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Journal of Psychology and Theology
2004, Vol. 32, No. 3, 248-261
AFTER POSTMODERNISM:
PERSPECTIVISM, A CHRISTIAN
EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE, AND THE
IDEOLOGICAL SURROUND
P. J. WATSON
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
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 Chris-
tians, such a movement might build upon the “future
objectivity” of Friedrich Nietzsche’s postmodern per-
spectivism. Writings of the French social theorist René
Girard suggest how this “objectivity” might be assimi-
lated within a Christian metanarrative about Truth.
His theory more specifically implies that the Bible
commands an epistemology of love that is non-author-
itarian, critical, and integrative. Methods compatible
with an epistemology of love have been developed
within an ideological surround model of the relation-
ship between psychology and religion. An epistemolo-
gy of love supplies a metaperspective for seeing and
then telling a coherent metanarrative about the chal-
lenges of integration after postmodernism.
hristian scholars increasingly claim that
C “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 mod-
ernism. “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.”
Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to P. J. Wat-
son, Psychology/Department #2803, 350 Holt Hall - 615 McCallie
Avenue, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Chattanooga,
TN 37403. Email: paul-watson@utc.edu
Sz: ?
Copyright 2004 by Rosemead School of Psychology
Biola University, 0091-6471/410-730
Modernism originated in the early Enlighten-
ment 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 simulta-
neous product and producer of power (Foucault,
1980). Enlightenment rationality, in particular,
was a powerful construction of emerging demo-
cratic and capitalist social structures and was not
more “objective” than the premodern “subjectivi-
ties” it replaced (MacIntyre, 1988). The power
arrangements of one regime of understanding
simply overthrew the power arrangements of
another. The “rationality” of modernist “objectiv-
ity” was itself culturally relative and hence chau-
vinistic 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 psycholo-
gy 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. “Psy-
chologists 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
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WATSON
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 psy-
chology (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 plural-
ism 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 metanarra-
tive 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 “intrin-
sically superior ethos” of a postmodern metanar-
rative that tells the story that there can be no meta-
narratives:
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 pre-
modern 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. More-
over, 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 rela-
tivism, therefore, seem inevitable in the absence
of universal standards that can avoid the some-
times-coercive use of power? And given the seem-
ingly 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?
249
Implicitly responding to such questions, Erick-
son (2001) recently concluded, “We must work
toward a postpostmodernism, not simply ignor-
ing the phenomenon of postmodernism, and
reverting to a prepostmodernism, but also not
merely halting with postmodernism. We must
transcend postmodernism” (p. 293). For Chris-
tians, 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 tradi-
tions, that preserve the widely appreciated scien-
tific and democratic social achievements of mod-
ernism, 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
René Girard (e.g., 1978) suggest how this “future
objectivity” is not only consistent with, but an
actual product of the premodern Christian wit-
ness. Premodern and postmodern supports for
perspectivism necessarily have concrete method-
ological implications for modernist social science.
Those implications have been explored in an ide-
ological 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 philoso-
pher who stood at the origins of the postmodern
emphasis on power (e.g., Erickson, 2001, pp. 84-
92). Nietzsche’s (1887/1967) response to plural-
ism 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 ungrate-
ful to ... resolute reversals of accustomed perspectives and valu-
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250
ations ... [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 with-
out 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 con-
tradictory 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 par-
ticular direction, in which the active and interpreting forces,
through which alone seeing becomes seeing something, are sup-
posed to be lacking; these always demand of the eye an absurdi-
ty and a nonsense. There is only a perspective seeing, only a per-
spective ‘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 postmod-
ernism might build upon Nietzsche’s “future
objectivity.” Nietzsche’s perspectivism, neverthe-
less, was positioned within his well-known athe-
ism; so, for the purposes of integration, his ideas
would have to be repositioned within a Christian
framework. To that end, Nietzsche’s perspec-
tivism 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 plau-
sibility of perspectivism is admitted, then this ques-
tion 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 intellec-
tual landscape. If that were so, his thought would
lack the “height” necessary to see a panorama of per-
spectives. 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 metaper-
spective, is he not advocating some specific, “cor-
rect” 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
CHRISTIAN EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE
order. He advocates instead a “future objectivity.”
He encourages us to control our “Pro and Con.”
He recommends that we see with more and dif-
ferent “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 prob-
ably 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 “meta-
physical 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 mere-
ly believed that he was offering a more rhetorical-
ly compelling description of pluralism, that his
metaperspective was more aesthetically satisfying
than the other available options. Even here, how-
ever, 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 per-
spectives 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 metaper-
spective, it should be possible to “look down” and
construct a metanarrative describing prepostmodern
perspectives and Nietzsche’s own postmodern meta-
perspective.
