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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: A "personal" relationship with Jesus
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ozowen
Shipmate
# 8935
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Posted
Bush Bappo
I agree with your post to an extent. But nonehteless, I think the phrase needs a reworking. The language has left it tainted and, as other have pointed out, it has a different meaning to the meaning it was once endowed.
I think that the cuddle up and be matey with God meaning has difficulties in that it tends to make us far more equal to God than we may intend, should we think about it.
A UC minister once told me that a young wannabe minister was being interviewed by a group of clergy. He was asked who Jesus was to him. My minister said that the young man struggled to explain his relationship in his own words- amost admirable approach. He was not let off the hook until he had uttered the words "Jesus is my Lord and Saviour".
Catch phrases can become an excuse to not think, not engage and not be true.
I think the "personal relationship with God" statement has long since fallen into that trap. It is dangerously meaningless and requires an effort of will to regard it as something more than a sound bite or slogan.
We could make the attempt to redeem the phrase, or we could just try being honest using our own words.
Perhaps we could try being honest and use the words God gives us?
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Without stupid people we would have no one to laugh at, so take time to thank a creationist for their contribution.
Posts: 2933 | From: The Never Never, Australia | Registered: Jan 2005
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mama Thomas:
Gordon, you quoted the answer:
quote:
[b] Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.
[/qb]
No, because disposition and worthiness are two different things. Within the Roman system the right disposition for receiving the sacrament must be present, but the recipient is (by definition almost) unworthy. Nowhere is this clearer (within the Roman system) than in the sacrament of baptism, where the one receiving the baptism still suffers the stain of original sin, and so is certainly unworthy of grace.
At any rate, within the Roman system grace attaches to the seven sacraments and so any question of personal relationship with God becomes virtually irrelevant.
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Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
I think a "personal relationship with Jesus" is part of the subjective description of what it means to be objectively united with Christ through the indwelling of the Spirit, to be known by him and increasingly know him (as a conservative, I'd say the knowledge is primarily through the Bible and through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit confirming the truth of and applying Scripture).
It has many of the elements of a correspondance relationship, but the indwelling Spirit makes that far stronger.
In fact, I'd be hard pushed to come up with any definition of "personal relationship" that wouldn't fit it...
As has been hinted above, the Reformation owes more to the mystical traditions that is often recognised.
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Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Custard.:
As has been hinted above, the Reformation owes more to the mystical traditions that is often recognised.
I don't agree with this.
I really think that the Reformation principle of sola scriptura has as one of its targets any notion of mysticism. We are related to God through his written word, whereas mysticism quite deliberately bypasses and circumvents that scripture, or uses it as a mere tool to aid our meditation upon the divine.
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Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Boviwanjoshobi
Shipmate
# 11206
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Posted
Gordo wrote: quote:
We are related to God through his written word, whereas mysticism quite deliberately bypasses and circumvents that scripture, or uses it as a mere tool to aid our meditation upon the divine.
This is why rejecting the notion the Bible is propositional truth from God and/or the Bible is not his written word leads to so many theological detours and dead ends.
[ 26. April 2007, 06:50: Message edited by: Boviwanjoshobi ]
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Romans 1:16 Absolutely
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
quote:
Originally posted by Custard.:
As has been hinted above, the Reformation owes more to the mystical traditions that is often recognised.
I don't agree with this.
I really think that the Reformation principle of sola scriptura has as one of its targets any notion of mysticism. We are related to God through his written word, whereas mysticism quite deliberately bypasses and circumvents that scripture, or uses it as a mere tool to aid our meditation upon the divine.
Of course Luther at al, by using sola scriptura rejected a lot of the excesses of mysticism (e.g. quite a lot of Eckhart's stuff).
But to say they targeted "any notion of mysticism" seems to go against the very high regard in which Luther held the Theologica Germanica as well as Tauler and Suso, who were definitely mystics. It is certainly arguable that Luther owes the recognition that Christianity is not a mechanical process to the mystics, as well as the insight that we can only begin to reach God (or be reached by him) from a state of total brokenness. And yes, that was kind of from Augustine originally, but it seems to have been mediated to Luther via the mystics.
It also neglects the evangelical mystical tradition, as represented by Luther and a lot of the puritans. Read The Valley of Vision, which is a compilation of Puritan prayers, and then try arguing they weren't mystics.
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Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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bush baptist
Shipmate
# 12306
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Posted
Ozowen, thanks for your reply. Yes, of course, quote:
we could try being honest and use the words God gives us
I don't think any words should be used slickly or shallowly.
