The Table Video

Dr. John Cooper explains the challenges that various hermeneutical approaches present to the debate of human composition. He argues that Scripture at least demonstrates the simultaneous physicality and spirituality of humanity, and so dualism or holism best represents Scripture’s portrayal of humanity. Dr. Jason McMartin responds to his argument.

Transcript:

Thanks very much Tom, it’s great to be back and let me just express my gratitude for the invitation to be here and to ask you to all appreciate how important the Center for Christian scholarship or thought is at Biola College. I mean here you have world-class scholars talking about really important issues from a Christian point of view.

And that’s so valuable and lamentably it’s relatively unusual in the contemporary world. So this is a wonderful opportunity. I have a handout, there should be copies of it around and I’ll stick really quite closely to that. I’ll read the paper, although it’s not my best form of delivery simply so that I don’t go over time here. So the title is Whose Hermeneutics? Which anthropology, biblical hermeneutics and the bias all debate.

Perhaps no doctrine is more hotly debated among Christian scholars these days, than the unity of soul and body or in the terms of this conference, the soul in the brain. Diametrically opposed versions of monism and dualism are advanced by colleagues who believe the same Bible, worshiped together and confess the same creeds. Some of us believe that human souls were specially created, but others hold that God made us by evolution.

Some look forward to fellowship with Christ between death and final resurrection, while others believe that we cease to exist until the resurrection. Where else else their resurrection happens right at death. Traditional dualism still flourish but Christians also advocate physicalism, emergentism, psychophysical monism and idealism. Anthropology and eschatology seem like the sacraments about which Christians have significant doctrinal disagreements.

A key reason is biblical hermeneutics. We interpret and apply the Bible differently on the body and soul issue. A why? it’s easy to assume that our differences have deep roots in Christian history. After all Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and various Protestant traditions have distinct approaches to Scripture. This diversity has yielded numerous doctrinal differences.

The variety of attitudes towards modern historical critical scholarship is an additional complication. We who discussed the soul in neuroscience reflect these traditions and many of us have developed their own unique hermeneutics. So when we’ve referred to the biblical view of human nature at a conference like this, it’s fair to wonder with apologies to MacIntyre; whose interpretation? Which anthropology? But it’s mistaken to suppose that the current diversity on the body-soul question has always existed. Just the opposite is true.

For almost two millennia there has been a general Christian consensus in favor of a duality and unity anthropology in spite of our hermeneutical differences. One reason perennially given is that God’s creation is both spiritual and earthly. And that humans were created to participate in both. And that merely earthly beings, don’t have the spiritual capacities that image God on earth. The other key reason given since the pre Nicene fathers, is the common conviction that scripture teaches what N.T Wright calls the two-stage view of life after life.

That is to say when we die we go to be with the Lord until the final resurrection. Two stages which entails some person – body or a soul – body separation. This eschatology remains the teaching of Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and most Protestant churches, to this day. Thus in spite of traditional hermeneutical differences there has been a long-standing general consensus on anthropology and eschatology.

The broad diversity among Christians is relatively recent. It emerged during the Enlightenment from affirmation of naturalism in the interpretation of Scripture and the formulation of doctrine. At first only eschatology was affected. Anthropological dualism remained. Theists and progressive Christians believed in personal immortality but not bodily resurrection. Monism gained prominence only in the mid 20th century, with returned to the theological legacy of Hegel after Bart and Bultman and with a development of emergent physicalism a metaphysical world view based on Big Bang cosmogony.

Monism has become so widespread at present that even conservative Christians are among those who endorse materialist views of human nature and the eschatologies that they entail. Meanwhile many Christians remain convinced of the historic doctrines and think of the soul and brain accordingly.

The diversity of anthropology is recent and it has not rendered the traditional view obsolete. But it does indeed involve different readings of Scripture. Against this background my presentation focuses in more detail on the role of biblical hermeneutics in the body-soul debate. I consider three main phases of hermeneutics; the exegesis of specific texts, formation of doctrine from the exegetical results and application of doctrine to current concepts of body and soul. These tasks are interrelated, not merely sequential. Each affects the others. Doctrine of shapes exegesis and current perspectives shape exegesis and doctrine.

Some of the disagreements among us about biblical anthropology may be due to different applications of a shared hermeneutics, while others reflect different views of scripture, how it should be read and what it teaches us today. these matters are complex and I can only begin to address them. My purpose is not to defend my position but to promote understanding of these issues and why at times quoting scripture at each other just doesn’t do any good at all. Before proceeding let me clarify my terminology.