What prepostmodern perspective has the con-
ceptual resources to produce such a postpost-
modern metanarrative? Among the “future objec-
tivities” after postmodernism, attempts to answer
this question will likely be the focus of great con-
flict. For some, the task will be to construct an
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increasingly compelling and truthful metanarra-
tive that describes perspectives, intermediate
metaperspectives like Nietzsche’s, and a final
metaperspective that moves beyond postmod-
ernism. 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 theo-
rist René 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 his-
torical 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 mime-
sis. 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 deter-
mined by instincts, but instead reflects the social
history of mimesis.
Mimetic desire is a triangular process involving
251
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 com-
pete 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 appre-
ciatively follow his guidance in how to control the
car. In human relationships, however, external
mediation tends toward internal mediation. By fol-
lowing 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 sub-
ject. 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 conver-
gence of subjects and models on the same objects
can result in death. Within a Girardian frame-
work, 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 inex-
orably transform a condition of external bour-
geois mediation into a state of internal mediation
in which the proletariat joins together in a power-
ful 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 exploita-
tion, slavery, and colonialism. The logical end of
unrestrained desire will be death. Bourgeois vio-
lence 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
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252
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 control-
ling 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 power-
ful. Newly formed communities then protected
themselves from future violent crises by reenacting
the founding event. They periodically purged them-
selves of the mounting frustrations of desire by stag-
ing the more controlled and less chaotically danger-
ous 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, sacri-
fices gave communities time to make innovations
in the structure of social relationships that
allowed them to better control desire and to bet-
ter use nature to satisfy desire. Some changes even
worked on the sacrificial process itself, for exam-
ple, 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 neces-
sary, 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
CHRISTIAN EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE
myth will reveal that it is the story of a murder told
from the self-exonerating perspective of the mur-
derers.
Purely human history, therefore, occurs in
cycles sealed within an intelligibility that is pow-
ered 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 intel-
ligibility might insightfully condemn and argue for
the “murder” of another, but that perspective
could not escape itself and find a place of neutral-
ity for offering a general condemnation of the
murderous mechanisms of desire.
But is not a primary attraction of postmod-
ernism precisely its ability to unmask the scape-
goating 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 intelli-
gibility, what events socially constructed our abili-
ty to condemn the mechanisms of murderous
intelligibility? In the third and final element of his
thought, Girard (1978) identifies the Judeo-Chris-
tian Scriptures as the source of these “postmod-
ern” abilities. God enters human history and
begins the process of replacing dark and murder-
ous 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 con-
struct 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 nar-
rate the injustice and ultimate futility of all sacrifi-
cial violence (e.g., Micah 6: 6-8). The truth of
these victims supplies the hermeneutical key that
unlocks all ancient and contemporary mythologi-
cal lies. These texts specifically reveal that murder-
ous intelligibility originates in misdirected mimet-
ic desire. Humanity was tempted away from an
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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 crucifix-
ion 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 resur-
rection, Truth sets humanity free and establishes a
new foundation for understanding. A loving intel-
ligibility 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 lov-
ing 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 Scrip-
ture could rest upon its apparent innovativeness.
How could so apparently novel and “discontinu-
ous” 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.
253
Nietzsche did, for example (Girard, 1996). In
Christianity, Nietzsche “recognized that a new
perspective on the world and a new kind of reli-
gious 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. Niet-
zsche 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 institu-
tions 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 perspec-
tive, 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 look-
ing down on cyclical pagan history from the linear
Christian history of the Cross. This location sup-
plies a metaperspective from which a Christian
movement beyond postmodernism might begin.
From this metaperspective, postmodernism (and
also modernism) will look very different. Post-
modern (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 (surrep-
titious) metanarrative that unmasks the scapegoat-
ing oppressions associated with the metanarra-
tives of all purely human forms of intelligibility.
