Paul, Augustine and the Problem of Overconfidence Sarah Morice Brubaker Phillips Theological Seminary

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1 Paul, Augustine and the Problem of Overconfidence Sarah Morice Brubaker Phillips Theological Seminary I first arrived at my current area of theological research before the current U.S. presidential election season. Little did I know how timely it would become. For my area of theological interest is blowhards. I am interested in blowhards. Or perhaps better put, I am interested in examining the theological assumptions maneuvers that make possible the blowhard, the braggart, the gasbag, the windbag, the swagger, the blatherskite, the grandstander. I am interested in blowhardism as a theological phenomenon because I think it is, regrettably, a theological phenomenon with a theological history and a theological epistemology. It is not only a theological phenomenon, of course; and its history and epistemology encompass more than what academics traditionally consider to be theology. But the phenomenon, the history, and the epistemology are at least theological. And what is more, I contend that the theological aspects have been underexamined. But let s begin with a description of the blowhard, before moving on to the blohward s theological import. Blowhards, I think we can all agree, are overconfident. They have overestimated the likelihood that they have something worth saying, and underestimated the likelihood that other people would have something worth their time to listen to. The blowhard s overconfidence is a glib overconfidence, a proud overconfidence, and perhaps most importantly, an unconcerned overconfidence. The blowhard hasn t been concerned to ask, Gee, by saying what I m saying, am I being reliable? Am I acting in a way such that others would be well served to rely upon me? I argue that being a blowhard involves a certain kind of self-deception, a certain kind of lying to oneself about oneself, that is thoroughly theological. By making this claim, though, I depart from a history of interpretation that includes among others - Augustine, and Augustine s interpretation of Paul. That may come as a surprise to readers of Augustine. After all, it was Augustine who famously railed against the sin of human pride, and its capacity to make even good knowledge serve evil ends. And, true enough, Augustine has given himself some leverage against blowhards on that point. What he didn t do, though, was this: He did not give himself the theological room to call overconfidence a kind of lie. In other words, if your pride causes you to overestimate the likelihood that what you re saying has value, Augustine doesn t have a good way to say that you ve lied to yourself. Instead, he has committed himself to a position where he can only say that you ve been rash, that you ve been reckless, and that your reckless overconfidence your temeritas, or temerity has caused you to err. In his writing On Lying, Augustine considers the 247

2 Westar Spring 2016 Brubaker, Paul and Overconfidence 248 person who thinks that to be true which is false, or accounts as known that which is unknown, or believes what one ought not to believe but yet has no goal other than to make other people believe what they believe. Such a person, Augustine says, does not stand clear of the error of temerity, but is cleared of all lying. Again, I want to emphasize how startling this is, coming from Augustine. I ve already mentioned how Augustine was death on the subject of pride, calling it the commencement of all sin. His various beefs with his various opponents one thinks especially of the Neoplatonists, Donatists, and Pelagians all come down to pride. The Neoplatonists exercised their wisdom well enough to a point, but erred when it came time to give credit, either to themselves for being clever or to a gracious God for creating all that is. Fatally, for Augustine, they chose the former. He excoriates the Donatists for their prideful believe that they, a regional sect, would be the only ones in the true church of Jesus Christ. And he takes the Pelagians to task for their pride in believing that, after the fall, human nature retains any power not to sin. Moreover, Augustine notes pride s particular malevolence in attaching itself even to things that might seem good, like the desire for knowledge or spiritual perfection. Alone among other sins, he says, pride follows after and steals with more rapid foot, not so much upon sins as upon things which are actually well done. What is more, when it comes to lying, Augustine is uniquely categorical in his condemnation of it. To be duplicitous to willfully represent something as true when one believes it to be false is, for Augustine, a gross violation of God s gift of human intellect and human speech. He did not allow the usual exceptions: lying to save a life, lying to mislead the James Bond villain who wants the nuclear launch codes, etc. You can refuse to say anything, and endure whatever happens as a result, but you may not lie. Thirdly, Augustine was even concerned about the capacity of ignorant, overconfident bloviators to damage the credibility of the Christian faith. (I realize it is hard for us today to imagine such a thing!) I quite enjoy, for example, the following passage from his Commentary on the Literal Meaning of Genesis: Usually, even a non-christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world[.] If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions how are they going to believe [Christians] in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven?" Given all these concerns, why is Augustine unable to name overconfidence, brashness, temerity as a kind of lying occurring, as it does, at the nexus of pride, selfdeception, and ignorance? I suggest that one reason has to do with the history of

