Reason at the margins

For someone like Hess, any interpretation that runs counter to his doctrinal position is impossible.

 

It’s an interesting problem: how do you hold a discussion with someone who cannot ever accept that you might have a point? No matter how persuasive or logical your arguments, they can never allow themselves to agree.

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2011/06/22/doctrinal-conformity/

Of course, that “problem” cuts both ways.

Critical historiography, as it developed in the nineteenth century, had its own principles...Troeltsch set out three principles...(2) the principle of analogy: historical knowledge is possible because all events are similar in principle. We must assume that the laws of nature in biblical times were the same as now. Troeltsch referred to this as “the almighty power of analogy,” (3) the principle of correlation: the phenomena of history are interrelated and interdependent and no event can be isolated from the sequence of historical cause and effect.

John J. Collins, Encounters with Biblical Theology (Augsburg Fortress 2005), 12.

On methodological naturalism, I don’t see how historical study can adopt any other approach, any more than criminology can. It will always be theoretically possible that a crime victim died simply because God wanted him dead, but the appropriate response of detectives is to leave the case open. In the same way, it will always be possible that a virgin conceived, but it will never be more likely than that the stories claiming this developed, like comparable stories about other ancient figures, as a way of highlighting the individual's significance. And since historical study deals with probabilities and evidence, to claim that a miracle is “historically likely” misunderstands the method in question.

 

http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/04/triablogue-osphere.html

For someone like John Collins, James McGrath, or Ernst Troeltsch, any interpretation that runs counter to his doctrinaire naturalism is impossible.

It’s an interesting problem: how do you hold a discussion with a methodological naturalist who cannot ever accept that you might have a point? No matter how persuasive or logical your arguments, they can never allow themselves to agree.