Reading Blog: Knowing Christ Today, Introduction
(For the next five weeks I’ll be blogging every Wednesday and Friday through Dallas Willard’s latest book, Knowing Christ Today, one chapter at a time. Today, I begin with the Introduction.)
A memorable quote from a college lecture appears on page five of Willard’s latest book, attributed to Dr. William Provine, professor of Biological Sciences at Cornell University:
Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutioinary biology tells us loud and clear…there are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans either.
Willard’s one-sentence response is simply, “Logically viewed, this statement is simply laughable.” That statement pretty much summarizes the book, which is primarily concerned with re-appropriating real knowledge itself – as opposed to mere information, belief, opinion, emotion, or fantasy – as the foundation of faith.
It would be hard to find a better candidate for the task. Dallas Willard is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California and is generally well known by Christians as the author of the 1999 book The Divine Conspiracy. Since then he’s followed up with a series of books, all of which address his ongoing central theme of spiritual formation.
Willard states the problem as, “the trivialization of faith apart from knowledge and with the disastrous effects of a repositioning of faith in Jesus Christ.” In other words, the erosion of confidence in religious truth claims as claims of real knowledge has lead to a dismantling of faith as sure footing for life. The most obvious effect of this erosion is the relegating of Christian teachers and leaders on the public stage to general irrelevance.
Yet Willard is concerned about far more than a public relations challenge. Nothing considered to be less than real knowledge can function as the ground upon which lives are lived. For Willard this is the root cause of the identity crisis the Church is currently experiencing.
Some will not appreciate Willard’s prescription for this malaise. He says the answer lies not in the cultivating emotions, faithful practices of ritual or liturgy, just “trying harder,” or even miraculous intervention. He readily admits these all have their place in shaping a person’s faith, but fundamentally belief cannot properly govern life without being in harmony with the genuine evidence of true knowledge as we live it out in practice. Whether we like it or not, that is what we all base our lives upon.
He asks, is that possible? Is it possible to actually know the things you profess or believe as a Christian or is the task of the Christian to simply believe what cannot be known?
I haven’t heard much noise about this book, but this is a highly relevant question for our time for there are many Christians currently claiming that actual knowledge is outside the realm of faith (and many who claim it is outside the realm of all life in general). Willard disagrees, saying:
“A life of steadfast discipleship to Jesus Christ can be supported only upon assured knowledge of how things are, of the realities in terms of which that life is lived [and] There is a body of uniquely Christian knowledge, one that is available to all who would appropriately seek it and receive it.”
I suspect that some in Emerging/Missional Church circles will be uncomfortable with this book because it represents a nod toward a form of certainty that too closely resembles Modern fundamentalism, while some fundamentalist-leaning folks will distrust Willard’s work here because he has had such a profound impact on Emerging/Missional folks in the realm of spiritual formation.
My perspective is that Willard’s work provides a haven from both the paternalistic authoritarianism of Modernity that many, including myself, long for as well as a shelter from the dislocated wilderness of post-Modernity. In that sense, it could possibly represent an epistemological common ground for both progressives and traditionalists alike.
Questions:
- What has been your experience with the belittling of faith as true knowledge?
- Do you tend toward faith as a certain form of knowledge or faith as that which fills the gap of knowledge?
- What do you see as the limits of religious knowledge?
Leave it to Willard to think and write stuff NOBODY else seems to be talking about. I really must get this book. You’re right about there being almost no “buzz” surrounding it. I had no idea he had another book out.
On your questions, I think a definition of what “knowledge” is will need to be forthcoming in the book. Part of the problem is probably the Enlightenment redefinition of “knowledge” as scientific certainty that sent pastors and theologians reeling… so we started talking about faith in other terms than “knowledge.”
I guess I have always approached faith as a form of knowledge. It’s just not the kind of knowledge scientists have about the molecular structure of physical reality, it’s more like the knowledge I have that my wife loves me. It’s not “blind faith,” there’s really a lot of evidence that she loves me, but there’s no scientific proof that she loves me. But it doesn’t mean the knowledge is less real.
I would see the limits of religious knowledge (as you put it) the same as the limits on the kind of knowledge that “knows” my wife loves me. Trying to scientifically “prove” it would be silly. But perhaps that isn’t a limitation on religious or relational knowledge as much as it is a limitation on scientific knowledge.
Ah well, just some stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Willard’s ideas do that to me. Looking forward to this series.