But the point of your anecdote was that "Jesus is my Lord and Saviour" had become (for the interviewing panel) just such a test-phrase, wasn't it? But the idea of lordship and salvation are still very worth pondering, and to throw them out because of misuse would mean cutting oneself off from a lot of Christian experience and insight. Ditto, re the personal relationship words. I don't speak in those terms, partly because I'm a shy scared-of-religion Australian, but I would like to be open to listen to and learn from those who do.
Also, some people are much better at using words to express what they mean than others -- doesn't mean they're not honest when they talk in cliches, just that they're not verbally adroit.
Posts: 1784 | From: drought-stricken land | Registered: Jan 2007
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
We are related to God through his written word,
Are you saying that His written word is the only way in which we can relate to GOd?
If so, at the risk of encouraging proof texting, could you direct me to the scriptural basis for this view please.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Custard.:
But to say they targeted "any notion of mysticism" seems to go against the very high regard in which Luther held the Theologica Germanica as well as Tauler and Suso, who were definitely mystics.
I am sure he recognized kindred spirits. But I hold Pope Benny and Duo Seraphim in high regard, while considering many of their views to be bogus.
quote:
It is certainly arguable that Luther owes the recognition that Christianity is not a mechanical process to the mystics, as well as the insight that we can only begin to reach God (or be reached by him) from a state of total brokenness. And yes, that was kind of from Augustine originally, but it seems to have been mediated to Luther via the mystics.
Speculative, I think. We have to go by what he actually claimed to be doing.
quote:
It also neglects the evangelical mystical tradition, as represented by Luther and a lot of the puritans. Read The Valley of Vision, which is a compilation of Puritan prayers, and then try arguing they weren't mystics.
Define "mystic".
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Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
quote:
We are related to God through his written word,
Are you saying that His written word is the only way in which we can relate to GOd?
It depends what you mean by relate.
I am saying that the ultimate source of our knowledge is Scripture alone, thus excluding tradition, reason and experience (including mystical experience) as possible sources of such knowledge.
However, there is no one verse that establishes this idea, and you are right in wanting to avoid the danger of prooftexting.
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Which just moves the question into new words. What is a personal relationship with Christ? What does that look like? What is my own friendship with God in Christ? What would that look like?...
It seems to me the language of "personal relationship" does more harm than good. Yes, you're not a Christian just because your parents were. Nevertheless an undefined "personal relationship" is an impossible criterion to apply usefully. Perhaps it's time to put it on the shelf.
I don't know. Obviously, it's not a helpful phrase for you. I think it IS helpful for a lot of people.
I was trying to say that I think that the concept developed in parallel with the idea that there is a "self". I've offering less of a defense of it than what I see to be a short and simple sociological / historical explanation.
In our culture, where we seem to think that self is paramount and community incidental, it would seem to me that anyone who spends as much time on these boards as you do has a personal interest in God and isn't just a Christian because that's the group into which his or her fate landed her. But I acknowledge that I'm not you and that I could be wrong.
I see various strands of Christianity as speaking to the ways that different sorts of people perceive life and reality; I don't always understand the hostility between strands.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
For anyone who thinks that the concept of "relationship" with God is a load of doggy-do-do, can I suggest Paul Fiddes' book Participating in God: a pastoral doctrine of the Trinity for a non-inerrantist Protestant view of Trinity as relationship and God's desire for humankind within that relationship.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
Posts: 4152 | From: Northeast Ohio | Registered: Dec 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
I am saying that the ultimate source of our knowledge is Scripture alone, thus excluding tradition, reason and experience (including mystical experience) as possible sources of such knowledge.
Which rather shafts the Apostles, methinks, who didn't have the NT part of Scripture, but did have experience of Jesus, both in person and in mystical experience post-Cross.
Unless we're going to engage in special pleading, or maintain a strict cessationism (which is hard to support from Scripture itself), I don't think that one can exclude these two. Methinks one can, and Evangelicals in the Anglican church traditionally have, maintain that the Scripture leg of the stool is the sturdiest, strongest and most important, but one cannot suggest the stool has only one leg.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
I am saying that the ultimate source of our knowledge is Scripture alone, thus excluding tradition, reason and experience (including mystical experience) as possible sources of such knowledge.
So, tradition, reason and experience, mystic or otherwise cannot be a source of knowledge of God?
Can knowledge of God only be obtained from the Scriptures?
