Speaking the Truth in Love: Rules of Engagement for the Polemically-Inclined

During the little kerfluffle that followed my post on N.T. Wright and the debate over women bishops, several folks suggested that while I may have been right about the general principle of "intellectual empathy," it was wrong to apply such empathy in this case.  There were times to treat one's opponents with empathy, and then there were times to take off the gloves, or just to indulge in a big belly laugh.  But this, I suggest, is to misunderstand just what we are talking about when we cal for "intellectual empathy," which in fact need not lack sharp edges and a fighting punch.

The misunderstanding is a common one, similar to the widespread conceit that "polemics" are somehow the opposite of "irenics."  A particularly egregious example of this latter misunderstanding occurs in A.J. Joyce's recent Richard Hooker and Anglican Moral Theology, in which he devotes his entire third chapter to arguing that, since Hooker is clearly polemical, he cannot possibly be engaged in the fundamentally irenic enterprise that some Hooker scholars have recently attributed to him; since Hooker has no hesitation in resorting to rhetorical sleight-of-hand to undermine and overwhelm his opponents, he clearly cannot be interested in friendly dialogue.  But of course, this is to misunderstand both the nature of polemics and of irenics.  Being polemical isn't about being mean, hard-hitting, and trying to bludgeon your opponent into submission. And being irenic isn't about a commitment to gentlemanly rules of fair play.  If this is what the terms meant, then to take up polemics is to leave irenicism, perhaps because the matter in question is urgent enough to warrant drastic measures.  The only question, then, is when such measures are warranted.

This leads to a situation in which one side is always demanding that we exercise charity and mutual respect, refraining from anything that might cause offense, whereas the other side is committed to the dictum, to take inspiration from Barry Goldwater, that "extremism in the defense of truth is no vice," telling us that certain ideas and certain people do not deserve our respect, and thus call for bruising critique or ridicule.

What we have before us then, perhaps, is the old "love vs. justice" dilemma in another guise.  We are asked to exercise mercy and compassion toward our opponent, or we are asked to treat him like the evil liar he really is, and the two goals seem mutually exclusive.

But in fact, it is perfectly possible to be irenically polemic, or polemically irenic, as should be quite obvious when we consult a

η πάλη : fight (πολεμικός / polemic) (Photo credit: dullhunk)

dictionary.  The adjective "irenic" means "tending to promote peace or reconciliation" whereas the noun "polemic" means "a controversial argument, as one against some opinion, doctrine, etc."  Irenicism is thus a description of ends, polemics a description of means.  It should be equally obvious, upon looking at this definition, that all Christian discourse should be in a sense irenic in respect of its ends: it should have as its goal peace and reconciliation.  To say even this will immediately invite suspicion from many of our more trigger-happy culture warriors.  We will be reminded that light has no fellowship with darkness, that there is a great gulf fixed between heaven and hell, between the elect and the reprobate, between truth and falsehood.  But this is an unwarranted inversion of protology and eschatology, an insidious intrusion of supralapsarian reasoning which veers toward Manichaeanism.  Peace, not conflict, is the primordial reality, the structure of God's being and the starting-point of creation.  Good alone, not evil, has a positive existence, a telos.  Evil, then, for all its apparent power, can only ever be a contingent aberration within a fundamentally good creation whose starting point and final end is harmony.  If we look at unbelievers and see only vessels created for destruction, then clearly, there is no reconciliation to be sought with them, only victory to be gained over them.  God Himself, we are told, does not see them only as vessels created for destruction, for we are told that he "desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4), and our desire is to be nothing less.  In the end, not all will be; but, as Richard Hooker so pithily and eloquently puts it:

"concerning the state of all men with whom we live . . . we may till the world's end, for the present, always presume, that as far as in us there is power to discern what others are, and as far as any duty of ours dependeth upon the notice of their condition in respect of God, the safest axioms for charity to rest itself upon are these: 'He which believeth already is' and 'he which believeth not as yet may be the child of God'."  

As a potential child of God, we must perceive every opponent as someone not to be triumphed over, but to be won over; to be persuaded, not subjugated.  The end of all our discourse should be reconciliation and peace.  The Christian, accordingly, must reject any idea of polemics that is self-justifying, that has been unmoored from the objective of seeking peace.

Equally, however, the Christian must reject any irenicism that has been unmoored from the objective of truth, for any reconciliation that terminates in anything but truth will be illusory and destructive.