After postmodernism: perspectivism, a Christian epistemology of love, and the ideological surround.

Watson, P.J.

Postmodernism liberates the integration of psychology and Christianity from the domination of modernism, but also leads to a vertiginous relativism. A movement beyond postmodernism seems essential. For Christians, such a movement might build upon the "future objectivity" of Friedrich Nietzsche's postmodern perspectivism. Writings of the French social theorist Rene Girard suggest how this "objectivity" might be assimilated within a Christian metanarrative about Truth. His theory more specifically implies that the Bible commands an epistemology of love that is non-authoritarian, critical, and integrative. Methods compatible with an epistemology of love have been developed within an ideological surround model of the relationship between psychology and religion. An epistemology of love supplies a metaperspective for seeing and then telling a coherent metanarrative about the challenges of integration after postmodernism.

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Christian scholars increasingly claim that "the ideological engine propelling the movement of modernity is broken down irreparably" (Oden, 1995b, p. 35) and is being replaced by a postmodernism that has ambivalent implications for Christianity. For Oden (1995a), this historical process signals the beneficial decline of the chauvinistic domination of modernism. "Modern chauvinism," he asserts, "regards modernity as the intrinsically superior ethos by which all premodern views are harshly judged as primitive, misogynist, or artless" (Oden, 1995a, p. 27). Perhaps more than anything else, this presumption of being "intrinsically superior" is what has "broken down irreparably."

Modernism originated in the early Enlightenment quest for an "objective" rationality that could overcome the religious violence of 17th Century Europe (Stout, 1988; Toulmin, 1990). Along with improving life through science, this objective rationality was presumed to be innocent of ideological aspirations of its own and could thus supply a value-neutral process for mediating religious conflicts. Postmodern critiques have argued, however, that all rationality is the simultaneous product and producer of power (Foucault, 1980). Enlightenment rationality, in particular, was a powerful construction of emerging democratic and capitalist social structures and was not more "objective" than the premodern "subjectivities" it replaced (MacIntyre, 1988). The power arrangements of one regime of understanding simply overthrew the power arrangements of another. The "rationality" of modernist "objectivity" was itself culturally relative and hence chauvinistic in its presumption of intrinsic superiority.

Postmodernism radically changes the relationship between psychology and religion. Psychology can now be seen as a modernist construction that, among other things, used "objective" rationality to explain (and often explain away) religion (O'Connor, 2001). Postmodern critique means that modernist psychology can no longer be described non-controversially as a value-neutral enterprise capable of judging religion in terms of an "intrinsically superior ethos." Psychology instead can be characterized as a modernist invention that worked toward the overthrow of religion. "Psychologists of religion," Carrette (2001) recently argued, "have to be aware that to some extent they have served to provide a disciplinary apparatus for 'psychologizing' religion, making religious ideas more responsive to a Western, individualistic and capitalistic regime" (p. 120). Today, a postmodern framework makes it possible to see how psychology had origins in religion, how it attempted to replace religious with more secular norms of conduct, and how it sometimes preached a new faith based upon self-worship (Kvale, 1992).

By leveling the relationship of religion with psychology (and with science more generally), post-modernism exerts a potentially positive influence on Christianity. But negative consequences appear as well. Radical forms of postmodernism reduce all worldviews to power arrangements (Rosenau, 1992). The result is a sweeping pluralism in which the "metanarratives" of all forms of social life become equally (in)valid. Webber (1999) states the obvious point: "Evangelicals take the universal character of the Christian metanarrative as an essential aspect of the framework of Christian faith. In this matter evangelicals will need to stand against postmodern relativism" (p. 95). The problem, however, is that they must "stand against" a paradox. Christian and all other metanarratives are now trapped within the "intrinsically superior ethos" of a postmodern metanarrative that tells the story that there can be no metanarratives:

Postmodernity ... functions as the larger interpretative frame that
relativizes all other worldviews as simply local stories with no
legitimate claims to reality or universality.... The postmodernist
is ... caught in a performative contradiction, arguing against the
necessity of metanarratives precisely by (surreptitious) appeal to a
metanarrative. (Middleton & Walsh, 1995, p. 77)

How is it even possible to "stand against" such a paradox? Unreflective reassertion of some premodern worldview moves toward a nostalgic "ghettoization" of thought. For many, this approach would at best, be irrelevant and at worst, prepare the way for the authoritarianism and violence that led to modernist scientific and democratic innovations in the first place. Moreover, in an age of global communications, is not pluralism an indisputable empirical reality? Indeed, is not pluralism a reality even within the church (Johnson & Jones, 2000)? Does not relativism, therefore, seem inevitable in the absence of universal standards that can avoid the sometimes-coercive use of power? And given the seemingly endless role of violence in human affairs, does not an emphasis on power seem to supply the most plausible (if surreptitious) metanarrative of social life?

Implicitly responding to such questions, Erickson (2001) recently concluded, "We must work toward a postpostmodernism, not simply ignoring the phenomenon of postmodernism, and reverting to a prepostmodernism, but also not merely halting with postmodernism. We must transcend postmodernism" (p. 293). For Christians, therefore, the situation seems to demand a movement beyond postmodernism. The daunting integrative challenge is to articulate new positions that remain faithful to premodern Christian traditions, that preserve the widely appreciated scientific and democratic social achievements of modernism, and that are appropriately sensitive to the realities of postmodern pluralism.

The goal of this paper is to illustrate how this "daunting challenge" might be met. It will be argued that one possibility for moving beyond postmodernism appears in Friedrich Nietzsche's (1887/1967) postmodern speculations about the pluralistic perspectivism of a "future objectivity." Ideas developed by the French social theorist Rene Girard (e.g., 1978) suggest how this "future objectivity" is not only consistent with, but an actual product of the premodern Christian witness. Premodern and postmodern supports for perspectivism necessarily have concrete methodological implications for modernist social science. Those implications have been explored in an ideological surround model of the relationship between religion and psychology (Watson, 1993, 1994). This model has been criticized for being insufficiently responsive to postmodern insights into power (Carrette, 2001), but Girard's thought suggests how a Christian postpostmodernism can avoid the liabilities of a postmodern overemphasis on power.

