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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kerygmania: Word of God?
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider
Now, EE, assuming that you're correct in all the assumptions you're making about ancient middle eastern cities, can you address how it's reasonable for God to demand a death penalty for the crime of pre-marital sex with a betrothed woman, for both parties?
Hell, it's not even a crime in this country. Do you think it should be? Why then? Why not now?
Well, I can only assume that this was considered to be the only appropriate and effective deterrent at the time, when Israel - a nation chosen to uphold and bear witness to the purity and holiness of God - was surrounded by the influence of deeply licentious and decadent pagan nations, who sought to draw Israel away into idolatry.
It is no longer appropriate in view of the specific role of Old Testament law, given that we, as a nation, are not specially chosen by God to establish a particular spiritual revelation that would lay the groundwork for and point to the coming of the Messiah. God has established a New Covenant with His people, who are now part of a spiritual kingdom - i.e. one that "does not come by observation", as Jesus said.
As for the Jewish custom of betrothal, don't confuse that with our rather laid back practice of getting engaged. More explanation here.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
Problem here is that (a) I do not believe you can justify draconian punishments for offences purely on grounds of deterrence. We don't seem able to do anything about people doing 90 on the M1, but if we suggested they should be shot because it's the only way we can deter this behaviour, they'd think we'd gone mad.
Secondly, I'm, shall we say, rather uncomfortable with the idea of using the threat of punishment of death to enforce behaviour consistent with a particular religion. We don't accept that argument from Iran, do we?
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Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider
Problem here is that (a) I do not believe you can justify draconian punishments for offences purely on grounds of deterrence. We don't seem able to do anything about people doing 90 on the M1, but if we suggested they should be shot because it's the only way we can deter this behaviour, they'd think we'd gone mad.
There seems to be an assumption behind your comments that suggests that you think "Bible believing" Christians ought to be Gary North style reconstructionists. I don't read the Bible in this way at all. If the Bible was simply a set of absolute principles relevant for all times and places, then God Himself would be redundant. All we would need was a set of principles. No need to think. No need for discretion. And certainly no need for God, because religion will do just fine!
You seem to be a hermeneutical idealist. I am a hermeneutical realist (and dare I be so bold as to suggest that God is as well?). There was obviously a reality to the situation in ancient Israel that required a draconian approach. The modern world is also full of draconian responses to many situations; just look at the Allied response in WW2. In fact, there are many examples of rather draconian responses to many issues in our so called enlightened humanist civilised society, such as, for example, killing an unborn child for having a cleft lip or putting an elderly person on a death pathway, who may not have given her consent to being killed by thirst and starvation.
Yes, I know I am using a tu quoque argument, but I do find it incredibly ironic that the very people who condemn God for the so called 'genocides' in the Old Testament have no qualms about advocating the killing of the unborn in a wide range of circumstances. I would have some respect for their concerns if they were uncompromisingly pro-life, but, by and large, they are not. I know we can't talk about this subject here, being a DH one, but nevertheless this cognitive dissonance is a disturbing phenomenon. And so the point needs to be made.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I find that the thing I'm most inclined to do with the Bible whenever I read some of its more obnoxious passages is throw the thing at the wall.
And what happens when you meet obnoxious Christians, Karl?!
They don't bother me. They're not meant to be the Word of God. There is no intellectual problem with them being arseholes.
The relevance of your question escapes me.
Logic runs: Written communication - whether 'Word' or not - doesn't fall from sky. It's communicated by humans. So to vent frustration on the word(s) is to offer an opinion on the author(s). Offer violence, even, albeit by proxy?
And logic runs: if the word(s) do indeed happen to be 'Word' - a communication from God, no less - the to vent frustration with the word(s) is to offer an opinion (violence?) against God as author.
So it could be argued.
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
In what sense is this autostereogram a 2D picture of flowers in a field and in what sense is it a 3D picture of butterflies?
My view is that the Bible contains the Word of God in a similar way that the autostereogram contains a picture of butterflies. The flowers do not equal the butterflies, but are arranged in very precise patterns to allow you to see the butterflies once you know how to look for them.