When I speak of body and soul or monism and dualism, I don’t have precise theological or philosophical concepts in mind. I use these terms as ordinary language, common sense realism. I believe that scripture likewise teaches realistically about human nature in the life to come in the ordinary language of its historical cultural religious context. When I speak of the soul, I mean to include the person, ego, self, spirit, mind, subject and agent, with all his or her dispositions and capacities. By body I mean the flesh-and-blood organism or its resurrected version.

Normally soul and body constitute an integral whole, not the conjunction of parts. And scripture speaks of them that way. The term dualism as I use it, implies that soul and body are sufficiently distinct that the former can exist without the latter, perhaps only temporarily and by special divine providence. In contrast monism, implies that soul and body are so closely related that the former cannot exist without the latter and so my definition of monism is a little different than Professor Green’s and maybe we’ll have a chance to talk about that later.

So used in this generic way, these terms apply cross-culturally to the beliefs of pre-scientific Animists and ordinary Christians, as well as academics with their sophisticated versions of monism and dualism. And all by the way, the fission version that we heard this morning turns out to be dualism, sorry about that. My own view is that the anthropology of scripture as a whole emphasizes the primary unity and integration of body and soul in creation, in redemption, in the Christian life and in the life to come.

This integration occurs because of sin and death. But God sustains the soul in existence between death and final resurrection. I’ve called this view dualistic holism to emphasize that unity not separation or parting is basic in Scripture. Dualistic holism is not a philosophical concept but it’s a common sense worldview part of the biblical worldview. And that’s consistent with and can be articulated by several different philosophical and Theological concepts of human nature. this position follows from the way that I read and appropriates Scripture.

So then let’s turn to biblical hermeneutics. And so I’m now in Roman numeral two on your handout exegesis. Determining the meaning of texts about body and soul. The first stage in understanding Scripture is exegesis determining as best we can what the original text meant as it was written.

Exegesis considers at least three aspects of the text. Its linguistic, literary and historical features. Linguistic analysis considers vocabulary and syntax. Literary analysis considers whether an expression is literal or figurative and what its genre is whether historical, narrative or poetry or law or wisdom, prophecy, apocalyptic, whatever. Historical analysis considers a text religious cultural context and also its place in the old and new testament canon.

These considerations often yield a reasonably clear idea of a text’s original meaning. Let’s consider some examples, Genesis 2:7 we’ve heard it quoted before, in the NIV states that the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. So we might wanna know whether it supports monism or dualism. But first we’ve got to decide how best to translate some Hebrew terms. Is Nephesh Gaia better as living being, living thing or living soul?

And Neshama, is that the breath of life or is that spirit, to our rational spirit that has been translated in different modern languages in different ways. Second we must make the literary judgment whether this account is some kind of primitive scientific explanation that needs to be replaced or whether it’s a realistic religious worldview that has definite doctrinal implications or perhaps merely linguistic convention without any doctrinal or realistic import. Finally the historical comparison of Genesis 2:7 with similar Old Testament texts and ancient Near Eastern accounts about the creation of humans, might shed an additional light on its meaning. when we then asked whether this verse supports monism or dualism perhaps we should conclude that the anthropological framework is some sort of henotheistic animism I mean God is the God of all the spirits and the angels and what we have here is ancient Near Eastern animism, is this life force, now is it divine or not?

Are humans better the divine or is this life force which is definitely not from the earth God didn’t create us just from the earth there are two irreducible elements here. So what is this Neshama thing? Is it created spirit? Is it just biological? Is it the whole human spirit with all its capacities? Those are really interesting questions and you can get I think light and if you look at the ancient near-eastern stuff which Tom Wright has done in his resurrection book.

The old and it’s all and I think the conclusion is that we have here one being of two different inputs and that none of our modern philosophical categories fit this very well. any one that we can bring forward. The Old Testament references to Sheol Abaddon and Hades provide a second example of linguistic, literary, historical exegesis.

If all these texts are merely figurative ways of referring to physical death are euphemisms for the grave, then they provide no evidence at all for belief in existence after death. But if some are realistic, then the Old Testament does envision post-mortem existence of some for perhaps it’s an active in comatose unconscious.

But some kind of existence between death and whatever Psalm 23 means by dwelling in the house of the Lord forever or Isaiah 26 or Ezekiel 37 or Daniel 12 which actually do assert resurrection in the end for God’s people. Once again historical evidence from other ancient Near Eastern religions indicates widespread realism about the afterlife.

