Check Your Sources: Theology from the Bible and Experience
Oxford theologian Nigel Biggar uses human experience to debunk Bible-only theology.
Scripture is the only source of theology that evangelical Christians all accept. As a result, the methodology of evangelical theology is to argue deductively from premises of a single source: the Bible. Excluded from theology are philosophy, empirical science, and literary imagination. Accordingly, evangelical theology is functionally biblicist.
If a theologian introduces a premise that is not biblically-derived but is based in experience, that theologian invites suspicion that his premise is unbiblical. “The earth is 4.5 billion years old” - unbiblical. “Sexual orientation is a real feature of human psychology” - unbiblical. “Christianity is at least socially useful, even if this does not prove its truth” - unbiblical.
People who reject these “unbiblical premises” are led to specific theological conclusions: “The earth was created in six 24-hour days.” “A Christian may not describe himself as ‘gay.’” “We should believe in Christianity only because it’s true, independently of its fruits.” With a narrow range of theological sources, our theology itself narrows.
But theologians who utilize experience in addition to the Bible have a greater wealth of resources on which to draw in their thinking. What is more, their thinking takes into account human nature itself, resulting in a humane theology, rather than one that feels foreign and unsympathetic to who we are.
The eminent Oxford theologian Nigel Biggar is an example of a theologian whose theology draws on human experience in addition to the Bible.
In a perfect case study of theology from experience, Biggar questions the Christian pacifist conclusions of Richard Hays by transcending his Bible-only method, and introducing a premise from experience: Human violence is not always motivated by hatred, vengeance, and anger. A theology that takes into account the full breadth of human experience cannot condemn all violence.
Biggar’s argument is a perfect case-study in Christianity’s need of the theological source of experience.
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The Bible-Only Case for Pacifism
A long-time New Testament scholar at Duke Divinity School, Richard Hays made the case for Christian pacifism in his The Moral Vision of the New Testament. Hays argues that, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out the ethic of a new kind of community, radically different from ordinary human communities. This radically new ethic is “one in which ‘anger is overcome through reconciliation … retaliation is renounced … and enemy-love replaces hate’. … In sum, ‘the transcendence of violence through loving the enemy is the most salient feature of this new model polis’” (36).
To this Hays adds Jesus' frequent refusal of political violence, desired by the zealots of his time, and his injunction to “turn the other cheek.” Hays also appeals to Jesus’ rebuke of Peter, when he draws a sword in Christ’s defense; Hays “takes [this] to be ‘an explicit refutation’ of the justifiability of the use of violence in defence of a third party” (36-37).
The Bible also condemns the motives that inspire violence. The rest of the New Testament “forbids anger, hatred, and retaliation–and the violence that issues from them” (47). Hays concludes, from appeal exclusively to the biblical text, that Christianity supports non-violence.
In the following section, Nigel Biggar introduces a premise from outside the Bible that calls Hays’ argument into question.
But even Bible-only interpreters have reason to question Hays’ Christian pacifism. Both Christ and the apostle Paul speak about soldiers without condemning their calling; Jesus’ words for soldiers are, “Do not take things from anyone by force, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be content with your wages.” Likewise, Paul in Romans 13 recognizes civil government as appointed by God and having the right to bear the sword against evil. Biggar raises these biblical counter-arguments.
Even if Hays’ biblical argument is not airtight, there is something appropriate about the Bible-only perspective being a pacifist one. Bible-only theology is a facet of what what Richard Niebuhr calls the “Christ Against Culture” perspective.
This school of Christian thought, which includes everyone from Tertullian (“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”) to Tolstoy, argues that the Bible brings a distinctive perspective from those of the world. The world frequently operates on the basis of power, hating one’s enemies, and retaliatory violence. But the New Testament introduces an antithetical principle into history - Christ’s New Commandment of love even for the enemy.
If you wanted a distinctively New Testament perspective on violence, one that stood at odds with the powers and principalities of this world, you might very well adopt Christian pacifism. Tertullian and Tolstoy both did. And so did the entire Anabaptist tradition - including Mennonites and the Amish.
