Scholarship Versus Apologetics

[David Bokovoy]

For those interested, here is my latest contribution to the Mormon Studies site "Worlds Without End." These are simply my own feelings on the matter.

I tried very hard not to come across as critical of Greg Smith, or apologetics. Whether right or wrong, this entry is a sincere effort on my part to try and promote greater understanding and communication. For the record, I am in no way critical of apologetic organizations such as FAIR, etc. and I recognize that some people like my friend Dan Peterson (whom I hold in very high esteem) can successfully move back and forth between these two spheres...

http://www.withoutend.org/if-quacks-duck-apologetics-scholarship/

[sethpayne]

For those interested, here is my latest contribution to the Mormon Studies site "Worlds Without End." These are simply my own feelings on the matter.

I tried very hard not to come across as critical of Greg Smith, or apologetics. Whether right or wrong, this entry is a sincere effort on my part to try and promote greater understanding and communication. For the record, I am in no way critical of apologetic organizations such as FAIR, etc. and I recognize that some people like my friend Dan Peterson (whom I hold in very high esteem) can successfully move back and forth between these two spheres...

http://www.withouten...cs-scholarship/

Thanks David. A really excellent commentary. Well done.

[volgadon]

Ugh, I lost the comment I was about to post there.

[Sky]

I disagree that because something is apologetic in nature, it can't be scholarly. As for being "objective", that is not an easy thing to find on either side, particularly as it relates to religion and Mormonism.

But if you are correct, then by the same token, those who criticize Mormonism can't be scholarly either, right?

Some apologetics is more scholarly than other kinds. Some apologetics is of high quality, and other apologetics is of lesser quality. It depends on how it is done.

[Daniel Peterson]

David:

An interesting blog entry that I will reflect upon, and possibly respond to.

I don't think, though, that Greg Smith is in any way trying to suppress Quinn or Dehlin. I've never seen anything from him suggesting that he wants people to avoid them because they don't match his "world view." From my conversations with him, he seems to be saying "Let's have all the facts." When he believes that people are lying, and lying egregiously, he's loathe to trust them. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, once the premise (that they are lying, or, at least, being disingenuous) is granted.

[Bill Hamblin]

David, you've got to examine the vast literature in both Mormonism and beyond about issues of objectivity. Your view is very simplistic.

But, my real question is this: Is it possible for two equally honest, intelligent and informed observers to view the same data about the Bible, or the Book of Mormon, and come to honest disagreements about meaning and significance? If so, isn't it possible that people you call "apologists" are actually honest, intelligent and informed scholars who just happen to come to a different conclusion about certain issues? Isn't the use of the term apologist, in fact, an ad hominem accusation against those with whom you disagree?

John Dehlin, for example, rejects the historicity of the BOM. Why isn't he an apologist for his position when he makes arguments for it?

You believe in the documentary hypothesis. Why are you a scholar instead of an apologist for the documentary hypothesis? Why is someone who rejects the documentary hypothesis an apologist, while one who accepts it is a scholar?

Why is person A, who defends position X an apologist, while person B, who defends position Y a scholar? How does one know a priori which position is apologetic and which is scholarship?

You really need to think these issues through more.

[Bill Hamblin]

David:

An interesting blog entry that I will reflect upon, and possibly respond to.

I don't think, though, that Greg Smith is in any way trying to suppress Quinn or Dehlin. I've never seen anything from him suggesting that he wants people to avoid them because they don't match his "world view." From my conversations with him, he seems to be saying "Let's have all the facts." When he believes that people are lying, and lying egregiously, he's loathe to trust them. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me, once the premise (that they are lying, or, at least, being disingenuous) is granted.

The only people trying to suppress and censor anything are Dehlin and his cronies. Let's get this very straight. NOBODY said Dehlin can't say whatever he wants on his web page. NOBODY is trying to suppress him or shut him down. The ONLY people trying to suppress opinions and silence scholars through slander and the apostates.

[William Schryver]

I once heard an insightful statement that has stuck with me ever since. It goes: "Every artist is an evangelist. He wants you to see things the way he sees them."

