The Paradigm Effect

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
I've mentioned several times in various posts that there's an obstacle having to do with overcoming a person's paradigm when attempting to have a substantive and productive conversation or respectful debate. I realized that I hadn't really spent a lot of time putting my thoughts into words and so I thought I'd start a thread on the topic and see if anyone has some interesting thoughts on the issue.

First of all we should start by defining what a paradigm is. A paradigm is a set of assumptions that we use, mostly unconsciously, to filter information of a given topic. They are quite useful, indispensable really. Without them we'd be forced to think through every idea every time it came up. This would of course make communication very cumbersome if not impossible. But how do you know that your paradigm is right? It's a rather difficult question to answer because your paradigm will tend to filter out any answer to that question that conflicts with the paradigm itself and you won't know its happened. This phenomenon is referred to as the Paradigm Effect.

The phrase "Paradigm Effect" was coined by Joel Barker; the actual theory was found by Thomas Khun.
This Theory states that what goes against one's paradigm (their world view, what they know to be true) will be nearly impossible for them to see. For example if someone was to quickly flip through a pack of cards that contained a black 5 of hearts, you would probably see it as a 5 of spades or clubs because your paradigm is that black cards are clubs and spades and red cards are hearts and diamonds. Someone who has never seen a deck of cards would see the black 5 of hearts for what it truly was because they had no expectations, or previous paradigms. - source

Another phrase used to describe this psychological phenomenon is "Paradigm Paralysis". This is generally used to describe a situation in which important decisions are made (or more often not made) in ignorance even though the needed information is right under the decision maker's nose but is made invisible by their paradigm. "We've never done it that way before and its worked just fine!" is the mantra of the man suffering from paradigm paralysis.

I am convinced that the primary reason why very little progress is ever made toward convincing people of anything, not just here at TOL but anywhere, is because of the paradigm effect. Discussions very seldom reach to the level of paradigm analysis because almost no one is willing to question their paradigm. And when someone's paradigm is challenged the response is almost always to ignore the challenge and to deflect to another topic. This is especially true when its a religious or theological paradigm that is being challenged. Most people are simply not willing to touch their theological paradigm at all. It costs way too much.

People have invested their lives into the construction of their theological paradigm. A person inherits their theological paradigm from whoever raises them initially, even if that paradigm is an atheistic one, but typically, by the age of twenty a person has either made that paradigm their own or they've rejected it in favor of another. In either case, they've set out on a particular road that takes little effort to stay on but a very great deal of effort to get off of. Much more effort than most are even capable of, never mind willing to exert. It never even occurs to most people to ask whether or not the road they're on is the right one and most of the people who do think to ask such a question have no idea how to answer it. Those who do ask and manage to get an answer typically only accept the answer they happen to get reaffirms their theological paradigm. It is the rarest of men who both discover that their lives are on the wrong path and who are willing to discard the faith of their youth and to embark down unfamiliar theological paths in search for the objective truth.

In this thread, I'd like to explore different paradigm level ideas. You might find it rather difficult to discern which ideas are at paradigm level and which are not, I know I do! But that's sort of the point of this thread. To try to tease out the foundational ideas from the theological noise. I'll kick that process off by offering three good examples of what I think are clearly a paradigm level theological concepts.

1. Does God exist?

Obviously paradigm level stuff.

2. The attributes of God: Quality vs. Quantity

This concept of God's qualitative attributes vs. His quantitative attributes where clearly presented and brilliantly argued by Bob Enyart in a Battle Royale X. Calvinists try to suggest that they give no preference to any of God's attributes over any others but they do and so does everyone else. It turns out that you are forced to and the fact that you are forced to choose is what makes this a paradigm level concept because a decision here effects almost everything that comes after.

3. Why was Paul made an apostle?

This is a question very few Christians ever think to ask but that all Christians answer whether directly or implicitly and the answer to the question has gigantic influence over the whole rest of your Christian philosophy. In fact, nearly every theological debate you can name hinges on the answer to this question. Everything from whether water baptism is need for salvation to whether one can loose their salvation or what foods you are allowed eat all hinge on how you answer the question, “Why Paul?”. I therefore consider it to be a paradigm level concept.


Okay, so there's three idea ideas, what are some more? Also, if you have any ideas about how to objectively analyze one's theological paradigm, I'd be very interested in reading that as well.

By the way, let's try our best not to debate the ideas here just let's try to figure out which ideas are at the paradigm level and which are not.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 
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chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
I hate that word paradigm
but
I will play along

how many significant paradigms do we have here?