Hays’ Christian pacifism claims to be the position that is most exclusively and distinctively biblical.
Is Violence Always Motivated by Hatred?
In In Defence of War, Nigel Biggar introduces a premise from experience that contravenes Hays’ conclusion. While Biggar also makes biblical arguments, it is his empirical argument that raises questions about theological methodology.
For instance, one of Hays’ arguments began from the New Testament’s prohibition of hatred, vengeance, and anger. Since these are the motives from which violence flows, violence itself is thereby also forbidden.
But, Biggar points out, Hays has just introduced an assumption about the motives for violence: That violence only flows from vindictive motives. If any violence does not flow from hatred, vengeance, or, as Biggar distinguishes, unloving anger, then such violence would not be prohibited. Indeed, if any violence flows from motives that are commanded, like love and justice, such violence may even be obligatory.
Biggar devotes the entire following chapter, “Love in War,” to demonstrating that many military actions are divorced from vindictive motivation. He summarizes, “Soldiers in battle are usually motivated by loyalty to their comrades and by fear of shame, rather than by hatred for the enemy” (56).
In fact, many soldiers would cross lines to shake hands with their opponents if given the chance, though during battle, they will need to fire at them, often lethally. Ernst Jünger wrote about the First World War:
Throughout the war…it was always my endeavour to view my opponent without animus, and to form an opinion of him as a man on the basis of the courage he showed. I would always try and seek him out in combat and kill him, and I expected nothing else from him. But never did I entertain mean thoughts of him. When prisoners fell into my hands, later on, I felt responsible for their safety, and would always do everything in my power for them. (78)
Biggar writes about the military preference for cold, dispassionate violence rather than “hot violence.” He quotes Vietnam vet Karl Marlantes:
Contrary to the popular conception, when one is in the fury of battle I don’t think one is very often in an irrational frenzy … I was usually in a white heat of total rationality, completely devoid of passion, to get the job done with minimal casualties to my side and stay alive doing it. (79)
Biggar surveys other examples and motives, “love for one’s comrades,” something than which Jesus said there was no greater love; love for one’s family; the desire to prove oneself, the desire to be worthy of the heritage of one’s regiment, and so on.
He acknowledges, however, that sometimes rage comes over soldiers. This motivation and the violence that flows from it, Biggar condemns. However, even there, “sometimes what inspires [rage] is the death of comrades.” But “what appears to anger combat soldiers most…is not the death of a comrade, but enemy conduct that breaks the rules…treachery, gratuitous sacrilege, wanton cruelty.”
Other times, soldiers’ rage has no justification and leads to great wrong; yet soldiers are often conscious of this moral danger. Marlantes wrote, “There is a deep savage joy in destruction … I loved this power. I love it still. And it scares the hell out of me.” Soldiers have a duty to control “the beast that lies within us all” (89).
The assumption, therefore, that all violence is motivated by hatred, vengeance, or anger turns out to be false. Biggar summarizes his conclusion:
It contradicts the charge that military violence is mainly and necessarily motivated by hatred. … It confirms the thesis that soldiers are usually motivated primarily by love for their comrades. And it supports the claim that they can regard their enemies with respect, solidarity, and even compassion–all which are forms of love.
Given this information from human experience, a crucial premise of Hays’ argument is overturned. The Bible does not condemn all violence. The Christian call to love our enemy is not incompatible with, and may sometimes require, killing him.
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Other Premises from Experience
Consider what occurred in the last section: A theologian’s exclusively biblical argument was undermined by a premise from human experience. And even for those of us who have never been pacifists, the Bible’s warnings about anger and Christ’s command to “turn the other cheek” often induce worries about the legitimacy of violence and war, even in self-defense.
Biggar’s examination of first-hand accounts from the frontlines reveals, however, that these worries cannot be absolutized. Not all violence is motivated by motives that the Bible proscribes.
