One of the things that I often see in discussions concerning some thinker is the use of the phrases “agree” and “disagree.” For instance, in relation to my own work I often see phrases like, “I agree with much of what says,” “I don’t agree with everything” or “I disagree with…”
These terms can initially seem like evidence of critical thinking (i.e. someone is willing to critically affirm or question what they are reading), yet these terms are actually more symptomatic of uncritical thought. The reason lies in the way in which these terms imply that the individual is taking the material and simply comparing it with what they already believe is correct. Insofar as what is heard or read corresponds with the persons own position they affirm it and where it differs they reject it.
Something that one learns quickly in a first year philosophy class is the need to suspend this attitude of agreement and disagreement so that we might enter into the world of the philosopher we are reading and let their vision impact our own.
While reading a thinker the question, “where do I agree or disagree with them,” effectively domesticates them and acts as a defense against the possibility of their work actually vacillating our existing paradigm. By vacillating our existing paradigm I mean the experience where one remains within ones intellectual frame, while experiencing it as a frame.
This is a vital experience in the critical process for we need to be exposed to other thinking in order to gain a vantage point over our own way of seeing the world; all the while avoiding the fantasy of being able to step outside of it.
To understand the process we can compare it to being immersed in watching a movie on an old TV set. Imagine that, half way through the film, the screen shakes. At such a moment we gain a distance from the movie while still watching it. We are then reminded of its status as a movie. In the same way the intellectual process involves allowing another to vacillate our paradigm (something apologetic courses are fundemantally set up to avoid). This process involves entering the others world and asking, “where would this thinker agree and disagree with me?”
By doing this one enters into a properly antagonistic relation with the thinker, a relation that is more likely to lead to a development and deepening of ones own thoughts.
… Here is my invitation :) …
I agree.
You are right. But… the disagree/agree is just shorthand for “this makes me afraid; this isn’t what I desire/ this affirms my belief”. You’re right – it’s uncritical. It’s purely reactionary. But nobody lives in a first year philosophy class. And ideas end up having imagined ramifications that hit each of us where we live on a visceral level. This will always trump the intellectual and critical level. -Aaron
I’ve found the knee jerk reaction to be fairly typical of many. I have to watch out for it in myself, despite being fairly open minded and widely read.
I think one thing to take as encouraging in this scenario is that people are even reading stuff they ‘disagree’ with.
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This reminds me of a professor I had who stood in front of the class and said, “whatever else you learn here, I hope you remember this one thing – there are no absolutes.” As everyone was scribbling this down in their notes so they could get it right on their test, I asked, “Is that absolutely true?”
The Christian way is very up front about this – it is not about philosophical agreement or even dialog. It is about raw belief in something incredibly and even ridiculously unlikely – the incarnation of God, the substitutionary human sacrifice of the incarnate God, and the resurrection. We are not really asked whether we agree, we are asked whether we believe.
29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
(John 6:29, NASB).
I’m sure this emphasis on belief brands me as an ignorant moron who doesn’t get your work. Belief is the easy and ignorant alternative. I think that I have chosen belief on a much more profound level, but that is up for discussion – because I invite disagreement. The problem with this post is that you have now cut off any platform for genuine dialog. Your work in some ways is designed to poke at and cut away at the foundations of this kind of uncritical thought. Yet you expect no reaction? I think this is too simplistic; the only way to explore whether our inwardly held beliefs are correct or not is to voice our disagreement, whether it is warranted or not.
You write books with titles like “The Idoloatry of God” in order to ferret out exactly this kind of disagreement, then you say we shouldn’t couch this in terms of agreement and disagreement? The question is whether we do it in an irenic and perhaps teachable fashion, on both sides of the text being examined. The previously held sentiments and beliefs, whether warranted or not, are a part of the mix that really can’t be easily ignored. Setting them aside would in some ways be dishonest.
Would you agree?
“The greatest power of the mind lies in its ability to think for itself and to resist the temptation to blindly follow the thoughts of others.”
– Me (in college 40 years ago)
I can see this point in part, but I tend to use agree/disagree in terms of whether the idea presented in persuasive or unpersuasive. There are some things you say that impact and change my own thinking and others which ultimately fall short. I think I can still agree or disagree after critically engaging the ideas presented. You’ve certainly influenced and challenged my positions, both when I ultimately agree and when I don’t.