NIETZSCHE'S "FUTURE OBJECTIVITY"

Pluralism is an indisputable empirical reality that no movement beyond postmodernism can ignore. This empirical reality was already obvious to Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th Century philosopher who stood at the origins of the postmodern emphasis on power (e.g., Erickson, 2001, pp. 84-92). Nietzsche's (1887/1967) response to pluralism was a perspectivism that encouraged the development of new knowledge through what he called a "future objectivity":

But precisely because we seek knowledge, let us not be ungrateful to ...
resolute reversals of accustomed perspectives and valuations ... [T]o
see differently ..., to want to see differently, is no small discipline
and preparation of the intellect for its future 'objectivity'--the
latter understood not as 'contemplation without interest' (which is a
nonsensical absurdity), but as the ability to control one's Pro and Con
and to dispose of them, so that one knows how to employ a variety of
perspectives and affective interpretations in the service of knowledge.

 Henceforth ... let us be on guard against the dangerous old conceptual
fiction that posited a 'pure, will-less, painless, time-less knowing
subject'; let us guard against the snares of such contradictory concepts
as 'pure reason,' 'absolute spirituality,' 'knowing in itself': these
always demand that we should think of an eye that is completely
unthinkable, an eye turned in no particular direction, in which the
active and interpreting forces, through which alone seeing becomes
seeing something, are supposed to be lacking; these always demand of the
eye an absurdity and a nonsense. There is only a perspective seeing,
only a perspective 'knowing'; and the more affects we allow to speak
about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe
one thing, the more complete will our 'concept' of this thing, our
'objectivity,' be.... (p. 119, italics in original)

A Christian movement beyond postmodernism might build upon Nietzsche's "future objectivity." Nietzsche's perspectivism, nevertheless, was positioned within his well-known atheism; so, for the purposes of integration, his ideas would have to be repositioned within a Christian framework. To that end, Nietzsche's perspectivism can be interrogated with a series of fairly obvious questions. Plausible answers to those questions suggest how a "future objectivity" might be moved in Christian directions.

First, from what vantage point is Nietzsche himself seeing perspectives seeing? Once the plausibility of perspectivism is admitted, then this question becomes an obvious concern for all those forms of "seeing" that are captured within the power of Nietzsche's interpretative framework. The answer to this question cannot be that Nietzsche is seeing things from just another perspective embedded in the "pros" and "cons" of his contemporary intellectual landscape. If that were so, his thought would lack the "height" necessary to see a panorama of perspectives. His thought must be "hovering" above the other perspectives. He must be "looking down" on them from a "metaperspective."

When Nietzsche looks down from his metaperspective, is he not advocating some specific, "correct" response to the pluralism of perspectives? That certainly seems to be the case. After all, he does not imply that equally useful solutions can be found in a "future chaos" or in the assertion of some dominating power that would maintain order. He advocates instead a "future objectivity." He encourages us to control our "Pro and Con." He recommends that we see with more and different "eyes."

Then it sounds like Nietzsche is saying his metaperspective is "true." How can he say that? In his emphasis on power, did not Nietzsche reject all belief in "truth"? All kinds of perspectives probably exist on what Nietzsche was trying to say about perspectives. Clark (1990), for instance, has argued that Nietzsche's perspectivism did not reflect a rejection of "truth," but only of a "metaphysical correspondence theory of truth, the understanding of truth as correspondence to things-in-themselves" (p. 131). But Clark might be wrong. Nietzsche favored art as a way of knowing (e.g., 1887/1967, pp. 153-156). Perhaps, he merely believed that he was offering a more rhetorically compelling description of pluralism, that his metaperspective was more aesthetically satisfying than the other available options. Even here, however, he would at least implicitly be claiming to offer a "better" story, one that subsumes all the premodern and modern stories that he was able to "see" at the time. In other words, he presented a (surreptitious) postmodern metanarrative that he somehow believed to be "intrinsically superior."

But if we can now see and at least to some degree appreciate Nietzsche's ability to see perspectives seeing, from what vantage point are we seeing this situation? Given the postmodern emphasis on social construction, does not our own perspective on Nietzsche necessarily have origins in history? All kinds of answers probably make sense. Most generally, however, a "lower" prepostmodern perspective must have within itself the conceptual resources to "see" and appreciate Nietzsche's own socially constructed ability to see perspectives seeing. Explicit development of those conceptual resources could lead to the creation of a metaperspective that moved beyond postmodernism. From this metaperspective, it should be possible to "look down" and construct a metanarrative describing prepostmodern perspectives and Nietzsche's own postmodern metaperspective.

What prepostmodern perspective has the conceptual resources to produce such a postpostmodern metanarrative? Among the "future objectivities" after postmodernism, attempts to answer this question will likely be the focus of great conflict. For some, the task will be to construct an increasingly compelling and truthful metanarrative that describes perspectives, intermediate metaperspectives like Nietzsche's, and a final metaperspective that moves beyond postmodernism. Christians will believe that Christianity can and should serve as the foundation for such a metaperspective. An example of that possibility may appear in the work of the French social theorist Rene Girard.

DESIRE, SCAPEGOATS, AND THE BIBLE

Girard's work has been described as "the most sweeping and significant intellectual break-through of the modern age" and as "something like a unified field theory" of the humanities and social sciences (Bailie, 1995, p. 4). The three basic elements of his thought begin with a theory of desire (Girard, 1965). The theory of desire leads to an explanation of how culture originates (Girard, 1972), and an understanding of human cultural development then reveals the pivotal historical role of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures (Girard, 1978, 1986). As noted previously, these three elements have profound implications for the tasks of integration (Watson, 1998).

