I've been thinking through the place of story, experience, and propositional truth in regards to it's role in informing and shaping us as human beings. This lecture, http://covenantseminary.inmotionhosting.com/OT230_Lecture_02.mp3 , which I am listening to in preparation for a class I am taking this fall at Covenant Seminary on the OT Historical Books, the lecturer, Phil Long, explains that while stories are vital to illustrating propostional truth, the Biblical narratives have the added necessary value of establishing propositional truth.
Here's the text:
"By telling this story we could instruct someone in the truth that "Human strength is no match for God's strength, thus we need not fear human opposition" in a way that goes beyond simply stating the proposition. Thus one of the reasons stories are so important is because they provide vicarious experience. We can enter into them imaginatively and grasp the truth in a much more vital way than if we are simply given a list of propositions. If all you wanted to know was what the truths about God are, those could be condensed into propositions such as "God is love." But that is very different from experiencing God's love in your own life. People can give assent to the proposition without really understanding what it means. I am reminded of the man who on his wedding day said to his wife, "Helen, I love you. There, I have said it. Do not expect me to keep on repeating it. Believe me, I love you. But I will not be repeating it." This man has stated a proposition that he believes to be true. She may also believe it to be true, but she will be frustrated if over time she does not experience his love in some way that helps her understand what all that means. In fact, if there is no experience of that love then the man's statement means very little. Thus experience is important, and stories give us vicarious experience. Now, a made up story -- one that is not true -- can illustrate a truth, but it cannot establish a truth. You can illustrate something you know to be true by using a made up story, but you cannot prove something to be true simply by making up a story.
That is why these Old Testament stories are important in this second way: they recount redemptive history. History is the stage of God's activity and self-revelation. Christianity is an historical religion. This is distinct from other religions that might involve themselves more with a philosophy of life, a way of looking at things, a theory about the universe, or a code of ethics or behavior. All these things are a part of Christianity, but Christianity is distinct because it involves the in-breaking of God in history. That is the nature of the incarnation of Christ. It was necessary for God to break into history if He was to redeem real people with a real problem involving real sin. You may hear people say today that the historicity of the biblical text is inconsequential. That may be true of certain texts like a parable, which need not be historical because it is illustrating rather than establishing a truth. Now, when Jesus tells a parable, because of His authority as God incarnate, He is in a sense establishing a truth just by telling that parable, regardless of whether the parable is historical. He has the authority to pronounce a truth and illustrate it through that parable. But truths of redemption are not established simply by a book of fiction. People today do say that it is not really important whether we regard the accounts of Israel's past and God's actions on their behalf as historical. They say that these are books which they believed to be true, influenced their thinking, and helped them to develop a certain lifestyle. We need to be careful about that way of thinking because it betrays our poor understanding of the essence of the Christian faith. If Christianity were no more than a way of thinking or a code of behavior and a lifestyle, then the historicity of the biblical text would not be important. But because we are truly dead in sin we need a true revelation from God if we are to find any true redemption. In other words, history -- not philosophy, mysticism, speculation, or any realm of purely mental or spiritual enlightenment -- is the stage of God's activity and self-revelation. God has acted in history in a revelatory and redemptive fashion. This comes to its climax in Christ, but we really do not understand Christ until we understand the way in which He has been foreshadowed and prepared for in the story that has led up to Him. Also, God is an historical agent. The late G. B. Caird, in his book, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, stresses the importance of history for the writers of the New Testament. He writes this, talking about the writer of the Gospel of John: "According to John, there is no Christianity apart from the solid reality of the earthly life of Jesus recorded in the apostolic tradition. Eternal life remains an unsubstantial dream unless in one man's life it has become earthly reality. Without the Jesus of history we know neither the Christ of faith nor the God He came to reveal. From first to last the Bible lays great stress on the fact that God is uniquely active in human history."
You can read the rest here : http://www.covenantseminary.edu/worldwide/en/OT230/OT230_T_02.pdf
It's not as complicated as I tend to make it. Experience, story and propositional truth all have an active role in shaping all humans. We cannot do without any one of them. And in our teaching we must use them all. It would seem though that at each stage of life, that each will be given a different level of emphasis at any one time, due to both our ability to participate in that mode of learning and in our ability to learn.
This reminds me of something I read at John Frame and Vern Poythress's website:
"How is perspectivalism useful? There are some moments when I think it is a kind of deep structure of the universe and of Bible truth. Other times (most times) I think of it more modestly, as a pedagogical device. Certainly, as a pedagogical device, it gives students some hooks on which to hang bits of theological knowledge, or to change the metaphor, some string by which to tie things together. But I think that it is of even more practical significance.
For one thing, I think it resolves a lot of traditional theological arguments, such as whether redemptive history (the situation) is more important than the divine law (normative) or believing subjectivity. You need each to appreciate the others. That fact has implications for preaching, evangelism, and our personal appropriation of Scripture.
Second, it encourages us toward balance. Preaching that focuses all the time on law (normative) and not grace (situational) will be corrected by an understanding of the true relation between these. Same vice versa. People who emphasize the objective (normative and situational) while disparaging human experience and feelings (existential) can be corrected by a multi-perspectival understanding. And vice versa. Perspectivalism is a way of checking ourselves. If a pastor develops a ministry that focuses on norms and situations, he may need to supplement it with something that does justice to the existential perspective, and so on. If a congregation has a lot of prophetic gifts, but few kingly or priestly, perhaps it needs to seek leadership in the last two areas.
So I think that perspectivalism is an encouragement to the unity of the church. Sometimes our divisions of theology and practice are differences of perspective, of balance, rather than differences over the essentials of faith.18 So perspectivalism will help us better to appreciate one another, and to appreciate the diversity of God’s work among us."
No comments:
Post a Comment