Thoughts on "Biblical Epistemology"

Since there are so many bible-believing (or "Evangelical") Christians in North America, and more to the point, so many among my family and closest friends, I feel quite motivated to explain to folks why I believe Christians should be voluntaryists (libertarian anarchists).

But before I fully plunge into that, in order to provide some foundational principles, I wanted to take a few moments to put forward some of my thoughts on "epistemology", which is a fancy word professional philosophers use for the study of "how we know things". I would like to give the disclaimer up front, that I am not a philosopher, have not taken a single college course in philosophy, and have only read a learned (i.e. Bertrand Russell) digest of the main contributors to "western philosophy" throughout history, most of which I remember only foggily. What I am about to talk about is a sort of rough-and-ready, "poor man's" epistemology. It should go without saying that I am not going to quote any philosophical authorities, who have given us their thoughts on epistemology.

I guess I wanted to put something down here that Christians could read, and if they don't like what they're seeing in this post, they will be saved from wasting their time on future posts of mine that discuss biblical passages in depth.

When I use the phrase "biblical epistemology", I am intentionally being ambiguous, because I want to talk about two questions, rather than just the one meaning that I would be intending if this were a serious philosophical essay. The "formal" or "academic" question would be, I think: What does the bible teach about the way human beings can know things? The second follows from the first: How can we know anything, from reading the bible? (And then the first question follows, in turn, from the second, and... so on.)

If you're scratching your head right now, saying, "Well, gee... Does the bible really say much about epistemology?" then I would agree with you that, no, it doesn't say a whole lot, but it does say a few things. First, the two fave passages of Evangelicals from the Greek scriptures, when talking about the bible's own "witness" to its authority (all passages are NRSV, unless otherwise noted):

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

and:

"First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." (2 Peter 1:20-21)

Those are fine passages, of course, and ought to serve as exhortations to us to study the bible a lot and figure out how to apply it and teach it in practical ways, but-- they are really red herrings, when it comes to the question of epistemology (and hermeneutics, for that matter!), for the simple reason that they are circular. They basically say: "This book, that I [the passage] happen to be part of, is God-inspired and authoritative, and should form the basis of teaching about God." Or, they tell us, "The bible is good! Read and study it!"

But the following passage qualifies as a biblical teaching about epistemology:

"For what can be known about God is plain to [people], because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made." (Romans 1:19-20)

WOW! This is a simply staggering pronouncement. Paul is saying here that what can be known about God has been understood, throughout all history, through the "things he has made", aka "nature" or "the creation". Now, I of course am not the first person to stumble upon this verse, over the last 1,900 years or so since Paul wrote it down. People have said a lot about it. I think that it is probably the main source of the "general" side of the doctrine of "general and special revelation".

The established Christian doctrine of God's revelation to humanity, general and special, is relatively straightforward. "General" revelation refers to Paul's statement above, about what all people can know (plainly!) from nature (about God?). "Special" revelation is basically, the contents of the bible.

So this is the moment you've been waiting for-- the main point of this post! "Orthodox" Evangelical Christianity holds that the bible ("special revelation") "teaches itself" and/or "is inerrant and complete". All passages are to be interpreted "through the lens of" all other passages. God's word is true (it's God's word, after all, how could it not be true), so you need to study the bible "as a whole", and the "systematic theology" ("theology" = knowledge about God) that emerges from that effort, will be harmonious, even if individual passages seem to contradict each other.

"General revelation", on the other hand, is... "natural law", I guess, in this doctrine of revelation. Or... You know, it never really made sense to me, this concept! I mean, if everything that can be known about God, can be (plainly!) understood just from observing nature, why do we bother with the bible at all? (Good question! we hear pipe up the modern "secularists/atheists" who are reading this post for some reason.)

I'll tell you what I think:

1) To state the obvious: God is eternal, the bible is not. That is to say, the bible had a beginning, whereas God has always existed, and even creation existed long before the bible did.