Girard (1965) first argues that human desire develops through imitation or what he calls mimesis. Like all species, humans inherit appetites that motivate them to obtain such survival needs as food, water, sex, and shelter, to name a few. Unlike other species, however, humans rely more on learning to determine which specific objects should be desired. An "appetite" for movement, for example, is essential to the survival of most species. Fish swim, birds fly, and horses gallop. Humans walk, but they also drive cars, sail ships, and fly space shuttles. And to take just one of these examples, they do not just drive cars. They drive cars ranging from the oldest jalopy to the newest luxury sedan. Either in personal life or through the media, other people become models for defining which cars an individual should desire. These models have some "power" that attracts the admiring attention of others, and behind all human desire is the ultimate desire to be desired just like the model. Human desire for specific objects, therefore, is not strictly determined by instincts, but instead reflects the social history of mimesis.

Mimetic desire is a triangular process involving a subject, a model, and an object of desire. Each individual "subject" sees through the actions of a model which specific objects should be desired. An external mediation of mimetic desire occurs when the model is so far superior to the subject in acquiring the object that the subject cannot compete with the model for that object. The social life of external mediation tends to be harmonious. When a teenage son first learns to drive, for instance, he may look up to his father and appreciatively follow his guidance in how to control the car. In human relationships, however, external mediation tends toward internal mediation. By following the model's pattern, the subject eventually approaches the model's abilities along relevant dimensions of functioning and begins to compete with the model for the object. The model's abilities are now within or "internal to" those of the subject. Continued efforts by the model to influence the subject become potential sources of conflict. Son and father may now argue over all kinds of issues related to control of the car.

In the absence of limiting factors, the convergence of subjects and models on the same objects can result in death. Within a Girardian framework, for instance, The Communist Manifesto (Marx & Engels, 1848/1992) illustrates the dynamics of triangular desire. For "proletariat" subjects, the "bourgeoisie" models a desire for property. Bourgeois capitalism necessarily creates larger and larger numbers of the proletariat and thereby produces its own "grave-diggers" (Marx & Engels, p. 32). Hence, historical processes inexorably transform a condition of external bourgeois mediation into a state of internal mediation in which the proletariat joins together in a powerful communist movement. This movement will use revolutionary violence to transform private bourgeois property into state property held in common for the proletariat. This violence will have as its model the violence of bourgeois desire that is obvious in such practices as labor exploitation, slavery, and colonialism. The logical end of unrestrained desire will be death. Bourgeois violence will beget the violence of the proletariat.

In the second element of his thought, Girard (1972) claims that the dynamics of mimetic desire explain the origins of primitive religion and human culture. As the example of Marx and Engels (1848/1992) makes clear, mimetic processes associated with a dyad operate at the group level as well. Girard argues that early bands of proto-humans periodically fell through rivalries of internal mediation into "a war of all against all." A species-specific mechanism evolved for controlling this destructive potential. In that mechanism, the murder of a hapless scapegoat allowed the group to discharge its violent frustrations and reestablish peace.

This unity of group murder was the critical process that eventually transformed proto-human bands into the first human communities. A sound uttered over the body of a victim became the first "word" of communal life and signified what must have seemed like a "god." Killing the scapegoat had "magically" transformed bloody chaos into communal harmony. To the primitive mind, the scapegoat must have "caused" the original chaos because killing the scapegoat ended the chaos. Only an awe-inspiring "god" could have been that powerful. Newly formed communities then protected themselves from future violent crises by reenacting the founding event. They periodically purged themselves of the mounting frustrations of desire by staging the more controlled and less chaotically dangerous murders of a human sacrifice.

Ritualized human sacrifice, thus, defined the first efforts of primitive religion to forestall the socially disintegrating effects of desire. Sacrifices produced periods of peace during which cultural innovations could occur. In other words, sacrifices gave communities time to make innovations in the structure of social relationships that allowed them to better control desire and to better use nature to satisfy desire. Some changes even worked on the sacrificial process itself, for example, by substituting animal for human victims. The peace of cultural innovations then worked as a self-reinforcing dynamic. Peace led to cultural innovation, which led to longer peace, which then led to greater cultural innovation, and so on.

Even with successful innovations, however, social solidarity was periodically threatened by desire. Humanity was trapped in a cyclical history of peace, desire, frustration, violence, sacrifice, and peace. Social solidarity required power arrangements that could discharge, when necessary, the violence of communal rivalries into the sacrifice of scapegoats. Girard finds vestiges of this mechanism in the seemingly interminable "holocausts" of history, but origins of the process are most obvious in myths. Careful analysis of a myth will reveal that it is the story of a murder told from the self-exonerating perspective of the murderers.

Purely human history, therefore, occurs in cycles sealed within an intelligibility that is powered by murder. A murderous intelligibility lacks the conceptual resources for standing outside itself and "objectively" judging the processes of murderous intelligibility. This is true because purely human language crystallizes around a first word that designates a murder, and all subsequent words have a genealogy that can be traced back to that first word. At the heart of all purely human culture is a sensibility founded on a rationality that justifies bloodshed. One specific murderous intelligibility might insightfully condemn and argue for the "murder" of another, but that perspective could not escape itself and find a place of neutrality for offering a general condemnation of the murderous mechanisms of desire.

But is not a primary attraction of postmodernism precisely its ability to unmask the scapegoating oppressions of power (e.g., Castelli, 1991)? And if Girard is correct, how is that even possible? In a cyclical history theoretically sealed within the thought structures of murderous intelligibility, what events socially constructed our ability to condemn the mechanisms of murderous intelligibility? In the third and final element of his thought, Girard (1978) identifies the Judeo-Christian Scriptures as the source of these "postmodern" abilities. God enters human history and begins the process of replacing dark and murderous human words based on blood with the Word of God based on light and love (John 1: 1-5). In part, the goal of this Word is to explain "what has been hidden since the foundation of the world" (Matthew 13: 35). Murderous mimetic desire has been hidden since the foundation of the world, and humanity should use the Word to socially construct a very different world with a very different language.

