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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Counsel for the defense

Prejean has come out of early retirement to continue his exchange.

***QUOTE***

And this is simply nonsense. Unless Hays is advocating some kind of Aristotelian apriorism about rationally discerning the "proper method," the GHM operates on the same footing as every empirical method of investigation: application of demonstrably reliable methods based on believable assumptions produces trustworthy outcomes (and incidentally, I'm arguing from an empirical perspective throughout; if reliability can't be shown, I reject the method). If there's some area where the assumptions don't hold or contradictory assumptions prevail, the method is simply inapplicable.

***END-QUOTE***

He’s raised that objection before, and I answered him. What I said was:

Prejean is mashing together a couple of quite distinct issues: in particular, he is confounding a hermeneutical method with an apologetical method.

I can understand the source of the confusion inasmuch as the debate over at Crowhill went back and forth on these two issues as though they were synonymous, but they’re not.

i) The hermeneutical question is the question of how we ascertaining the meaning of a document—especially a document from the past, whether the Bible or the church fathers or a church council or a papal encyclical, &c.

That’s what the grammatico-historical method (GHM) has reference to.

ii) The apologetical question is how we verify or falsify the truth-claims of a document.

Historical evidence (evidentialism) may figure in the answer, especially in the case of historical revelation, but that is not at all the same thing as GHM.

iii) GHM and evidentialism may intersect at various points. This can happen, for instance, when GHM is used to ascertain the meaning of a documentary truth-claim, while evidentialism is then used to verify or falsify that truth-claim.

Incidentally, this is applicable to his astrological illustration (see below).

Why does Prejean repeat himself when his objections have been answered? If he disagrees with the answer, he should explain why.

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

More or less, the assumption of the GHM is a human author, because that's where we have some common experience. And the reason I suspect German phenomenology is because the GHM is obviously being applied in an area where its assumptions are not applicable, which suggests that the application is driven by the demands of a philosophical-theological method rather than any empirical justification for its effectiveness.

Divine authorship is sui generis; there's no reason to even expect that the assumptions of the GHM would hold identically, unless you assert what you're trying to prove (namely, that the GHM is a suitable theological method).

***END-QUOTE***

Once again, he’s raised that objection before, and I answered him. What I said was:

Unity, inerrancy, inspiration, and authority are exegetical results of applying GHM to the text of Scripture. They figure in the self-witness of Scripture. When we exegete Scripture, using sensible and responsible methods, we discover what it has to say about itself as well as other things. These are not theological assumptions, but exegetical end-results of the GHM.

The fact that this doesn’t come up in a historical text about Abraham Lincoln is irrelevant to the method. It doesn’t come up, not because the methodology differs, but because no such claim is lodged in the text.

To repeat: there are two distinct issues here:

i) The identification of a truth-claim, and:

ii) The verification of a truth-claim.

(i) is a prerequisite for (ii).

Why does Prejean repeat himself when his objections have been answered? If he disagrees with the answer, he should explain why.

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

The uniform testimony of Christian history has been that this sort of reductionistic reading of Scripture to exclude traditional readings leads to heresy. Constantinople established that the application of such reductionism in the area of speculative theology about the doctrine of God doesn't work, because all of the condemned parties were quite faithful adherents of the Antiochene method in the areas that they got condemned.

***END-QUOTE***

There’s no real argument here. It simply begs the question in favor of Catholicism.

I’d add, though, that all arguments ultimately appeal to our intuitions of veracity and validity.

If I find X obvious, and Y denies that X is obvious, then there’s not much more I either can or should do to make it obvious to him. We have to agree to disagree, and leave it to the individual reader to judge who had the better of the argument.

So if, for example, Prejean refuses to admit that Kenneth Kitchen (Egyptologist) has an advantage over a 5C Greek Patriarch when it comes to the interpretation of Exodus or the Joseph cycle, or that Donald Wiseman (Assyriologist) enjoys a similar advantage, then there’s really nothing more to be said.

