Category Archives: theological questions

Thoughts of a Solitary Walker V: The Logic of Extremism

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My mind ranges far and wide on my solitary walks. Today I want to bring you into a recent internal conversation that focused on clarifying the notion of extremism. One can become an extremist in any area of thought: theology, morality, metaphysics, politics, and many others. What is extremism? How do “extreme” positions become plausible to those who come to hold them? How do you know if you are an extremist? Is there any objective way to determine what positions are extreme? Or, are extremes “in the eye of the beholder”? Is the label “extremist” simply one more rhetorical weapon in a struggle for cultural control?

The Nature of Extremism

I have seen people move gradually from what seemed to me moderate theological, moral, theological, and political positions to extreme ones. During this process their entire system of beliefs and even their personalities change. How does this happen? Many factors come into play. Changes in psychological, physical, and political conditions can facilitate changes in beliefs. But I am not going to address these factors. I want to focus on logic.

I focus on logic because whatever other factors influence our beliefs, we always assert our beliefs as true. And once the mind latches on to a belief as true, two mental processes get triggered. First, the mind begins automatically to unfold the implications of that belief. This process is driven by the logical law that says that the valid implications of a true proposition are themselves true. Second, the mind becomes very sensitive to propositions that directly or by implication contradict that belief. We cannot believe that two contradictory assertions are both true at the same time.

The Path to Extremism

Once we embrace a belief as true for whatever reason, rational or irrational, our minds begin the process of extending its reach and defending it against rival beliefs in the neighborhood. If it weren’t for challenges from other people, our minds might be content to adjust a few of our other beliefs in the immediate vicinity. Clearing a little space around our beloved belief might reinforce it enough to put our minds at ease. But when we are confronted with competing beliefs, we must make a choice. We can modify our treasured belief to take into account the force of its competitors or we can double down and deny any truth to the alternatives. The second option is the path to extremism! Happily, most people don’t follow this path all the way to the extreme. I won’t say they are lazy. Perhaps they are simply pragmatic enough not to be bothered by their inconsistency and arbitrariness.

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth

The first mistake extremists make is assuming that any belief/proposition can embody “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Extremists will not allow any other truth claim to modify their axiomatic belief because any change in that belief would imply that it was not originally “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” A dispiriting prospect of endless modification and compromise would loom before them. Extremists treat beliefs as if they are either wholly true or wholly false. And if it’s discovered to be partially false it must be in fact wholly false. The logical law of the excluded middle would seem to support them, that is, for any proposition P, P is either true or false. There is no middle ground between true and false. When dealing in abstract symbols such as P and Q, which are bereft of existential content, no one can doubt the law. But in ordinary human language it does not work. Concrete existence cannot be translated clearly and without loss into language. Words and sentences are always imprecise and incomplete.

Gravitational Logic

We noted above that the move to extremism can take the straight path of the logic of implication—sometimes called “the slippery slope”—or a zig zag path of reacting to contradictions, sometimes called “dialectical logic.” Both of these logics tend toward extremism. But I think there is also another form of logical adjustment by which one may minimize the temptation to extremism. For lack of a better term, I call it gravitational logic.

Consider the way the entire universe consists of one gravitational field in which every point and particle is in communication with every other. The closer objects are to one another the more powerful the attractive force and the further apart, the less. But no matter how far apart, the gravitational interaction between two physical objects never reduces to zero. Likewise, the more massive an object, the more gravitational force it exerts. Any change in one place affects the whole and every point within it to some degree.

Let’s apply the analogy of the universal gravitational force to logic, the science of relationships among propositions. Every assertion about any state of affairs within the universe simultaneously asserts something about the whole universe, even if it mentions only one thing explicitly. This must be true because every particular thing in the universe exists only in relation to every other thing and the whole. To change one’s belief about one state of affairs requires adjustment in every other belief. The closer (logically) one belief is to another or the larger (that is, more general its scope) the more adjustment will be required.

The moon’s gravity affects the ocean tides on earth twice as much as the Sun because, though much less massive, it is much closer to earth. And the harmony or tension between two moral beliefs will be much more apparent than harmony or tension between a moral belief and belief about the geology of Australia. Moral beliefs live in the same neighborhood and speak about things within the same space. And yet, beliefs about morality, history, cosmology, and geology speak about the same universe and condition each other however slightly.

Avoiding Extremism without Falling into Relativism

In my view, this analogy helps us avoid extremism without falling into a morass of relativism and never-ending compromise. First, because in our world everything is related to everything, there can be no statement in human words that embodies the ideal of “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” There is always more to learn and some adjustments to be made. Extremism is thus deprived of its basic premise. However, because beliefs live in regions, neighborhoods and even local streets—such as morality, natural science, metaphysics, history, etc.—we can assert with confidence the reliability of our beliefs as long as we take the lay of the adjacent land into account and stumble on no unanswerable objections. Though it is not impossible, we need not worry that a belief about a state of affairs in another galaxy will defeat or severely modify our beliefs about matters nearer to home.

Next Time: Shall we experiment with some beliefs to see how this works?

