwhich case, on the one hand, his position would be that of epistemologicalcontingentism. On the other hand, and this is more likely given his rejec-tion of metaphysical realism, a rejection of the doctrine of divine ideas,and his albeit cautious turn to nominalism, Smith holds to metaphysical

contingentism in which we do not know any necessary truths becausenone exist to be known.14Whatever may be the case, Smiths position isless than clear.

Whos afraid of absolute truth? Well, Smith for one. It is importantto see what Smith is rejecting. He is not merely and rightly rejecting theview that for a human being to know the truth is like knowing it in theway that God knows it. Put dierently, he isnt saying that our claims toabsolute truth suer from an inadequacy of expressions or formulationsof truth. No, he rejects the very idea that human beings can know absolutetruth. He claims that claims to know absolute truth is an evasion of con-tingency and a suppression of creaturehood (CCC, 16). Much stronger,he claim that it borders on idolatrous hubris for humans to claim absolutetruth (CCC, 180; see also, 115; Smiths italics). Indeed, Smith thinks thatthe language of absolute truth is a signal that creatureswould have a certain arrogation of our epistemic capacities to god-like status (CCC,99n22; Smiths italics). Smith, then, asks, What exactly does the quali-er absolute add to the word truth? And if somethings being absolute





6/25

263


means that it is absolved of relation (the technical sense of the word), thenwhat could that mean for contingent, social creatureslike us (CCC, 30)?Similar questions are raised by Smith regarding the notion of objectiv-ity or objective truth. Is Christianity synonymous with objectivity?

Can nite humans hold absolute truths? What if the gospel is relativelytrue (CCC, 30)? I will return below to Smiths charge that the claim toknow absolute truth undermines our creaturehood and contingency. Thisconstant charge throughout Smiths book follows from his persistent fail-ure to distinguish epistemic justication and truth; the former is relativeto social and historical context; the latter is not. For now, suce it to con-sider his objections to absolute truth.

Briey, the expression qualifying claims to truth as absolute isreally a rhetorical device meant to emphasize an inherent aspect of truth.

Asserting that P is absolutely true is identical with asserting that P istrue simpliciter.15On this account, a true belief is simply true and thereforevalid even for those who do not hold it, in short, it is true for everyone.Smith himself seems to recognize this notioninconsistently?whenarming a sacramental creation. Those who are Christians take this tobe true, and not just true for them, but true tout court, as the way thingsare (CCC, 109; Smiths italics). Pace Smith, arming the existence ofabsolute truth and the conditions that make P trueobjective reality

does not mean that one ignores the separate matter regarding the condi-tions under which I come to know that P is true. Those conditions mayinclude acknowledging that, as Smith puts it, this claim is madefromasocial location and is, in fact, dependent upon trainings received from acommunity of practice (CCC, 108; Smiths italics). There is no oppositionhere between asserting that P is true simpliciterwhat P says is the caseactually is the caseand acknowledging the conditions under which Iknow that P.

On the matter of contingent truths, consider propositions such as thatGod created the world, that Jesus Christ our Lord was conceived bythe Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suered under Pontius Pilate,Was crucied, dead and buried, and that Jesus Christ was raised fromthe deadall these assertions are true since what they say is the caseactually is the case, but they could have been possibly false, and hencesuch truths are true contingently. Still, if we focus on the content of whatis asserted here in these statements, its theological truth-content, ratherthan the conditions under which they were asserted, we surely may say of

such assertions that they are objectively true, in other words, once true,

15 Ren van Woudenberg, Kinds of Truth? An Analysis of the Notions Relative Truth,Absolute Truth, and the Like (unpublished paper, 8).


7/25


264

always true, permanently true.16The latter means that the truth or falsityof our beliefs and assertions is objective in virtue of certain facts aboutreality. In short, the source of truth is reality.17 Given Smiths epistemicconcept of truth, which fails to distinguish the conditions of justication

from the conditions of truth,

he must say that it is true only for those ofus who have been inculcated into the community of practice that is thechurch (CCC, 112). Although this is not an anything goes subjectiv-ism, reality is still only reality for those who come to know certain thingsunder the ecclesial conditions of knowing. By contrast, a realist, non-epistemic notion of truth holds that the condition under which the bodilyresurrection of Jesus is true depends on the state of aairs that Jesus wasactually raised bodily from the dead. It is true independently of whetheranyone knows it to be true, and hence its being known is not a necessary

condition for it being a revelation of God,18or for making it true. In thissense, it is an objective truth because a true belief is dependent on what isthe case, not on what one thinks is the case.

Returning now briey to Smiths nominalism, I think his position pres-ents him with a dilemma to which he gives no attention. Theistic nominal-ismsuch as Smithsdrains entities of their nature or essences becausestructures are what they are by divine choice, not through any intrinsicnecessity. Thus, the nature of things is bereft of any inherent intelligibil-

ity19

on Smiths position if by intelligibility we mean the necessary deter-mination and limitations imposed by its nature. This is not surprising.Nominalism, according to Dooyeweerd, cuts o every metaphysical useof natural reason by denying that the universal concepts of thought havea fundamentum in re. This entails the rejection not only of a realis-tic conception of substantial forms, but also this position destroys therealistic metaphysical conception of truth.20Smiths own assessment ofnominalism concurs with Dooyeweerds point (see CCC, 102-108).

16 Paul Helm, Are Revealed Truths Timeless? Online: http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2007/08/analysis-5-are-revealed-truths-timeless.html.

17 Roger Trigg, Reality at Risk(Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980), xiv.

18 It isnt clear to me whether Smith thinks that something is Gods revelation only whenit is acknowledged as revelation, suggesting that it becomes revelation in or through theecclesial conditions of knowing (CCC, 111-113).