In the Christian Old Testament, for example, God uses the story of an oppressed people to narrate the injustice and ultimate futility of all sacrificial violence (e.g., Micah 6: 6-8). The truth of these victims supplies the hermeneutical key that unlocks all ancient and contemporary mythological lies. These texts specifically reveal that murderous intelligibility originates in misdirected mimetic desire. Humanity was tempted away from an external mediation of the only model capable of preventing violence and was led instead to believe that being "god" was an appropriate object of desire (Genesis 3: 1-7). This desire to be "god" guaranteed a fall of human relationships into the destruction of internal mediation. With that fall, each person would act like a "god" with the power to define good and evil for all others. Conflict would become inevitable. Even a brother would kill a brother (Genesis 4: 1-8).

Then in the New Testament, Christ incarnates the metanarrative of God's Truth that explains all other narratives and metanarratives. The crucifixion shows how the scapegoating process is the power used and justified by regimes of murderous intelligibility, even when employed against the only completely innocent victim who ever lived. With the resurrection, Truth for the first and only time in history returns from death to falsify the mythological lies of social solidarity. In this resurrection, Truth sets humanity free and establishes a new foundation for understanding. A loving intelligibility enters history and begins the long, slow, and often torturous process of overcoming the power of murderous intelligibilities.

This Love speaks Truth to power in two most fundamental ways. A loving intelligibility first emphasizes that our mimetic gaze should never miss the mark of seeing and following the external mediation of Truth. Warnings are offered about the consequences of failing to do so, for the "wages" of misdirected desire "is death" (Romans 6:23). Then with a metaperspective that only Truth makes possible, this loving intelligibility unmasks the violent exclusions of murderous intelligibilities and teaches a concern for all potential victims. A loving intelligibility, in other words, says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22: 37). Then it adds, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39). This loving should also occur without concern for the socially constructed communal affiliations of the self or of the neighbor (Luke 10: 29-37).

Skepticism about Girard's approach to Scripture could rest upon its apparent innovativeness. How could so apparently novel and "discontinuous" an interpretation of the Bible be part of a continuous metanarrative of loving intelligibility? But Girard's perspective is not wholly unique. Others have seen elements of what he has seen. Nietzsche did, for example (Girard, 1996). In Christianity, Nietzsche "recognized that a new perspective on the world and a new kind of religious personality were born in the traditions and Scriptures of the Jewish people and came to fruition in the teachings of Jesus and the way in which followers perceived his death" (Williams, 2001, p. xxi). "Rome versus Judea; Judea versus Rome" was how Nietzsche (1887/1967, p. 52) described the fundamental choice available to humanity for understanding good and evil. Nietzsche rejected the "new perspective" of Judea and essentially embraced "Rome." Though not an advocate of literal sacrifice, he nevertheless affirmed a pagan desire for the godlikeness of an Overman, that was to be achieved, if necessary, "by sweeping aside the weak who were unable to contribute to creating new traditions and institutions and waging war" (Williams, p. xxii).

Contemporary followers of the (surreptitious) postmodern metanarrative have learned from Nietzsche how to see the scapegoating exclusions that stand behind the social solidarity of the crowd. As interpreted within a Girardian perspective, however, they have not seen that Nietzsche learned this from Christianity (Girard, 1996), nor have they embraced his aristocratic rejection of the weak. Indeed, when they use Nietzsche to defend victims, they fail to see that they are looking down on cyclical pagan history from the linear Christian history of the Cross. This location supplies a metaperspective from which a Christian movement beyond postmodernism might begin. From this metaperspective, postmodernism (and also modernism) will look very different. Postmodern (and also modern) intellectuals may demythologize the Bible, but it is the Bible that demythologizes the world and makes their work possible:

By an astonishing reversal, it is texts that are twenty or twenty-five
centuries old--initially revered blindly but today rejected with
contempt--that will reveal themselves to be the only means of furthering
all that is good and true in the anti-Christian endeavors of modern
times: the as-yet-ineffectual determination to rid the world of the
sacred cult of violence. (Girard, 1978, pp. 177-178)

In short, postmodernism articulates a (surreptitious) metanarrative that unmasks the scapegoating oppressions associated with the metanarratives of all purely human forms of intelligibility. According to the postmodern argument, such metanarratives and all other aspects of culture are the socially constructed products of power. But if all history is sealed within the power arrangements of social construction, what liberating perspectives stood outside those power arrangements and made it possible for the postmodernist to see the abuses of socially constructed power? The answer to that question, according to Girard, is found in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. God entered history to help humanity see with a loving intelligibility what it was doing through the murderous intelligibilities of its social constructions. When Nietzsche sees perspectives seeing, he is seeing from the (surreptitious) metaperspective of the Cross. This claim will scandalize non-Christians and will seem like an act of violent Christian internal mediation. From a Girardian metaperspective, however, Christians will see that all abilities to see and unmask the words of power will be based upon the powers of the Word.

AFTER SCAPEGOATING: THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE

If the commandment is to "love the Lord your God ... with all your mind," then a Christian movement beyond postmodernism must have epistemological implications (Girard, 1978, p. 127). A loving intelligibility presumably must grow in knowledge through an epistemology of love:

But love certainly is not a renunciation of any form of rationality or
an abandonment to the forces of ignorance. Love is at one and the same
time the divine being and the basis of any real knowledge. The New
Testament contains what amounts to a genuine epistemology of love, the
principle of which is clearly formulated in the first Epistle of John:
'He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no
cause for stumbling. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and
walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the
darkness has blinded his eyes'. (1 John 2: 10-11; Girard, 1978, p. 277,
emphasis added)

A Christian movement beyond postmodernism would accept Nietzsche's emphasis on seeing, but would see all seeing from the metaperspective of love. This love would not be just another affect. The positive affects of social life often appear when subjects and models enjoy relationships of external mediation. Positive affects devolve into negative affects as externally mediated relationships move toward internal mediation. Christian love would be no mere social affect, but instead would be "the divine being and the basis of any real knowledge" and would rest instead upon a unique and definitive act (John 3: 16). In this act, the Word was crucified by the words of communities trapped within the "darkness" of murderous intelligibilities. This crucifixion supplied the "light" of a definitive "rationality" that makes it possible to see the Truth about the sacrificial dynamics underlying all purely human affects and desires.

