The Danger of
Subjectivism in the life of the Christian by
Jack Kettler
Subjectivity can be defined as judgments that
are based on individual experiences and
feelings instead of outside facts.
For the Christian,
outside facts are as The Westminster
Confession of Faith 1.6 says:
“The whole counsel of
God concerning all things necessary for his
own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life,
is either expressly set down in Scripture, or
by good and necessary consequence may be
deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at
any time is to be added, whether by new
revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of
men.”
In subjectivism,
individuals are governed by emotions,
feelings, intuition and mystical experiences.
Subjectivism is often manifested when you hear
something along the lines of, “I feel” instead
of “I know.” As stated above, the Christian
should be governed by the teaching of
Scripture. The Christian should always ask,
what does God say about this in Scripture? If
not using Scripture as the standard, nothing
about how the Christian should live can be
known for certain. The Christian will be
plagued by an inability to make Biblically
based decisions if subjectivity is allowed to
creep in. We want to know what God's Word says
for our lives and act accordingly.
Enter Postmodernism:
Postmodernism is a new expression of
subjectivism, that has become theoretical to
many disciplines, including literature, art,
economics, philosophy, and theology. Similar
to subjectivism, postmodernism relies on
feelings and experience over objective
biblical principles. In postmodern
subjectivism, a person's feelings mistakenly
define what is thought to be true.
Postmodernism can be described as a dressed up
sophisticated form of subjectivity. In
addition, postmodernism is influenced by
relativism. Relativism is the idea that there
is no absolute truth. Anytime relativism is
attached to a philosophical system, it is only
a matter of time until skepticism takes over.
Some try to escape this by embracing various
forms of mystical irrationalism. Mystical
irrationalism is like being lost in a
bottomless ocean.
Rather than using the objective standard of
Scripture, one manifestation of the guiding
principle of the postmodern subjectivist has
become the “feeling right about it” approach
to arriving at truth for life decisions. Using
the “feeling right” approach as the guiding
principle is nothing more than emotions or
personal feelings influencing decisions. It is
not honoring to God to lay at His feet
(figuratively) our feelings and emotions and
attribute them to Him in the area of guidance
and understanding truth. Tragically, the claim
of “feeling right” has been used as a pretext
for all manner of Biblical miss-interpretation
and false applications. For example, many
professed Christians “feel” it is all right to
have sex outside of marriage. Alternatively,
it does not matter where you worship as long
as you worship somewhere (like at home
watching football or fishing in the
mountains).
The Danger of Subjectivity in Bible
Interpretation:
Biblical objectivity is undermined when
subjective experiences and feelings influence
the interpretation of the Scriptures. When
letting a subjective experience or feeling
influence the understanding of Scripture, it
is not surprising that sound doctrine will
give way to interpretations of Scripture that
are influenced by these self-same experiences
and feelings. One can easily see the circular
reasoning that plagues this approach. In the
area of understanding the biblical truth, for
the subjectivist, the Bible is interpreted in
such a fashion as to support his experience
oriented interpretations of the Bible. Thus,
the subjectivist assumes this must be what the
Bible teaches since they have felt it, saw it,
or experienced it. This is nothing more than a
dangerous subjectivist circle of
interpretation. The role of Scripture and
experience are reversed, experience and
feelings thus gaining the upper hand. This is
nothing more than reading into Scripture what
you want it to say rather than submitting to
the teachings of Scripture.
The Inherent Contradiction of
Postmodern Subjectivism:
Postmodern subjectivism has a problem with the
certainty of knowledge given its dependence on
experience and feelings which differ from
person to person. An insurmountable problem is
that when the subjectivist postmodernist says,
“there is no such thing as absolute truth.” A
statement like this crumbles because of its
internal self-refuting contradiction. “There
is no absolute truth” is a statement asserting
absolute truth. We can then ask; is your
assertions true that there is no “absolute
truth?” We can also ask; are your truth claims
relative or does it even exist? Is such a
concept such as relative truth, true? If truth
is relative, all we have are arbitrary social
conventions, and it would make no difference
if some slime told other slim to sit on the
back of the bus. Even the postmodern
subjectivist lives in such a way that evidence
that they believe in some kind of truth. All
human beings talk about right and wrong. Why
attempt to find the truth if it does not
exist? The non-Christian may very well
conclude that riotous living is the best
choice. The Christian has a better way.