2) In light of #1, we can say that Paul's statement about gaining knowledge of God from creation, is true (it's in the bible, after all) but it would still be true, even if Paul hadn't said it, and even if there were no bible at all!

3) In light of #2, we can only conclude that while the verses of the Christian bible should, certainly, be interpreted through the lens of other verses of the Christian bible, more importantly, the whole effort of interpreting the Christian bible, and any other religious text, must be guided based on knowledge about God that is plainly available through the study of nature, i.e., independent of the Christian bible.

I think I'll stop here, and continue in another post, with my thoughts on the subject of what can be known about God from what he has made. But feel free to comment on what I've got so far.

Free Philadelphia!

I want to say a word or two about the little bit that I've learned about the Free State Project, and the Voluntaryists who blog on FreeKeene.com. As far as I've been able to make out, the Free State Project is trying to focus attention on New Hampshire because it is one of the least populated, least taxed and least "governed" (i.e. by the taxing State) states in the U.S. One can only imagine that it is hoped that if sufficient numbers of liberty-minded activists move there, eventually New Hampshire or a portion thereof might be able to secede from the U.S.

But I am far less interested in the Free State Project, than I am in the bloggers on FreeKeene.com, because FreeKeene.com is, at least based on what is found on the website masthead, a Voluntaryist presence. (I refrain from calling it a "group", in deference to the strenuous opinion expressed in a few of the blogs that I've read there, that the bloggers "belong to no group" and are "just individuals". I can appreciate why this is stated so firmly and so frequently, as they may want to avoid federal prosecution under R.I.C.O.) And I tip my hat to these bloggers, and to the LP, and to the Free State Project, for working hard to get the message out to Americans that we live in a society that is not nearly as free as we think it is, and which, more importantly, is becoming less free with every passing year.

But I think that the marginalization of these sort of activists continues apace, and I will explain why. The "framers" were (many of them) extremely creative, highly intellectual, multi-talented, and deeply courageous men. But America has changed! Those sort of men are mere myths to the vast majority of Americans. And the LP is a party of virtually nothing BUT ideas. Once you understand the danger of the ever-growing national State, you want to talk about it, and sometimes to yell about it, and sometimes to screech about it. I was there! Just a few weeks ago, I was there. I had long and intense conversations with my two more intellectual sisters. I did not really budge either of them! Not with all the logic and reason that I see in such sparkling relief, in my head!

Here's the rub: Americans understand, in an elementary school sort of way, that ideas are very important to the American people. But now, what they really want, is solutions. For the problems of TODAY. And also, the fact is that for Americans, the American State is a "brute fact", like the air we breathe. They can't do the mental gymnastics required to think things through, with that thing gone.

So, my understanding (which I invite correction of) is that the Voluntaryists of Keene (or at least the ones on FreeKeene.com) are mainly following the civil disobedience route, in an attempt to show the people of Keene, and NH, and the U.S., how big a sham civil liberties are in America. But here's the problem: you've chosen a "happy" state to do this in! One of the most free states in the union! So, you will annoy the residents (I know this is happening), and you will be nothing more than a curiosity to the rest of America, because NH is a tiny, peripheral curiosity of a state to most Americans.

I live in the immediate outskirts of the city of Philadelphia. I am 38 years old, and except for the last six years, and the four years I was in college in New Jersey, I was a resident of Philadelphia. Philadelphia does not get all the media attention that L.A., Chicago, NYC, and even Boston and S.F. get, but one could easily argue that the Philadelphia metropolitan area is one of the most important urban regions in the world, let alone in the U.S.

In the true agorist (unfettered free market) spirit of friendly competition, I would like to suggest a challenge: I'll strive to rid this 5 million person "city-state" of all statist oppression (in my lifetime would be great), and you see what you can come up with in the 1.3 million person state of New Hampshire. Or maybe you can tackle the Boston metro area, and get Keene into it as well (even though Cheshire County isn't part of the Boston MSA)?

You gotta have faith!

