Tony Jones is one of the leading spokesperson for the emergent church. In his book The New Christians he says, "Humility about what human beings can know, about the limits of human knowledge and our ability to accurately articulate that knowledge--what philosophers call epistemic humility--is a common trait among emergents.
"This stems, in part, from the acute awareness among emergents that our ancestors were dead wrong about some things in the past. Ask an emergent, 'Why so humble about making strong truth claims?' and you're likely to hear a response like this: 'One hundred years ago, my great-grandfather thought that women shouldn't vote. He was absolutely certain about that, and I'm absolutely certain that he was wrong. Two hundred years ago, my great-great-great-great-grandfather believed that white men should own black men. He was absolutely certain about that, and I am quite certain that he was wrong.
"'I'm humble,' an emergent might tell you, 'because I don't know what I'm wrong about today. I'll speak with confidence, and I'll speak with passion, but I won't speak with certainty.'" (p. 140)
Does that mean there are no things we can be certain about? That there are no absolutes? How do we decide what is cultural and what is eternal? At one time Adventists taught the shut door, that after 1844 no one could be saved who was not part of the original Miller group. Now we no longer believe that. How do you decide what is truth?
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"What is truth?"
We must acknowledge that our understanding of whatever reality exists is partial. Our understandings are always partial because understanding is always a mental shadow, if you will, of whatever reality might be out there, and the image in our brain of that reality will always be less than that reality.
Our understanding of an idea or concept is not the same as whatever that thing really is. The stories and narratives and theology that we tell about God and our world are always incomplete.
However, I would strongly propose that any idea should be measured by its results and its fruit. If an idea is bearing bad fruit, regardless of how "theologically correct" it is, I think it needs to be looked at again. And also, if an idea that we disagree with is bearing good fruit, then maybe we need to take a second look at it.
Our understanding of truth is partial and should be in the process of changing and growing as we learn more about ourselves and our world. Knowing that our understanding is partial should lead us to be humble.
There may be an absolute reality but I don't think that any of us can claim to fully understand it.
The more I recognize that the incompleteness of our theories about God and the universe, the more it drives me back to the basics of how we treat people. Ultimately, our ideas might and probably will be wrong. So to me the way that we implement those ideas (whether positive or negative) matters almost as much as their ultimate "correctness."
I like very much what you say. Jesus did say that it was by their fruit that we would know the right kind of people. And again it was Jesus who said that the authentic way in which we recognize who are his is by how we love one another.
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