The Elusive Outsider Vantage

How can we know which religion (if any) is true? Are there any objective tests we can devise to help answer the question? Do we need anything other than the standard tools and methods of inquiry that we use to assess any other sort of truth claim? John Loftus thinks such a test is possible and necessary, and he proposes that the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is the best test available.

His central argument in the book goes something like this:

(1) the fact of vast global religious diversity.

(2) the fact of cultural, historical, and geographical dependence of religious belief.

(3) the mutually exclusive nature of many, or most, faiths.

Therefore

(4) there's a low probability that whatever your largely culturally determined faith happens to be is the correct one and

(5) a disposition of informed skepticism toward one's faith – the same sort of skepticism members of faiths typically have toward other faiths – should be adopted in order to best determine which, if any, faith is the true faith.

The actual test itself is not terribly controversial, it seems to me. Most believers who were raised in a particular religious tradition, as they grow older and are exposed to a wide world of conflicting opinions and claims, begin to question what they were taught, and go on to apply skeptical scrutiny to those beliefs and teachings to the best of their ability. Most are forced to face, to some degree, these facts and apply this test at some point, whether they realize they're doing so or not. And for those who don't, they should.

However, even this brand of natural skepticism is not enough for Loftus as he demands the skepticism be of a narrowly circumscribed, scientific bent. He does so, he claims, because science has proven a tool of unparalleled success and fecundity at establishing truths about the physical operations of the universe. But why ought we assume science is the appropriate tool for assessing a question that fundamentally is not a scientific one, namely which religion is the true religion? The tools of science can conceivably aid us in assessing specific claims of supernatural activity in the present-day, and so can, in some manner, contribute to the discussion. But it's a tool that's hardly all-sufficient for the task.

Further, he introduces a false dichotomy when he appeals to the problem of mutual-exclusivity. Namely: either you are a sectarian exclusivist (for whom the problem applies in full), or a syncrenistic liberal who alleviates the difficulty but only by defining God down to some milquetoast non-entity. But he neglects the fact that religions have ways to solve this problem without succumbing to this dichotomy. As an Orthodox Christian, for example, I believe my faith exclusively represents the fullness of the apostolic faith as bequeathed to us by Jesus Christ, but also believe that all other genuine religions possess various degrees of that truth. Roman Catholics possess a greater degree of it than Buddhists, and Buddhists more than atheists, but there is a continuum of truth. This schema – and I'm sure other religions address the problem in a similar way – obviates the problem of mutual-exclusivity and so reduces the need to adopt a stance of severe skepticism. He would no doubt object that these alternative schemes do nothing, in and of themselves, to help answer the question of which is the true faith given his preferred set of data. To which the answer, of course, is: so what? 

Another question that arises is why the facts of religious diversity, dependence, and mutual-exclusivity should be the starting point for inquiry as to which religion is true? If we accept that they ought to be, then Loftus' recommendation to adopt a mode of severe skepticism mostly (with some qualifications) follows. But in order for this to be one's starting point of inquiry, one must attempt to strip away everything else that he knows to be true in the arena of religion. If, for example, you have solid evidence that that none of the antique polytheistic gods or god-schemes are true, and you further have strong metaphysical arguments both for the existence of God and that God must be One (to take just a couple of things you could conceivably know), then you can rationally narrow the range of contenders for the one true religion considerably. This is an alternative beginning point of inquiry, in which case the probability that one of that remaining small pool of potential gods is the true God is substantially larger than it would otherwise be, and severe skepticism would not be warranted. Loftus demands we bracket out this sort of knowledge and begin with only the facts of religious diversity, dependence, and mutual-exclusivity, but why? Loftus insists that we attempt a Descartes-esque feat of discarding all our beliefs and knowledge in favor of a couple of his pet data points. But why? He doesn't make a case for this preference – for these particular facts over and against the vast array of other facts available to us – other than that they happen to better serve his agenda.

The answer to the question of "why the OTF?" he gives later in the book, and it's that "what we've been doing isn't working." By which he means people aren't becoming atheists, or aren't consolidating their view of God, or aren't all converting to the one true religion (whatever it may be) at a fast enough pace for his taste. Which, of course,  begs the question. Why would we expect to see any of these things happen if a particular faith was true? Why does their failing to happen constitute "not working"? According to what standard?

