Symbolic Christianity in the 21st Century
Mystical Orthodoxy, Modernist Protestantism, and Modern Christian Epistemology
The following text is a minimally modified essay written for an open-ended essay assignment in my high school comparative religion class. Although the writing attempts to faithfully represent my views, it is important to note that the construction of this essay in contents and tone was tempered and characterized by both the requirements of the assignment, and the audience for whom it was originally intended (being my teacher, who is sympathetic to religious pluralism, in many ways). My writing of it was also expedited by the due date; I wrote the majority of the essay late one evening, finishing the following morning.
Introduction to Diverging Claims of Knowledge
Epistemology, defined by Merriam-Webster as “the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity”, is a fundamental and uniquely consequential ground of disagreement between various groups, and their respective ideologies, in the world today. The predominate culture in the Western world is rationalistic and scientific but with a clear aesthetic preference for tolerance, egalitarianism, and pluralism. Popular Christian protestant thought rarely challenges the rationalistic view of reality, instead aiming to make a scientific, objectivist underlying assumption work too for Christianity. From this, antithetical claims of truth arise between groups, conflict blooms, and culture forks. Chirstian church fathers and Hebrew religious ancestors, however, did not approach epistemology in the way of most modern protestants, instead primarily making claims of value, function, or judgement, instead of claims of exact understanding of the objective or historical truth. This form of Chirstian belief is awake and alive within the Orthodox Christian church today (as well as the Catholic church, to a lesser degree).
Propositions of Symbolic Christianity
Before examining the conflict existing between various belief systems today, the belief systems must first be described. Symbolic Christianity, as it is often labeled, is a particularly novel idea to most people of the Western world. One of the more cited books outlining this perspective, Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis by Matthieu Pageau, offers an overview this way, “The Language of Creation is a commentary on the primeval stories from the book of Genesis. It is often difficult to recognize the spiritual wisdom contained in these narratives because the current scientific worldview is deeply rooted in materialism. Therefore, instead of looking at these stories through the lens of modern academic disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, or the physical sciences, this commentary attempts to interpret the Bible from its own cosmological perspective.”
One of the core claims of symbolic Christianity is that judgement of value precedes interpretation of fact, that facts are only accessible within the context of value. A scientific statement of a specific fact, for example, arises not because the fact was previously unknown, but because there was a perceived problem associated with the non-knowledge regarding the fact. Before an astrological model of the physical Milky-Way can be mapped, it must be decided that this creation would serve some purpose or use. Proponents of symbolic Christianity call attention to the way in which seemingly immutable scientific and linguistic categories are established, for example. The distinction between pebbles, rocks, stones, boulders, and mountains are made, not because the material qualities of these categories are so different, but because they serve different purposes as humans and our perception is concerned.
Anthropologist Franz Boaz described the hundreds of different descriptive words for snow existing in the Indigenous Eskimo languages that he studied. To the Northern populations, establishing more specified categories of snow was a useful practice, despite the fact that a scientific description of the snow would indicate that it is made of the same matter. To expand outward, snow and gas are only sub-categories of water, and water is only a sub-category of liquid, and liquid is only a sub-category of matter, and so-on and so-forth. Symbolic Christians, then, argue that the determinations of distinctions, the determination of categorizations is not so inherent or scientific, but rather based upon human experience and intuition.
Scientific rationalism is posed by symbolic Christians not as an external, objective, dispassionate system for description and prediction, but rather a system limited by the precepts and assumptions it is built upon. It is rightly pointed out by philosopher Emmanual Kant that a description is not an assignment of value, the two are distinct. Atheist academic Sam Harris demonstrates some of the same sentiments when he points out, “If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?”
Symbolic Christians also emphasize the context in which the Copernicium Revolution arose. Specifically, they posit Christianity as a necessary fertile ground out of which scientific discovery could have life. A system, they say, cannot soundly revolt against itself.
This all to say, symbolic Christians reject the claim, fundamental in most of Western society, that the realest categories are those which are observable or material. Narrative construction, they argue, is a fuller, more encompassing directive of human will and potential. Humans cannot know phenomenon as it truly exists outside of human experience or perception, and therefore, any system which claims to transcend human bias or perspective is self-deceiving.