The eyes of this Christian love, for example, might see how to build upon a potentially cryptic statement once made by Jesus, "What then is this that is written: 'The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner'" (Luke 20: 17). At least in Girardian terms, this mimetic echo of Psalm 118 can mean that perspectives maintain intellectual and social solidarity through the rejection of "stones" that then create and strengthen other perspectives.

The process can be usefully oversimplified. In a time of growing internal discord and disarray, a religious perspective attempts to maintain its social and intellectual solidarity by rejecting Galileo. A modernist perspective then is built upon this rejected stone (and others) and increasingly (over centuries) develops solidarity through scapegoating rejections of religion. Scapegoating rejections of religion by modernism serve as models for religion to scapegoat modernism and vice versa in a seemingly endless cycle. Nietzsche (1887/1967) then sees how both religion and modernism maintain solidarity through an ascetic scapegoating of those free spirits who artistically express their lives through a passionate will to power. Upon this rejected stone is built a postmodern perspective that enters into relationships of rivalry and rejection with religion and modernism. And, of course, the list of perspectives can seem endless: Marxist (with the proletariat as the rejected stone), feminist (with women as the rejected stone), psychoanalytic (with sexuality as the rejected stone), various forms of fundamentalism (with religious texts as the rejected stones), gay and lesbian (with the homosexual as the rejected stone), and so on and so on.

A Christian movement beyond postmodernism would see an influence of the Bible in what appears to be an accelerating proliferation of perspectives. The Bible helps create a process of seeing potential myths about "rejected stones" in terms of the Truth of victims instead of the lies of murderers. In this, the Bible demythologizes the world and promotes the differentiation of humanity. Indeed, Christ in his crucifixion incarnated this process "with the aim of showing that this stone has always formed a concealed foundation. And now the stone is revealed and can no longer form a foundation, or rather it will found something that is radically different" (Girard, 1978, p. 178). But how would this "something that is radically different" operate epistemologically?

First, an epistemology of love would be non-authoritarian. No perspective, either inside or outside the socially constructed manifestations of the church or any other cultural institution, could serve as the final, definitive mediator for identifying which objects of knowledge should be desired. Any perspective attempting to do that would become an oppressive internal mediator and the source of destructive conflict. An epistemology of love would instead require Truth as the Infinitely external final mediator. This "future objectivity" would require an attempt first to see and love God and then an attempt to see how God in Truth sees and loves all "neighbors." In pointing us to the needs of our neighbors, God would direct our knowledge to the appropriate objects of our desire. The seeing of God would thus become the metaperspective of Truth. This metaperspective would "hover" above all other perspectives, and would serve as the standard against which they all would be evaluated. For each community of understanding, the task would be to socially construct arguments and evidence that moved its necessarily finite perspective relatively closer to but always still far away from the Infinite Truth of God. Progress presumably would be obvious in the ability of a community to show greater and greater love for neighbors.

Second, an epistemology of love would be critical and appropriately practice a hermeneutics of suspicion (Ricoeur, 1970). Seeing Truth occurs "through a glass darkly" (I Corinthians 13:12), and any claim to have a perfect ability to see Truth without ever missing the mark would be self-deceptive (1 John 1:8). Truth also would make it possible to understand how perspectives maintain their own solidarity through "rituals" of epistemological scapegoating. In other words, the foundations of all socially constructed perspectives presumably rest upon rejected stones, but these perspectives then build and maintain themselves through their own scapegoating rejections. At least some of these rejections could produce a blindness that caused a perspective to stumble over the rejected stones of other perspectives. The task would be to develop methodologies for shining Light on the darkness produced by our own inadequacies in seeing and by our own epistemological scapegoating wherever it might occur.

Finally, an epistemology of love would be integrative. Like communities generally, all perspectives presumably use epistemological scapegoating to produce periods of peaceful solidarity during which meaningful discoveries and innovations can occur. Different communities of understanding may have made the same or similar discoveries and not know it. And each perspective may have developed unique insights that need to be tested and made available to other communities. An epistemology of love would be open to closer approximations of Truth wherever they might occur. The task would be to develop methodologies for uniting perspectives through their tested and warranted insights into Truth.

In short, an epistemology of love would be non-authoritarian, critical, and integrative. Or to say the same thing differently, an epistemology of love would be nonviolent. An authoritarian perspective would promote power arrangements of internal mediation that led inexorably to violence. A non-critical perspective would be complicit with the violence of scapegoating. And a non-integrative perspective would tacitly reinforce boundaries between communities that would encourage scapegoating and rivalries of violent internal mediation. Again, in agreement with Nietzsche, an epistemology of love would be all about seeing, but seeing with a mimetic gaze focused on the Prince of Peace. This would be the stable foundation for socially constructing a linear history of loving intelligibility that could understand the rise and fall of all the rejected stones of cyclical history. Upon this Rock, rejected stones that sought to approach Truth could be joined in the construction of a Church of Understanding. Or to say the same thing in more explicitly Christian terms, an epistemology of love would "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" (by first seeking "to see Truth") and then would "love your neighbor as yourself" (by building a "Church of Understanding").

PSYCHOLOGY AND RELIGION WITHIN AN IDEOLOGICAL SURROUND

Any claim that an epistemology of love can develop in only one way would be authoritarian and self-refuting. An example may nevertheless appear in the ideological surround model of psychology and religion (Watson, 1993, 1994), Central to this model is the acceptance of perspectivism as an accurate description of life in pluralistic societies. In such societies, conflicts among perspectives can justify the use of power to maintain order by some regime of understanding. Order maintained by power ultimately rests upon a foundation of violence and scapegoating (John 11: 49-50) and represents a temptation that is incompatible with order maintained by Love (Matthew 4: 8-10). A Church of Understanding would in Truth love all perspectives and would attempt to reform all forms of understanding based upon power. The practical problem, however, will be that none of the available perspectives will "see" everything and so will make observations based upon a limited view. But any particular perspective also might have a unique line of sight for making otherwise unavailable discoveries. Legitimate discoveries invariably will be framed within a surround of limitations. For the findings of all perspectives, the task will be to determine what is wheat and what is chaff (Jeremiah 23:28). Some progress toward that goal may be possible by framing all perspectives within an ideological surround.

