Dallas Willard's Real Conspiracy

I have read all of Dallas Willard's books on the Christian life, including Divine Conspiracy, Renovation of the Heart and Hearing God. I taught a year-long book study on the Divine Conspiracy immediately after the study guide to the book was published. Willard's teachings on the Kingdom of God, spiritual formation and discipleship have had an influence among Christian leaders and laypeople over the past decade that is difficult to overstate. When one hears Willard speak at the Renovare conferences of his friend of numerous decades, Richard Foster, one realizes that spiritual formation into a life of discipleship to Jesus within the Kingdom of God isn't just one aspect of Christian living among many for Willard, akin to Christian marriage or service to the poor, for example. Rather, to Willard this is all there is to the Christian life. It is a refreshing message that calls us back to the actual words of Jesus. I cannot encourage you to read these books more strongly.

Dallas Willard is also a professor of philosophy. As a philosophy student myself who (a) has read and been changed by Willard's books and (b) has a deep respect for my elders in the field, I left last weekend's National Faculty Leadership Conference, at which Willard gave 3 keynote addresses, confused. Dr Willard is a gentle figure who lives his message of renovation daily. When I say I was confused, it is not a genteel way of saying I was critical. I was confused.

You see, there are a couple of different Christian circles that are interested in philosophy. One of them is, for lack of a better term, the Emergent crowd that has formed around Brian McLaren, Stanley Grenz, Dan Kimball, and numerous others. A whole generation of Christian leaders is being turned onto the importance of philosophy, from Plato to Derrida, by the Emergent crowd. Another such circle is, again for lack of decent term, the Biola crowd, which seeks to better understand and articulate Christian doctrine with the assistance of philosophical discipline, and has as a center of its nexus the Biola University Department of Philosophy. These circles have their own conferences. Last weekend's was the conference of the latter circle. And, sadly, there is almost no overlap in participants between the conferences and, by extension, the conversations of each circle.

Despite such lack of overlap, there is one person who is extremely influential in both circles and speaks at both conferences. Dallas Willard's writings are taken as seriously by Dr J.P. Moreland, Dr Scott Rae and Dr Garrett Geivett (all of Biola Philosophy), as they are by McLaren and others in the Emergent conversation. It is a sign of the fundamental importance of Dr Willard's message that he is so singularly influential in both circles.

The deep concern with which I left the National Faculty Leadership Conference revolves around Dr Willard's next book, The Loss of Moral Knowledge, which Willard says to expect in late 2005 or 2006. Dr Willard 3 keynote addresses were drawn from his notes for this book. The purity of Willard's message heretofore is likely, I think, to become associated with a new message animated by a battle-like defensive posture to the culture and an overt and complete dismissal of postmodern thought. Dr Willard's denunciation of postmodern thought and encouragement to Christian professors to fight postmodern ideas in the academy is similar to the similarly uncharitable tone of the three aforementioned Biola Philosophy professors. It is interesting in this connection to note that all three Biola professors received their Ph.Ds from Professor Willard at USC.

One of the most important problems, some say the leading problem, that has run through the entire history of modern philosophy is the epistemological problem of realism vs antirealism, or, subject-object dualism. The "subject" is you and the "objects" are the things around you that you perceive. Realists assert that you have direct, unmediated access to objects, while anti-realists assert that you do not have direct, unmediated access to objects. Realists assert that we can be objective (make truth claims about objects) while anti-realists focus on our subjectivity (your claims say more about you than about the objects of your claims). Postmodern thinkers tend to be anti-realist, because they emphasize the role of language and other factors in mediating our access to objects. The Emergent circle engages the anti-realist position while the Biola crowd supports the realist position.

Almost every philosophy professor who spoke at last weekend's conference, including Dr Willard and Dr William Lane Craig of Biola, critiqued anti-realist positions with passion and ferver. Dr Craig said the following in his keynote address, of which I bought a copy.

I have been scandalized by the lack of integrative thinking on the part of Christian colleagues. For example, I spoke at length with a Christian professor of literature at one of our state universities who told me that she believed that texts have no meaning. Rather meaning exists only in the mind of the reader. I was astonished that an intelligent Christian could have bought into the relativistic, post-modern view of meaning that is rampant in departments of English and Literature.

Such was the language of Dr Craig, Dr Willard and most other philosophy professors at this conference. There are four concerns that I have with these teachings, particularly when they come from the mouth and pen of Dr Willard.

(1) The reduction of postmodern thought to the extreme anti-realist position that "texts have no meaning" is a straw man. We are taught not to make such arguments in Logic 101. The vast majority of Christians and non-Christians who engage postmodern and anti-realist thought have much more nuanced and carefully thought out positions than this.

(2) I can safely say that every participant in this conference is a realist epistemic. The plenary speeches of Drs Craig and Willard thus challenges no one's positions. Unfortunately the realism of many Christian realist epistemics is a sloppy realism that jumps way too quickly and easily from the object to the subject. Much of my confusion about Dr Willard's focus on denouncing anti-realism is that Edmund Husserl, Willard's primary research interest, was perhaps the most rigorous and precise realist of any realist epistemic, and would have been more interested in critiquing the sloppy realism of such a crowd than in rehashing the self-refuting nature of his anti-realist opponents, none of whom had representatives in the room.

(3) Drs Craig and Willard also did not encourage anyone to actually read the texts of postmodern philosophers. The result of this is that numerous Christian faculty and students characterize postmodern thought in simplistic terms ("texts have no meaning", "there is no truth"), refute these straw man positions as self-refutating (obviously), and end up looking stupid to their secular colleagues. Because the postmodern thought of Derrida, Rorty and others is way, way beyond "texts have no meaning" and "there is no truth". That was 25 years ago. We should afford postmodern writers the same respect and consideration we ask of those who refute scripture without reading scripture.