Peter, this is great. Helpful.
And corresponds with the whole idea of empathy. To empathize is to get lost in someone else’s experience of the world without losing a footing in your own.
CS Lewis says in his book Experiment in Criticism that you should never make a judgement about a book until you’ve read the whole thing. He says he’s read some really good books where the author shared a different belief system. But he still loved the book and the author’s ability to take him outside himself (which he says is the point of reading altogether).
I think the Emergent movement and Peter’s work in particular are a response to the short comings of the modern church. We can all acknowledge that there is a different reality one must live in in order to truly assimilate into most churches- be they Evangelical, mainline Protestant, Catholic, etc.
The Emergent church seems more eager to “unify” reality, to live in the 21st century and acknowledge scientific realities while also affirming the truth of Christ. Is it possible to do so without challenging the Midieval doctrine that dominates Christian faith and practice?
By defending these traditional doctrines, aren’t you really saying that the Reformers, Pope, Council of Nicea, and the like are more divinely empowered to understand and teach Scripture than anyone else?
What say you, Jim McNeely? I’d like to note that I can see things from your point of view because I used to hold a perspective like yours. I’m a former pastor and seminary student who has spent more than 20 years studying the Bible. Can you see things from my point of view?
I disagree with the way the publishing date is presented on your blog. Clearly the correct order is month, day, and year. I’m afraid your current format has the potential to mislead people (mainly Americans) to the false belief that you’ve written this blog post one month into the future; and as an upstanding Christian, I must call you out on your false teachings.
A second thought… if we stay in the arena of critical thinking alone… Peter’s thoughts here have merit. But if we zoom out and think more broadly across all human interaction & thinking, Peter’s musings above are actually profound. For example… human beings all too often seek to broker a peace that says “I agree w/ you.” When agreement is not at all necessary for peace.
Seeking agreement and noticing disagreement is not only sloppy thinking… it is lazy. It not only keeps us from letting ideas flourish… it keeps us from human flourishing. My two cents.
@Tom,
Of course I see your perspective. I’ve been following Peter for some time, I love his ideas even though I don’t see eye to eye with him on everything. Ironically, I don’t care who I agree or disagree with. I think you are imagining that I occupy a space that I myself am uncomfortable with. If I agree with Hitler that fried fish tastes good, does that make me a Nazi? In the same way, if I happen to agree with the pope or the reformers on some important points, and if I agree with Peter Rollins on some important points, does that make me either a catholic or a calvinist or pyro-thelogist? Of course not – each person holds their own axioms and perspectives in a unique way.
As Peter has said, we are all monsters to one another in our disagreement. I have taken this hugely to heart. It takes courage to come out of our cave and admit our presuppositions to those who might prove to be our detractors. If you want to change and grow and learn, and if you want your own ideas to spread, you must engage with people outside of your presuppositional comfort zone. I think Peter is saying this, and I’m sorry to say, I quite agree with him. You have to engage with those who disagree with you. Ironically, in posting thoughts about the weakness of the world of agreement/disagreement, he risks couching his entire oeuvre in terms of agreement and disagreement. He has opened the box on Shrödinger’s cat, and it is better left in a quandary. We can remove the barrier of bad agreement or disagreement by allowing it on the table as an allowed and even treasured factor.
If I am going to meaningfully engage with his thought, I have to bring my visceral and emotional beliefs to the table, and in effect walk in the light with them. I can’t shelve my agreement or disagreement, they are an honest part of the landscape. I will listen and even change and be influenced because I confess my whole agreement/disagreement without fearing judgment. I can come with the humility to listen to those whose ideas I fear because I know I am forgiven all through the cross of Christ, even the sin of agreeing or disagreeing with Peter Rollins.
@Tom,
Also, another thought. It FEELS like what is secretly being said here is that we should shelve our disagreements and agreements with the things that Peter says, and what that really means is, if I am to listen to Peter I can only say I have legitimately listened if I 100% agree. I think that is disrespectful and makes a monster of me. If I am a monster in my beliefs and my agreement/disagreement, how will I ever be healed if I cannot be engaged in the midst of my dysfunction?
The real question is, do I have to “agree” with Peter or you to respect your ideas and allow them to influence my own thought? Does influence = agreement? Can I love someone while disagreeing with them? It is the judgment and anger between us that Christ bore, so despite our lack of presuppositional concurrence we can still love because the judgment we hold dear has been visited with justice on the cross.
