Social scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists are all looking for the Holy Grail, that is, an absolute, fixed, culture-free standard they can use for judging the validity of cultural forms in order to know what ought to be. Unlike present day social scientists, the Greeks recognized the existence of such a culture-free universal standard. They called it "epignosis." 

 

According to Greek scholars Arndt and Gingrich, gnosis, 'knowledge' with the preposition epi- denotes 'to know exactly, completely, through and through.'  For the Greeks, there existed a transcendent standard for judging the validity of cultural forms.  But it needed to be discovered.

 

Aware of the problem, cultural psychologists Norenzayan and Heine point out that  culture-free standards “provide the only legitimate criteria by which any particular socio-cultural practice or belief many be judged.”

 

Recognizing the problem, anthropologist Robert Lawless wrote:

“Any comparison of other societies by the standards of one’s own society, any evaluation

of the behavior and beliefs of another society through the perspectiveof one’s own

folk model, simply labels those other behaviors and beliefs as wrong, crazy, irrational, or

stupid.  If we are bound by the perspectives of our own folk model, we will learn nothing

about why other people behave and think differently from us.  Such a sterile viewpoint

is called ethnocentrism. Analytic models must have a trans-societal perspective”

[Emphasis added]. 

 

Dr. Lawless, my anthro-advisor at the University of Florida, was absolutely correct.  “Analytic models must have a trans-societal perspective.”  Our analytical models should incorporate, as advocated by Norenzayan, Heine, Lawless, and others, fixed and unchanging, culture-free principles when evaluating the beliefs, institutions, values, behavior, and social arrangements of others.  

 

But where do missionaries, Bible translators, anthropologists, psychologists, and social scientists go to find this culture-free knowledge? Why does such an analytical research model not exist?  While recognizing the problem none of these observers of human behavior give us an answer.  

 

But there has to be an answer. The proposed answer is: Academia has failed to recognize the dual nature of human existence and that the mind is not the brain.   It scoffs at the idea that there exist universal forms or concepts in the subconscious to which are attached Divine Meanings which can be "triggered" and brought to consciousness.

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Some, like Jewish intellectual, linguist Ray Jackendorf, hold to the materialistic dogma that all meanings are contextually derived from SOCIAL EXISTENCE and are imported into the head where magically they are connected to the correct form or concept "structured" in a metal organ called the "brain."    Since universal  empty forms or concepts structured in our brains are innate, he then asks:  "Where do the word meanings in our head come from?  Obviously, input from the environment is needed."

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Now Jackendorf, like the theists, believes in Innate Knowledge.  But for Jackendorf, this knowledge is only partial. It consists of empty universal forms or concepts structured in the brain awaiting to be filled with their proper meanings,  meanings derived from social existence.  There exists no epignosis Knowledge which is true and exact.  And before man can speak rationally, "Input from the environment is needed." 

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Since no form has an inherent meaning, there can be no "trans-societal perspective." Fellow Jewish anthropologist David Schneider would agree, stating that "The best research is morally and politically neutral research, pure research, value-neutral research.”    But who does "value-neutral research?  Holding to a top-down, outside-inside epistemology, my research has a theistic spirit-body bias. Those holding to a bottom-up, outside-in epistemology hold to a materialistic non-dualistic brain-body bias.

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So the question becomes: Can "a politically neutral, value-neutral research" be done without the use of culture-free mental etic data which the Greeks called "epignosis"  Knowledge?  Without culture-free semantic constants, rules of behavior, and moral values, or etic data, in the words of my anthropology advisor Robert Lawless, "We will learn nothing about why  other people behave and think differently from us."

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It is therefore imperative that each person involved in cross-cultural ministries make some attempt to understand why other societies think and act the way they do.  It is analogous to solving a puzzle.  This is the problem I faced in the early '60's when I asked myself, "How did the Bible-less, mono-lingual Chácobo living in the Amazon Rainforest know that helping their neighbor in need was the ultimate mark of being human when they never heard or learned the principle from an outsider?"  

