In Search Of A “Pentecostal” Epistemology

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In Search of a “Pentecostal” Epistemology Comparing the Contributions of Amos Yong and James K.A. Smith

Simo Frestadius*

Regents Theological College, Malvern,uk and, University of Birmingham, Birmingham,uk

Abstract

Pentecostal theologians are increasingly aware that there cannot be an authentic pen- tecostal theology without a distinct pentecostal epistemology, or at least an episte- mology that is compatible with pentecostal spirituality, beliefs, and practices. To date, Amos Yong and James Smith have arguably provided the most philosophically mature pentecostal theories of knowledge. They have not only constructed insightful theo- logical epistemologies based on pentecostal presuppositions, but seem also to have provided pentecostal versions of “correlationist” and “postliberal” approaches to theo- logical epistemology. The purpose of this article is to assess the pentecostal epistemolo- gies of Yong and Smith, offer evaluative comments on their approaches, and suggest that pentecostal theologians/philosophers would significantly benefit from familiar- izing themselves with and building on the epistemologies of Yong and Smith as the search for pentecostal epistemologies continues.

Keywords

epistemology – pentecostal – correlationism – postliberalism – Amos Yong – James Smith

* In gratitude to my supervisor Mark Cartledge for his guidance and friendship.

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Introduction

The quest for a pentecostal theology shaped by a pentecostal theological meth- odology has been the interest of pentecostal theologians for some time,1 and the importance of epistemology is increasingly acknowledged as central in this pursuit. For example, Christopher Stephenson, in his survey of three pen- tecostal systematic theologians, namely, Myer Pearlman, E.S. Williams, and French L. Arrington, notes that each one of them “makes epistemology the starting point” of their theological endeavor and thus their epistemology inevi- tably ends up influencing, even if not determining, the content and nature of their theologies.2It is for this reason that some pentecostal scholars claim that there cannot be a pentecostal theology without a distinct pentecostal episte- mology, or at least an epistemology that is compatible with pentecostal spir- ituality, beliefs, and practices.3 Modernistic epistemologies adopted by much of conservative evangelical theology are seen by some as incompatible with Pentecostalism(s),4and the postmodern alternatives are not regarded as being without their problems.5

Following from this dissatisfaction, a handful of pentecostal scholars have offered theological epistemologies that are based on pentecostal intuitions with the aim of serving pentecostal theology faithfully.6 Two central figures in this undertaking are Amos Yong and James Smith, both of whom have

1 Throughout this article the word pentecostal is used as an adjective, rather than a noun, to

refer to forms of Christianity that are characterized by a pentecostal type of spirituality (e.g.,

Classical Pentecostalism, Charismatic Christianity, and Renewal Movements).

2 Christopher A. Stephenson, “Epistemology in Pentecostal Systematic Theology: Myer Pearl-

man, E.S. Williams, and French L. Arrington,” in The Role of Experience in Christian Life and

Thought: Pentecostal Insights. sps-36 Annual Meeting (Cleveland, tn: Society for Pentecostal

Studies, 2007), 307; cf. Christopher A. Stephenson, “The Rule of Spirituality and the Rule of

Doctrine,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology15, no. 1 (2006): 84.

3 Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality (Sheffield, uk: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 184;

Kenneth J. Archer, The Gospel Revisited (Eugene, or: Pickwick Publishing, 2011), 7; Veli-Matti

Kärkkäinen, “Epistemology, Ethos and Environment: In Search of a Theology of Pentecostal

Theological Education,”Pneuma34, no. 2 (2012): 248–250.

4 Paul W. Lewis, “Towards a Pentecostal Epistemology: The Role of Experience in Pentecostal

Hermeneutics,”The Spirit & Church2, no. 1 (May 2000): 122; Archer,The Gospel Revisited, 7. 5 Kärkkäinen, “Epistemology, Ethos and Environment,” 249–250; Robert Menzies, “Jumping Off

the Postmodern Bandwagon,”Pneuma16, no. 1 (1994): 116.

6 E.g., Cheryl Bridges Johns,Pentecostal Formation: A Pedagogy among the Oppressed(Sheffield,

uk: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993); Lewis, “Towards a Pentecostal Epistemology,” 95–125;

Mark J. Cartledge,Practical Theology: Charismatic and Empirical Theology(London: Paternos-

ter, 2003), 41–68.

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in search of a “pentecostal” epistemology

developed philosophically mature theories of knowledge stemming from pen- tecostal presuppositions and, in doing so, have helped pave the way forward for pentecostal epistemologies. Despite the similarities of their approaches, however, Yong and Smith have also constructed two distinct epistemological visions for pentecostal theology and philosophy. Indeed, as will be suggested in this article, they seem to have provided pentecostal versions of “correlationist” and “postliberal” approaches to theological epistemology in later modernity. Thus I will seek to demonstrate that Yong’s epistemology has a correlationist disposition in that he strives for a public theology and aims to bring the pente- costal tradition into a mutually transformative dialogue with different sources of theological knowledge exemplified in other traditions/disciplines. Smith’s approach, on the other hand, is postliberal as his primary focus is on the inter- nal logic of the Christian tradition, which he believes is based on and sustained by the liturgical practices and biblical narrative of the (pentecostal) Christian community.7Therefore, in this article Iwill proposethat Yongand Smith should be considered to be of particular importance among pentecostal theologians and philosophers who are searching for a pentecostal epistemology in the con- text of contemporary theological epistemologies.

To achieve the above, my focus will be fourfold: first, to describe the main tenets of Yong’s and Smith’s “pentecostal” epistemologies; second, to explore what they consider to be the appropriate sources of theological knowledge or ways of acquiring knowledge; third, to identify their epistemic criteria regard- ing justification/warrant with respect to theological beliefs; and fourth, to pro- vide some evaluative comments. I will then conclude by offering some com- parisons between the epistemologies of Yong and Smith, as well as suggesting some potential trajectories for future pentecostal developments.