If Prejean denies the primacy of original intent, then there’s nothing I can do to make him agree with me, although I can point out that his denial is a universal solvent which will spill over and erase the ink on his Petrine texts and church fathers with equal efficiency.

He may suppose that Mt 16 teaches papal primacy, but I’m an allegorist, you see, so I think that Mt 16 is really a repair manual for a busted carburetor.

In that respect, GHM is true by default in the absence of a viable alternative. That’s not the only reason, but one reason. Prejean needs it just as much as I do, for without it he lacks epistemic access to the church fathers and church councils and papal encyclicals and canon lawyers and patrologists, &c.

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

The difference between Catholics and Evangelicals on this point is obvious; Catholics don't apply the GHM outside of the area where it is necessarily persuasive. What we mean by the "literal sense" is exactly what the GHM applied in and of itself can tell us definitively and nothing more. No external criteria, nothing except what an ordinary, uninspired, first-century author (or set of authors, depending on one's pet theory of authorship) with that author's finite knowledge would have written on a particular subject trying to communicate from point A to point B. Beyond that point, the GHM just isn't "sure," and accordingly, the theology formed based on the GHM isn't "sure" either. Thus, you won't see Raymond Brown or Joe Fitzmyer *stopping* in their theological conclusions at the text; they isolate what they can definitively know from the text, and then they move on to how external church teachings can inform exegesis where the conclusions are not definitive. The application of the GHM is the same as Protestants, but the way they draw theological conclusions from it couldn't be more different.

***END-QUOTE***

i) The GHM isn’t predicated on “definitive” findings. You won’t find that presupposition in either Catholic or Protestant commentators. Where does Prejean come up with this qualifier? Not from actually reading the way it is done, evidently.

ii) There is, indeed, a threefold difference. For conservative evangelicals, their theology must agree with their exegesis.

For liberal Protestants, they may let the text speak for itself, but they don’t feel bound by the teaching of Scripture.

For Catholic exegetes, they can deny that Scripture inculcates certain Catholic dogmas as long as they don’t deny the dogmas. Instead, they just refer that to the development of doctrine.

iii) If there’s an element of uncertainty here, it spills over into Catholicism, for whether it’s a text of Scripture or a patristic text or the text of a church council or the text of a papal encyclical, all the same hermeneutical apply to any historical document.

iv) I’d add that the same uncertainties extend to textual criticism as well. Text-critical questions aren’t limited to the text of Scripture. They can also be raised with respect to the text of the church fathers or early councils, &c.

v) Without a doctrine of providence, we’re all up a creek without a paddle.

vi) The teaching of Scripture is redundant. It doesn’t turn on any one word or verse.

vii) But if God has left something uncertain in Scripture, then we should leave matters where he has left it.

viii) Notice how Prejean treats the church as a makeweight for what is otherwise indefinite in Scripture. But the church cannot muster certainty out of thin air. That would require a booster shot of divine revelation to add to the deposit of faith.

***QUOTE***

This comes far from showing what Hays needs it to show, which is that the generalization is appropriate. It is only "sufficient warrant" in the sense that someone's purely subjective criteria for what is "sufficient" prevail.

***END-QUOTE***

All I can say is that Prejean is welcome to his opinion. For an evangelical, if a rule of faith is good enough for Christ and the Apostles and prophets, then it’s good enough for us.

***QUOTE***

And how one can infer that "Chalcedon offers precious little regarding a positive statement of the hypostatic union" on that basis is quite inexplicable. Unless you buy Harnack's naive interpretation of Cyril as a Monophysite whose view had to be corrected; more on that in a moment.

***END-QUOTE***

Notice the bait-and-switch tactic. While I’m talking about Chalcedon, he slips Cyril under the table as if the creed of Chalcedon codified every last detail of what Cyril had to say on the subject.

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

First, the historical process does privilege one outcome over another; that's the entire point of competing historical theories.

***END-QUOTE***

The historical process doesn’t pick out winners and losers—people do. History is a descriptive discipline, not a normative discipline. It tells you who believed what. But history cannot tell you who was right and who was wrong. It cannot pole-vault from is to ought. That’s not a historical judgment.