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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Makepiece
Shipmate
# 10454
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Posted
Take a look at this passage:
'Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?' John 14 v 9-10
To me a personal relationship with God means that we 'know' him as he describes here; If the father is 'in' him, this suggests intimacy. Earlier in the passage Jesus says 'no one comes to the father but by me'. So as Jesus is 'in' the father so we can be 'in' the father through Jesus. This is what I take it to mean but I think 'intimate relationship' would convey it better than 'personal'.
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Don't ask for whom the bell tolls...
Posts: 938 | From: Nottingham | Registered: Sep 2005
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mama Thomas:
Back to the OP, I find almost without exception, those who use that phrase--and there are seem to be--millions who equate "being a Christian" with those who "accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour" to be social conservative, reactive types who try to find justifications for their "dislike" of women and gays by quoting Bible verses.
Oooh! oooh! Exception here! I'm pretty sure you could find a fair few others too if you took the time to look.
Just because a term is widely used by a branch of Christianity which tends to be associated with certain views, it is not safe to assume that everyone who uses that phrase shares those views.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
quote:
I am saying that the ultimate source of our knowledge is Scripture alone, thus excluding tradition, reason and experience (including mystical experience) as possible sources of such knowledge.
So, tradition, reason and experience, mystic or otherwise cannot be a source of knowledge of God?
That's right.
quote:
Can knowledge of God only be obtained from the Scriptures?
No. For example, if I didn't know that Jesus was Lord, and you told me that he was, and I believed you, then I would have knowledge of God that you had given me.
The only certain, ultimate source of knowledge of God, however, is Scripture—which is what sola Scriptura means.
[ 26. April 2007, 10:38: Message edited by: Gordon Cheng ]
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Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
For example, if I didn't know that Jesus was Lord, and you told me that he was, and I believed you, then I would have knowledge of God that you had given me.
Isn't that your experience of my telling you, and your reason telling you it could be believed with integrity and so on?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
Obviously, it's not a helpful phrase for you. I think it IS helpful for a lot of people.
Indeed, and if that is so, good for them.
However, in my experience, I've only come across the phrase used as a kind of shibboleth intended to distinguish the practitioners of a PL&S expression of religious experience and mark them as superior to those they see as hidebound in obedient slavery to outmoded rules and traditions.
Perhaps I've just been unfortunate that the PL&S people I've come across have had an agenda of My Way Or The Highway to Hell.
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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Gordon Cheng
a child on sydney harbour
# 8895
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Isn't that your experience of my telling you, and your reason telling you it could be believed with integrity and so on?
Of course!
Sola scriptura is a statement about where ultimate, certain knowledge of God is to be found. It's not a rejection of tradition, reason or experience as useful tools for the study of such knowledge.
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Posts: 4392 | From: Sydney, Australia | Registered: Dec 2004
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Evangeline
Shipmate
# 7002
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Posted
quote:
The only certain, ultimate source of knowledge of God, however, is Scripture—which is what sola Scriptura means.
Interesting but I don't see how you can get to that view from scripture alone.
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm disappointed no-one can answer the questions I've posed. I must conclude this "personal knowledge" thing is a bunch of hooey.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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ozowen
Shipmate
# 8935
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Posted
Bush Bappo
I think we are in agreement here.
I don't use certain catch-phrases. Hell, I used to do a lot of talks and workshops (still do a few) and it was difficult for me to repeat myself. I was alsways compelled to seek out new ways of saying things.
So I have a personal disposition to be hesitant about using "ready mades".
But further, I am wary of their use else they become trite. Not cos a trite phrase is essentially bad, but the reflection that cliches cast on the appearance of God is worrying.
I do however accept that the same phrase that I find trite, because coming from me, it would be trite, can be pregnant with meaning on the lips of another person.
Those of us who can reclaim such terms and phrases should do so. The rest of us should avoid cliches like the plague!
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Posts: 2933 | From: The Never Never, Australia | Registered: Jan 2005
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Mystery of Faith
Shipmate
# 12176
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Prudentius:
When someone asks "Do you have a personal relationship with God?" what is being asked is "Do you have an abstract, conceptual, or intellectual understanding of a Supreme Being, or have you ---through prayer and meditation -- developed your spirituality to the point where you know as a certainty that God loves you and hears your prayers and allows you to feel His presence in your life at your finest moments of openness to God?"
