Metanarratives and “External” Verification
R. Sherman has spent some time lately pointing out the unfortunate frequency that logical fallacies find their abhorrent way into common discourse. The two particular fallacies he notes as being especially common are the appeal to authority and more recently the dreaded ad hominem. Of course he’s right about how often these are employed; think back to the latest argument you heard and it’s quite likely that someone or something was insulted in the argument (i.e. only stupid people like country music) or that a claim was backed up by the rock solid reasoning of claiming that “so and so” said so, therefore it must be so (i.e. my friend is an English professor and said. ).
Fallacies are fun to examine and important to understand if you value good argument. My favorite fallacy has always been the ad baculum, or appeal to force: “I’ll beat you up unless you agree with me.” I remember using this one particularly on younger siblings in days gone by.
One particular argument that Sherman noticed gets a lot of false Authority references is the argument for God, or specifically for Christianity. Unfortunately a number of Christians understand their ethical structure as a list of dos and don’ts that find their validity by nature of the fact that they come from the Bible, i.e. “why shouldn’t we lust? Because God said not to.” Of course an ethical system based solely on God’s commands is pretty weak. The Divine Command Theory isn’t worth embracing or defending. But this isn’t the topic I want to focus on at the moment.
In the course of the Sherman’s examinations Listless made a comment which intrigued me:
R. Sherman said: “God’s Word is indeed truth. I accept that on faith. It’s just nice to know that the world verifies that independently.”
to which Listless replies:
Independent of what, Randall? Independent of your preexisting faith in Christ? I am reminded of Stanley Fish’s argument.
It seems to me that there is nothing “outside” of your belief in Christianity by which Christianity can be tested or proven true or false.
Christianity, it seems to me, is a metanarrative involving reality as a whole. There can be no “independent” verification of Christianity because there are simply no independent facts – what we call “facts” are just beliefs that are highly contingent on and derived from our a priori faith – in this case, faith in Christ.
I must say that I am attracted to describing Christianity as an all embracing metanarrative–philosophically you end up with this complete system that explains the significance and meaning of everything, and that is exactly what Christianity does. However, the individuals who define their own personal narrative in different terms don’t recognize their place within the Christian metanarrative. These are the people I’m interested in in terms of this post. Because there may not be any independent facts, but there are things that are independent of non-Christian metanarrative constructs that perform the act of reaching in and pulling out. What I mean is that Christianity is the universal metanarrative, even though some construct different narratives for themselves. For those who place themselves outside of the Christian metanarrative there are independent facts that point to the truth of the Christian metanarrative. Those particular facts are part of the Christian metanarrative itself and have the capacity to break down the barriers of competing narratives and pull people towards logical recognition of Christianity’s truthfulness. Alvin Plantinga developed a reformed foundationalism that proves quite effective at epistemically justifying belief in God. Reformed foundationalism argues from experiential basic beliefs (direct experiences) for epistemic justification. If you’re interested in exploring it in depth do a simple Google query; there are tons of papers available on the subject.
Anyway, my point is that for the Christian I believe Listless is right, there are no external facts to point to because the Christian framework encompasses everything. However, if you place yourself outside of the Christian framework there are “external facts” because the Christian framework has the capacity to break in to all other frameworks for its own justification.
I’ll give you a gold star if you read this far!
I read the whole thing just now. It’s 10:21 PM and I have to get up at six to take the official son to a track meet. I’ll be back tomorrow to reread this and comment.
Cheers.
I get a gold star, too–two, in fact.
Back when I taught at a Baptist-affiliated college, I was compelled at times to remind my students, “Christianity is not the world; it is a response to the world.” That’s not quite the same as identifying Christianity as a metanarrative, but it does, in thinking about it, presume such.