I will take that concept one step further and assert the simple fact that everyone is an apologist.

[David Bokovoy]

Bill, I know how you have defined these issues in the past. I just see the issue differently.

You believe in the documentary hypothesis. Why are you a scholar instead of an apologist for the documentary hypothesis? Why is someone who rejects the documentary hypothesis an apologist, while one who accepts it is a scholar?

Despite the fact that I believe in the DH, I am not an apologist for the DH. I am very much a critic. The DH is simply the best way to make sense of the evidence, however, if another way is presented that makes better sense of the data, I will abandon the DH as a working model. This approach constitutes scholarship as I understand it. As such, apologetics may rely upon scholarship, but the second a person assumes a position that cannot be critiqued that person cannot engage in scholarship (at least the way I understand this term).

Edited March 1, 2013 by David Bokovoy

[Bill Hamblin]

Bill, I know how you have defined these issues in the past. I just seem the issue differently.

Despite the fact that I believe in the DH, I am not an apologist for the DH. I am very much a critic. The DH is simply the best way to make sense of the evidence, however, if another way is presented that makes better sense of the data, I will abandon the DH as a working model. This approach constitutes scholarship as I understand it. As such, apologetics may rely upon scholarship, but the second a person assumes a position that cannot be critiqued that person cannot engage in scholarship (at least the way I understand this term).

Who do you know among LDS apologists who assumes a position that can't be critiqued? What are you talking about?

If that were the case there would be no limited geography theory.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

This entire tempest in a teapot [edit: referring to the overall "controversy", not Bokovoy's essay specifically] boils down to a silly argument for priority of terminology. It's an issue of labeling over content which is still just acceding to the paradigm of Us Versus Them, No True Scotsman, etc. It's as tiresome a false dichotomy as the absurd "Internet" versus "Chapel" Mormon meme.

I say we drop the pseudo-scientific pose of "objectivity" that "scholarship" has tried to appropriate with its sad physics-envy and just admit that one of the benefits of human perception and communication is subjectivity, which implies the rather glorious notion that some people can catch stuff that others miss despite the fact that neither one of them is stupid or deluded.

If we look at it through one lens, this piece can be interpreted as a biased partisan apologetic defense for "scholarship". Look through another lens, and it's a balanced, fair-minded piece of scholarship on the topic of apologetics. Linguistic labels are not necessarily mutually-exclusive, and, like the ethnic insult, they are almost infinitely interchangeable. Calling certain kinds of scholarship "bad" (or whatever synonym is acceptable as criticism) is a biased, non-objective value judgment! Does that refute the very argument it attempts to make?

What we should be striving for is an attempt -- inevitable unsuccessful -- at fairness; not a smarmy fake Fox News sort of thing that is really just a semantic justification for an underlying lack of fairness, nor a scientistic pose of "objectivity" which tries to clothe mere arbitrary opinion and subjective selection of sources under the aegis of the unimpeachable pristine Sacred Garment of the white lab coat.

Rigorous self-criticism and questioning -- "critical thought" -- is not exclusive to either "scholarship" or "apologetics", nor uniformly present or absent in either, and certainly should not be confined to a mere subset of our mortal endeavors. Let's train ourselves so that our subjective bias is towards rigorously presenting as much relevant evidence from as many angles and perspectives as possible! We can't divorce value statements from our linear linguistic constructions of causality, if for no other reason than the fact that we have to select some sound-symbols as being more valuable to speak or write than others.

(Or not. There is always place for surreal nonsense and Jabberwockies to come whiffling through the tulgey wood all a'burbled. Gooble mick speezle frumm!)

This snippet here is extremely important:

To personalize the issue even further, I hope that this explains why a Latter-day Saint like me can turn to an apologetic review like Greg Smith’s and identify some portions of it that I like, while finding other aspects of the article highly problematic.

