working assumption underlying much of Christian thought since the Enlightenment that human knowledge could be secured on an indubitable foundational principle, thus guaranteeing that certain canons of reasonableness would prevail across all communities of rational human beings.
Whereas the liberals stress the universality of reason, postliberals emphasize the particularity of the Christian narrative. Human understanding is inextricably bound with the narratives by which humans view the world and their place in it. The task of Christian theology is not a matter of correlating its truths with those discovered in other disciplines. Rather, it involves Christian self-description. The Christian narrative, stretching from the beginning of creation to the final consummation of the kingdom, in the expression of the postliberal theologian, George Lindbeck, “absorbs the world” that Christians inhabit.2 The Christian way of life involves becoming proficient in the language of Christian narrative and acquiring the virtues that characterize the Christian way of being in the world. Unlike orthodox theologies that see the truth of Christian claims as consisting in a correspondence between statement and objective reality, the postliberal approach sees no way of definitively proving or disproving Christian claims in this way. While certainly not ruling out the possibility that doctrines do in fact correspond to the nature of God or Christ, the postliberals insist that we cannot step outside the language we used to know if, or in what way, the propositions we make are true. We can only apply a regulative test as to whether a proposition coheres with the way of life described in the Christian narrative.
Postliberalism has its critics on both the orthodox and liberal sides. First, the orthodox have reservations about the postliberals’ account of truth. The Evangelical theologian, Alister McGrath, has taken issue with Lindbeck on this very point. “The possibility (which Lindbeck seems unwilling and unable to consider) is that the discourse that he identifies Christian doctrine as regulating . . . may represent a serious misrepresentation, or even a deliberate falsification, of historical events; and that it may represent a completely spurious interpretation of the significance of Jesus Christ.”3 Identifying claims that are compatible with the Christian narrative is an element of Christian thought, but it does not address the critical question of whether these claims are in fact correct. On the liberal side, the ethicist James Gustafson writes, “George Lindbeck’s commendation of ‘the ancient practice of absorbing the universe into the biblical world’ does not come naturally to anyone I know. It is hard to determine what the biblical world is; there clearly are many. Even if one could, it is not easy to absorb neuroscience and genetics, black holes and quarks, viruses and broken limbs, Alzheimer’s disease and bipolar disorder, Palestinian-Israeli and Northern Ireland tensions into biblical, theological, or other religious discourse.”4 If all of this suggests that the contemporary theological scene is fragmented, it is the next position that emphasizes this fact.
Postmodernism is a broad term covering a variety of positions, and as such, defies precise definition. In general terms, postmodernism is marked by a deep and abiding suspicion of any system of thought that claims to have been given some privileged access into the true nature of reality or that attempts to provide a grand narrative in which all of reality can be properly understood. As the postmodern thinker John Caputo puts it, “The secret is that there is no Secret, no capitalized Know-it-all Breakthrough Principle or Revelation that lays things out the way they Really Are and thereby lays to rest the conflict of interpretations. When we open our mouths, it is only we who are speaking, poor existing individuals, as Kierkegaard likes to put it, and we would be ill advised to think that we are the Mouthpiece of Being or the Good or of the Almighty.”5 As the claims of a group (operating within its own interpretive framework) grow more and more absolute, the suspicion of the postmodern thinker rises. Typically, however, this is coupled with a realization that none of this removes us from the reality of having to navigate our way in this world. We may be awash in a world of interpretations, with no certain way of adjudicating conflicting interpretations, but at the same time, we are compelled to act, to name injustice, and to treasure some ideals while rejecting others.
The critics of postmodernism fear that such a position endorses relativism, a state in which one interpretation is no better or worse than any other interpretation. Caputo counters, “I do not recommend ignorance and I am not saying that there is no truth, but I am arguing that the best way to think about truth is to call it the best interpretation that anybody has come up with yet while conceding that no one knows what is coming next.”6 For the postmoderns, our inability to know definitively which position is right (“undecidability”) speaks to the traditional concept of faith. “If we really do not know who we are, then faith is really faith. Undecidability protects faith and prayer from closure and in keeping them thus at risk also keeps them safe.”7 Keeping beliefs at risk paradoxically keeps them safe from the danger of dispassionate engagement. Postmodernism is “the willingness to get along as best we can without capital letters and without final authoritative pronouncements, without a Knowledge of the Secret, and to splash about in the waters of undecidability.”8 The spirit of postmodernism, then, is one of disruption of all final answers. Critics fear that this leaves us with chaos; supporters insist that it is the crucial realization we need to make in order to find our way among the fragmented world in which we live.
Basil and Ambrose
Similarities in the Hexameron
If a reader were to compare the Hexameron by both Basil and Ambrose, he or she would be struck by the deep similarity between the structure and purpose of the two works. Both are comprised of nine sermons delivered extemporaneously during Holy Week. Basil delivered his sermons around 378 in Caesarea and Ambrose presented his in the following decade in Milan. Both are a combination of philosophical debate, moral exhortation, and catechetical instruction. Each author prefaces his scriptural commentary with a spirited defense of the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo (“from nothing”) and then engages in a detailed examination of each of the six days of the creation story narrated in the opening chapter of Genesis.
Basil and Ambrose both had a working knowledge of ancient scientific works on natural history, zoology, and botany. In his study of Basil, the theologian Stephen Hildebrand notes Basil’s familiarity with Plato’s creation story found in the Timaeus, Aristotle’s theory of the interaction of elements, and the Stoic concept of a divine law inscribed in the nature of plants and animals.9 Both Ambrose and Basil, however, display a keen interest in refuting any cosmological theory that suggested that God shaped preexisting material. Ambrose repeats Basil’s principle, “It is absolutely necessary that things begun in time be also brought to an end in time.”10 Not only is this a point of doctrine that both church leaders would feel compelled to defend, it also supports a particular reading of nature and human history. If we could go back to the start of time, says Basil, we would discover that “the world was not devised at random or to no purpose, but to contribute to some useful end and to the great advantage of all beings, if it is truly a training place for rational souls and a school for attaining the knowledge of God, because through visible and perceptible objects it provides guidance to the mind for the contemplation of the invisible” (I.6). Unlike ancient atomistic thinking that suggested that “the universe was without guide and without rule, as if borne around by chance” (I.2), Basil insists that the universe bears witness to the power, providence, and beauty of God. It is a school, a training place, for gaining knowledge of God. Through the creation we can glimpse into the mind of the Creator (I.11). Additionally, a universe that has a beginning in time and an end in time naturally turns the mind of those who contemplate it to the end of time, to a “future age with a spiritual and never ending light” (II.8).