The Egyptian Book of the Dead all the way to the Greek myths of Hades, the whole Mediterranean Basin was full of realism about the afterlife perhaps just for the upper classes or whatever but it’s not simply a euphemism for the end and the grave. I don’t see how that could be possibly argued. The third example is Paul’s anthropological terminology.

Soul, spirit, mind, body, flesh, heart, if you look at all the ways he uses all the terms, sometimes he refers to aspects of whole humans as in the benediction your whole spirit, notice I’m that those aren’t parts those are aspects those all go together from first Thessalonians spirit soul and body.

Sometimes he refers to parts that can function independently for example when he speaks about charismatic prayer, he prays with his spirit but not his mind. obviously there is some kind of a disconnect there. I mean that’s not at all holism. Sometimes when he talks about flesh and spirit he’s not talking about inner or outer or parts or anything, he’s talking about whether you love the Lord or you don’t.

This is a religious antithesis here the old sinful nature and the new regenerated nature in Christ. Interestingly when Paul speaks about ecstatics experience, I don’t know whether I was in the body or out of the body or whether he speaks about his own imminent death, I’d like to remain in the body which is but I’d like to depart from the body and be with the Lord. In Philippians and [Mumbling] in 2nd Corinthians he talks about being apart from the body and with the Lord, there he doesn’t talk about soul he talks about ego, I enesaks, I, enesoma.

All these texts considered, his terminology is both which James Dunne calls aspective and partitive. Both dualistic and holistic but not monastic in my sense. I use holism I think the way professor Green uses monism But I don’t think they’re the same thing. Historically Paul reflects the anthropology of the Pharisees who educated him, rather than Greek philosophy of any sort. So he’s not simply an Old Testament monist. I don’t think the Old Testament is monist.

But he but the choice isn’t between platonic dualism or Old Testament monism. There’s a variety of intertestamental views of anthropology and eschatology and there’s very good reason to suppose that Paul represents the view of the Pharisees who were holistic with respect to life but they clearly believed in disembodied existence until resurrection with respect to the life to come. Paul invokes them when he’s before the Pharisees and the Sadducees in Acts, I think it’s chapter 23.

So sound exegesis usually results in one maybe two interpretations of a texts that are more reasonable than others linguistically, literary and historically. An interpretation is not valid simply because it’s plausible or possible. But sometimes more than one exegesis is tenable. Incompetent scholars who share the same methods and data can legitimately disagree. Furthermore exegesis is often complicated by the other phases of hermeneutics theological interpretation and engagement with contemporary ideas.

Commentators do sometimes read texts in terms of theological philosophical, scientific or linguistic paradigms, that are not evident in the text itself and may even seem incompatible with it. Anthropological word studies provide ready examples influenced by Platonism traditional scholars often gave overly dualistic readings of the biblical terms for body, soul and spirit. I entirely agree with that.

John Calvin is a good example of it but not always he gets it right sometimes. Similarly modern scholars have come to unwarranted exegetical conclusions due to faulty or inadequate linguistic theories such as this autumn illogical fallacy James Barr points that out or because they’re convinced that Scripture teaches anthropological monism. I mean they just know it does and so they find it when they go and look for it.

Nevertheless we mustn’t reject the use of word studies because of the abuse. It is possible to engage in sound linguistic literary and historical interpretation, to relate exegesis to theological formulation in contemporary perspectives properly and their by to reach clearer and justified conclusions about the meanings of anthropological terms in Scripture. So section three; doctrinal theological or canonical interpretation and biblical anthropology.

This is the second phase of hermeneutics. Biblical word studies, transition us from exegesis of particular texts to generalizations about Scripture as a whole. Here we encounter the second phase of hermeneutics, doctrinal, theological or what’s been more recently called canonical interpretation.

The purpose is to discern the teaching of all the texts and books of the Bible taken together on specific topics whether it’s God or sin or atonement, this is you know Lombard and the sentence is on the topics that’s how they did it. The systematics theology got started that way. And then came the commentaries and the systematizers and next you had Thomas’s soma and that’s how it went.

Theological interpretation affirms the same principle as all sound scholarship the conclusions got to account for all the data. What results is biblical theology or basic Christian doctrine. What God wants the church of all ages to believe and practice. NT Wrights resurrection of the Son of God is a masterful recent example of drawing eschatology and anthropology from a comprehensive exegesis well done of Scripture. So what follows is a traditional, is a summary of traditional theological hermeneutics.