It was also while I was at said college, a place where, out loud at any rate, “doubt” was regarded as something of a leprous condition, where I heard an invited speaker, when asked if he worried about the future health of Christianity, respond that he didn’t because, after all, Christianity came into being in a non-Christian world. I suppose the closest we can get to stepping outside the frame of Christianity is to remind ourselves that it is a historical phenomenon. That’s not at all to call into question Christianity’s truth; it is, rather, to acknowledge that, once upon a time, its truth had no expression and, alas, has not (yet) become a self-evident truth in the time that it has had expression.
Thank you both.
John: I really like these words from you: That’s not at all to call into question Christianity’s truth; it is, rather, to acknowledge that, once upon a time, its truth had no expression and, alas, has not (yet) become a self-evident truth in the time that it has had expression.
Looks like the gold star club is a privileged group.
I like your clarifying thoughts on the metanarrative, Tim, the way you point out that for a Christian, there really is nothing “outside” the story. I don’t really see that as a weakness, but as a function of Christ’s magnetic power. Having defeated death, now he draws “all men”–and every piece of life–to himself. Some of us, by grace, come to see this sooner, rather than later, and embrace it as a cause for laughter rather than tears.
“For those who place themselves outside of the Christian metanarrative there are independent facts that point to the truth of the Christian metanarrative. Those particular facts are part of the Christian metanarrative itself and have the capacity to break down the barriers of competing narratives and pull people towards logical recognition of Christianity’s truthfulness. Alvin Plantinga developed a reformed foundationalism that proves quite effective at epistemically justifying belief in God.”
Are you saying here that there are “independent facts” which exist outside and prior to any metanarrative? Or are you saying that there are “independent facts” which exist under any possible metanarrative?
To be precise, I see four possible claims here:
Option 1: There are facts which exist independant of our logical proofs, and these facts support the Christian message. Thus, while we cannot “prove” Christianity true to someone who operates from a different metanarrative, it nevertheless is true and should be recognized as such.
Option 2: There are facts which are recognized as facts under any and all possible worldviews. These facts prove Christianity to be true, and thus one adopt non-Christian beliefs without falling into self-contradiction according to any possible metanarrative.
Option 3: There are facts which are recognized as facts under any and all possible worldviews. These facts do not prove Christianity true but they do prove that Christiantiy is not irrational. Thus, while non-Christians can adopt non-Christian metanarratives without falling into logical error or self-contradiction, the Christian may also adopt the Christian metanarrative without falling into logical error or self-contradiction.
Option 4: The Christian metanarrative is not self-contradicting and may be adopted without falling into logical error.
Plaintinga, as I read him, claims only #4, which is the most modest of the claims. But I have only read bits and pieces of Plantinga, so perhaps I misunderstand his work. Am I mistaken?
In my view, any possible claim that Christianity (or any other “fact”) can be proven with logical certainty to be either true or false is untenable. There is no “view from nowhere,” as Nagel has pointed out. Facts only exist in the context of a metanarrative, and there are an infinite number of metanarratives to chose from. Thus, while persuasion may work on actual humans as a practical matter, it is impossible as a logical matter – conversion from one metanarrative is an emotional and practical decision, rather than a logical decision.
The consequence of this is, I don’t understand what is mean by “independent facts.” If you’re interested, can you explain your meaning a bit more?
(a long, somewhat disconnected reply to Listless)
Good questions, Listless.
I may have overstepped my bounds earlier, because I think you’re right in regard to the extent of what Plantinga actually claims. Option (4), as given by you, is correct. However, perhaps I can clarify my thoughts on the matter in response to something you mentioned. You said:
“Facts only exist in the context of a metanarrative, and there are an infinite number of metanarratives to chose from.â€
The “independent facts†which I alluded to exist in the Christian narrative, but not in other metanarratives. Plantinga’s argument comes in and says that non-Christian metanarratives that baldy dismiss the claims of Christianity are logically wrong to make such a dismissal. You’re right in pointing out that the “facts†inside the Christian metanarrative don’t go so far to as to objectively prove Christianity to be right, but they do go so far as to limit the validity of criticism of its logical possible existence and/or truth. Of course, critics of Plantiga argue accurately that this sort of argument can be made for any number of things (i.e. the Flying Spaghetti Monster).