I think this is a great description of what entering into a personal relationship with God the Father or Son should be. My great fear is that it has been overused and slightly hijacked by the evo side of the church as a sort of badge of honour or a description of the kind of Christian you are, to the point where it does seem that one should:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
conclude this "personal knowledge" thing is a bunch of hooey.
That's sad, however, as I think we should all be trying to develop that "personal" aspect of our relationships with God.
What emphasised to me that perhaps we need a change in terminology was when a slightly evo friend said that she could never regularly attend a more Anglo-Catholic church because no-one had a "personal relationship with Jesus". So unfortunately the phrase has just become a tool for carving up right-believing Christians from the other lot!
Posts: 101 | From: London | Registered: Dec 2006
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les@BALM
The Ship's Visionary
# 11237
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Posted
I think the whole "personal" Jesus thing, reflects the individualism of our age, and certainly not consistant with what was going on in the Early Church where Jesus was viewed as the inspiration and the bond for all the Christian. Whereas the whole "personal Jesus" cult is a way of cliaming ownership of Jesus to the exclusion of others, not what he taught.
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il sole d'Italia mi è rimasto nel cure
Italia campioni del mondo ****
Tiggs the cat.
Posts: 1863 | From: Canada, eh! | Registered: Apr 2006
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
What does it mean to "know" Jesus Christ?
It means to be born from above, to participate in what Jesus called "eternal life", "to know You the one true God and Whom you sent Jesus Christ". It has to do with man's heart and we reach that condition of being by going through a purification process. It's not a "born again" evo thing*. It's a deeply Christian thing.
Take the martyrs for example. Now, people can die for all sorts of causes, but I guess you see that the martyrs had a different inner state than people who die for other causes. How are you different from them? Apart from their martyrdom I mean. Assuming that you are not born from above, this is your difference.
Usually, with infant baptism we start a long-term process that might lead to what the ancients called "enlightenment". For most people nowadays "enlightenment" is off their radars. But this does not mean that it is not as real as ordinary, "unenlightened" life.
*perhaps it is, I don't know what happens inside people's hearts. But certainly it's not a born again evo's thing ALONE.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mystery of Faith:
That's sad, however, as I think we should all be trying to develop that "personal" aspect of our relationships with God.
Which in no way answers Mousethief's question.
'I think we ought to have a personal relationship with Jesus' is not a very adequate response to a sceptical challenge regarding the possibility and/or knowability of such a relationship.
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Posts: 8705 | Registered: Jan 2002
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
I think a couple of things are at play here:
1) How we experience God, spirituality, community, religion will be different for each of us. That's why some people prefer certain expressions of faith and others don't. That's why there are different churches and denominations. If the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus makes no sense to someone, s/he can't really have that and may not ever seek it. I don't see a problem with that.
2) Let's not let one group of people assume authority over definitions. If the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" does not mean Lord and Savior and con-evo POVs to you, go ahead and make the term meaningful to yourself in ways that make sense to your own spiritual health.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
But sabine, I can't make the term make sense at all. And nobody is willing to help me. (Save Andreas, and thank you Andreas, but that doesn't really answer my questions.)
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mystery of Faith
Shipmate
# 12176
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
quote:
Originally posted by Mystery of Faith:
That's sad, however, as I think we should all be trying to develop that "personal" aspect of our relationships with God.
Which in no way answers Mousethief's question.
'I think we ought to have a personal relationship with Jesus' is not a very adequate response to a sceptical challenge regarding the possibility and/or knowability of such a relationship.
You're quite right it doesn't. I suppose what I was trying to say is that I see the phrase as being mis-used and it's a phrase I've always hated as a result. I would refer you back to the quote I lifted from the post by Prudentius which I think summarises what I strive for though personally it's an area I really struggle with.
[ 26. April 2007, 13:46: Message edited by: Mystery of Faith ]
Posts: 101 | From: London | Registered: Dec 2006
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
But sabine, I can't make the term make sense at all. And nobody is willing to help me. (Save Andreas, and thank you Andreas, but that doesn't really answer my questions.)
MT, maybe it's a term that's not supposed to make sense to you? Unless you feel some hunger for something you aren't already getting with other wrods and phrases, then a new one isn't really going to be necessary.
However, on the other hand, if someone feels that the phrase is deeply meaningful to them and you want to have a dialogue, then only that other person can try to explain it--in this case, it might be Andreas.
Perhaps the "realtionship" being spoken of this thread is something that is so experiential that a person knows s/he has it only when s/he knows. And only in terms that are meaningful.