Biggar introduces yet another premise from outside of the Bible: The doctrine of double effect. According to that ethical doctrine, we can distinguish the intended consequences of an action from side-effects that are foreseen, but unintended. For example, in a situation of self-defense, you might have the following thought: “I do not intend to kill you, only to protect myself, but I foresee that shooting you at close proximity is likely to leave you dead.”
Hays and others object that the doctrine of double effect is a speculative premise, foreign to the text. The doctrine of double effect is unbiblical.
Biggar concurs with his critics that he is not “aware of having first learned [the doctrine of double effect] from the Bible.” Still, it is “in [his] view, correct,” presumably on philosophical and empirical grounds. He counters that the doctrine may not be unbiblical, but only non-biblical.
Both with the doctrine of double effect and the evidence of soldiers’ motives for violence, Biggar is bringing the “fruits of experience” into his biblical interpretation and theological argumentation.
Biggar is aware, however, that, “Some might find it suspect that I presume to take these fruits of experience into my reading of the New Testament.” In fact, Hays does not completely deny the role of experience as a theological source; he acknowledges “experience,” but defines it narrowly as subjective religious experience and limits its role to that of “confirming the truth of the teaching of Scripture.”
Biggar counters on both points. Experience is not just subjective religious encounter or emotion: “A far wider range of human experience of the world that God has created should come into play.” And experience can play a role, not only in confirming Scripture’s truth, but in informing our interpretations: “One of [experience’s] main roles should be to help determine the meaning of Scripture, and not merely to confirm its truth.”
On this latter point, Christians often try to argue that empirical sources should not affect our biblical interpretation; it should only call the empirical information into question. Others revise their biblical interpretation on the basis of uncritical acceptance of scientific consensus. Biggar points out that we may question the deliverances of experience in light of biblical witness, or we may be moved to change our interpretation of the Bible in light of experiential or empirical knowledge.
The Danger of Presuppositions
Biggar argues on the basis of experience, and not the Bible only. But, he alleges, so does everyone else, including Hays. As I have argued myself, those who deny the role of experience in theology are just as influenced by experience in their theological formulations, but in an undisciplined and accidental way.
Biggar writes, “Hays himself brings more empirical data–and brings it more deeply–into his exegetical and synthetic work than he himself recognizes.” After all, where did Hays get the assumption that all violence is motivated by hatred, vengeance, and anger if not from experience? The problem is not using experience in theology; the problem is not having enough of it. (In this case, insufficient reading of military histories and memoirs.)
Biggar’s conclusion is apt:
It seems to me that the reason why [Hays] reads Jesus’ death on the cross as meaning the absolute repudiation of all violence everywhere is that he has imported empirical assumptions about anger and violence as necessarily vengeful and malevolent. I do not complain at all about the importation. I merely dissent from the assumptions.
Likewise with the use of philosophy in theology. Biggar’s grounds for adhering to the doctrine of double effect are philosophical. But someone who rejects the doctrine of double effect is not free of philosophical beliefs. Rather, Biggar points out that if you reject the doctrine of double effect, you are committed to an alternate philosophical doctrine: that “the moral quality of an act depends…primarily on its good or evil effects,” without regard to intention. Famously, that is a doctrine of consequentialism. Does Hays realize that he has imported a consequentialist philosophical doctrine into his reading?
When we encounter the Bible, all of us already have a panoply of empirical beliefs. We can’t help but think things from experience before our engagement with the text. Rather than thinking ourselves blank slates or trying to be free of empirical assumptions, we should discipline ourselves in the acquisition of knowledge from experience. We should cultivate our natural reason. We should read widely in (at least) history, science, and philosophy. That is what I call Christian empiricism. And Nigel Biggar is a great example.
Biblical Silences
One more point before we leave behind Biggar’s dispute with Hays. One of the biblical arguments Biggar makes has to do with an absence of condemnation from Jesus and Paul for the calling of soldiers. Biggar writes that that silence is “loaded.”
But there is something else we could say, not only about this biblical silence, but about all biblical silences. Whatever we find the Bible has not clearly spoken on, we can read as an invitation to fill with premises from natural, non-scriptural revelation. In particular, from human experience and philosophy.