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

I'm following John McGuckin's argument on this subject practically to the letter…

***END-QUOTE***

I believe that Prejean is referring to a book which came out in the 1990s. Cyril died in the 5C. So he’s saying that the church had to wait 1500 years to find out where the truth lay in the Nestorian controversy. Doesn’t he realize how deadly that is to his thesis of definitive conclusions?

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

I'm not cherry-picking methodology either. I'm arguing specifically that Alexandrian allegorical method was excessive, but that the Christological hermeneutic (along with a stiff dose of metaphysical humility by way of apophasis) applied by Ss. Athanasius and Cyril provided a correct curb to allegorical excesses of the Alexandrian method, and it was this moderate Alexandrian method that produced orthodox theology as against the more restrictive Antiochene answer to excessive allegorization. So don't tell me that my argument is "arbitrary;" that's nonsense to anyone who is actually reasonably well-educated on the subject.

***END-QUOTE***

Okay, if he doesn’t like the “arbitrary” adjective, I’ll call his argument circular instead. Remember what I said?

So this is how the game is played:

i) Arbitrarily privilege your favorite outcome.
ii) Discount any authorities who disagree with you.
iii) Pick out the historical precursors who just so happen to chart a pathway to your preferred outcome, to the exclusion of all other precursors and historical outcomes.

And see what he’s just done? He’s reasoned backwards from his Cyrillene Christology to “the moderate Alexandrian method that produced” it.

He first selected the outcome, then selected the method—picking out church fathers who line up with that particular trajectory. He did this, not the historical process. What is “correct” or “excessive” is relative to his freely chosen point of reference.

The losing party—the monophysites—didn’t disappear after Chalcedon. They’re still around—Copts, Armenians. The tree has many twigs and branches.

Incidentally, there is no such thing as “moderate” allegorization. That’s Prejean’s make-up distinction. Once you cut the text free from its historical moorings, you’re at sea without a map, compass, or coastline.

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

And the cheap resort to a tu quoque on Vigilius is simply a distraction.

***END-QUOTE***

It’s only a cheap resort if your opening gambit is to claim the historical process does privilege one outcome over another; that's the entire point of competing historical theories, only to immediately insulate your own guy from the competitive pressures.

Like all devout Roman Catholics, Prejean practices double-bookkeeping. There’s one set of rules for the papacy, and another set of rules for everyone else.

Whenever the papacy is in peril, the papist will declare a state of martial law. Ordinary due process is suspended.

[I said] So this is how the game is played:
i) Arbitrarily privilege your favorite outcome.

[He said] ... like the use of the GHM to interpret Scripture as some kind of necessity (without any proof that it is).

I’ve already argued that GHM is the method of Scripture itself. He simply ignores the argument because he can’t answer it.

[I said] ii) Discount any authorities who disagree with you.

[He said] ... like Hays does when he says that only Marxists, feminists, and "queer" theologians would ever dare to question the GHM, discounting the massive witness of people who disagree with that notion.

Prejean is conflating his own position with mine. I’m not the one who’s mounting an argument from authority, he is.

Also, I didn’t say “question” GHM. I said those who conscious go against the grain of the text. Even in medieval exegesis, the literal sense was still treated as foundational. In principle, the medieval exegete was not supposed to swap out the literal sense for the allegorical.

[I said] iii) Pick out the historical precursors who just so happen to chart a pathway to your preferred outcome, to the exclusion of all other precursors and historical outcomes.

[He said] ... like what Hays did in calling the GHM a "throwback" to Antioch.

Once again, he’s conflating his own position with mine. I don’t care whether GHM enjoys traditional precedent or not. I brought that up as an ad hominem argument, reasoning from his own premises.

Moving along:

***QUOTE***

I beg to differ. The entire point of the historical process is to provide a crucible for historical theories, weeding out the less likely in favor of the more likely. It's history, the factual record, that selected out McGuckin's theory as against Harnack, Pelikan, and Grillmeier, and the growing consensus on his conclusions only make that point out more strongly.

