
The Christian church is carnivorously turning upon itself. Defined by separations and accusations of heterodoxy or forsaking ‘the truth’, American churches are progressively polarizing and becoming isolated from one another. Defined by hostility, each side is convinced both of their correctness and their opponents’ traitorous error. One only needs to look at the recent history of the Episcopal Church to see the evidence of such a scathing rupture. From within that ecclesial division, Mark McIntosh has written Discernment and Truth: the Spiritual Theology of Knowledge. Profoundly defined by its cultural context, McIntosh’s work re-imagines the Christian tradition of discernment as a subversion of the inductive theological certitude presently dividing the Christian church against itself.
Published in 2004, Discernment and Truth emerges in the wake of the Episcopal Church’s ordination of Gene Robinson, its first openly homosexual bishop, just a year earlier. McIntosh’s book is a censure of the subsequent divisive response from within the Church. Although thoroughly characterized by McIntosh’s Anglican heritage, Discernment and Truth is not just relevant for Anglicans. It is a universal ecclesiastical call to reconsider many long held believes concerning how the Church knows truth. In this way, McIntosh writes a very contemporary piece, succinct and cutting in its admonishments while maintaining its universal applicability. It calls the reader to find him or herself within the text and to be challenged by it, regardless of their social or ecclesiastical context.
The opening chapter serves as a comprehensive introduction to the entirety of the book., though doing so in an unconventional manner. McIntosh opens the book by introducing the reader to the five phases through which the discerner traverses: (1) Faith as the foundation of discernment, (2) Discretion between “good and evil impulses that move people,” (3) the application of practical wisdom, (4) Discerning “God’s will,” and finally (5) Discernment as a “noetic relationship with God” (McIntosh, 5). The book posits a very spiritual or intuitive form of discernment. Discernment begins with faith and ends with God’s imparting of the Mind of Christ to the discerner. McIntosh, with an obvious high regard for mystical theology, constructs a quasi-mystical theology of discernment. However, unlike many mystical theologies, it is deeply rooted in the intersection of the ethereal and the practical. In many ways, the 233 pages following the first chapter are exposition of and commentary on it. Yet, one should not think of this as a stylistic error. In fact, by showing his hand up front, McIntosh engages the reader in the practice of discernment throughout his book. At first glance, the chapter 1 appears akin to “10 steps to a better prayer life” or other self-help formulas littering local bookstores. However, McIntosh’s book is far from a formulaic self-help guide. It explains to the reader the rich history of discernment, simultaneously drawing its reader into the practice of discernment. For McIntosh, truth is not something to be impassively known or possessed but something in which one participates. Thus, discernment is an experiential process. It is a learned skill of making oneself malleable before God, and therein better understanding the world around them. Two facets of McIntosh’s experiential discernment in particular subvert modern inductive epistemology and its resultant theological certitude: its narrative-centricity and its reliance upon illumination as a definitive source of truth.
One of the most interesting aspects of McIntosh’s experiential discernment is that one can experience the practice of discernment vicariously through the stories of another. Citing St. Paul, Origen, Athanasius, John Cassian, Bernard of Clairvaux, John Bunyan, Iris Murdoch and others, McIntosh methodically surveys both the historical development and practical applications of discernment. Nevertheless, it goes unmentioned that the majority of authors McIntosh surveys rely upon stories, parables, and metaphors. In charting the history of discernment through chapters 2 and 3, McIntosh systematically builds an understanding that discernment is more caught than taught. McIntosh, himself, even acknowledges the vicarious acquisition of discernment through story saying, “stories… mimic the growth of life experience itself” (ibid., 73). He then continues saying that stories “involve the hearer or reader in a meaning… by a certain vicarious participation, so that the meaning gradually distills itself in the readers as they imaginatively practice the events of discernment themselves” (ibid., 73). Undoubtedly, within McIntosh’s theology of discernment is a loose form of narrative theology.
Narrative theology, generally understood, is the exegesis of Scripture as a series of narratives or stories within the context of a community. It allows for paradox and contradiction between stories, being far more concerned with one finding him or herself in the story, and discerning how to live from it. While McIntosh appeals to extra-canonical sources, this interpretive model permeates Discernment and Truth, and can be seen both in the necessity of community and in the narrative pedagogy that define McIntosh’s theology.