I will try to name them

mad
calvinist
catholic
protestant
non-trins

saying you are christian is not really telling at all

so who at tol are properly identified?

catholics and protestants

that's it
it is very hard to identify all the others
and
that makes it hard to understand what they are saying
so
this is where you start
start identifying yourselves
 

RevTestament

New member
My religious "paradigm" has been shifted several times in my life. I was born into a "Protestant" family, but I have always been a bit idealistic, and have always found myself questioning what I am presented with by the world. So maybe I am one of the "rare" persons you mention. But I really don't know that they are so rare as you suggest. People become Christian and non-Christian all the time, so there is one paradigm for your thread: Christian. I am constantly told on internet forums that I am not a "Christian" because I don't accept the Nicene Creed as a statement of faith or because I believe I can be like Christ, etc.
Another way to talk about paradigms is interpretive "boxes." I pose because of the very nature of language and words which "mean things," we all tend to put things into categories in order to remember them that way. So we have labels for people which we try to sort everyone we run across into each label.

I feel the very nature of God resists being put into a box, or labelled with "a trinity" for example. I try to let God tell me who He is rather than vice versa.

Acts 17:29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
 

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
I am constantly told on internet forums that I am not a "Christian" because I don't accept the Nicene Creed as a statement of faith or because I believe I can be like Christ, etc.

what is the best way to describe you

mormon?
or
christian?
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
I hate that word paradigm
but
I will play along

how many significant paradigms do we have here?

I will try to name them

mad
calvinist
catholic
protestant
non-trins

saying you are christian is not really telling at all

so who at tol are properly identified?

catholics and protestants

that's it
it is very hard to identify all the others
and
that makes it hard to understand what they are saying
so
this is where you start
start identifying yourselves
I appreciate you playing along but are you sure those are paradigms?

I suppose in one sense they are but what I've got in mind has to do with the ideas that form the building block of things like Calvinism or Catholicism etc. It's the ideas that cause a Catholic not to get the point when a protestant (of any stripe) speaks about grace, for example. Its what causes words to have different meanings in the ears of a Calvinist than they have in anyone else's.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
My religious "paradigm" has been shifted several times in my life. I was born into a "Protestant" family, but I have always been a bit idealistic, and have always found myself questioning what I am presented with by the world. So maybe I am one of the "rare" persons you mention. But I really don't know that they are so rare as you suggest. People become Christian and non-Christian all the time, so there is one paradigm for your thread: Christian. I am constantly told on internet forums that I am not a "Christian" because I don't accept the Nicene Creed as a statement of faith or because I believe I can be like Christ, etc.
Another way to talk about paradigms is interpretive "boxes." I pose because of the very nature of language and words which "mean things," we all tend to put things into categories in order to remember them that way. So we have labels for people which we try to sort everyone we run across into each label.

I feel the very nature of God resists being put into a box, or labelled with "a trinity" for example. I try to let God tell me who He is rather than vice versa.

Acts 17:29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.

By what standard do you judge the paradigm you have now and conclude that it is superior to the ones of your youth?

And on a side note...

Is God righteous?
Or would saying so be to put God in a box in your view?

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

iamaberean

New member
Clete,

This is probably one of the most important post that could be made. How one believes the word of God, many times, is mainly what they were taught in church when they were children.

Ten years ago, my son went to a conference where they spent a week just praying and speaking about God and their beliefs. From that conference he came back a different man with a different perspective about God and the church. Shorty afterwards he ask me if I could confirm what he had learned. When he told me what that was I just knew he must have been taught something wrong. After a few weeks he came back again and ask me to please check it out. So the first thing I did was to go to God and ask him to show me, by scripture, if my son was right or not.

It took me a least two months of study but in the end I had a new understanding, a paradigm shift if you will, on how to understand God's word.

1. The old testament was written to the Jews, not us.

2. The gospels were written about the coming of the Jews messiah, Jesus, and his coming to earth as it was foretold to them in the old testament. (He didn't come as the Gentiles messiah.)

3. Jesus, as the Jews messiah, told them, Jews not Gentiles, that he would come in judgment of them because of their unbelief and rejection of him.

4. The epistles were written to the early churches, not to us.

5. The book of Revelation was about the judgment that was about to come upon the Jews.

The paradigm shift is to read the bible as we would a novel. It should not be read as if God is speaking directly to us. It has been written for our understanding as to how we should live and believe God.

