1. A belief that the New Testament presentation of Christianity needs to be radically demythologized in accordance with the program of Bultmann, although this is less evident with Tillich, the latter of whose starting-point is philosophical rather than Biblical, but no less the same objective.
2. A belief that the necessary reconstruction must be done on the basis of Heideggerian existentialism, though a major exception to that is in the case of Dr. Paul Van Buren (1924-1998), a major proponent of "secular Christianity" who based his contentions upon linguistic analysis.
Mascall points out that this Van Buren approach is also shared by others, whom he calls "professional Anglo-Saxon linguistic philosophers," noting among them as significant R. B. Braithwaite (1900-1990), a British philosopher who specialized in the philosophy of science, religion, and ethics. To talk a little about Braithwaite, he along with linguist Margaret Masterman (1910-1986) whom later he married, founded the Epiphany Philosophers who consisted of Anglicans and Quakers who wanted to seek a new view of the relationship between science and philosophy ("R.B. Braithwaite," at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._B._Braithwaite - Accessed 2/27/2018). Braithwaite's weakness, though, as noted by Mascall was evident in his 1955 Eddington Memorial Lecture entitled An Empiricist's View of the Nature of Religious Belief, in which he failed in thematic development of his thesis as well as failing to reply to those who were critical of his position. The empiricist-linguistic view that Braithwaite espoused asserted that no theological statements can be taken as factual assertions, and this merits some detail at this point. This separation of theology from philosophy has been an ongoing process that preceded Braithwaite by centuries, as it was evident as far back as William of Ockham, whose denial of the reality of universals facilitated the cracks that led to the rift between philosophy and theology - Ockham advanced the reality of only particulars, and the nominalism he pioneered paved the way for Braithwaite's linguistic empiricism in that it reduced universals as understood to mere names - Ockham's philosophical nominalism was at its heart theological, in that it subjugated God's omnipotence to the order of creation (Hahn and Wiker, Politicizing the Bible, pp. 49-50). Going back further to the Averroist philosophy, in particular as embodied in the thinking of Marsilus of Padua (1275-1342), subjected the role of Revelation to be subordinate to natural reason, rather than being complementary to it as St. Thomas Aquinas taught (Hahn and Wiker, p. 23). Later, Descartes and Spinoza, among others, made this rift even greater, and it led to a break between philosophy and theology that had never existed before - theology for such people codified religious superstition, and was therefore "unreasonable." (Roy A. Harrisville and Walter Sundberg, The Bible in Modern Culture, p. 37). For Spinoza in particular, this meant that Christian faith must be placed under the control of reason, and that control was meant for only an "elite" who rule themselves by rational faculties alone (Harrisville and Sundberg, p. 37). This approach advanced by Spinoza and others treated Scripture dispassionately, and instead reduced it to merely a historical context that takes from Scripture only what human reason can know. This would mesh well with Braithwaite's linguistic-empiricist outlook in that no theological statements (which mirrors Spinoza's accusation of theology being a reflection of religious superstition) can be taken as faction assertions because human reason often cannot comprehend them. It reduces Christianity then, as Mascall quotes from one of his own earlier works on page 16 entitled Words and Images, to a Christianity without God, without grace, and without Christ. He calls this approach correctly a "reductionist Christianity" which discards what cannot be understood by reason, reducing those aspects to merely "entertaining stories." As Mascall notes, this is exactly what Braithwaite was doing, and it sort of flips Archer's earlier discussion of central narrative convictions on its head by suggesting that the "Christian stories" are mere expressions of what are essentially for Braitwaite and others "coping mechanisms" which only provide comfort and entertainment for those who embrace them rather than empirical fact - they provide answers to essential questions, in other words, addressed by CNC's, but those actions are platitudes only with no grounding in reason - in that aspect, Braitwaite sounds very much like Spinoza and others who preceded him. But, is this the case? Aquinas and other classic Christian thinkers differed with that approach radically, and I want to now take Archer's CNC approach and show how in a more culturally-oriented context.