19 Of course by inherent intelligibility I do not mean to suggest that things exist auton-omously, self-suciently, having something in themselves that sustains them in being

what they are. God is the ultimate source of all things intelligibility. Vatican II stated wellthe ultimate consequence of denying this claim: When God is forgotten, however, thecreature itself grows unintelligible (Gaudium et Spes, no. 36).

20 Dooyeweerd, New Critique I, 184-185. Given the constraints of an article review, I can-not discuss Dooyeweerds own complex philosophic relation to nominalism.


8/25

265


Smith might say, So what? Well, it should matter a great deal toSmith because his theistic nominalismand its voluntaristic undergird-ingmake it exceedingly dicult for him to support the two features of asacramental ontology that he wants to arm, namely, sovereign causality

and, especially, a participatory structure of reality. His rejection of meta-physical realism conjures up the image not only of created natures thatare inherently arbitrary but also of a capricious God who exercises hissovereign power as an orderless tyranny.21For as Benedict XVI rightlyput it, on this view, Gods transcendence and otherness are so exaltedthat our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authenticmirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainableand hidden behind his actual decisions.22

Smiths rejoinder to this criticism might be that if the relationship

between God and the creationthe natures or essences of things cre-atedis as I have said it is, then it would follow that God is subject to pat-terns over against himself. In short, we seem to be left with a dilemmabetween arbitrariness that appears to undercut necessity and necessitythat appears to dominate the creator.23 He may also attempt to avoidthis dilemma by appealing to the providential faithfulness of God to theway that he has made things: God sustains in being what he has createdthings to be, and hence he neither drains them of their intelligibility nor

is he capricious. But this answer is not sucient for Smith to support hisappeal to a sacramental and participatory ontology. Given Smiths rejec-tion of metaphysical realism and his slouching towards nominalism, itis dicult to see how the participatory bond here between God and cre-ation can muster what is needed in order to explicate logically theologysdogmatic claims about God and Christ.24I, for one, dont know what aparticipatory sacramental ontology would look like absent some kind ofrealistic metaphysics. Nothing less will do than an ontological bond ofcausal participation between God and creation. This would make possible

analogical language, utilizing the analogy of being (analogia entis), mean-ing thereby an analogy between the being of God and the created being. 25

21 Dooyeweerd, New Critique I, 187.

22 Benedict XVI, Faith, Reason and the University, Regensburg Address, Tuesday,September 12, 2006. Online: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html.

23 Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith & Reason(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University

of America Press, 1982, 1995), 44.24 Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 223.

25 Apophaticism is, arguably, at the heart of the analogy of being: For between creatorand creature no similitude can be expressed without implying a greater dissimilitude(Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Denitions, and Declarations on Matter of Faith


9/25


266

I cannot say more about this dilemma here and the solution I amsuggesting,26 but suce it to say that Smiths failure to attend to thisdilemma is a signicant weakness in this book.

What is relativism?What is relativism? It is not the same as skepticism. A skeptic may be a

realist about truth while holding that all beliefs are uncertain, with nonebeing justied. Furthermore, we mustnt equate relativism with fallibil-ism. Not only is fallibilism perfectly consistent with holding beliefs aboutwhat is (absolutely) true, but fallibilism itself makes sense only if you areprepared to make some assertions about what is absolutely true, sinceunless you do this there is nothing at all for you to be fallible about.27

Moreover, suppose we distinguish justication and truth, being justiedin holding something to be true and truth itself. Someone may be justi-ed in believing that P is true given the evidence available to him, but Pitself may nevertheless be false. If you and I hold mutually incompatiblebeliefs, then what at least one of us believes must be false; but it could stillbe true that my belief is justied on the evidence which I have and yourbelief is justied on the evidence you have.28 In short, epistemic justi-cation may be relative, but not truth itself. Jerey Stout puts it this way:Rational entitlement and truth are not the same things. Being rationally

entitled to a belief is relative in this sense: it is a relation among a belief,the person who accepts it, and that persons epistemic circumstances. Thetruth of a belief is not, generally speaking, relative in this sense. If it were,it would not make sense for us to say, as we often do, that some of the

and Morals, ed. Peter Hnermann; 43rd trans. and ed. Robert Fastiggi and Anne EnglundNash [San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012], 804). This apophaticism is reiterated at Vatican I: For

divine mysteries by their very nature so exceed the created intellect that, even when theyhave been communicated in revelation and received by faith, they remain covered by theveil of faith itself and shrouded, as it were, in darkness as long as in this mortal life we areaway from the Lord; for we walk by faith and not by sight (Cor 5:6-7) (Denzinger, 3016).On Vatican I, see Thomas G. Guarino, Vatican I and Dogmatic Apophasis: Historical andTheological Reections, Irish Theological Quarterly61 no.1 (1995): 70-82.

26 My own solution to dilemma has been inuenced by the Augustinian and Thomisticdoctrine of divine ideas that, arguably, avoids the alternative between natures arbitrarilyconstructed and nature determined independently of God (Robert Sokolowski, The God ofFaith & Reason[Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982, 1995], 41-52,

and at 45. See also idem, Eucharistic Presence[Washington, D.C., 1994], 34-54. Also helpful isHerman Bavinck, Christelijke Wereldbeschouwing,2nd (Kampen: Kok, 1913).

27 Allen Wood, Relativism (unpublished paper, 6); online: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/e/eppersonm/phil002/documents/Relativism_Readings.pdf.