First, according to McIntosh, community is indispensable to the development and implementation of discernment. The communal emphasis makes its voice heard early in the work, and echoes throughout. It acts as a backdrop, to which the rest of McIntosh’s theology situates itself. Early in the book McIntosh argues that discernment is “in no way a merely individualized virtue… but a rescuing, truth-bearing, compassion of God at work within the community” (ibid., 39). Later, one can again hear this communal emphasis, saying, “the work of discernment has to do with the building of the community identity as such, rather than with the condemnation of an individual’s behavior” (ibid., 112). Overlooking the obvious connotation to Bishop Robinson, one can see the emphasis on a formative community throughout the work. Undoubtedly, in doing so, McIntosh’s focus on interpretive communities undercuts the isolation and autonomy often accompanying contemporary religious certainty.
Second, McIntosh’s work also reflects Narrative Theology’s dependence upon various narratives as spiritually formative. First evident in its educating the reader to historical modes of discernment in chapters two and three, McIntosh’s pedagogical method permeates Discernment and Truth. It also is noticeable throughout the “case studies” (i.e. lives and stories of others) throughout the last third of the book. In each chapter, McIntosh carefully selects a piece of historical theology (often multiple pieces) and elucidates an aspect of discernment. He does so seeking to create avenues of identification for the reader. McIntosh is far more concerned with engaging the reader than didactically teaching a system or methodology. He emphasizes that truth is “gradually distilled” as opposed to being systematically extracted. Moreover, McIntosh eludes direct affirmations of what discernment is and how one performs it by veiling it within numerous historical accounts of discernment. McIntosh develops his theology through the historical exegeses of others. This is not to imply that McIntosh disingenuously represents his ideas in the theologies of others. Rather, McIntosh is an astute student of history. His theology is an amalgamation of the rich tradition of discernment. However, he formulates that theology in an elusive manner, in a way that defies purely inductive systematizing or wielding ‘truth’ as a weapon. Rather ironically, the reader must discern McIntosh’s method of discernment.
McIntosh’s theology of illumination, presented through Maximus the Confessor, questions the ability of analytical rationality to accurately discern reality. It does so in two ways. First, McIntosh posits that one cannot truly understand reality without first freeing one’s mind from impure thoughts (ibid., 229) and therefore, second, he argues that truth lies beyond what can be naturally observed. McIntosh reintroduces a pre-modern solution to a very modern problem. He argues that evil thoughts hinder one’s ability to share God’s perspective. Not as an impediment of one’s physical faculties. One’s physical sight is not disrupted by sinful thoughts. Impure thoughts do not prohibit one’s use of a microscope nor do they limit one’s perspective of the observable world. However, impure thoughts limit one’s ability to see beyond the natural world. They veil its divine role and significance. This is the author’s interpretation of Romans 1:21, and his theme throughout the work: “They became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened” (ibid., 4). McIntosh’s theory of illumination challenges the assertion that an object’s significance exists as available for the observation and comprehension of all. Because of humankind’s darkened mind, even if it accurately sees the world, it is unable to accurately understand the world’s larger significance. In this way, McIntosh’s theology of illumination becomes an apophatic theology.
The sacraments, specifically, and the entirety of creation, generally, may be understood as a form of apophatic theology. According to McIntosh, they convey a certain “sign-fullness” that cannot be naturally observed. While sacraments have an individual function and meaning in themselves, they also turn one’s attention to a much larger reality. They point to a reality that is imperceptible through mere physical observation. For many, asserting the sign-full nature of the Eucharist is an uneventful caveat. However, McIntosh goes beyond many conventional sacramental theologies. He argues that divine intention permeates all of creation, not just the sacraments. That this divine intention points toward a superior reality (ibid., 243). In this manner, all creation becomes sacramental. Rocks become sacramental. Trees become sacramental. Most significantly, one’s neighbor becomes sacramental. These all become signs, calling the believer to participate in the divine life and view the world as God does. Moreover, they call one to assist all things towards their divinely ordained end. Rather than as their adversary, through discernment, one recognizes their neighbor as a fellow sojourner and potential participant in the divine life. Through discernment, truth becomes participatory. It becomes a way of living in the world. Although it is a non-traditional form of apophatic theology, discernment sees all of creation pointing beyond the physical matter. Discernment sees beyond the sensible and rational. McIntosh’s apophatic illumination therefore reflects a purely inductive system’s inability to perceive divine meaning. A microscope cannot see beyond the sum of an object’s parts. Moreover, a purely inductive epistemology declares that truth is universally visible and manifest for the observation of all. It denies mystery and it forces God within the sensible world. It refuses to acknowledge what cannot be formularized and sensible observed. It assumes that one merely needs the correct system, method, or tools to ascertain and objects meaning. It mandates that God must be contained within the lens of the microscope. This method prevails throughout modern societies and unfortunately, according to McIntosh, it has prevailed within theology as well.