AND, ironically, in saying so, I end up in pretty much 100% agreement with Peter’s original point don’t I? Even if he disagrees with the penal substitution thing.
Love and blessings and grace to you.
On one hand, I “agree”: I think we do need to really let the paradigm-shattering ramifications of thought we may not like disrupt our core assumptions, and bring those core assumptions to light.
On the other hand, I’m not convinced that anyone who speaks sincerely about ‘disagreeing’ with certain aspects of your thought has necessarily not engaged enough with it yet. Is it possible that one could actually imbibe your thought and that of continental philosophy, truly wrestle with it’s implications, let the disturbance of one’s own paradigm take place, and yet still find the new paradigm honestly wanting in certain areas? I feel like those in the radical theology wing tend to say things like ‘once you’ve been exposed to these ideas, you can never go back’. Maybe for those readers that is their experience, but there seems to be a reflexive supercessionism at work here, an assumption that if anyone does respond by ‘disagreeing’ with the ideas on offer, they must necessarily have not fully wrestled with them yet.
“This process involves entering the others world and asking, “where would this thinker agree and disagree with me?
By doing this one enters into a properly antagonistic relation with the thinker, a relation that is more likely to lead to a development and deepening of ones own thoughts.”
Those of you who are reading this as Peter saying that we should shelve our disagreements should re-read this part. He’s not saying that it is wrong to think about agreement/disagreement, but that it is unhelpful and unloving to approach a person who is laying himself bare—sharing his thoughts and attempting to put to words his take on the ineffable—as if he or she is a buffet table. The picky eater always wants a buffet so that he can pick and choose. He already knows what he likes (chicken tenders and frries – no ketchup). He may feel perfectly happy to eat the same thing all the time, but its because he is assuaging his fear of the unknown with familiarity and his guilt with judgment (everything else is disagreeable).
The true lover of food though would rather trust the chef to serve him whatever he thinks is best knowing full well that he may not like it, but valuing the experience enough to try it. He appreciates the meal as a gift from the chef, regardless of it’s quality. In this he may end up disagreeing with the chef’s seasoning (in fact the food may be rotten or just plain bad), but his goal is to refine his palette not be eternally satisfied by the meal. In this, his palette is expanded and his ability to acknowledge the value of another’s tastes is expanded.
Perhaps a better way to understand what I believe is underlying Peter’s argument is to say that what is being suggested is that we are (not should be, but are) more Humean than we are Kantian. That is our emotive and intuitive sides are the primary gatekeepers of our processing of information, and our rational side serves them both. Jonathan Haidt’s work is exceptional in this regard (See his “The Righteous Mind”). From this, Peter is advocating an arresting of this process–as much as is possible–so that we can lovingly and truly enter the world of the other, not permanently, but sincerely, even if, after the true encounter, we “recover” back to our own worlds unchanged. (This is what I believe he means, in part, by “experiencing our intellectual frame as frame”.)
Having said that, I’m not sure the elegance of Peter’s suggestion matches the processes of human nature. In other words, I’m not sure “thinking ourselves through” to the “Other” realistically gets us as far as he wishes.
@Nate – making me hungry!
Haha, : )
Interesting, “properly antagonistic” seems to be revealing in ones intention. I don’t tend to interpret the biblical text as portraying of an actual satanic being but that it seems to portray a way in which the
potential for catalyst or antagonist can be helpful or merely gaining a perpetual payoff from the use of antagonizing and even able to “deceive” many toward the actual direction or purpose – at the very basics the simple “fruit” is whether love increases or merely perpetual entanglement that then feeds off that as the seen result, even able to place the blame on victims or an “other” for the sake of a sense of self preservation and transferring away from that revealed motivation. In this I do see how in that sort of “battle” the agree/disagree form or stance will be a weakness or merely a solid wording susceptible to the entanglement/deception for it always carries a blind spot or area that can always continue to manipulate. Whereas from what I have experienced, a loving act of antagonism or challenge that gives ones self into it, sacrifices, even attempts communication with words known to then be used against them – still does the work, still remains and holds tightly to the one it intends to uplift. But that would be more on the level of a “type” of comparison to the “words that become flesh” type scenario where it is known that within that atmosphere of disagree/agree risk among a master manipulator, to simply speak out any word can easily become the very excuse used against them. It then must be a battle of truth/love and words/entanglement. interesting dynamics though for vague to war against vague, and love in the midst and deep convictions for truth.