Pneumatological Imagination: Yong’s Theological Epistemology

Pneumatological Imagination

Yong’s theological epistemology is captured in his concept of pneumatological imagination.8 It is pneumatological because Yong argues for a “foundational

7 For other definitions of correlationism and postliberalism see Richard Lints, “The Postposi-

tivist Choice: Tracy or Lindbeck?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion61, no. 4 (1993):

655–677; David F. Ford, “Introduction to Modern Christian Theology,” in The Modern Theolo-

gians: An Introduction to Christian Theology since 1918, 3rd ed., ed. David F. Ford with Rachel

Muers (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 2–3, 5.

8 Yong’s main work on theological epistemology is Amos Yong, Spirit-Word-Community: The-

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pneumatology,” which means that ontology and metaphysics are best under- stood pneumatologically. His foundational pneumatology is grounded on three theological principles. First, following Augustine, Yong understands the role of the Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and the Son, and hence in the Trinity the Spirit is the divine mediatorinandintothe life of God.9Second, the Spirit is “the Spirit of creation” maintaining the relationship between the cre- ation and the Creator, and so is central in sustaining the creation within the life of the Triune God.10Third, in the dispensation of the Pentecost event the Spirit is “poured out on all flesh” (Acts 2:17), inaugurating a new era of God’s pres- ence among all people.11 Since Yong follows the common epistemic principle of allowing the order of things (ontology) to determine how things are known (epistemology),12 stemming from his foundational pneumatology it naturally follows that for him God can only be known truly in the Spirit, and hence Yong’s epistemology is logically pneumatically oriented.13

The imagination for Yong is the human belief-forming faculty in relation to God and the world. Yong uses the term imagination not as a reference to fan-

9 10 11

12 13

ological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective (Eugene, or: Wipf & Stock, 2002). The methodology ofSpirit-Word-Communityis exemplified in Amos Yong,TheDialogicalSpirit: Christian Reason and Theological Method in the Third Millennium (Eugene, or: Cascade Books, 2014). For some pentecostal engagements with Yong’s theological methodology and epistemology see L. William Oliverio, Jr., “An Interpretive Review Essay on Amos Yong’s Spirit-Word-Community: Theological Hermeneutics in Trinitarian Perspective,” Jour- nal of Pentecostal Theology 18, no. 2 (2009): 302; L. William Oliverio, Jr., “The One and the Many: Amos Yong and the Pluralism and Dissolution of Later Modernity,” in The Theol- ogy of Amos Yong and the New Face of Pentecostal Scholarship: Passion for the Spirit, ed. Wolfgang Vondey and Martin William Mittelstadt (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 51; Peter D. Neu- mann, Pentecostal Experience: An Ecumenical Encounter (Eugene, or: Pickwick Publica- tions, 2012), 274–309; Christopher A. Stephenson, Types of Pentecostal Theology: Method, System, Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 89–91; Christopher A. Stephenson, “Reality, Knowledge, and Life in Community: Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Hermeneu- tics in the Work of Amos Yong,” inThe Theology of Amos Yong, ed. Vondey and Mittelstadt, 63–81.

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 59–72.

Ibid., 43.

Ibid., 30; Amos Yong, Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions (Grand Rapids,mi: Baker Academic, 2003), 131.

See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094b13–27.

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 83–118; Amos Yong,The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pente- costalism and the Possibility of Global Theology(Grand Rapids,mi: Baker Academic, 2005), 301–302.

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ciful ideas or to a priori concepts, but as images formed in the mind through experiencing the world.14 In this sense all knowledge is experientially based and Yong’s epistemology can be seen as a form of empiricism. Yong identifies two aspects within this experiential image forming. First, images are formed in the mind through passive perceiving, where images are automatically repro- duced based on observed sense data.15In the words of C.S. Peirce, upon whom Yong heavily relies, these images can be seen as “perceptual judgments.”16 The second aspect of the imagination moves beyond simply reproducing images from experience to a negotiation of meaning by actively producing and con- structing images of the world, and thus can be seen as a type of “worldmak- ing”17 or, in Peircean language, the formation of “perceptual facts.”18 These two aspects of image forming, however, should not be seen as simply ratio- nal processes, but for Yong the images of the world are formed through the interplay between the mind and the heart, that is, “affections,” “will,” and the “spirit.”19

Sources of Knowledge/Acquiring Knowledge

Thus for Yong theological knowledge is gained through experience of the world by the faculty of the pneumatological imagination, which forms images of the world both passively and actively. Following from the concept of pneumatolog- ical imagination, Yong does not restrict his sources of theological knowledge to the biblical foundationalism of conservative Evangelicalism or to spiritual experience as understood within one specific “cultural-linguistic” tradition. Since Yong maintains that reality as a whole is pneumatologically charged, divine encounters are not restricted to certain holy books or experiences within specific traditions, but the divine can be encountered in other people, cultures, religions, history, nature, and science.20 In other words, Yong interprets the whole world semiotically/symbolically as pointing to a deeper reality, namely, God, that can be experienced.21Consequently, it is not surprising that Yong has

14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 151.

Ibid., 128.

Amos Yong, “The Demise of Foundationalism and the Retention of Truth,” Christian Scholar’s Review29 (2000): 570.

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 144.

Yong, “The Demise of Foundationalism,” 571.

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 129.

Ibid., 212–214, 300–301, 298–299.

Ibid., 200; see also Yong, Beyond the Impasse, 61.

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actively engaged with other religions,22 politics,23 and the natural sciences,24 because for him the pneumatological world in its fullness is the source for the- ological knowledge.

