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Lunch on The Way
Kia Ora Koutou, and welcome to Lunch on The Way! We're three guys doing theology over lunch, and sometimes we'll do that with others. We talk about church, culture, theology, philosophy, and more, always wanting to be as practical as possible. This is a thinking podcast more than a teaching podcast. We want to warn you, that what's said here is not yet complete, because, like any good conversation, you never want it to end.
Lunch on The Way
A Solution to the Problem of Religious Experiences and Objective Truth
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this conversation, Graeme and Joey speak with Curtis Davis who just completed his MTh at Laidlaw College, where he clarified the methodology of Critical Realism for understanding reality and what the world is.
Curtis Davis graduated from Laidlaw College in 2026 and is currently a police recruit in New Zealand. He is a brilliant Christian who is passionate about evangelism and theology which relates to practical outcomes.
00:00 Introduction
00:47 Framing the conversation
08:17 Post-modernsim and anti-essentialism
13:12 The meta-modern problem
20:37 Ontology conditions epistemology
28:29 What is critical realism?
45:09 A critique of critical realism
51:00 Jesus is the key to experience
1:07:07 Curtis' S.U.R.E. methodology
Podcast hosts are Greame Flett, Jonathan Hoskin, and Joey Millington.
The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals expressing and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of any affiliated organisations or ministries.
I've got cancer. I go to church one Sunday, I go to the front, I'm prayed for, and I have this incredible encounter with God. I then go back to the doctor and find that actually the cancer's in remission. Does critical realism do a better job with that, exactly?
SPEAKER_00And I think that was my ultimate critique against critical realism. It's that at the end of the day. But how would critical realism speak to that person encountering Christ? But critical realism is zooming out to see, okay, so that's the phenomenological domain, and that is somehow couched in a world.
SPEAKER_04What exactly are you talking about?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So we got a problem today. The problem is how do we know what's real? Wow, right?
SPEAKER_01Wow. I thought you were gonna say something more profound than that. Yeah, well, no, I think so going through my head. I just um Yeah, uh trying out a car, and I know that's real when I get in it.
SPEAKER_04So, you know, it's a big vehicle, so but we're trying to figure out what's what's real, and Curtis is here today because he's talking he's written a master's thesis on a methodology of how how to best get to what can be more concrete and real about the world. And so, Curtis, before we get into the specifics, like why why the heck are you writing on this topic that you know is is niche within you know even the discipline of philosophy and and theology? Why do you want to know what's real? What's your problem?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I guess the story starts um of of why I wanted to start studying. Yeah, yeah. And um I just ended up in a space where I was traveling New Zealand and um I had my tools with me, I've got a uh background in cabinet making, and I wanted to be a a missionary type type thing. And I met all sorts of different Christians, and then I very quickly realized that I need to needed to ask questions around, you know, what is the church and why are there so many different types of denominations and Christians, etc. And so that led my studies. That led me to starting study, and I looked at our studies and I went, practical theology, I'm a practical guy, I want to do practical stuff.
SPEAKER_04That's the impression I got when you were my one of my students in your first year. Yeah, right. Yeah. That's that's the impression I got. So I'm glad that you've got to be.
SPEAKER_01But I wonder if it was more than that though, the the notion that that so the practical is there's got to be some sort of bridge between this thing of thinking and and doing.
SPEAKER_00Is that something that you well I've got an affinity with with the idealists um as well as the pragmatists? Yeah. So I'm uh I think I'm visionary, but I very quickly realised in in the studies doing doing practical theology that okay, well, in order for me to be practical, I need to like dive deep. And so then I sort of reposition to go, well, how does systematics fit into this? How do how does our um how do our biblical methodologies and proper exegesis and how do how do all of these contribute to being better in the practical field? Yeah. And um so the thesis is pretty much um as close as the sun as I can get before coming back down, really.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But you don't want to fly too close. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to get too close to the sun. Yeah, I'll be stuck here. No, no.
SPEAKER_04You know, it's true. So you had you had practical, pragmatic reasons. You're like, I want to actually do ministry, I want to be involved. Initially, you said I want to be involved in missions and I want to be able to do that well. And you just said I need to I need to actually get to the philosophy and to the to the methodology and the systematic theology to then go back into practical theology. So why all the way there? Like, why did that even matter? That that leap, that jump over to philosophy and and methodology and systematics? Like what in that helps the practice of ministry? Um philosophy specifically, or well, I don't know anything, because you you intuited that you gotta go somewhere a bit more abstract before you can get concrete again. Yeah. So what are you what were you trying to what were you disensing in in that shift, in that move?
SPEAKER_00Yeah Yeah, just kind of discerning, well, what is mission for me, what is vocation, and um uh what is a sermon, I suppose. So what am I actually teaching? But having gone through systematics and different systematic theologies with different denominations and churches, then I got more into the dogmatic side of things. So um uh a real robust Christology, a real robust Trinitarian thought. And then ultimately ultimately it's like, how do you bring this um outside? And I think that that's the that's the slight jump into philosophy because um my intention with this research was more of a uh what is a theological epistemology or an apologetic that is tailored for today and the contemporary era, um, you know, with with the philosophy everyone has in their head, you know. Uh the cultural the cultural movement, I suppose, or moment, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, okay, so it was so that was that's the rationale. So here we go. So then what problem are you trying to solve, you think, like in this thesis, before we actually get into it? Like what are you what is the point of this? What's the tension for you?
SPEAKER_00Um well the tension is the the age-old philosophical question of how does uh ontology or how does uh what is, so uh being the world around us? How how um how does that relate to our thinking? Um and then the downstream the the question is is okay, there's there's laws such as like gravity, that's like a it's a law, but but from our analysis of the world that's outside of us, if you will, um how do we derive value and what is human flourishing? Because that's that's a key word, flourishing um emancipation. So if we're gonna be emancipatory, if we're gonna have moral behavior, how can we actually discern what is truly moral or what is yeah? And I think that we need to think about that um as easy as it is to say, well, the Bible says so.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yes, yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because you don't want to just default to scripture as okay, this is the word of God in the sense so this is what needs to happen for you, for truth and for ethics. Because not everyone's there in real in the out there world, right? If you if you go to the Bible right away, people are like, I don't care, we have to say. But are you trying to build a system not not instead of the scriptures, but are you trying to build a system that kind of complements the scriptures but then can speak to the world outside the church a little bit?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well it's thoroughly biblical. It's just it's just a uh a helpful apolog apologetic for our for the current age that I think that we're in. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So if I'm hearing you correctly, it's like um So you're Curtis, you're out there and you meet somebody well say like me. Yeah, yeah. Um and I'll change my narrative. And I I have a have a I don't have a Christian will view but I have a very strong um dare I say it, atheist view or Sure, sure. You know, and I and I prescribe to a particular story. I is that the question that you want to be able to relate to, get underneath that and and in one sense uh not to make an argument but to to actually get right underneath that to see what what they're sitting on. So then you can communicate. Something that kind of bridges that gap. Is that is that how you think it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I think that a lot of relational breakdown or dysfunction in r in a relational sense um comes as a result of not hearing the other person or misunderstanding or kind of seeing that sort of stuff and not caring. And so an apologetic, I think, is is right to think about because how are we gonna appro approach people that are in today's setting, w fully acknowledging that we're all conditioned by our context. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I like really like the kind of notion of the the notion of the relation that that that's the vehicle in which we'll understand the other person. Yeah, yeah. Not not just looking at a kind of idea.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So then what's the problem with the current age we live in? Because you just kind of said that a little bit. I feel like that's in the backdrop as well. So what's like around truth and what's real, what are you kind of sensing out there? That's like the dominant cultural thrust to knowing truth or what there is to know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um well, what we've got to work with is what we've got and what we're exposed to, um, etc. And so um just in a general sense, and yeah, unfortunately, a lot of these thoughts are gonna be conveyed in a general sense, but uh That's okay. Or very general. Or describe more like intuitively versus with with robust distinction. Um but I guess I I I guess in a in a general sense, um we were modernists after the Enlightenment period. Um we we went through a stage of modernism, and modernism is there's a cultural aspect and there's a philosophical aspect.