And when I look at the 3D picture I interpret it slightly differently to you. I see fairies with wings, not butterflies! And in some ways this reinforces the analogy - that different people looking at the same 'flowers' ie the words in the Bible may interpret the 3D picture that emerges differently!
Once someone else mentioned to me that they saw both butterflies and fairies different times that they looked at it, I went back and experimented and found that I am able to see fairies as well. ![[Cool]](cool.gif) This is one reason I like this analogy so much: it can show that discussion about how we each see different images in it can lead to new discoveries rather than debates about what the one "right" interpretation is.
Another reason I like it is that it depends on repeated patterns with slight variations, which is something that we find all over the Bible. For example, with this autostereogram, once you can see the shark, you can see why there are apparent anomalies in the patterns of the 2D images*. This idea corresponds very nicely for me with why I can believe that there is a deeper meaning hidden within the text of the Bible.
But the reason most relevant to the OP for my fondness for the analogy is that it illustrates so well the concept that the hidden image and the plain image can be completely unrelated to each other. You can debate the pros and cons of yellow flowers without implying anything about the butterflies or fairies. And conversely, you can appreciate the beauty of the butterflies and fairies without endorsing the image of a pollen-ridden nightmare of a field full of yellow flowers. This is why I can believe that the Bible contains within it a beautiful image of a loving God without subscribing to any of the awful things attributed to God in the literal text itself.
On the other hand, the author can decide to make some parts of the 2D image correspond very closely with the 3D image, as in this example of a rose, which would be analogous to the Two Great Commandments or some of the Psalms.
* Specifically, the neck of the animal being ridden by the figure with yellow hair across the top of the image is longer in the repetitions on the left compared to those on the right because it's an important part of the shark's top fin. Similarly, the fact that the moon images are full with a single figure beside it on the left side and partial with multiple figures beside it on the right side is because that's important for the shark's left side fin. You can also see the outline of the shark's top tail fin where the animal's hips are cut out of the rightmost image along the top.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I find that the thing I'm most inclined to do with the Bible whenever I read some of its more obnoxious passages is throw the thing at the wall.
And what happens when you meet obnoxious Christians, Karl?!
They don't bother me. They're not meant to be the Word of God. There is no intellectual problem with them being arseholes.
The relevance of your question escapes me.
Logic runs: Written communication - whether 'Word' or not - doesn't fall from sky. It's communicated by humans. So to vent frustration on the word(s) is to offer an opinion on the author(s). Offer violence, even, albeit by proxy?
And logic runs: if the word(s) do indeed happen to be 'Word' - a communication from God, no less - the to vent frustration with the word(s) is to offer an opinion (violence?) against God as author.
So it could be argued.
So it could. Hence my hope that God is not the author.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
So it could. Hence my hope that God is not the author.
I think, though, that always brings us back to the question: What other criteria should be used to define what Christian belief and behaviour should be? Some rule or set of rules would have to be used to decide which bits of Christian heritage / inheritance should be scissored off. Which other 'message' is ruling the decisions, here?
Those are probably rhetorical questions as I guess they move the discussion beyond the pale of the OP. Although perhaps the first question in anglocatholic's opener could be used in reverse: In what sense is the Word of God the Bible?. I.e., assuming:
- There is a God, and
- That this God communicates to his creatures, then
Is there any sense in which God does so communicate through that collection of books we call 'The Bible'? If not, how does he communicate his intentions to us? If he does communicate through that Bible, but only partially, how will we decide which bits are his communication and which not?
Age old questions, I know!
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
For those who take it upon themselves to pick and choose which bits of the Bible are "of God" and which are "so obviously not of God", the "Word of God" is clearly that philosophy that enables them to undertake this work of selection.
And that philosophy is?
And how is that philosophy justified?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Is there any sense in which God does so communicate through that collection of books we call 'The Bible'?
I really like what Brian McLaren has said about what the Bible being the 'inspired Word of God' might mean. He says the typical protestant approach is to think of the Bible as a legal handbook or constitution; so we come against a problem or issue of life and look up chapter and verse in the Bible to see what God's view of the issue is.
But McLaren prefers the idea of the Bible being a cultural library, telling us the story of God's interactions with humanity. And, seeing as the Bible is the inspired Word of God (which McLaren is happy to affirm, although obviously he means something other than the typical evangelical slant), he says it's a brilliant and accurate cultural library.