As defined by MacIntyre (1978), an ideology has three elements. It first "attempts to delineate certain general characteristics of nature or society or both, characteristics which do not belong only to particular features of the changing world which can be investigated only by empirical inquiry" (MacIntyre, p. 5). Christianity is ideological in that "the God-created and God-maintained character of the world is just such a characteristic" (pp. 5-6). Such claims cannot be falsified, yet countless empirical observations can be assimilated within the ideology. Second, an ideology has normative elements that explain "the relationship between what is the case and how we ought to act, between the nature of the world and that of morals, politics, and other guides of conduct" (p. 6). As read by Girard, for example, the Bible tells us "what is the case" about human desire and how we should respond to that reality. Finally, an ideology "is not merely believed by the members of a given social group, but believed in such a way that it at least partially defines for them their social existence" (p. 6). There is "a Christian account of why Christians are Christians and the heathens are not" (p. 6). In short, the ideological surround model assumes that all psychological knowledge about religion (and all religious knowledge about psychology) is sociological, normative, and somewhat (non)empirical. These assumptions have three most important practical implications.

First, within an ideological surround, no perspective can justify the arbitrary use of power to exert a dominating control over the creation of knowledge about psychology and religion. Nietzsche's critiques have made it possible to see that all perspectives are limited. For Christians working in this area, this means liberation from the domination of modernism. A modernist therapeutic perspective, for instance, may only see pathology in religious beliefs about sin. Within a Christian ideological surround, however, it may be possible to see and to begin describing empirically a dialectic between sin and grace that promotes self-synthesis and well-being (e.g., Watson, Morris, & Hood, 1988a, 1988b). In this and countless other sociological, normative, and somewhat (non)empirical concerns, all relevant insights and methodologies can be used to socially construct a Christian psychology for use in Christian communities (Roberts, 2000).

Second, research within an ideological surround requires methodologies that can unmask the limitations in what a perspective can see, including those limitations associated with epistemological scapegoating. Diverse techniques for accomplishing that purpose have been developed (Watson, 1993, 1994). Within an existential ideological surround, for example, authentic selfhood can seem to demand a rejection of traditional religion. Researchers working within that surround created a 36-item scale for measuring personal tendencies to avoid existential concerns, and correlations confirmed that religious commitments predicted a refusal to confront the difficult existential realities of life. A rational analysis of the scale, nevertheless, revealed that three items expressed this avoidance in explicitly religious terms ("God exists," "there is much certainty about the existence of God," and "it is quite certain what happens after death"). A separate analysis of just those three items demonstrated that they fully explained the relationship between religious commitment and an avoidance of existential concerns. Results for the full scale therefore had yielded the misleading tautological finding that religion correlated with religion. In this, an existential perspective had stumbled over the rejected stone of religion (Watson, Hood, & Morris, 1988).

Finally, research within an ideological surround would work from the assumption that perspectives share and also have unique insights that can be combined in broader systems of understanding. Standard psychological frameworks and methodologies might be used to explore commonalities between perspectives, even those that seem separated by conflict (e.g., Ghorbani, Watson, Ghramaleki, Morris, & Hood, 2002; Hood et al., 2001; Watson & Ghorbani, 1998). And special methods also might be devised for promoting integration. Beliefs expressed in the language of modernist psychology, for example, might be usefully translated into the language of religion and vice versa (Dueck, 1995, p. 146; 2002). Empirical procedures for accomplishing that purpose have been developed and used with Christian samples (e.g., Watson, Milliron, Morris, & Hood, 1995). Such data document that translation is a real possibility not limited to mere speculation.

In short, a metaperspective that saw psychology and religion within an ideological surround would be non-authoritarian, critical, and integrative. This model was developed with Christians, but would work within any ideological surround. Any perspective could use methodologies of self-articulation to bring itself closer to Truth. Any perspective could unmask the scapegoating exclusions of its own and other perspectives. And any perspective could explore opportunities for integration. This is an "ideological surround" model, not a "Christian" model. To call it "Christian" would for non-Christians be authoritarian and self-refuting. Indeed, such a label would be a stumbling stone over which many would trip, especially in light of the historical scandals of "Christian" scapegoating (for example, in pogroms, crusades, inquisitions, witch burnings, and ethnic cleansings).

The ideological surround model, nevertheless, remains faithful to premodern Christian traditions that have unmasked scapegoating and have made a nonviolent perspectivism possible. The model also would conserve the clear achievements of modernist scientific methodologies. Those methodologies would not be used to defend the implicit internal mediation of an objectivist epistemology, but instead would serve as a safeguard against authoritarianism. Any community could use the Truth of reliable and valid modernist methods to defend itself against the oppressive use of power by other perspectives. Science in this way would promote a democratization of perspectives and thus would respond to the realities of postmodern pluralism. The ideological surround model, in other words, would meet the "postpostmodern" integrative challenge of articulating a new position that attempts to be faithful to premodern Christian traditions, that preserves widely appreciated modernist achievements, and that remains appropriately sensitive to the realities of postmodern pluralism. The model would be Christian in its origins, and this could be a stone over which much stumbling is inevitable (Romans 9: 30-33). Still, the ultimate hope would be to socially construct the loving intelligibility of a Church of Understanding.

PSYCHOLOGY, HELL, AND SATAN

Because of its rejection of Enlightenment interpretations of rationality, the ideological surround model has been described as a postmodern approach to psychology and religion (Wulff, 1997, pp. 11-12). Carrette (2001), nevertheless, argues that the model is insufficiently responsive to the post-structuralist insights of a "critical psychology" that unmask the role of power in social life (e.g., Foucault, 1980). A failure to be critical "maintains the oppressive and prejudicial models inherent within psychological theory" (Carrette, p. 113). The "task is to recognize that the future of the psychology of religion will be found in the history of its omissions, its denials, in the forgotten and the feared, in the return to hell" (Carrette, p. 123).

