Epistemology for Pastors
In my last essay, I outlined a basic understanding of personhood from a Christian perspective. In order for pastoral ministry to yield the kind of fruit we pray for in the lives of God’s flock, we have to be sure that our assumptions about what people are square with the biblical account.
As God’s image-bearers, we’ve been formed and made for relationships, fruitfulness, cultural stewardship, and dominion. All of these callings reflect our nature as knowers, lovers, and doers in God’s good creation. Yet even with this theological anthropology in place, we still can’t avoid the tricky subject of knowledge.
Calvin begins his Institutes of the Christian Religion by explaining the two types of knowledge that human beings possess: knowledge of God, and knowledge of self. The famed Reformer was hinting upon what would become the hallmark question of modern thought: “How do we know what we know?”
This question calls attention to epistemology, which is an unavoidable part of understanding our cultural situation, and therefore is quite valuable for pastoral ministry. Paying attention to how people hear and form beliefs can enable pastors to be more effective in preaching, teaching, and pastoral care.
Epistemology Defined
Before the Enlightenment, the nature of reality (what we sometimes call metaphysics) was the focus of philosophical reflection. This is illustrated in different ways from Plato to Aquinas, and many figures in-between. Even many theological debates in some way were concerned with what things really are in their essence, such as discussions about the sacraments. It wasn’t that the nature of knowledge was of no concern. However, reason wasn’t merely an organ for acquiring knowledge, but it was embedded into the order of the universe.
However, in the course of some significant changes in the 16th and 17th centuries, epistemology became the central issue in intellectual inquiry. From the Greek episteme (meaning knowledge or wisdom), epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge. The human knower, or the “subject,” becomes the focus: “How do we know?” “What qualifies as true knowledge?” and even, “Can we know anything at all?” were the questions birthed during this period.
At first glance, such questions sound like the concerns of university-level academics. Yet a closer look reveals that the nature of knowledge has everything to do with the most fundamental parts of human activity. Knowledge undergirds scientific pursuits. Since modern medicine and technological innovation rest upon scientific inquiry, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that most of the features of what we consider “everyday life” are imbued with epistemic concerns. Even law enforcement and the judicial system must attend to certain burdens of proof, which are tied to what constitute legitimate knowledge.
Since so many features of human life revolve around knowledge, doubt, certainty and the like, it’s no surprise that this also has a bearing on the church. Pastors cannot get around the thorny, complex ways in which congregants acquire knowledge and form beliefs.
Here I’ll describe some instances in pastoral ministry where epistemic concerns manifest themselves, and why we need to consider how knowledge works and belief formation occurs.
Prisoners of the Past
In the course of being students, we discover that God has designed the mind to not just acquire information, but retain it, too. Imagine how different life would be if we had to relearn everything from the previous day after we rose from sleep. Instead, we hear, we learn, and even remember many things.
However, like many things in pastoral ministry, this is a double-edged sword. We also learn or experience the bad along with the good. The sharper edge is the fact that past experiences give rise to our understanding and knowledge of things, which means that we take forward those beliefs we hold that are positive, good, and true, along with those that are negative, misleading, or dangerous.
The Pastoral Epistles remind us that sound doctrine is intended to be both formative and corrective. Yet rooting out bad beliefs is not simply an exchange of ideas that can usually be accomplished in one sermon (though sometimes they can). It is often a process of unlearning. This is because past experience functions as a filter through which people see the world, and not just a container for holding beliefs. As Paul Tripp and Tim Lane put it, our experiences are hermeneutical or interpretive in nature [1].
For example, when preaching the New Testament’s passages on slavery and submission, we often attempt to make spiritual slavery a plausible, desirable notion. But we should also remember that the single mother, abandoned by her abusive ex-husband, is going to hear such texts quite differently (in other words, don’t be surprised if she isn’t the first person to ‘Amen’). Her deeply-held beliefs about submission are bound up with a set of past experiences, often operating on a pre-cognitive level. This means that her ability to form new beliefs on servanthood will require not just information, but gradual transformation [2].
Words Without Deeds
We are inescapably embodied creatures. The tactile objects around us form, shape, and direct us to certain mental states, sometimes apart from our conscious awareness. However, even in the midst of such non-reflective moments, our senses are interpreting data, which will influence the knowledge we acquire and thereby the beliefs we form. Some philosophers have noted that beliefs sometimes seem to “rise up” from within us. In other words, choosing a belief for or against something isn’t always a process of deductive reasoning.
Somehow beliefs are bound to our senses, such as sight, hearing, touch, and the rest. For this reason, sometimes we find that our congregants have difficulty thinking differently, despite our steady stream of sermonic reminders! Whether your metaphor is “preaching past people,” “in one ear and out the other,” or some other frustrated image, we sometimes don’t understand why people aren’t changing their minds. To be sure, this is often a deeply embedded spiritual problem. The Scriptures say much about the hard-hearted person who won’t let go of certain things (remember Pharaoh?). But a more practical reminder is that theological creeds require thoughtful deeds to help take hold.
If you’re teaching a series on patience, using cutting-edge, quick-moving Powerpoint slides may not be the best approach. We tend to assume that visual media engages listeners, though they don’t have the same effect as they used to when electronic images were less common. Even if we assume that it initially grabs the listener’s attention, studies have repeatedly shown that certain visual media actually heighten tension, and eventually diminish our ability to wait for (read ‘be patient’) and receive new stimuli. No wonder the average sound bite from presidential candidates shrunk from 42.3 seconds in 1968 to 7.8 seconds in the year 2000 [3].
In sum, the shape of the local church’s ministry has the capacity to reinforce or undermine the actual beliefs a pastor may be trying to convey by way of formal, Scriptural instruction. If we’re trying to ward off the disordering pattern and pace of many modern forms of life in our commuter culture, choosing how we structure the church calendar for the next quarter may be as significant of a decision as the next sermon series we preach.
Try as we may to state and restate things (and I believe we should!), if those truths, precepts, or admonitions aren’t supported through the practices and rhythms of the church’s life, our words may be for naught.
What’s Love Got To Do with It?
I was intrigued some time ago to see Esther Meek’s book entitled Loving to Know. As a philosopher in the Reformed tradition, Meek explains the personal nature of knowing. In this way, love actually has something to do with knowledge. Someone who is personally, passionately, and lovingly invested in a relationship with the object of their attention is best-positioned to know.
This is an argument at which some philosophers balk, but as Christian pastors we should take it to heart. We know that people come to “hear us” and develop in their beliefs when they know they are being served by someone who loves and cares for them. We find that our congregations grow and thrive in “the knowledge of [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” when the church loves as it should (cf. Col. 1:9-10). Authentic knowledge or belief, then, is like a fruit-bearing tree at harvest time, a season that only arrives after the hard work of love has been done.
Conclusion
What is probably evident to many readers is how our anthropology (what people are) and epistemology (how people know) are deeply connected. Like all theology, our understanding of various teachings is more like a web than a bullet-pointed list. This means that our ministry tool-belt not only requires skills like expositional preaching or counseling, but also some perspective on how the Scriptures provide a faithful understanding of people—who they are, how they know, and how a holistic ministry requires both.
____________________
[1] Paul Tripp & Tim Lane, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2008), 109.
[2] Epistemologists would refer to this type of change as a change in “doxastic states.”
[3] Todd Gitlin, Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001), 96.
[4] This clip of veteran pastor and theologian Sinclair Ferguson has been especially helpful on this latter theme.
Recent Comments