Modern theological hermeneutics is different and I’ll summarize that in the next in section four. Traditional theology follows from specific beliefs about Scripture. These are beliefs about Scripture. Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and confessional Protestant churches hold that Scripture is divinely inspired, it’s infallible, it’s coherent, it’s comprehensive, it’s enduring and thus it’s the final authority on everything it teaches.

The different traditions hold different views on the authority and role in the church interpreting Scripture but not on the nature of Scripture. Check out their catechisms and doctrinal statements. The Holy Spirit on this view inspires each of the writers of Scripture to produce texts that are partial contributions to the coherent truth that God intends to communicate in Scripture as a whole. Individual authors are assumed to express similar or compatible views so that the particular texts are interpreted as consistent with the Canon as a whole.

So for example Paul and James are complementary and not contradictory on faith and works and both are necessary for the whole truth. The hermeneutical dialectic between text and canon results in a coherent synthesis of both biblical doctrine. At least that’s what the tradition stands for. Applying this theological hermeneutics to anthropology and eschatology, the vast majority in Christian history including the anabaptists and the non conformists who believe in soul sleep, affirm what Wright calls the two-stage view of life afterlife and the temporary separation of body and soul which it entails.

The mere fact of this ecumenical consensus is striking given the diversity on so many other doctrines. These conclusions follow from the exegetical data of Scripture taken all together in this comprehensive way. Some biblical texts speak of immediate presence with the Lord without the body. Some mention the souls or spirits of the dead and some of those that they are conscious and active, some texts refer to resurrection but not when it occurs, while others specify the last day or at the return of Christ.

So even if no text explicitly asserted the two-stage view and I think some do, it would follow because it’s the only position that coherently includes what each and every text asserts. Sherrod Theological hermeneutics does not automatically eliminate all disagreements, Catholics Calvinists and charismatics can disagree among themselves as much as with each other, but proper practice of sherrod hermeneutic principles can eliminate some faulty arguments in the body – soul debate.

I offer two examples; first because theological interpretation is comprehensive it must take the measure and weight of all the relevant texts of Scripture. Working with partial data, cherry-picking is bad theology, as well as poor scholarship. Duelists may not privilege texts about souls in the afterlife where partitive uses, monists may not ignore them. Furthermore, final conclusions must reflect all the data. It is true for example that the Old Testament emphasizes the unity and corporeality of human nature.

But that emphasis might imply monism only if there were no realistic references to the dead in Sheol. Similarly it’s true that Paul in New Testament emphasize bodily life and resurrection. but that’s no reason to marginalize texts which refer to personal presence with the Lord between death and final resurrection. Proper hermeneutics and sound scholarship both demand the whole truth. The second example is development within the Canon. Theological interpretation affirms progressive revelation, when it’s warranted by exegesis.

There is progressive revelation between the old and new testament presentations of the nature and destiny of humans. Just as there is progressive revelation of the Trinity, the Messiah and the way of salvation. The New Testament interprets the old, not the other way around. Thus it’s backwards to argue, that Paul in the New Testament simply reiterates the Old Testaments allegedly monastic anthropology. It’s equally mistaken to read New Testament eschatology back into the Old Testament. As the Old Testament believers that they were thought going to go to heaven where it’s far better when they die.

They thought no such thing, they thought they were going to Sheol. These examples illustrate that proper practice of theological hermeneutics can sort out some bad arguments on both sides of the monism -dualism debate even though it can’t resolve all disagreements. So as we turn to application the third task of hermeneutics, I note again that modern theology does not endorse traditional doctrinal or theological hermeneutics for reasons that I’ll soon be summarizing. This disagreement about the interpretation of Scripture has significant implications for biblical anthropology and eschatology. So section four.

Application, biblical anthropology and the body – soul debate. Application is the third phase of hermeneutics. We apply scripture to our lives through Bible study, hearing sermons and at this conference by engaging academic discussions of neuroscience and resolve with biblical anthropology comparing biblical and scientific concepts of the soul, it’s re comparing biblical and scientific concepts of the soul is a particular case of a general theological problem that has several labels. Talk to it about relating the book of scripture, the book of nature or supernatural and natural revelation or general and special revelation or revelation and reason or theology and science had set up in a variety of ways.

The standard and strategies for relating the two books are well known either theology interprets science or science interprets theology or they address different issues which some called compartmentalization or they address the same issues in different ways. Compatibilism or they make apparently incompatible claims that require harmonization. To some extent these strategies overlap and I think that different ones properly apply to different topics. But ultimately there are only two basic and mutually exclusive strategies, when you get to some basic proposition or basic belief.