Yong is not, however, naïve about the direct nature of these divine encoun- ters in the world, because he does not believe that there can be a direct unmediated spiritual experience. In fact, he argues that “the cultural-linguistic argument has got the better of the experiential-expressivist argument—to use Lindbeck’s terminology,” and that “all knowledge is semiotically medi- ated and therefore at least one step (or sign) removed from the richness of experience.”25 Nevertheless, this does not lead him into Lindbeck’s postlib- eral position because he still maintains that there are no truly homogenous “forms of life” or “grammars,” but there always exists “a complex together- ness of multiple histories, traditions, sources and experiences.”26 Moreover, Yong’s foundational pneumatology creates a further point of contact between different communities since the Spirit is the divine mediator among peo- ple. Therefore, despite acknowledging the mediated nature of all knowledge, Yong strongly argues for a public theology and sees it as a necessity if a the- ology seeks to claim universal applicability.27 Thus, theological knowledge

25 26 27

E.g., Amos Yong, Discerning the Spirit(s) (Sheffield, uk: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); Yong, Beyond the Impasse; Amos Yong, Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost, Christian Practice, and the Neighbor (New York: Orbis Books, 2008).

E.g.,AmosYong,IntheDaysofCaesar:PentecostalismandPoliticalTheology(GrandRapids, mi: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2009).

E.g., Amos Yong,The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal- Charismatic Imagination(Grand Rapids,mi: Eerdmans, 2011).

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 208.

Ibid., 302.

Ibid., 304. Mark Mann has recently argued that Yong’s epistemology, with respect to Tracy’s correlationism and Lindbeck’s postliberalism, has “much stronger affinity to postliberal- ism.” Mann notes that Yong’s “sympathy” for postliberalism “has become especially clear in his more recent work,” particularly Yong’s Hospitality and the Other; Mark Mann, “Tra- ditionalist or Reformist: Amos Yong, Pentecostalism and the Future of Evangelical Theol- ogy,” in The Theology of Amos Yong, ed. Vondey and Mittelstadt, 207, 207 n. 22. However, although Mann acknowledges Yong’s critique of postliberalism, he seems to overlook the extent to which Yong finds postliberalism wanting, which is also perceivable in Hospital- ity and the Other in which Yong supplements Lindbeck’s proposal with his foundational pneumatology and its concomitant epistemological implications; see Yong, Hospitality and the Other, 57, 128. For a further critique of postliberalism and narrative theology by Yong see Amos Yong, “Radically Orthodox, Reformed, and Pentecostal: Rethinking the Intersections of Post/Modernity and the Religions in Conversation with James K.A. Smith,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology15, no. 2 (2007): 241–242, 246–247.

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should be acquired from all possible sources in the world because “all truth is God’s truth, wherever it may be found.”28

It is this emphasis on public theology and the multiple sources of the- ological knowledge that makes Yong’s epistemology effectively correlation- ist with similarities to the mutually critical correlationism of David Tracy.29 Interestingly, Yong himself has noted that his pneumatological imagination “charts a path forward from the crossroad where Gelpi’s pneumatology and Tracy’s fundamental theology meet.”30In other words, Yong’s pneumatological imagination utilizes Donald Gelpi’s understanding of pneumatological expe- rience and applies it to all of humanity, enabling a truly public theology à la Tracy. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to suggest that Yong’s theological epistemology could be seen as a development of Tracy’s fundamental the- ology and perhaps best captured in the phrase pneumatological correlation- ism.

Justification/Warrant

However, although Yong believes in the universal presence of the Spirit in the world and thus in the possibility of divine encounters in all spheres of life, he is careful to qualify that not all experiences in the world are, in fact, divine encounters, but rather one must “test the Spirit(s)” (1John 4:1). In terms of identifying the truthfulness of one’s images/beliefs about the world, Yong offers two theories of justification. The first, and his main theory of justification, is a pragmatic one. According to this, “[t]rue beliefs are those reached when the effects predicted are borne out in experience.”31 In other words, to test the truthfulness of an image or belief is to see whether it obtains “desirable results, not in the sense of that which human beings simply wish or want, but in the sense of harmonizing or comporting with the way reality is.”32

Yong’s second test is that ofcoherence. That is, beliefs are justified if they are coherent with a person’s, or more appropriately a community’s, other beliefs.33 It is worth noting, however, that although Yong uses pragmatism and coherence as theories of justification, he does not accept them as appropriate theories of

28 29

30 31 32 33

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 305.

Tracy advocates “mutually critical correlations between the interpretations of tradition and situation or church and world”; David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism(London:scm, 1981), 80.

Yong, Beyond the Impasse, 63.

Yong, “The Demise of Foundationalism,” 572.

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 165.

Ibid., 169–174.

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truth.34 In fact, he favors a “correspondence theory of truth” in which corre- spondence is seen as “correlation” rather than “congruence,” implying that true propositions need not be identical with their referents but should, neverthe- less, resemble them sufficiently. Therefore, Yong is effectively a critical realist who sees pragmatism and coherence as appropriate theories of warrant.35Yong summarizes his approach to epistemic justification by stating that “[t]heolog- ical truth works and coheres because it corresponds—to put it crassly—with reality (nature) which is its measure.”36

Yong’s critical realism and the concept of semiotically mediated knowledge also naturally lead to his notion of epistemic fallibilism. He asserts that all knowledge is fallible due to thepartial,perspectival, and finitenature of human knowing.37 The significance of Yong’s epistemic fallibilism is that the process of justification of beliefs through pragmatic and coherence theories must be perennial because of the fallible nature of all human knowing. In Yong’s own words, spiritual discernment “is a never-ending process.”38

Evaluative Comments

To summarize the discussion so far, the key concept in Yong’s theological epistemology is thepneumatological imagination. The pneumatological aspect stems from Yong’s foundational pneumatology, and the imagination from his Peircean understanding that all human knowing is based on experience in which images of the world, and of God in the world, are formed both pas- sively (“perceptual judgments”) and actively (“perceptual facts”) in the human mind. Furthermore, this image-forming process is not an objective activity in the mind but an activity oriented by the observer’s “heart.” When it comes to acquiring knowledge, since God is present in all of creation by the Spirit, the world in its fullness is the source of theological knowledge and thus knowledge of God is not simply limited to certain spheres of life, traditions, or disciplines of enquiry. Nevertheless, not all experiences in the world are divine encounters, and therefore justification for appropriate images/beliefs of God must be dis- cerned throughpragmaticandcoherencecriteria. The need for seeking warrant for one’s beliefs is further highlighted by the fallibility of all human knowing.