McIntosh’s refutation of the universal observability of truth calls many modern forms of Biblical hermeneutics into question as well. It questions the sufficiency of citing Biblical “proof-texts” to assert divine reality. Just as a microscope fails to expose an object’s broader divine perception and meaning, purely inductive forms of textual hermeneutics too fail to discern divine perception and meaning. An object’s truth exists beyond the sum of its pieces. So too must Biblical assertions of divine reality be illuminatively discerned. Unfortunately, however, many such Biblical interpreters center on one or two issues or texts, discerning reality through the lens they provide. Through John Henry Newman, McIntosh brilliantly addresses such insularity, saying that such theologians “confess the truth which makes all things easy… They have their one or two topics, which they are continually obtruding, with a sort of pedantry” (ibid., 172). Through the words of John Henry Newman, one can visualize American Evangelicalism’s overarching preoccupation with homosexuality and abortion. Moreover, one can clearly see McIntosh’s critique of such limited perception. While, much of Christianity cries out that definitive morality is contained within an isolated interpretation of a handful of Biblical texts, McIntosh, in turn, cries out that much of Christianity has missed the point.
Although, this does not mean there is no room for improvement. With its intuitive or pre-modern epistemology, its more conservative critics may rail against Discernment and Truth as being morally relative, ambiguous, or ‘liberal.’ However, McIntosh is far from advocating radical relativism. He is very concerned with a definite moral truth. For McIntosh, the question of ‘right or wrong?’ has no more than one correct answer. Nonetheless, this form of discernment does lend itself to conflict and contradicting ‘truths’. How the community resolves contradicting discernments goes unaddressed. Whereas Discernment and Truth guides the individual through the formation of their discerning faculties, it overlooks a similar formation of communities. In many ways, to have made his book a comprehensive “how to…” guide to discernment would have been counter intuitive. However, a “case study” of conflicting discernment is clearly needed. Although it is only a minor flaw in an otherwise outstanding work, a discussion of how communities discern a path amidst drastic disagreement would have rounded the work off well.
McIntosh’s epistemology, or his proposed form of experiential discernment, argues that truth is not contained within the modern categories of ‘subject’ and ‘object’. It does not exist in the observable sum of an object’s pieces. Nor can it be discerned in isolation. Instead, truth is a relational paradigm that one receives through a progressively deepening communal participation in the divine life. Moreover, Discernment and Truth elicits the reader into such participation. Through the stories of Origen, St. Paul, John Bunyan, Iris Murdoch, and others, it draws its reader into the practice of discernment. It not only questions the efficacy of modern inductive ways of knowing, it also prophetically calls its reader to transcend sterile, divisive, egocentric ways of looking at the world. Practically applied, Discernment and Truth neither advocates nor repudiates the Episcopal Church’s decision to ordain Eugene Robinson. To do either would defeat McIntosh’s intention. It, however, does provide a paradigm for one to come to such a conclusion. Through communally participative narratives and divine illumination one submits him or herself to meanings unrestricted to one’s isolated perspective. This does not negate one’s ability to think for oneself. Nor does McIntosh necessarily negate one’s plain reading or synthesis of Biblical texts. Instead, he undermines one’s ability to unquestionably “prove” truth purely through insulated inductive readings or syntheses. Moral certitudes achieved through anything other than relational divine illumination is the seduction of the modern fallacy that the Church is the master of its world and its destiny. Discernment and Truth conveys a message of divine dependence and hope desperately needed by an increasingly divided and insolent Christianity.
Earl
Recent Comments