I think, for example, of the Christian discussion of contraception, which I entered last week. The Bible offers no unmistakably clear word. At the same time, its silence does not predetermine a permissive view. Instead, by leaving the question unanswered, it opens up a space for the empirical and philosophical discussion of contraception, appealing to biblical principle, but also human experience.
The Bible’s silences are an invitation to listen to other sources of information and even - as Christian tradition would have it - sources of divine revelation. Experience is a chapter in the book of nature.
Formation, Not Information
Biblicism arise from a faulty presupposition about the nature of redemption: That it is integrally concerned with apprising us of information about the nature of the world. Instead, redemption is focused on the formation of our character and the resurrection and transfiguration of our bodies themselves. Redemption assumes a world that is already in place and that is, in principle, already knowable by human beings.
The offer of redemption in the Bible assumes knowledge of the existence of God, our creation in his nature, our moral duties to him and one another, our failure with respect to those duties, and the suffering with which our world is replete from which we would seek deliverance. However much people may resist these truths, Christ comes into the world in which these are already true, and the gospel message presupposes these truths. Chiefly, the Law is prior to the Gospel.
Accordingly, the purpose of divine revelation is not to describe the structures of the world. The purpose of supernatural revelation is to enter into the already-existing world of human thought and experience and to tell us about certain actions of God within history. It is not to define human nature for us. It is to tell us that God has taken a human nature to himself, and that what he has assumed he is redeeming. It is not to make human knowledge as such possible; it is to provide us with some particular bits of knowledge and to direct us to higher wisdom.
In fact, Christ did not primarily come to deliver us from ignorance and provide us with knowledge at all. He came to save us from sin and to work in us love for God. Salvation is not primarily about information, but formation.
While Christ is the only source of our formation into God’s likeness, the Bible is not our only source of information about the world. To live faithfully, we must gather information from other sources. Not to do so is to squander our God-given capacities, reason, experience, and judgment.
Nigel Biggar is a prime example of a theologian honing just such natural capacities, without neglecting supernatural revelation. I commend his work to you.
This sounds like classic postmodernism, nicely repackaged.
The strawman used against the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is the idea that the Christian is not able to use their senses, only verses. This is theologically and historically easy to debunk. The doctrine properly understood requires that the scriptures be first presupposed (accepted in advance) and then also used as the final authority (trumping science, experience, etc. when there is a disagreement).
The argument of "scripture does not support violence" is kinda silly. Christianity, leveraging the scripture, has presented the world with things like "Just War Theory", jurisprudence foundations for violence (largely shaping western law surrounding murder, manslaughter, etc.). These contributions and more are drawn from scripture and applied to the world.
I've always liked the Doctrine of Double Effect ever since I was first exposed to it, and I use it as a rubric for myself. But I suppose I don't really have any words to defend it. Other than to say it doesn't seem to contradict Scripture and might well align with it.
I'm not sure to what degree we agree and disagree here. Because I think that moral philosophy can only get so far away from Scripture before it's essentially useless. The best it can do is provide us with hypotheses -- frameworks, rubrics, systems, etc. -- which we can then test against Scripture. A purely secular moral philosophy is basically useless, except as a tool of psychological self-management, a practical guide for how to manage your own conscience. This is rather unlike domains like science and engineering -- or just plain observing and noticing the world around us, the human experience. This can actually teach us, as Christians, truths about the world.
The problem with so many ideas like Christian pacifism is that when you take the Bible as a whole, and the acts and words of Jesus as a whole, it REALLY doesn't seem like this is what he's getting at. Which you do point out here. An idea that I keep coming back to is that nearly every Christian error and heresy, from the 1st century onwards, has been derived from placing too much emphasis on one particular teaching or story from Scripture without considering it in the context of the whole.
The greatest single strength of the Reformed tradition is that it takes the idea of "the whole" very, very seriously, and demonstrates that you actually can turn it into something coherent and profound. And I think if we keep sticking to it, we can avoid a lot of errors.