SPEAKER_01Let's just unpack that a little bit. That's more for our listeners. Sure, sure. Yeah. When you say modernism, just define what you mean.
SPEAKER_00Oh, just just um the modern scientific um methodology approach to the world. So modernism is characterized typically as grand narratives, and grand narratives that are like sort of localized but preached as truth.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00And then and and so then out of modernism comes our critique, and we begin to basically critique these grand narratives. And all of a sudden we begin to see that, oh wait, there's so many more narratives. You know, there's narratives on on the fringe, fringes, there's uh been oppressed peoples, there's been voices that haven't been heard. So that's the that's the postmodern impetus. Um we see that cultural aspect come out in art and music and everything sort of changes, but philosophically it's it's that. So, but I think that with with modernism, there was a real focus on um, so when we're speaking about truth, our language was referential, or we believed that our language was referential of essences. So an essence is a thing in itself, so like gold. I can't say that gold has 73 um electrons, I think. Um not a scientist, but I uh but gold is constituted of 72. Um and so when I say gold, I'm actually referencing something, even though I suppose my language around gold itself is is uh rather indirect. But when we're talking about religion or art, there's no real fixed essence to to relate it to. So postmodernism goes more anti-essentialist, which then leads us to essentially going, like, how can we be sure of anything?
SPEAKER_04What anti-essentialist?
SPEAKER_00What is anti-essentialism? That's pretty much, yeah, what is truth? What is art? What is religion? Because there's no fixed thing that I can point to. Yeah. So that so that would be anti-essentialist.
SPEAKER_01So you kind of get to the idea that, hmm, well, if there's nothing, then it's basically I can I'm constructing my own reality and you're constructing your own reality and happy yeah, have a happy life together. Yeah. Yeah. Not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, I I do like the distinction with the modernism though, because the modernism, from what I understand, it originally comes from metaphysics, which is what's what's reality about, right? Or like above the the the physical order. Like what is reality? And then so there's like a branch of philosophical metaphysics, but then there's scientific metaphysics. Yeah. Which you're talking about, the scientific metaphysics, which is what modernism turned into post-Enlightenment, which is okay, if I'm talking about gold, we're really talking about the chemical breakdown of gold. Yeah. And that's its essence, and that's what what makes gold real. Yeah. But then when you talk about abstract concepts you can't measure through an empirical methodology, which is what science does, then you get in that's when you get to theology, right? From philosophy. And the two are a branches of metaphysics from my from what I understand. But then you're saying then because of there's there's this grand narrative that is shaping how science is done, and that people believe that they have a corner on truth and they know what's real and what's not real. Yeah. They're they're actually forgetting that they they live within a narrative. Yeah. And that narrative, which we're gonna get there at some point, is actually that first step of faith towards beginning to know what's in the world. Right. And then so the postmodern turn or the non-essential anti-essentialist turn is well, everybody has a valid per narrative and perspective that helps them intuit what truth is in the world. Is that am I hearing you right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's that's that's brilliant. So, but if we push radically towards anti-essentialism, nothing really matters. Um and I don't think that that gels well with us. And I've got my presuppositions about anthropology and whatnot, but I just don't think that we really want to believe that. Um I think at best we're agnostic. I don't think you can really truly be atheist. Um, I don't think you can. Yeah, yeah. So so the question is, is what comes next? Um we're s we've seen a cultural shift, but um philosophers now uh that I've been engaging with they're going, well, um it's also an academic paradigmatic model um that we're moving into. And so whatever this model is, it's kind of like what is after postmodernism? Post-postmodernism Gen Z, you know. Um but I I've I've been running with some others who are calling this meta-modernism. And meta means above and beyond. And I think an apt analogy is Hegel's dialectic, where he goes thesis plus antithesis equals synthesis, or A plus B equals C. But C it's it's not linear, C is Afebang or a sublation, and it's and it's something better, it's a it's a hermeneutical spiral, essentially. And so metamodernism is uh modernism, the best of modernism and the best of postmodernism, uh, which come to form this new thing. And so then philosophers and also uh our culture, we're trying to figure out well, how do I live in a context where it is heavily uh we we recognize that it's heavily mind-dependent and contextual and relative. We've got to listen to, we've got to try listen to others. But also when we talk about ethics, ethics is somewhere about here. When we speak about ontology, it's somewhere about here. We're introducing a bit of a hierarchy again. And so how do we how do we um yeah, so how do we reinterpret this major intellectual thrust in the current context? And this is this kind of emerging uh metamodernism, which is kind of kind of described or or anticipated by like paradox in in the arts world. It's kind of ironic similarity.
SPEAKER_04When I first came across um, because that's what meaning is, is in the arts, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meaning is relatively concrete, isn't it? We all mean sorry, Graham, go for it.
SPEAKER_01No, I first heard about metamodernism about twenty fourteen. Right, yeah. Right, right. Um and and then I'm I'm sort of got well, curious enough to sort of have a little look. I did an in-depth look. But it appeared to me to be m uh a sort of an artistic sort of emergence of you know the aesthetic. Which is interesting. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah. Which aesthetics are when you could argue that aesthetics are about an ontology. Yeah. In the sense that we we we we we we feel the world, we intuit the world, you know, through our senses. It's it's it's beautiful. It's it moves.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's very human, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's right. So there's a that's a that's an ontology.
SPEAKER_04Well that's the best part about the meta modern movement is that it's a it's a recapturing of that narrative-based anthropology of you you actually can't be human without an overriding um guiding narrative. And uh, but and so it seems like what the postmoderns have done, obviously correct me if I'm wrong, but the postmoderns have done is they they've equalized all narratives as as being the same in the sense of like, well, who am I to say what is right and wrong because this is true for this group of people, and that's true for that group of people, so they both must be true. But the meta-modern turn is trying to say, actually, no, there are some narratives that that have like all these different narratives have like essences about them, if you will, for lack of a better term. Yeah. Um that that speak to something that's almost beyond the narrative itself. That's like like kind of like trans-narrative almost. Right. I I don't know, maybe we're getting too far, but it it's just like actually there's there's something that we can then say possibly about ethics and morality based on some types of narratives that are out there.
SPEAKER_00But that but that statement alone s slightly rebels against the postmodern impetus. Yeah. But you haven't actually moved from postmodernism, you've moved through it with all of the insight that we've gained from it. And so it's actually Jason Storm from Chicago, who's I believe uh I mean, no, I b I believe that he's the first person to write what a what a meta-modern uh philosophy would look like. Is he a philosopher? Yeah, he's an analytic philosophy.
SPEAKER_01At Chicago at Chicago.
SPEAKER_00At Chicago University. I was an analytical philosopher. Yeah, yeah. And he wrote this book called Meta Modernism, um, I think a future theory of knowledge. And he basically delineates or or anticipates what he thinks metamodernism would look like. And it's interesting because a lot of it is a yes and amen, you know. Um but with with us as humans, or maybe just the Western intellectual thrust, um he's not going to engage with with theology and also Christian theology, but it's very w widely known that spirituality basically opens back up to us because we're beginning to consider it.
SPEAKER_01It has a legitimate claim. It has a legitimate claim at the table.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Because we're we're getting more comfortable making value judgments again. I mean, we can write our essays about um like definitions of words, but at uh words, but at a at a point we've got to go, okay, that's the best we've got. It's better or worse, it's good enough, and what are we gonna do with that? Let's be constructive.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, this is this is the irony, the deep irony about postmodern philosophy when it's actually outworked in the real world, is that everybody believes in a particular morality and ethic, right? And so it's so here's a great example, and this is c relatively recent, I think two or three years ago. No, two years ago, the Anglican uh communion across the world kind of divided between Africa and the West. Yes. Because of some stances on um on homosexuality and some stances on uh blessing of marriage and things like that that came out of England. And so the African church was like, heck no. And this is where you found what I found fascinating was all the like the more progressive leaning Episcopalians in the US were just like so uh like they they took a value stance and they said, No, you can't we we are diametrically opposed to what Africa's doing. Actually, Africa needs to get on board with what we're doing. And ironically, in a sense, it was like intellectual colonization. Right. Which is the argument. It's like, well, you know, within your postmodern theory, who are you? Actually, you're going completely against you're doing a different form of colonization, which you guys absolutely abhor. So it's like so you're making a value judgment. Yeah. So what's going on here? So then what's right? And how do you do it? Yeah. And how did you get there? Yeah. And so this is why the question of what you're trying to tackle is so important, is because you can't just believe anything is true. Because nobody functions like that. Nobody lives in the world like everything is fair game. Um, the second you get wronged, yeah, you want to know what's real and what's true, right?
