Problem of Criterion as a theological key

How do you know?  How do you know that you know?  This is the problem of criterion, and far from being a technical point in epistemology, it is huge for theology and the life of the church.  It runs like this:

How do we decide in any case whether we have knowledge in that case? What are the criteria of knowledge? (Moreland 2007, 123).

To risk a dangerous oversimplification, "How do we know that we know x?"  Here is an example.  If I tell someone that God gave me a word of knowledge, the cessationist will respond, "Yeah, but how do you know that was from God?"

If I say that I have the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit bearing witness that I am a child of God and destined for heaven, the anchorite will ask, "Yeah, but how do you know that without using your own subjective demon-inspired reason?"

It boils down to this:  Before I can legitimately claim knowledge in these areas I must first satisfy the condition of knowing how I know.  Seems fair enough and few people challenge this.

But there is a problem.  Before I can know anything (say P, representing that I have the internum spiritum sanctum), I must know two other things: Q (my criterion for knowledge, which the critic seeks) and R (the fact that P satisfies Q).  But there is no reason to stop here.  One can now ask how I know Q and R, to which the new answer is Q' and R'.  But now I have to give a reason for Q'' and R''.  Further, I must now give a reason for Q''' and R'''.

Said another way:  Before I can know, I must know how I know.  Before I can know how I know, I must know how I know how I know.  And on the nightmare goes.

Best just to dismiss the critic's question. But before that, let's give our own solution. We can start by knowing specific, clear items of knowledge.  We can solve the problem of criterion by beginning with particular cases of knowledge and generalising to formulate a criterion for true belief.  For example, while I know my faculty of reason can be faulty at times, I had to use the faculty of reason to write that sentence (assuming A = ~~A and that my terms meant what they meant).  Using this reason I am able to read texts (and everyone will assume the text is clear at at least one level, otherwise why would you ever appeal to an opponent to read a text like 2 Peter 1:4?).  This immediately falsifies the claim that I can't understand a text unless I am already in a community of text (no one seriously believes this when push comes to shove).  

Moreland, J. P. Kingdom Triangle. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2007.  

Ecumenical Ascesis: Giving and Taking Away with the same hand

My recent studies in philosophy of mind and consciousness have brought me back to the desert fathers.  I think they have some profound insights on depression and wholeness.  Of course, their understanding of salvation and the work of Christ is an utter disaster.  

The more friendly-minded Eastern Orthodox will say that “The Spirit is working in other Christian traditions,” and that is nice of them to say so.  However, they will also say that true healing of the nous (it’s hard to find an evangelical equivalent of that phrase.  Picture a midway point between justification and sanctification and call it salvation) can only happen within the life of the Church.

But if the Spirit is working outside the boundaries of the church, can it not be that true healing is happening there?  If so, then what of the other claim that healing of the nous can only happen within the liturgical and ascetical life of the church?

Further, what of the Evangelicals who have engaged in healing ministries?  I don’t mean specifically bodily healing, though that’s included, but healing of the psyche.  John Wimber comes to mind.  Unless one wants to say “he does it by demons,” one is forced to conclude that the power of Christ--never separated from his body--is operative in Evangelicalism.   Therefore, Evangelicals are part of the Body of Christ.  

Demonic warfare argument against One True Church (™)

The point:  (1) I am making a claim against those traditions that posit their communion is the One True Church.

(2) If Satan's kingdom is divided against itself, it will not stand--Jesus (or Abe Lincoln)

(3) If Protestant/Evangelical pastors are successful in evangelism and church growth, then there is the likelihood that they are leading people away from the One True Church (™).

(4) However, it is well-known that Evangelical pastors have been attacked by demons who opposed their churches (Wagner 1992).

(5) Demons do not attack their own outposts (Modus Tollens, 2).

(6) Demons, therefore, attack Christian outposts (or Kingdom outposts; I like that one better).

Therefore, one must conclude,

(7) Evangelical communions--some, anyway--are Kingdom communions and Christian churches.

Therefore, the position entailed by (1) is false, that only certain anchoretic communions are in fact One True Church (™).

The nicer adherents within those denominations will say,

(7') "We've never said the Spirit isn't working in Evangelical communions; He may be working but we are the One True Church (™)).

That is very kind of them, but it is really hard to square with (1) and (2).  To prove this we have to advance the next argument:

(8) The Spirit doesn't work counter to the Spirit.

If the Spirit is supposed to build up the Church, and the Church is defined as a specific institution of which Evangelicals are not a member, then the Spirit can't build up--and therefore lead away--those other communions.

An anchorite could respond with

(8') The Spirit can't be judged by human logic.

There is a truth to (8') but I think if applied consistently it is an epistemological acid drip.  Along with (8) we must also say,

(9) The Spirit doesn't work contrary to Christ (The Filioque really helps at this point, but I suppose it isn't necessary to the argument).

(10) If (8) and (9) hold, then we cannot really have no grounds for denying that Evangelicals are members of Christ's body, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Jesus Christ.

