Today, Joe asks Jamie about what's sometimes referred to as an epistemic bubble — more commonly, an echo chamber — when it comes to knowledge.
Jamie: Hey everybody. I'm Jamie Dew.
Joe: And I'm Joe Fontenot.
Jamie: And welcome back to our podcast again, Towel & the Basin.
Joe: That's right. So, Jamie, I have this question. It centers around this concept of an echo chamber. I've heard it possibly called an epistemic bubble, and I'm not even sure if that's really even the right term. But here's my question about that. Is it a danger... from a Christian perspective, can we find ourselves in this epistemic bubble or this echo chamber when we do deep thinking on the subjects?
Jamie: Well, let me first see if I can flesh out exactly what you mean. Give me an example of what you mean by an echo chamber.
Joe: Okay.
Jamie: Because something in particular comes to my mind when you talk about that, but that might not be what you mean. What do you mean?
Joe: Okay. So, here's an example that I think a lot of people are going to know well. We had an election recently, in the last, this is mid 2021, so we had an election six months ago or eight months ago. And there's a ton of, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, this fake news concept, this idea that sometimes social media platforms can only show you what you want to hear. And so, that you're not getting a true view of the other side. And so then, kind of the extension question that comes out of that is, if all we're ever doing is listening to ourselves, from Christian scholarship point of view, is that harmful? Should we be listening to people who are very different from us? Where does all that lie? That's kind of the essence of what I'm asking.
Jamie: I see. So in other words, that's what you mean by a neck or chamber. So, you could be of a particular political perspective, and therefore only listen to people inside that perspective, and anybody outside's immediately in your mind a liar. And I guess you're wondering if, theologically, and from a religious standpoint if we do the same thing with our beliefs?
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: Yeah. Absolutely. Just take a look at the current landscape we're in right now. Man, even a group of people like Southern Baptists, that all will confess and affirm, and I genuinely believe everybody that does, a core set of beliefs called the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. I believe across-the-board this is really what we all still believe. And yet, there is deep, deep divide on further ideological grounds.
In other words, we may all affirm the basic core set of doctrine, but then the way we interpret certain things, and then certainly the way we would apply certain things, we could have vast disagreement with each other. And then once we're in those camps or groups or such, we can, it is human nature, not just non-Christian human nature, I mean, this is what human beings do, we tend to surround ourselves with people that think the way we do, and process the way we do.
And so, absolutely we can get ourselves so firmly fixed into a kind of echo chamber that we can no longer really hear relevant data, and we can no longer really process in the right way. So, I certainly think that that's a real, not just possibility, but a reality and a lot of the things that we see happening here today. So, can that happen? Absolutely. [crosstalk 00:03:27] so what do we do then, right?
Joe: Yeah, yeah. What do we do? Is it a common thing we should be on watch for? Is it the natural place we go? Or is it an unnatural thing, uncommon thing?
Jamie: It's natural in the sense that it happens to all of us. Look, I don't want to sit here and pretend I'm intellectually more honest than anybody else, or intellectually holier than thou as if this doesn't happen to me too. It does happen to all of us. So, it's natural in that sense. It will probably be most people's default, this position, to just continue in that pattern.
Natural in a created way. In other words, is it natural by way of what God intended in creation? I don't think so. I think the fact that we do this is a clear example of what Christian philosophers have often referred to as the, quote, noetic effects of sin. And by noetic, what they mean is the sort of rational cognitive effects that sin has on us. It's real easy to see, when we think about the effects that sin has on us, it's real easy to think about it in moral terms.
And it's real easy to even think about it in maybe physical terms. So if somebody's an alcoholic, then clearly they're doing things or participating in things that hurt not just them, but other people, so there's a moral issue. But even, there could be physical problems. You can get diseases of various kind from this as well.
But, sin affects the way our minds work as well. So, certainly I would tend to think that Adam and Eve prior to the garden, they probably thought more clearly... or prior to the fall at least, thought more clearly about issues than we did. But, sin invades everything about the created order, and part of that's the human mind.
And this is well documented throughout philosophical history. Even people like Francis Bacon referred to these problems that we're alluding to write here. He had a fancy description for them. He called them the Idols of the Mind. He had four of them, but I forget exactly which one was which. But it was things like, we get locked into a certain vocabulary, and we only use that vocabulary.
And human vocabulary's not a perfect tool. English and Chinese, or English and Greek, or Hebrew, or Dutch, those are very different languages, and they actually function very differently. And so, when we get locked into only one way of speaking, then that can have some limitations on our cognitive abilities as well. He talks about the idol of the marketplace in the tribe, where essentially we get locked in with a particular group of people, and we start to only think the way that they do.
So, certainly it happens. It's natural in the sense that it happens to everyone of us. I would say it's probably not the way God intends us to function and operate. Now, what do you do about this? Well, let me say this. Ultimately, I think this is why dialogue with people is so important. It's often said in theology, for example, that theology should never be done in a closet.