Note that this is not waffling, this is not equivocation, this is not any of the derogatory sounds people may label the idea with to try to exclude it from conversation. This is recognizing subtlety and nuance, insofar as we have perceived such things. One might disagree that there is such nuance and subtlety in the source material, but that's not the point. I too agreed with some of Smith's criticisms and found others very lacking in substance; I agree with Dehlin on some things, too, and yet disagree with many, many, many of the arguments he's put forth. I think Brigham Young said some of the stupidest, most offensive and downright wrong things I've ever read; at the same time, I also consider him to be a brilliant thinker and a good man. This is not incoherent, this is not mystical paradox, this is simply recognizing the idea that Life Is Complicated.

We can acknowledge good points (as we see them) in others (ie, those we name as our "opponents" when we give in to the "playing field" or "war" metaphors that are essentially indistinguishable in structure). We can aknowledge that although we may agree with others in substantial ways, that does not imply uniformity of thought. (And perhaps we can even allow for the possibility that those on "the other team" might have attained a comparable level of that same basic sophistication.)

If I agree with some of Dehlin's well-meaning intentions, does that imply that I should not contradict what I view through my subjective biases as being the unfair and poorly-informed narrative he constructed about Mopologetic arguments with Michael Coe? If I disagree with some Conservative politics, does that make me appreciate Dan Peterson's substantial contributions to Mormon studies less? If I disagree with Orson Scott Card on gay marriage, does that mean I have to call for a boycott to deprive him of his living?

If I am in perfect agreement with someone on any number of important issues, should I refrain from disputing what I see as an unnecessary false dichotomy, especially when the slightest sign of disunity on one "team" is taken by an "opposing" "team" as evidence of inevitable schism and controversy and partisan politics and back-biting and factions which tend to lead to pages and pages and pages of pointless gossiping about base motives and insulting characterizations of opposing "sides" which exist nowhere except in our own minds but are no less real in their effects in the wider world for that?

I certainly yet subjectively hope not.

Edited March 1, 2013 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Daniel Peterson]

I simply don't, and can't, see a neat division between scholarship and apologetics. They seem to me to blend into one another, or, to put it another way, to overlap to a considerable (though not total) extent. (I wrote a little column on the topic not too long ago that you've perhaps seen: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865573679/Religious-apologetics-has-its-place-in-history.html .)

There is scholarship, I suppose, that isn't apologetic in any sense. There certainly is apologetics that isn't scholarly. But there's a very considerable common ground. The minute an economist defends his view of the causes of the Great Depression, or a historian attempts to rebut criticisms of her understanding of the intellectual antecedents of the Constitution, or a paleontologist sets out to justify the notion of "punctuated equilibrium," that is, in every meaningful sense, a kind of apologetics. And yet, for all that, it's unquestionably legitimate scholarship, as well.

[Senator]

This entire tempest in a teapot boils down to a silly argument for priority of terminology. It's an issue of labeling over content which is still just acceding to the paradigm of Us Versus Them, No True Scotsman, etc. It's as tiresome a false dichotomy as the absurd "Internet" versus "Chapel" Mormon meme.

I say we drop the pseudo-scientific pose of "objectivity" that "scholarship" has tried to appropriate with its sad physics-envy and just admit that one of the benefits of human perception and communication is subjectivity, which implies the rather glorious notion that some people can catch stuff that others miss despite the fact that neither one of them is stupid or deluded.

If you look at it through one lens, this piece can be interpreted as a biased partisan apologetic defense for "scholarship". Look through another lens, and it's a balanced, fair-minded piece of scholarship on the topic apologetics. Linguistic labels are not necessarily mutually-exclusive, and, like the ethnic insult, they are almost infinitely interchangeable. Calling certain kinds of scholarship "bad" (or whatever synonym is acceptable as criticism) is a biased, non-objective value judgment! Does that refute the very argument it attempts to make?

What we should be striving for is an attempt -- inevitable unsuccessful -- at fairness; not a smarmy fake Fox News sort of thing that is really just a semantic justification for an underlying lack of fairness, nor a scientistic pose of "objectivity" which tries to clothe mere arbitrary opinion and subjective selection of sources under the aegis of the unimpeachable pristine Sacred Garment of the white lab coat.

