When Christianity undervalues truth

Using an analogy especially interesting to me as an historical linguist, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations reminds us of the power of understanding that the Christian faith isn’t quite as unique as we all like to think:

We often see that naive mono-linguists think their language is unique in its ability to express deep thoughts. Well of course they do — they have never mastered another language. A good way to cure this parochial blindness is to do comparative studies. Using comparative linguistics researchers have learned more about the very nature of language than by studying any one language in depth.

He draws a correlation (the same one I drew a while back) between comparative linguistics, which shows that the Indo-European languages are related by a common source language, and comparative biology, which shows us that all life is related by a common ancestor. He goes on:

I feel that religious folks who have never thoroughly understood another religion are handicapped in a similar way to mono-linguists. And no matter how deep they dive into their religion, no matter how thoroughly they know their religious history, their scriptures original language(s) or the intricacies of their religion’s theologies, it will be the rare person who will see the deep patterns of all human religious thought.

Sabio suggests that just as “[i]t is by comparative religious studies that people can see how much their religion shares with other religions,” so also “[d]oing comparative studies helps people to see the nature of human hearts which generates their faiths.”

Despite the fears of many Christians, acknowledging such similiarities does not itself undermine the validity of Christianity. In fact, C.S. Lewis argued that certain universal similiarities such as shared mythological themes are to be expected. In his essay “Myth Became Fact”, he remarked that he would be more troubled if Christianity did not correspond to universal ideas in mythology, even in specific motifs such as “dying god” imagery:

We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about ‘parallels’ and ‘Pagan Christs’: they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block, if they weren’t.

To be clear, this is not Sabio’s point. As a former Christian, he does indeed believe that the universality of Christian themes that contradicts Christianity’s typical claims of exclusivity should lead one to the conclusion that Christianity is superfluous as a whole. I disagree. But such claims of exclusivity are indeed overwrought and largely based upon the belief in an inerrant source of all knowing. I don’t think Christianity is even fundamentally about holding onto various and sundry truth claims, but about surrendering my being to God in Christ.

Like Sabio, I am uncomfortable with the type of Christianity that maintains that all necessary truth lies exclusively within the pages of the Bible. The biggest problem is that this philosophy has a tendency to undervalue truth in a tragic way. This type of person has been caricatured in the character of Ned Flanders, who forgets to live life in a way that’s at all relevant to the world God made. Although most inerrantists would not maintain that literally all truth is in the Bible, they would say that all truth necessary for salvation is in there. This, then, is typically construed as a stamp of authenticity on the entirety of the claims of Scripture, resulting in the nonsensical demotion of other valid pursuits of truth when they conflict with something in the Bible. Clear example: the evolution/creation debate. Another difficulty resulting from this is responsible for an old habit of my own in which ethical insights from other systems are eyed distrustfully as possibly being somehow “worldly” if they are not presented in the Bible, without looking at their intrinsic merit.

I’m not saying that the Bible is all “derivative”; no one could seriously believe that it’s not got something unique to bring to the table. What I’m asking is that we Christians begin to see that “not in scripture” and “unscriptural” don’t necessarily equate to evil, wordly, or useless. I continue to affirm by my personal faith that Christ (not the Bible) is the fundamental expression of God to humanity. But God’s truth is reality, and so permeates the universe in ways not able to be contained in a single book. Defenders of the Bible through inerrancy who see themselves as the guardians of God’s truth are limiting God’s reign and authority over all extrabiblical reality by subjugating it all to their interpretations of Scripture.

Whatever is true is true whether or not the Bible says it — whether or not it even agrees with it. If believing the truth is so important, shouldn’t we concern ourselves first with seeking out truth rather than defending what we already believe?

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3. Proving Christianity with inerrancy In a discussion involving my rejection of inerrancy, a frequent commenter mentioned the inerrantist objection, ”Without [our Bible] can we confidently walk up to a non-believer and ask...
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