***END-QUOTE***

i) Historical events are empirically equivalent. They don’t come stamped with “right” or ‘wrong” on their surface. That’s a value-judgment we bring to the historical process, not one we derive from the historical process.

Empirically speaking, there’s no outward difference between the two thieves and the person who died between them. The unique significance of that particular death is not inscribed on the event itself, but in the written record of the event.

ii) The outcome is not a theological criterion. For one thing, there is often more than one outcome. And even if there were only one outcome, that would not make it right. The winners are not always right, the losers are not always wrong.

The False Decretals were very helpful to the cause of Roman primacy. The outcome was founded on a falsehood.

After the falsehood was exposed—which men like Bellarmine fought tooth-and-nail, the outcome remained intact despite the fraudulent foundations.

As a patent law attorney, Prejean should find this unsettling.

iii) Prejean is also confusing the difference between the right interpretation of an event and the rightness of the event itself. Suppose that McGuckin’s theory is right. That doesn’t prove that Cyril was right.

iv) In addition, a “growing consensus” 1500 years after the fact is a recipe for skepticism. The “definitive” conclusion is always in tomorrow’s edition, never today’s.

7 comments:

  1. Steve said:

    "Why does Prejean repeat himself when his objections have been answered?"

    Because for Prejean it's more about appearances than substance. While Prejean tries to keep up appearances, it doesn't seem that many of his fellow Catholics find his approach convincing. In all the years I've read Scott Hahn, Karl Keating, etc., I don't remember any of them taking Prejean's approach, and I don't expect them to in the future. Prejean's approach is too arbitrary, incoherent, and inconsistent to gain much of a following.

    The primary issue here is that Prejean is wrong. It is significant, though, that not only is he wrong, but he's also putting forward a case that not many of his fellow Catholics seem to find convincing. By his own standards, he can't claim to agree with the conclusions of his fellow Catholics if he doesn't agree with all of their reasons for reaching their conclusions. But he can get around that problem by changing his standards again.

    Jason Engwer
    http://members.aol.com/jasonte
    New Testament Research Ministries
    http://www.ntrmin.org

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  2. In an attempt to divert attention from the clown car which is Envoy Magazine on-line, I'm going around to my favorite blogs and asking the question:

    What do you think of Pat Robertson's latest, um, political theory that the U.S. should assassinate Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and the Venezuelan response that his comments are tantamount to international terrorism?

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  3. Prejean wrote: >>> First, the historical process does privilege one outcome over another; that's the entire point of competing historical theories.

    Classic category error! He's confused history and historiography. (If you ask me this is a clever attorney's trick to give him a fallback position, since he can claim in rebuttal to you that he did not say "history," he said, "the historical process," which can refer to either history or historical writing (e.g. historiography). Historiography can be said to privilege one outcome over another, because historiography is an interpretitive discpline. Its the nature of the beast. History is the raw reporting of the events. Sometimes there is overlap, sometimes there is not an overlap. In US history, a professor who did his degree work in the 50's or 80's is, broadly speaking, fairly likely to present history in a manner that emphasizes the role of consensus. In contrast, a professor from the 60's or 70's will tend to view history through the lens of conflict, particularly socio-economic and class conflict. The data, the history, from which both schools of thought draw, however, is exactly the same. A standard survey text is less likely to show overlaps than a monograph on a particular event or period. That goes with the territory.

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  4. "Classic category error! He's confused history and historiography. (If you ask me this is a clever attorney's trick to give him a fallback position, since he can claim in rebuttal to you that he did not say 'history,' he said, 'the historical process,' which can refer to either history or historical writing (e.g. historiography). Historiography can be said to privilege one outcome over another, because historiography is an interpretitive discpline. Its the nature of the beast. History is the raw reporting of the events."