But we can't simply dive in, pluck out a verse or two, and pronounce that they accurately convey God's view. Even if the verse says 'God commanded...' or 'God did...' - that goes back to the progressive revelation idea I mentioned upthread.
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Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
For those who take it upon themselves to pick and choose which bits of the Bible are "of God" and which are "so obviously not of God", <snip>
The "pick and choose" locution has always bothered me immensely. It is clearly manipulative and nothing else. If we substitute "use their reason and judgment," which is denotatively equivalent AFAICS, much of the desired effect simply vanishes.
--Tom Clune
[ 10. May 2013, 11:57: Message edited by: tclune ]
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
For those who take it upon themselves to pick and choose which bits of the Bible are "of God" and which are "so obviously not of God", the "Word of God" is clearly that philosophy that enables them to undertake this work of selection.
And that philosophy is?
What Brian McLaren said - as SCK has linked.
quote:
And how is that philosophy justified?
By looking at the content and antiquity of the source documents of which we have copies.
Scripture does not present itself as a systematic legal or moral code, nor as a comprehensive historical view. So it is inappropriate to treat it as either of those. Which leaves the question of how we interpret texts as an issue of hermeneutics. A matter of interpretative principle. "How do we weigh scripture with scripture" becomes "what consistent principles can we apply to the weighing".
How is such "weighing" justified by the dogma that we should "sit under" scripture, not "rule over" it? Is the search for consistent hermeneutical principles a kind of presumption in itself?
In high church terms of course, that question does not exist. The Church is seen as both the custodian and the interpretative guardian of scripture in accordance with Apostolic Tradition. Scripture is subordinate to that guardianship.
In low church terms, the issue is more complex. I think we wrestle with the complexities of the text, taking into account both received wisdom and processes of reasoning.
What is clear to me, however, is that the old notion of "perspicuity" does not hold water. I don't think perspicuity is a biblical notion anyway. It was a means for some of the Reformers to break the power of the priesthood.
"You don't have to listen to them, you can read it for yourself!"
"But I'm not very good at that".
"Don't worry. God has made His Word clear to us all."
That sort of thing. Nonconformism still has some anticlerical suspicions.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune
The "pick and choose" locution has always bothered me immensely. It is clearly manipulative and nothing else. If we substitute "use their reason and judgment," which is denotatively equivalent AFAICS, much of the desired effect simply vanishes.
The irony of your comment is not lost on me.
You make a big deal about a form of words, and then proceed to promote "reason and judgment". But you then fail to use your reason and judgment to address the point I actually made, including answering my two questions. (I am sure most people are big and ugly enough to understand what I am saying without getting hung up about the use of a phrase that perhaps falls short of the ideal.)
What were you saying about being 'manipulative' again?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
You make a big deal about a form of words, and then proceed to promote "reason and judgment"... I am sure most people are big and ugly enough to understand what I am saying without getting hung up about the use of a phrase that perhaps falls short of the ideal.
'Pick and choose' is absolutely a perjorative term, EE. It implies bad faith on the one doing the 'picking and choosing', whereas tclune's alternative phrasing is much closer to being neutral and free of value judgement, IMO.
Your choice of phrase shows, I think, that you've begged the question as to whether it's ever justified to set aside certain parts of the Bible as being, to use your wording again, 'not of God'.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin
'Pick and choose' is absolutely a perjorative term, EE. It implies bad faith on the one doing the 'picking and choosing', whereas tclune's alternative phrasing is much closer to being neutral and free of value judgement, IMO.
But the real test of proving that the one doing the selection is not acting in bad faith is to explain what his objectively valid philosophy is.
I would agree that "pick and choose" implies bad faith, but from the record of this thread and the comments of the person who has been selective in his reading of the Bible, my use of the phrase seems justified. I'll be very happy to admit that I have been prejudiced, if it can be shown that such people operate according to an objectively valid philosophy, which enables them to judge which bits of the Bible are "of God" and which are not.
It's no good picking at my phraseology if the substantive issue is not addressed. This failure only confirms me in my suspicions (or perhaps even prejudices, if that is really the case).
