Theological and Philosophical Talking Points (In Draft Form-Incomplete)
General Introduction:
1) Remember that these talking points are to be understood in the context of the whole training on relational evangelism. That is, for starters, that all we are doing here is preparing for rational questions and objections that comport with the theme of the outreach. But answering, clarifying and handling rational concerns isn’t the main skill of RE. Rather, it is realizing that there is much more to conversation (especially about your event) than rational issues. Indeed, there is the whole area of non-rational issues such as caricatures, emotional barriers and so forth which need to be heard and discerned and often diffused before the rational discussion makes much progress. Keep that in mind. We are in no hurry to preach the gospel or enter debates in our conversations. That is, we are treating people and relationships as ends in themselves and that we enter into those issues as the conversation allows.
2) While it is our view that there is a great deal to be gained by inviting our non-Christian friends to and into our Christian faculty community meetings (assuming there is a seeker friendliness to them), we still hold that the talking points below are of great value both before and after that.
That is, we do not think that a non-believing person can merely be “socialized” into Christianity.
And though we do not wish to devalue this interaction too greatly--indeed we encourage it, we also want to make clear that we believe that the gospel itself and the notions which support it can and should be propositionally communicated in that process somewhere along the line.
We would like to nuance that in the following way. Regarding your fellow unbelieving colleagues in academe, there are many who will have had bad experiences with religion in their past and directly broaching the subject of the gospel with these folks can be difficult. In these cases it is a matter of experience and judgement on your part as to how to proceed. But we do think that the whole idea of relational evangelism where one listens to understand, where one learns to ask better and better probing questions, and where one learns the value of the interaction as an end in itself and not merely as a means to preach the gospel, that fruit will eventually be born. The spiritual results of our relationships and conversations of this sort are not fundamentally up to us.
Tolerance:
Tolerance is a word that has captured more than one meaning. That is, it can be understood in a number of ways based on the context in which it is used. For instance, at least the meaning of the word changed from what could be called a medieval sense to the so-called modernist sense--the latter sense emerged from the Enlightenment--where the deliverance or 'facts' of science was considered to be objective, while the subject matter of religion and morality was considered to be subjective. Or said another way, science was about things independent of our human minds and opinions, while religion and morality by contrast were about things that were not independent of those same things.
So in this modernist sense tolerance in the more recent use was not primarily about facts, but about religion and morals since they were not considered objective. Since moral and religious “facts” (it was thought) could not be established by reason, there was a growing feeling that a fair-minded individual would be willing to allow other points of views to exist to one degree or another.
While that view was NOT entirely lived up to in the broader culture (or even in all intellectual sub-cultures) it was the view that would emerge as dominant zeitgeist even into the 20th century. So, this notion of tolerance was changing in its meaning among the intellectuals and in the general culture from the pre-modern understanding. where it was thought there was at least some objective truth in morality and religion, to a so-called modernist view where morality and religion were thought of as subjective. It was in the spheres of morality and religion that tolerance was thought to function. Further it was thought that this modern view of the fact/value dichotomy would foster a healthier and wider sense of tolerance because historically the pre-modern view was associated with inquisitions, torture and burnings at the stake.
Now the even more recent post-modern "move,” which was latent in the Enlightenment analysis, emerged in contemporary thought to claim that not only was religion and morality subjective, but also the scientific "facts." While this point of view is more widely accepted in the humanities, it is to a much lesser degree (at least publicly) accepted by the sciences. (It’s worth your time to have the patience to tease out by good questions where the other person in your conversation is in this regard.)
There are two differing degrees of subjectivity to this newer move and one of which is radically more subjective than the other. The first is the epistemic postmodernism which holds that we do construct the concepts and notions about which we talk of reality, but that there is a reality that is independent of those conceptualizations. That is, things are what they are independent of us, but we apprehend them through the concepts we construct to know them.
The second is the metaphysical or ontological postmodernism view which holds that not only do we construct concepts and notions by which we apprehend things, but that also there is either a) no reality beyond those concepts or b) if there were reality beyond those concepts we could never know its nature because we could not compare our ideas, notions and concepts to that reality--since we do not even know if we have access to that reality. Another way to express this attitude using Kantian language is, we can know the "appearances" but never the thing in itself and so we might as well drop the notion of the “thing in itself.”