SPEAKER_01Is that a a uh uh because I got this burning question in me because it was a statement that you said in in the uh your brief that I read that ontology conditions epistemology. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I thought it was quite a good comment. That was a good statement. Yeah, and so I was interested to explore that. And I just wondered in that comment, so you're American Escapalians, we have a you know, we're in this context of postmodernism, you know, it's kind of skepticism about where we've been, and therefore there's a there's a kind of engagement with the uh cultural frame, uh, which is could be an on an ontology, with a sort of mixing with a epistemology, and then it's it it it goes over to Africa and tries to colonize there.
SPEAKER_04So I'm I might have some of the details wrong, but there's two denominations that are having some trouble right now with that. Using that using that analogy.
SPEAKER_01Can you just unpack what you mean by on ontology, conditioning, and epistemology? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um can you redefine those two terms? Yeah, because I think it's a helpful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I th I thought it was a helpful helpful statement.
SPEAKER_00But uh Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well it's s it's certainly not my own, but but yeah, very very much adopted it. It's it's just putting the uh the horse before the cart, really, just laying down the one of the first axioms. Um so ontology is uh the study of of what is, um, and epistemology is really the study of how we arrive at that, and phenomenon phenomenology is just is the study of that conscious experience within it. Um and so having defined those terms on ontology, um we're we must exist before we think, really. We must exist before we think.
SPEAKER_04It sounds a no-brainer, but yeah. You'd be surprised when people forget that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like we're not a brain in in a vat, and I think that um we don't sit outside. What's it yeah. You've got eyes and ears and I think touch and feel. I think I think that once we once we make those commitments, it it hedges out a bunch of other stuff that okay, cool. I know where I stand. And I think I think that's the difficulty, uh like maybe going down some layers. You see, I'm doing that layered thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh Uh but but going down some layers to um our our ethics and our ethical systems, the biggest issue that I've come across doing ethics is is m we need boldness to make our ethical stances, but as soon as you make a claim, that's when you open yourself up to critique. And that's what I think that um we struggle with, but what sincerity and authenticity and truth demands as we move forward in our cultural progression. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I I who were we talking to? I think it was Sam Burroughs and was there and Jonathan was here. And Sam Sam was talking about truth and how truth is relationship uh at a fundamental level because we are being we were conceived and formed and given birth in relationship. Like our our being is we are already a part of something ontologically speaking, in our in our being before we even think. And so there's there's we do need to come to terms with, okay, then what is that being? And how does that being then lead to truth? What happens though if you do the opposite? Uh this might be a tough question to ask, but I'll ask it anyway. What happens when you go lead with epistemology with knowing before ontology and being? What what kind of what might you get out? Like what what might be the problem with that, maybe?
SPEAKER_00Um a lack of confidence, I uh yeah, a lack of a lack of confidence. Um making your value judgments and your and your philosophy and your approach to life. And I think that's that's the insecurity of of um sort of a hard anti-essentialist uh postmodernism. I think that's where you see that insecurity.
SPEAKER_04So you think postmodernism is is epistemology first before ontology? Possibly.
SPEAKER_00Uh not necessarily, but it can certainly go that way if we're not if we're not careful. Because we we we remain in the domain of theory, if you will, and then we go, yeah, so a brainer of that.
SPEAKER_01And we presume. So we've already in a kind of we presumed a whole lot of things to us to assume that that correct that particular epistemology is correct, and we'll stand on that.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01And to make all our judgment statements.
SPEAKER_00Right. Which to me sounds like a remnant of modernism, you know, and a priori. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is.
SPEAKER_04No, it is true. Uh from what I understand, modernism and postmodernism are two sides, different sides of the same coin. Right. Yeah. Um they're both coming from that rational uh that that my mind can get to what's true uh first. And is kind of decard.
SPEAKER_01I vaguely remember in um his book, The Nicene Um Option by James. Well uh James K. Smith. Yeah, yeah. He sort of pushes back on um Derridae on that principle. Right, yeah, yeah. You know, this kind of Messiahism of saying actually it's quite modernist. Yeah, yeah. And in fact, it actually is. Right. Because it sort of does a full circle, you know, he's describing a postmodern view, but it's actually quite modernist.
SPEAKER_04Because he's written a few books, and this is what I liked about James K. Smith. I've read, I think, everything he's written bookwise, um, because he's a key part of my thesis. And he wrote a series of books on postmodernism, and they're provocative titles, and one is like what's so scary about relativism and what's so scary about postmodernism and stuff like that. And then you read it, and and I'm like, oh, I've actually gained an appreciation for those disciplines because what those d what those philosophies actually reveal, they don't con they don't resolve anything, but what they reveal I don't want to get here yet, but what they reveal is that faith is indispensable. That the human person only knows in part. And so what the rationalism um what rationalism and modernism uh through the Enlightenment revealed was that actually you have a narrative that's guiding pre that's epistemologically guiding what you're finding in the world. And so you actually are hermeneutically bound in your being to limited knowledge of living in this middle space between the subject and the object. And you can't escape it. So that means that you need to be incredibly humble about the things that you assert. Right. Which is what the postmoderns try and do. But then many of them they go hard in that direction and say, well, if we have to be humble, then it maybe means that there is no truth out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, possibly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I I and that's and that's the general that's the general feel of whatever comes next, um, we're gonna be in vibing or enjoying those kind of those kind of attitudes. But I think um what did you say? Uh I can't remember, but it's it's talking about conditioning, we're we're we're relegated to a certain domain that's conditioned by these extra things. And so theology helps elucidate what these things are, philosophy helps elucidate what is actually conditioning us. So if I say that ontology um precedes or conditions epistemology, well, um going to the Bible, who's created us? So, yeah, and that's that's where the inquiry starts. Okay, so if we've been created, what does that mean, even though I can't see necessarily out of myself?
SPEAKER_01So are you saying, just to make clear, are you saying that your questions as a human being predispose you to going to scripture? You know, so in other words, you this curiosity will has taken you there in the first place. Yeah. I'm not saying that there's not revelation there, but I'm saying actually well, you know, like I but I picked I I I I'm curious, so I picked up a Bible and now Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So But because because uh because a creator created me, yeah um logic uh with logic there is right and wrong. And I think that you can grow in your reason and your logical understanding. And so um we've been given all sorts of faculties to discern the truth. We some for some reason want to discern the truth. And uh so yes, certainly in part, certainly in part. But we don't want to forget that other piece that's always there, it's that it's by the grace of the Lord that I've been sustained in order to even do my studies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, that's it's right. But there is an interesting piece about being sure uh you know anthropology here. Yeah, yeah. You know, and that's sort of playing into the epistemology too. Oh, yeah, yeah. So there's little whirling circles right now.