(4) The Emergent circle raises many valuable points drawn from a postmodern, anti-realist perspective that were not engaged by Drs Craig and Willard. For example, perhaps students who despair of the existence of truth exhibit such despair precisely because of their passion for truth. Perhaps we should empathize with the despair of today's students and faculty rather than embarrasing them by exposing their arguments as self-refuting. Perhaps as much harm is done by sloppy realism as is done by postmodern thinkers, and it is only by the grace of God that we are both forgiven. Leaders of the stature of Drs Craig and Willard should encourage and facilitate charitable dialogue between such positions, not seek to harden the positions of those who already agree with them.

Dr Willard is a veteran scholar, an elder, and a trusted friend to many who has earned the praise and respect he receives. As such, my strong presumption is that these areas of confusion are likely due to misunderstanding on my side. I look forward to his future talks and articles to learn more about his evolving work.

Comments

[jen lemen]

ken, i love the evenhandedness of this post.
i'm no philosopher, but in my rudimentary attempts at reading willard's various philosophical works online, i have harbored an uneasy feeling that your observations might be accurate.

i can no longer construct my life, my experience, my mind within these more realist frameworks for whatever reason & feel beyond able to make myself be another way. so i read this post sadly. not quite understanding that either. :(

thanks for putting it so gently and without unnecessary rancor.

[Mike Godzwa]

Ken,

Great site and excellent comments on the conference. It is particularly concerning that the tone of the event was so defensive. One has a difficult time convincing another of his/her point by simply bashing a person's foundational views.

Having not attended the conference, I can only hope that much of the extreme nature of the rhetoric was spurred on by "preaching to the choir." I know how an encouraging audience can push your argument to the absurd (in fact I've been pretty absurd myself). While the thought is not entirely comforting, I'm sure the tone would have been different had the venue been more mixed.

Thanks for a great post! I would encourage you to submit the text to the National Faculty Leadership Conference. You're concerns are well founded.

[Chris]

"my strong presumption is that these areas of confusion are likely due to misunderstanding on my side."

I can agree with you here...please study these issues more, and then respond to the bold blog above.

http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=70
Click on this link. It may clear up a few things for you

[Nicolas Nelson]

That link to Dallas Willard's article was interesting but not really helpful to me. I also look forward to Willard's nascent book, and hope that it distinguishes between postmodernism as a philosophy and postmodernity as a culture. I find myself more "modernist" or "premodern" in my thinking, but in ministry, my challenge is to instantiate Christ in postmodern hearts and minds. We have no problem with the idea of contextualizing the gospel for tribal peoples. We need to make philosophical debate distinct from missiological strategizing, even as the two will (hopefully) inform each other.

[James White]

Ken-

Ha,Ha! It seems that you want to have your cake and eat it too!

You present Dr. Willard's views with language that makes the non-philosophical reader question his integrity and then try to hastily add a final paragraph that will make things "nice" with him.

The truth is this - Dr. Willard is a real believer in the truths of scripture and much of the early creeds of the church. He, and many like him, do not distinguish a healthy orthodoxy (full of good doctrine) from a healthy orthopraxy. Indeed, much of what I read out of McLaren and others (see Emergent leaders here) seems to be rehashed theological liberalism from the 1920's that fellows like J. Gresham Machen wrestled with long ago.

When I read McLaren, I see a person who describes terms such as "conservative" and "evangelical" (and other orthodox views) in terms that actually only metamorph them into liberal constructs...then my mind flashes back to the covers of various magazines (after the last election) which found the Democratic Party asking how the left can win back more people who believe in God and then I seem to understand McLaren's books and website better.

[Ville]

Hello Ken!

I stumbled upon your webblogg almost by accident. I think it is a good thing that you are thinking through what you are reading, not many of us take the time to do that. I would just encourage you to follow up on your studies about the concerns you have about the ideas that seem to so greatly influense Christian philosophers and other "thinking Christians" among those whom you describe as "the Biola crew". Don't hesetate to approach these persons with your questions, they might be of help if stated in a open and friendly manner. May God bless you and guide you onward.

[Victor L. Hill]

Dear Ken,
You seem to suffering from some confusion of thorught. The first thing you must rememember is that all of us a sinners, or another way to say this is we are all a bit crazy. There are conservatives who think like liberals and visa versa. Ultimately it is not how you view it but how it actually is. If you get too tied up with the subjective and objective views you may conclude that nothing is worthy of being known. This is inherently false. We now only know in part, and we will only known the whole once one is in the presence of God. I am not anti-philosophy, for God did give us a brain with which we think and reason. However philosophy or imply put thinking through experiences has it limitations. No one is perfect except, especially your Earthly mentors. Like in the first century, philosophers tend to get bogged down in rhetoric. Truth is not confusing, only enlightening. Ultimately you must determine for yourself where your philosophical loyalties lie. Satan is the author of confusion and if you are finding confusion in this philosophy then discard it, find another, or construct one of yourself. Trust you instinctive perceptions of reality. Note that not all liberals are bad and not all conservatives are good, for truth is truth regardless of what flag they fly. Use imperical testing to see what works and what is true. Never be too hung up on what any one person or group says. Be your own person and trust God to guide you through to where he want you to be. The writings of Francis Schaeffer is not a bad start, although his use of philosophical terms is sometime amaturish and aimed at a general audience. I hope this helps you in some way, at least this was my intent. Happy exploring.

[Matthew Miller]

meaning is needed for relationship to exsist. God sent his Son to allow for a re-union of our spirit with his for a relationship. God would not offer relationship without the needed objective meaning for it

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