Meaning, you should never do your theology in isolation from other people, and from other voices. Even voices very different from yours. Because one of the more helpful things that you can have as you do theological formation, is dissent. You need people to disagree with you. You need people to raise substantial problems with your view. And you need, in your responses to those critiques, to have the ability to modify and morph certain things.
And so, for example, we need the ability to, as we get critiqued by somebody, to step back and say, "Well, is that the right way of articulating this or thinking about this?" So, that's important. So, I think in short, the result of that means that you and I have to be able to have disagreement with each other and dialogue with each other.
There are some problems that prevent us from doing this. We may, in fact, argue with people. I think, in fact, in our world today we argued quite a lot with people. We're not short on argumentation, and we're not short on disagreement. What we're short on is the actual moral and epistemological humility necessary for that disagreement to be profitable.
So in other words, the disagreements that we have today only produce conflict. They almost never produce resolution. They almost never produce agreement, and stuff like that. Because frankly, I think that we're at a moment where everybody's bowed up and puffed up.
So, here's where I would interject. If you want to know what I think about the answer or the way forward to this bubble that we can be in, obviously the answer is to be able to have dialogue with people that we disagree with. But for that to actually prove profitable, philosophers, epistemologists talk a lot about something about epistemological virtue, or intellectual virtues.
Joe: Okay.
Jamie: Intellectual virtues are like moral virtues. In fact, sometimes Sometimes philosophers say, "Well, these really are in a different category than just moral virtues. They're just virtues. "Well, let's think for a minute about what virtues are, and I think we've talked about this in some other podcasts. Virtues are simply characteristics. Characteristics true of you are characteristics true of me. Now, vices are also characteristics. They're characteristics true of you or me.
Vices, though, hurt you. They're characteristics you have that hurt you. If you're alcoholic, for example, that's a characteristic you have, and it destroys you, and it destroys other people around you. So, that's a vice, or a character, vices are, that hurt you. Virtues are characteristics that do the opposite. They help in some way. They're life producing for you, and for other people around you.
So, examples of epistemological or intellectual virtues like this would be things like humility. Having the humility to admit that you could actually be wrong in the way you're interpreting things. That's a rare commodity in our world today, isn't it?
Joe: Yeah, yeah, it really is.
Jamie: So, having the humility to admit and only met your understanding of what God has revealed could be wrong. In other words, I'm not denying or debating that the Bible is true. I fully affirm that. The question is what do I do with it and what do you do with it as readers? It's the hermeneutical question. It's the fact that you and I take the revealed word, and now we interpret it in certain ways and we apply it in certain ways.
I trust that God does not lie in anything he says. But my ability to appropriately apprehend that, I could mess that up quite badly. And so could you, and so could anybody else, and I think we have to have the humility to admit that. If you don't have that humility, then disagreement and dissent's not going to help you out much. Is just going to cause a problem.
Another one would be diligence. Diligence is an intellectual virtue. The diligence to not settle for quick and easy answers. Because we like cookie-cutter answers. We like answers that we don't have to work hard for. We like answers that we don't have to labor towards. We like people to just give us the bottom line. And unfortunately, not everything is like that.
Joe: Somebody has to find that bottom line in the first place.
Jamie: Right. Sometimes there are issues we have to deal with that are complicated, and that are difficult. And diligence is the ability to stay with it and to continue pursuing it until we get to the place where we're starting to really wrap our head around it the best we possibly can. If you don't have humility, if you don't have diligence, then you're probably not going to be successful as a knower.
And I think that's especially true in theology today. Honesty is an intellectual virtue. Now, again, you can see here why some people say, "No, those aren't any different from moral virtues. They're just virtues, whether you apply them to moral issues or you apply them to intellectual issues." Okay, fine, I don't care if there is a separate category or not. I'm just simply saying that these virtues actually help us to get at the truth better.
If I'm honest, look, sometimes we're just not actually willing to admit that our view is wrong, or admit that our view has certain challenges. Take, for example, the classic debate between the Calvinists and the Arminian, for crying out loud. Both sides, when they get all mad and riled up with each other, typically what they do is they try to pretend like the other view is the only one that has these real problems, and that their view's problem free.
No. Look, every view has problems. Every view has challenges to it. Let's be honest about what those are, admit what they are, and then let's try to... That your view has something that challenges it doesn't necessarily mean that your view is wrong. It just means that, "Huh, that's something that I still need to work on and think that through." And having the honesty to do that, I think that helps.
So in short, the answer to these echo chambers that we can get into is disagreement and dissent. But that will be fruitless, and have no value to us at all. Unless you've actually got the moral and intellectual character to handle that the right way. Things like humility, and honesty, and [crosstalk 00:13:03], and there's a whole host of others. But, those are some things. And I know we're doing sort of a little series in these podcasts on epistemological stuff. There is a chapter in the book that I do, How Do We Know, [crosstalk 00:13:14] deals with intellectual virtues we talk about.
Joe: Oh, interesting. Okay.
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: One of the areas that I find myself slipping into is, I think about... Whatever the area is. Let's just for simplicity sake say it's my thought, or a theory or philosophy, against a non-Christian one. Not to Christian ones competing, but a Christian and non-Christian. Just for simplicity. The area that I tend to find myself slipping into is I say, "Well, I'm on God's side." You know what I mean?