In that sense, love (theologically) that becomes “flesh” simply acts as a sense of arriving at what can’t fully arrive for the sake of the potential benefit, in that sense a story about love manifesting into a graspable form seems fitting that it might then be torn to shreds but that the benefit might be revealed, just like we do with words that have a sense of finality, or that are vulnerable to a sense of using the sense of finality against them with others.
Peter, I appreciate everything here except the word “antagonistic,” which I’ve never thought was necessary to critical thinking.
What I learned from attempting (not always successfully) irenic theological exchange was to view it as if I and another held up the jewels in which we had seen divinity/grace, and even rubbed them together. Sometimes the light reflected from one jewel illuminated something new inside the other. Sometimes they actually flaked new facets off of each other. It’s only the fear of new light, new facets that makes the process antagonistic. I try to be unafraid.
Been thinking a lot about this over night. One poster earlier said something about agreeing with Hitler’s preference for fried chicken does not (necessarily) make them a Nazi. What if you agreed with Hitler’s hair colour preference? Would ‘preferring’ blondes in the same way as Hitler make you a Nazi? In some peoples eyes, yes. But the point is that you have to understand the context if Hitler’s view on hair colour, i.e. immerse yourself more fully in his writing and thinking.
Oh and I would hope get a little antagonistic in there as well.
I see your point.
The mind is a beginningless and endless program of opposites. Therefore, the use of the mind – no matter how finely honed – never results in the discovery of Truth.
The human mind is always involved in, and a generator of a pattern of opposites or contradictions. It is also based on the presumption of a separate fixed point of view in time and space. Therefore, no Truth ever comes as a result of any engagement in (or any study, quantifation, or analysis) of that pattern of opposites and contradictions.
Agreed! lol
With regards to Helmut statement of ‘the mind is a beginningless and endless program of opposites’ is that not a presupposition that you bring to the table in relation to how you understand truth, and so a statement of truth of how we never discover truth, or rather your presupposition never gives up the concept of truth which you claim we can’t discover.
Additionally, Peter, I am fatigued at the number of emails/IMs/etc that I receive or conversations that I have indicating “IMHO” (In my humble opinion). Opinion by definition indicates an egotistical move on the part of the sender and humility has no place in that phrase – it’s an oxymoron. Conversation, real conversation and dialogue cannot happen until we as a culture understand that disagreement is acceptable and expected and that we must learn to speak with civility. IMHO feigns humility and beats up the one who is listening – “Oh, this person is humble, I have to listen to her/his opinion…”
I like what you had to say and need to chew on it and practice it more.
Peace,
Tim
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Is the actional equivalent of this an aspect of intercession?
Peter, I find I’m much reminded of the situation it looked like you were in since the disagreement with a doctor at a meeting where you prayed for a man with a broken arm and a doctor (unlike Luke, it seemed) overrode you and wanted an ambulance; the place of human gifts and spiritual gifts of healing, unlike between Paul and Luke (in the end at least), never yet seemed reconciled. The situation looked even more than before, like Elijah’s at Beersheba and Horeb, if I may say so; I must let other people check this impression I had, whether I have wrongly or falsely seen. Cheers and regards.
Peter, thanks for taking the time to point me back to your article. This is really much deeper than I can take in at one sitting. Your ideas here can be life-changing. Imagine if “I” really toss myself fully into the “other” and ask, “How would she disagree with me?” This is something to chew on for a few days.
Peace,
Tim
The first time I read this, I laughed a lot.
What you say is amusing. If it is true that intellectual perspectives vary, then it would seem advantageous to step into another’s intellectual perspective in order to engage and understand. However, this is the point at which most people become extremely paranoid, when asked to frame the terms they use. It invades their “privacy” – our personal beliefs and ideas – to allow another that intimate knowledge, which we know they cannot fully understand. Our experiences cannot be fully expressed, because we do not fully understand them ourselves.
I can attempt to enter your perspective of agreeing/disagreeing, but ultimately fail due to a lack of understanding you as a whole.
In the end, reiteration of ideas presented, agreeing or disagreeing, any interaction with another thinking individual can be viewed as either critical thought or uncritical thought. Merely vacillating between two different views of the other’s purposes in interacting with you