3 Westar Spring 2016 Brubaker, Paul and Overconfidence 249 theological interpretations of Paul, and specifically, of the case Paul makes in 2 Corinthians Now, one proviso: this is something I am still researching, so I ve not drawn all of the connections yet. I am still building my case. So what follows is not the closing arguments in a trial of Augustine and Paul. Rather, it is the beginnings of a case for bringing charges, offered with full awareness that we may not yet have enough to make the charges stick against Paul. (I think we do have enough to charge Augustine, though I confess a stubborn fondness for him, and so I hope he will get a light sentence.) My guide in making sense of II Corinthians the text itself, and the history of interpretations has been Margaret M. Mitchell, whose book, Paul, the Corinthians, and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics traces how the arguments Paul makes in II Corinthians wind up being used to justify much more than Paul s authority to scold the Corinthian church. In fact, they wind up being used to justify non-literal biblical interpretation by patristic sources such as Athanasius, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. (She does not mention Augustine, but we shall come back to him shortly.) There are a lot of moves here, so let me try to summarize them, but with the plea that you seek out her book itself. If I understand correctly, though, it comes down to this. In 2 Corinthians 10-13, Paul seeks to introduce proof that he meets the Corinthians criteria of an apostle. In comparing himself to his rivals, Paul attempts to turn the tables on them casting those super-duper-apostles as the ones who recommend themselves, as opposed to Paul himself, who does no such self-recommendation. This, of course, leaves him in a tricky spot. He makes this comparison, after all, in the context of arguing for his own legitimacy as an apostle but now he s committed himself to not arguing for his own legitimacy as an apostle. Or at least, not arguing the point head-on. So what can he do? Or as Mitchell so beautifully puts it, [H]ow [will] Paul manage to find two or three outside witnesses to substantiate his case? (Mitchell, 83). As it happens, Paul does call three witnesses but what an odd collection of witnesses they are. In the first case is the fool, introduced in 2 Corinthians 11. Not that Paul wants to be taken for a fool, you understand; but if the Corinthians are going to listen to fools as Paul suggests they do then he would like to take some foolish liberties and be given the same hearing. In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool, he says in 11:17. And as the fool not as himself, mind you, but as a fool he is more than happy to boast in the many accomplishments that qualify Paul as an apostle. The second witness comes in the form of a man Paul claims to know or rather a man that Paul, speaking as the fool, claims to know. Paul has this friend, as the saying goes, who whether in the body or out of the body, he doesn t know - has gone up to the third heaven, and in so doing has had exactly the visions and revelations that one would expect a legitimate apostle to have.

4 Westar Spring 2016 Brubaker, Paul and Overconfidence 250 The third witness is by far the most impressive. As Mitchell points out (p. 89) Paul lets the fool mask slip in 12:6-7 because he has something important to say in his own voice: He wants the Corinthians to understand that his physical weakness is the proof of his authority as an apostle of Christ. How do we know this? Because Paul, no longer speaking as the fool, recounts a dialogue that he had with the Lord, in which Paul begged him three times to remove the thorn in his flesh; and the Lord replied, My grace is enough for you, for power is perfected in weakness. The Lord himself has now spoken on Paul s behalf. According to Paul. This passage became important for later patristic authors, who didn t simply interpret 2 Corinthians, but interpreted scripture while being aided by 2 Corinthians. Paul s strategy namely, calling the Lord as a witness for his claim to authority inspired later theologians to use a similar strategy, but applied to interpretation broadly. For as Mitchell points out, later patristic authors could well appreciate what a rhetorical bind Paul was in here. She cites a wonderful example in the transcript of a late 3 rd or early 4 th debate between an orthodox Christian named Adamantius and a Marcionite Christian named Markus. In this exchange, the two debate exactly the question that Paul had entertained in II Corinthians: How does anyone know whether Paul is entitled to claim the authority he claims? Only in this instance, it s a debate about the scriptural canon: who should be in it? Which texts? Markus, the Marcionite, says that the Marcionites do not accept the prophets and the law, for they belong to a different God the God of Israel, whom they believed was not the God of Jesus. However, Markus elaborates, we do accept the gospel and the apostle. To which Adamantius, the orthodox Christian, understandably asks, Which apostle? For Christ had many apostles. Paul, Markus replies. From what source do you know that Paul is an apostle? counters Adamantius. If you have his name written in the gospel, show it. But if you have it written nowhere, from what source did have you learned that he is an apostle? (Mitchell, 83) Markus, as you may expect, replies that Paul says that he is an apostle, but this fails to impress Adamantius. No one who gives testimony on his own behalf is credible, for Paul himself says, it is not the one who recommends himself who is judged approved. So Markus turns the question around: Well, he asks Adamantius, from what source do you know Paul as an apostle? And Adamantius replies: Order the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles to be read, and you will find him attested, in one place acknowledged by Christ as a vessel of election. In fact, Mitchell suggests that this strategy calling God as a witness in support of a claim of authority becomes important for a number of patristic authors, and not