Barnabas62 has made an attempt, but only clarified the issue, not answered it. For example, it is possible to accept that the entirety of the Bible is "of God" while accepting that most of it can only be understood in its historical context.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
If you want to launch a personal attack on me, EE, you know where Hell is.
I do not "pick and choose" in the manner you describe. I used to, when I was an evangelical. When I believed the Bible was the Word of God. Oh, not explicitly. I didn't even admit it to myself. I just avoided the nasty bits.
I don't go through the Bible saying "that bit's of God; that bit's not". I rather go through it asking myself "why did this person write this?" To me it's a collection of ideas about God, some useful, some - erm - less so.
You might do well to read some Borg; you might start to understand where I'm coming from. The point is that I am at least in this manner enabled to actually engage with the whole Bible, rather than, as I once did, pretending to myself that it doesn't have some bits that paint God in a very poor light.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I'll be very happy to admit that I have been prejudiced, if it can be shown that such people operate according to an objectively valid philosophy, which enables them to judge which bits of the Bible are "of God" and which are not.
It's no good picking at my phraseology if the substantive issue is not addressed. This failure only confirms me in my suspicions (or perhaps even prejudices, if that is really the case).
But I'm not sure why people would bother explaining their philosophy of Biblical interpretation to you, seeing as you've kind of flagged up that you doubt whether they have any such valid (in your view) philosophy. Why should people try to refute your suspicions / prejudices?
I think if you genuinely want to hear other people's Biblical interpretation philosophies, then say so and just be more careful with the language you use. Text-only communication is tricky; we can't use body language or tone of voice to clarify our intent or meaning! (Sorry to lecture...)
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin
But I'm not sure why people would bother explaining their philosophy of Biblical interpretation to you, seeing as you've kind of flagged up that you doubt whether they have any such valid (in your view) philosophy. Why should people try to refute your suspicions / prejudices?
Because it's a discussion board, in which I have, at least, had the decency to admit to my suspicions and possible prejudices? Do people generally not like engaging with honesty? Or is honesty always to be interpreted as insulting?
I am well aware that some people can use honesty as a way of camouflaging insulting behaviour, and if that is the case with me, then I apologise. But I would have thought that a thread which talks about "throwing the Bible at the wall", calling God "one sick puppy" and calling certain Christian 'arseholes' is one in which hypersensitivity is generally frowned upon.
That is why I find it rather ridiculous that my rather lame phrase "pick and choose" (by comparison with the above mentioned vitriol) has been so heavily censured.
I suppose you may hold me to a higher standard than certain other people, and therefore I can only thank you for the implied compliment.
quote:
I think if you genuinely want to hear other people's Biblical interpretation philosophies, then say so and just be more careful with the language you use.
I think that I am grown up enough to respond to people's misgivings and difficulties irrespective of the language they use. It's called 'real life'. I expect the same of other people. That is not to justify gratuitous insults, but I really do not think "pick and choose" is one such.
So spare the lecture. Or if you wish to lecture us about tone, then at least be fair and even-handed about it.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I would have thought that a thread which talks about "throwing the Bible at the wall", calling God "one sick puppy" and calling certain Christian 'arseholes' is one in which hypersensitivity is generally frowned upon.
That is why I find it rather ridiculous that my rather lame phrase "pick and choose" (by comparison with the above mentioned vitriol) has been so heavily censured.
The thing is, EE, with your 'pick and choose' comment you attacked the people you're trying to have a discussion with. You implied (quite possibly unintentionally) that you were never going to accept whatever argument they might have come up with. That's the problem, not the general use of robust language.
Anyway, I'll shut up about this now (hold me to this, please!). It's the kind of meta-discussion that everyone else probably finds a bit tedious...
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Barnabas62 has made an attempt, but only clarified the issue, not answered it. For example, it is possible to accept that the entirety of the Bible is "of God" while accepting that most of it can only be understood in its historical context.
Yes, I think that is a perfectly valid position for a Christian to adopt in the first stage of an interpretative journey. It simply means asking the question "what did that mean then?" before asking the question "so what does it mean now?"