Appalachian scholar Dr. Loyal Jones, in his excellent text Faith and Meaning in the Southern Uplands (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999) notes that Appalachian people see themselves here on this earth and in this life through the lens of their religious beliefs, and that places God directly into that picture (Jones, p. 14). As a sort of variation upon Archer's CNC's, Jones notes that Appalachian people ask some pretty important questions, among them being these:
1. How did we and all around us come to be?
2. Is there a God who created us and everything?
3. If this God is there, what is His nature?
4. Why did He make us as we are, and what is His purpose for our lives?
5. Is there something beyond this life, and if so, what is it like?
6. How is God related to us and all around us in this day and time?
Jones notes that most of the answers to that come from the Bible as well as what we have been taught (CNC's) in other ways, and that meaning starts in Genesis, where God the Creator emerges, as well as establishing the roots of the conflict with Satan's appearance, the Fall, and other factors. As Jones notes, through traditions that have been established, it also means that there is something universal that is shared by Appalachian people with a much larger portion of the human race (Jones, p 51). I share this because I was born in this Appalachian context myself, and what I have found out in my own spiritual growth is that what the universals Appalachians share with others is affirmed in the writings of Aquinas and others, and it is also given shape in the "Fourfold Hermeneutic of Scripture" that orthodox Catholic Biblical scholarship understands, which can be expressed as the following:
1. Literal (what the Bible actually says)
2. Allegorical (what we profess to believe based on typologies, etc., from Scripture)
3. Moral (what we are supposed to do and how we are supposed to live)
4. Anagogical (relates to eschatology and our future hope)
Secular and liberal Biblical scholars have in the past (and still are!) attempted to separate each of these senses from the others, but in reality the totality of Scripture is to be read and understood with all four working together - thus, a literal and true event in Scripture can also have a typological dimension that conveys a cardinal truth or a moral norm, and those in turn point us toward anagogical destiny. Where Braithwaite's linguistic-empiricist approach - as well as Spinoza and others who preceded him - fails is in the denial first off of the literal truth of actual people and events in Scripture, but also in the true application of those allegorical and moral aspects which do cement anagogical hope. We need to remember as well that philosophy and theology compliment each other, and they are in reality inseparable - each of us has a belief about God (or in the case of non-Christian religions, some deity or deities), and each of us has a way of thinking, and these constitute a worldview that has both theological and philosophical dimensions. For the Christian, it means though ultimate truth in the true God, and instead of the imagined conflict between faith and reason that many secularists try to instigate, in reality the same God endowed humanity with both, and they are complimentary rather than conflicting. This is also affirmed in the Thomistic Principle of Non-Contradiction, which states that God authored two "books," Nature and Revelation, and neither can contradict the other although through supernatural grace the truth of Revelation perfects, elevates, and heals Nature. The natural world for the Christian then has at its origin a supernatural Cause, and we know who that is - God.
Returning to Mascall's text, he notes the writing of another one of these individuals who embraces a linguistic-empiricist view similar to Braithwaite's, and this is T.R. Miles (1923-2008). Miles was an Emeritus professor of psychology at Bangor University who wrote extensively on linguistic philosophy, religion, and science, and in doing so he authored a text entitled Religion and the Scientific Outlook that Mascall examines specifically ("Thomas Richard Miles," at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Richard_Miles - Accessed 2/27/2018). Mascall notes that Miles differed with Braithwaite regarding the latter's discussion of "stories," considering this inadequate and deficient in evidence, but does express full agreement regarding references to God as lacking in straightforward literal truth. Miles qualifies his views with a phrase "silence qualified by parables," meaning that the moral behind the parable is valid but the parable itself is not. This warrants some further discussion, and in wrapping up this part of the study we'll address that now.
