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If we're talking about a dialectic between scripture and philosophy or faith and history, are you aligning history with philosophy and faith with scripture?
JDC: Well, I presume so, but that is up to philosophy to define for itself. Within scripture there is no talk of philosophy. Scripture talks only about wisdom. This word is about as close as we can get to what the Greeks might call philosophy. The Bible would call it wisdom. And biblical authors think that wisdom is a gift of God to everyone. But the Bible is also quite clear that its wisdom is superior because it is revelation. But in general it assumed that wisdom is something that everyone can have, a gift of God to everyone. It's not secular, not in our sense. It's not reason in our sense either, that would presume a distinction that the Bible does not make. The Bible presumes that both reason and revelation, to use those categories, are gifts from God.
JPS: Do you think that this Biblical conception of wisdom is still accessible to us today? Or do we find ourselves in an entirely different situation insofar as we experience a break between science and revelation?
JDC: Well, in one sense, yes; in another, no. Here's the problem. First of all, the Bible, the New Testament, they are all operating in a pre-enlightenment world. In a pre-enlightenment world it is taken for granted by everyone (expect maybe some very erudite philosophers who don't believe in it, but the general culture takes it for granted) that, for example, divine babies can be conceived, that gods can come to earth and have intercourse with mortals and that this intercourse can produce divine babies. They take it for granted. It's simply part of the baggage of their culture. Therefore in their culture, in a pre-enlightenment culture, to announce that your Jesus is a divine child is not going to get the general post-enlightenment reaction that this can't happen, couldn't happen, doesn't happen, we don't believe that stuff. It might get the reaction that we don't believe your claim, but they cannot and would not argue that it could not happen. What they would like to know is: what has your baby done for anyone? If your Jesus is divine, what has he done for the world? That is a pre-enlightenment question. The post-enlightenment argument that it can't happen is never used in the first century. The most you'll ever get is that we don't believe your claim. So in a pre-enlightenment world, whether we live in a post-enlightenment world or not, we have to respect that. For example, if Paul goes around the Mediterranean saying that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, the immediate answer from a polite, pious pagan is not that we don't believe in that stuff. The proper answer is: good for you, good for Jesus, but so what? We've heard these kinds of stories before, what's he done for us? That is a pre-enlightenment question.