Don't make it about you, because it isn't.

Most people will never get it!
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
I am convinced that the primary reason why very little progress is every made toward convincing people of anything, not just here at TOL but anywhere, is because of the paradigm effect. Discussions very seldom reach to the level of paradigm analysis because almost no one is willing to question their paradigm. And when someone's paradigm is challenged the response is almost always to ignore the challenge and to deflect to another topic. This is especially true when its a religious or theological paradigm that is being challenged. Most people are simply not willing to touch their theological paradigm at all. It costs way too much.

People have invested their lives into the construction of their theological paradigm. A person inherits their theological paradigm from whoever raises them initially, even if that paradigm is an atheistic one, but typically, by the age of twenty a person has either made that paradigm their own or they've rejected it in favor of another. In either case, they've set out on a particular road that takes little effort to stay on but a very great deal of effort to get off of.

I enjoyed reading your OP. I thought you might be interested in Leon Festinger, his study of a doomsday cult in the 1950s and their reactions when the world didn't end when they expected it to.

I've posted about him here before, but I don't think those posts survived the recent pruning, except for this one quote:
A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks.

But man's resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.

Leon Festinger
Your topic is very interesting, even if we might not agree on particulars.

And a couple more links, if you're interested:

Disconfirmed expectancy


Cognitive dissonance
 
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Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Clete,

This is probably one of the most important post that could be made. How one believes the word of God, many times, is mainly what they were taught in church when they were children.

Ten years ago, my son went to a conference where they spent a week just praying and speaking about God and their beliefs. From that conference he came back a different man with a different perspective about God and the church. Shorty afterwards he ask me if I could confirm what he had learned. When he told me what that was I just knew he must have been taught something wrong. After a few weeks he came back again and ask me to please check it out. So the first thing I did was to go to God and ask him to show me, by scripture, if my son was right or not.

It took me a least two months of study but in the end I had a new understanding, a paradigm shift if you will, on how to understand God's word.

1. The old testament was written to the Jews, not us.

2. The gospels were written about the coming of the Jews messiah, Jesus, and his coming to earth as it was foretold to them in the old testament. (He didn't come as the Gentiles messiah.)

3. Jesus, as the Jews messiah, told them, Jews not Gentiles, that he would come in judgment of them because of their unbelief and rejection of him.

4. The epistles were written to the early churches, not to us.

5. The book of Revelation was about the judgment that was about to come upon the Jews.

The paradigm shift is to read the bible as we would a novel. It should not be read as if God is speaking directly to us. It has been written for our understanding as to how we should live and believe God.

Don't make it about you, because it isn't.

Most people will never get it!
I'd agree with most of that except that the Pauline epistles and only the Pauline epistles where written to Gentiles. Paul was sent to the Gentiles and when he went to the 12 apostles to explain his ministry they all agreed that they (the 12) would ministry to the Circumcision (Jews) and he would minister to the Uncircumcision (Gentiles) (Galatians 2:9).

Which incidentally, defines the most important paradigm shift in my entire life by far. Once you see this, it changes nearly everything.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

iamaberean

New member
I'd agree with most of that except that the Pauline epistles and only the Pauline epistles where written to Gentiles. Paul was sent to the Gentiles and when he went to the 12 apostles to explain his ministry they all agreed that they (the 12) would ministry to the Circumcision (Jews) and he would minister to the Uncircumcision (Gentiles) (Galatians 2:9).

Which incidentally, defines the most important paradigm shift in my entire life by far. Once you see this, it changes nearly everything.

Resting in Him,
Clete

Clete,

I agree with the fact the epistles were written to Gentiles, but my comment was the fact that they were not written to us.
My closing comment was:
The paradigm shift is to read the bible as we would a novel. It should not be read as if God is speaking directly to us. It has been written for our understanding as to how we should live and believe God.
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Clete,

I agree with the fact the epistles were written to Gentiles, but my comment was the fact that they were not written to us.
My closing comment was:
The paradigm shift is to read the bible as we would a novel. It should not be read as if God is speaking directly to us. It has been written for our understanding as to how we should live and believe God.

Well my point being that we are Gentiles because we aren't Jews. And even if that logic didn't follow Paul's a epistles still apply directly to us because now there is no Jew or Gentile. There will come a time when God returns to Israel and then they'll be Jews and Gentiles again but for now everybody is just people and the epistles that apply directly are those written by Paul.