Now how does that analysis affect the sort of conversations you might have before and after your event?
We'll this idea of tolerance being thought of as an important "talking" point makes sense because such a discussion has intrinsic value for clarity sake and because certain construals of it comports better with Christianity than others. And one might add one comports better with our common moral sense. Are we to say, for instance, that the “goodness” or “badness” of trafficking human beings is merely a matter of taste? Are we to say there is no objective truth about the nature of human beings and how they are to be treated? Hardly so. Didn’t we fight World War II (at least in some sense) over this very issue? And whether the sin of human trafficking rises to the level of genocide is not the issue. We are calling attention to the morality of human trafficking. We are raising consciousness about that issue and not mainly on what particular policy decisions should be made.
Besides the value of that, such conversations may eventually lead to discussions about nature and credibility of Christianity. Conversations about Christianity have more credibility if held within the overall context of that there are some values, morals, and religion that has some objective nature to them.
OSU Field Test
Now back to discussing conversations you might have with your colleagues about tolerance. Typically non-Christians and non-theists fall into these two camps (modernist and post-modernist) and it is useful to the conversation if these issues can be clarified by asking good questions. Then from there, it's fair game to critique those two views--the modernist conception of tolerance and the postmodernist conception of tolerance.
So the next question for us to deal with is how do we have fruitful conversations with folks who are in other philosophical camps? This is where your local leader may have some help for you!
Intrinsic (or inherent) Worth Versus Instrumental Worth
Let me begin by defining intrinsic and extrinsic (or instrumental) worth as I am using the terms here.
‘Intrinsic worth’ (or value) as I am using it here has to do with the value of something or someone--here, I’m speaking of human beings--that primarily has to do with the source of that value in contrast to having to primarily with emotions and desires, which comes about solely in virtue of its intrinsic nature. In a theological sense then, human beings have been endowed by their Creator with a nature that has intrinsic value which exists independent of its instrumental value.
‘Instrumental worth’ or value as I am using it here has to do with the value of something or someone as a means to or as it causally contributes to something or someone that is itself intrinsically valuable.
One of the subtle, yet great truths of the Christian faith is that we (humans) are made in the image of God--the Imago Dei. While there is some uncertainty as to what all is implied by this, it does seem to imply that human beings have inherent value as a result of this endowment from the Creator and that notion is further buttressed by the teaching that Christ died for the sins of all people. That is, human beings even while they are enemies of God have a non-instrumental inherent value.
So deeply imbedded in these two teachings is the idea that human beings have great value independent of our instrumental uses. Of course, it seems fair to argue that despite this apparent inherent value which is shared equally among human beings, we also have certain kinds of instrumental value in terms of our gifts, dispositions as they relate to certain other desired goods. These instrumental values might not be shared equally among people who have equal intrinsic worth as human beings. For example, I might have the same inherent value as a brain surgeon, but when it comes to brain surgery, the qualified brain surgeon is of greater instrumental value than me because I am with respect to brain surgery unqualified and therefore of lesser instrumental value.
It is therefore possible to imagine (although such an evaluation would be very complicated) that there are people who have in virtually all respects more extrinsic or instrumental value than another person.....but such a person would not have greater intrinsic or inherent value as a human being.
A great deal of how western culture functions depends on these principles. It could be argued that this point of view is why we tolerate meritocracies but hold people equal before the court of law. It is foundational in the judicial concept that Lex is Rex and not Rex is Lex.
Such a view has important implications when one thinks about the problem of human trafficking.
In our increasingly secularized culture we have tended to see the intrinsic and inherent value of human beings eroded such that a person’s value is seen only in terms of their instrumental or extrinsic worth to the society. But that erosion has serious consequences!
Ushering out the historical foundation for this expressed view--God’s nature and His Creation--we have sown the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.
Surely there will be attempt to establish the inherent and intrinsic value of human beings in purely secular terms, but there are severe problems with such a project that deserves some exploration. And this is where we suggest you begin, exploring the nature of human value on secular terms (or in terms of your audience) in your conversations. Does not the secularization of the value of human beings contribute to the devaluation of the intrinsic worth of human beings in general?