Science and Theological Discourse

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth

John Polkinghorne the Physicist turned Anglican priest writes, “I believe that Christian belief is possible in a scientific age precisely because it is the search for truth, and science is one, but only one component, and in many ways quite a humble component, in that search for truth.” There are a number of concerns raised about the ability of deductive reasoning to say anything meaningful about God. I find Hauerwas dismissal of science to be unsatisfying. His critique comes from the nature of language itself, as far as I can tell. All facts are theory laden. The scientific method does not present an objective approach to reality, but rather a matrix for a certain kind of discourse. The success of science is merely the instrumental success of getting things done rather than describing things as they really are. One embarks down an epistemological dead end when one sets out to describe the world as it is. For the very act of describing is contingent upon the tools of language that are formed by one’s particular community. In the end I believe the seeming strength of these concerns fizzle. Polkinghorne points out that such concerns do not answer the reality of the success of science. I think it is quite fair to suggest that the ability of modern science to send a person to the moon or transplant organs not only reveals an effective means of discourse, but it also reveals something about the nature of reality.

Hauerwas views science as a competing story for what it means to be human. There may be some element of truth in such a statement, however I find his dismissal of science as a means of seeing the world around us to be unconvincing (I use “unconvincing” quite intentionally!). Of course he is not the only person who expresses concerns about the limitations of what the natural world can reveal about God. I find some of the more classic arguments about the limitations of natural revelation quite compelling. A first problem that I think must be recognized is the simple limitation of certain kinds of knowledge. Observation cannot reveal all kinds of knowledge. It certainly reveals a lot...but there are deficits in what one can come to know simply by trial and error. I can know a lot about you by watching you. I can know how tall you are, what you like to eat, how fast you are etc. But I can never know your name...unless you tell me (or someone else tells me). Names are quite interesting in this way. They are given and as such cannot really be known apart from someone being told. What is more significant to a personal relationship than knowing a person’s name? I will spare a prolonged reflection on why this is the case, but I think it certainly does warrant such reflection. It is of course quite significant that immediately before God redeems the people of Israel and delivers them from bondage, God reveals his personal name to Moses. In our modern bland way of talking about God I think we may have lost the centrality of the name of the LORD. There is a second classic limitation to our ability to know God through the natural realm can also be approached by the metaphor of a relationship. There is some knowledge like names that must be revealed, but a relationship is more than knowing someone’s name. I am going to use a second somewhat...”grown-up” metaphor of course this is also a biblical metaphor, the biblical euphemism of “knowing” someone. In the Bible the word used for sexual relations is that of knowing. Abraham knew is wife...and there was Isaac. Knowing in this sense requires something on the part of the two parties namely being disrobed. In a related way....knowledge of God requires more than an inquisitive spirit.
I began by saying that I thought science was an indispensable part of theological discourse today, yet I have just been arguing against its efficacy. Let me close with the reason why I see “bottom-up thinking” as an essential tool in modern theological discourse. We live in an age where “revelation” is suspect. “Bottom-up” thinking has produced results. I think it has produced results because it reveals truth about our created world. I think there is the potential that the discoveries and methods of “bottom-up thinking” can serve as a bridge to the importance of the revelation of God through the scriptures.