I suspect you do have it, but having never thought of it using the phrase brought forth on this thread, you might have a hard time translating your experience with Jesus into the language of others. I bet you can list for yourself various sorts of "experiences" you've had as a spiritual person--not long ago, you mentioned singing, and I suspect there are others that you find personally compelling. How personal are they? I bet they are very personal. And do you believe they are of God? I bet you do.
Again, I would caution against anyone allowing one group to define experience for us.
In the end, that which is spiritually nuturing to us will be the important thing--and, I suspect, will constitute our "personal" relationship to the Divine.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Let's not let one group of people assume authority over definitions. If the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" does not mean Lord and Savior and con-evo POVs to you, go ahead and make the term meaningful to yourself in ways that make sense to your own spiritual health.
But we can't invent our own private language. It might be the case that the words 'personal relationship' - as used in English, and even when used analogically - cannot refer to any relation which obtains between a human being currently on earth and Jesus. If that is so, then it is the all too apparent 'meaning' of the constituent terms of the part which renders the phrase as a whole nonsensical.
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insert amusing sig. here
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
There are three or four things that 'a personal relationship to God/Jesus' could mean or has been regularly used to mean.
1) Making decisions based on your religious commitment whenever relevant as opposed to just turning up in church because it's socially expected.
2) Having had some kind of experience where you thought 'I do indeed believe this'.
3) When you talk to Jesus he talks back, and you hear him.
4) Your religion is individual, unmediated by any social group or church.
All Christians should have a personal commitment in sense 1.
Many Christians may have an experience in sense 2, but not all Christians don't see it as especially significant.
3 is not found in any obvious form except among certain very great saints (Teresa of Avila) and they don't regard it as an especially exalted state.
4 is a conservative evangelical ideal, shared by certain liberal Christian schools of thought with evangelical roots. Those from a catholic background would regard the ideal as confused, misleading and possibly harmful.
As used in evangelical circles it tends to mean a combination of 2 and 4, with vague unspecified intimations of 3, and some intimation that anyone who doesn't have 2 and 4 doesn't have 1 either.
Dafyd
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Let's not let one group of people assume authority over definitions. If the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" does not mean Lord and Savior and con-evo POVs to you, go ahead and make the term meaningful to yourself in ways that make sense to your own spiritual health.
But we can't invent our own private language. It might be the case that the words 'personal relationship' - as used in English, and even when used analogically - cannot refer to any relation which obtains between a human being currently on earth and Jesus. If that is so, then it is the all too apparent 'meaning' of the constituent terms of the part which renders the phrase as a whole nonsensical.
DOD--you've gone from A (my statement straight to Z (private language) without stopping to consider that there are many groups of people organized into many religious traditions who use language in different ways to describe experience[.b]. No one group has the right to determine how a phrase is to be used by all.
So, what I'm saying is that we stop giving away our (meaning either personal or faith tradition's) power to one group to define language for all of the groups. Some of us may find great meaning in a private language or a personal relationship and this might not make sense to you or others, but that doesn't mean everyone should hop on board. Some of us may want the whole world to mean the same thing when they say [fill in the blank] but doesn't mean others will or should.
Part of the difficulty in discussing a phrase is that people have different ideas about what a phrase [b]means and if one group sets themselves up as have the only authoritative definition of that phrase, it will discourage the search for common ground.
hey, I have a personal relationship with my cup of coffee in the morning. I can say this in more than one language (well, ok, just one other language ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ) but that doesn't mean that it is the one, true definition of interaction between a human and a cup of coffee.
sabine
[ 26. April 2007, 14:57: Message edited by: sabine ]
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
Totally messed up code, and really didn't mean to have so much bold, so I'll repost:
quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
Let's not let one group of people assume authority over definitions. If the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" does not mean Lord and Savior and con-evo POVs to you, go ahead and make the term meaningful to yourself in ways that make sense to your own spiritual health.
But we can't invent our own private language. It might be the case that the words 'personal relationship' - as used in English, and even when used analogically - cannot refer to any relation which obtains between a human being currently on earth and Jesus. If that is so, then it is the all too apparent 'meaning' of the constituent terms of the part which renders the phrase as a whole nonsensical.
DOD--you've gone from A (my statement) straight to Z (private language) without stopping to consider that there are many groups of people organized into many religious traditions who use language in different ways to describe experience. No one group has the right to determine how a phrase is to be used by all.