28 Wood, Relativism, 5.


10/25

267


people who disagree with us about something may be rationally entitledto their (false) beliefs.29Again, justication may be lost, but not truth.30

Smith ignores this important distinction and hence rejects a non-epis-temic notion of truth, conating truth and justication.31A non-epistemic

conception of truth holds that whether a proposition is true (or false) inno way depends on whether someone is justied, or rational, in believingthat P, nor whether he has reasons for believing it; indeed, it does notdepend at all on someones believing that P. Rather, that P is true dependson whether what the proposition says to be the case actually is the case. Inshort, correspondence theories of truth, which Smith rejects, dene truthas correspondence between propositions and facts or states of aairs. Incontrast, Smith operates with an epistemic conception of truth that holdstruth to be a matter of justication, warranted assertability, in short, hold-

ing that whether that P is true does depend on whether someone is justi-ed in believing it. In response to Smiths query (CCC, 30), what would itmean to say that the gospel is relatively true, it means, as Brandom putsit, and Smith says he agrees, What is true depends on what we humanbeings say or think (CCC, 29).32I, for one, ndit hard to see how Smithcan, then, avoid the conclusionwhich he does rejectthat an epistemic

29

Jerey Stout, A House Founded on the Sea: Is Democracy a Dictatorship ofRelativism? in A Dictatorship of Relativism? Symposium in Response to Cardinal RatzingersLast Homily, Common Knowledge, Volume 13, Issues 2-3, Spring-Fall 2007, 385-403, and at 401.Stouts position on this matter of justication and truth is unchanged from his 1988 Ethicsafter Babel. An important argument for treating dierently justication and truth is foundin the magnum opusof Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge(Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1958).

30 Smith seems unaware of the import of this distinction between justication and truth,even at one time for Rorty. Given the limits of this article review, I cant get into the spe-cics of Smiths Rorty interpretation, particularly the development of Rortys thought onjustication and truth. Suce it to cite Stout, In an essay from the mid-1970s, Rorty rig-orously separates justication from truth, and steers clear of relativistic theories of the lat-ter. Although justication is relative to time and place, and truth is not, [Rorty] says, thisis not because truth is a relation to something unchanging out there (Ethics After Babel,249). Smith focuses almost exclusively on Richard Rortys Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature(Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1979) in which the distinctions between truth andjustication seems to collapse, but gives no attention to pre-1979 writings.

31 At least Smith is consistent. Conating ontological and epistemological, he ignoresthe distinction between the conditions of truth and the conditions of justication in hisearlier Whos Afraid of Postmodernism?and The Fall of Interpretation. I criticize Smith on thismatter in Divine Revelation and Foundationalism: Towards a Historically Conscious

Foundationalism, Josephinum Journal of Theology19, no. 2 (2012): 283-321, and for Smith,286-287, 296n34, 298n41.

32 Smith rejects individual relativism about truththe anything goes variety, inwhich a belief is simply ne for the person who holds it; true for me but not for you, if youchoose not to believe it.


11/25


268

conception of truth implies that what is real is limited to what is real formen.33I shall come back to these matters in the next section.

What, then, is relativism? How do we make sense of Smiths claim thatrelativists might have something to teach us about what it means to be a

creature (CCC, 17; Smiths italics)? Perhaps what Smith has in mind is thatthe objectivity of truth may be emphasized to the point where no atten-tion is given to the question regarding the conditions under which some-thing is known to be true or, alternatively put, the [normative] dynamicsof our advance to truth.34Thus, to understand Smith best I think we needto distinguish, following Paul Helm, the conditions under which some-thing is true and the conditions under which something is knownto betrue.35 I suggest that Smith attends almost exclusively to the latter. Heholds that pragmatism is a better philosophical account of the creaturely

conditions of knowing (CCC, 40) and in this sense relativism can help upto understand our dependency. In particular, it appreciates the contin-gent, communal conditions of knowledge (CCC, 173), namely, that aspectof Wittgensteinian pragmatism that sees language as a form of life, a wayof acquiring know-how in the context of a community of practice,learning how to do things with words. By implication, Christianity is aform of life, bound up with the tangible practices of a lived community. Itis an inherently ecclesial understanding of the gospel whereby the good

news of Jesus Christ is now entrusted toand bound up withthe livedtestimony of his body, the church (CCC, 172-173; see also, 53, 58; Smithitalics).

Therefore, in this light we can surely understand Smith when he askswhat is the right order of love to which we should conform. He explains:How do we know this?What is the [epistemic] basis for this right order oflove? How do we come to know that this is the right order of love/ Howdo we know that the Trinity is the telosof human happiness? How dowe know this order by which we are to evaluate everything? Smithsanswer: The recognition of that factindeed, the very ability to knowthe Triune God and hence the order of love and hence the order of lovehe commandsis dependent upon the grace of revelation unfolded inthe Scriptures and proclaimed by the church (CCC, 71; see also 71n28;Smiths italics). It is in this sense that pragmatism enables us to under-stand that Gods revelation meets us [and is known] in and under these

33

Trigg, Reality at Risk, vii.34 Bernard J.F. Lonergan, The Subject, in A Second Collection, ed. William F.J. Ryan and

Bernard J. Tyrell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 69-86, and at 72.

35 Paul Helm, Why be Objective?, in Objective Knowledge: A Christian Perspective, ed.Paul Helm (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity, 1987), 29-40, and for this distinction, 39.


