I thank Dave Benson for bringing this to my attention, and acknowledge Tim Keller’s essay at “A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory” (at https://gospelinlife.com/article/a-biblical-critique-of-secular-justice-and-critical-theory/) for his engagement, and thank him for the use of the graph:
I am not critical of Keller’s “Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory” AS HIS OWN DESCRIPTION OF BIBLICAL JUSTICE, but my aim of criticism is a common misunderstanding of how we are actually communicating our ideas, for and of all. It is a failure to understand Habermas’ Communitive Action, and thus Keller has not come to grips with Critical Theory in his critique.
The problem can be easily explained without the denseness of Habermas’ theory, however, make no mistake, the theory is foundational to the way I am about to explain the problem (in Keller’s own order):
If Robert Nozick centres justice on freedom, it actually gives all other positioning pause in that “freedom” becomes a suspicion. The question then is about the erosion of another concept and its practice.
If John Rawls centres justice on fairness, it actually gives all other positioning pause in that “fairness” becomes a suspicion. The question then is about the erosion of another concept and its practice.
If John Stuart Mill centres justice on happiness, it actually gives all other positioning pause in that “happiness” becomes a suspicion. The question then is about the erosion of another concept and its practice.
If Karl Marx centres justice on power, it actually gives all other positioning pause in that “power” becomes a suspicion. The question then is about the erosion of another concept and its practice. Note: there is a historical mistake here in the alignment, in the 21st century we are not talking about Karl Marx but Paul-Michel Foucault (I wish that these ignorant and funded enterprises would employ me as the global intellectual historian, as I have been forced to live off bread and butter).
None of this threatens Keller’s biblicalism (as articulated in the essay), but it is too limiting in the understanding the intellectual history, as illustrated in the Keller graph and Keller’s interpretation. Here is a better alternative as a model for cognition histories and cognition sociology:
The elements in the cognition are a starting point of pre-judgement (prejudice and bias), existing attitudes, adopted values framework, which all settle into some exclusion and inclusion, creating the limits of understanding, until a person opens their mind in the space of the model where new connections are made between elements of the model. The space of the model is generated by the Jungian open framework of Sensation, Intuition, Thinking, and Feeling. Not hard to understand is it (I say this because of the arrogant attacks upon me while I am being impoverished)? Thus, I will repeat my teaching lesson, in the hope it is understood:
THE FOLLOWING IS AN EDITED REPRODUCTION OF “THE DYNAMIC OF COGNITION: PERSON”, PUBLISHED AT ACADEMIA.EDU WITH PERMISSION (I AM THE AUTHOR WITH COPYRIGHT)
Being thrown into the world (Heidegger) the cyclical beginning is prejudice. It is the state of what is pre-judged. With the cycles of thinking, a new schema of understanding (judgement) begins anew with new contextual questions. The elements of cognition involved in the movement from prejudice to knowledge (temporal and always revisable) are attitudes and typologies of value. Attitudes are the states of what is forcefully conveyed in and of the ideas. Attitudes can be basically extraversion or introversion. The typologies of value can be categorised in different ways. The Public discourses usually go for the categories of “religious” and “secular” with synthetic thinking of “comprehensive”. However, the better set of categories are the Jungian classifications: Sensation, Intuition, Thinking, and Feeling. They are contextually better answers with comprehension since they vaguely float in the dynamic space of cognition; that is, until the meaning of terms becomes concrete by connecting with one of thick concepts.
The agency in this determination or disposition are the states of exclusion or inclusion. We do choose the direction of our thinking by what we exclude in wilful ignorance, and what we include in empathy (William’s sympathy). Exclusion is the state of what we exclude and there is a correlation with externalism. Inclusion is the state of what we include and there is a correlation with internalism. In order to think of what is outside of ourselves, we must make the external, the internal: the external becomes a part of ourselves, part of our thinking. It parallels the ontology of “reality” being only understood in (internal) perceptions.
The model works as a system, and where, until there is a connection between working concepts, it is simply a space of non-engagement. Cognition is not solely a “narrow, hard, cold process of ratiocinative intellect” but is permeated by affect, which includes emotions and wider affective processes like hunger, fatigue, pain, and pleasure. These affective states condition our intentionality and bias our perception and thinking. Our anger might make us see things differently, and our joy might lead us to overlook negative aspects. Every idea is intimately and essentially linked with an affective attitude that has an intrinsic connection to the world it is directed towards. Ideas can be seen as emerging from affectively configured person-world relations, suggesting that our thoughts are often rooted in our feelings and connections to the environment. Sentiments are systems where a cognitive disposition is linked with emotional or affective conative dispositions, forming a structural unit. These sentiments, centred around intentional objects, often reflect a person’s place in a social group or culture.
In summary, attitudes and values are integral to cognition. Attitudes, shaped by experience and imbued with emotion, predispose us to act in certain ways, with their importance and the valence of associated thoughts influencing behaviour change. Values, reflecting our fundamental beliefs and desires, guide our judgments, shape our requirements, and are often deeply embedded in our social and cultural contexts. Both attitudes and values are not isolated cognitive entities but are intertwined with our affective states and our interactions with the world, as highlighted by the multiple perspectives on cognition.
Neville Buch
Latest posts by Neville Buch (see all)
- Changeling Leadership - April 21, 2025
- ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?’ (David Pinder) - April 21, 2025
- Bob Dylan’s Ballad of a Thin Man - April 19, 2025