SPEAKER_04It's called a hermeneutical spiral. It keeps going because it never ends and you're always going deeper and deeper and deeper, and it's infinite because it's infinite of because you are in that middle space. Yeah. And so you're actually never so this uh this is what I want to get to the next question, is what is critical realism and then what is phenomenology? We can help kind of fill these out together, but what Graham and I are trying to really wrestle with is it appears to us, we could be wrong, and we're very much prepared to be wrong, but it appears to us within critical realism that it is just it is continuing that project of of um of post-enlightenment modernism in a sense, because it's it's a scientific methodology first and foremost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's trying to get to the essences of what's real without first understanding its hermeneutical place. Yeah. And so but that's my critique. But what would you how would you define critical realism as a methodology? Because you don't go fully there, you you up you readapt it and shape it. Yeah, totally, totally, yeah, yeah. So how would you go about that? And then we'll move to phenomenology for a second.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um so yeah, that's this this is the this is the difficult um difficult question. Um I guess with with critical realism I talk lots on on layers. So lots of my thinking will be layers. Um if metamodernism is through an auto or a self-critique of postmodernism, a postmodern self-critique of itself, uh, we're not doing away with the insights of um classicalism, nor modernism, nor postmodernism, and we're building this grand s uh synthesis. Well, um there's it's it's going to look more and more interdisciplinary. And I think that that's that point that you're um touching on. So critical realism, in essence, uh in its in its first sort of um unfolding is just a post-Kantian critique um against like a naive realism. Um it's it's to acknowledge that, oh, actually, we are conditioned socially, uh, culturally, cognitively by our environment that we just spawned into, that we're that we're can uh so our thoughts and our models are conditioned by that context. But there is an objective reality. And so we can genuinely know what lies outside of us, uh outside of ourselves somehow. And so that's what that's what critical realism is. I engage with a lot of um with Roy Basker's thoughts, who basically took those insights about critical realism um in and perceptual studies, and then wanted to apply it to the humanities, so social science. So critical realism proper, if you will, is is uh belongs to the the domain of perceptual studies, uh, warrant, justification, um, let's push back against naive realism, um, and Basker is forming a philosophy of social science. So he's so he's saying, yeah, can we bring those modernist insights into the the the humanities which are sort of a little bit separated from the the hard sciences? So I I would say that um what Roy Basker is essentially doing, it's a it's a it's a postmodern critique, um, but I believe that critical realism um is ahead of its time for Basker, at least in the 1970s. Um that's the inception. Um because it so aligns with the meta-modern um impulse.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And then so uh did you talk about the three layers of that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So so I think I think in short that Basker's greatest contribution, and there's others who who who basically touched on this, Erin McMillan, Ian Barber, but um th they were more part of the perceptual studies conversation. But Roy Basker basically introduces the stratification of ontology, which in turn is a stratification of our knowledge. And so it's it's instead of I I think I think the best analogy, and I'm I'm not versed in this knowledge at all, but it's just a good um analogy, I think. But Newton's space-time is is flat, it's cause and effect, and space-time is general to everyone, or to every agent or or experiencer of of yeah, within creation. Um but but then you look at Einstein's model of space-time, and we get special relativity. Again, I don't actually know how special relativity works. Watch interstellar. Well, um, just really uh but he he stratifies it. He says, well, depending on where you are, there's different there's different time. There's different space-time. Um yeah. And so coming back to Immanuel Kant, well, he's saying that space-time is uh is is a phenomenological concept. So critical realism is saying that no, space-time and and the world is truly mind-independent, um, but our mind-dependent models and structures help us interpret the world in a better or worse kind of sense. Um, but we can apprehend these things that lay outside of ourselves. And um and reality itself is is stratified. And so I'll just give a quick analogy. If you if you see a little toy car just drive across the this table here, you're not gonna think that there's some magic behind that. You're gonna go, okay, there's mechanisms in place in internal to that vehicle, right? So you've you've moved from the phenomenological or the experiential or the empirical um uh occurrence of seeing the car move to then go to a deeper layer. And the deeper layer is, okay, well, there's probably gas, there's there's so many different variables that have come into play in order to create that car that you see moving. Now at a at a deeper level, if you pick one of those variables, let's say the batteries, you go, well, okay, at at it at its most deepest level, this is how the electrons and the atoms uh are moving to create that energy output that then goes through the mechanism, so you're going to a shallower level, in order to see that car move across the across the table. So it's a it's a depth ontology. It's a it's the world is layered. And I think that that is very, very important because if I if I talk about like social science, right and I talk about hard science, our understanding is very much like, okay, that's that domain, and that's that domain. And I think this is a big problem in academia, where I go, oh, I'm a practical theologian, oh I'm a systematician. Um but there's no real I agree. Yeah. But I th I think so so when you when you look at the world through a stratified lens, you see that these things are actually on a gradient and that they are in relationship. Um so I think that that's the biggest um insight from from critical realism for me at least.
SPEAKER_04So I'm just trying to get understand. Because that was a really good explanation. That was probably the most concrete explanation like we've we've had of what critical realism is. People have a very hard time defining it, which which I find funny.
SPEAKER_00Well if you read Basker's work, it's uh yeah, it's just difficult. You read for a long time. It's very difficult, yeah. Yeah, and quite convoluted about very simple concepts too. Right. Um it's like, yeah, of course I like you you could be an idealist and you or or an anti-realist, and but I don't deny that it's gonna hurt if I trip down the stairs. You know, so so uh in offer in many cases we're we're putting a dichotomy between disciplines. We talk over each other, whereas we actually s we do agree. And so modernism wants to press beh beyond those conversations of dualisms, epistemological dualisms, and go, okay, where does it cohere? And then how can we be constructive in that?
SPEAKER_04I want to get to a r religious experience and critical realism before I move on to phenomenology, and I we won't even really deal with phenomenology deeply. Yeah. Um let's just say, because we both I think you and I, all three of us come from an evangelical background, right? Yeah, yeah. Correct, there we are. So have you all of us had an experience being at a service where people go up to the front for prayer to receive Jesus or some other type of like transformative moment? Okay, so I don't I we might all need to do this together, but how would critical realism speak to that person encountering Christ through prayer in that moment? At like an altar call of some sort, you know what I mean? It's easy to look at the mechan mechanistic idea metaphor with a car going across the show. Well, if we're saying that systematics can actually speak to practical theology, then let's get practical for a second. Yeah, well. And and trying and see that stratification. Um, I don't know how you would answer that because I don't know enough. Yeah. But how would you begin to maybe uh get to what's going on in that experience within critical realism?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'll I'll answer your question, but uh a little indirectly. If we talk about phenomenology, I'm not talking about critical realism over here and phenomenology over here. I'm saying that our phenomenological studies and also the domain we exist in is about hair as center, because that's that's where we that's where we are. But critical realism is zooming out to see, okay, so that's the phenomenological domain, and that is somehow couched in a world. Uh so so critical realism itself is the epistemology that gives us the language to say that there is objectivity um and and uh eternality and God, immovable truths, but the world that we live in is absolutely and utterly contextual and relativistic, right? But it but it says that there is a bridge there, and critical realism allows us to to basically um interact with phenomenal phenomenological studies, epistemology, meaning the whole framework, and um like theological eternal truths, uh etc. So yeah, so so when we when we speak about the phenomenological experience of of um church and you know our worship, um I think uh T. F. Torrence, Thomas uh Torrence, he uh speaks about this. He's a he's an awesome theologian from from the uh 20th century. And the he's got a book called the Christian um the Christian Doctrine of God. I believe I could be wrong. Um he's writing on um on the Trinity and really how uh the Trinity is grounded in Christ, uh or Christ reveals reveals the the Trinity. And he he's essentially doing critical realism without naming that this is critical realism. He doesn't have any uh relationship with these other philos philosophers or authors that I'm um speaking about. But I think it's a just a general intellectual movement. And so so to answer your question um in a roundabout way, sorry. Yeah, it's good is is is he speaks about you've got our experience of of God. But that experience has come as a result of hearing the word. And we know that the word is not just an audible word, the word is the logos incarnate, right? It's through the hypostatic union. So so I'm I'm speaking about layers here. So we've got our worship we've got our worship, we've got Christ, and Christ reveals the triangle who lays outside of space and time.
SPEAKER_04So your hands are gesturing bottom, middle, up. Yeah, bottom middle middle. Is that also paralleling the critical realism of layers? Okay.