What I've learned in the interim

I feel so changed now, from what I was when the 40-day "fast" began (April 21), that it's a little hard to know what to write, by way of "personal update".

My "personal relationship with Jesus" (to use the Evangelical catchphrase) has been deeply revitalized (think: "raised from the dead"). I feel that I've been given the ability to read the gospels, and imagine myself there, hearing Jesus' words from his own mouth, hearing and seeing the people he interacted with.

A common way of describing the "story of the bible" in a single phrase is "God's work of redeeming his creation from the Fall", or something like that. Sometimes it's described as the story of God's successive covenants with "his people". However, I now believe that, from beginning to end, the bible is about God's continuous efforts to eradicate slavery from among humanity and, conversely, his efforts to teach humanity what freedom is and to act it out. More time has now passed from Jesus' time up to the present, than from the beginning of recorded history up to the time of Jesus. The only way of viewing things that makes any sense to me, is to interpret history since the death of Jesus in terms of the successive systems of slavery (read: governments) and the apologies made on their behalf, and the reasons given for their overthrow, and the sacrifices made by those who saw (by faith) a world without slavery.

Mahatma Gandhi introduced "satyagraha" ("truth-force") to a world unfamiliar with the Sanskrit language and Hindu spirituality, by means of his non-violent campaign against British domination of India. I believe that he correctly understood Jesus to be all about the very same thing, as "the stone that makes them stumble and the rock that makes them fall" (Romans 9:33, I Peter 2:8).

Here in the United States, with the first governmental system in all of human history created largely "from ideas", the evolution of free society has advanced far. The "framers" (i.e. of the U.S. constitution) took the huge step of abolishing hereditary titles and honors. They did not take the even huger step of abolishing taxation of the populace under threat of force. However, over the period of time since the founding of the American state, Americans have shown just how much can be done without government, and they have also been shown how much violence and cruelty and destruction even their supposedly "noble" government is capable of.

As a "voice crying out in the wilderness", there is the Libertarian Party, which was founded in the U.S. in 1971, a mere 14 years after Atlas Shrugged was published. I'm a few chapters into Atlas Shrugged now, and the philosophical nature of the novel is clear. Politics lurks as a marginal concept in the book, but it is not a blueprint for political change. The LP has had virtually no impact on the U.S. at the national level, over its 47 years in existence. It is far outside the mainstream, although one could possibly make the argument that a significant percentage of American voters registered as Republicans have a lot of libertarian sensibilities.

What has held them back? I believe that the LP was doomed from the moment it was founded, not to change American politics per se, because of its very acceptance of the government-promoted system of election politics, itself. Voluntaryism appears to be "like" LP core beliefs, in that it believes that "government" (read: NOT the "state") should have a minimal role in society, a role that restrains individuals from violating the life, liberty and property of other individuals. But in accepting a taxing entity called the "state" to perform this supposedly "minimal" role, the LP cut off the very branch they were trying to climb onto. Voluntaryists go "all the way", and repudiate both the state and electoral politics entirely.

I will say some more about Libertarians and Voluntaryists, and their (apparent) current strategies and tactics, in a post soon to follow.

Anyway, back to me. Even though I felt, throughout my 40-day sojourn, a strange sort of centrifugal force in my soul, flinging me outward and into "the market", I have been repeatedly reined back in, in the true spirit of Voluntaryism ("present the world with 'one improved unit'"), to the "smallest" reaches of my existence, i.e. my home (population: 3 humans, 2 smart-ish animals) and my little Presbyterian church, a few blocks away.

But if you want to "get started building the voluntary society", you necessarily want to start a business (or help start one, or grow one). And I do. Many businesses, actually. But I need to start with one. I still believe in Dendron Growth Strategies, which is (currently) a coaching, business planning, and micro-venture company of one (that would be me).

My bedrock image is Jesus' analogy for faith, in the Kingdom of God: the mustard seed. It starts very tiny, and it eventually grows into something pretty big. That's how freedom spreads: one little mustard seed of faith at a time.