The example given in the latter post, of Joseph Fitzmyer, perhaps helps us notice an important distinction. The issue does not seem to be whether one belongs to a faith community, but whether one is capable of acknowledging honestly when the evidence does not support one\u2019s tradition and its historic beliefs. I think there are many of us who engage in historical study, and perhaps at one point we did so \u201cin spite of\u201d the fact that it often created awkward questions for things we believed. Now some of us have reached the point where we seek to allow interaction between our historical study and our faith, but in a largely unidirectional fashion. Our faith may lead us to find certain questions and topics interesting, but we seek to avoid allowing our presuppositions or our desires to dictate our outcomes, and more than that, we seek to allow the results of our historical investigation to inform and transform our religious beliefs.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, I suspect this takes us further than the evidence requires us to go. In a desire to avoid self-deception, I\u2019m sure I end up being slightly predisposed towards conclusions that challenge or disagree with views I already hold. So it certainly isn\u2019t the case that I\u2019ve escaped bias. But presumably there is at least some extent to which my conflicting allegiances counterbalance one another. And so perhaps fairness and honesty are possible even if \u201cobjectivity\u201d is not.<\/p>\n
Historically (if you\u2019ll excuse the pun) there certainly is evidence that religious believers have been willing to rewrite history in light of their beliefs. When we consider the tenacity of false rumors favorable to one\u2019s beliefs in modern times (e.g. Darwin\u2019s alleged deathbed conversion<\/a>, debunked<\/a> long ago but still heard regularly<\/a>) we cannot but assume (particularly given evidence from the developing tradition in the Gospels) that the same sort of thing happened in the past as well.<\/p>\n Ultimately, however, it seems to me that a historical-critically informed faith, or simply doing historical-critical scholarship, does itself involve a sort of committment that is at the level of belief or value judgment rather than something that can be historically or scientifically demonstrated. We are committed to allowing the evidence to shape our beliefs rather than vice-versa. We hold the value that believing what the evidence leads us to, rather than what our already-held presuppositions and beliefs lead us to, is \u201cbetter\u201d. I\u2019m not sure that one can \u201cprove\u201d this in any sort of \u201cobjective\u201d fashion.<\/p>\n
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