And even if we wanted to begin with Loftus' preferred set of data, is it even possible for an insider to apply the test? Late in the book Loftus reveals his hand: "Faith is not something Christians can have while seeking to examine the religion that was given to them, since that is not how they approach any of the other religions they reject." In other words, you must first become an atheist (since a Christian without faith is an oxymoron) before you can truly examine the truth of your own or other religions. You must actually become an outsider first, not merely do your best to examine the evidence as if you were one. But this is clearly absurd, for whatever epistemological ground one currently occupies, one is an insider to it. There's no escaping except to some other insider position.

Loftus has an unfortunate penchant for repetition and one of his most oft-repeated assertions is that "Possibility doesn't matter, probabilities do." After the 30th time (literally) he had declared this, or some close variation, I gave up counting. In any case, his point is that absolute certainty does not exist, and the scientific mindset only deals with probabilities. Things that are highly likely to be true and things that are highly likely to be untrue are where the most certain knowledge we can attain (about the physical world) is. Again, not terribly controversial, so I'm not sure why the incessant repetition. The cynic in me suspects some sort of insecurity, but I digress.

Loftus' blind spot, with regard to his probability point, is that, while low probability that a particular faith is true logically follows from his premises – given his arbitrarily selected set of data – this low probability applies to all opinions about the religious question, including the stance that all religions are likely to be false -- his stance. Given the diversity of opinions about religion, their cultural dependence, and mutual exclusivity (and only those facts) the likelihood that any opinion on the matter is correct is very low, including his own. He might then appeal to other facts and knowledge in order to justify his not adopting a stance of extreme skepticism toward his own view, but religious people can do the same thing. So he hasn't advanced the ball a step.

In the book he quotes Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga making a similar point: 

[T]here is no safe haven here, no way to avoid risk. In particular, you won’t reach safe haven by trying to take the same attitude towards all the historically available patterns of belief and withholding: for in so doing you adopt a particular pattern of belief and withholding, one incompatible with some adopted by others. You pays your money and you takes your choice, realizing that you, like anyone else, can be desperately wrong. But what else can you do? You don’t really have an alternative.

Precisely. It's this critique and some closely related objections that Loftus spends most of the second half of the book attempting to ameliorate the effects of, but without any success. In response to Plantinga, without so much as a hint of self-awareness, he avers that "Plantinga fails to understand the huge difference between assenting to a belief and doubting it or denying it. There is no epistemic parity at all between accepting a belief and doubting (or rejecting) it. Doubting (or rejecting) a belief is easy. We all do it all the time. The hard part is to set forth a positive case on behalf of any one particular truth out of the choices available." But Plantinga is obviously making the point that rejecting one belief – especially the particular species of belief that belief in God is – logically entails holding another belief (if not a whole array of other beliefs). In this case, rejecting belief in any religion entails the belief that all religions are very likely false. There exists no neutral epistemological vantage to occupy.

Numerous times throughout the book Loftus accuses believers (usually falsely) of special pleading on behalf of their religion. But in response to these sorts of critiques he special pleads on behalf of atheism or skepticism constantly. When speaking about the cultural dependence of religious belief he cites statistical global maps of religion that show high concentrations of religions by geographic area (as if this could alarm or surprise any informed believer). When responding to the objection that atheism is similarly geographically situated – heavily in places like Sweden and Denmark for example – Loftus gets to the special pleading. He does so by citing wide agreement between scientists on scientific matters, regardless of where they're from. But this would be akin to a Roman Catholic citing broad agreement on many central matters of faith, regardless of where the Catholic lives. It doesn't actually address the critique but moves the goal posts, and equivocates between atheism and science. The mechanical philosophy of the Enlightenment is not a neutral, necessary outcome of science and reason, rather it's just as much a culturally and historically contingent source of belief as being born into a Christian home in the 21st century. And, if you live in much of modern Europe, it's at least as big a culturally determining factor of your beliefs about religion as Christianity is.

Loftus responds to one of his interlocutors on a similar point by declaring that "If he thinks for one moment that, as an outsider, I must take an outsider stance to an informed skepticism based in science and reason, then he needs to show why the science I base my argument on is faulty." Must Loftus first exhaustively demonstrate why each believer's particular faith, or epistemology, is faulty before suggesting they submit to the OTF? Not according to him. He claims the facts of diversity, dependence, and mutual-exclusivity makes this incumbent on any rational believer, irrespective of whatever defenses they may have for their particular faith. Yet these same facts do not make the same thing incumbent on him: one must first knock down his position, then demand he take a stance of skepticism towards it, while the believer must avail himself of no defense before adopting the same stance. Again, he’s special pleading.