A simple example will suffice.
quote:
12 On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!
What it meant then is that the archivist who recorded this story saw no difficulty in the Lord stopping the sun as Joshua commanded, since his fundamental cosmology involved the sun going round the earth. So for the archivist, he was recording an unlikely victory aided by a miraculous intervention.
What does it mean now? There is, shall we say, a range of possible answers to that question!
From
"This was a legend"
to
"At the word of Joshua, the Lord miraculously stopped time in the universe, except in the place of the battle".
But what you cannot say is that the description is literally true. The earth was rotating and orbiting then, just as it is now. It was giving the impression then that the sun was moving in a way that it was not, just as it does now. Is there any doubt about that?
Such examples can be multiplied, of course. Like the great fish in Jonah, for example.
Now the interpretative principles I use allow for the possibility that lots of the "salvation-history" of scripture is made up of legends and camp-fire stories told to confirm the belief that "God is for us". What was legend and what was in some sense historical is somewhat difficult to recover. But ISTM that the primary purpose was not to record the history of the event described but to teach about sovereignty of God and the God-given power of the chosen leaders.
Some folks would say I cannot say that sort of thing without denying that scripture is the Word of God. So I get criticised for "picking and choosing". Like Karl, I don't get that. I'm just looking at what is there and asking those "then" and "now" questions. I call that wrestling with the material.
What do you call it?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Forgive me, but, what scripture verse is being referred to in the OP. Any time I have tried to post something in on this Board, I am "politely" reminded to cite the verse I am referring to.
How come has this thread been allowed to stay in Kerygma as long as it has without reference to any verse in the OP, or for that matter in most, if not all, the subsequent replies?
This is a doctrinal issue, which, in my mind should be in purgatory.
That said, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America takes the position that the Bible contains the Word of God. The books are like the straw in the manger which holds the good news of the Christ child.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Forgive me, but, what scripture verse is being referred to in the OP. Any time I have tried to post something in on this Board, I am "politely" reminded to cite the verse I am referring to.
How come has this thread been allowed to stay in Kerygma as long as it has without reference to any verse in the OP, or for that matter in most, if not all, the subsequent replies?
Keryg is for discussion of the Bible as a whole, as well as specific passages. When someone wants to discuss a specific passage, they are asked to provide a link because some shippies do not always have a Bible handy.
Moo, Kerygmania host
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
We're still skirting round the issue somewhat here.
EE asks the right question about philosophy.
I don't think there's any doubt now that philosophy (especially as informed by worldview) impacts and underlies interpretation. We just can't do without it. Anthony Thiselton argued that point well back in 1980.
Philosophy (expressed often unconsciously in one's worldview) also impacts on Christian life and expression. For better or worse we have inherited the physical collection of words we call the Bible. Actually we had to inherit it; it could not be any other way because Christianity is about a message with a mission, it is not a private religion. We are required to present that message in the public sphere, to live a peculiar life in the public sphere, and to defend the message against all comers. It's a message that has its roots in the beginning – the gospel predates Jesus.
So although it's helpful to have a tradition of interpretation and a Spirit to guide the application of the interpretation, we are still faced with mission: the rest of the world is not convinced by personalised piety any more than by dogmatic assertion. It wants to see the evidence in support. That's a post-modern condition just as much as a modern and we fail our calling if we do not square up to that task.
The problem I have with developmentalism (or progression) in revelation is that it doesn't (or hasn't in any reading I've done) covered off the issue of validation (seeing the evidence). This issue was thrown up by the German existentialist philosopher, Martin Heidegger, a few decades ago. There are two types of development: one takes up what went before and absorbs it into the next step, and the other rejects what went before. Thomas Kuhn also captures this dichotomy in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, where one can have 'normal' development – building on what goes before – or one can have paradigm shifts – a rejection of what went before in favour of a new way of looking at things.
Now many developmental approaches are in reality interpretive techniques of the second type: they will assert that some developments are rejections of what went before. What they don't do is present evidential arguments to demonstrate what philosophy (or worldview) is being used to determine the criteria for that type of development. Without that start, they can't possibly go on to demonstrate any validity for the interpretive approach they adopt. And with out that, it is not possible to validate the applications (significances) drawn to inform Christian life and belief today.