12/25

269


social conditions of meaning. Gods revelation meets us in these condi-tions of contingency and dependence (CCC, 72; Smiths italics).Indeed,the normative Scriptural and ecclesial dynamics of our advance to theknowledge of truth constitute the contingent communal conditions of

knowing. We know in and bythose conditions (CCC, 113; Smiths italics).I contend that a realist about truth can agree with all of this as hav-

ing to do with the conditions under which we know that something istrue. But those conditions are distinct from the conditions under whichsomething is true. In sum, conditions of truth must be distinguishedfrom conditions of justication. Smith consistently ignores this distinc-tion because he conates ontological and epistemological questions,36thatis, what there is and how we can know it.37If I am right about the importof this distinction for arming realism about truth, then Smiths repeated

charge that realismand its attendant representationalismseems tobe an epistemology that is bent on overcoming creaturehood (CCC, 41) isseriously questionable. I turn now to discuss his critique of realism.

Realism: Epistemology and Alethiology

Undoubtedly, the most important argument that runs throughoutSmiths book, but especially the chapter on Rorty, is about how to tran-scend the dilemma of realism vs. anti-realism. Briey, Smith argues thatthis dilemma is dependent on both representationalismand corresponden-tism. Roughly, representationalist epistemologies, forms of indirect real-ism, hold that the ideas in the mind of the isolated thinking subject seemto be the direct object of our conscious awareness, and we think that wemust somehow infer from these ideas what the real world must be like;the world is not directly given to us.38Correspondentism is, roughly, the

36 Smith also seems to ignore critics on this point. See John C. Poirier, Why Im StillAfraid: A response to James K. A. Smiths Whos Afraid of Postmodernism? WestminsterTheological Journal69 (2007): 174-84. Furthermore, J. K. A. Smith criticizes Christian Smithfor his alleged failure to be up-to-date by not attending to the philosophical challenges ofrealism and a correspondence theory of truth in the past half-century (CCC, 23). But thischarge has a boomerang eect: J.K.A. Smith himself actually fails to attend to the sophis -ticated responses by philosophers to these challenges, for example, William Alston, AlvinGoldman, Alvin Plantinga, Roger Trigg, Peter van Inwagen, and Nicholas Wolterstor. Yes,he briey engages Plantinga (CCC, 25-28), but doesnt really confront his arguments againstRorty head-on.

37 Trigg, Reality at Risk, xii. See N. Wolterstor, Realism vs Anti-Realism: How to Feel

at Home in the World, in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association54(1985):1-24, especially, 12-14.

38 Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence, 180. See also, Nicholas Wolterstor, Between thePincers of Increased Diversity and Supposed Irrationality, in God, Philosophy and AcademicCulture, edited by William J. Wainwright (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996), 13-20,


13/25


270

view of truth that holds our beliefs contact reality only when they corre-spond to some facts or states of aairs. Smith holds that these two viewsare inextricably connected. Three responses have been made to this thesis.

One response is to loosen the link between representationalism and

correspondence.39Nicholas Wolterstor, D. Stephen Long, and Roger Triggare representatives of this move. In Triggs words, Realism need not takeany position about the exact kind of correspondence required, but it mustat least assert that true theories are true in virtue ofobjective reality. Truthhas its source in reality, and as a consequence questions about the natureof truth are distinct from those about the best way of reaching it.40 Asecond response is suggested by Alvin Plantinga. He responds to GaryGuttings thesis, which is similar to Smiths view, that Rorty is simplyrejecting representationalist realism while embracing commonplace and

commonsense truths about truth. Plantinga writes:

According to Gutting, Rorty endorses all the commonsense, baseline plati-tudes about truth and our relation to it; but dont these platitudes them-selves include this very representationalism? Isnt representationalismatany rate the basic version of it [namely, the idea that we (or our minds)possess and think by way of representations, which are true just if theycorrespond to reality]itself platitudinous? It is a baseline platitude that

beliefs are about things of one kind or another; for example, some of mybeliefs are about the moon. It is another baseline platitude that beliefs can

represent things as being one way or another; for example, one of my beliefsabout the moon represents it as a satellite of the earth. And it is still anotherbaseline platitude that this belief is true if and only if the way that beliefrepresents the moon as being, is the way the moon really isi.e., if andonly if the belief about the moon corresponds to what the moon is like.

and for representationalism, 17-20. A classical version of representationalism supportingindirect realism is found in Bertrand Russell, TheProblems of Philosophy(London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1913), 5-17.

39 Smith mentions this response but rejects it because it still accepts a correspondencetheory of truth (CCC, 104-105). I would suggest that [dispensing with representationalismbut still arming correspondence] doesnt quite go far enoughand doesnt adequatelyappreciate the pragmatist claim . If pragmatism is right about the contingent, socialconditions of knowledge, then a Christian metaphysic (a sacramental ontology) not onlyhas to be a realism without representation; it would also be a realism without correspon-dence. Or, to frame the point more carefully and with a little more nuance, we might put itthis way: if pragmatism is rightthat representation and correspondence and even real-ism are [language] games that we learn to play from community of social practicethenour realisms (and attendant claims to correspondence) are dependent upon communities of

practice. In short, our claims about reality are relative to a community of social practiceand the environment we inhabit (CCC, 107). But a realism without representation andcorrespondence is a realism in which extralinguistic facts or states of aairs are lost andhence one in which truth claims cannot be seen as ontologically true.

40 Trigg, Reality at Risk, xiv.


14/25

271


Representationalism itself seems to be included in that stock of baselineplatitudes; at any rate, there is platitudinous version of it.41

In this passage, Plantinga is skeptical of the view that Rorty is, asGutting argues, merely interested in saving commonsense, baseline plati-

tudes about truth and our relation to it, e.g., general beliefs in enduringphysical objects, others persons, or the reality of the past. If so, arguesPlantinga, the commonsense baseline includes a platitudinous version ofrepresentationalism. This is the idea, as Plantinga says in the above pas-sage, that we (or our minds) possess and think by way of representations,which are true just if they correspond to reality. And unlike Smith,Plantinga is not assuming that representationalism is simply a version ofindirect realism.

