Just finished another book review for Viral Bloggers
The title is "Through the River" Understanding your Assumptions about truth. Authors are Jon & Mindy Hirst with Dr. Paul Hiebert.
The book is written to help people of faith better understand how they come to perceive the truth they hold. They use an allegory to depict three different faith cultures and how those environments create a "truth lens" to allow their inhabitants to perceive truth.
Dr. Hiebert was an anthropologist and brings some interesting perceptions regarding how differently something can be viewed depending on ones culture.
The three cultures depicted in the book are the Rock dwellers (Positivists), Island Dwellers (Instrumentalists) and Valley Dwellers (Critical Realists). The Positivists believe the truth to be knowable and needs to be shared. The Instrumentalists are more interested in how the truth is perceived and it is more of a subjective process. The critical realists seeks to find a balance between the two and provide an opportunity for dialogue and an understanding in the context of community.
In the allegory a rock dweller discovers some information that creates a disruption with his/her truth lens and begins to question the adequacy of their lens for interpreting truth. They then enter the river of instrumentalism and try and sort out how this truth applies to their current situation or experience. The book attempts to describe the solution by swimming across the river of instrumentalism and onto the shores of critical realism. Here they are able to hold on to the truth they know and continue to learn the truth they are learning. Supposedly, this view is the cure all for one who has a disruption with their objective truth and finds a lack of solution with the relativism in the river of instrumentalism.
This is probably a great book for a post modernist, not being from that camp it didn't quite strike a chord with me. While it does provide answers to the difficulties in perceiving truth I don't think the critical realists lens is as clear as the authors claim it to be. The sure shore of Critical Realism rather seemed a bit like an island in the river of instrumentalism combining reason and logic with intuition (that was not adequately described) and positivism and hoping that by dialoging together in a group truth will be discovered. I find it a bit disheartening that in a book written to people of faith about truth I can't recall anything written about the Holy Spirit whom Jesus said would lead us into all truth. Truth it seems in the critical realist camp is a process that one learns about. Maybe I'm too mystical but I'm skeptical of a system that attempts to figure out a method of perceiving truth without bringing in the spiritual aspects of it.
1 comment:
Ken,
Thanks for the review and for taking the time to read our book, Through the River. We never take that for granted with life as busy as it is and appreciate every thoughtful response, even if it is a bit critical.
Our desire was to represent these three truth lenses that exist today and allow each to stand on its own as compared to Scripture. You are right that we are pointing the way to the far shore of the river that represents “The truth you know and the truth you are learning.” But we worked very hard to highlight the value and the positive elements of each truth lens. Our hope was to allow people to view them in light of Scripture and see which one is best suited for relating to our 21st Century world.
You also made a comment about this book being for a postmodern crowd. In a sense I would like to challenge you to think beyond that. Actually we believe that most postmodernists are living on the islands where they have personal truth but do not have a solid foundation of truth that is shared and that they can build on together.
In our analogy, the Valley Dwellers on the far shore go beyond the reduction of postmodernism to a new way to view truth. In this truth lens there is a solid foundation of truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit and then there is a huge amount of truth that we are being asked by God to learn humbly in community. Our claim is that as we move beyond postmodernity to a 21st Century view of truth, we are reclaiming a common truth foundation but learning and benefiting from the questioning that the emergent movement and postmodernism provided. They did a good job questioning much of the establishment, but have not provided answers for those issues. We believe that Critical Realism – which is represented by the far shore of the river in our analogy, is a more adequate response to tolerance and relativism of the river.
What has your truth journey been like? Where would you say you are in your understanding of truth?
Please feel free to check up on our blogging if you want to stay involved in the discussion at www.throughtheriverbook.com.
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