A Righteous Scandal

Reading Genesis confronts one with a number of troubling stories. For example, in the account of the rape of Dinah there are no good guys. One sees in this passage the perverting power of sin. Movies tend to portray the white hats and the black hats. The good guys and bad guys are clearly distinguishable. After all who wants to go to a movie where there are no heroes. In Genesis (and of course the wider Biblical witness) we do not exactly find heroes and villains. We find people, hauntingly familiar people I may add. We know Dinahs. We know Shechems. We know Levis and Simeons. In Chapter 38 of Genesis the story of Joseph is interrupted with this curious interlude recording a pitifully forgettable scandal with Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. This story begs the question... “what is it about an action that makes it righteous?”
For anyone who believes in a God that demands righteousness, this is an important question. I am leery when people suggest that righteousness is something that is obvious. Certainly there are times when the right or wrong decisions are very clear. Do not take someone else’s crayons without asking. But there is a reason that officers are not allowed to fraternize with the enlisted. They have to send them charging up the hill. Their are some decisions that seem clear but in reality they are just decisions made from a distance. As Herbert McCabe notes the only interesting ethical question is, “who is going to get hurt”. This story like many in Genesis troubles the waters of what is right and what is wrong.
In this first section of the story the scene is set for what is about to unfold. The main characters in this account will be Judah and Tamar. One of the challenges to understanding some stories in the Bible are the different social practices. In today’s world we would not think it appropriate for a brother to marry his widowed sister-in-law. In Ancient Israel this was a practice codified in the Levitical code. Details of this practice are given in Deuteronomy 25:5-6. If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. One simply is not offered the option to make judgments about the propriety of these actions. Levirate marriage is assumed to be required. Without accepting this practice the story does not make sense. Er is described as dying for having done something evil. We are not told what it is just that he is dead because of something he did. His brother Onan in like manner is struck down. Although with Onan we given the reason. He does not want to fulfill his responsibility to Tamar. This is sometimes cited as a passage to support the prohibition against birth control. Yet such an interpretation is not explicitly made by the text. In fact it seems that the sin of Onan is that he does not want to father his brother’s heir, for his own selfish reasons. He may want his children to have more of an inheritance. This of course is speculation all we know is that he does not want his brother’s line to be continued. So we find Tamar the widow of two sons of Judah both of whom were unrighteous before God. What will Judah do?
The story lends one to be sympathetic to Judah. He only has one more son. Is he perhaps afraid that Tamar is cursed? Will giving his only remaining son to her result in the end of his family line. It seems that he fears this to be the case. He makes an excuse so that he does not have to give his youngest son to Tamar. Perhaps he is trying to wait until his family line is set. The oldest child’s firstborn is the one who passes on the family line. It should be the child of Tamar, but he is afraid and wants to ensure some progeny. We know that Judah is acting out of concern for his own family line, but what about Tamar? How is she left to fare in light of Judah’s actions. She is left to fend for herself.
It is at this point in the story that one is presented with the familiar problem of the patriarchs. Once again we are presented with the situation when everyone is acting immorally. Tamar so far has been the victim of two bad marriages and a father-in-law who will not fulfill his obligation to her. Judah has been in the wrong, but here Tamar herself becomes the immoral agent. I do not mean to pass over what Judah does. Judah’s wife dies. After a period of morning on a long business trip he comes upon what he thinks to be a shrine prostitute. The story again seems to be painting a sympathetic dilemma for Judah. The story clearly describes Tamar has acting more deceitfully. She decides to go and seduce her father-in-law. As if prostitution were not bad enough, she seduces her father-in-law! Perhaps her actions would strike one as less odious if she had seduced Judah’s youngest son who was rightfully supposed to father her a child, but she goes to Judah? Prostitution was practiced widely in the ancient world and I guess it is still practiced pretty widely, but incest was always considered immoral and against the law. Why Judah? I think that she sought out Judah because it was his responsibility to provide for her. He was the one who was not willing to fulfill his obligation to Tamar. It is interesting to note that she had been wearing her widows clothing until this moment. Tamar had not been seeking to be remarried as one could have. We know that Michal remarried after David fled the court of Saul. We also know that Ruth remarried after the death of her husband when Naomi could no longer provide the son to take her husbands place. Tamar is doing what she is supposed to, but Judah is not. Even after she seduces Judah she goes back and once again puts on her widow’s clothing. Is it not curious that Judah will end up offering to pay to fulfill the responsibility he is already supposed to do voluntarily? She doesn’t take any payment only the evidence to prove that she has done what she has a right to do.