A third response is that of Smiths laRorty. Smith embraces an epis-temic conception of truth in which truth is just a matter of being justiedin believing something to be true. There is no doubt that this is Smithsview. Early on in his book he aligns himself with the core claim of thepragmatist tradition of Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Brandom. He thinksthat they really do argue that what is true depends on what we humanbeings say or think. The next three chapters are meant to show us thatthis tradition gives close attention to the conditions of our nitude andcreaturehood. Indeed, he argues that pragmatism is a robust philoso-

phy of contingency that is wholly compatible with the Christian doctrineof creationand even something of a prophetic reminder of the impor-tance of the Creator/creature distinction (CCC, 29).42Having said this, Iacknowledge that Smith has a rich account of justication, appreciatingour contingency and social dependence as knowers (CCC, 96). Yet, heis an epistemic relativist. What he says about Rorty also pertains to him.Ifby relativist you mean that he sees [epistemic] valuations as relative toand dependent upon contingent social practices and communities of dis-course, then yes Rorty is a relativist (CCC, 98; Smiths italics). He adds,

This point is crucial, especially for Christians seeking to critically appro-priate Rortys pragmatism as a philosophy of creaturehood (CCC, 98).

One strand of Smiths epistemology is a deontic concept of epistemicjustication, which involves the root idea that there is a set of noeticobligations that apply to our cognitive acts. Following Robert Brandom,

41 Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief(New York: Oxford University Press, 2000),

432.42Again, in fairness to Smith, he does ask the following questions regarding an epistemic

conception of truth of these pragmatists: Do they really mean to claim that the human,social conditions of knowing and truths claims are metaphysically creative? Or that unlesshumans saysomething is true that things dont exist (CCC, 29)? His answer is negative.


15/25


272

Smith elucidates the cognitive acts of rational agents using deontic termsthat suggest normative duties for epistemic accountability: undertak-ing, commitment, authorizing, responsibility, vindicate (CCC, 127; italicsremoved). What, then, about epistemic objectivity?

Well, if by objectively true you mean justied or warranted assertibilityin conformity to norms of justication (the normative space of reasons),then something may be objectively true. But when Smith uses the phraseobjectively true he certainly doesnt mean true to reality. He rejectsa realist conception of truth. In fact, he asks whether rejecting realismmean that truthis called in question? Or that core claims of the Christianfaith are eviscerated? In sum, Is realism the only way to arm some-thing as true? His answer, I dont think so (CCC, 25). Given his epistemicconception of truth, on his view, What counts as rational, then, depends

on the rules and norms of a discursive community (CCC, 140; Smithsitalics). In sum, Smiths belief policy,43adopted from Brandoms theory ofepistemic justication stipulates two sorts of normative evaluation forobjective propositions: Do they follow the rules of inference? And arethey true? (CCC, 147) The rst rule raises the demand of justication, butthis justication, and the attendant commitment and entitlement to theclaim itself, is relative to this framework (game) of giving and asking forreasons. That this rst rule is necessary but not sucient for dealing with

justication is suggested by Brandoms concern that our judgments [are]not merely subjective (CCC, 147). How do we avoid falling back on ourown belief system saying, at this point in the argument, as Ernest Sosaputs it, that fundamentally, it is all relative and that factor F [that whichmakes a belief of our own justied] is just ourbasic source of justication,that others may dier, and, if so, to each his own?44In short, And, if thatis its status, how can the justication of any belief relative to such a systemrise above the level of arbitrary willfulness? Where would the extra incre-ment of justication come from?45Smith owes us a clear answer to this

important question.But on Smiths view it is hard to see where this extra increment of

justication would come from. This is so especially since, on views likeSmiths, as Trigg correctly notes, the world becomes totally irrelevant to

43 A belief policy contains principles [that] provide standards for the management of[ones] belief system. They tell you what beliefs you ought and ought not to hold. They alsomake clear what kinds of reason or evidence entitles you to hold a particular belief (Del

Kiernan-Lewis, Learning to Philosophize[Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2000), 68-71, and at 69.See also Paul Helm, Belief Policies(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

44 Ernest Sosa, Serious Philosophy and Freedom of Spirit, The Journal of Philosophy84,no. 12 (1987): 707-726, and at 715.

45 Sosa, Serious Philosophy and Freedom of Spirit, 715.


16/25

273


questions of truth.46 Smith himself raises a critical question against hisview: it seems like there is no reality to which we are accountable (CCC,142). Although I cannot argue the point in this article review, considerSmiths use of Wittgensteins language game notion (CCC, 39-72); here,

too, the necessary connection between meaningful language and realityis severed. Michael Polanyi accurately criticizes this nominalist view asone that depicts language as a set of convenient symbols used accordingto the conventional rules of a language game. He argues that the studyof linguistic rules [cannot be] used as a pseudo-substitute for the studyof the things referred to in its terms . Correspondingly, disagreementson the nature of things cannot be expressed as disagreements aboutthe existing use of words . The purpose of the philosophic pretenseof being merely concerned with grammar is to contemplate and analyze

reality, while denying the act of doing so.47In sum, Smith obfuscates.Undoubtedly, Smith arms the creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon to be

truth about reality. Yet, his Wittgensteinian view of the relation betweenlanguage and reality, in which meaning and correspondence are conven-tional and the connection between words and reality is contingent (CCC,48, 52), is inconsistent with what those creeds arm to be true about real-ity. And as Avery Dulles once put it, If we are to worship, speak, andbehave as though the Son of God were himself God , is it not because

the Son really and ontologically is God, whether anyone believes it or not?By inserting the homoousionin the creed, the Council of Nicaea was indeedlaying down a linguistic stipulation; but more importantly, it was declar-ing an objective truth.48To make Dulless point stick, we need a realistnotion of truth; and Smith has completely distanced himself from realism.