The Christian believes that biblical truth is
the basis for determining right from wrong. If
truth does not exist, neither would right or
wrong. Talking about evil and morality from a
consistent postmodern subjectivist point of
view would be nothing more than irrational
nonsense. Silence is their only consistent
option. This is impossible. Thus, their
position is refuted. The subjectivist
philosophy rejects the certainty of truth and
ends up with internally self-refuting
contradictions. Moreover as already alluded
to, biblically speaking, holding philosophical
beliefs that contain internally self-refuting
contradictions is an expression of
irrationalism.
How do we protect ourselves against
subjectivism?
As Christians, we need to be aware of our
world-view. How do we do this? As Christians,
we need to be epistemologically
self-conscious. Epistemology is the study of
how we know things. There are generally
understood to be three types of theories of
gaining knowledge,
1.Empiricism (a view that
experience, especially the senses is the only
source of knowledge),
2.Rationalism (a view
that appeals to man's independent reason as a
source of knowledge) and
3.Dogmatism or
scripturalism (all knowledge must be contained
within a system and deduced from its starting
principles, in the Christian case, the Bible).
It is easy to see that
the first position mentioned, empiricism is
inherently plagued by subjectivism given its
dependence on experience. The second position
is nothing more than a fallen man asserting
his independence from God’s interpretation of
facts. We need to understand and hold to a
distinctively Christian theory of knowledge as
spelled out in the third position.
The Guiding Principle:
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of
this world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Then you will be able to test
and approve what God's will is--his good,
pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2 (NIV)
Now the Bereans were of more noble character
than the Thessalonians, for they received the
message with great eagerness and examined the
Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said
was true. Acts 17:11 (NIV)
The Bible is our All-Sufficient Rule
for Faith and Practice:
For those who challenge us, we should always
say, show me that this is what the Scripture
teaches, rather than trying to persuade by
experience or feelings. Only God and His
inspired Word can prevent miss-interpretation,
the result of feelings, experiences or
hunches.
The principle of Romans 12:2 should always be
at work, with our minds being transformed by
the Word of God. Additionally, we need to be
reminiscent of Acts 17:11 and follow the
example of the Bereans, evaluating every new
teaching, every new thought, and every new
experience with Scripture. We should never let
our experiences and feelings interpret
Scripture for us. On the contrary, we must
change and conform ourselves to Christ; we
interpret our experiences and feelings in
harmony with Scripture. Following this
principle will protect us from the dangers of
subjective miss-interpretation of the Bible.
“Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach
me thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:12)
“Study to shew thyself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
(2 Timothy 2:15)
“To God, only wise, be glory
through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.” (Romans
16:27) and “heirs according to the promise.”
(Galatians 3:28, 29)
Mr. Kettler has previously
published articles in the Chalcedon
Report and Contra
Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the
Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. He served as an
ordained ruling elder in the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church. He worked in and retired
from a fortune five hundred company in
corporate America after forty years. He runs
two blogs sites and is the author of the book
defending the Reformed Faith against attacks,
titled: The
Religion That Started in a Hat.
Available at:
www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
For more study:
Jesus promises we can
arrive at a knowledge of the truth in John 7:17.
We can “know the truth” if we seek after the
truth by searching the Scriptures. See John
8:31-32. We know from Scripture that God reveals
the truth. See Pagan Philosophy, Unbelief, and
Irrationalism at http://www.contra-mundum.org/essays/kettler/jk_pagan.pdf
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