So, what I'm saying is that we stop giving away our (meaning either personal or faith tradition's) power to one group to define language for all of the groups. Some of us may find great meaning in a private language or a personal relationship and this might not make sense to you or others, but that doesn't mean everyone should hop on board. Some of us may want the whole world to mean the same thing when they say [fill in the blank] but doesn't mean others will or should.
Part of the difficulty in discussing a phrase is that people have different ideas about what a phrase means and if one group sets themselves up as have the only authoritative definition of that phrase, it will discourage the search for common ground.
hey, I have a personal relationship with my cup of coffee in the morning. I can say this in more than one language (well, ok, just one other language ) but that doesn't mean that it is the one, true definition of interaction between a human and a cup of coffee.
sabine
[ 26. April 2007, 15:01: Message edited by: sabine ]
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
However, on the other hand, if someone feels that the phrase is deeply meaningful to them and you want to have a dialogue, then only that other person can try to explain it--in this case, it might be Andreas.
I'm rather disappointed nobody else has stepped up -- it's not a phrase commonly used in Orthodoxy, so I'm not at all sure Andreas's use of it matches that of other people on the Ship, although I'm sure his use of it is perfectly legitimate. I can't know whether I have a PRWJ until I know what the phrase means.
I certainly don't have experiences which I would call numinous or miraculous or supernatural or otherworldly. Nor do I hear the voices of God or angels. I have emotional experiences, but so do total atheists.
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
I'm rather disappointed nobody else has stepped up -- it's not a phrase commonly used in Orthodoxy, so I'm not at all sure Andreas's use of it matches that of other people on the Ship, although I'm sure his use of it is perfectly legitimate. I can't know whether I have a PRWJ until I know what the phrase means.
I suspect that most folks are avoiding answering because the tone of the thread, right down to the quotation marks around the word personal, make it seem like a pissing contest more than an honest question. There are a lot of threads started on the Ship by someoe from a different tradition asking how your tradition can be so freakin' stupid as to say... This one has that feel to it.
The phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" is most commonly used among those who have a decision theology -- one says the sinner's prayer and decides to follow Jesus as their Lord and savior. None of that language is particularly from my tradition, so I am not particularly well-equipped to explain it. But it is a large strand of Christians -- and I tend to find them recognizably Christian.
I relate to the phrase in the sense that I find meaning in my faith as it engages both my heart and my head. I know that, e.g., it make some Christains' skin crawl to ask "What would Jesus do?", but I don't find that a vapid way of framing moral issues as a man of faith. Perhaps some of these kinds of expressions, that flow out of the same tradition as the phrase "a personal relationship with Jesus," may make the phrase more accessible.
But it is not unusual for phrases that are common in one faith tradition to be hard to explain outside that tradition. I have yet to hear what I would consider to be an intelligible explanation of the term "apophatic," but that does not mean that I believe that it has no meaning in that tradition. I just assume that it's a meaning that isn't easy to tanslate out of that tadition into another.
--Tom Clune
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
However, on the other hand, if someone feels that the phrase is deeply meaningful to them and you want to have a dialogue, then only that other person can try to explain it--in this case, it might be Andreas.[/qb]
I'm rather disappointed nobody else has stepped up -- it's not a phrase commonly used in Orthodoxy, so I'm not at all sure Andreas's use of it matches that of other people on the Ship, although I'm sure his use of it is perfectly legitimate. I can't know whether I have a PRWJ until I know what the phrase means.
I certainly don't have experiences which I would call numinous or miraculous or supernatural or otherworldly. Nor do I hear the voices of God or angels. I have emotional experiences, but so do total atheists.
MT, are you able to take on faith that some of us have had an experience that we have not (as of right now) been able to adequately describe to you in language which has meaning for you?
Music is a lot like that, so is poetry. Some people hear a musical piece or read and poem and are instantly taken to one place or another. Other people hear the same music or words and scratch their heads. In my life, I have had moments when I "knew" that the Holy Spirit was at hand, infusing meaning into what I was seeing, feeling, touching, hearing. I can't say how I knew, but I knew--and continue to believe.
The example that I think I can describe most clearly is the day when I had wandered into a religous program put on by a church that wasn't mine. I was simply curious. I was also in college and going through that phase of not having yet worked out anything for myself spiritually and didn't want to take on something merely because my parents did it. Half-way through the program I had the thought that all those pictures of flowers and rainbows that they were showing were just lame. Then, without warning, I came to a full and deep (almost physical) knowledge that God had loved me since before I was born and would continue to do so. It was such a profound moment that I had almost knocked people over trying to get off by myself to contemplate it. I had a very real sense of unconditional love and protection. In the years since, that sense has been more prominant at times and less prominant at times, but it has never gone away.