Yong’s pentecostal (read: pneumatological) epistemology has a number of strengths. At the forefront, Yong’s epistemology is developed on the doctrine

34 35 36 37 38

Ibid., 174.

Yong refers to himself as a “committed metaphysical realist”; Yong,Beyond the Impasse, 71. Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 298.

Ibid., 176–210.

Yong, Beyond the Impasse, 164.

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of the Spirit, which is one of the central aspects of Pentecostalism(s). A great emphasis is also placed on pneumatological experience, and, as Warrington puts it, “A personal, experiential encounter of the Spirit” is central to Pente- costals.39 This experience is not understood, however, in a naïve realist fash- ion because Yong acknowledges that all experience is semiotically mediated, but at the same time Yong does not seem to restrict the experience sim- ply to a cultural-linguistic tradition but allows the experience of God also to transform that tradition.40 Yong’s epistemology can also be seen as moving beyond Cartesian rationalism and classical foundationalism,41which has been common in evangelical epistemologies and thus an influence on pentecostal theology. It acknowledges the holistic nature of knowledge and the value of the heart in the formation of images/beliefs.42 Nonetheless, Yong’s concept of the faculty of pneumatological imagination is not a retreat into subjec- tivism, relativism, or fideistic confessionalism, due to his empiricism and the pragmatic justification of beliefs/images.43 Therefore, Yong’s pneumatic epis- temology with its pneumatological correlationism can be seen as an alterna- tive to classical foundationalist and postliberal theological epistemologies and thus as a plausible option for pentecostal theologians and philosophers to uti- lize.

Nevertheless, despite these strengths, there are two aspects of Yong’s the- ological epistemology that probably merit further discussion: (1) the general adequacy of Yong’s public theology and correlationism from a pentecostal per- spective, and (2) the effectiveness of his theory of justification/warrant.

Keith Warrington, Pentecostal Theology: A Theology of Encounter (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 20.

The importance of a transcendent pneumatological experience beyond a semiotic frame- work is deemed by Lewis and Macchia as an important feature of Pentecostalism; Lewis, “Towards a Pentecostal Epistemology,” 100; Frank D. Macchia, “Christian Experience and Authority in the World: A Pentecostal Viewpoint,”The Authority of the Church in the World. National Council of Churches usa Faith and Order Commission. http://ncccusa.org/ faithandorder/authority.macchia.htm; accessed September 10, 2013.

Although Yong does seem to suggest that his foundational pneumatology provides a weak form of foundationalism; Yong, Beyond the Impasse, 80; cf. Neumann, Pentecostal Experience, 286.

Clear similarities can be seen here with Land’s “orthopathy” and Johns’ concept of yada; see Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 134–136; Johns, Pentecostal Formation, 39.

Pragmatism can also be seen to have a natural affinity with Pentecostalism, which sup- ports the adequacy of Yong’s idea of pragmatic justification in pentecostal epistemology; see Lewis, “Towards a Pentecostal Epistemology,” 106; Macchia, “Christian Experience and Authority in the World”; Neumann, Pentecostal Experience, 152.

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With respectto the first issue, it seems that Yong’stheological projectis effec- tively that of a (super) “natural theologian,” since he emphasizes the possibility of a universal pneumatic experience that finds its basis in his foundational pneumatology. Now the question is whether Yong’s pneumatology in the con- text of pentecostal theology and pneumatology is sufficiently robust to justify this position. For example, Smith has argued that Yong pushes the metaphor of “Spirit poured out on all flesh” too far by not acknowledging its particular connection to Christians, rather than all people, in Acts.44 Thus, the potential danger is that Yong’s pneumatology emphasises the universal Spirit of Creation at the expense of the particular Spirit of Christ, that is, epistemologically, not soteriologically, speaking.45Or to pose the question differently, is (Yong’s) nat- ural theology a “natural” bedfellow for pentecostal theology even when it is pneumatically based?

Interestingly, L. William Oliverio has pointed out, after explicating Yong’s theological methodology, that “[t]he question remains how Yong’s theolog- ical forays relate to the Pentecostal traditions that Yong seeks to represent and to those particularities he attends.”46 This is a crucial question, because if Yong’s epistemology does not relate to the pentecostal traditions appropri- ately, this not only undermines his global/public theology by excluding Pen- tecostals, but also destroys the foundations upon which he hopes to build his public theology, namely, pentecostal presuppositions. Now I am not necessarily suggesting that Yong’s epistemology does not accurately reflect Pentecostal- ism, but that this issue simply needs further assessment if Yong’s pentecostal epistemology will be adopted and adapted by pentecostal scholars going for- ward.

Second, when it comes to Yong’s theory of justification/warrant, Yong has himself stated that he is “convinced that the Achilles’ heel of any pneumato- logical approach to theology of religions will be its failure to develop a crite- riology of discernment adequate for the dynamic complexity of lived human religious experience.”47 At the same time, however, in his most philosophical and theoretical work Yong acknowledges that “the possibility, conditions, and justification of knowledge” are not comprehensively discussed,48 and, as one

46 47 48

James K.A. Smith, “The Spirit, Religions, and the World as Sacrament: A Response to Amos Yong’s Pneumatological Assist,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology15, no. 2 (2007): 254 n. 9. Yong rejects soteriological universalism due to human freedom enabled by the Spirit; Amos Yong, “Radically Orthodox, Reformed and Pentecostal,” 247.

Oliverio, “The One and the Many,” 60.

Yong, Beyond the Impasse, 166.

Yong,Spirit-Word-Community, 120.

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might expect, this does cause some ambiguity in Yong’s epistemology and also leaves the Achilles’ heel of his epistemology rather exposed.