While I this passage does not give warrant to prostitution. It is not exactly condemning it either. It is perhaps helpful to note that the connection between morality and religion is not assumed in the ancient world. This will develop specifically within the covenant between the LORD and his people. But in the ancient world religious practice was connected with the power of the deities not with moral living. Moral living was connected with the wisdom tradition. This is one reason why you find the greatest amount of condemnation against the practice of prostitution in the book of proverbs. In this story it is the prostitute who is declared to be the righteous one. Judah learning that Tamar is pregnant demands that she face the consequences for adultery, and it is only at the point when she is brought out to receive this punishment that she reveals the father. This is the culmination of the story.
Nicholas of Lyra a medieval commentator believes this text should be corrected to read, “you Tamar are less unrighteous than I am.” I can sympathize with Nicholas of Lyra’s feeling upon hearing Judah’s response. I think we might be more likely to take another commentator’s approach Walter Brueggeman. His approach to this passage is to simply say, there is little here of exegetical or interpretive value. Time to move on. If you are reading through the Bible check your box and get back to the story of Joseph. But I do not want to have this attitude. I may at the end of the day have to simply say my faith grade is not up to this passage. But I am hesitant to ever think that there is any passage of scripture that does not have significance for our life of faith. I do not mean by this that we need to understand everything. We of course do not nor will we. But we should always be open to hear God speak to us. One temptation the I think more modern temptation is to ignore this text. Another temptation is to moralize the text. But it is not so easy to find the “moral of the story”. The difficulty with this approach is multifaceted. First one finds the challenge of finding helpful moral lessons from such a specific problem. This is like an example of case law, where the facts of the case are so specific they could barely ever apply to much outside of the exact situation. I tend to want to read this story and find some moral and yet I find that the particular circumstances do not fit thankfully my own. We recognize the flaws. Because their flaws are our flaws, but their problems thankfully are different. The first problem then is the specificity of the account. One could perhaps suggest some greater ethical principle, like the ends justify the means, but that does not really help because it leads to the he second problem with this approach. If one is going to find a moral in this particular case one has to determine a hierarchy of sins. How does one determine what sin is worse than another. I am inclined to find prostitution far worse than Judah’s technical failure to keep his end of the deal, after all he tried with two sons, who could blame him fearing that the third son would be a dead duck marring this crazy black widow. I do not think that one can simply find morals at least in the sense that we use that term today.
If as I have suggested it will not do to ignore nor moralize the text, what is one to draw from this story? Let me begin with the caveat that the comment option is open and I heartily welcome any suggestions. In this passage we see the promises of God fulfilled in a very unrighteous way. The descendent of Judah is born in the immediate circumstances of deceit, incest, and prostitution. I think Judah’s affirmation that Tamar is more righteous than he does not refer to a reckoning of some moral equivalency that presents a balance favorable to Tamar. Rather Tamar’s pregnancy demonstrates to Judah that she is more righteous than he. For she is to bear the child of the promise that he had failed to knowingly provide for. The righteousness of Tamar rests in the seed of Judah. If this is the case then what does that mean...exactly. The owner of a local used bookstore in town was encouraging me to read a novel with the title Life according to Pi. I may have the title slightly off, but if you spend anytime in bookstores I am sure you have seen the book. When people learn that I am a minister I have a number of people recommend this book. I am not sure it is because I am a minister, but anyway. I have not yet read the book though I intend to, but the store owner provided a brief synopsis revealing to me the reason I suspect for her recommendation. Apparently the main character is a fairly easy going person who investigates or attends I various religious groups. Each of these religious groups think the man is one of their devoted followers. They think he is an outstanding Christian, Buddhist, etc... Only one day the meet on the street. The different religious leaders get to squabbling about their own religious particulars. I think the idea this bookseller was trying to convey was that she thought that all religions were pretty much the same. This is a pretty common view especially among the educated in our country. Righteousness as presented in this story seems to present a problem with the idea that righteousness is about morals. Righteousness is about being a part of the promise. This is my take anyway, I am eager to hear your ideas.