THE GAGGING OF GOD

The Gagging of God



The Gagging of God

Introduction

Carson is a Canadian minister and intellectual employed in Christian higher education in the U.S. He has been a lecturer in New Testament at Trinity International University for several years, and presently is a research professor of the religious school. “The Gagging of God”, subtitled, "Christianity Confronts Pluralism", is Carson's newest manuscript and considered by some his Twentieth Century magnum opus. This is not due to the thickness of his book, nonetheless on interpretation of the practical challenge with which it agrees: the author is earnestly apprehensive about what he observes to be the inroads pluralism is creating inside the levels of Christianity.

Discussion

Pluralism, Carson recognizes, is an exceptionally challenging issue to describe; consequently the chief chore he sets himself in the first chapter is to simplify his indulgence of the tenure. In the author's view, there are fundamentally three singularities, which embrace the notion in the present day.

Further impact of philosophical pluralism is to be seen in politics and law, which "trivialize all values [and] all religious devotion", as well as' in print and electronic media. The influence is so pervasive that it appears that no stratum of society left untouched. In this regard pluralism's, influence in the religious arena, and is perhaps the most worrisome matter to Carson, himself an avowed Evangelicalan influence which poses a serious threat to the very evangel itself. After the initial chapter which defines and delineates some of the utmost challenges of contemporary pluralism, the book divided into four parts:

Part one, consisting of two chapters, traces the roots and development of postmodernism and its close relative, philosophical pluralism. Giving proper recognition to the pitfalls of a historical panorama at this juncture, Carson conveniently identifies modernity as the starting point of what he labels as the present day "hermeneutical morass". Many scholars view Frenchman Rene Descartes as the philosopher whose name is synonymous with the advent of modernity the movement which began the process of the' "taming of truth". Descartes and his disciples, attempted to make reason the proper basis for all knowledge. This eventually led to the assumption by many that absolute certainty indeed attainable. This faith in man's cognitive powers also coupled with an/equally confident reliance on the methodology of science. With much success in the latter arena, modernity's confidence received a great boost and near universal acknowledgement.

The realm of religion and theology did not remain untouched. Conservatives too joined the ranks of those who believed that a good mind and rigorous method guaranteed truth, thus unwittingly buying into the culture of modernism. However, the confidence in physical ability did not continue indefinitely. Movements such as the new hermeneutic and its more radical stepchild, deconstruction, have effectively eclipsed it and the modernity with which it associated. Modernity itself was not monolithic. As Carson points out, within a generation after Descartes, the Cartesian influence had begun to wane, due to the likes of Benedict de Spinoza.

Part 2 of Carson's expose focuses attention on religious ...