For example, Yong maintains that, in the light of his pragmatic justifica- tion, beliefs are justified in practice in how they correspond to reality and this informs right habits in a person, enabling them to interact more truth- fully with reality. However, Yong also asserts that truth, that is, ultimate reality, is fundamentally eschatological.49 If this is the case, then simply testing our beliefs in the world, even if the world is pneumatic, will not help us reach the truth of the matter or necessarily develop right epistemic habits unless one maintains a fully realized eschatology. This is because if the eschaton has not yet been fully realized, the current reality experienced in the world and the habits formed by it do not necessarily correspond to the age to come, which will reflect a different reality at least to some extent. Perhaps this is why Paul, among other nt writers, encourages his readers through his exam- ple to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2Cor 5:7). Paul’s exhortation, however, begs the question, “How does one know that one is genuinely walking by faith and that one’s faith is warranted, if experience and practice cannot fully confirm this?” The answer from a Christian perspective seems to point toward God’s special revelation in Christ mediated by the Bible and the Christian commu- nity.

In fairness to Yong, his more recent articulation of theological epistemol- ogy has focused increasingly on Christ as the revelation of God and he has also argued for a closer relationship between Christology, pneumatology, ecclesiol- ogy, practice, and eschatology.50Nevertheless, the relationships between Spirit and Word, experience and the Bible, practice and tradition, eschatology and history, could still be further developed with a more direct focus on epistemic justification/warrant. It is here that Yong’s pragmatic warrant and habit for- mation might also be strengthened by Smith’s notion of habits being formed through the liturgy of the community of faith, which is the eschatological com- munity (see discussion below).

49 50

Yong, “The Demise of Foundationalism,” 580.

Amos Yong with Jonathan A. Anderson, Renewing Christian Theology: Systematics for a Global Christianity (Waco, tx: Baylor University Press, 2014), chapter 12; Yong, The Dialogical Spirit, 285.

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Embodied, Affective, and Narrative Knowing: Smith’s Theological Epistemology

Affective, Embodied, and Narrative Knowing

Smith hopes to develop a pentecostal epistemology that is based on the tacit epistemic principles present within pentecostal faith and spirituality.51 His emphasis on constructing a theological epistemology on faith/spirituality fol- lows from his distinction between “faith/spirituality” and “theology.”52 Faith, according to Smith, is a “pre-theoretical experience,”53 whereas theology is “associated with the more narrow, propositional aspect of faith—doctrines, dogma, and theoretical reflection,”54 and in this sense theology is a “second- order” discipline “one step back” from the reality of faith.55Moreover, for Smith it is the practices of faith/spirituality “that give rise to (articulated) beliefs” of theology, not the other way around.56 Consequently, it seems that for Smith a pentecostal epistemology stemming from a pentecostal theology would be a construction from a secondary source rather than the primary source of practiced faith and spirituality. Therefore, to avoid dealing with lesser sources (read: theology), Smith seeks to build his theological epistemology on the primary source of pentecostal spirituality, or at least his direct reflection on it.

In reflecting on pentecostal spirituality, Smith identifies three key aspects for a pentecostal theory of knowledge; that is, knowing is (1) embodied, (2) affec- tive, and (3) narrative. He pitches these three principles against the Cartesian anthropology that reduces humans to “thinking things,” which, he argues, has resulted in the idolization of reason and the failure of modernistic epistemolo- gies.57InthissenseheseesPentecostalismasatypeof“proto-postmodernism”or

52 53

54 55 56 57

James K.A. Smith, Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy (Grand Rapids,mi: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010), 52.Thinking in Tongues, 48–85 is Smith’s most explicit articulation of a pentecostal epistemology.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 25–26.

James K.A. Smith, “Dialogue: Scandalizing Theology: A Pentecostal Response to Noll’s Scandal,”Pneuma19, no. 2 (1997): 235.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 25–26.

Smith, “Dialogue,” 235.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 31 n. 35.

Ibid., 53. Unlike Yong’s epistemology, which starts from ontology, Smith bases his episte- mology on anthropology. That is, he is driven by the belief that behind every pedagogy and epistemology is a “set of assumptions about the nature of human persons.” The great failure of modern epistemologies, in his view, is that they have assumed that humans are

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“countermodernism” having great affinity with postmodern epistemologies,58 which is not necessarily surprising with respect to Smith’s interest in postmod- ern theology and philosophy.59

So how does Smith interpret these three pentecostal epistemic intuitions? When it comes to the embodied aspect of knowing, Smith states that “[t]here could be no pentecostal spirituality without the matter of bodies; in other words, for pentecostalism, bodies matter.”60 He supports this claim by not- ing how the importance of divine healing and expressive worship highlights the centrality of embodied encounters for Pentecostals with the divine, and opposes the reduction of humans to mere rational beings.61

Theaffectiveaspect naturally follows from embodied knowing, because em- bodiment suggests “that we feelour way around the world more than wethink about it, before we think about it.”62 Consequently, for Pentecostals, as inter- preted by Smith, the “heart,” not the “head,” is the center of theological knowl- edge.63 It is also here that Smith’s emphasis on embodiment and affections is closely connected to his concept of imagination.64 In other words, he believes that the human imagination of the world, which includes perception, under- standing, and constructions of the world, is formed through embodied activity and encounters in the world, and it is this imbibing of images by embodied and affective beings that characterizes for Smith the essence of pentecostal spiritu- ality.65

58 59

60 61 62 63

merely “thinking things”; James K.A. Smith,Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids, mi: Baker Academic, 2009), 37; cf. Smith, Thinking in Tongues, 54.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 52.

See James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology (Grand Rapids, mi: Baker Academic, 2004); James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmod- ernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (Grand Rapids, mi: Baker Aca- demic, 2006); James K.A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Relativism? Community, Contingency and Creaturehood (Grand Rapids,mi: Baker Academic, 2014).

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 82.

Ibid., 61.

Ibid., 72.

Ibid., 58; In many ways Smith follows Land in building his epistemology on the notion of “orthopathy”; Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 134.