According to the postmodern argument, such
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metanarratives and all other aspects of culture are
the socially constructed products of power. But if
all history is sealed within the power arrange-
ments of social construction, what liberating per-
spectives stood outside those power arrange-
ments 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 mur-
derous 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-Chris-
tians and will seem like an act of violent Christian
internal mediation. From a Girardian metaper-
spective, however, Christians will see that all abili-
ties 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 move-
ment beyond postmodernism must have episte-
mological 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 broth-
er 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 postmod-
ernism would accept Nietzsche’s emphasis on see-
ing, but would see all seeing from the metaper-
spective of love. This love would not be just anoth-
er affect. The positive affects of social life often
appear when subjects and models enjoy relation-
ships of external mediation. Positive affects
devolve into negative affects as externally mediat-
ed 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
CHRISTIAN EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE
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 sup-
plied the “light” of a definitive “rationality” that
makes it possible to see the Truth about the sacri-
ficial 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 per-
spectives maintain intellectual and social solidari-
ty through the rejection of “stones” that then cre-
ate 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 increas-
ingly (over centuries) develops solidarity through
scapegoating rejections of religion. Scapegoating
rejections of religion by modernism serve as mod-
els 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 post-
modern perspective that enters into relationships
of rivalry and rejection with religion and mod-
ernism. 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 fundamental-
ism (with religious texts as the rejected stones),
gay and lesbian (with the homosexual as the reject-
ed stone), and so on and so on.
A Christian movement beyond postmod-
ernism would see an influence of the Bible in what
appears to be an accelerating proliferation of per-
spectives. The Bible helps create a process of see-
ing potential myths about “rejected stones” in
terms of the Truth of victims instead of the lies of
murderers. In this, the Bible demythologizes the
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WATSON
world and promotes the differentiation of human-
ity. 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 some-
thing that is radically different” (Girard, 1978, p.
178). But how would this “something that is radi-
cally different” operate epistemologically?
First, an epistemology of love would be non-
authoritarian. No perspective, either inside or out-
side the socially constructed manifestations of the
church or any other cultural institution, could
serve as the final, definitive mediator for identify-
ing 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 episte-
mology 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 point-
ing 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 meta-
perspective would “hover” above all other per-
spectives, and would serve as the standard against
which they all would be evaluated. For each com-
munity 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 crit-
ical 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 epistemo-
logical scapegoating. In other words, the founda-
tions of all socially constructed perspectives pre-
sumably rest upon rejected stones, but these per-
spectives then build and maintain themselves
through their own scapegoating rejections. At
255
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 shin-
ing Light on the darkness produced by our own
inadequacies in seeing and by our own epistemo-
logical scapegoating wherever it might occur.
Finally, an epistemology of love would be inte-
grative. Like communities generally, all perspec-
tives presumably use epistemological scapegoat-
ing to produce periods of peaceful solidarity dur-
ing which meaningful discoveries and innovations
can occur. Different communities of understand-
ing 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 methodolo-
gies 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 per-
spective 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-integra-
tive perspective would tacitly reinforce bound-
aries between communities that would encourage
scapegoating and rivalries of violent internal medi-
ation. 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 founda-
tion 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”).
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256
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 psy-
chology and religion (Watson, 1993, 1994). Cen-
tral to this model is the acceptance of perspec-
tivism as an accurate description of life in pluralis-
tic societies. In such societies, conflicts among
perspectives can justify the use of power to main-
tain 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, how-
ever, will be that none of the available perspectives
will “see” everything and so will make observa-
tions 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 char-
acter 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, poli-
tics, 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
CHRISTIAN EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE
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 Chris-
tians 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 psy-
chology) is sociological, normative, and some-
what (non)empirical. These assumptions have
three most important practical implications.
First, within an ideological surround, no per-
spective can justify the arbitrary use of power to
exert a dominating control over the creation of
knowledge about psychology and religion. Niet-
zsche’s critiques have made it possible to see that
all perspectives are limited. For Christians work-
ing in this area, this means liberation from the
domination of modernism. A modernist thera-
peutic 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 empiri-
cally a dialectic between sin and grace that pro-
motes 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 social-
ly construct a Christian psychology for use in
Christian communities (Roberts, 2000).
Second, research within an ideological sur-
round requires methodologies that can unmask
the limitations in what a perspective can see,
including those limitations associated with episte-
mological scapegoating. Diverse techniques for
accomplishing that purpose have been developed
(Watson, 1993, 1994). Within an existential ideo-
logical surround, for example, authentic selfhood
can seem to demand a rejection of traditional reli-
gion. Researchers working within that surround
created a 36-item scale for measuring personal
tendencies to avoid existential concerns, and cor-
relations confirmed that religious commitments
predicted a refusal to confront the difficult exis-
tential 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 cer-
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tain what happens after death”). A separate analy-
sis of just those three items demonstrated that
they fully explained the relationship between reli-
gious 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 exis-
tential perspective had stumbled over the rejected
stone of religion (Watson, Hood, & Morris,
1988).