Another critical problem with this text is the explicit faith-reason false dichotomy that runs throughout, and comes to a head in the final section. He conceives of faith and reason as diametrically opposed and competing epistemologies. This is fine when preaching to the choir of atheists who share this understanding of ‘faith’, and while remaining incurious about what faith actually is in its essence. But since the stated purpose of the book is to propose a test for believers to apply to their religion and determine whether it's likely true, it would be of more significance if he examined what ‘faith’ has been considered to be throughout history, and across cultures, or at least what current believers – his main audience – understand it to be, and what its relationship to reason is. If he did so, he would see that he's attacking a straw man.

He would further have to acknowledge that, on this proper understanding of faith, it isn't optional. Every act of reason always-already entails an act of faith. When some of his interlocutors (mostly Christians who tenaciously comment on his blog, apparently) point out that there are many things we do not know by way of scientific or rational inquiry, such as that there is a material world, that we aren't currently in a virtual reality, that our senses are reliable etc. rather we must accept these things on faith, he replies:

Christians retort that I have faith in reason, in skepticism, in science, in my senses, and in the evidence, but what can they possibly mean? Could trusting them be conceivably wrong at times? Yes, of course. We even know this. But there simply is no alternative but to trust them.

Well, yes. Quite. That's precisely the point. Faith isn't optional.

He further objects to these sorts of objections by, once again, reiterating that we must go on probability, and the probability is extremely unlikely that, for example, the material world doesn't exist. But what tests can be devised to assess the probability that we do not currently reside in a virtual reality? Or that you didn't pop into existence 5 minutes ago with all of your memories intact? By the very nature of these sorts of problems, the probabilities can't even be assessed at all and so appealing to probability is a nonsensical move. He's right, of course, that we can do nothing but proceed as if our senses can be trusted and as if the material world exists. But to claim that this doesn't constitute a faith commitment requires justification, and he gives none.

Loftus attempts to make hay out of the fact that believers will use science and reason when objecting to the truth claims of other religions, but not their own. Yet he doesn’t demonstrate that science and reason contradict the claims of the Christian faith (his admitted chief target), so we’re left to take his word for it that they do. If these inputs don’t unequivocally disprove the Christian faith or make it very unlikely to be true (and they don’t), then there’s no reason to suspect that believers aren’t critically availing themselves of the tools of science and reason in examining the question of religion. Begging the question, Loftus assumes an answer to the very matter of contention without any justification.

It all gets a bit tedious after a while – the hectoring tone, the argument-by-assertion, the repetition, the special pleading and question-begging, the myopia. And quickly. Despite the book's massive flaws, the central contention – that it's a profitable endeavor to subject our culturally inherited beliefs and biases to critical scrutiny, availing ourselves of the tools of science and reason – is certainly true, and not particularly controversial. The OTF itself can be salvaged from the wreckage of the book if you broaden it to include all manner of beliefs, rather than only explicitly religious ones, and extricate the author's unsubstantiated foregone conclusions which permeate the text. But really, what's the point? In a culture as modern, pluralistic, and secular as our own, this amounts to preaching to the choir. Even if the sermon did happen to echo beyond the pulpit, reaching the apostate faithful out on the street corners and miraculously leading to some of their conversions, they still won't have become outsiders. They'll have done the only thing that's possible: traded one insider vantage for another.

Adaptation & Blue Like Jazz

Blue Like Jazz provides a compelling case study on the process of book-to-film adaptation, as it reveals how the conversion between mediums can result, not only in losing something in translation, but in positively inverting the meaning of a text. In the book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller unequivocally depicts the quasi-autobiographical character Don's experiences at a secular university -- having been raised Baptist -- as a process of maturation, of being exposed to a wider world of intellectual openness and breadth, of fruitful experiences with new types of people who influence him for the better, of growing in wisdom, of coming to view his religious roots as narrow-minded and hypocritical. Because we are privy to Don's inner monologue in the book, this understanding of his journey is forcefully impressed on the reader and unmistakable. One may have suspicions (as I did) that what's really going on -- as it does for so many new college students -- is the character is succumbing to the seduction of sinful worldliness, and nothing more. The text of the book is ambiguous enough to allow that this is perhaps some minor aspect of what is occuring, but it also makes abundantly clear that ultimately what is transpiring in Don's life is good.