James K.A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids, mi: Baker Academic, 2013), 16–21.

Smith’s notion of imagination is not very different here from Yong’s. That is, Smith, like Yong, effectively sees two aspects to human imagination: (1) “primary perception,” in which images of the world are formed passively through embodied encounters in the

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From the embodied and affective aspects of knowing God, Smith argues that narrative knowledge naturally ensues;66 he reasons that the form of knowing needs to be narrative/testimonial in order to carry the embodied and affective aspects. That is, “[i]f the testimony is translated into ‘mere’ facts, codified into propositions, distilled into ideas, then we are dealing with a different animal: I would both ‘know’ something different and ‘know’ it differently.”67 Therefore, for Smith pentecostal epistemology must be embodied, affective, and narrative.

Sources of Knowledge/Acquiring Knowledge

In the light of Smith’s embodied, affective, and narrative pentecostal epistemol- ogy, I will now seek to explore further how in Smith’s terms we come to “know” and what the main “sources” of knowledge are. At the forefront, similarly to Yong, Smith sees experience as the central source of theological knowledge.68 In fact, Smith acknowledges that his view of embodied knowing “by the images of the world that are absorbed by our bodies” is a form of empiricism.69 So in simple terms for Smith, as for Yong, we come to acquire knowledge through our experienceof the world.

Smith, more so than Yong,70however, emphasizes that the affective, embod- ied, and narrative theological knowing is shaped by practices, which can be seen as “rituals” and “liturgies” in which we participate,71 and these practices end up causinghabitsin our lives. Habit, as understood by Smith, is the “embod- ied know-how (the ‘practical sense’)” that “orients my perception of the world without me realizing it.”72 The “know-how” or “practical sense” is also referred to by Merleau-Ponty as the praktognosia “by which I ‘understand’ the world without recourse to discursive, propositional processing.”73 In other words, habits transform our imagination and thus our primary perception of the world. Hence, Smith concludes that “[r]ituals make the man who makes the

66 67 68 69 70

71 72 73

world; (2) “objective knowledge,” which tries to articulate and categorize the images from primary perception; Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, 70.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 64.

Ibid.

Ibid., 81.

Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, 17 n. 38.

See Amos Yong, “Ignorance, Knowledge and Omniscience: At and Beyond the Limits of Faith and Reason after Shinran,”Buddhist-Christian Studies31 (2011): 205.

Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 86.

Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, 80, 88.

Ibid., 56.

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world,”74 because practices (read: rituals) shape our habits and habits in turn inform our “know-how”/“practical sense”/praktognosia/imagination.

Smith argues that our culture is full of these “identity-forming practices,” that is, liturgy, that influence our understanding and knowledge of the world and God, and in this sense liturgical practice, whether Christian or non-Christian, precedes our worldviews.75To corroborate this claim, Smith notes that people in “the church were worshipping long before they got all their doctrines in order or articulated the elements of a Christian worldview; and they were engaged in and developing worship practices long before what we now call our Bible emerged and was solidified, so to speak.”76 Hence, it seems that for Smith a good source of theological knowledge is a context that enables us to participate in a form of liturgy that will shape our affective, embodied/imaginative and narrative knowing in a way that will increase true knowledge of God, because to shape a worldview and to form knowledge is to practice a specific liturgy.77It is not hard to argue that, at least ideally, participation in the life of the church provides this context and thus the church as a liturgical community is an ideal, even if not the only, source of theological knowledge.78

Justification/Warrant

It appears from Smith’s epistemological triad and the emphasis on knowing through liturgical participation that we should engage in those practices that help align our affections, imagination, and personal narratives increasingly with the reality of God and his kingdom.79 So how does one know that they have participated in the right liturgy and that their narrative knowledge of God is justified? For a person to discern the validity of their knowledge, Smith suggests placing their “micronarratives” of the kingdom within the “macronar- rative of Scripture,” which portrays the true picture of God’s kingdom.80 In other words, a person needs a sanctified perception, which means “re-story- ing” their “being-in-the-world.”81 Smith elaborates on this by noting that “we

74 75 76

77 78

79 80 81

Ibid., 107.

Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 89–90.

Ibid., 135. It is here that Smith’s views are very similar to the Wittgensteinian notion of systems of beliefs within “forms of life.”

Ibid., 155–214.

Smith states, “The church is the language-game in which welearn to read the world aright”; Smith,Who’s Afraid of Relativism?72.

Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 48.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 63.

Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, 161.

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need to be regularly immersed in the ‘true story of the whole world’; that is, our imaginations need to be restored, recalibrated, and realigned by an affective immersion in the story of God in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”82 The “re-story-ing” happens best within the worshipping commu- nity, which participates in liturgies that accurately reflect the biblical meta- narrative, that is, the “true story of the whole world.” Thus, it seems that for Smith the justification for the pentecostal community’s narrative is determined by the extent to which it accurately corresponds to and coheres with the Bible.

This, however, raises the question of how, in a pluralist world, the com- munity knows that its macronarrative, namely, Scripture, is in fact the true macronarrative. Smith suggests two theories of justification for the biblical macronarrative in relation to the contending stories. First, there is the perfor- mative effectiveness of the narrative in lived experience vis-à-vis alternative and competing narratives “in the marketplace of ideas,”83 which lends itself to a type of pragmatic justification. It is important to highlight here that Smith is adamant that there exists no public rationality or neutral ground between dif- ferent traditions.84 This means that it is not possible to justify one’s narrative from some form of common criteria, and hence Smith strongly opposes any type of “correlated Christian theology.”85 In the absence of common ground between traditions, Smith argues that the biblical narrative is justified prag- matically with respect to competing narratives. The process of pragmatic jus- tification has two steps. The first is to show that there is, in fact, no neutral point of view, and consequently to try to cling on to objective modernistic the- ories of warrant is disingenuous. For example, the secular ontology is also a “mythosand thus equal in epistemic status to the Christianmythos.”86The next step is then to “out-narrate” the competing myths not by arguments but by the language of life, through a lived witness.87 As well as pragmatically justi- fying beliefs/narratives through this two-step process, Smith secondly argues that the beliefs/narratives can be also tested regarding their inner coherence,

82 83 84

86 87

Ibid., 163.

Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 181.

He writes that “[t]he neutral, autonomous reason that would have to underwrite a project of demonstration has been forfeited by the fall”; Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 181.

Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? 123–127; cf. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 31–42.

Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, 181.

Ibid.

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which results in a coherence theory of justification.88In other words, if the bib- lical narrative is internally coherent and consistent, then one is not irrational in believing it.

In summary, the justification/warrant for pentecostal narrative knowing is provided by three factors: (1) the way it fits with the biblical macronarrative; the biblical macronarrative, on the other hand, is justified by (2) a pragmatic criterion in its ability to “out-narrate” competing narratives, as well as (3) the biblical macronarrative’s own innercoherence.

Evaluative Comments

It has been suggested that Smith aspires to build his pentecostal epistemology on the tacit epistemic principles present within pentecostal practice and spir- ituality rather than on pentecostal theology. Within pentecostal practice/spir- ituality he identifies three main aspects of pentecostal theory of knowledge, namely, that epistemology is (1) embodied, (2) affective, and (3) narrative. Knowledge of the world and God is gained through habit-forming practices, that is, rituals and liturgies, that shape this epistemic triad and one’s “know- how” of the world. To discern whether one is participating in the appropri- ate practices, one needs to continually “re-story” oneself within the biblical macronarrative in the context of a Christian community to ensure that one’s narrative corresponds with the biblical macronarrative, and the warrant with respect to the biblical macronarrative is determined by pragmatic and coher- encecriteria.

The pentecostal theological and philosophical community has been sig- nificantly enriched by Smith’s philosophical vigor, insights, and creativity in articulating a “pentecostal” epistemology. Smith’s impressive work on pente- costal philosophy as a whole, and epistemology in particular, has proved to be a significant contribution and catalyst for pentecostal philosophical theol- ogy. In fact, Klaas Bom has gone so far as to claim that Smith’s epistemological “contribution provides a first step toward developing … a [pentecostal episte- mological] framework.”89 Bom’s assertion seems somewhat bold, not least in the light of Yong’s prior epistemological work, but, nevertheless, rightly high- lights the importance of Smith’s contribution for pentecostal epistemology. In particular, Smith’s emphasis on pentecostal spirituality, liturgical practice, and (biblical) narrative as a source for pentecostal epistemology is very valuable. It

88 89

Ibid., 181–182.

Klaas Bom, “Heart and Reason: Using Pascal to Clarify Smith’s Ambiguity,”Pneuma34, no. 3 (2012): 347.

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is also this aspect of Smith’s epistemology that makes it postliberal, a label with which Smith is happy to identify.90

Having said that, there seem to be three interrelated weaknesses within Smith’s epistemology that merit further discussion, namely, (1) his one-sided view regarding the relationship between beliefs and practices; (2) the focus on present practices at the expense of the historical and theological narratives that shape these practices; and (3) the apparent dilemma in his theory of justification with respect to beliefs/narratives.91

Asdiscussedabove,Smithmakesadistinctionbetweenpracticed“faith/spir- ituality” and articulated “theology.” He believes that the practiced faith informs theology and not vice versa, and therefore to deal with the primary material of Pentecostalism he develops his pentecostal epistemology from the implicit epistemic assumptions within pentecostal faith/spirituality, rather than from pentecostal theology or historical tradition. However, this approach is not with- out its difficulties.

Firstly, Smith’s insistence that it is practice that informs theology and not theology that informs practice seems to be overly simplistic,92 not least in the light of the two authors that Smith utilizes in developing his idea of giving pri- macy to faith/spirituality over articulated beliefs, that is, theology. Smith refers to Stephen Land’s definition of spirituality as “the integration of beliefs and practices in the affections which are themselves evoked and expressed by those beliefs and practices.”93 What is evident here is not the superiority of prac- tice over beliefs, but the value of both in informing spirituality. In fact, Land explicitly states that for Pentecostals there is a “mutually conditioning interplay between knowledge and lived experience” (my emphasis).94Moreover, Charles Taylor’s notion of “social imaginary,” which Smith also employs in develop- ing a pentecostal imaginary,95 does not support the preeminence of practice informing spirituality and beliefs. In fact, Taylor argues that the social imagi- nary is created by the mutual interplay of beliefs and practices, and that it is “absurd to believe that the practices always come first, or to adopt the opposite

90 91

92 93 94 95

Smith,Who’s Afraid of Relativism?152–153.

Bom has also noted Smith’s silence on “the specific role of reason” and the ambiguity between “heart” and “reason”; Bom, “Heart and Reason,” 349. However, Smith seems to have responded to Bom’s enquiry, at least indirectly, in Who’s Afraid of Relativism? 115– 149.

See Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 31 n. 35.

Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 13, quoted in Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 26.

Land, Pentecostal Spirituality, 75.

Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 29.

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view, that ideas somehow drive history.”96 So, although Smith rightly empha- sizes the importance of practices informing beliefs and theology, he seems to overlook the role theology plays in influencing religious practices. The impli- cations of this omission are that Smith’s pentecostal epistemology does not make the most of the pentecostal theology or history that has shaped and is currently shaping pentecostal spirituality and practices. Hence, Smith’s inter- pretation of pentecostal spirituality, which is the foundation of his pentecostal epistemology, is arguably not fully informed by the richness of pentecostal tra- ditions.

