A Presuppositional Response to the previous post

In reading the previous post, one might quickly notice that the two streams of critical thought are distinct from each other, but also share a basic underlying commitment. The underlying commitment of both of these streams that must be challenged is the anti-supernatural commitment. In both streams, the miraculous elements of the account have to be explained away in order to conform with a purely naturalistic (anti-supernaturalistic) commitment that is being brought to the exegesis of the passage. So in stream #1, the underlying naturalistic commitment shows itself in the introduction of the sandbar as the unmentioned prop of the story that makes the literal event possible. In stream #2, the naturalistic commitment is more subtle, in that it doesn't attempt to 'fill in the blanks' in the story with literal naturalistic solutions to the supernatural problem. Instead, the naturalistic commitment is here employed to take the entire intact story and punt it to the realm of fiction. This is how Von Rad and his spiritual children came to the idea that there was a difference between actual literal history, and what they called 'faith history', which is the faith tradition of the Church throughout the ages that is based upon (allegedly) fictional faith stories like the Mt. 14 account. The idea is simple - Christians and the church alike must never confuse literal documentable history (which the Bible was not particularly interested in giving us) with the great faith history handed to us by Jesus and the apostles (which the Bible is very interested in giving us). This bifurcation, of course, is thoroughly naturalistic, because it attempt to wall off the supernatural events of the Bible and confine them to a 'faith history' that we can draw inspiration from, but doesn't at all interfere with actual historiography. Very clever.

As a presuppositionalist, my first line of response to the above would be to question the validity of the naturalistic commitment that under girds these critical streams. While this is admittedly a more philosophical approach to take than many might be comfortable undertaking themselves, it is nonetheless quite valuable. Who says that a rigid naturalism is a valid worldview commitment? In a cosmos where what hasn't been explained completely dwarfs what has been allegedly explained, why should we sign onto a (faith) commitment that says that everything is explainable through natural, measurable processes? We know this isn't true. Love exists, but it can't be exhaustively measured; and to the extent that it is measurable, one common universal criteria of measurement can't be developed that will apply to all expressions of love. Ironically, naturalism as a worldview commitment cannot be naturalistically proven valid, since naturalism's very insistence that the universe is self-contained with no intrusions from 'outside the box' (ie: the miraculous) negates the reality of the very kind of human reasoning function that is necessary to prove the rational validity of naturalism (in other words, human reasoning itself requires something that exceeds the bounds of nature since acts of reasoning derive in part from thoroughly non-naturalistic influences such as insight and intuition, not to mention emotion). So in regards to the 'naturalist' question, a presuppositional response might be to first demonstrate that the two critical streams of thought are not neutral, sophisticated by-products of a dispassionate examination of the evidence, but rather are heavily shaped by a more basic commitment to naturalism that skews everything from the outset. Secondly, the internal inconsistency of naturalism can be brought forth to show that the presupposition itself is heavily problematic and is in need of major adjustment. We have no good reason to believe that the two critical streams reflect reality if the naturalistic commitment that fuels them is itself invalid compared to reality.

But let's take a less philosophical route too. While our discussion of naturalistic commitments will be pertinent, let's change the focus to Scripture. I know people who claim to be Christians but have serious problems with Biblical portrayals of the miraculous. The mainline in particular is full of folks like this, who desperately try to develop a 'reasonable' and 'responsible' Christianity that is heavily informed by the supposed brute facts of science. So if we're dealing with a person like this, and we don't want to emphasize the whole naturalism issue, what can we do? One presuppositionalist approach to this problem is to bring the issue directly back to the Person of Christ. To this person, I would simply say, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God-Incarnate? I'm not asking you whether the Scriptures teach this, because we both know they do. I'm asking you what your own understanding of the person of Christ is. Is he God-Incarnate?" Now if this person agrees with this, we now have a powerful argument. If someone consents to the basic faith commitment that Jesus is God-Incarnate, then a reluctance to embrace the peculiarly supernatural works of his ministry is inconsistent with the previous commitment. If the Person of Christ includes divinity, why should we have a problem with the works of Christ that clearly demonstrate the divinity we've already affirmed in His Person? In this case, the person's commitments are at odds with each other in ways that must be pointed out, but can be easily corrected. A presuppositional approach to apologetics is uniquely positioned to address this phenomenon, expose it to examination, and insist on its correction. Incidentally, one should also be aware that the person's assent to the existence of the God-Man is itself contradictory to an underlying naturalistic commitment. After all, isn't the Incarnation itself a miraculous act that defies naturalistic explanation? So someone who signs off on this is already at odds with the naturalistic commitment that causes him to doubt other supernatural activities of the supernatural Christ. He's being dangerously inconsistent.

Beyond this, we also have basic issues of hermeneutics and exegesis to draw from. Stream #1's insistence of a 'naturalism of the gaps' to explain away the miraculous elements draws absolutely zero support from the text itself. It must be read into the text in order to make the text say what we want it to say. This is a flawed hermeneutical approach from top to bottom. The text is supposed to shape us. But in addition, v33 is very problematic if we adopt the sandbar view. If Jesus and Peter were really just walking on rocks or a sandbar, what in the world would possess Peter to forcefully proclaim that Jesus truly is the Son of God, since nothing miraculous took place? If one wants to suggest that Peter thought everyone really was walking on water and he wasn't aware that they were really standing on a sandbar, what would that say about Jesus since he refused to correct Peter? Was Jesus also unaware that he was walking on a sandbar? You can see where this leads - completely away from what the text actually says. It should be rather obvious that these kinds of issues piled one on top of the other demonstrate a rather desperate loyalty to an underlying naturalistic commitment that can't be squared with the text without abandoning the text.

Lastly, I certainly have no problem at all with the suggestion that the Mt. 14 account is indeed a great moral story that is designed to teach eternal truths about our faith relationship with Christ. But is that all there is to the story, as Crossan insists? Hardly. First, to suggest that the story is really just a fictional parable is to ignore completely the literary genre being employed by the author. Put simply, this account is not written in any kind of parabolic literary style. Rather, this account is quite clearly written in historical narrative/prose. While this does not automatically make the story historical or historically accurate, it does tell us that the author's intention was to have his audience regard this account as historical. We don't read poetry the way we read the business section of the Wall Street Journal. Likewise, our first inclination should not be to read a historical narrative as if it were a parable. Matthew 14 is a skillful example of the author telling an accurate historical story that tells us things about Christ, his work, and our response that are normative far beyond this specific historical event. This story is indeed a teaching tool for us today, but it also really happened back then.