I don't know how to reiterate enough that I really liked the writings of the late Robert Webber, his irenic tone, his gentle and calm voice. How I hate to critique him for that reason, but precisely because I was rather fond of his "ancient-future" approach, I feel I need to point out what seems to me a significant problem. Webber's epistemology leans just a bit too far toward the postmodern for my comfort, and in that I am genuinely disappointed.
Turns out that in Ancient Future Faith Webber also had a modified evangelical stance on scripture. He says scripture is inspired. He says it is authoritative. He does not like the notion of inerrancy. But most troubling to me is that he concluded scripture is ultimately not foundational, restating a common distinction that the true source of authority for faith is a person, not a book.
"I have not started where evangelicals usually start-with the scriptures. Rather, I begin with the work of Jesus Christ, the primordial event of the living, dying, rising, and coming again. I have attempted to unfold the Christian faith in a phenomenological manner…. Not starting with the Bible does not represent a lower view of Scripture than that which is generally held among evangelicals,. Instead, Christocentric method acknowledges the place of the scriptures in early Christian tradition." P31
Of couse it sounds very good to insist that Christ is the ultimate reality and that the book that contains teachings by Him and about Him is not, ultimately, God. Still, I can only think that this distinction between the “person” of Christ and the scriptures is a false dichotomy. I’ve been hearing that one for three decades. It is nothing new to me. It usually came from the mouths of those who wanted a tie to a domesticated Christ without much commitment to his moral teachings. I'm sure that is not the case with Webber, but I have to ask, how do we know the person of Christ apart from the testimony of those who walked with him? How do we know Christ apart from the gospels? Ultimately, the answer is experience.
I would object that my own faith is not in “scripture” as an inanimate object that somehow has a magical power. It is not in rationalistic axioms or systematic theology. Of course my faith is in a person, but that faith could not exist apart from content about that person, content that has its roots in scripture. Jesus was Jewish. He was born in Bethlehem. He preached in Jerusalem and Samaria. He was crucified under an historical figure named Pilate. He claimed to be one with the father. He claimed authority to forgive sins. We know this from a book that contains writings claimed to be "God-breathed". One cannot know Christ truly apart from scripture.
But Webber unfortunately sees an overdependence on scripture as a problem to be solved. “The primary problem we evangelicals have inherited from the enlightenment is its emphasis on the foundational nature of Scripture.” P45
What Webber will ultimately argue is that the foundation for Christianity is the "rule of faith" forged by the church and that scripture is a part of the "handed down" teaching of the apostles. It is a milder version of what the Catholics and Orthodox argue. So he is not without company. But I have to disagree with his suggestion that seeing scripture as foundational is a "problem" inherited from the 17th Century Enlightenment. I can quote plenty of 16th century figures about the foundational nature of scripture. I can quote several early church fathers about the foundational nature of scripture. No doubt Webber meant something more subtle:
“The book-oriented approach to the Christian faith, which dominated during the Enlightenment, makes several presuppositions: (1) the Bible is the mind of God written; (2) the mind is the highest faculty of our creation in the image of God (3) truth is known as the human mind meets the mind of God in the study of Scripture. The Bible as observable data is an exact science that leads to rational answers. These answers are objective propositional truths." P 45
He sees this a problematic. But I think he knocks down a straw man. Exact science? Do most evangelicals really believe that? Is there no nuance, no room for humility in typical evangelical theology?
“Catechetical training from the Reformation to the present has been based on the notions of reading, writing, linear sequence, analysis and memory…a shift occurred away from a mystical view of the Christian faith experienced in the liturgy to an intellectual understanding of the faith."
Here is a truly false dichotomy. It is so common these days to read of two alternatives, the first negative one being a wooden, rationalistic and ultimately naturalistic approach to the text and the second positive one an experiential, mystical, communitarian approach. But it is not so cut and dried. Do all "rational" approaches to scripture rule out experience? Did the early church never read scripture rationally?
Clearly, according to the last statement above, he favors a “mystical” view over a “propositional” view. This is because he sees truth a a "communitarian" construct. The truth value of the faith is determined not by correspondence to reality but by the fidelity to a way of life, an embodied reality. He makes a bold claim.
"… In the postmodern world, education will shift from the passing down of information to the passing down of wisdom through experience. Christian truth, which was regarded as propositional, intellectual and rational, will be experienced as an embodied reality. Faith will be communicated through immersion into a community of people who truly live the Christian faith.”155
So the truth of the faith is not made clear by rational argument, but by allowing a seeker to "experience" the life of Christ in a community. I think most Christians would agree with that up to a point. People do want to see righteousness, to feel love and compassion, to experience forgiveness in tangible ways. I'm not sure secular non-believers will universally sense the presence of God in liturgy, but his point is well taken.
If he means that post-moderns who don't listen to rational arguments need to be reached by other approaches, I'll agree. But if he means that rational arguments are no longer valid at all, then I have a problem. If he means that the concept of "objective truth" can no longer be applied to the claims of Christianity, then I have a problem.
And here is the crux of it. Muslims live their faith, much more so than most Christians. Is Islam therefore the truth? Mormons likewise live their faith. Shall we prefer Mormonism to Christianity with no regard for the historical verifiability of Joseph Smith’s audacious claims? In separating Christianity from history, rationality, from correspondence to reality, Webber unwittingly makes Christianity nothing more than another option on the smorgasbord of ideas. Without a rational (as opposed rationalist) tie to objective truth, why should Christianity be seen as in any way more inviting or true than any other notion?”
I'm don't believe Webber went all the way through that door of runaway subjectivity and mysticism, but he cracked that door open. Once the objective historical content of faith is lost, there is no longer an anchor to hold faith in place, and it inevitably will drift. Webber believed that the consensus of the history of the church would be a sufficient anchor, but even consensus needs a cornerstone. He believes authority lies not in the text of scripture, but in something else, in the community. To his view of authority we will turn last.
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