It is not that Smith is denying that there is a real world out there, exter-nal to the knower, but his stance toward that world is a pragmatic one ofcoping with the obduracy of things, the antics of things, as collectivelydiscerned by our [epistemic] peers. We can recognize the contingencyof our take on the world and still arm it as the best account of theworld (indeed, of the entire cosmos, including the divine). We just dontget to secure this by representational magic that eectively overcomesthe contingency and dependence. This obviously has implications for

46 Trigg, Reality at Risk, xiv. Similarly, Smith says, Rorty is just rejecting objective real-ity and absolute truth as rooted in representationalist realism (CCC, 88). But since, onRortys view, the world is totally irrelevant to questions of truth, then, Smiths rendering

of Rorty, according to Plantinga, and I concur, implausibly emasculates Rorty (WarrantedChristian Belief, 432).

47 Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 113-114.

48 Avery Cardinal Dulles, Postmodernist Ecumenism, Review of The Church in aPostliberal Age, by George A. Lindbeck, First Things, October 2003.


17/25


274

Christian confession and witness: it would mean that a Christian takeon the world is contingent. But recognizing its contingency does notundercut its claim to truth (CCC, 100-101). True, Smith does want to maketruth claims. But we must understand him to mean whenever he says

thisin light of an epistemic notion of truththat we can make truthclaims according to what human beings say or think governed by norma-tive epistemic criteria.

I want to make two additional points here. One, Smith talks about thepushback of reality (CCC, 111), of the world, its obduracy, includingeven the environment of Gods special revelation in history, of its resis-tance to certain views,49writing it o, ignoring it, explaining it away(CCC, 111). But words like pushback, which surely suggest a certainresistance, imply that our views are accountable to reality, to what is the

case.Perhaps this is where the extra increment of justication mentionedabove comes from? As one theologian puts it, something is given whichwe cannot altogether manipulate to suit our fancy so that if our viewsare wrong the reality itself will rear up and oppose us. For example,From my experience of oceangoing liners I may come to the conclusionthat I can sail my automobile on the North Atlantic. But reality will resistthis interpretation in no uncertain fashion.50So, can disagreements aboutreality, the environment, be expressed, as Smith does, as disagree-

ments about coping? No, not even in his own terms: reality seems to playa role in determining whether one is justied in holding P to be true. Itseems to me that Smith here is waing. Second, yes, Smiths view doesnot eliminate his ability to make truth claims, but this must be seen inlight of his epistemic notion of truth. And this notion limits what is trueto what can be justied to be true, or, as Brandom puts it, what is truedepends on what we human beings say or think (CCC, 29), with whatones epistemic peers agree to be true in light of certain norms of justica-tion. And it seems to me that this view dovetails with the view that limits

what is real to what is real for human beings. And if not, why not? Smithowes us an answer.

Moreover, I wonder whether Smith is consistent here in suggestingthat the world is irrelevant to truth claims. Sometimes, for example, whenspeaking about natural law, he arms the ontological reality of naturallaw.51Yes, the conditions under which one knows that reality is not apart

49

He mentions atheists, such as Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins who write oGods revelation. He adds, they are nonetheless contending with it in a sense (CCC, 111).

50 Aidan Nichols, The Shape of Catholic Theology(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991), 236.

51 Given Smiths rejection of realism, is the status of natural law an objective reality? Arethe universal norms objective moral truths? It isnt at all clear, particularly since earlier in


18/25

275


from membership in a contingent community of practice that teaches usto see the world as such (CCC, 112n49). There isnt anything here aboutcoping. Elsewhere he writes that a Christian pragmatist account of nat-ural law arms that there are universal norms inscribed into the very

structure of creation. We might describe this as an ontological claim.And then again he refers us to the conditions under which one knowsthis to be the case: However, the epistemic condition for seeingthemthecondition of their intelligibilityis immersion in the Spirit-ed commu-nity of practice that receives the Word of God (CCC, 173n28). Nothinghere about coping, but only about seeing. And again, later he says thatpragmatisms appreciation of the contingent, communal conditions ofknowledge does not undercut the ability to make universal claims, nordoes it preclude the possibility of asserting universal norms. It only means

that it is impossible to see or grasp such norms from nowhere or from anabsolute standpoint. The contingent conditions [under which we come toknow whether something is true] of a particular community of practiceare thegiftsthat enable us to see and understand these universal featuresof the cosmos (CCC, 173). And again, nothing here about coping, but onlyabout seeing and understanding the way things are, universal and endur-ing. What Smith claims here in these passages can best be argued for by anon-epistemic notion of truth, one wedded to correspondence, even witha deontic notion of epistemic justication, such as Smiths.

But Smith disputes this point. Realism about truth, a non-epistemicnotion of truthgrounded in the way things areattempts to overcomeour contingency, dependence, and sociality as knowers by purporting tobring us into contact with reality, at least according to Smith. This involvesclaiming a certain nality and irreversibility for the truth of the Christianfaith. But Smith will have none of this because it suggests that oneslanguage [can] transcend the contingency of practice (CCC, 96), whichdenies our creaturehood.52Smith is a fallibilist all the way down. This is

his book (CCC, 21n11), Smith asks whether there can be an account of how one could havemoral standards without having to claim that they are objective. There is also the matterof his earlier Whos Afraid of Postmodernism?In that book, he claims that moral diversityruns so deep that universal moral criteria are unavailable and hence postmodern societyis at a loss to adjudicate the completing [moral] claims. He adds, There can be no appealto higher court that would transcend a historical context or a language game, no neutralobserver or Gods-eye-view that can legitimate or justify one paradigm or moral languagegame above another (69). I cannot argue the point here, but Smith confuses epistemologi-cal and ontological questions here.