Jamie: Yeah.
Joe: Not so much in a prideful kind of way, but I'm like, "I believe the truth, they don't believe the truth. Therefore, mine must be right."
Jamie: Right.
Joe: But it's really, there's a whole lot of layers in between me and that truth. Of course, my own ignorance and so forth, and foolishness.
Jamie: Yeah. So certainly, the way we've framed the discussion so far sort of assumes that this disagreement and dissent is an in-house matter, like [crosstalk 00:14:15] brothers and sisters that all affirm Jesus as their Savior. But, no, I would... and some people may freak out over this, I don't know. This, to me, never worried me or bothered me that we're doing anything out of bounds when we do this.
But for me personally, I've always found that, frankly, some of the best dialogue partners I've ever had, that really helped me to see the Christian perspective more clearly, have been nonbelievers. Here's why. It's because they don't have any interest in it being true. In fact, they want to disprove it. So, they're lobbing varsity level objections that it.
Joe: Okay.
Jamie: And if Christianity can stand up against those kinds of objections, and I've in the process been able to think it through a little more clearly, then I'm walking out the other side, I think, with a stronger view.
Let me give you two places in my career where I've seen this. First has to do with the arguments for God's existence. And I know we did a bunch of podcasts on that earlier on in our time. But, I remember as I started getting into these arguments for God's existence, I was particularly interested in the historic versions of these arguments.
And, man, when you look back at 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s, there were particular versions of teleological arguments and cosmological arguments that were put forward. The atheist philosophers leveled huge philosophical criticisms of those arguments that were thought to be successful by the atheists, and even by the theists. To the point where theists pretty much stopped making these arguments for about 100 plus years.
Joe: Wow.
Jamie: So then in the 1960s and 1970s, with new astronomical discoveries about the cosmos, and new physical discoveries about the laws of nature and stage, and the metaphysical implications of this start to come back, all of a sudden these arguments for God's existence start to come back big time. In this time, when they come back, they came back with all the criticisms of the old versions in mind, and they were put together in such a way that they dodge a lot of those previous problems, so to speak.
So, the net effect of that was, as example number one, is that the criticisms of the atheist actually serve to, historically speaking, sharpen the arguments. And so, the arguments we put forward together today are much, much stronger arguments. Okay, so that's one example of where atheists and nonbelievers types of criticism have actually helped us strengthen our arguments.
Another example of that in my own work came from the change in trajectory in my thought from the move between substance dualism to Thomistic Hylomorphism about human persons. And I started off holding very firmly and somewhat militantly to a substance dualistic perspective. We talked about that in previous podcasts. It was through the study with non-believing philosophers in England that I received criticism, and feedback that caused me not to abandon Christianity or the Bible, but rather to think, "Wait a minute. What if the way I've constructed this is not the right way?"
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: And I actually think that the view that I hold today is a greater fit with the Christian tradition than the previous views that I used to hold. Oh, and by the way, I got all that through the dialogue with the nonbeliever on that. So, look, just as in the tribe, so to speak, the disagreement can help if we're postured with the right humility, and honesty, and stuff like that, I think even with nonbelievers we actually can learn a lot through the dialogue with them.
But again, none of these dialogues, disagreements, or dissents, whatever you want to call them, are going to be anything but problematic for us unless we have the right kind of posture of soul. So, I think that's what we got to do.
Joe: Yeah. In my mind it seems to be coming back to that as well. Because if you go into an argument with a non-Christian about Christian things, whether God's real, or whatever you want to talk about, when you go into it with a Christian, it's almost like your faith is not really being tested. Maybe your personal engagement's being tested, how kind of a person are you, how gracious are you, whatever.
But when you go into it with a non-Christian, who's really kind of attacking your foundation of your worldview and all of these things, let's say, it really causes you to say, "Was I standing on an echo chamber that I didn't realize? I'm raised in the church, I've spent all my time in the church, I've only talked to people in the church, and now I'm not," let's hypothetically say, "How strong was my faith in the first place?" So it really requires you, in my mind, to kind of double down on your faith, and show you where you're lacking.
Jamie: Yeah. Look, for some people it doesn't do that. For a lot of us, it does. But, that's different from person to person. I think that's a matter of human psychology, and how people are sort of intellectually put together, and how they operate in that way.
Joe: Yeah.
Jamie: But yeah, for a lot of us, that's been exactly the thing, is precisely the testing of that faith, that made the faith stronger. So anyway, yes, I do think we can get ourselves in echo chambers. I do think there's a way to address it, but it requires humility, honesty, diligence, and such to [crosstalk 00:19:30].
Joe: All right. Well that's great. Thanks for that, Jamie.
Jamie: Thanks, man.
Joe: Hey, everybody. This is Jamie and Joe again. If you liked this podcast, would you leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts? That helps other people find it.
Jamie: And if you have any questions, we'd love to hear about them. Just go to JamieDew.com/questions, and send them in that way, and we'll take a look at the most frequently asked questions and give them a shot.