Which is an interesting distinction because I think that also is a form of paradigm. And or if it's not a paradigm the distinction is created by paradigm.

In any case I'm more interested in the process that you used to determine whether your current paradigm is superior to your previous one. How did you know that making this paradigm shift was the right thing to do?

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

northwye

New member
This is an important thread. One of the reasons Dean Gotcher is not liked in the churches is because what he is talking about is a paradigm shift, and in talking about that he is over the heads of almost all church members. And they do not like that. Gotcher is a preacher and a scholar, and they don't like that either. Because as a preacher he is a remnant leader and as a scholar he says things they do not understand but have some vague impression that he is being critical of the churches.

To be interested in and talking about paradigms is like being interested in and talking about epistemology.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

"As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? "

Epistemology is a study of the ways we create knowledge. Revelation from God to men of old by the Holy Spirit is a way we gain knowledge. And this knowledge is absolute truth and cannot be changed or compromised by man, though man has done so.

Experimental science is another way of creating knowledge. Depending on what is being observed and the methods used for observation and recording of data, scientific findings are knowledge, but are not absolute truth. Scientific knowledge can be changed, refined, and added to and rarely completely overturned - if the scientists that do the research are honest.

There is "hard" experimental science and there is "soft" experimental science. There are laws of physics which are based upon hard science, which is knowledge with a greater amount of truth, or absolute nature. Then, there is work in sociology and in some areas of psychology, that is soft science, which is not so absolute in truth because the methods of manipulation of variables and observation of results are not very exact and when the research is replicated the results are not exactly the same each time as in some experiments in physics.

But scientific knowledge is better than opinion, which could be considered to be another way of gaining knowledge.

Karl Marx comes along and begins to make use of the Hegelian dialectic as a way of changing the society through changing its paradigm, in order to set up a totalitarian government and society.

This is where Dean Gotcher loses most of his audience. They do not understand how the Hegelian dialectic can be used to change paradigms, even if they have some idea of what a paradigm is.

In the eyes of the dialectical philosophy, nothing is established for
all time, nothing is absolute or sacred." (Karl Marx)

Benjamin Bloom, who wrote the two volume book on the Taxonomy
of Educational Goal Objectives, by which all teachers must be
certified, said "We recognize the point of view that
truth and knowledge are only relative and that there are no hard and
fast truths which exist for all time and places.” (Benjamin Bloom, et
al., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Book 1, Cognitive Domain)

With the Hegelian dialectic, there are two opposing positions, or attitudes, or beliefs, and these two clashing positions are to be resolved in a compromise. The thesis and the anti-thesis conflict and the result is the synthesis, which is brought about to change paradigms.

In a culture dominated by Biblical Christian thought, the word of God is absolute truth. You cannot, or must not, compromise that absolute truth by running it though the Marxist version of the Hegelian dialectic, so that an argument in opposition to an absolute truth from Scripture results in a compromise which moves the position a little away from absolute truth, that is, it compromises it. Then, the same process is carried out again and the absolute truth is compromised a little more, and on and on. Finally, you have changed the paradigm, so in the minds of those who have been led into the dialectic mind set, there is no longer an absolute truth any more in scripture, but everything is relative and subject to change. Gotcher talks about relationships of affection being effective in bringing change to the positions people take, or to their truth.
 
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Danoh

New member
I hate that word paradigm
but
I will play along

how many significant paradigms do we have here?

I will try to name them

mad
calvinist
catholic
protestant
non-trins

saying you are christian is not really telling at all

so who at tol are properly identified?

catholics and protestants

that's it
it is very hard to identify all the others
and
that makes it hard to understand what they are saying
so
this is where you start
start identifying yourselves

Your words hereinabove, a portrait of you own paradigm's unavoidable influence on your sense of "that word...paradigm."

Now... step up one level above your paradigm... and look down from there at your paradigm below you... see it? See its limits?

Look to its' left from up there above it...and look to its' right... notice all you left out of your conclusion...note your paradigm's limited perspective...
 

RevTestament

New member
what is the best way to describe you

mormon?
or
christian?