Finally, research within an ideological sur-
round would work from the assumption that per-
spectives share and also have unique insights that
can be combined in broader systems of under-
standing. Standard psychological frameworks and
methodologies might be used to explore com-
monalities between perspectives, even those that
seem separated by conflict (e.g., Ghorbani, Wat-
son, Ghramaleki, Morris, & Hood, 2002; Hood et
al., 2001; Watson & Ghorbani, 1998). And special
methods also might be devised for promoting inte-
gration. Beliefs expressed in the language of mod-
ernist psychology, for example, might be usefully
translated into the language of religion and vice
versa (Dueck, 1995, p. 146; 2002). Empirical proce-
dures 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 psycholo-
gy and religion within an ideological surround
would be non-authoritarian, critical, and integra-
tive. 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 per-
spective could unmask the scapegoating exclu-
sions of its own and other perspectives. And any
perspective could explore opportunities for inte-
gration. 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 tradi-
257
tions that have unmasked scapegoating and have
made a nonviolent perspectivism possible. The
model also would conserve the clear achieve-
ments of modernist scientific methodologies.
Those methodologies would not be used to
defend the implicit internal mediation of an objec-
tivist epistemology, but instead would serve as a
safeguard against authoritarianism. Any commu-
nity could use the Truth of reliable and valid mod-
ernist methods to defend itself against the oppres-
sive use of power by other perspectives. Science in
this way would promote a democratization of per-
spectives and thus would respond to the realities
of postmodern pluralism. The ideological sur-
round model, in other words, would meet the
“postpostmodern” integrative challenge of articu-
lating 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 inter-
pretations 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 psy-
chology” 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 his-
tory 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 perspec-
tive (Girard, 1996). In attempting to become
Overmen, humanity should reject the Crucified
Jesus and should instead follow the pagan god
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258
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: ‘Diony-
sus is the same thing as Hades’” (p. 120). A critical
psychology that returns to hell with only a Niet-
zschean understanding of power can only bring
more hell into hell.
At least, this is one possible reading of a cen-
trally 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 accus-
er.” 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 com-
munity at peace will fall into frustration and rival-
ry. The situation will become increasingly “satan-
ic” as social solidarity collapses into escalating
accusations, especially against the power that
serves as the mediator of the group. The commu-
nity then will be trapped in a mimetically-driven,
self-reinforcing spiral of violence. In some
instances, the controlling power will finally pro-
tect itself by using an effective gesture of accusa-
tion 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). Some-
times, 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 arrange-
ments 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?
CHRISTIAN EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE
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 circum-
stances, 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 obvi-
ously 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 criti-
cal psychology therefore collapse into the very
thing it critiques? Will not the dominating power
of one critical psychological regime of under-
standing 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 psy-
chology cast out a critical psychology? If an episte-
mology 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 meta-
perspective of heaven.
From the metaperspective of heaven, any criti-
cism 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 psy-
chology does not ignore “the forgotten and the
feared” in attempting to maintain its “disciplinary
and political amnesia about foundational ques-
tions” (Carrette, p. 123, p. 113). Behind this
attempt to see “things hidden since the founda-
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tion 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 parakle-
tos 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 lib-
eration, it is the Defender that speaks Truth to the
powers of accusation and attempts to bring heav-
en into hell.
In other words, critical psychology has inherit-
ed 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 mean-
ing, then of the Greek word for truth, aletheia, is ‘to stop forget-
ting.’ 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 “dis-
ciplinary 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 cycli-
cal 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 defen-
dant 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.
259
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 defen-
dants?” And a third and final line of evidence will
begin, “Do you not see that the defendant’s social-
ly constructed understanding of good expresses
many of the same goods that have been socially
constructed within your own regime of under-
standing?” 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 fun-
damental 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, femi-
nist, fundamentalist, and countless other perspec-
tives will undoubtedly join the coming conflicts
over the mediation of human desire.
Within a Christian ideological surround, the sit-
uation 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 irrele-
vant 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 con-
text, a Girardian retelling of stories might be useful.
After postmodernism, everyone freed by the
Defender will repeatedly share a banquet honor-
ing Truth. The table will be increasingly large and
around it will be seated all kinds of self-professed
disciples of truth, even those whose (surrepti-
tious) Truth is that there is no truth. These disci-
ples will never really be like gods, fully knowing
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260
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 libera-
tion. 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 per-
spective, 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 dom-
inant 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 con-
demnation. 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 intelligibil-
ity that frees humanity from prisons of murderous
intelligibility. Through the dynamics of liberation,
the banquet will get larger and larger. In the grow-
ing 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. Mur-
derous 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
CHRISTIAN EPISTEMOLOGY OF LOVE
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 con-
clusions of anti-Truth. The blindness of hate will
stumble toward apocalyptic discharge.
Cycles of lies will eventually culminate in the vio-
lent 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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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.