Unanswered Questions

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Two recent experiences provoked me to reflect on the disparity between what I want to know and how much I actually know. To live at peace with this disparity, I’ve had to develop strategies for dealing with my ignorance without falling into skepticism or dogmatism. I share three of those lessons below.

Two Humbling Experiences

First. My newspaper never arrives before I finish breakfast! For this reason, I keep my Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church on the dining table. This amazing resource contains 1798 double-column pages and many thousands of entries of relevance to church history. It begins with “Aaron” the brother of Moses and ends with “Zwingli” the Swiss reformer. I learn something new, interesting, and useful every morning. But I am also stung with something I’d rather not think about. Almost every time I read from that huge book I am reminded of my ignorance and my insignificance: the millions of lives lived, experiences had, institutions founded, and systems created.

Second. Recently, a long-time friend with whom I have not spoken in years called to catch up. During the course of our conversation, he asked what I thought of the state of the church in the United States. Perhaps he thought that because I’ve taught theology for 35 years to thousands of students from two generations I would have a grasp on what things had been, how they have changed, and where they stand. After a few lame attempts to say something intelligent, I think I said, “I really don’t know.”

You must understand that I’ve always had a passion to know, to understand my world, the flow of human history and my place in it. As a young person I had questions to which I needed answers. How can you act intelligently in a world you do not understand? So, I read and read. I read the Bible, theology, the history of nations, church history, and philosophy. Hundreds of books and tens of thousands of pages! I found satisfactory answers to some of my questions. But many more remain, and new ones arise almost every day.

The first lesson: know your ignorance. Perhaps I should say “feel” your ignorance, because you cannot know the extent of what you do not know. Speak and act with humility and caution.

Big Picture Theories

Of course, there is no shortage of big picture theories. Theories of society and politics, metaphysical theories, theories of human nature, climate futurology, economic theories, and theological visions. Comprehensive theories give us an illusory feeling of omniscience, of knowing the essential truth of all things. Perhaps that is why we like them. But there is no consensus about which theories are true. For abstract theories paint only the vaguest general outlines of their subject matter. They cannot be verified, for they do not create transparent understanding of why things in all their intricate interrelations are exactly as they are.

Our minds long for simplicity and clarity. Simplicity allows us to see the whole thing at one instant, and clarity gives us confidence that we see things as they truly are. Mathematical knowledge is the paradigm case of simplicity and clarity. Physics is the most mathematical of the natural sciences. But what you gain in certainty and clarity of knowledge you lose in descriptive power. For there is more to nature than quantity, much more! Knowing the basic physical/mathematical laws of matter does not give you the power to describe the actual state of the vast array of different kinds of things we experience in the universe. Such non-mathematical theories as we find in psychology, sociology, economics, and politics must be abstract, simple, and general for us to understand them. Like theories in physics, theories that deal with human behavior, insofar as they are abstract, simple, general, offer little help in understanding why things are the way they are in all their actuality.

The Second lesson: The wise person will avoid mistaking theory for actuality or the model for the thing. Theory never exhaustively explains actuality. Let the model direct your attention to the thing.

First-Hand Experience

We all know the limits of first-hand experience. No individual human being’s experience extends to every place and time. The very purpose of education is to make available to each individual the experiences and insights of countless other individuals from other places and times. It is the distinctive glory of humanity that we are not limited in knowledge and wisdom to our natural instincts or to what we can learn from our own experiences. Still, each individual must integrate information received from diverse sources into a unified whole centered in themselves. We are limited to the information we receive and to our powers of integration; we cannot leap outside of ourselves to get a God’s-eye point of view. Nor can we know how well our limited vision of things corresponds to a universal consciousness.

Though we must acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, few of us can believe that one individual’s vision of the world bears no resemblance to those of other individuals or to that of a universal consciousness. For this belief would render futile all attempts to learn from each other, to understand each other, or to achieve consensus. And why strive for a common vision apart from the conviction that this common vision bears some resemblance to reality? For then we would be limited to exploring the internal powers and possible objects of the human mind without reference to the way things truly are.

Now let’s revisit my two humbling experiences mentioned above. Admittedly, I cannot come to know and understand the experiences, thoughts and deeds of every human being who has ever lived. However, if I assume that all human beings possess the same powers, possibilities and weaknesses, I can learn more and more about my own humanity by studying the history of the human spirit in the lives of past individuals. (Reading entries from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church makes sense after all!) Making the same assumption—that all human beings possess the same powers, possibilities and weaknesses—and thinking in the reverse direction, I can learn better to understand the experiences of other people by examining carefully my own first-hand experiences.

As I stumbled to answer my friend’s question about the state of the church in the United States, I ended up saying something like this: “I can’t speak from extensive, detailed knowledge of the big picture, but I can tell you how it looks from where I stand.” This humble and cautious approach seemed to satisfy my friend. He could compare his limited perspective with my limited perspective in a process that promised to clarify and supplement his understanding. Combined together many limited perspectives may move us all closer to the goal of comprehensive understanding.

The Third Lesson: Avoid both arrogance and despair (or dogmatism and skepticism) in your quest for true understanding. Listen carefully and dialogue respectfully to all voices and allow them to clarify and purify your first-hand understanding of the matter at issue.