52 Strictly speaking, the realist distinguishes between propositions and sentences. PaceSmith, then, it isnt language as such that necessarily transcends practice on a realist viewof truth. Propositionscontents of thought that are true or false, expressible in variouslanguages, but more than mere words, expressing possible, and if true, actual states ofaairsdo not vary as the language in which they are expressed varies (propositions are


19/25


20/25

277


In one nal section, I will consider the question whether GeorgeLindbecks postliberalism is an ally in Smiths eorts to bring relativismto Church. Smith certainly thinks so.

Is Lindbecks Postliberalism an Ally for Smith?My answer to the question this section head poses is, arguably, nega-

tive. Smith defends what Guarino has called a strong version56of GeorgeLindbecks postliberalism.57 As I shall argue, Lindbeck takes partialresponsibility for this reading of his work, but he argues that it is funda-mentally mistaken. In a strong version, questions of correspondence andrealism disappear, or at the very least are minimized in their importance,because a pragmatist account of doctrines, shaped by Wittgensteins view

of language, and the theories of epistemic justication and truth of Rortyand Brandom, sever the necessary connection between meaningful lan-guage and reality. In short, on Smiths view, no ontological representationand correspondence remain. Let me quickly add that, on his view, it isntthat he rejects a cognitive-propositional dimension of doctrines. But onhis reading of Lindbeck, doctrines are not rst-order propositions, butrather second-order, making intrasystematic rather than ontological truthclaims (CCC, 165).

On this reading, the dierence between being intrasystematically trueand ontologically true is the dierence between saying that a propositioncoheres and is consistent with the whole network of Christian beliefs andpractices, on the one hand, and saying that this proposition correspondsto the reality armed by faith on the other. It is the dierence betweenan epistemic conception of truth and a correspondencenon-epistemicconception of truth. Being as such second-order propositions, they muston Smiths pragmatist account be located rst and foremost in the com-munity of practice that is the church. In other words, Christian faith (and

religion more generally) is a kind of know-how; theology and doctrine,then, make explicit our know-how as know-that claims, articulatingthe norms implicit in the practices of the community that is the body ofChrist (CCC, 153; see also,162-163).

56 Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 314.

57 George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age,

25th Anniversary Edition, With a New Introduction by Bruce D. Marshall and a NewAfterword by the Author (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 2009). I assume through-out this brief discussion of Smiths Lindbecks interpretation that Smith takes over most ofLindbecks view, as Smith understands it, without hesitationexcept when Lindbeck turnsto correspondence about truth. So, I dont always distinguish between Lindbeck and Smithin what follows.


21/25


278

Signicantly, Smith claims that practice gives rise, in some sense, todoctrine. Bringing together the point about being second-order proposi-tions and practice, he states that doctrines are, in a sense, derivativefrompractice (CCC, 164; Smiths italics). Doctrines say[articulate] what, up to

that point, we previously did, in a sense (CCC, 163). Smith underscorestheir second-order status and his Wittgensteinian take that doctrines arerules regulating our use of doctrine, rather than being primarily claimsabout God or the world; instead they are rules that govern how we canspeak about God and Gods relationship to the world on the rst-orderlevel of prayer and proclamation (CCC, 164).58

Lindbeck explicitly repudiates this strong version of postliberalismarguing that it stems from the confusing way he speaks about three kindsof truth in The Nature of Doctrine: categorical, intrasystematic (coher-

entism), and ontological (correspondence). In 1989, ve years after thepublication of his book, he claried (or, perhaps, retracted) what he meantby these distinctions.59The reason for this lack of clarity is the absence inThe Nature of Doctrine of the distinction between justied and true belief.60In other words, conditions of justication must be distinguished fromconditions of truth, which is the very distinction consistently ignored bySmith, but which is crucial for understanding Lindbecks postliberalism.Lindbeck continues:

What the text calls intrasystematic (that is, coherence with the relevantcontext of beliefs and behavior) is better thought of as a necessary (thoughnot sucient) condition for justied belief. When to this is added cate-gorical truth (that is, adequate words and grammar or, more technicallyexpressed, adequate concepts and appropriate patterns for deployingthem), one has two necessary (but not sucient) conditions for successfultruth claims (that is, for assertions that are not only justied but also onto-logically true.61

58 Smith adds, [D]octrines are about the inferential relationship between confessionalclaims and not the referential relation between our claims and the world (CCC, 164; Smithsitalics).

59 Smith seems unaware of Lindbecks clarication: Response to Bruce Marshall, TheThomist53 (1989): 403-406. Lindbeck is responding to Bruce Marshalls article in the sameissue, Aquinas as a Postliberal Theologian, 353-402. This clarication is repeated in theAfterword to the 25th anniversary edition (2009) of The Nature of Doctrine, as well as inLindbecks response (First Things, January 2004) to Avery Cardinal Dulles review of thecollection of Lindbecks essays, The Church in a Postliberal Age, Postmodern Ecumenism,

First Things, October 2003. Marshall restates Lindbecks view of truth in the Introduction tothe 25th Anniversary edition, xvii.