SPEAKER_00And and and if you if you see that these layers, the deepest layers condition the the shallowest layers or the most immediate experiences. So uh you and I, or as as evangelicals, um I can hazard to say that if we differ on our Trinitarian doctrines, one of us is going to come out as a Christian, one of us is is not, right? So so if we're if we're actually pulling apart the Trinity and we're we're we've got some really big issues there, um, well, that's a hill that we need to die on. So if you if you do you kind of know what I'm trying to say?
SPEAKER_04Well, that's what most church councils did in the first like four centuries. Yeah, yeah. Like die on that hill. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now now so that's at the deepest layer. But then when we talk about Christ and the incarnation, well, there's certain things that we need to die on, but there can also be little nuances. But then when it comes to to worship, obviously each denomination has a sort of a different view on worship. And so so there is more variability at the l at the lower levels, but the lower levels are conditioned by the by the higher or the deeper levels. And um so that's how I would talk about worship, and that's I'm just parroting uh T. F. Torrance and the Christian doctrine of.
SPEAKER_01So those lower levels are you're interested in that relationship with those with the middle and with uh higher level.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, if you got if you've got a boat attached to a mooring by a rope, the boat isn't able to move with the tide. That's relativism. But the mooring never moves. And so in our thought, what is the rope and how does this model work? Because I think that we're we're we uh for too long have said, well, this is immovable, and then later we've gone, oh it's it's changing it it it's it's movable. Or oh, maybe because the boat moves, everything's relativistic. Or you know, um and so then you get your your fundamentalists and then you get your um vr like heavy progressives and yeah.
SPEAKER_04So it sounds like to me that it's that you're just kind of doing an analysis of what's happening within the experience of that religious experience. But no, it's almost like you're using critical realism to try and justify what's happening in that experience for that person. Explain, explain. To explain. Yeah, yeah. But it's it still seems different to the car to me. Because the car the car seems like it's it's more obviously observable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can actually dissect the car and see the gears and the mechanisms that are moving the car forward, yeah, and actually get to a molecular level of the car itself. Whereas you can't do that with the Trinity or Christ revealing God the Father, or even within the experience itself. Yeah. Is there did you identify that problem? Like the is the is that a problem within critical realism to actually not deal with uh like not deal with that experience on a on a on a DC Like it does provide a rationality within an already pre-existing theological framework, but but it but someone could easily say, well, that's not what's happening. So he's you know, where you can't necessarily say that with the car. You can't look at the car and be like, Well, that's not what's happening. I'm like, well, what are you looking at then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or someone could look at their religious experience and say, well, that's not how it's not.
SPEAKER_01So let's take this as a real life experience. Um I I um I've got cancer. I go to church one Sunday, I go to the front, I'm prayed for, and I have this incredible encounter with God. I then go back to the doctor and find that actually the cancer's in remission. How do I how do I explain that? Does critical realism do a better job with that example? So what would I what would I do what would you do with that? So, you know, that's I mean, that's real.
SPEAKER_04And it's measurable. You had cancer, that's right. And now you don't have cancer, and there was one thing that happened in the middle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there may be an in ability to s you know, so science might not even be able to explain that. So that at the kind of causal levels and and the physic physicality of my body, there's sort of un unexplained there. But it actually had happened. So how do we get at that? Or we don't.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure that critical realism or or or this theological epistemology that we're building in conversation um would really render in too much of the like the mechanistic processes processes of what is happening for you. Right. Um because that's all sort of part of the empirical domain. It's it's all part of your experience. Yeah. Um but I think that we can speak to uh theological that that theological dimension or that dimension of why did the Lord heal you? What is healing for? What is it pointing toward? Okay. Um which then points towards um we have a loving father and we have a merciful father.
SPEAKER_01So theology now comes in as a part so the social sciences and sort of all of that can do a bit, but it can't it's inability. Yeah. Then I have to look towards theology to actually help me understand that. Right. So it's not understanding in terms of um I tr to repeat something, understanding as part of the human condition. We want to understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why did this happen? How did this happen? What do I learn from this? Um so that's what you're saying there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So so to answer your question is is you're quite right. And um I did come to that question eventually, but what you're asking is very insightful because it it if if that's all that we're saying, you know, just observing a uh like a toy car, how does how does theology and God actually come into this? Because we're really breaching into metap metaphysics. If we don't breach into metaphysics, which actually requires faith and and speculation and whatnot, um to a degree I would say, um, then all we're really describing is material monism, so just just a materialism. And I think that was my ultimate critique against critical realism. It's that at the end of the day, once once we've once um we've made a critique on on um on Kant and David Hume or Roy Basker's mate made all these critiques and then brought critical realism into the humanities, um, he's then beginning to go, well, now we're talking about humanities, we're going to talk about ethics, and we're gonna talk about value. It's really interesting because at the end of his auvoir, at the end of his life work, he goes to ethics. But all he's got to help him discern ethics and value is his metaphysical speculations, which comes from his childhood religion, really. His his parents were like, I think, wizards in um Theophysic. He was a bit strange, wasn't he? No, I mean uh I think literally a grand wizard in theophysi. I don't know if uh yeah, I think I've misspoken there, but that's amazing. Um I don't know if you're uh familiar with the Theophysic Society. It's it's an amalgamation of um Western and Eastern mysticism and familiar.
SPEAKER_04I'm not familiar, but that's that's an interesting beginning point.
SPEAKER_00But it's interesting because his whole metaphysical like uh basis, grounding for all of his work is um is based upon is based upon his uh religious metaphysics. Isn't that fascinating? But it's interesting because on that logic or that reason um point earlier is that he's right and he's so helpful and so useful up to a point. And um so a lot of people go, oh yeah, he's got we've got we've got critical realism from Robeska, this is really good stuff, and they use that chunk and they kind of go his other stuff. Ah yeah, that's interesting. And so so with with Trinitarian critical realism, and I'm not the first to put forward this concept, many have, um, starting from you know how I said um T. of Torrents, his his impetus is absolutely critical realist. But but then when I speak about um it's in our everyday language, international, national, local, that's that's a stratified or or or a layered um understanding. Um from T. of Torrents onwards, we get we get these Trinitarian critical realists, but I'm trying to articulate exactly how this model may hold water. And so we need to say that Basker ultimately just appeals to Aristotle's unmoved mover, um, Spinoza's um sorry, I can't remember um what what he what he terms it is, but but essentially God is that limit. Uh God is the limit of the creator universe. And so ultimately it's a it's a at the end of the day, for all of the claims that he's making, uh he's still just making, he's he's still an imminentist, he's still a materialist. And so I think that we need another category to say there's a God outside of time and space. And so I appeal to the doctrine of non-aliod, which means um God as not other in the sense that we are other. I am other to Joey, I am other to the cup. God is not other in an analogous sense, but he's completely other. Yeah. And so so I need to add another category. Um, but we we just went into that.
SPEAKER_04That's good. I I will just move phenomenology to the background because we don't I don't we have time for that.
SPEAKER_00And um, but I think I I tried to describe it when I say phenomenology is not separate to critical realism. Phenomena critical realism is just a meta framework that then places phenomenology here, it places scientific inquiry here, naturalist inquiry here, theology, we consider the the grand scope of scripture over these things.
