A friend asked me to read Leslie Newbigin's "Proper Confidence". Reading this quote on the first page lured me in...

"The words liberal and fundamentalist are used today not so much to identify oneself as to label the enemy." pg. 1

That’s a wonderful observation!

Newbigin shines a critical light on the influence of Descartes in modern theology. I'm no fan of the dualism of Descartes that has plagued modernity, and it is Newbigin's criticism of Descartes that led me to engage with this book. However, I think Newbigin dislikes Descartes for all the wrong reasons. In addition, I'm not sure Newbigin wants to fully admit how much he draws from Descartes’ influence, namely substance dualism.

Newbigin begins with a description of dualism that has roots as far back as Plato, but was contextualized and cemented into modern thinking by Descartes. So far so good, but here's where his analysis derails. I think he is correct to critique the modern application of this dualism into what has become the “faith v. science divide”. However, for Newbigin, the problem is that science infringed on his own unquestionable presuppositions of faith. This book contains some confusion around the terms "science" and "modernity". They are not the same things. Modernity is a particular reaction to science. I'm on board with a critique of modernity, but not of science itself. He cries, "foul" by suggesting science has over stepped its boundaries, but he doesn't seem to realize that by declaring a boundary for science, he's adopted the same dualism that he hoped to overcome. This is precisely the mistake of Descartes and his followers, to divide the world into the realm of spiritual and the realm of science so that the ancient traditions could survive and even appear to be on equal footing as we move forward. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a more destructive blow for religion. By relegating religious language to some unknowable spiritual realm of alternate substances (dualistic embodied souls or “ghosts in the machine”), modern theologians struck a blow against that which they sought to save. Our way past modernity is not to call a truce in the modern battle by dividing the territory and going separate ways. I suggest that our best path is to move past the underlying dualism that created the war, even if it appears to give ground in the process.

Further clouding his argument, Newbigin uses the term "liberal" instead of "atheist" or "secular" to represent one far end of the spectrum. In my view, liberal theology is already a kind of middle ground position or "third way", and he may be skewing the readers perspective by reframing the boundaries to help his own view seem more centered or neutral.

In chapter 4, "Knowing God", I did appreciate Newbigin's concerns about an over reaching certainty that has plagued both sides of the modern coin (secularism and fundamentalism). Knowing is merely a feeling that we know. Placing too much confidence in our feeling of knowing is not helpful. The liberal and traditional theological camps are not on equal footing when it comes to claims about “knowing”. Newbigin overlooks some important difference between the two approaches. Though a completely objective “God’s eye view” may be unattainable, it is naive to suggest the two approaches are both equally subjective. He further illustrates this point by making the classic false dichotomy of modernist theology...

"The only possible responses to the claims the bible makes are belief or unbelief." pg 55

Newbigin falls victim to the modern presupposition that in order for the Bible to have any value, it must be read the same way we read a history book or science text book. He assumes the point of the bible is to believe its stories are facts or reject them as fiction. This view of the bible is precisely what fed fundamentalism and lured science into a war that it never intended to wage. I think there is a better way to move past that divide.

Newbigin tips his hat to Descartes by dividing up the playing field of human knowledge into the separate fields of observation and revelation. He goes to great length to point out the limits of human observation in order to leave space for revelation. But again, that simply serves to cement dualism rather than seeking to move beyond it. He seems perfectly happy dividing the field as long as we play nice and don't get in each other's way. That is a cordial move, but it is not truly a rejection of Cartesian dualism.

My biggest disappointment about this book is that it wasted such a great title. I love the term "Proper Confidence", but this book wasn't the critique on modernity's quest for confidence that I had hoped it would be. I do give Newbigin credit for identifying some key problems with the legacy of Descartes. I appreciate his suggestions for a softening of biblical literalism, and maybe his approach is a good first step. I think he asked some good questions and highlighted many important areas for inquiry. I agree with him that we should hope for a proper confidence in our intellectual discourse and that moving beyond the modern false dichotomy of "science or religion" is possible. I just don't think the way to do that is to use apologetic arguments to try and put science in its “place”. That approach may continue to isolate religion in an ever shrinking place of its own. I’m not willing to accept that result.