60 Lindbeck, Afterword, 139n10.

61 Lindbeck, Afterword, 139n10. The same points are made almost verbatim in theother two sources I cite in note 43.


22/25

279


Thus, Christian beliefs are ontologically true because they correspondto reality, and categorical and intrasystematic truth together are the nec-essary and sucient conditions of ontological truth.62It follows then thatdoctrinal truth claims need some form of philosophical realism because

they mediate states of aairs. Furthermore, according to Lindbeck, thereexists an indissoluble relation between reality, truth and knowability, notin the human mind, of course, but rather in Gods divine mind, with hisknowledge being alone the foundation of how things really are. Lindbeckis a theistic realist about truth. Indeed, he says,

For any theist for who whom God is prima veritas, as he was for Aquinas,in God, and only in God, are knowledge and reality, not only in correspon-dence, but directly known to correspond. Only in him do truth and knowl-edge of truth, alethiology and epistemology, coincide. In human knowledge

in via, in contrast, there is always a gap. Our beliefs may correspond to real-ity, but we are justied in holding that they do so, not directly seeing theircorrespondence, but by some other means. That those other means mightin part or whole be coherentist or pragmatist cannot be excluded a priori.63

Moreover, Lindbeck himself makes clear elsewhere that ontologicallytrue means that the truth of belief is a matter of correspondence.64Categorical truth and intrasystematic coherence of truthand the rangeof appropriate practices that follow from that coherenceare matters ofmeaning and justication, but not of truth.65In this light, we can under-

stand why Lindbeck says that from a doctrine-as-regulative perspective

62 Marshall, Aquinas as Postliberal Theologians, 366.

63 Lindbeck, Response to Bruce Marshall, 404.

64 Bruce Marshall explains that Lindbecks notion of ontological truth lines up directly

with traditional notions of truth as correspondence to reality or adaequatio mentis ad rem,Introduction, xvii. In all fairness to Smith, he does acknowledge that Lindbecks viewis a proposal for realism with correspondence (CCC, 166n23). Elsewhere he mentions inpassing that Lindbeck addresses the realists worries by taking as ontologically truewhat is synonymous with what he elsewhere describes as extratextual truth (CCC, 168;see also 164n20). But this acknowledgement does not seem to interfere with his renditionof the strong version of Lindbecks liberalism as a pragmatist view of theological meaningand truth.

65 The failure to understand the distinction between conditions of justication andconditions of truth leads John Wright wrongly to read Lindbeck as an internal realist

laHilary Putnam (Postliberal Theology and the Church Catholic, Conversations with GeorgeLindbeck, David Burrell, Stanley Hauerwas, Edited by John Wright [Grand Rapids, BakerAcademic 2012], 48n86). This view takes postliberalism to have an epistemic conception oftruth. On this score, Ronald T. Michener rightly understands Lindbeck: George Lindbeckholds to a realist alethiology and a coherentist, pragmatic epistemology (PostliberalTheology, A Guide for the Perplexed[London: Bloomsbury, 2013], 98).


23/25


24/25

281


Crisps conclusion brings us back to Smiths pragmatic account of theo-logical meaning, and hence its anti-metaphysical presupposition, drivinghis rejection of metaphysical realism. Throughout his book, Smith speaksof the Trinity and the Incarnation. How can these doctrines be understood

non-metaphysically, and given Smiths nominalism, even non-essentially?Again, Crisp rightly states, If we must confess that God is both one andthree, that he is Triune, and that the Second Person of the Trinity is GodIncarnate, and so forth, then we are predicating certain things about thedivine nature. We are saying that God is Triune; that in some importantand fundamental sense it is true that he is both one and yet three; thatthe Second Person of the trinity is Incarnate in Christ; and so on. We can-not avoid making such claims as Christian theologians. PaceSmith, theyare not, in any sense, derivative from practice (CCC, 164), but rather are

revealed. Furthermore, these claims are metaphysical in the sense thatthey predicate something about God, about the nature of God, and areclaims we think veridical.71

True, Smith describes his position as a fundamentally catholic stancethat begins with an armation of tradition, a gracious reception of thegifts we received from our past (CCC, 182). I appreciate the seriousnessof his conviction, which I share. If he genuinely holds to this position,then he must abandon his views, as I understand them, because they

undermine support for the notion that doctrine mediates truth as cor-respondence with reality, truth that is universally valid, as Guarino putsit, [such] teaching grasps and displays existing states of aairs, andadmitting clear dimensions of nality and even of irreversibility.72

Admittedly, as Bavinck says in his opening line to Volume II of theGereformeerde Dogmatiek, Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics.73 Ofcourse, then, Guarino adds, there is, unarguably, an apophatic andeschatological dimension to Christian doctrine that curtails the extent towhich the mysteria dei are known. Even with that said, however, it isa clear conviction of the Christian church that, here and now, it knowssomething universally, actually, and in some instances, irreversibly trueabout Gods inner life.74

Smiths adoption of contingentism and the attendant philosophicalclaims about knowledge and truth that he has gleaned from the philoso-phies of Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Brandom has shape the gospel to these

71 Crisp, Ad Hector.72 Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 78.

73 Herman Bavinck, Gereformeerde DogmatiekII (Kampen: Kok, 1897), 1.

74 Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 78.


25/25


philosophies own ends.75Pace Smith, orthodox Christians should con-tinue to be afraid of relativismas he understands itbecause it can-not sustain the clear conviction of the Christian faith as stated above.Undoubtedly, Smith shares this conviction, but it is an anomaly for him

given his philosophical appropriation of relativism. Relativism cannot bechastened by the Gospel. Hence, it should continue to be regarded as anti-thetical to the Christian faith.76

75 Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology, 303n27.

76 I am grateful to Philip Blosser, Hans Boersma, Fr. Thomas G. Guarino, Peter Leithart,and Ronald T. Michener for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Relativism—Ancilla Theologiae et Fidei? Not so Fast!

Documents

Transcript of Relativism—Ancilla Theologiae et Fidei? Not so Fast!