All of this leads narrative Christians to a religious faith that is not bound by narrow scientific occurrences, but rather, stories are believed as they represent trues, claims not intended to be factual historical accounts. Rather than believing that Biblical accounts intending to supplement or align with scientific description, symbolic Christians believe that Biblical narrative and scientific analysis apply to different aspects of reality. The meeting of particulars and thematic material is the making of religious story, it is argued. Even if the creation story in Gensis, for example, is historical, observable fact, it is not included in the Biblical text for this reason. Its inclusion in the Biblical text is due to its meaning, its symbolic value, its directive potential — attention does not fall on merely that which is historically true, but instead that which has a reason for being known. Biblical narrative is held, then, as truer than that which we interact with day-to-day. Further, this interpretation is considered by many historians and anthropologists to more closely align with the view of those in the time of Biblical authorship and account in the ancient world. To symbolic Christians, Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was justified in his famous pronouncement, “To have faith is precisely to lose one’s mind so as to win God.” Without reservation, symbolic Christians can believe in the flood, in creation, in God, in the Levithan, in Christ — and they are not forced such a distinction between literal and symbolic belief, as it is of little consequence.
Progressive Influence on the Present Western Cultural Moment
In contrast to the descriptive quality of the last section, the following paragraphs aim to prescribe directives based on an analysis of culture and religion. To detail the causes of the present dominate cultural framework in the West, I will rely on Hagel’s dialectical interpretation of history as a template. First, let us consider the largely restrictive conventions, which were dominant in the first half of 20th century Europe and America. No-fault divorce, as an example, was only legalized first in California by then governor Ronald Reagon in 1969. It would come to be legalized, in some form, by every state in the nation. In the second half of the 20th century cultural liberalization accelerated. Notably accelerated during this time was the rate of progression towards cultural permissiveness and individualism in expression. The French youth movement of 1968 famously committed acts of vandalism using the phrase, “Il est interdit d’interdire!” — translated it is forbidden to forbid. Ubiquitous French intellectual Michel Foucault stated, “Knowledge is not for knowing: knowledge is for cutting.” Social conventions were challenged by countercultural literary and philosophical movements, who did not achieve their full ends, but whose ideas were pacified, sterilized, and then incorporated into normative culture.
Still in the United States, to forbid is not only tolerated in normative culture, but failure to forbid certainly intolerable offenses is grounds for removal from social society. Racial animosity, skepticism directed towards certain trusted institutions, gang violence, romantic infidelity, and religious fundamentalism, for example, are certainly forbidden — but the particular sources of countercultural discontent mentioned in the late 1960s, namely the imposition of expressly traditional and religious values on the broad public, have largely been diminished. The values of mentioned progressive movements have been incorporated into our modern institutions and interpretative structures (to the degree by which they may continue to service those in positions of power — it may be added).
Many conservatives today are largely correct in claiming that universities are hotbeds of relativistic thought; Foucault, often cited as instrumental in the development of postmodern theory, though he rejected the label as a postmodernist, is the single most cited academic in the humanities (of new academic papers being published). The intellectual class is moving towards a progressive worldview, and those in positions of corporate authority have caught on (either they have caught on and appropriated — or enthusiastically spurred on this unification of economic and ideological interests). Advertising, for example, both reflects and directs the sentiment of a population, capitalizing on that which is maximally marketable in both the present and predictable future.
Protestant Christian Epistemology as an Ineffective Response to Relativism in Culture
Protestant Christian belief, as popularly expressed in America, sets itself in opposition to pluralism, especially religious pluralism, while tenets of objective, scientific rationalism go largely unchallenged by the protestant church. As opposed to challenging the precepts of a worldview where scientific rationalism is the fundamental, many American protestants have popularized scientific and scholarly work which reinforces the scientific veracity of a literal interpretation of Biblical accounts. The organization Answers in Gensis, for example, is one of many groups that seeks to provide evidence for the young Earth creationist theory, in opposition to evolution, using astrological, geographical, and historical methods.
The proponents of these purported proofs and scientific theories find themselves increasingly aligned against predominate culture but are unable to make a compelling defense of religious belief as they cling to the same rationalistic pillars characteristic of normative thinking. These Christians make an exclusive claim to descriptive accuracy of the objective world, but, in the eyes of secularists, with less of a legitimate claim to this objective world. This has contributed to a cultural crisis resulting of epistemological differences; there is an observable war raging over the particulars of known facts, but often unconsidered are claims which limit and deemphasize scientific rationalism within Christianity, altogether.
Symbolic Christianity as an Antidote to Present Conflict
As opposed to fundamentalist Protestantism, symbolic Christianity is both rationally justifiable and aesthetically appealing to young people in a crisis of meaning. The dissolution of duty and accountability does not seem, to many, a preferable outcome, but a Christian church in America more concerned with proving the historical accuracy of the great flood, rather than interpreting its significance, its reason for inclusion, is a deeply dissatisfying alternative. Symbolic Christianity is an alternative too seldom considered.
