the topic is that of faith and truth (as the truly insightful have already gathered from the title :), and the relationship between them. newbigin traces the roots of modern day nihilistic thinking to the 17th century philosopher descartes (pronounced day-cart). you might not recognize the name, but chances are you have heard his most well known saying: cognito ergo sum (in latin), translated, "i think, therefore i am". descartes was searching for a basis for truth that could in no wise be doubted. he finally came down to the fact that if he is thinking, that proves he exists and therefore this is the uncontestable basis for all further knowledge.
newbigin points out that this conclusion was one of the greatest mistakes of modern history. what it effectively did was shift the basis of truth from divine revelation to man himself. all of a sudden man was the ultimate authority for truth and critical doubt was exalted over faith. what this does, what this ultimately leads to, is a world where no one can know anything. the only belief that remains is that life is without truth outside of self, and therefore without real meaning. in other words, nihilism.
what newbigin insightfully points out is that no one can doubt anything except on the basis of a firm belief in some other theory. every time someone criticizes the christian faith (or any other belief system), it can only be on the basis of another, contrasting belief which is held a-critically. he points out that in fact the humanistic atheist is just as dogmatic (and actually more so) as the christian he criticizes for claiming to have absolute truth.
very often the example of 5 blind men and an elephant is used by the atheist/agnostic to try to prove that no one faith is right. the story (if you haven't heard it), is that a king brought an elephant to 5 blind men and told them to describe the elephant. well, each one touches a different part of the animal, an ear, the trunk, the tail, a leg, the side and each gives a different description of the elephant as like a fan, a snake, a rope, a tree, and a wall, respectively. the point is then made that they were all right in part, but no one had the whole truth. newbigin points out 2 problems with this story. 1) there is a king who can see and is able to see all, including the true nature of the elephant. when an agnostic says "the blind men are like all the different religions", we must say "well, that must make you the king! how is it that you know ultimate reality well enough to determine that all the world's faiths are not correct?" 2) the real objection that the agnostic has is that someone claims to have absolute knowledge of the reality of the universe, absolute truth.
here newbigin discusses what the agnostic (or pluralist) means by this phrase "absolute truth" - in a word, it is the position of the king. it is what descartes went searching for: something which could never be doubted. newbigin makes the challenge that in this sense, we as christians do not have "absolute truth". that is, we have not seen God. and we cannot say that it is something which is impossible to doubt. in fact our belief in Jesus as God and the Lord of human history is just that: belief. it is faith. of course the Bible is very clear about faith being the way that we enter relationship with God. but newbigin challenges that modern christianity and apologetics have made a huge mistake in accepting the "reigning plausibility structure" of the modern west. that is, that we often try to defend christianity in a way that never calls into question the modern dichotomy of facts (usually scientific) as public truth and values as mere personal beliefs. he argues that without faith it is impossible to know anything. even the scientist has great faith in all the training he received, the books he read, and perhaps most of all in the concept that the universe is rational and therefore possible to study. but there is no physical evidence for that understanding; it is a belief.
in contrast to descartes' "cognito ergo sum", newbigin quotes the early church father st. augustine's "credo et intelligum", or in english "i belive in order to know" as the right understanding. that is, that faith is the basis of all real knowledge. the question obviously arises, "if our trust in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior cannot be proven as "absolute truth" in the sense of something that cannot be doubted and if we do not have objective truth in the sense of the king in the parable of the elephant, what keeps someone, or us ourselves, from drowing in subjectivity and the attack that faith is simply personal preference?"
newbigin answers this by saying that our faith in Christ, though requiring a personal commitment (that it costs me something personally to believe) and therfore has a subjective element, is not merely "my opinion" because it is faith held with "universal intent". that is, all knowledge requires this type of faith commitment (though some like descartes would like to dream of a type of truth that didn't require personal commitment to that truth to know it), but the christian truth to which we commit is one that claims to be true for all men at all times. the truth that we have is not "objective" in the sense that it is exhaustive or without personal risk, but it is universal in its claim and scope and therefor not mere opinion. the only thing availible without faith is nihilism (which, btw, is where many are headed and is reflected in much of the post-modern art and philosophy).
well, i'll stop my book report now.
i myself have only read half of the book so far, but already it is, i think, fascinating and a great help in understanding how to find the right approach in witnessing to the agnostic/pluralist. i highly recommend it for that reason, though i'll make the disclaimer that there are some things that he states, i.e., his understanding of in what sense the Bible is "the Word of God", apparent amillenialism, that i disagree with. but that shouldn't stop one from gleaning from it what is insightful and edifying. well, if anyone has read this book, or simply after chewing over the brief summary i've given here, i'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