    Don't be dense. The discipline of history includes both reporting of "trivial facts" and historiography. Accusing me of a "category error" for using a conventional term in a conventional way is absurd. That is, of course, unless you are so foolish as to think that these categories can be so cleanly divided as you suggest, which would simply demonstrate your relative cluelessness on the subject. On the contrary, I am arguing exactly that it is reasonable to rely on an argument structured according to the historiographical discipline (happy now?) and that the relative strength or weakness of such arguments, far from being a matter of simple opinion versus opinion, is based on an appeal to adherence to the standards of that discipline. In other words, there is relative empirical strength among historiographical opinions; that's the entire point of studying history at all.

    As for reserving a fallback position, all I can say is "please!" One's position has to actually be threatened before one needs a fallback. Attorneys also know when they've got the other guy beaten.

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  5. >>>The discipline of history includes both reporting of "trivial facts" and historiography.

    Unfortunately, Mr. Prejean, in your original, you defined history as "the factual record," not as you have now defined it, which prompted my response.

    >>>Accusing me of a "category error" for using a conventional term in a conventional way is absurd. That is, of course, unless you are so foolish as to think that these categories can be so cleanly divided as you suggest, which would simply demonstrate your relative cluelessness on the subject.

    Actually, my undergraduate degree is in history, with honors no less, including a rather lengthy undergraduate thesis on the difference between "history' and "historiography." I did not "suggest" they can be "cleanly dividied." I stated that they are two separate entitlies, that is why we teach US History and US Historiography as two separate entitlies. I actually wrote, Mr. Prejean:

    Quote: >>>>>>>>>>Sometimes there is overlap, sometimes there is not an overlap.<<<<<<<<<<<<<

    Any history professor in any university knows the difference between what he reads. He can tell the difference between "history" and "historiography." That difference is not simply "trivial facts" and "historiography." A good history will present some measure of analysis, but it will also record the events themselves in whatever form that data takes. If, for example, a history book then says, "due to classic conflict" or emphasizes conflict or consensus data, you know you are reading interpretive work, e.g. historiography. Also, if these categories cannot be cleanly divided, how is it that you know the difference between them such that you cleanly divided them when you wrote your criticism?

    >>>>Accusing me of a "category error" for using a conventional term in a conventional way is absurd.

    Actually, these are terms academicians use, not merely "conventional terms used in a conventional way." That's why, in the history department of most major universities, you will find classes that teach this material. I took, among many classes, US history. I also took US historiography for a year and then wrote a thesis reviewed by the entire faculty of the department. I know the difference. If you were more precise with your language, you wouldn't receive the criticism.

    In fact, you did very certainly confuse history and historiography when you wrote, "the historical process does privilege one outcome over another; that's the entire point of competing historical theories." You are the one blending two related disciplines into "the historical process," and, just as I thought you might, you are now making an appeal to the interpretive piece. "Historical process" just as I stated, can refer to either the reporting of "history" or to the interpretive discipline of historiography," such is the difference between a textbook and a monograph. You appealed to "the historical process" and just one sentence later said, It's history," which you defined specifically as " the factual record,"..." selected out McGuckin's theory as against Harnack, Pelikan, and Grillmeier, and the growing consensus on his conclusions only make that point out more strongly.."

    That's a conflation of categories. If the historical process, e.g. the interpretive process" privileges one outcome over another, then "history," the factual record itself," did not select out anything, the interpretive process did it, moreover, in taking a particular "side," yourself, you are making an interpretation about that process and contributing to it.

    What did Steve say? He and I agree. He wrote:. "Historical events are empirically equivalent. They don’t come stamped with “right” or ‘wrong” on their surface. That’s a value-judgment we bring to the historical process, not one we derive from the historical process. " Absolutely, he is correct.