Following from this omission, secondly, the lack of real engagement with pentecostal theology and history means that Smith’s purported narrative pen- tecostal epistemology is in fact non-narrative, because Smith focuses mainly onpresentpentecostal practices at the expense of the historical developments of the pentecostal theology that gives meaning to these practices. This means that his epistemology seems to focus on the contemporary pentecostal scene without reflecting on the historical scenes (read: theology and historical nar- rative) that help put the present scene in its right context. The problem with a “one-scene narrative” is that it effectively becomes non-narrative altogether, because you cannot have a story with only one scene.97Therefore, to construct a truly narrative pentecostal epistemology, Smith and those who seek to build on his epistemology need to pay closer attention to the historical and theolog- ical developments of the pentecostal narrative as well as to its contemporary expressions.

Finally, Smith seems to have a possible problem in his theory of justifica- tion/warrant; that is, Smith claims that praxis precedes belief, not vice versa, and the church was worshipping long before it canonized its Scriptures or artic- ulated its doctrines.98In fact, for Smith it was this worshipping community that gave us the Canon and the Creeds. Nevertheless, Smith also maintains that the worshipping community needs to regularly “recalibrate” and “re-story” its nar- rative in the light of the biblical metanarrative in order for its narrative knowing to be justified and warranted.99 This causes an apparent dilemma for Smith

98 99

Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (London: Duke University Press, 2004), 63; cf. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age(London: Harvard University Press, 2007), 172.

To be fair to Smith, his purpose in Thinking in Tongues is to provide a sketch of a pente- costal epistemology, not a full thesis. Nevertheless, without paying due respect to theology shaping practices as well as to practices shaping theology, it is difficult to see how Smith could provide such a narrative pentecostal epistemology.

Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 135; Smith,Thinking in Tongues, 31 n. 35.

See Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, 161–163.

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because (1) either the practices of the worshipping community are authorita- tive, and not the Scriptures that simply reflect the community’s practices, or (2) the Scriptures are authoritative and are the norm that should shape the practices of the worshipping community. It appears inconsistent for Smith to hold both assertions. If Smith adopts the first proposition, his theory of warrant needs reshaping and he needs to develop some sort of experiential, or further refine his pragmatic, criterion for justified beliefs.100 If, on the other hand, he decides to give primacy to the second proposition, a more robust theory of war- rant with respect to the biblical narrative, or special revelation, needs to be constructed. Either way Smith’s theory of justification needs further articula- tion.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I will propose the following comparative comments regarding the theological epistemologies of Yong and Smith based on the discussion above. Both Yong and Smith develop pentecostal epistemologies that move beyond traditional modernistic epistemologies, although Yong’s pneumato- logical imagination finds its philosophical partner in the American Pragma- tism/Pragmaticism of C.S. Peirce and is thus more cautious about aspects of postmodern philosophy (for example, the concept of truth), whereas Smith’s embodied, affective, and narrative knowing finds synergy with postmodern philosophers of Continental persuasion.101

Both Smith and Yong favor experiential/empiricist knowledge over a priori knowledge, and they highlight the importance of images in belief formation (particularly Yong) and the affective aspect of knowing (particularly Smith). One of the seemingly biggest differences between them concerns the sources of theological knowledge. Yong sees the whole creation as pneumatically charged and therefore as a platform for divine encounters. Smith, on the other hand, places greater emphasis on the Christian community, tradition, and participa- tion within it as the locus for theological knowing.

Interestingly, for justifying images/narratives/beliefs both employ (1) prag- matic and (2) coherence criteria, although Yong’s idea of pragmatic justifica- tion is more aligned to the natural sciences, whereas Smith’s pragmatism is

100 101

Smith has been doing this in his more recent work; Smith,Who’s Afraid of Relativism? Although Smith’s later work has engaged more with (American) Pragmatism;Who’s Afraid of Relativism?

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more social in nature. Moreover, Yong’s theory of justification is more open to public criteria based on his foundational pneumatology, whereas Smith firmly opposes the idea of public criteria.

Therefore, Yong can be seen as a pneumatological correlationist in his epis- temological approach with a firm grounding in the pentecostal tradition and pneumatological theology, and Smith as a type of pentecostal postliberal with an affinity with pentecostal spirituality and practices. Indeed, in the context of contemporary theological epistemologies, these two approaches remain com- mon theological dispositions and “live options.” Consequently, the epistemolo- gies of Yong or Smith will serve as helpful grounding works and dialogue part- ners for pentecostal theologians to develop their particular theological episte- mologies, depending on whether they prefer to locate themselves within the so called “correlationist” or “postliberal” camp.

Those who seek to work with and alongside Yong’s theological epistemol- ogy would do well to further explore Yong’s pentecostal public theology and strengthen his theory of justification/warrant. With respect to the latter, Christ as God’s revelation vis-à-vis epistemological justification would particularly merit further discussion. In fact, as has already been noted, Yong in his more recent work has been doing this,102 but it still remains to be seen how Yong’s dialogical Spirit can be maintained and developed within an increasingly chris- tological framework. Regarding the concept of pentecostal public theology, further foundations in the lived faith of pentecostal communities would prob- ably help to ensure a truly pentecostal public theology advocated by Yong. Smith’s emphasis on pentecostal liturgical practices discussed above and Mark Cartledge’s practical theology focusing on the “ordinary theology” of pente- costal congregations103could possibly provide this ecclesial assist in construct- ing a more robust theological methodology for a pentecostal public theol- ogy.

Those who align themselves with Smith’s approach, however, should seek to develop a more balanced relationship between practices and beliefs, focus more on pentecostal theology and history in order to construct a historically based narrative pentecostal epistemology, and look at strengthening Smith’s theory of justification/warrant. Helpful exemplars here would probably be Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre, each of whom in his own way holds a balanced view on practices and beliefs, is a good example of historically

102 103

Yong, Renewing Christian Theology, chapter 12; Yong,The Dialogical Spirit, 285. See Mark J. Cartledge, Testimony in the Spirit: Rescripting Ordinary Pentecostal Theology (Farnham,uk: Ashgate, 2010).

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informed narrative philosophers, and possesses a well-developed theory of justification/warrant.104

104

See Taylor, A Secular Age; Alasdair MacIntyre,Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1988).

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In Search Of A “Pentecostal” Epistemology

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