It's possible that if having a personal relationship with Jesus is something God wants for you, you will have it, and it will be tailored for you and no one else, and you'll know you have it. It may seem similar to that of another's, but it will be your own. If it's not meant for you, it may not happen.
Other than that one experience, I don't think I'm going to be able to describe my own personal relationship well enough, and I'm certainly not going to try to describe that of others.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
The phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" is most commonly used among those who have a decision theology -- one says the sinner's prayer and decides to follow Jesus as their Lord and savior. None of that language is particularly from my tradition, so I am not particularly well-equipped to explain it. But it is a large strand of Christians -- and I tend to find them recognizably Christian.
I relate to the phrase in the sense that I find meaning in my faith as it engages both my heart and my head. I know that, e.g., it make some Christains' skin crawl to ask "What would Jesus do?", but I don't find that a vapid way of framing moral issues as a man of faith. Perhaps some of these kinds of expressions, that flow out of the same tradition as the phrase "a personal relationship with Jesus," may make the phrase more accessible.
But it is not unusual for phrases that are common in one faith tradition to be hard to explain outside that tradition. I have yet to hear what I would consider to be an intelligible explanation of the term "apophatic," but that does not mean that I believe that it has no meaning in that tradition. I just assume that it's a meaning that isn't easy to tanslate out of that tadition into another.
--Tom Clune
Very well said.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
The phrase "personal relationship with Jesus" is most commonly used among those who have a decision theology -- one says the sinner's prayer and decides to follow Jesus as their Lord and savior. None of that language is particularly from my tradition, so I am not particularly well-equipped to explain it. But it is a large strand of Christians -- and I tend to find them recognizably Christian.
I did have a decision moment. Fell to my knees and said the Sinner's Prayer. I count this as the moment at which I became a Christian.
What's a PRWJ?
quote:
sabine asked:
MT, are you able to take on faith that some of us have had an experience that we have not (as of right now) been able to adequately describe to you in language which has meaning for you?
Absolutely. That makes sense as a meaning for PRWJ. In which case I don't have one. <shrugs> Must not be saved?
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
sabine asked:
MT, are you able to take on faith that some of us have had an experience that we have not (as of right now) been able to adequately describe to you in language which has meaning for you?
Absolutely. That makes sense as a meaning for PRWJ. In which case I don't have one. <shrugs> Must not be saved?
[my bold] Not sure if you are asking about my particular POV on this (I'm tend to be a universalist, but I'm not sure I have a definitive answer about the afterlife) or just asking a rhetorical quesstion or looking for an answer from someone on the thread.
My answer would be: not for me to say.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
I did have a decision moment. Fell to my knees and said the Sinner's Prayer. I count this as the moment at which I became a Christian.
What's a PRWJ?
It is the fact that you are (presumably) a committed disciple of Jesus. What is so flipping hard to understand about that? (I'm expecting you to tell me that my way of understanding PRWJ wrong, by the way.)
There is actually a fascinating and serious historical meaning to the question put in the OP, but I'm beginning to think this is just a thread about having a bash at stupid, fundie Prots.
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
DOD--you've gone from A (my statement) straight to Z (private language) without stopping to consider that there are many groups of people organized into many religious traditions who use language in different ways to describe experience. No one group has the right to determine how a phrase is to be used by all.
Undoubtedly not, but words do have to have shared meaning to be used by anyone, in anything other than an uninteresting stipulative fashion. Words which purport to talk about things also have to answer before the court of external reality.
Now many people talk about many things I have not experienced. I understand, for example, that caesium reacts violently with water, although I have never seen it happen. It is, however, attested by a consensus of people who have attempted to observe it experimentally, consistent with my understanding of the nature of the universe and expressable as a sentence which is meaningful in the English language. I'm afraid I tend to think that PRWJ fails on all three counts.
I also think that there is a trend in contemporary thinking about religion for 'my experience' to stand proxy for argument.
Oh, and Seeker, 'being in a personal relationship with Jesus' palpably doesn't mean the same as 'being a committed disciple of Jesus'. When I say 'I am a committed disciple with Jesus, but do not have a personal relationship with him' I do not contradict myself. I might be wrong of course, but that is a separate question.