SPEAKER_04I I guess my my cr my understanding of phenomenology I think is is quite different to critical realism in the sense that it's not just looking at the phenomena, it's actually it's a whole system of bracketing, meaning like let's see how much of my own hermeneutic I can remove to see the givenness of the object in front of me. And so the object is material, can be a memory, can be a future thought, can be an experience, can be an abstraction, it can be any everything is an object. And then so if if I'm having a religious experience or having a phenomenological experience of prayer, which which is very common, you're like, okay, how much can I bracket off to see just in that moment the meaning that is being generated from that experience, and I'm actually bracketing off metaphysics entirely. That's what phenomenology does. But what you're saying, which I think you're absolutely correct in, is that you can't just have phenomenology because then it can't it doesn't take any stances about anything. It it says nothing about something about that's ontological in the sense of not ontological, that's an incorrect word, because it does have something to do with being. But you can't make any truth claims universal that have to do with ontic realities of God. Yeah, yeah. Um that's why metaphysics is so important, and you need both in tandem. You need phenomenology to get to the bracket, everything, to get to the experience to deal with that is incredibly well. But then you need to get to the metaphysics as to like where phenomenology doesn't care about the question of what is being. Yeah. It's like to say that is like this this beyond physicality being. Like what is if my being I'm a being, well then what's the being that predicates my being? That's metaphysics. Right? You need the two. But before we get to be let's move on um to to Jesus for a second, all right? You have a quote where you make the claim that the only way we can have a legitimate claim to the system itself of knowing from within it is through Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah. So we've been teasing it constantly, but what exactly are you talking about? Where like why is Jesus so important when it comes to knowing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, I make I'm making that commitment from my own phenomenological experience to say that um in in alignment with um a Trinitarian doctrine that says that God is extrinsic to me. And I think that every Christian, whether they're an expert in phenomenology or this domain or that domain, we have to affirm. Uh, and that's because we're conditioned by the the commitments of our faith. And so so God is extrinsic to me as He is also extrinsic to the world. He's outside. I'm not I'm not saying that God the trying God is me, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And no one's gonna say that. Yeah. Um and and so so that that claim is the bridge between my experience and what is. And I think that um I'm sympathetic all the way up to that point. Um sympathetic in the sense that we we can't go. Um uh Vic uh uh Wittgensteinian um uh language around games, uh like uh sorry, is is that is that I will I can't really understand what is outside of myself because the language that I've accrued, the the the language and the models that I'm understanding the world is is actually in-game. I I can't understand.
SPEAKER_04They've conditioned you to see the world a particular way, the language that you use.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And sorry, that's kind of crudely put. Um but but I guess uh I titled the thesis The Hyperstasis as the hypothesis, or the hypostasis is the hypothesis. So the hypostasis is is that um in conciliar Christianity we we say that Christ is 100% divine, a hundred percent human. And so somehow that is united, and that's through the doctrine of the hypostatic union. So the hypostatic union is the hypothesis. And so, in a in a philosophical sense, in a way that I might say just to like a more naturalistic or or um a crowd that's not really familiar with conciliar Christianity, we can just say that Christ is an alien, meaning a foreign, an alien originating causality that gets interjected into time and space. He's a completely different um anomaly. Because if if we if we run with just a real general sense of cause and effect, um what happened 2,000 years ago or like you know, 500 years ago has a cause and effect to this to this moment. We call this you know butterfly effect or whatnot. But Christ, if the if this is if this is time-space domain, Christ enters at a point in time. He's a completely new variable. Now the premise is that the Logos is incarnate, he enters into our world. Well, he's the perfect representation of whatever lies outside of our world. Um and so that's that's the that's the thesis in in that point. That's great.
SPEAKER_01So in in one sense, um I mean I might be going off on anything, but so Christ is revealed to you. Yeah. An experience. It's revelation, yeah. Yeah. That's kind of where I've arrived at. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless he reveals himself.
SPEAKER_04There's no way around your experience.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, my best attempts wouldn't couldn't get there, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. I couldn't. I mean, whether it's reading scripture, but at some point there's which is then I would say the spirit is actually at work revealing Christ. Yeah, but but I experience that. But but but in one sense, um I you know, how do I interpret that is is again that sort of play on the epistemology as well. But it's it's but then you hear these people that did not have had not a a Christian, any kind of Christian thing, yeah. And and and their experiences that God has revealed himself. Yeah. Well, this is the And this is and that's what I'm going, wow, it's yeah. Because at the end of the day, I can't get there myself.
SPEAKER_04And it's not you know, you can't, and it's not to say that your experience is relative. It's like, oh well, that's great, Graham, that you just had an experience of Jesus. Well, I might call that uh, you know, some type of nervonic experience in my religious tradition or whatever, right? Who knows? But that's not what we're saying because there's actually like if you want like there's in scripture, there's claims that Jesus makes and claims within the biblical narrative and within the texts about what is actually what being is, what can who conditions being. Um, you know, you've got Colossians, you've got fur uh Hebrews, you've got John 1, you've got all these massive texts that are positioning Jesus to answer that metaphysical question. Well that's a claims, yeah. Claims of who is who is God. And but this is what I love about this is it feels like it's can be reductive back to relativism, which I don't think it can, because you could be somebody who believes in the claims of Christianity on like a rationalistic, modernistic way of looking at the data, if you will. But then you actually don't know because you're actually lacking that experience with them. Yeah. But then when you actually have that experience with Christ, coupled with these declarative evidences of who Christ is, that's all hinges on the resurrection of Jesus as this historical, um, evidentially verifiable, yes, not 100% proven, but evidentially verifiable claim that he rose from the dead, and that he actually can meet with you two thousand years later. Yeah, yeah. It's when you couple all that together, this is what I think you're you're saying, yeah, is you can actually build a really robust case for what it actually means to know what's real in the world. Yeah, yeah. Based upon that faith proposition. Yeah. Which isn't loose, um, you know, wishful thinking. Yeah. It's actually predicated upon evidentiary and experiential knowledge. Yeah. Is that what you're trying to get at?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I think that if if critical realism um allows us to just to just state that we shape the tool, but in turn the tool shapes us, and just then critical realism is is suited for whatever is post postmod uh post postmodernism. Uh J quickly going to Jason Storm, he goes, well, so he kind of pushes against essentialist language. He's the one who came up with the gold analogy. But then he says that postmodernism and and postmodernism tempered with with um realism, I suppose, is is that um language is is more like thunderstorms. What exactly is a thunderstorm? Because thunderstorm is a processual event, uh and and so sometimes thunderstorms have rain, sometimes they don't, sometimes they've got incredible winds, right? And so how do you actually pin down a thunderstorm? Because that's more of an anti-essentialist claim to something that's happening versus a claim against um against gold. And so he says that, well, within our context, um we relate to the material world, and the material world in turn shapes us, whether that's um touching a flame and that hurts, and flames for some reason always burn, um, or like an institution such as like a legal system or or a or a university. And so then he focuses on what he calls um semi-atic anchors or um yeah, anchors. And I think I think so the reason I'm saying all of that is because, well, we've got our experience, and I'm thinking about that critical realist model again. We've got we've got our experience there. But it's actually in reference to a true historical person. And he's making a whole lot of claims. Now, it's uh Greg was talking about um a proper confidence, Leslie Newbegin and um these truth claims. We can indeed just close up our ears once we hear about this person of Jesus and his ontological claims, but I think that we should also sit and listen and hear what he has to say. And it's through these it's through these anchors or these devices, the Wesley and quadrilatal is is brilliant, kind of saying that the weight of data in the scripture, the weight and data in um our reason and logic, our history, community, um, and what else? You know, experience? Experience, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. These are anchors that give us a proper confidence in this narrative that Christ is giving. And this narrative is about a trion Lord who wants a relationship with us because he's created us for that relation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. What I find like incredibly fascinating, I don't know if it's changed culturally, but there's a there's a phenomenon called uh Christian atheists who love the ontology.
SPEAKER_00Sounds kind of metamod, eh? It's a meta modern, right?
SPEAKER_04They love the ontology of of the scriptures and Jesus because they would rather live in a Christian society than not. Amen. But they haven't, they haven't, they're missing that knowledge. Right. They're missing that faith step that they haven't had that experience. But they they love the metaphysics of Christianity. Yeah. They love the realist claims that Christianity claims because of what I think you at least get to at the end of your thesis, which is the moral claims and the ethic imposition that it places upon the individual who actually believes in this ontology of Christ. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh and the incarnation and the resurrection. Yeah, yeah. That's they love that. Right. Um, because they want to keep living in a society like that.