The translation to film is fascinating because, without Don's inner monologue constantly available, it not only becomes possible to read Don's journey as a straightforward discarding of one's faith in favor of seductive worldliness, but it positively screams to be read in this fashion. There aren't any narrative clues that anything else is happening at all, save perhaps the final 'redemptive' moments that themselves contain decidedly mixed sentiments. The film could practically be used as a Scared Straight propaganda video, showing Christian parents the soul-corrupting dangers of secular University life in modern America. While the book emphatically rejects this narrative and depicts his journey as a process of enrichening, enlightening spiritual and personal growth.

The character of Penney in the film supplies the only counter to Don's descent into effective unbelief. Her faith fuels her political activism and world-saving pretensions, without her having to always, you know, talk about Jesus and be all religiousy. Don clearly admires Penney and sees her brand of faith as more genuine and mature, but if she were an unbelieving, secular do-gooder it's hard to see what -- if anything -- would be lost about his admiration. She says she read the Bible in an ancient literature class and fell in love with Jesus, exactly as if he were some inspiring literary character and nothing more.

The final moments do acknowledge Don's grief at his having been ashamed of Christ, but this is consistent with interpreting his college experience as utterly negative and corrupting up to that point. Again, the precise opposite of what the book portrays.

This disconnect between book and film makes me curious whether this was an intentional move. It probably makes the film more pallettable for a young evagelical audience (the only crowd they could even hope to be appealing to), but it seems to radically compromise on the message of the book to such a degree that one wouldn't think Miller would be OK with it. Yet he wrote the script and was intimately involved with making the film. The only other possibility is that it was unintentional, in which case I would hypothesize it's attributable to an over-familiarity with the source material to the point where the filmmakers assume the audience has (much) more information than they've actually been given. Either way, it's a potent testament to the precarious nature of film adaptation.

The Rublev Trinity Icon

I'm going to put in a short, good word on behalf of the excellent book by Heiromonk Gabriel Bunge, The Rublev Trinity. In the book, Bunge traces the historical development of the iconographical tradition of Genesis 18, or the Hospitality of Abraham, beginning in the 4th century and culminating in the 14th century with the Russian monk Andrei Rublev's famous icon. Due to the iconoclasm of the 7th and 8th centuries, the extant icons from the first millennium are very limited in number, but they still provide a sense of the various contours of the tradition.

Broadly speaking, the tradition goes from angelological to christological to trinitarian. The visitors are originally portrayed as simply three angels who visit Abraham; as the tradition develops, the central angel begins to be distinguished as a type of Christ; and finally the tradition comes to full fruition by reading the episode as a typographical appearance of the Holy Trinity. 

To refresh your memory, in Genesis 18 Abraham and Sarah are visited by three men, one of whom is called "Lord" by Abraham, and who Abraham and Sarah show hospitality by preparing a meal -- bread and a calf -- for. The Lord goes on to tell Sarah that she will bear a child in her old age, and then reveals to Abraham the coming fate of Sodom of Gomorrah. 

Some of the earliest frescoes show the three visitors as angels and as essentially identical, or as slightly different but not in any manner distinguishing one as more significant than the other two. 

By the 5th century, certain distinctly christological elements begin to arise. A mosaic from San Vitale, Ravenna (pictured above), placed in the sanctuary of the Church, reveals  that the scene is being understood as an Old Testament type of the Eucharist. This is due both to the elements of the icon itself (the calf in the dish, as a type of Christ, the Lamb that was slain "from before the foundation of the world."), as well as its placement within the Church space: in the alter area (where the Holy Gifts are prepared)  and adjacent to depictions of the sacrifices of Abel and Melchisdec. This is significant because, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Christ is both simultaneously the sacrifice and the priest: prefigured in Abel (cf. Heb 12:24), Melchisdec (Heb passim), and Isaac (Heb 11.19)." In this icon, the three angels are portrayed as almost identical to each other, with no real distinguishing features.

As the iconographical tradition develops, it begins to single out one of the angels as distinctly representing Christ, while the other two are reduced to angelic companions. This is done by changing the color of the central angel's nimbus to red, then by including a cross within the nimbus and depicting him as much larger than the other two angels, and later by dressing him the way that Christ is usually depicted as dressing in iconography. 

