Final review Proper Confidence by Lesslie Newbiging

Finished reading Proper Confidence by Lesslie Newbigin on my morning walk. His last two chapters are the conclusion to the book. He has spent five chapters detailing the problem and explaining historically how it came to be. To me in many ways this was the best part of the book. I find the links between different philosophical stages fascinating. There was some stuff I was only vaguely aware of. Newbigin’s position is that for the last 1000 or so years the most important philosophical thinking was begin done in Europe. I’ll bet there are some Indians and Chinese who would beg to differ. But anyway.

Newbigin’s conclusions are not new. To me he does earn the right to state them from his describing the problem so well. So his conclusions are described from the aspect of this problem. That is helpful.

His conclusion is that we must believe by faith and then our obedience to acting out our faith will give us assurance. He feels that the idea that we can know for certain (a la Descartes) is impossible. Descartes’ proposition turns out to be false. We can never know without first be called to faith and responding to it. The illustration of Jesus calling Peter to follow him is still apt. We are called just like Peter and we respond by following.

The only one who can take a culturally independent standpoint on life is God himself (page 98). Descartes was certainly wrong when he stated that we too can have such a standpoint. In reading this I have trouble I think for that very reason. I cannot be dispassionate. My enlightenment based biases scream at me. I want to find certainty, to be able to “prove it”. A part of me knows it’s by faith stupid. But I like the Greeks and all of us who follow, want to find an independent way of knowing God exists, outside of revelation. This is called Natural Theology. Newbigin denies that you can know God in this way. Others might say you can know something of God, just not about our Savior Jesus Christ.

A not so minor point: Newbigin denies the infallibility of the Bible (page 85). He implies it before this but here he expressly states it. He says infallibility is a response (by Fundamentalists) to the enlightenment and Descartes. Infallibility arguments lead to absurdity. On page 90 he states that Jesus promised the disciples he would give them the gift of the Holy Spirit. The HS will interpret the meaning of the words and deeds that had gone on before and lead them to the truth. But that does not make them infallible.

He does, on page 91, describe his understanding of Biblical authority. He bases it on John 15:15 – “I no longer call you servants, for a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Knowing involves doing and loving. Quoting here: “The important thing is not how we formulate a doctrine of biblical authority but how we allow the Bible to function in our daily lives.”

Newbigin has some great turns of phrase. There are also places where I struggle to understand what he is getting at. It is short, only 105 pages. He explains why faith can be put on equal faith with some kind of false attempt to be scientific. All such constructs must rely on unproved suppositions. So a Christians assertion that he believes on faith has equal weight with the man who says I do not believe. His is also a kind of faith and he cannot prove his position either. Einstein’s statement that there is no absolute proof in the real world works here.

When I think of that I think of the miraculous, specifically the miraculous healing. No matter how amazing the miracle one can always doubt the truth of what one has seen, explain it away by some physical understanding or simple doubt the honesty of those involved. One chooses to have faith or not.

(Another view of this book)