But any meaningful return to hell should take hell seriously. "Dionysus versus the Crucified" was another way that Nietzsche explained his perspective (Girard, 1996). In attempting to become Overmen, humanity should reject the Crucified Jesus and should instead follow the pagan god Dionysus. But as Girard (2001) warns, "Before placing too much confidence in Nietzsche, our era should have meditated on one of the most sharp and brilliant sayings of Heraclitus: 'Dionysus is the same thing as Hades'" (p. 120). A critical psychology that returns to hell with only a Nietzschean understanding of power can only bring more hell into hell.

At least, this is one possible reading of a centrally important question: "How can Satan cast out Satan?" Jesus asks this question in response to an accusation that he has the power to cast out demons because he himself is possessed by a demon. Jesus then adds, "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand" (Mark 3: 23-24). From the perspective of his accusers, this apparently was a successful defense. Jesus could not be possessed. Satan would never cast out Satan because his kingdom could not stand.

A Girardian reading of this situation suggests something strikingly different (Girard, 2001, pp. 34-43), and begins with a realization that the word "Satan" in its Hebrew origins refers to "the accuser." A cyclical history of Satan casting out Satan is precisely how Satan's kingdom stands. With its mimetic gaze missing the mark of Truth, a community at peace will fall into frustration and rivalry. The situation will become increasingly "satanic" as social solidarity collapses into escalating accusations, especially against the power that serves as the mediator of the group. The community then will be trapped in a mimetically-driven, self-reinforcing spiral of violence. In some instances, the controlling power will finally protect itself by using an effective gesture of accusation that models a discharge of violence against a convenient scapegoat. Caiaphas suggested the process when he said that "it is expedient ... that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish" (John 11:50). Sometimes, however, the finally successful gesture will be directed against the controlling power itself. "But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house" (Mark 3:27). In other words, the power arrangements of one murderous regime of understanding can bind up and plunder the power arrangements of another. Satan can replace Satan.

So when Jesus is accused of being possessed by a demon, why does he not speak more clearly? Why does he not say to his accusers that in their accusations they are being satanic? But Jesus knows that his accusers are not in submission to Truth. From their perspective, Jesus is not a model of Infinitely external Truth. In such circumstances, difficult Truth is often best expressed in a parabolic way. Relative to his accusers, Jesus is a subject in rivalry to their own socially constructed model of good and evil. Jesus cannot speak obviously to them without taking his eyes off Truth, seeing truth from their perspective, and becoming ensnared in a trap of internal mediation. Or to say the same thing differently, to resist evil is to take evil as a model (Matthew 5: 39). To accuse an accuser of accusing is in fact an accusation that takes the accuser as a model. To call someone Satan in a spirit of condemnation is to participate in the life of Satan.

And now, a critical psychology that returns to hell needs to answer some questions. Will there not be as many critical psychologies as there are perspectives? Given the inevitable absence of a perfect vision of Truth, will not the limitations of each perspective serve as the legitimate object of accusation by other perspectives? Will not a critical psychology therefore collapse into the very thing it critiques? Will not the dominating power of one critical psychological regime of understanding merely replace the dominating power of another, and so on without end? Each question will be followed by an affirmative response within at least some ideological surrounds and will also lead to one more question. How can a critical psychology cast out a critical psychology? If an epistemology is divided against itself, that epistemology cannot stand. But, of course, that epistemology can stand, but will be trapped in the cyclical dynamics of a "return to hell." The task instead will be to see and to return to hell from the metaperspective of heaven.

From the metaperspective of heaven, any criticism of critical psychology could not be made in a spirit of condemning accusation, but would find it necessary to explain the "foundations" of critical psychology. The sincere (and surreptitious) prayer of critical psychology is to ensure that psychology does not ignore "the forgotten and the feared" in attempting to maintain its "disciplinary and political amnesia about foundational questions" (Carrette, p. 123, p. 113). Behind this attempt to see "things hidden since the foundation of the world" is a desire for the liberation of humanity from oppression. But where in the social construction of this epistemology was the founding model that pointed toward this object of desire? A Girardian answer to that question is found in the Holy Spirit, or parakletos of the Greek Bible. "The principal meaning of parakletos is 'lawyer for the defense,' 'defender of the accused'" (Girard, 2001, pp. 189-190). Against the accusations of Satan, Truth sent the Holy Spirit as a defender. Within the linear history of human liberation, it is the Defender that speaks Truth to the powers of accusation and attempts to bring heaven into hell.

In other words, critical psychology has inherited the demythologizing metaperspective of the Bible. Again, in Girardian terms, a myth is the story of a murder told from the self-exonerating perspective of the murderers. "Myth" is based on the Greek word meaning "to close" or "to keep secret":

In the New Testament, mythos is juxtaposed to ... aletheia ... the Greek
word for truth. Aletheia comes from the root letho, which is the verb
'to forget.' The prefix a is negative. The literal meaning, then of the
Greek word for truth, aletheia, is 'to stop forgetting.' It is
etymologically the opposite of myth. (Bailie, 1995, p. 33)

Where critical psychology seeks to unmask "the forgotten and the feared" and to overcome a "disciplinary and political amnesia about foundational questions," the task is to overcome myth with Truth. And how is this possible? Truth sends the Defender to introduce evidence that makes it impossible to forget.

Only through the Defender, therefore, will a critical psychology be able to avoid bringing more hell into hell. Sometimes the accusations of cyclical human history will be hidden in closed regimes of understanding that cannot see the secrets of their own sacrificial systems of self-protection. Sometimes the accusations will be stated in more explicit indictments like "only we are good and they are evil." But the Defender will always find ways to cross-examine all accusers: "In your own socially constructed language, you see the defendant as evil. But do you not see how the defendant uses his own socially constructed language to explain how he is truly good in many important ways?" A second line of questioning will begin, "Of course, it is True that the defendant falls short of Infinite Truth and is good in only some ways. Some evil undoubtedly can be seen there. But, is it possible that the log in your own eye has blinded you to the evils that you share with all defendants?" And a third and final line of evidence will begin, "Do you not see that the defendant's socially constructed understanding of good expresses many of the same goods that have been socially constructed within your own regime of understanding?" The Defender, in other words, will be non-authoritarian, critical, and integrative.