5 Westar Spring 2016 Brubaker, Paul and Overconfidence 251 simply when discussing Paul. As she points out, patristic authors do not simply interpret what Paul is doing II Corinthians, but they interpret scripture with Paul s II Corinthians strategy in mind. And particularly with respect to scripture: a non-literal interpretation of scripture may seem to have no evidence in support of its being authoritative, yet patristic authors found various ways to argue that God had endorsed and testified to their preferred non-literal, spiritual reading. And if they were criticized for asserting themselves too strongly and offering testimony on behalf of themselves, they often referred back to Paul; and claimed, like Paul, not to be boasting on their own behalf, but rather to be boasting in the Lord who just happened to endorse their interpretation. And yet: Calling God as a witness, and expecting that to be treated as legitimate, poses grave dangers for anyone who hopes to name overconfidence as a kind of lying. Think of it this way: If we heard the testimony of two people, each of whom claimed that God had given them the authority to speak, and we knew that exactly one was mistaken what evidence might we bring to adjudicate who was correct and who was mistaken? Suppose, moreover, that they each had equally impressive good works and acts of mercy to their name? For we know that patristic authors in general, and Augustine in particular, believed it possible for someone to perform holy works but be motivated by pride. How could we work it out? We likely couldn t, unless we wished to introduce some sort of appeals process whereby claims to divinely-endorsed authority were decided based on something other than yet more claims to divinely-endorsed authority. But once you start pulling that thread, might not the whole sweater come unraveled? (That was a reference to the Weezer song Undone for any other Gen Xers in the audience.) I conclude by suggesting that overconfidence and by extension, blowhardism -- is an issue worthy of urgent theological attention. You might think that modernity would have gotten around to it. But no less an exhaustive reader than Jacques Derrida mentions in passing that it has not received it due investigation. In his 2002 work, History of the Lie: Prolegomena, Derrida sketches some notes toward a genealogy of the lie. He distinguishes between premodern and modern lying, saying that premodern lying is based on the duplicitous concealing of a truth that is known. This is the lying given thorough attention by Augustine, among others. But in the modern period, Derrida continues, simulacra are substituted for reality. This is a point also made by Baudrillard, of course, but the way Derrida puts it is instructive. He writes: Because the image-substitute no longer refers to an original, not even to a flattering representation of an original, but replaces it advantageously, thereby trading its status of representative for that of replacement, the

6 Westar Spring 2016 Brubaker, Paul and Overconfidence 252 process of the modern lie is no longer a dissimulation that comes along to veil the truth; rather it is the destruction of the reality or of the original archive. But these are not the only two kinds of lies Derrida treats. There is a third though it s not at all clear what Derrida planned to do with it had he completed his geneology of the lie. Derrida recalls an in Derrida recalls an instance in which NYU historian Tony Judt wrote a piece for the New York Times in which he, Judt, lambasted French intellectuals including Derrida himself for failing to call President Mitterand to condemn Vichy complicity in persecuting Jews. But in point of fact, Derrida and two hundred other intellectuals had some years earlier signed a petition calling for just that. Derrida s account of Judt s error has this air of wonder. What I want to underscore here, Derrida says, is that this counter-truth does not belong to the category of either lie or ignorance or error It belongs to another order and is not reducible to any of the categories bequeathed to us by traditional thinking about the lie. And here we find ourselves right back at temerity, rashness, overconfidence. Judt, according to Derrida, did not set out to lie, but he did set out to confirm what he already believed as quickly as possible. And that rush meant that he didn t take adequate care, he didn t notice his bias. He was overconfident; he believed too strongly in his own likelihood of being right. In so doing, he didn t realize that he was proceeding too quickly and doing so in a cocksure way. And yet between Augustine and Derrida, we are still, as yet, not quite able to name this as a lie. It remains (among other things) a theological problem, for theologians (among others) to work on.