I've asked about this before on the Ship, but there hasn't been an answer here either. Perhaps there isn't one! I know it isn't easy to thrash out one's approach to life, the universe and everything, but if there's one thing that the post-modern philosophers have taught the world, it is that it's no longer possible to be lazy and hope to get away with assertion. One has to go much deeper.
And that is a challenge for Christian mission in the West, at least.
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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Now many developmental approaches are in reality interpretive techniques of the second type: they will assert that some developments are rejections of what went before. What they don't do is present evidential arguments to demonstrate what philosophy (or worldview) is being used to determine the criteria for that type of development. Without that start, they can't possibly go on to demonstrate any validity for the interpretive approach they adopt. And with out that, it is not possible to validate the applications (significances) drawn to inform Christian life and belief today.
Nigel M, what about the idea I mentioned earlier of progressive revelation with Jesus (visible image of the invisible God) as the apex of that revelation? I'm no philosopher and would be interested to see what you think, whether the idea stands up to philosophical scrutiny.
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Nigel M
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
...what about the idea I mentioned earlier of progressive revelation with Jesus (visible image of the invisible God) as the apex of that revelation?
This fits well with the concept of narrative (or the 'story' idea you mentioned earlier, SCK), where what we have inherited is timeline, a history of events the sum of which adds up to a commentary on human life lived within a particular cultural milieu. This seems to me to be a strength of McLaren's approach, in that he takes seriously the way humans 'do' their history by telling the story of their struggle against an apparently unfair universe. We want things to be better, we think they ought to be better, so we struggle to explain the reason for the unfairness and seek to make things better.
In this approach the Christian story, built on its Jewish story heritage, continues the narrative plot line with its own set of peaks, its moments of foreground set off against background, and all the components of a good story (where 'story' is a metaphor for understanding this approach to communicating the history). In this Christian story I don't think it's illogical to see Jesus as a peak in a narrative on its way to a conclusion.
Of course for Christians the question goes deeper: Does this story of Jesus mandate a particular approach in interpretation? Does it impose rules on us that impact on our expectations of how we should live? This question becomes more acute if Jesus is seen as not just a peak in the narrative, but the apex, defining all that came before and comes after. I think the first generation of Christians struggled with this somewhat, because everything in their inherited timeline insisted that the supreme God of their universe was the apex. Jesus had to be set within that story and that's where the concept of 'representative' became useful (Jesus as image, Son, son, messiah...).
If Jesus does reflect the intentions and character of the supreme God, then in some way he becomes the rule or model for interpretation. What he mandates remains mandated for us; what he rejects remains rejected. In this case perhaps the word 'progressive' (and the concept behind it) is less useful than the word 'foundational.'
However, we can't escape the fact pointed out by Trudy Scrumptious earlier that Jesus is communicated by human writings and if these are mistaken then it's difficult to see how we can validly appropriate that rule. Thus we arrive at the issue about the record we've inherited. Even if Jesus is foundational, how do we proceed unless the record we've inherited is in some sense also foundational?
To date I've found that the only way one can proceed from this point in discussions with non-believers is to test each step of the Christian 'story.' It's best done, it seems, on the basis of overt assumptions, or logical steps (a decision tree helps). Setting things out this way permits others to identify where they answer differently and where discussion should take place. For example one could proceed as follows:
If there is a God ... which is the first logical branch in the decision tree demanding a Yes of No answer, 'No' being capable of explored further
and if that God communicates
Then it is reasonable to expect that God has communicated with the intention of being understood.
This would lead to a next series, and so on, until one came to the question of worldview and how best to deal with the fact that the biblical writers wrote with their cultural settings in the background and how that maps across to other settings. Cutting to the chase here, I think that although cultural settings have some differences, there is more than sufficient overlap by virtue of the commonality of human nature to make the transition without having to jump across a gap. Thus there are grounds for having confidence in those writings that have survived (by human intention – copied and disseminated across generations and culture) and in their subject.