Jesus's feeding me is special enough

Peter Leithart wrote an article pointing out that high church liturgies seem "magic" and out of touch with the simplicity of what we see in the gospels.  I don't know why Anchorites got upset.  Even if you believe your tradition is the truth, and even if you believe in an ethereal "tradition" (which you admit you can't point to or verify without asserting the consequent), the gospels simply don't have an elaborate service.

I'm not here to defend Leithart.  He's done enough damage to Protestantism, but he has a point.  At the supper Jesus promises to feed me and eat with me.  Why do I need to "spruce it up" with an elaborate ontology?  Is Jesus's Word and Spirit good enough, or not?

Someone could respond, "We worship in an unbroken way for thousands of years."  Perhaps, but that's not how Jesus did the worship service at the Passover.  

Neo-Church Fathers, hellenism, or extra nos proclamation

To help put the below in context, here is a picture of Chain of Being

"Like the dead, take no account of either the scorn of men or their praises, and you can be saved." -St. Makarios the Great.
“Struggle until death to fulfil the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.”
—St Thalassios the Libyan

Response:  if all he means by this is struggle in sanctification, no problem.   

A person must first spend a long time in ascetic practice. He must begin by purifying his body from the actual committing of sin, whether great or small, and then purge his soul of every form of desire or anger. His moral impulses need to be disciplined by good habit, so that he does not do anything whatsoever through his five senses that is contrary to the purpose of his intellect, [This is very good Hellenistic philosophy, but very bad Hebraic revelation--JBA]  nor does his inner self consent to any such thing. It is then, when finally he becomes subject to himself, that God makes all things subject to him through dispassion and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. For a man must first submit to the law of God, and then he will rule as an intelligent being over all around him. His intellect will reign as it was originally created to reign, with judgment and self-restraint, with courage and justice. Now he will calm his wrath with the gentleness of his desire, now quieten his desire with the austerity of his wrath; and he will know that he is a king. All the limbs of his body, no longer abducted by ignorance and forgetfulness, will act in accordance with God’s commandment. Then through his devotion to God he will achieve spiritual insight and will begin to anticipate the snares prepared by the devil and his secret and stealthy attacks.St Peter of Damaskos

If this is true, and if this is being used as the ground of salvation, and this is the purported biblical teaching, then why did Paul worry about being accused of antinominism.  At least Roman Catholicism pretends to give grace a role.

“Forgiveness of sins is betokened by freedom from the passions; he who has not yet been granted freedom from the passions has not yet received forgiveness.”
—St Thalassios the Libyan

It's hard to imagine Paul being accused of antinominianism in Romans 6 if he were preaching the above.

The only path to salvation is the  unwavering following of the instructions of the Holy Fathers
~Ignatios Briannchaninov

Seems like Jesus got replaced.

“Chastity's wings are greater and lighter than the wings of marriage. Intercourse, while pure, is lower. Its house of refuge is modest* darkness. Confidence belongs entirely to chastity, which light enfolds.”
—St Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Nativity

Notice the language of higher/lower.  Spiritual (mind) stuff is higher on the scale than passional stuff.  This is Hellenism with a vengeance and it is foreign to the Bible.  My whole outlook on life is one total negation of this mentality.  

“Since Elijah repressed the desire of his body, he could withhold the rain from the adulterers. Since he restrained his body, he could restrain the dew from the whoremongers who released and sent forth their streams. Since the hidden fire, bodily desire, did not prevail in him, the fire of the high place obeyed him, and since on earth he conquered fleshly desire, he went up to the place where holiness dwells and is at peace. Elisha, too, who killed his body, revived the dead. That which is by nature mortal gains life by chastity, which is beyond nature. He revived the boy since he refined himself like a newly wind infant. Moses, who divided and separated himself from his wife, divided the sea before the harlot. Zipporah maintained chastity, although she was the daughter of pagan priests; with a calf the daughter of Abraham went whoring.”—St Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Nativity

This is funny since Elijah called down fire on men.  Was he doing it Jedi-style, with the passions neutral?  

Table as Feast, or the god of grape juice

Feast, not transformation.  Table, not altar.  

Zechariah 9:15, “The Lord of hosts will protect them,
and they shall devour, and tread down the sling stones,
and they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine,
and be full like a bowl,
drenched like the corners of the altar.

“But the passage pictures Israel drunk with another kind of wine: filled with the wine of Yahweh’s Spirit, Israel would be bold, wild, untamed, boisterous in battle. This suggests one dimension of the symbolism of wine in the Lord’s Supper: it loosens our inhibitions so that we wil fight the Lord’s battles in a kind of drunken frenzy. If this sounds impious, how much more Psalm 78:65, where the Divine Warrior himself is described as a mighty man overcome with wine? Yahweh fights like Samson, but far more ferociously than Samson: He fights like a drunken Samson!" (Leithart, Blessed are the Hungry).

But that's not how the American Christian fights.

“Grape juice at the communion table symbolizes the historical impotence of Christ’s blood, Christ’s gospel, Christ’s church, and Christ’s expanding kingdom. Grape juice stays ‘bottled up’, confined to the historical skins of Palestine.”

~Gary North

Also bad is any attempt to deny the drinking motion of a cup in communion.