(Again, I'm outlining the iconographical tradition in extremely broad, inelegant strokes. For the full picture, please read this excellent text.)

A Trinitarian type of depiction begins to take shape long before Andrei Rublev's definitive icon is written, as many icons of the Hospitality of Abraham began to bear the title "The Holy Trinity", along with the depictions themselves becoming more trinitarian. But to save space I want to skip straight to Rublev's icon and discuss it some, with the guidance of Heiromonk Bunge.

During the development of the tradition, Abraham and Sarah were depicted for a long time, but in Rublev's icon they are no longer there. The observer takes their place as he gazes upon a type of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and is invited to become a partaker in the inter-Trinitarian life that opens up to him by way of the Eucharist. Because the icon is a festal icon for Pentecost, Bunge reads the icon as a pictorial representation of Christ's Farewell Discourse in John 14-20, which "is completely shot through with the mystery, now being revealed, of the Triune God." 

In that discourse, Our Lord begins by telling his disciples that in His "Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" Note the house in the background of the icon, which aligns with the figure on the left. This is one indication that the figure on the left is to be read as a type of the Father, which becomes more certain the more we contemplate the icon.

Rublev follows in the iconographical tradition that identifies the central angel as the Son. This is made clear by his dress, which is the same as that of Christ in most iconography. In addition to this, a vertical line through the center of the icon aligns the central figure with the calf in the chalice, as well as the tree in the background, which Bunge reads as an image of the Tree of Life and the Cross. Another visual cue is that the outlines of the bodies of the outer angels form a second chalice, within which the central angel sits, further deepening the Eucharistic theme.

One interesting thing that I learned from this book is that, in the process of recovering the icon from being painted over, one of the two fingers of the central angel was added on later. Originally, the only finger extended was that which now appears to be the middle finger, but is actually the index finger. This is significant because the gesture of the central figure is actually pointing at the chalice, and past it to the third figure, the angel on the right that represents the Holy Spirit. 

The angel on the left inclines his head toward neither of the other two, while they both incline theirs in the same angle toward him. This is a visual depiction of the fact that, in concert with orthodox Trinitarianism, the Father is the fountainhead -- the monarchia -- of being, from whom the Son is eternally begotten and from whom the Spirit eternally proceeds. 

Further, the figure on the left is clothed such that no arm is 'free', while the Christ-figure's right arm is uncovered, and the Holy Spirit's left arm is. This is another means for distinguishing the figures, and draws on the venerable, orthodox formula of St. Irenaeus of Lyons that says that Christ and the Spirit are the Father's "two hands" who do the Father's work within salvation history. 

The gestures of each further indicate truths about the inter-Trinitarian life that Bunge more thoroughly explicates.

Bunge also points out that, while the table with the chalice on it is obviously a type of the alter and the Eucharist, the perspective is reversed. That is, we aren't looking into the alter from the angle that laity are accustomed to, from the West looking East, rather the perspective is from behind the alter looking West, as Christ stands before the alter as our great High Priest. 

The last figure in the background, the rock which lines up with the figure on the right, most likely originally had a crack in the middle of it, according to Bunge. This would be to indicate the rock that split for Moses in the desert and poured forth water for Israel to drink (Exodus 17:6). The rock being a type of Christ, and the water which flows from the split a type of the Spirit. The sending of the Spirit being the culmination of the Johannine Farewell Discourse, and apropos of this being an icon for Pentecost.

While most of what I've highlighted focuses on the manner that the figures are distinguished in relation to each other, just as significant is that they are depicted as the same size with identical facial features, which is an expression of the consubstantiality and equality of the persons of the Godhead. 

The beauty and the mystery of this icon run much deeper than my outline do any sort of justice to, so please read the book if the subject piques your interest. 

In The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty, Paul Evdokimov reads the Rublev Trinity in an extremely bizarre manner, completely out of sync with everything I had come to understand about it and seemingly contradicting some of these these obvious facts about the icon, especially in the context of the iconographical tradition. Specifically, Evdokimov identifies the central angel as the Father, rendering his reading quite incoherent, from my perspective. Which is not to disparage that text as a whole, as it is quite profound, but Bunge's The Rublev Trinity provides a richer and more accurate reading of this particular icon, substantiated by tracing the tradition that lead up to its production.