A sense of the past is inextricably tied to a sense of the present. Having a sense of belonging within a narrative timeline is essential to the perpetuation of a civilization or way of life. Said another way, history—whether personal, communal, national, global, or spiritual—is crucial to identity. Winston Churchill observed this when he purportedly said that a “nation that forgets its past has no future.” Similarly, twentieth-century American historian and intellectual Richard Hofstadter opens his work The Progressive Historians with the claim that history is “the thread [of] public identity. Men who have achieved any civic existence at all must, to sustain it, have some kind of history.” [1]
This sustenance is the realm of the historian. Much like theology is the study of God and not God Himself, history is the study of the past but not the past itself. Historian Ronald A. Wells writes that in one sense, “history would not be possible if it were not for the telling of it.” [2] The vocational calling of the historian is to first discover and subsequently craft historical narratives, both of which are necessitated by the importance of “telling” history. These histories are the narratives that shape civilizations. Author Timothy Dalrymple, speaking to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, observed that who we (Americans) become post-Coronavirus depends largely “on the story we tell ourselves.” [3] Adolf Hitler, who fed the German people an incendiary narrative about their abuse after the Great War (a narrative which disastrously implicated the Jewish people as antagonists) made a similar comment when he observed that “The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.” [4]
If the existence of—and the context provided by—a historical narrative can be of such great consequence to nations and peoples, it follows that historians have both a moral obligation and a vested interest to craft these narratives accurately and truthfully. False narratives lead to harmful results: Hitler’s narrative sparked a second Great War in Europe; Pope Urban II’s narrative initiated the crusades; Mao’s narrative killed millions. On the other hand, true narratives lead to positive results (e.g., Luther’s 95 Theses or Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence). The Bible contains numerous examples of this truth. Consistently, God reminds the Israelites who it was that brought them out of Egyptian slavery.* The reason for the institution of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (as well as many other symbolic Hebrew observances) was to remember this act (Exodus 12:17). When the Israelites rejected their true narrative and accepted Aaron’s false one (Exodus 32:8), Moses had to intercede with God to spare the nation. Even then, several thousands of the idolatrous people were slain as a result (Exodus 32:28).
For an historian to accurately and truthfully discover and craft these formative histories, there are a number of guiding principles by which he must abide. This is particularly true for the Christian historian who acknowledges that “God governs in the affairs of men.” The remainder of this paper details the several observations I think are crucial to a Christian understanding of history and form the bedrock of Christian engagement in its methods. The first of these is that absolute truth exists. This may seem inordinately simple, but that is precisely why it is foundational. Without absolute truth, the historian cannot affirm that any given event in the past actually took place, thus destroying the factual basis for any narrative. This observation also requires reinforcing within today’s increasingly relativistic culture. Truth, or “that which describes an actual state of affairs,” [5] is absolute and can be known. Christian apologists Norman Geisler and Frank Turek make this clear when they observe that to claim otherwise is to be caught in a violent contradiction. [6]
Because absolute truth exists, we can generally know beyond reasonable doubt what factual events happened in the past. This collection of objectively knowable facts constitutes “the past.” [7] However, the historian is largely limited to educated speculation regarding anything other than these facts. Answers to empirical or material questions such as “when” and “where” (and sometimes “who” and “what”) are often easily discernable, but not so much the answers to “how” and “why.” In scenarios without first-person testimony (which are the vast majority) a degree of subjectivity is always present. Even first-person testimony can rarely be taken at face value. When considering prior intent, motivation, purpose, or causation from within “the past,” the historian ventures into interpretation.
Consider, as an example, the R.M.S. Titanic. Objective, knowable facts about that unfortunate vessel are that she was a White Star passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage in April 1912. The historian may thus answer the questions “what,” “where,” and “when” without difficulty. But no historian writes a work simply answering these questions and no others, except perhaps one meant purely for reference. The answers to the far more intriguing questions of “how” and “why” are more challenging and still serve as the cause for much debate. Why did the ship disregard repeated iceberg warnings? Did a coal fire doom the ship even before the collision? Why was the number of lifeboats insufficient for the total passengers and crew? Some of these questions may never be answered, but the historian’s attempt to answer them is, in this sense of the word, a “history.”
This degree of subjectivity in history should not be confused with historical relativism, which is the opposite of absolute truth. Regardless of how any historian answers the prior questions about the R.M.S. Titanic, it is impossible to deny that there is a correct answer (or answers, per the superimposition of influences) to each of them. The fact that historians debate who shot John F. Kennedy does not negate the objective and knowable fact that someone did indeed shoot him. In short, differences in thought and opinion do not imply the validity of relativism. Each historian may have his own unique lens by which to examine “the past,” but they all have the exact same evidence from “the past” to examine. The historian is thus entitled to his best educated and defensible conjecture.
The “lens” by which the Christian historian must perceive “the past” is the Christian worldview. The Christian understands that God has provided us with the first part of the narrative in which we all belong. That is, that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” and that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”† God has also provided Christians with the last part of the story, concerning judgement and Christ’s return. God has both the beginning and end of our narrative in mind, some of which He has revealed to us in His word. The narrative of the world as a whole can largely be seen as the story of civilizations that either adopted or rejected God’s word: first, as nations that rose or fell dependent on their adherence to His statutes, but now as individuals who live or perish spiritually based on our acceptance of the Incarnate Word.
Though Christian historians enjoy this advantage of eternal perspective over their non-Christian colleagues, they must exercise extreme caution and humility when attempting to directly assign God’s omniscience, omnipotence, or omnipresence (that is, His divine providence) to the outcome of particular historical events (e.g., the fog enabling Washington to cross the Delaware, or Nazi leadership’s inaptitude in prosecuting the Battle of Britain). The Christian historian should not concern himself as to whether God is on his side, but rather, as Abraham Lincoln purportedly said, “to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” He must understand that Christianity transcends all boundaries and is not inherently tied to any particular race or nation. As Wells observes, “for historians to discern God’s actions in modern history seems a sterile task because of the hidden nature of the subject.” [8]
Lastly, the goal of the Christian historian is to communicate truth, “truth in all its ambiguity and complexity.”[9] He accomplishes this by best answering the fundamental questions of “who are we,” “how and why are we here,” and “where are we going” within the context of God’s beginning and ending as provided in Genesis and Revelation. History has commonly devolved into the mundane and aimless memorization of answers to “who” and “when.” But the Christian historian rejects that banality and instead recognizes “good” history as that which adds to an understanding of our identity as fallen human beings, and our place in the grand metanarrative.
* Exodus 20:2, Leviticus 11:45, Numbers 15:41, Deuteronomy 5:15, Judges 6:8, Psalm 81:10, Amos 2:10, and Micah 6:4.
† Romans 3:23, 5:8, KJV.
Endnotes
[1] Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), 3. [2] Ronald A. Wells, History Through the Eyes of Faith: Western Civilization and the Kingdom of God (New York: HarperOne, 1989), 1. Hereafter, Eyes of Faith. [3] Matthew Lee Anderson, Timothy Dalrymple, and Esau McCaulley, “Who Are We Becoming? Spiritual and Societal Growth in a Time of Crisis.” Panel Discussion, AEI Initiative on Faith and Public Life, virtual Zoom meeting, 28 April 2020. [4] H.R. Trevor-Roper, ed., Hitler’s Table Talks: 1941-1944 (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), xxviii. [5] Norman Geisler and Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 37. [6] Ibid., 35-69. [7] Eyes of Faith, 7. [8] Ibid., 4. [9] Ibid., 2.
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