Right in the Wrong Way

Subjective experience, as part of God’s natural revelation, is equal to scripture and tradition as a source for some Christian teaching. It is the third and quite often dismissed or forgotten realm of not only God’s self-disclosure, but of God’s disclosure of God’s will.

When I was in seventh grade I had to take a quiz on the parts of the human body. I spelled the word for finger FLANGES. It was marked wrong. My brother spelled the word PHLANGIS. The teacher marked it correct. Naturally I protested. Only to be told that my brother spelled it wrong the right way and I spelled it wrong the wrong way. The teacher had a point.

By beginning the word with an “F" I had actually written a completely different word. Indeed, a word that had a different meaning. Broken flanges are significantly different then broken phlanges. 

In the current debates about the Bible and human sexuality I’ve frequently contended that all the arguments offered are wrong. Whether they come from traditionalists or progressives they are typically incoherent and illogical, make subtle or not-so-subtle appeals to the emotions in lieu of rational arguments, almost always mischaracterize the other side in order to create straw dogs that are easily demolished, and are generally intended to garner political support for ultimately untenable positions rather than seek the truth. 

So I’ll offer a possibility my old science teacher didn’t. You can also be right in the wrong way. 

Discussions about human sexuality necessarily both define the objects of discussion (forms of sexuality and the humans who identify themselves with one of these forms) and impact the objects of discussion.The wrong way to do this, as with all forms of discussions involving humans, is to fail to involve those who embody the object of discussion and who will be impacted by the discussion.

The most obvious reason that this is the wrong way (even if you get the right answer) is that it is fundamentally dehumanizing. In the current United Methodist debates the wrong way to a conclusion is any way that takes away from LGBTQI+ persons the right to define their own personhood and speak to decisions that affect them. In this sense the UM Social Principles Creed is, in its very universalistic aspirations, dehumanizing; and not only with reference to LBGTQ+ persons.

Unfortunately this particular form of dehumanizing discourse is endemic in Christian theological anthropology.  Theological discourse that assumes the sufficiency of scripture to understand the nature of human personhood will inevitably objectivize and dehumanize the human objects of its discussion. Nor is this ameliorated by the inclusion of the traditional teaching of the church, since that tradition itself systematically excludes multiple human voices, not least those of women, non-Christians, and indeed all those Christians who are not part of the particular tradition. 

Any form of objective hermeneutical operation on an authoritative source leading to statements about human personhood will inevitably objectify and therefor dehumanize. The very objectivity of the results obtained dehumanize because they fail to take into account the subjective experience of those of whom they speak. To be human is to be a subject, not an object.

The solution to this problem is the realization that: Subjective human experience is part of God’s natural revelation, and has equal importance with scripture and tradition as a source for some Christian teaching. It is the third and quite often dismissed or forgotten realm of not only God’s self-disclosure, but of God’s disclosure of God’s will. 

For those of us raised with enlightenment idealizations of objectivity this assertion may seem like a road to theological chaos in which every persons defines for himself or herself what is true about God and the human person. But I’m not advocating for pure subjectivism. I’m pointing out that the ongoing human experience of God’s universal and providential presence cannot be ignored in the work of theological anthropology and must not be ignored if we are going to engage in a humanizing theology reflective of the ministry of Christ.* 

So in addition to scripture and tradition we need a robust natural theology broad enough to include the human experience of self as revelatory. Only the introduction of subjective experience into the process of formulating a natural theology prevents natural theology from becoming yet another objectifying and dehumanizing approach to theology. 

I will acknowledge that this means we think about natural revelation rather differently than the tradition of regarding the natural world, distinct from the human world, as another means of God’s self-disclosure. I’m arguing that the human as such is part of the natural world, and thus that the experience of being human is part of natural revelation. 

This does have epistemological foundations. I am suggesting that God makes the fullness of God’s relationship with the world known to us in a tri-logue between scripture, tradition, and  nature, (specifically human nature) in which each speaks for itself. 

This naturally requires attention to the methodologies through which scripture and tradition are given voice, given that they appear to come to us as objects. Yet those methodologies are being worked out in efforts to move beyond traditional forms of criticism with regard to both scripture and tradition. And when it comes to the scientific study of humans we have numerous thinkers, from physicists to biologists, working on how the subjectivity of the object plays a role in the creation of knowledge. 

What remains is for theologians to fundamentally change the scope and method of their work to include a full natural theology and a fully subjective engagement in the theological task by humans as part of nature. Theology needs to broaden the dialogue in which all theologians participate. 

One payoff of such a natural theology is that allows us not only new insights into theological anthropology, but also into a theology of religion and comparative theology. Instead mining scripture for anachronistic insights into a relatively recent invention we can bring the interaction of the deeper themes of scripture into dialogue with the subjective human experience of religious belief and community. As importantly our missiology can be expanded to recognize that Christian mission is inevitably dialogical and that missiology itself is a form of reflection with the public on the public task of the church. 

Until we have an adequate theological framework that takes fully into account natural revelation in the broadest sense, including the subjective human experience of self, we will continue to find that even ifwe have the right answers we will have gotten them in the wrong way, and they will justifiably be rejected as wrong. 

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*It is noteworthy that in most of the healing stories in the gospels Jesus tells those who are healed “you faith has made you well.” Their subjective attitude toward Jesus rather than simply his power operating on them is vital to the healing process. Jesus humanizes rather than objectifying.