Not entirely related but interestingly enough, I thought Fish didn’t do a very good job in describing competing metanarratives in the passage you quoted over at Randall’s blog. Here’s the part of the passage I thought was questionable:
If you tell a serious Christian that no one can walk on water or rise from the dead or feed five thousand with two fishes and five loaves, he or she will tell you that the impossibility of those actions for mere men is what makes their performance so powerful a sign of divinity. For one party the reasoning is: ‘No man can do it and therefore Christ didn’t do it.’ For the other the reasoning is: ‘Since no man could do it, he who did it is more than man.’
For the “non-Christian†described above it appears that the reasoning used is a tautology, which if truly tautological would obviously rule it out.
Another possibly unrelated thought; isn’t a metanarrative merely a comprehensive language game? And if so, getting someone to change metanarratives is all about crafting one’s rhetoric in such a way as to persuade someone to switch over. The thing is, we’re talking about two different things here—language and logic. Obviously logic must use language, and language (some would argue) needs to be logical if it’s going to be comprehensible. But some theories of language boil down to pure arbitrariness, which seemingly is anything but logical. When it comes down to that, what does logic even signify? And is that signification logically valid given the popular definition of the term?
“‘No man can do it and therefore Christ didn’t do it…’ For the “non-Christian†described above it appears that the reasoning used is a tautology, which if truly tautological would obviously rule it out.”
I don’t see this as a tautology. It’s only a tautology if you assume that no other arguments or evidence is introduced by the non-Christian to support his conclusion. And I don’t think that’s the point that Fish was trying to make here. Instead, this is only an excerpt (i.e., the bottom line) from what would doubtless be a longer conversation between a believer and a non-believer. And, in fact, I think a good many non-Christians do think that way, i.e., “men rising from the dead? people walking on water? supernatural miracles? Give me a break! That’s unscientific and unrealistic.” We would have a similar reaction to someone who sincerely tried to convince us of the efficacy of voodoo. As Nagel has argued, such a proposition:
“[C]an be safely ignored, like the hypothesis that an otherwise inexplicable misfortune that has happened to me can be explained by witchcraft. Most of us would dismiss that hypothesis even if the misfortune followed the sincere attempt by one of my enemies, fresh from an overdose of Harry Potter, to cast an evil spell on me…”
In fact, Nagel then concludes that many non-Christians do in fact dismiss Christian supernatural claims out of hand for precisely this reason, although they may be reluctant to state this bluntly for reasons of tact or political prudence. I think that’s probably right, and it’s not an unreasonable position to take.
In other words, Fish’s hypothetical non-Christian isn’t advancing a tautology because we may presume that, in the remainder of the conversation, he could marshall a mountain of scientific evidence against the supernatural, citing the long history of superstition which has ultimately been disproven by science. Based on this evidence, he could (with the barest of qualifying nods to Hume) reasonably conclude that life follows certain natural, physical laws at all times, that ressurection is precluded by these laws, and that the balance of the evidence therefore weighs against a single historically-questioned (and questionable) counterexample.
This is not to say that such an argument is correct: merely that it is plausible, and not obviously refutable.
When it comes down to that, what does logic even signify? And is that signification logically valid given the popular definition of the term?
I’m not sure that I understand your question entirely. But I will try to respond to the question I think you’re asking by saying that I’m not sure logic “signifies” anything by itself. Logic is a tool for “unpacking” statements you’ve already made so that you can see their implications. If you say A and B, then using logic you can deduce C. But, in order to do so, C must have already been implicit in what you already said (in A and in B). Thus, logic doesn’t say anything itself – it just helps you to explore, understand, and systematize what you’ve already said. Further, the “rules of logic” don’t have any special epistemic status – they are generalized rules induced from observation of the world. They are particularly useful (bivalence, for example) but they are not immune to revision in the face of contrary observation (as in quantum mechanics). This is why even “logic,” where it powerful enough to do the job, could not be the archimedian point from which we could stand and judge with finality the metanarrative of another.