The traditional and orthodox Catholic "Fourfold Hermeneutic of Scripture" exists for a reason - to put it very basic, it is the way God enabled the Church to communicate the truths of an inerrant Scripture to an audience that spans generations - some truths are allegorical for a reason, in that the audience at the time of the transmission of said truth may not have had the full understanding of that truth that maybe a future generation may see clearly. Does this make the parable in the Gospels, or its originator (Jesus) any less real? Of course not! And, Jesus Himself did use parable to communicate immutable truths that apply not just to one generation, but to all, and therefore to reject God's reality is to reject the truth itself. One of the transcendental properties of being that applies to God, as we have seen, is Truth (along with Beauty and Goodness). God embodies truth, beauty, and goodness, but is also Himself true, good, and beautiful. So, the arrogance of someone like either Miles or Braithwaite to attempt to separate the reality of the author of truth from His truth is absurd at best, and blasphemous at worst. Mascall notes this as well on page 18, when in reference to Miles's ramblings he notes that any unbiased reader will (certainly) feel that there is something very arbitrary about reinterpreting the phrase (a good example he uses) "Thy will be done" (which Guardini, you will remember, identified as the "gateway petition" of the entire Our Father prayer) in a way that "Thy" is not a possessive pronoun is inconsistent with the original context of the phrase itself. Looking at Guardini's text on this, we see the problem with Miles's thesis - Guardini notes in his classic book The Lord's Prayer (Manchester, NH: The Sophia Institute Press, 1986) that God does not wish that his will is to be actualized with the compelling force of nature, but rather it should arise from man's inner being - from his heart, his intellect, his love, and his free will. Therefore, no compelling necessity can force what happens (Guardini, p. 6). He further notes in the same paragraph that certain things - courage, purity, generosity, loyalty to those who trust in us (nobility of character - or, dare I say, noblesse oblige) - are not things that arise automatically or by physical laws; they issue from the freedom of the heart and the will, which transcends those laws and is of supernatural origin - they have their source in a God, in other words, who is very real, and they stand as evidence that someone beyond ourselves has a hand in our own creation and destiny. Therefore, the assertions of Miles are unfounded based even on natural law, which again reflects a supernatural source. Mascall, quoting the Collect for Purity that opens the Anglican Mass in the Book of Common Prayer, affirms this when he notes on page 18 that the wording of this prayer itself - "Almighty God, to Whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts...." - is in itself a presupposition that we behave as if someone can see our innermost thoughts. In this case it is a correct presupposition, in that unlike Miles's arbitrary dismissal of a literal "Thy" in reference to God, there is an inexplanable desire within us to seek out one who does know these things, and although in many cases natural reason cannot tangibly point out this Being, the reality of our own nature is evidence enough that He is there. By the reductionism which Miles and those like him employ to diminish God or reduce Him to an abstract "comfort mechanism," it lays the foundation to reject other truths of the Christian faith which rest upon the reality of God's existence. As Josef Jungmann pointed out in his seminal 1936 catechetical text, The Good News and the Proclamation of our Faith, it is absolutely essential that the Trinity (in particular the person of God the Son in Jesus Christ) be at the central "hub" of all we profess to believe, and every doctrine radiates from that central "hub." Therefore, to diminish or deny it is to in essence deny the whole faith, as Jesus is both the source and the end of our faith. As Cardinal Danielou points out in his seminal text Prayer as a Political Problem (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), it is important to understand that religion, far from being arbitrary "superstition" as Spinoza and others tried to diminish it, is not just concerned with just the anagogical dimension of our faith - it is a constituent element of this life as well, and more importantly it forms part of the temporal common good (Danielou, p. 18). As Danielou also affirms, the Bible is not a mere book of "superstition" and hearsay, as the liberal secularists such as Braithwaite seem to say, but rather it is a very real history which states the evidence for the actions of God and where the Word appears in time (Danielou, p. 88). Again, Mascall's argument that truth cannot be separated from its Source affirms that God is a God of history, and that prayer, far from being a futile effort, is indeed the means by which God has enabled man to seek Him and also to petition His continued intervention in the course of history and indeed of man's individual destiny as well.
By critiquing where certain people have failed in their denial of the realities of God, Mascall is addressing the heart of the problem - a secularized society which excludes belief in God will in time decline, and the decline, I will add, is not necessarily God meting punishment but rather is the natural consequence of our own divorce from Him. It has been correctly said that it is not God who sends people to hell - people do that themselves. God is a God who honors the free will He created us with, and as such it means that if we willfully reject Him, we then willfully choose hell whether we realize it or not. So, whether it be Bultmann, Spinoza, Descartes, Braithwaite, or any of the other secularizing philosophers and theologians discussed, all of them share one thing in common - they willfully rejected God, and by those who willfully follow similar convictions as theirs, it causes society then to make the arbitrary choice to reject God, and that is where secularization comes in. Much of it, unfortunately, is secularism under the guise of Christianity, but the question is whether that variety of Christianity is really Christian at all? Or, is it a sort of dressed-up atheism masquerading as "Christian" in order to deceive others? Mascall's text is addressing that very thing, and as we read more through it, the deception he is confronting presents an even more dire threat today than it did in 1965, when Mascall authored the text we are following. Keep that in mind as we continue the study.