SPEAKER_01Um because of all the benefits of that. Because of all the benefits, the truth of the truth. Which truth never which I always think truth always sits whether that's in in a wider frame of love. So truth, goodness, and beauty sit within that frame of what love actually is. So so they're experiencing beauty and truth, and and that's potentially real. Right. But I guess you're saying there, without the sense of who is this God? Which is the relationship, which is really the essence of the truth. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is the essence of that, the revealing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. It's the the I'll tell you what, people would love people would love to have an abstract God who's just a divine, who's just out there more deistic than anything, because the second you personify God, or God is revealed as a person, a person has claims on your life. Anyone you're in a relationship with has demands of you, or else they're not in relationship with you. And so if you say that I have a relationship with Jesus, or like God knows me or wants to know me, and vice versa, then that has ethical and moral implications that I think a lot of people just don't want to jump into. But then what I love, I think what you you're kind of moving towards with your methodology is that you actually need that theological first step of faith in order to actually be able to understand and know what's real.
SPEAKER_01Because then the transformation, so in terms of the ethical behavior, I might know this is wrong and and do all these things and try and live within a kind of very legal frame, but actually, I mean that's sort of scripture and scripture. I I can't do that. Or I become a dead gong. It's lifeless. So the spirit animates that. Yeah, yeah. You know, that which is really interesting when if you came back to your case study. Yeah, yeah. You know, so what what defines a moral, you know, it defines a moral life, but yeah, you can set all the rules here but it actually there's something else that's needed here. Is that which is Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and all of this kind of language is is really what I mean by conditioned. Um at the deepest level, a trying God who created creation, that conditions the time space, and then the time space Christ enters, he's made a whole lot of claims. If I believe those claims and indwell those claims, then that conditions my life. And I would say that those Christian atheists, um, coherence is wonderful. Coherence is beautiful, and I think that the Lord um I don't I don't want to say like makes a person more reasonable, but we're able to make a deeper purchase on value judgments and um and in tandem with the peace and the rest of the Lord and and just this walk, it's there's a there's a world that I believe knows that they have been created, um, knows that they they are they need to be conditioned by something but they're not quite certain about how much the the Lord loves them. Um because I want to say that we were created for relationship with the Lord. And so we're not just um I'm just riffing off of uh one thing you said that I can't really remember, but but it's it's not just about obedience, it's about um that deep fellowship, that that that deep love, in which obedience is conditioned by, yeah. Um it's not robotic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's it's it's uh it's a it's a moving life. It's holistic, yeah. Yeah, moving life um Yeah, I'm I'm very interested too, because there's a sense in which there's mystery in this as well. Of course. Because that keeps us going. Because we're naturally curious, so we're drawn, keep drawing into the into that notion of of our curiosity, which keeps you need you need philosophical humility.
SPEAKER_04Like that's the any everything that's like it's one thing like the f the the thing that's so unattractive about fundamentalism for any ideology, you know, religious or atheistic or whatever, is to say, actually I've I've me, I've figured it out. And it's it's one thing to be like, well then are do you not believe in Jesus then if you don't believe you figured it out? No, no, no. It's uh I stake my claim on Christ, but I only know in part, but I can only begin to know through Christ. And so I'm open to so many different areas of inquiry. But that that philosophical humility is so essential and so important. Actually, Christ invites me into that. Um the the story I come to again is uh what is it, who is it, the centurion who said, Lord, I believe help my unbelief? Yeah you know, it's like that's right, that's the pursuit of truth. Right. And and to try and get as a doctor who I just interviewed, Dr. Wallenfang says, it's like that's the prize. Like that's the treasure, is the is truth, but you need to come to it humbly and come to it through Christ. And and you know, then then you begin to through faith begin to see more and more of like what is life, what is being, and what is real, what is reality really all about. And I don't think necessarily just on a mechanistic understanding of causation, but on on that phenomenological meaning basis of I'm I'm having a me I'm feeling I know there's meaning in the world and I'm I'm meaningfully living within it. I can feel that within myself. What story is actually the story that is the precondition for that meaning in the world? That then when I come into contact with that person of that story, then my the meaning that I have in the world is almost like it's amplified. It's just like, you know, it was at a 10 voltage or amps and then it turned up to 10,000 amps, you know what I mean? Anyway, that's a bit of a radical claim. But we don't believe that truth exists.
SPEAKER_01And I really like that thought, the notion that actually the revealing of Christ as God is outside of our our cause cause sense of causation or in standing cause. Yeah, yeah. So it's beyond that. Yeah. Which reminds me of you know Aristotle's four notions of causality, which is we can't get at that formal causality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Christ comes without. That's why we that's why the resurrection doesn't make any what's that? But it changes the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_04Any last thoughts? Anything you want to close up before like you're just like, I really wanted to say that before we kind of end.
SPEAKER_00Um Well we're gonna speak about Shaw methodology or uh you know what let's finish with your Sure methodology and we'll go there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Capital S-U-R-E.
SPEAKER_00Sure methodology, essentially it's it's um we've gone through the history of critical realism, what critical realism is a f is as a philosophy of um uh social science, um, how that is suited for the meta-modern era, and then we we we hit the limitations and we go essentially, well, you're making speculative claims on the the the universe, and essentially you end up with a a panantheanism that the the universe is somehow an organic, impersonal god. And it's in contrast to panantheanism that I up I I set up the argument for trinit the trinity, like our forefathers have done for many thousands of years, but I use critical realism in our current context to articulate that. And then so the Shaw methodology is uh is essentially just the last piece of the puzzle that operationalizes um critical realism. So Shaw is an acronym and I wanted a bit of a reflex to jog my thinking. So whenever I see something and interpret it or hear something, like a claim or a belief or I witness something, uh I want to go, how can I be sure? That's good. I like that. How can I be sure that this is my interpretation is true, or that this narrative is it is true, or what or whatever. And um from that from that question, that kicks off basically a um a critical realist phenomenological tool. And so SHORE essentially is uh uh critical realism methodology. Um and so S is S is the most immediate, and it's um the surface claim. And so it's it's no prior assumptions, it's just a posteriori of what is just what has just happened and and what is the claim being said.
SPEAKER_01Um step of a practical theological process. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Essentially what is.
SPEAKER_04So can we let's let's walk through exactly the next one? Oh, right, right. A case study, for example. So let's just say someone steals your pen. Oh, right, yeah. Right. I just stole your pen, it's in my hand right now. Yeah. Um the surface claim that you're making issues.
SPEAKER_00Well, I suppose it's it's did you steal my did you steal my pen? Or or I don't know, the pen is gone. The pen's gone. That's a that's that's kind of like a time-space claim. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But if you came to me and said I didn't steal it, well then the the um at face value prima facie um claim is that Joey did not steal the pen, but there's a pen missing. You know, so that's that's that's the surface claim. Uh you is uncover. So I I know that with just general um like um law. Um with with with with the way that the I I don't know, the the molecular makeup of of the cup. When that cup is gone, it hasn't just disappeared. We know that somewhere in the universe there is a cup, or at least remnants of what that cup was, somewhere in the universe. And so if it's if it's not on the table, it just hasn't it hasn't disappeared. And so that's uncover. You you you ask uncovering questions. And at the moment, this is directly the same as any like naturalist inquiry, any um So that's the legs inquiry or whatever.
SPEAKER_01What I would be in, just paralleling this not to reduce you, because I like your I like your I like your acronym. But actually what you're doing now is saying, well, actually, that cup is gone, that's the that's the surface. Yep. The reflective part is now because it's gone, I'm reflecting. Why is it gone? Why is it gone?
SPEAKER_00Right, right. But you're asking questions of the world you live in, right? That's right. So it's a time.
SPEAKER_01Time, who done it? Yeah, who don't, yeah, yeah. What's going on there?
SPEAKER_04I wanna I want to make a moral claim though. I stole your cup. Like I want to keep using the pen, please. Yeah, yeah. So the pen's gone, that's the surface claim. It's not here anymore. And the uncovering claim is well, the pen didn't just vanish and is nowhere. Yeah. It's somewhere. Yeah. So I didn't take it. Yeah. Someone else must have taken it, or I must have forgotten it.
SPEAKER_01So let's say you placed it. So you if you took the pen.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, that's the truth, right? The truth is I took the pen.