[ 26. April 2007, 16:12: Message edited by: Divine Outlaw Dwarf ]
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
Oh, and Seeker, 'being in a personal relationship with Jesus' palpably doesn't mean the same as 'being a committed disciple of Jesus'. When I say 'I am a committed disciple with Jesus, but do not have a personal relationship with him' I do not contradict myself. I might be wrong of course, but that is a separate question.
Sorry, I missed you saying that. I do not understand "being a committed disciple of Jesus but not being in a personal relationship with him". To me, that is a contradiction in terms.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
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Seeker963
Shipmate
# 2066
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Seeker963:
quote:
Originally posted by Divine Outlaw Dwarf:
Oh, and Seeker, 'being in a personal relationship with Jesus' palpably doesn't mean the same as 'being a committed disciple of Jesus'. When I say 'I am a committed disciple with Jesus, but do not have a personal relationship with him' I do not contradict myself. I might be wrong of course, but that is a separate question.
Sorry, I missed you saying that. I do not understand "being a committed disciple of Jesus but not being in a personal relationship with him". To me, that is a contradiction in terms.
I've looked upthread and can't see you having said that anywhere.
My position remains the following: Luther emphasised that Christians own that "Jesus died for me" not simply that "Jesus died for the world". As I understand it, the point was simply that it's not good enough to say "I'm born in a Christian country, my parents are Christian on the basis that their parents were Christian and we've all been baptised, therefore I am a disciple and follower of Jesus". As I understand it, the point was that a person actually has to own the faith for himself or herself. As I understand it, this all happened at a point in history when the concept of individual personhood was developing and probably also contributed to the development of that concept.
That is my understanding. And I agree that a person cannot passively be a Christian.
There seems to be some sort of suggestion in this thread that "PRWJ" has something to do with my feelings about me and God or your feelings about me and God. I am not of that opinion. I'm of the opinion that a person can make a conscious, active and genuine commitment to be a disciple of Christ and not have any kind of felt experience for the whole of his or her faith journey.
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"People waste so much of their lives on hate and fear." My friend JW-N: Chaplain and three-time cancer survivor. (Went to be with her Lord March 21, 2010. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.)
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
Well, I can be a committed disciple of Aristotle, but it would be weird to suggest I had a personal relationship with him. Ergo the two concepts are not synonymous. Now, of course, Jesus is risen from the dead, so there are differences, but at the point we consider that, we are supplying additional information which is not contained in the meaning of the phrases themselves.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
No it doesn't. Everyone here would understand what I meant if I said C.S. Lewis had a strong personal relationship with George MacDonald. If you read C.S. Lewis' writings George MacDonald was very definitely more to him than just a really good writer. The fact that George MacDonald was dead before C.S. Lewis was born does not alter this.
That relationship was strong, it definitely was tinted by their personality, you cannot even say George MacDonald was unaffected by Lewis' interest because I am quite sure much of the interest today in him stems from C.S. Lewis' patronage.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I have yet to hear what I would consider to be an intelligible explanation of the term "apophatic,"
Apophatic is connected with a personal relationship with God, so I will give it a try. When you experience God personally, you get to know that He is nothing like the things we know.
He is good, but His goodness is not like the goodness we know. He is good to everybody, even Satan. His goodness is expressed in strange ways, e.g. by letting people suffering nasty things.
He is all-knowing, but He is not an encyclopedia with infinite volumes. He doesn't know how to play chess, because playing chess is not an object for that kind of Knowledge.
He exists, but compared to us creatures His existence has nothing to do with ours.
He creates all things, but not by using formless matter... If He doesn't use something to create things how can we say that He is a Creator? Yet, He is.
He is a King, but He is not like other Kings. He is a Lord, but He is not like other Lords. He is peace, but not like the peace we know. He is life, but not like the life we are familiar with. And so on.
Anything we can say about God will fall sort of reality, and that reality we can only know by a face-to-face meeting with Him. Now, we can hear from others that had that experience, or try to reason our way through it (which is impossible, because He is beyond reason), but we can get to know Him personally.
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
No it doesn't. Everyone here would understand what I meant if I said C.S. Lewis had a strong personal relationship with George MacDonald.
I beg to differ.
I also think that, in as much as we did understand you, many of us would think that the use of language was metaphorical. The sentence 'Lewis has a relationship with MacDonald' is literally false, but is a colourful way of saying 'every aspect of MacDonald which Lewis knew about influenced him profoundly' or something. Anything normally describable as 'a personal relationship' is in some sense symmetrical. Are you happy with the suggest that MacDonald had a personal relationship with Lewis? That seems clearly wrong.
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