    History did not select out anything. To say it did, it requires that you interpret the history of historical interpretation (historiography) in a particular manner, so history (the factual record...that's your own definition) did not select out McGuckin's theory vs. Harnack, et.al. Persons interpreting the history did that. Steve is also correct in stating, "The unique significance of that particular death is not inscribed on the event itself, but in the written record of the event." "History" is your word here, "history" is the event itself, and your own words, "the factual record" define it for us. The outcome is derived from value judgments in your mind and the minds of historians and theologians who have done the analysis. You may be deriving your position from what you think you know of the content of the history of interpretation of the event, but you don't come without any biases whatsoever (nobody does), so you are also doing your own interpretation in order to say that the selection of this theory is "right." That is a value judgment, and, because you, me, Steve and everybody else has a lens by which we view the historical process, whether that be "the factual record," trivial facts, or a mountain of theological or historical monographs,we do not derive the judgment that "x" is the right outcome from the historical process itself. In your particular case, you simply cherry-pick your sources by which you arrive at your conclusions, viz. Dioscorus, Eutyches, Theophan, Harnack, and Meyendorff, among others. In doing this, you are filtering history/historiography and theological writing, not only through their lens, but also your own lens, by virtue of the fact you exclude others, and, as Steve rightly points out, it appears you do this by simply discarding or dismissing those with whom you disagree.

    >>>I am arguing exactly that it is reasonable to rely on an argument structured according to the historiographical discipline (happy now?) and that the relative strength or weakness of such arguments, far from being a matter of simple opinion versus opinion, is based on an appeal to adherence to the standards of that discipline. In other words, there is relative empirical strength among historiographical opinions; that's the entire point of studying history at all.

    In the discpline of historiography, the relative strength of an argument is very often a matter of simple opinion vs. opinion, because, in certain discplines, like historical interpretatiion, in the final analysis the those are the standards of that discipline, since they are "relative," and not "absolute." Historical writing is full of biases. US historical writing alone is littered with monographs that have continued the argument between consensus and conflict schools for decades, precisely because historians often look at events and simply have different opinions. For a time, one school may prevail over another, but then the other one comes into vogue. That's the nature of US historiography. If you say "the conflict school" (I use these because they are simply the most basic categories in US historiograhy) is "right" in itse analysis of "x," based on the "consensus of opinion," e.g. who is popular right now, but then the opposing consensus school comes back into vogue (in a cyle of around 20 years on average it seems), then you're ultimately on shaky ground today, since you have made the (current) consensus of opinion, or rather your opinion about the consensus of opinion the determinant of your stand.

    You have chosen, in your argument, to invest your evaluation in the consensus of a particular viewpoint. Fair enough. However, you are also using that position to make a value judgment about the rightness or wrongness of an outcome based on what you believe to be that consensus.

    1. Are you now saying that popularity is a determinative factor? Haven't you, in the past said that popularity is not a determinative factor?

    2. Steve is very correct. There is a tremendous difference between the raw event, the right interpretation of an event, and the rightness of the event itself. You seem to be reading them together. So what if McGuckin was right? If consensus is a determining factor, then, when consensus shifts, will you shift as well?

    >>> One's position has to actually be threatened before one needs a fallback.

    And since you decided to appeal to "historiography" instead of "history" and thus revised your argument (yet again), it appears your position was threatened, or else you wouldn't have changed it.

    >>>> Attorneys also know when they've got the other guy beaten.

    Yeah right, Mr. Prejean. If you've got us mean, ignorant Protestants "beaten" then why do you keep changing the rules, using one set of standards for your opponents than you do for yourself, making arguments that contradict your little cadre of Romanist apologetes, and contradicting the exegetical method of mainstream Catholics like Brown and Fitzmeyer, and changing your own position in mid-stride (case in point, af first you claimed," ...before conservative Evangelicalism decided to make a comeback into serious scholarship against the tide of nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism (which, BTW, was mere decades ago), this method simply didn't exist" and then, when your error was caught, you then state, "Of course, I am well aware of the Evangelical reliance on Antiochene exegesis...")? I think the good attorney here is Steve. Verdict for the prosecution.

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  6. Thanks, Gene. You're definitely helping move the argument forward.

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  7. Is there any ambiguity in the context in which we are discussing this matter, Mr. Bridges? No. I say the factual record because there is no believable counter-interpretation, which is ordinarily what the factual record indicates. Again, majoring on minors is not the mark of serious truth-seekers, so let's not pretend that your objection has any substance. And given the depth of your analytical skills, I give about as much credence to your assessment of the interaction as well.

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