Which is in conflict or apparent conflict either scripture is the final authority for interpreting the truth of science and philosophy or science and philosophy are the final Authority for interpreting the truth of Scripture. Historic theology and post enlightenment theology disagree about the final authority and this has major implications for biblical anthropology and eschatology. Traditional theology aims to apply biblical anthropology to science and philosophical anthropology. In general, modern theology applies scientific philosophical anthropology to its theological understanding of Scripture.

This difference is the source of the current diversity among Christians on the biblical doctrine of the human Constitution. So I summarize each approach in turn. First traditional hermeneutics philosophy in science. We’ve already noted the traditional ecumenical view of the inspiration authority and plenary truth content of Scripture. That view of Scripture has led the ecumenical Christian tradition to conclude that God’s action in creation and Providence, is both supernatural and natural, that creation has both spiritual and earthly dimensions and beings and that humans are both spiritual and earthly beings.

These beliefs motivated Christian theologians to modify selected ideas from Plato Plotinus and Aristotle to articulate Christian doctrine clearly and coherently. Now we may question whether these philosophical choice is always represented scripture accurately but there’s no question that the patristic and medieval doctors of the church gave priority to supernatural revelation and that theology was the queen of the sciences.

This order of relating the Bible and other kinds of learning was retained by Protestant theologians certainly in my reformed tradition. Modern science, Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin challenged traditional science and biblical interpretation about the structure in history of the universe and about human nature. Gradually the great Christian traditions, Orthodox, Catholic and confessional Protestant often with reluctance and strife and perhaps still strife and reluctance in some traditions and perhaps yet incomplete, were able to accommodate and incorporate modern science cosmology and the study of origins within the supernatural theologies and dualist metaphysics drawn from Scripture throughout history.

They did not find that advances in science or philosophy require abandonment of theological supernaturalism and metaphysical dualism. Thus historic Christianity has incorporated modern science within its perennial theological philosophical framework. Pope John Paul the seconds endorsement of biological evolution consistent with the supernatural creation of humans, is a significant recent example 1995 letter to scientists in Rome.

So modern hermeneutics, philosophy and science. Modern biblical scholarship and theology take distance from the traditional view that the content of Scripture constitutes a plenary and enduring system of doctrine. Modern theology adopted the theistic naturalism of the enlightenment, that God acts in the world and has inspired Scripture entirely within and according to the natural order. God reveals himself primarily in history and religious experience of Israel, Judaism, Jesus and his followers.

The biblical texts eventually produced by these communities, certainly share core beliefs about God and His redemptive presence in the world. But they express them in terms of anachronistic diverse and sometimes incompatible views of nature history, morality and the supernatural. Boatman’s famous incredulity towards the biblical worldview in his New Testament and mythology, is the most radical result of that view.

The body soul dualism, disembodied existence and bodily resurrection are as outmoded as angels miracles and a literal return of Jesus. For modern theologians, the enduring truth content of Scripture is thinner, less specific and more historically malleable than the traditional view. In addition, many hold that divine revelation in nature history and religious experience progresses beyond the biblical Canon.

Thus modern theologians think it is simply misguided to construct a single comprehensive system of doctrine directly from the Bible. Instead scripture must be interpreted, a tenable idea is selected from it and theology constructed from the best contemporary perspectives, whether those be idealism, existentialism, a social liberation agenda or a scientific paradigm such as emergent physicalism.

Thomas Hobbes is the father of modern materialist anthropology and monastic biblical interpretation, The Leviathan. But his progeny were few until recently. 19th century liberal theology following Conch Slayer marker affirmed theistic naturalism with respect to the empirical realm, but it’s anthropology and eschatology are modern platonic dualism, immortality without bodily resurrection.

Oscar Coleman’s famous immortality of the soul or resurrection of the dead? question mark, was aimed more at liberal idealism than classical orthodoxy. Since mid 20th century mainline theology has shifted back towards post to galleon pan and theism as is evident in the systems of Penenberg and Malta Man. The pan psychic monism of Taeri Sharda and processed theology persist in the background but the scientific paradigm of cosmic evolution since the Big Bang has been most influential.

Many Christians are convinced that theistic naturalism coupled with emergent or non reductive physicalism, is the best framework from which to construct theology anthropology and eschatology. The emergent naturalistic pantheism of Arthur Peacock, is a prime example. But other Christians retain traditional, supernatural theology, but are nevertheless convinced that emergent physicalism is the most reasonable metaphysical understanding of the created universe, human nature and of life to come.