Thank you for asking Chrys. I think you are the only one who has ever asked me that! :)
I chose the LDS-Mormon moniker because LDS is acceptable to me, and I don't want people to think I am trying to deceive them.
I refer to myself as a LDS Christian. I don't use "Mormon" for several reasons.
First, that leads to being called the "Mormon Church" which makes a church the church of a man rather than the Church of Jesus so I try to avoid it.
Secondly, I don't accept the "Mormon" paradigm others put on me when that word is used. I don't really know what "Mormon" means to them. I don't believe everything every "Mormon" has ever written. What other people tend to think of when they say "Mormon" is not what I think of myself. I don't think of polygamy as "necessary" or exalting. I don't think of God having "spirit babies" in heaven, or other such nonsense. Yet, those are often the first things other Christians will think when they see "Mormon." I think of myself simply as someone trying to follow Christ since He is the Way.
 

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Thank you for asking Chrys. I think you are the only one who has ever asked me that! :)
I chose the LDS-Mormon moniker because LDS is acceptable to me, and I don't want people to think I am trying to deceive them.
I refer to myself as a LDS Christian. I don't use "Mormon" for several reasons.
First, that leads to being called the "Mormon Church" which makes a church the church of a man rather than the Church of Jesus so I try to avoid it.
Secondly, I don't accept the "Mormon" paradigm others put on me when that word is used. I don't really know what "Mormon" means to them. I don't believe everything every "Mormon" has ever written. What other people tend to think of when they say "Mormon" is not what I think of myself. I don't think of polygamy as "necessary" or exalting. I don't think of God having "spirit babies" in heaven, or other such nonsense. Yet, those are often the first things other Christians will think when they see "Mormon." I think of myself simply as someone trying to follow Christ since He is the Way.

so why would you call yourself christian?
we won't know if you believe Jesus is God
we won't know if you believe in free will
we won't know if you are saved
we won't know if you say the Lord's prayer
so
what does it mean to follow Christ?
 

chrysostom

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
Your words hereinabove, a portrait of you own paradigm's unavoidable influence on your sense of "that word...paradigm."

Now... step up one level above your paradigm... and look down from there at your paradigm below you... see it? See its limits?

Look to its' left from up there above it...and look to its' right... notice all you left out of your conclusion...note your paradigm's limited perspective...

my paradigm is catholic
that tells you a lot about myself
and
you are protestant
so
what should that tell me about yourself?
 

RevTestament

New member
By what standard do you judge the paradigm you have now and conclude that it is superior to the ones of your youth?

And on a side note...

Is God righteous?
Or would saying so be to put God in a box in your view?

Resting in Him,
Clete
Is God righteous? Yes. The scriptures tell us so. But understanding that righteousness is probably different for different people - hence different paradigms or "boxes" of understanding. I think it is quite important to understand that we are interpreting what God has told us, and that it is possible that we have done so incorrectly, and that God doesn't fault us for that if our efforts have been sincere. If not how is anyone to find truth? If we are not open to understanding a new concept, how can we learn? From the moment we are born we start learning - trying things, failing, and learning from our experiences.

My earliest paradigm was everything my parents told me was the truth. But I soon learned they were imperfect. As I learned about God in Church, I began to form a paradigm of Him. But I eventually read things in the Bible which seemed to conflict with the doctrine of the trinity which declares Christ as co-equal with the Father. Christ did not know all things, and therefore was not omnipotent. Christ said it was not His to give to sit on His right or His left, but that would be given to whom it is prepared - indicating the Father knew others He would give that right to. The traditional paradigm I was taught just did not explain these things.

So I was willing to listen to missionaries from a new church I had never heard of before, and many of my questions were answered using the Bible. This is why I say the Bible converted me to the LDS Church when I talk about it.
How is that better or to use your word - "superior"? I am able to have a testimony that I am indeed following God in truth, and not just by the teachings of men. Yet, I developed further questions about the gospel while in the LDS church. I came to feel I did not understand the atonement, and feel that I eventually developed an understanding of it which was another paradigm shift for me. Rather than being just something that Jesus was doing for us, it is something He was teaching us. He is a teacher of example rather than force.

So by being willing to reexamine my own paradigms, I believe my understanding of God has grown over the years. When people bash me for not believing like them, I turn them off. When people invite me to believe like them, or to examine their paradigm, I am much more willing to believe it is of God, and to examine it for myself.

Christ is the way to the holiest of all. But what the "holiest of all" is can be quite different for a MAD vs Calvinist vs etc.
I see God as being in His own paradigm, which He teaches us in His Word. He is trying to teach us His paradigm. But I also believe there are things He has taught which are not in His Word, or at least weren't at one time. So I see Him as continuing to teach us. I see the Son as His revelation of Himself to us, so to understand Jesus is to understand the Father. That is basically my present paradigm.
 
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