DISCIPLES OF TRUTH AFTER POSTMODERNISM

"Future objectivities" after postmodernism presumably will be trapped within great conflicts. From one perspective, the task will be to prove that modernism has already solved the problems of good and evil. Through modernist reason, humanity has reached an "end of history" in the sense that it is now impossible to discover any fundamental cultural innovations that can improve social life. Reason affords modernist societies with insurmountable economic and military advantages, and modernist democratic reforms have at long last satisfied the basic human desire to be desired (Fukuyama, 1992). Marxist, feminist, fundamentalist, and countless other perspectives will undoubtedly join the coming conflicts over the mediation of human desire.

Within a Christian ideological surround, the situation after postmodernism may be like stories we have heard before. Actually, these stories can and should be remembered and retold in countless ways (e.g., Roberts, 2000). Only a reflective, reassertion of Truthful stories can avoid an irrelevant or potentially dangerous "ghettoization" of thought. Each retelling of these stories will, of course, be from a particular perspective and as a consequence will be incomplete and limited. Moreover, any story of Truth that even implicitly sought to mediate all others stories would be authoritarian and self-refuting. Within that context, a Girardian retelling of stories might be useful.

After postmodernism, everyone freed by the Defender will repeatedly share a banquet honoring Truth. The table will be increasingly large and around it will be seated all kinds of self-professed disciples of truth, even those whose (surreptitious) Truth is that there is no truth. These disciples will never really be like gods, fully knowing good and evil. The Truth will always be Infinitely above them and difficult to see. Because of this difficulty, Truth will encourage all disciples to practice non-sacrificial methodologies of liberation. These "rituals" should help all disciples to see and to remember Truth.

But disciples will be seated around an increasingly crowded table. The growing crowd plus the distance from Truth will make it easier for the mimetic gaze of all to drift toward other disciples. From their own perspective, all disciples will begin to make comparisons that lead them to the (often surreptitious) accusation that they alone are closest to Infinite Truth. Each will be trapped in a scandal of escalating accusations. Each will assert with increasing anger and frustration against all others, "They are guilty. I alone am good." Everyone will begin to behave as if they were freed from prison in order to throw everyone else into prison. All will forget that there are many rooms with many perspectives in the house of Truth.

Betrayals of Truth will necessarily follow. Out of the conflict, Truth will be dragged before dominant powers and demands will be made for answers to a question, "What is truth?" The answer will be incarnated in a crucifixion in which Truth looks down on a cyclical history of lies. From this metaperspective, there will be no condemnation. No accusations will be made, just the prayer of a passionate will to loving forgiveness. After this crucifixion, Truth will be resurrected so that lies will not be remembered and disciples will stop forgetting. This will happen again and again.

The Defender will shepherd this process across time in a linear history of loving intelligibility that frees humanity from prisons of murderous intelligibility. Through the dynamics of liberation, the banquet will get larger and larger. In the growing crowd, disciples increasingly will be distracted in their mimetic gaze. Betrayals of Truth will come with more frequent and depressing regularity. Even in this dangerous situation, Truth will refuse to tell lies. The Defender will work without rest. Witnesses to Truth will be called to testify. Murderous mechanisms of social solidarity will be unmasked. Previously scapegoated models of desire will be released. Social life will expand in a confusion of models. The mimetic gaze of all will increasingly miss the mark. Desires will be inflamed. Rivalries, accusations, frustrations, and violence will spread. Lost in a blinding hate of accusations, disciples will stumble toward a war of all against all in a spirit of anti-Truth.

Crisis after crisis will recur. "Crisis" in its Greek origins refers to "a separating" and "a decision." Turning-point after turning-point will come in separating decisions, as between sheep and goats. But because of the unmasking sacrifice of the Scapegoat, the pattern will increasingly be too obvious to be effective. No longer will it be possible to resolve any more crises through the sacrifice of any more goats (Girard, 1986; cf. Girard, 1972, pp. 39-67). History will proceed toward the logical conclusions of anti-Truth. The blindness of hate will stumble toward apocalyptic discharge.

Cycles of lies will eventually culminate in the violent crisis of a Final Trial. A death penalty for all could be the final sentence. The hand of Truth will then be upon faithful disciples and will lead them into the middle of a valley. The valley will be full of dry bones. Free to really see for the first time, each in amazement will say, "I had not thought death had undone so many" (Eliot, 1922/1952, p. 39). Truth will respond, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, O dry bones hear the word of the Lord ... Behold I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live" (Ezekiel 37:4, 5; cf. Girard, 1978, 446-447). And the Word of the Lord will literally be the only Way out of the blindness of hate into the seeing that is possible only in the Light of Love. No secret knowledge, no socially constructed rationality will ever substitute for a mimetic gaze that sees the only Truth that is capable of showing how each must take the well-being of all as the object of desire. Under the influence of the Defender, a "not guilty" verdict will at long last come back in a decision that separates history from its own past. At the Grace of the True end of history, all of the psychologies of hell will be transformed into the psychology of a new heaven and a new earth.

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P.J. WATSON

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

AUTHOR

WATSON, P.J. Address: Psychology/Department #2803, 350 Holt Hall-615 McCallie Avenue, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN 37403 Title: University of Chattanooga Foundation Professor of Psychology. Degrees: BA, University of Texas at El Paso; PhD, University of Texas at Arlington. Specializations: Psychology and religion; personality theory; and cross-cultural psychology.

Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to P.J. Watson, Psychology/Department #2803, 350 Holt Hall-615 McCallie Avenue, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga, TN 37403. Email: paul-watson@utc.edu