What is History? Objections to the Objectivity of History Part 1

In last week’s posting, we looked at the importance of history to the Christian worldview. Christianity is a historical faith that rises or falls on the validity of the historical record presented in scripture. Moreover, it was demonstrated that many modern historians have questioned the knowability of history by arguing that objective history is not possible. While historical relativism is embraced by skeptics, agnostics, and atheists for Bible believing Christians it is simply untenable. The purpose of this posting is to begin summarizing the arguments made by those who assert that history is unknowable. After setting forth the views of the historical relativists, we will demonstrate the false nature of their assertions.

According, to Dr. Norman Geisler, many arguments have been advanced that history cannot be objectively known.(1) One ought not take these challenges lightly, for if they are correct they would render the historical basis for Christianity both unknowable and unverifiable. Historian Charles A. Beard, author of The Noble Dream: the Quest for Objectivity in History, is by far the most prominent historical relativist. Beard’s afore-mentioned essay has served as the foundation for the modern push to view history as unknowable.(2) Geisler clarifies the objections to the knowablity of history into six categories: epistemological, axiological, methodological, metaphysical, psychological, and hermeneutical.(3)

The Epistemological Objections

Epistemology deals with how one knows anything, and relativists believe that objective truth does not exist in any sense. Specifically, historical relativists maintain that the very conditions by which one knows history are so subjective that one cannot have an objective knowledge of history.(4) Consequently, historical relativists offer three main epistemological objections to the notion of objective history.

The Unobservability of History

Proponents of historical relativism argue that the substance of history, unlike that studied by the empirical sciences, is not directly observable. In other words, history does not deal with past events but with statements about past events.(5) As a result, the historian is able to deal with facts in an imaginative way when attempting to reconstruct events he or she did not observe.(6) Consequently, historical facts exist only in the mind of the historian, according to historical relativists. Relatives contend that historical documents do not contain facts, but are, without the historian’s understanding, mere ink lines on paper.(7)

Two explanations are offered to explain why historians have only indirect access to the past. First, relativists assert that, unlike scientists, the historian’s world is comprised of records and nonrepeatable events. Consequently, the historians work is really of product of the present because the historian must interject his own understanding in any attempt to recreate the past.(8) Second, the empirical scientist has the advantage of repeatability through which he can subject his views to falsification, while the historian cannot. In contrast, the unobservable historical event is no longer verifiable. Therefore, what one believes about the departed past is more the product of subjective imagination, making objective history impossible.

The Fragmentary Nature of Historical Accounts

The second epistemological objection to the knowability of history centers around the documents available to the historian. Relativists suggest that a historian can ever have a complete understanding of past events due the fragmentary nature of the historical evidence. Beard and others state, that the available documents cover only a fraction of the events recorded, thereby leaving holes and blinds spots in the understanding available to the historian that prevent the reaching of final conclusions.(9) Moreover, the available documents are skewed because they disseminate what occurred in the past through the perspective of the one who recorded them, thereby rending them tainted and unreliable. This perspective is observable in Edward Hallett Carr’s book What Is History, in which he states the following regarding documents available to historians, “what really happened would still have to be reconstructed in the mind of the historian.”(10) In summary, because the documents are so fragmentary and the events so distant objectivity is not possible. Not only does the historian not have all of the puzzle pieces but the pieces the historian does possess are distorted by the mind of the person that recorded them.(11)

The Historical Conditioning of the Historian

This objection maintains that objectivity can never be attained because the historian plays too prominent a role in the historical process. Relativists claim that historians are a product of their time and are therefore subject to the unconscious programming of their era. According to this line of thought, historical synthesis depends upon the personality of the writer as well as social and religious forces that may influence one’s thinking and cloud their interpretive lenses.(12) One generation writes history only to have it rewritten by the next, thereby rendering neutral history impossible. Some historical relativists go so far as to say that one must study the historian before one can study their history.

The Axiological (Value) Objection

Historical relativists further assert that objective history is unobtainable because historians cannot avoid making value judgments.(13) Value judgments are used in the selection and arrangement of materials as well as in the selection of titles, chapters, and sections that are used in organizing historical compositions. In addition, relativists are quick to point out that historical subject matter often consists of events such as murder, betrayal, oppression and the like that cannot be described in morally natural words. For example, whether one historian chooses to classify a particular ruler as a dictator or a benevolent ruler is a value judgment and therefore subject to personal opinion. In short, for the subjectivist, objectivity is not possible because there is no way for the historian to keep himself out of his history.

The Methodological Objections

Generally speaking, methodological objections deal with the manner in which history is done.

The Selective Nature of Historical Methodology

We have already seen in the section on the epistemological objections to objectivity that historians do “not have direct access to the events of the past, but merely to fragmentary interpretations of those events contained in the historical documents.”(14) Relativists argue that objectivity is further compromised because historians must now choose from a fragmentary number of reports to build their interpretation of past events. Subjectivists are quick to point out that the sources utilized by the historian are influenced by many relative factors such as personal prejudice, availability of materials, knowledge of languages, as well as personal beliefs and societal convictions.(15) Edward Hallett Carr summarizes the popular modern view regarding the facts of history when he writes, “The facts speak only when the historian calls on them; it is he who decides which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context.”(16) In short, the original facts perished long ago, rending an objective discussion of them in the present a moot point.

The Need to Select and Arrange Historical Materials

At the risk of redundancy, historians select from surviving fragmentary documents only those that fit their over-all purpose. Historians then provide an interpretive framework that is tainted by the worldview and generational vantage point of the historian, according to relativists. Simply stated, the dice are loaded against objectivity before the historian ever sets pen to paper. “The final written product will be prejudiced by what is included and what is excluded from the material. It will lack objectivity by how it is arranged and by the emphasis given to it in the over all presentation.”(17) Consequently, all hope for objectivity is eternally dashed, according to the subjectivist.

For further reading on modern views of historical methodology this author recommends reading What is History by Edward Hallett Carr and The Idea of History by R.G. Collingwood. Stay tuned for part two of the objections to the objectivity of history.

Endnotes:
1) Norman Geisler. Systematic Theology Volume One. (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2002), 181.
2) Josh McDowell. The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1999), 676.
3) Geisler. Systematic Theology Volume One. 181-182.
4) Normal Geisler. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 320.
5) Geisler. Systematic Theology Volume One. 182.
6) Ibid., 182.
7) Geisler. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. 321.
8) Geisler. Systematic Theology Volume One. 182.
9) Ibid., 182.
10) Edward Hallett Carr. What is Hisory. (New York, NY, Vantage, 1961), 20.
11) Geisler. Systematic Theology Volume One. 183.
12) Carr., 31.
13) Ibid., 158-159.
14) Ibid., 184.
15) Ibid., 184.
16) Carr., 32.
17) Geisler. Systematic Theology Volume One. 185.