In some modern constructions of theological anthropology and eschatology are regulated primarily by current intellectual paradigms. They are the lenses through which scripture is interpreted, selected and applied. It doesn’t really matter whether biblical texts teach that the first humans were created uninfected by immortality and sin, or that persons exist with Christ between death and bodily resurrection, or whether Paul was a monist or a duelist. If one is a monist for scientific and/or philosophical reasons then one appropriates the monastic texts. Especially from the Old Testament.

Likewise if one is a duelist, the method is the same. What God is teaching us today, is learned by reading Scripture through the best contemporary lenses. What it teaches about the life to come, Conforms to our current understanding of biblical native human nature. For idealists the human spirit lives forever, at least in the mind of God.

For monists, humans cannot exist without their bodies and either we are resurrected at the moment of death, John Hick Penenberg, or we cease to exist until the future general resurrection. Which I take is pocking horns view. Clearly traditional theology and modern theology operate with incompatible views of Scripture, its interpretation and its application to current concerns. Such diverse biblical hermeneutics are likely to generate quiet different perspectives on the soul and neuroscience.

At a conference like this we can’t avoid asking; Whose interpretation? Which anthropology? So my conclusion is a call for transparency about biblical hermeneutics. It’s simply naive for academics to quote scripture or invoke the biblical view of human nature at one another, without putting our hermeneutical cards on the table. So I call for more self-awareness and public transparency about how our methods of biblical interpretation Relate to our Christian account of the unity of body and soul.

Greater mutual understanding will result in more accurate discernment between potentially fruitful dialogue and inevitable stalemate. As we’ve seen it is possible to agree about Paul’s anthropology but not that it’s authoritative doctrine. Or we could agree that Paul’s view is authoritative but disagree about what it is.

Similarly it’s possible for duelists and monists alike to recognize that a monist is justified by his biblical hermeneutics, just as a duelist is warranted by hers. It’s even possible for duelists and monists to help each other to be more consistent and articulate. Extensive agreement and cooperation are possible.

At the same time we all realize that the underlying debates about supernaturalism and naturalism in science and in biblical scholarship are deep long-standing and unlikely to be resolved until Kingdom comes. So perhaps we should candidly and lovingly agree to disagree about Scripture in hermeneutics. I also urge hermeneutical transparency in our speaking and writing for non professional audiences, especially for lay Christians and Christian students who are not familiar with the interpretive issues.

It is as confusing and upsetting for traditional Christians to be told that the Bible is monistic and therefore that grandma isn’t really in heaven with Jesus, as it is for modern Christians to be told that they’ve got to believe in disembodied souls and a literal return of Jesus at the end of time. The body soul question is a lot like creation and evolution. Both are hermeneuticaly complex issues that have deep spiritual significance for many people.

None of us has the right simply to declare what scripture teaches or what competent biblical scholarship has now finally demonstrated, without helping folks to ask; whose interpretation? Which anthropology? By the way have I made it clear where I stand on these issues? Thank you very much. [Applause]

Well I need to begin first by expressing my gratitude first to Dr. Cooper, for his excellent work in this area over the years that I’ve read with prophet. And his areas of work have not only been scholarly well done but they’ve been on topics of timely importance for the church in the Academy and I’m appreciative of that.

I’m also appreciative of the chance to have been involved in Center for Christian thought this year and there’s many other people and things that I could thank but if I were to thank them all, I would take up on my time, so I’ll pause now and move over to what I’m actually supposed to do which is to respond to Dr. Cooper’s paper.

Now last week on campus I overheard this statement; I think I’m by the 20-foot guy. Now here’s an interesting hermeneutical problem, what could possibly have been meant by that sentence? It’s quite possible that to you that sentence sounds nonsensical or fantastical. If my three-year-old had been with me at the time, he may have insisted that he be picked up to find protection from the 20-foot guy.

He did after all, just this week asked us why trolls weren’t real. And I actually did not have a theological answer to that just in case you’re wondering. However if you’re familiar with our campus here at Biola, the answer is not too far to see. Two facts will clear up the whole thing. First the sentence was uttered by a woman who was walking and talking on her cell phone here in Biola’s campus. Second one of our buildings features a 20-foot high mural of Jesus. So the correct interpretation as it turns out, is that the 20-foot guy in question is Jesus.

Or at least a mural of Him. It also turns out that the speaker was mistaken. She wasn’t actually very near the 20-foot guy, she was about 200 yards away from him still but she was lost and she was trying to figure out where she was and she said, I think I’m by the 20-foot guy. Suppose however that you weren’t aware of those two truths that form an important part of the context of the statement, how much you go about interpreting it.