Rigorous self-criticism and questioning -- "critical thought" -- is not exclusive to either "scholarship" or "apologetics", nor uniformly present or absent in either, and certainly should not be confined to a mere subset of our mortal endeavors. Let's train ourselves so that our subjective bias is towards rigorously presenting as much relevant evidence from as many angles and perspectives as possible! We can't divorce value statements from our linear linguistic constructions of causality, if for no other reason than the fact that we have to select some sound-symbols as being more valuable to speak or write than others.

(Or not. There is always place for surreal nonsense and Jabberwockies to come whiffling through the tulgey wood all a'burbled. Gooble mick speezle frumm!)

This is extremely important:

This is not waffling, this is not equivocation, this is not any of the derogatory sounds people may label the idea with to try to exclude it from conversation. This is recognizing subtlety and nuance, insofar as we have perceived such things. One might disagree that there is such nuance and subtlety in the source material, but that's not the point. I too agreed with some of Smith's criticisms and found others very lacking in substance; I agree with Dehlin on some things, too, and yet disagree with many, many, many of the arguments he's put forth. I think Brigham Young said some of the stupidest, most offensive and downright wrong things I've ever read; at the same time, I also consider him to be a brilliant thinker and a good man. This is not incoherent, this is not mystical paradox, this is simply recognizing the idea that Life Is Complicated.

We can acknowledge good points (as we see them) in others (ie, those we name as our "opponents" when we give in to the "playing field" or "war" metaphors that are essentially indistinguishable in structure). We can aknowledge that although we may agree with others in substantial ways, that does not imply uniformity of thought. (And perhaps even allow for the possibility that those on "the other team" might have attained a comparable level of that same basic sophistication.)

If I agree with some of Dehlin's well-meaning intentions, does that imply that I should not contradict what I view through my subjective biases as being the unfair and poorly-informed narrative he constructed about Mopologetic arguments with Michael Coe? If I disagree with some Conservative politics, does that make me appreciate Dan Peterson's substantial contributions to Mormon studies less? If I disagree with Orson Scott Card on gay marriage, does that mean I have to call for a boycott to deprive him of his living?

If I am in perfect agreement with someone on any number of important issues, should I refrain from disputing what I see as an unnecessary false dichotomy, especially when the slightest sign of disunity on one "team" is taken by an "opposing" "team" as evidence of inevitable schism and controversy and partisan politics and back-biting and factions which tend to lead to pages and pages and pages of pointless gossiping about base motives and insulting characterizations of opposing "sides" which exist nowhere except in our own minds but are no less real in their effects in the wider world for that?

I certainly yet subjectively hope not.

Wow, you were firing on all cylinders on that one!

Well thought!

Edited March 1, 2013 by Senator

[daz2]

I think it is difficult to distinguish between very good apologetics and very good straight critical scholarly writing. I am no expert in differentiating them as terms of art. But I do have impressions, my own internal definitions, as I read articles.

I am a lawyer. In my profession we differentiate between advocacy pieces and analytic pieces. When a client asks me what the law is regarding a matter, I lay out the best understanding I have, including various counter arguments, and the risks of taking one interpretation or another. If later I write an advocacy piece on the same matter--say a brief to a regulatory agency or a court--defending my client's action, I try to be just as honest, just as analytic, but there is a decidedly different approach in emphasis. Rather than attempting to be neutral and to weigh objectively the arguments, I emphasize the arguments favoring my client, and while acknowledging the counter arguments, I de-emphasize their force or at least give reasons why the decisionmaker should decide things in favor of my client.

Thus, I think of apologetics as more like a advocacy piece I write to support a preset conclusion (i.e., the best argument in favor of my client). Nothing wrong with that. And as Dan says, sometimes the pure scholarly approach can end up virtually identical to the pure apologetic approach. That has even happened to me as a lawyer--sometimes the law really is unequivocally on my client's side, and I don't need to slant my advocacy writing.

Edited March 1, 2013 by daz2

[emarkp]

I think of apologetics as more like a advocacy piece I write to support a preset conclusion (i.e., the best argument in favor of my client).