 

Unexpectedly, I had uncovered  an unlearned moral principle "written on the heart." Since they had minimal contact with the outside world and could not converse in Spanish, it was obvious they knew the moral principle long before Marian and I arrived on the scene. 

 

I finally concluded that their knowledge of the principle revealed the existence of an innate Etic Mental Data Bank of  universal concepts, categories, duties, obligations, rules, and values which served as a universal mental framework upon which the psychic-unity of mankind is made possible. Without this unifying framework of universal concepts having inherent meanings, there would exist no human capacity to classify sense experiences under concepts, concepts under categories, and  in the process create knowledge of the world in which we live.  

 

The discovery convinced me that the apostle Paul was correct when he wrote: "Their actions give visible proof of commandments written not on tables of stone but on the tables of the heart" (Romans 2:15). 

 

It also implied that Karl Marx was right when he wrote: "The task of science is to uncover essence, the internal and deep underlying process behind the multitude of phenomena, the outward aspects and features of reality."  And this uncovering process is totally dependent on a priori Knowledge of taxonomic concepts like, SAME-DIFFERENT, ABOVE-BELOW, and PART OF and KIND OF.  

 

And that is what an emic-etic approach to doing appropriate missiology is all about.  It is about uncovering etic mental data encoded in the subconscious by examining social and linguistic phenomena.  It is grounded in the belief that “universals are gleaned from an examination of the particulars.”  It is about uncovering mental, unlearned principles, concepts, values, and rules that have been encoded in the subconscious and brought to consciousness when triggered by a linguistic-social event in history. 

 

When, however, this Divine Etic Data Ban residing in the subconscious needed for interpreting reality is rejected by man and society, and since this Divine Data Bank cannot be deleted from the subconscious,  it must be suppressed, distorted, and replaced with principles that belong to the people.  Such suppressing behavior makes it more difficult to uncover those Principles which inform us as to what ought to be. 

 

Convictions

1. Since materialism rejects the dual spirit-body nature of human existence and starts with the premise that man  is merely a product of inert matter, it has closed the door on the idea that there can be a top-down, inside-out  mental approach which informs the analyst as to what ought to be.

2. Because social scientists eventually came to the conclusion that the standards they were using for judging the cultural forms of other societies were shaped and contaminated by their own culture, most gave up their search for a culture-free standard. In the words of anthropologist Martin Ottenheimer, the cultural analyst must now “benefit from multiple perspectives achieved through the use of multiple frameworks.”

3. The Bible supports the existence of such an Etic Data Bank or epignosis Knowledge in the unconscious mind, for Paul wrote: "Their actions give visible proof of commandments written not on tables of stone but on the tables of the heart" (Romans 2:15). 

4. If there exists no “absolute framework" for examining and classifying cultural data as being either health producing or death producing, then no missionary, religion, ideology,  nor ruling class has the authority to condemn cultural forms like adultery, female infanticide, abortion, widow burning,  slavery, honor killings, rape, incest, jihad, and so on.  All is relative.  

5. The apostle Paul clearly understood the problem of judging the validity of cultural forms.  It is revealed in his letter to the Philippian church where he wrote: “My prayer is that your love will keep on growing more and more, together with true knowledge [epignosis] and perfect judgment so that you will be able to choose what is best” (Philippians 1:9 --GNT). 

6. Without “exact,” ‘true” and “precise” knowledge, Paul understood that it would be impossible for the Philippian church to discover, by testing, whether a cultural form was good or bad. There would be no means for knowing what was “best”  or true.  Likewise, every missionary is dependent of epignosis Knowledge when it comes to judging the validity of a cultural form, a knowledge which is fixed, accurate, and true. 

7. The task of the missiologist is to bring to light what both the Greeks and writers of Scripture declared existed, that is,  a Universal Framework of knowledge which is exact and fixed.