Dr. Cooper says the vast array of issues related to interpretation is complex. Building from several points of agreement with what he has said I’ll add some further considerations and also note some differences along the way. In particular consider how we might integrate the roles of philosophy and theology into the process of interpretation that Dr. Cooper describes.

Like other modes of discursive reasoning Interpretation involves a process of refinement and improvement. One that is constrained by previous interpretations we have made or have accepted. I suggest we think of the process as one of constant updating in response to new information. Updates can result in major or minor changes to our conclusions or no changes at all. Dr. Cooper considers three steps in the process.

Although there is a kind of sequential logic to the three steps in practice as Dr. Cooper explains, this is not a linear process among these three facets of the hermeneutical process. Further each step includes its own updates of information to each of the other steps in the interpretive process. It’s not until the third step, that Dr. Cooper considers the roles of philosophy and science in the process of biblical hermeneutics but this is where I will begin.

Joel Green mentions at the beginning of his book on theological anthropology in Scripture, that many within our own Western context commonly assumed that the hypothesis of an immaterial soul has been disproved by the deliverances of the contemporary neurosciences. And since they say the existence of an immaterial soul is entailed by the biblical worldview, biblical Christianity has been disproven also. Green rightly points out, that this inference is false. By contrast he contends that the biblical evidence is consistent with the non-existence of an immaterial soul, or a monastic or physicalist type picture of the human person in Scripture. This case parallels the case of the 20-foot guy. If our context has been updated with information about the extreme improbability of 20-foot human persons, perhaps this information comes from the Natural Sciences. Then we’re likely to conclude either that the speaker was mistaken perhaps psychotically so if she thinks there’s a 20-foot guy running around somewhere or that she means to refer to something other than a 20 foot human person. Likewise we may ask do the biblical authors mean to reference an immaterial soul in which case according to the scientifically minded folks Green has in mind they are mistaken?

Or is another view of human person for example monism or physicalism consistent with the message of the biblical authors and the way Green suggests? One approach to scripture that Dr. Cooper describes is reading scripture through the framework of scientific naturalism. As we talked about in the latter part of his paper. Both the interpretations of physicalism, and of the error of the text on this point, so that the two kind of models that green presents are consistent with naturalistic interpretations of Scripture.

However as I suggest and I believe Cooper agrees, it is not only the case that the Natural Sciences are allowed to update the interpretations of Scripture but the interpretations of Scripture and the deliverances of theology may also update the Natural Sciences. In short I do not affirm scientific naturalism. Since I have philosophical and theological reasons projecting scientific naturalism, I do not consider affirmations that are based on it to be strong candidates for updates to my interpretation of Scripture.

My model for relating scripture to other disciplines seems to be somewhat distinct from the options Dr. Cooper surveys. Now it could fit but I wasn’t sure that I saw it there. I use an integrationist methodology. Following a particular esta approach I take myself to know many things. These beliefs can be categorized according to certain distinct domains of knowledge each with its own integrity. Included among these sources is divine revelation as it is canonized in Holy Scripture.

I consider the scope and the nature of these sources and I harmonize them together. No source is privileged a priori when conflicts arise. But I consider the domain in which the mistake is likely to be found. Just as the deliverances of neuroscience may provide a range or a possible or plausible solutions within which biblical interpreters might work, so Scripture and theology might provide a range in which neuroscientist aught to work.

Interpretations are updated in the complex process of sifting the relevancy and legitimacy of varying assertions. Philosophy helps to adjudicate these various demands. When Cooper advocates hermeneutical transparency isn’t that another way of saying that we ought to make our method clear? The best way to do that is to engage in the traditional tasks of philosophy I would suggest.

Now Dr. Cooper does in some places seem to distance his approach from the use of philosophy though I don’t think that’s completely indicative of his view there seems to be some places where he sets philosophy and his method of contrast in a kind of contradiction. Although I don’t think that’s his more considered view and I don’t think that’s actually how he views it. So I have a few thoughts about that but I’m gonna skip it because I don’t think it’s actually indicative of what he was trying to convey.

There’s many points in the interpretive process that benefit from philosophical reflection. Method in hermeneutics is essentially an epistemic question. We may consider the epistemic standing of the various sources; history, linguistics, literary analysis and so on, that may be relevant to the interpretive process and the relationships among them. We can clarify concepts in terms or provide models. We can use theoretical virtues, consistency, adequacy, simplicity, fruitfulness. We can ask whether a given model is logically or metaphysically possible.