That's both silly and a false dichotomy. If you find your client has been dishonest with you, or that continuing your representation would be unethical do you hold to your 'preset conclusion' ?

A scholarly paper has a thesis and conclusion. That conclusion may end up being different than what you expected when you started your research. However this bizarre idea that it's unshcolarly to have any opinion until the last period of your paper is written is both unreal and useless.

[volgadon]

A scholarly paper has a thesis and conclusion. That conclusion may end up being different than what you expected when you started your research. However this bizarre idea that it's unshcolarly to have any opinion until the last period of your paper is written is both unreal and useless.

Not what David was saying.

[wenglund]

...What we should be striving for is an attempt -- inevitable unsuccessful -- at fairness;..

Very well thought-out and informative post.

However, I am thinking that what we should be striving for is progress, with "fairness" as a means, at times, towards that end. I say "at times" because I think progress may, in some circumstance, require unfair treatment of topic, A lot depends upon the make-up of one's intended audience, and also the desired level of efficiency/economy, among other things.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited March 1, 2013 by wenglund

[mfbukowski]

Is this a rabbit or a duck?

Notice that you cannot see it both ways at once. Picking one point of view automatically obviates the other. Does critical thinking help decide which you want to see? I think not. There is always more than one way to interpret data. That takes a decision if you recognize it as one or not.

What you want to see is what will best solves what you think is your problem. What you see can be a rabbit or a duck depending on what you need it to be to fit the model you have chosen "critically", but ultimately you make the choice anyway. When you really need it, a butter knife can be a pretty convincing screwdriver. We make the tools we need to solve the problems we have.

So in a way, both sides are right, and both are wrong. The picture is neither a rabbit or a duck. It is a carefully constructed symbolic illusion thought through in detail to show that you can see anything from both sides depending on what you need your tool to do. We cannot see both at once, but you can see anything from different perspectives.

[mfbukowski]

Not what David was saying.

Agreed.

[TAO]

David, to be quite honest, I don't think you can strive for objectivity. You can strive for neutrlaity to a certain degree, but not objectivity in my opinon, tbh.

[Calm]

From my conversations with him, he seems to be saying "Let's have all the facts."

That has been my impression as well, not only in reading what he's written but in speaking with him.

[mfbukowski]

nevermind

Edited March 1, 2013 by mfbukowski

[Alvino]

Let's be blunt here, David. If someone writes an incredibly effective work trying to prove God's existence using modal logic, for example, it won't be taken as apologetics but as philosophy of religion. This might be because such an attempt will no doubt be fruitful to other philosophical issues. The distinguishing characteristic I think you are looking for that divides scholarship and apologetics is that apologetics is a bad, unfruitful, leaping attempt at scholarship. If it were fruitful, it wouldn't even be regarded as apologetics. Part of that may be due to the fact that extraordinarily good 'apologetics' is more fruitful and constructive to topics generally regarded as part of scholarship so it develops and finds its home there, but normal apologetics is more fruitful to religious believers (though seldom constructive even to them) than to scholarly topics.

[volgadon]

The distinguishing characteristic I think you are looking for that divides scholarship and apologetics is that apologetics is a bad, unfruitful, leaping attempt at scholarship.

Let's not put words in his mouth.

[William Schryver]

The picture is neither a rabbit or a duck.

Quite right.

It's an etching of a knotty piece of pinion pine, like many that can be found all over the place out by Three Peaks near where I live. Being uniquely qualified to identify such things, I might collect many similar specimens as evidence and then write a scholarly article concerning the many ways pieces of knotty pinion pine can be mistaken for jack rabbits and thus draw the fire of near-sighted southern Utah redneck rabbit hunters.

So while philosophers trained at prestigious Ivy League universities may argue about ducks and rabbits until the cows come home, the fact remains that we are still dealing with a knotty piece of pinion pine, and therefore my previous argument is proven correct: everyone is an apologist. Especially near-sighted redneck rabbit hunters trying to explain the big jackalope that got away.

Edited March 1, 2013 by William Schryver