SPEAKER_01So the reflective place, the you, the you, the uh under undersurface thing. Yeah. There might be Uncover. You know, when I was talking to Joe the other day, he was really desiring my pen. Yeah, yeah. And he didn't have any pens on his desk. Yeah, yeah. So that might be the kind of going underneath the surface, the reflective part.
SPEAKER_00So uncover is all of the events that have come into place for that cup to be missing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and like there's or or the pen to be missing. But but like, but so there's there's um can I falsify my claims? Okay, maybe I forgot. You know, I've been a little bit, you know, out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um all all of all of that. So but but so uh critical realism is surface, empirical phenomena, and then uh the events, the actual events that take place for that situation to happen. And then uh S U, surface uncover R is reality. And reality is interesting because it's it's a two-step switch. It's a bit like when I come to Christ, it's an experience for me. But then after that experience So the experience is is experience, so a posteriori. But then after that experience, after I'm enjoying that experience, it's a priori. That experience basically influences further investigation down that line of inquiry, right? So it's a two-step thing. And critical realism has this interesting two-step thing that I can't really articulate. It's a it's it's an area that I w I I would like to look into more. But this this two-step um switch here, it's it's kind of like flipping the coin, is at the R level, um you've said to me that you didn't take the cup. So you're appealing to an ontology. But the cup is missing, so that's another ontology. So there's a truth here, and then there's a claim about that truth. And so as we're going deeper, you've got the surface claim and then you've got the reality. And so essentially this is just looking at the congruence between the claim and what has happened. And the reason we can do that is because we live in a world that is mind-dependent independent. Um and I think that's I think that's really helpful because um because in one sense we're saying you don't need you don't need like um a a Trinit a Trinitarian thought or a biblical understanding or or whatever to use critical realism. In fact, whenever you see an investigation, like a police investigation, a detective interview investigation, they're looking at the claims and then they're looking at what falsifies these claims, what can prove the either the continuity or discontinuity between So when you're getting to the kind of reality part, are the questions the questions about that you would in you would actually um You're in importing's probably not the right word, but you're you're you're you're applying or using epistemologies.
SPEAKER_01You know, you're sort of you're um say take it to the pen. Uh Joey's taken to the pen. Um maybe that's understanding Joey. Right, right. You know, and Joey's worldview uh as opposed to, you know, why did he take the pen? Is that what you're where you're going through?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because because if you as you've gone through S, you've gathered data. As you've gone through U, you've gathered data. You've got a whole weight of data that is either indicating or uh the the continuity or the discontinuity between what has actually happened and what and and what is claimed about that. And that that gives you more questions for your inquiry. So critical realism is is is you've got these different levels of inquiry, but those are operating all at the same time, and it's retroductive. So they're they're influencing e each other. But I think that's the beauty of um the logic of the universe, it's it's that we can actually discern that you did this at this time, and it's and it's true, like it's a material thing. Um so something happened in time and space and it's and it's a true thing. Um where crystallological data um helps us is essentially we're we're able to make um we're we're able to make judgments um in consideration of God and his nature as revealed in Christ. And so that gives us that that moral sort of um dimension to our inquiry.
SPEAKER_01So that would be that around Joey taking the pen at that that uh Yeah, yeah. So what is a lie? What is that would be what is Yeah, so that might help explain Joey's tendency to take a pen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you don't take it. Well it would explain that taking a pen is bad. Yeah, so there's a moral thing. I mean, but that may bounce against his sense of reality. Yeah. Um I needed a pen really bad. You know, that is that what's there is my what there is is is Well to power Nietzsche. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can take that as opposed to uh, you know, other real uh this is the meta thing, isn't it? There are other there are other narratives that actually say actually that's not consistent and actually doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And so so E is evidence verdict, which is essentially just the the claim upon R. Uh is there continuity, is there is there discontinuity? And the evidence verdict is that okay, we've got some more questions to continue the inquiry as well. You go back and forth between R and E. No, you just it's um it's all happening at the same time. But for in a linear sense, it's a lot of people. Oh, exactly. But but that's that's the naturalistic part. If you have Christological data, you have a you have a a deeper claim upon um reality itself, in the sense that um God is the principle and the ground of of everything. Um and so in reflection to the word of God and to the face of God, his nature, we know that theft is wrong. But through our shore inquiry, Joey just really needed a pen and he was on his way back to giving. So that justifies it. And he was borrowing it, you know.
SPEAKER_01And because of all the circumstances, so then that that's morally acceptable because of da-da-da. Yeah. Which actually becomes intolerable. Yeah. I mean, if you I mean, intolerable if you blow that idea up. Yeah. Yeah. We can make excuses for all sorts of things because and and and that does happen in our society. That's happening.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then there's problems you can't really get to, which is intent. And so, for example, so like you could say, like, oh Joey just wanted to borrow the pen. Yeah. And I when I took it, that's actually what what was really going on with my intent was I didn't have any interest in giving it back. Yeah. But when I got found out that I had the pen, oh, I was just borrowing it. You can't ever know what my true intention was. Right. That's almost the hermeneutical humility that's necessary.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, but it's it but with while we're retaining the humility uh by necessity of that, of crit the critical system, we have to be humble, or else we're gonna close ourselves to um more more input of of data. While holding that, we can hold that intention with I'm allowed to make um claims upon your intent. Because I need intent. I mean, uh the court of law needs intent for argument's sake for murder. Um what what was the what was the driving mechanism in Joey's ontology to, if you will, to steal that pen? Um and I think that that data um comes in in into play. Um I'm just thinking in a in a little bit more of a grounded or practical sense, the case study that I worked with was an institution that there was a bit of a scandal there, and um they did a na a naturalist inquiry, um, which is essentially the sure methodology to a degree, of saying, well, um time, date, place, what actually happened. It's quite interesting because in the private life of this person and which his colleagues were aware of, there was infidelity and there was all sorts of behaviors that were within the scope of the law. So he wasn't necessarily doing anything illegal. But as a I think anyone can see that that those behaviours would compromise his professionality and his capacity to be a leader because they're character flaws. But if if we don't have a have a moral grounding, and I think critical realism helps us to explain this, we can't actually say that what he was doing in private was bad. Everyone everyone knows that there's a correlation here, but no one can really when I say no one, I just yeah, but in the system that they're using for inquiry. Yeah, yeah. And so so the resolve was it never highlighted in the in the final reports, it never highlighted that that was a problem. It just kind of ignored it. But I'm saying that that was the main problem. Um and I can appeal to scripture and through the Shaw methodology with Christological data, we can actually say that that was wrong. And if if an institution was able to make a value judgment, and whether we want institutions to do that is a different conversation. But um if they were enabled to make value judgments, it would have brought into light what everyone was thinking. And this scandal would have been preempted, and it was quite a bad scandal.
SPEAKER_01So yeah. Um that's really good.
SPEAKER_04Uh Curtis, I'm really glad that you uh you hung out with us for the full hour thirty. That was great. Yeah, this is full on. This has honestly been one of my more uh enjoyable conversations because I I I felt like this was actually a conversation. We were just running stuff too. Right. So thanks for making the time because you're no longer you don't longer have to be at the school, you've done your masters. Yeah. You and so what are you what are you hoping to do next? Or maybe you don't want to talk about that.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm now a police recruit.
SPEAKER_04So you are yeah, yeah. Good on you, man.
SPEAKER_01That's really good news. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Very excited. Yeah, yeah. That's good. That's a funny transition, but yeah, yeah. Oh, I think no, I think it's a really I think it's a really wonderful opportunity for you. Yeah. And and um may the thinking and thoughtful reflection continue. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure it will because your experiences will be multiplied in terms of human behavior. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'll tell you what, maybe people when they're recruiting for the police are not thinking we need more philosophers and theologians, but unfortunately they got one. Yeah. So they got one who's ready to, you know, he's got some handcuffs on his hip. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, I know, I think that's very encouraging. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for your time. Yeah, thanks for your time, Chris. Thank you very much, guys. Yeah, thank you for having me.