Presumably, if it isn’t then it doesn’t provide a good candidate for a possible interpretation. Unless we’re thinking of some kind of fictional or fantastical kind of account. Dr. cooper contends that traditional theology and modern theology have differing views about the relationship of science and theology. He describes scientific naturalism as being the framework for doctrine in modern theology. And he uses boatman’s dismissal of heaven hell angels and miracles as a particularly striking example which I really think it is.

Though Dr. Cooper does not state it so strongly, the looming specter here is scientism or perhaps a strong privilege of scientific knowledge and devaluing or suspicion of the possibility of knowledge outside the domain of the Natural Sciences. The scripture provide an independent and irreducible line of evidence at all? The scripture is just a record of history and what people didn’t thought, or if we read into it what we see through our modern lenses, then it might be reducible to other modes of evidence.

At this point theology enters the discussion again. This means that the theological task is greater than that described by Dr. Cooper though I think it’s consistent with what he said. He did say it was complex and he said he was gonna be able to cover everything so I see myself as carrying on. It involves criticism and subsumption of the deliverances of other disciplines. Being queen of the sciences doesn’t mean trumping authority, though it may mean preferential treatment in intractable disputes, but a synthesizing approach.

It considers God in all things as those relate to God. It’s easy to over generalize concerning these things but Dr. Cooper suggests that modern theological approaches have significant differences from pre-modern ones concerning the relationship between modern science to theology. In a similar manner, Carl Henry diagnosed the central problem with modern theology as the acceptance of the philosophical assumption that knowledge should be restricted to the realm of the empirical. In other words his criticism of modern theologies was epistemological or metaphysical.

Their positions did not allow theology to have its own integrity as a discipline in which non-empirical and non material aspects of reality were allowed as legitimate interpretations of reality. He explains that modern theologians no longer know what it is to contemplate the higher criticism of the prevailing philosophy of science. But is precisely the possibility of attaining knowledge of transcendent reality and significance of cognitive reasoning and religious experience that is the crucial neglected theological issue of our century.

He did not hide his dissatisfaction with modern theology but his prescription for theology was not to insulate it from science. No according to Henry a more robust philosophy science is needed to fix what ails theology. So we could think of theology as taking the deliverances now a philosophy of science and putting it back into the service of what theology is doing. Consider also these thoughts from Dallas Willard in an address that he gave here in Biola’s campus 15 years ago.

Maybe even in this very room. He says the deeper issue here is what is to count as knowledge. Spinoza wrote a book called Tractatus Theologica s’ politicus on the relationship between theology and politics. Spinoza more than anyone else gave great impetus to what is called higher criticism. And the function of higher criticism, is basically to disarm historical traditions and authoritative texts and to put them in a position where they can be reinterpreted as having local cultural significance.

But not significance, as conveying the truth about reality. That now is going to be left to the sciences and to philosophy of course and the state will stand back and not enforce theological truths and this has the eventual result that the ill of the irrelevance of the content of historical revelation to reality. Now Henry also in his from the previous quote, he goes on to explain that the ability to access non empirical realities to have that we must assume that human persons have that capability to be able to do it.

And that this truth is theologically grounded by something like the image of God. So that means that whatever the nature of science, philosophy and all the rest of the disciplines is or are, is also a theological question. It’s not just a question within those disciplines, it’s also a theological question, what those disciplines are and what sorts of deliverances we can and should accept. So an extraordinary variety of possible updates to our interpretations exists.

Yet updates to our interpretations make less difference over time since those interpretations have accumulated a large body of evidence, making the inertia greater. To make alterations in our beliefs, they must be fairly strong in order to actually dislodge us from whatever interpretation we’ve landed on. Therefore it’s tempting to conclude with Dr. Cooper that as Christians we agree to disagree. We might have these intractable disputes and maybe we just need to learn to lovingly get along.

The extraordinary diversity of disciplines, perspectives and information that is relevant to our interpretations is actually really disheartening. You feel like you have to be an expert in all of these various domains in order to actually make any sort of headway and that can be pretty daunting. But just as diversity of function brings about health in a physical body, so in the body of Christ. Healthy well coordinated bodies require well-functioning parts, well integrated circuitry unity and purpose.

Practitioners of varying disciplines, provide diverse contributions that enhance the work of others. Here we have scientists, philosophers and theologians serving each other. As Christian academics we have a unity of purpose. Moreover our diverse body here, has a head. Or to mix the metaphor and use another poly metaphor a mind. A shepherd who provides unity and tell us, the guy Jesus Christ. [Applause]