Theology, Philosophy, or Both? Or, Jim Rome the Philosopher

The following is a (too) long summary and (too) short review of John Caputo's Philosophy and Theology. Give it a quick read. Then I'd appreciate your opinion on the relationship Caputo addresses--at least for the sake of a tally.

Caputo asks Nietzsche's existential question, "Does anyone know we are here?" Does the universe care or is it cold? In asking that question one is already en route to asking the question in the title: Does theology, philosophy, or some combination find the answer?

Caputo answers this question by telling (quite quickly, the book is just 84 pgs, counting the appendix!) the story of philosophy and theology and says that the most important word is 'and.' Philosophy and theology. The premodern hegemony of faith, religion, theology over philosophy is what led to modernity, he says, which flipped the situation on its head. Philosophy, reason, became the go-to-guy in the deepest questions of life. So, Descartes doubts everything that can be doubted. And comes up with the belief that he can doubt everything except that he is doubting. That he cannot deny. And begins to work his way up, pulling himself up from his reason-able bootstraps.

This leads to philosophy, reason, being the "intellectual police." Kant set up a wall between philosophy and religion, limiting religion to the unknowable. We can have an idea that there is something beyond the wall, but we can't be sure what it is. The best notion of the being beyond the wall we've got is ethics (which is why Kant is famous for the moral argument for God's existence). But, and this is remarkable, as the intellectual police, philosophy has removed itself from the game. It's like the umpire in baseball that cannot play. In the absence of philosophy, the empiral sciences--they deal with the world we can know, after all! (according to Kant)--take over. We are still in this phase in education settings.

Against Kant, who emphasized the universal nature of ethics ("Only consider a moral rule that which you can consider a moral rule for all, everywhere, at all times"), Hegel continued in the modern period by asserting the historical nature of truth. The "Spirit" was drawing all things to universal end through history. In effect, Hegel tore down (at least wanted to; Larry Wood would emphatically say he succeeded, eh Nate?) the wall that Kant had built. God was not relegated to the unknowable, but was in the very world we feel, sense, measure, examine historically, etc. (Process theology emerges from Hegel.) But notice that reason is still king here. (So, Hegel delves into mathematics (!) in his Phenomenology of Spirit.) This brings us to Caputo's two benefits of the Enlightenment: 1. The emphasis that we should highlight what we do have in common (reason-wise) and not revelation given to some but not to others; 2. The reminder that God has not given only revelation to believers, but "a head on their shoulders and eyes in that head" (slight paraphrase, 36).

But Caputo says that reason overstepped its bounds. Enter Kierkegaard: He criticized Hegel's "system" and emphasized the transcendence of God. Philosophy is not the Saviour of God, says Kierkegaard. God did not save the world in a 19th c. German philosopher, but a 1st c. Jew. (This leads to the neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth.) The table is now set for the postmodern agenda: Both Theology and Philosophy have had their respective kick at the can; their chance at being in charge. Both have failed. Philosophy's latest turn has even removed itself from the game. The sciences have taken over...and the deepest questions begin to be treated as fairly shallow: Everything is biology, or neurology, or physics, or chemistry.

Caputo then lists three turns which completed the postmodern table set (he admits to oversimplifying, here): First, there is the hermeneutical turn. Basically, it means you have to have an "angle." When you go to speak or to find something out or to live, you realize that you are already there. You already, in the words of Jime Rome, "have a take." This "take" is necessary to seeing the game, at all. It's like a seat in an arena: you have to sit in that seat and not another, but without it you don't have access to watch the Oilers lose at all. Second, there is the linguistic turn. Whenever Descartes tried to doubt everything he was already writing. He was already thinking linguistically--hence, conditioned and shaped. This means that what you say, or think, is already partially formed before you think it. If you ever listen to Jim Rome, some of the best callers merely parrot, but parrot well, a combination of smart sports writers. Of course, they think these thoughts are their own--and in a way they are. These callers--who both parrot and are entertaing--in the words of Jime Rome, "Don't suck." The hermeneutical turn and the linguistic turn can be summed up by Jim Rome's adage: "Have a take and don't suck."

This brings us to the last turn, the "revolutionary turn" by Thomas Kuhn in science. He says that science doesn't simply add knowledge to knowledge piecemeal, but the best advances have brought complete paradigm shifts--the earth around the sun (Copernicus), the bendability of space and time (Einstein), etc. Science, in other words, does not start at zero and build up, it has a world in which it lives. Science itself already "has a take" and tries "not to suck."

Some might question whether this leaves us without truth. It does not. It leaves us without certainty. To say that I am not certain does not mean that there is no truth. It means that the truth is not mine to possess and hold; it lays hold of me; it pushes against me. It means that we have good reasons for believing scientific models, philosophy, history, in God, etc. but we are not absolutely positive. But notice that science, history, philosophy, God are all combined here. One does not reign. They are all "language games." They are all paradigms--and they all overlap to a degree (familial relations). This means that interpretation is the key. Because all of these paradigms have perspectives, they all have something to say. They all see the world as something. Neither theology nor philosophy (and thereby science) have complete access to whatever they are studying--they don't see "all the way down." So it is both seeing is believing--we all have heads and eyes--and believing is seeing--we all have presuppositions which let us think and see in the first place. Yet it is mostly "What to believe if we are to see."

So, philosophy and theology are not opposites, or enemies, but two kinds of faith--two kinds of believing trying to see. They are two ways of finding answers to the question, "Does anyone know we are here?"

To illustrate this last point Caputo compares Augustine and Derrida and their respective works, Confessions and Circumfession. Augustine and Derrida have two different kinds of faith. What they did not see is what drove them on. So, Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. And Derrida prays, but also rightly passes for an atheist. Where Augustine saw light and had faith, Derrida is overtaken by too many claims to light and acknowledges the darkness. But this darkness, says Caputo, does not negate his faith. Rather, it makes the light all the brighter. So as not to lose the point, remember that they are both asking the question, "Does anyone know we are here?" Derrida's lack of definitive answer ("I rightly pass for an atheist") is not, however, cynicism, but simply his place in history; his form of faith is faith nonetheless. So, both Augustine and Derrida have the question of God: they do not stay with Nietzsche's cynical question ("Does anyone know we are here?"), though we all return there from time to time. Rather Caputo says that central to both forms of faith is the question, "What do I love when I love my God?" This question holds the passion that the first existential question promises. Caputo concludes that philosophy and theology are both ways to nurture the passion of life--initially and subsequently of wonder ("Does anyone...?"), but finally and ultimately of love ("What do I love when I love my God?").

I loved this book. My only critique is that Caputo is more philosopher than theologian and I am more theologian than philosopher. (This relationship is something he mentions in the book: Believing thinker/Thinking believer; Philosophical theology/Thelogical philosophy; etc.) So, when Caputo writes about God as the one before every knee will bow (Isa. 45:23), I want to remind him of the biblical story and the Philippian hymn that puts every knee bowing at the name of Jesus (Php. 2:10-11). God is not afar; he is revealed. But, of course, this is not a stunning critique--nor is it meant to be--because the worship of Christ used philosophy to explicate its theology in the Nicene-Constantinople and Chalcedonian Creeds (and at Ephesus and in syonds...). And, I think, this is another illustration for Caputo and the inevitably tense, but mutual relationship of philosophy and theology, of loving God: God's work in Jesus Christ elicits and inspires our thoughtful worship.

So.... Theology? Philosophy? Both? Does Jim Rome capture the relationship accurately? ;)