This means (and I know I'm jumping across other gaps in argument here!) that when I find Jesus recorded as validating texts in the Christian OT then we have a mandate for seeing those passages as ruling interpretation and application across all human experience. I go further here, because I've come to see how deeply ingrained the Jewish scriptures were in the milieu of first century Israel – including with Jesus and his followers – that I have to conclude that Jesus accepted each and every passage in those scriptures as being God's communication to his creation. What he combatted was not a passage per se, but particular interpretations and applications he came across.
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Nigel M
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Correction -
Paragraph 7 would make more sense if it read:
If there is a God ... which is the first logical branch in the decision tree demanding a Yes or No answer, 'No' being capable of being explored further before moving on to:
and if that God communicates ...
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South Coast Kevin
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
However, we can't escape the fact pointed out by Trudy Scrumptious earlier that Jesus is communicated by human writings and if these are mistaken then it's difficult to see how we can validly appropriate that rule. Thus we arrive at the issue about the record we've inherited. Even if Jesus is foundational, how do we proceed unless the record we've inherited is in some sense also foundational?
Thanks for your reply, Nigel! On the above point, many Christians would, of course, take the NT accounts of Jesus as fully accurate. If the NT claims Jesus said or did something, then he did indeed say or do it. I know things aren't quite this simple for a few reasons, for example there isn't universal agreement between Christians as to the content of the canon.
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
...when I find Jesus recorded as validating texts in the Christian OT then we have a mandate for seeing those passages as ruling interpretation and application across all human experience. I go further here, because I've come to see how deeply ingrained the Jewish scriptures were in the milieu of first century Israel – including with Jesus and his followers – that I have to conclude that Jesus accepted each and every passage in those scriptures as being God's communication to his creation. What he combatted was not a passage per se, but particular interpretations and applications he came across.
I like how you've phrased this. Jesus accepting 'each and every passage' in the Jewish scriptures doesn't mean he agrees with any particular interpretation (e.g. the literal reading which claims God did indeed command the Israelites to commit genocide).
IMO we can't duck the apparent contradiction between OT genocide (including, for that matter, that committed by God himself in the flood) and the NT picture of God 'not wanting anyone to perish'. For me, progressive revelation with Jesus as the apex is the best explanation I've come across so far.
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Gramps49
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Well, here is one Christian that does not take everything the Gospels said about what Jesus did as accurate. There are too many discrepancies between the Gospels. No, I understand each Gospel writer is relating something about Jesus in line with the writer's theme. The Gospels were never intended to be relating historical facts, rather they are interpretations of facts from the eyes of the writer.
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Barnabas62
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Nigel M
On the philosophy point. I don't think all folks applying historical critical methods, including higher criticism share the same philosophical outlook. What has happened through time is that analytical methods have evolved for studying the texts. It is, for example, perfectly possible for scholars with or without faith to study texts and come to the same conclusions about them.
It seems more accurate to say that rejection of higher critical methods is commonly associated with specific religious outlooks. This observation does not just apply within Christianity.
Speaking personally, I don't belong to any specific philosophical 'family'. My positive attitudes to higher critical methods relate more to the effectiveness of the approach in uncovering meaning and significance.
[ 12. May 2013, 07:25: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Nigel M
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quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
The Gospels were never intended to be relating historical facts, rather they are interpretations of facts from the eyes of the writer.
I think this is pretty much a given – writers write with intention, not in a static, designless environment. They have an aim, a direction of travel, and this is usually prompted by the existence of a gap somewhere, an issue that needs resolving. Otherwise there's little incentive to expend personal resource on a product. So each gospel writer (indeed, each biblical writer) came across a problem they recognise needed to be fixed; they were not content to live with it, so they mitigated the problem by writing.
This is the topic of import in communication theory (developed especially by Kathleen Callow). Communication has purpose (=import, intention).
The problem these writers were addressing may simply have been a gap in someone's knowledge, so the aim in that case was to impart information so that the reader is in a better place to take decisions based on a wider knowledge set (Informational import; Luke's intention, perhaps?). Or the writer may have been expressing information to change the state of things – directing action or commissioning support for action (Volitional import – Paul's intention in many passages). The final import is Expressive; where a writer's intention is to effect change by affecting his audience. This latter import has only recently been studied in any depth (recent decades, anyway); it uncovers the whole area of rhetoric in writing.
What I think you are getting at is not the aspect of intention or purpose in writing, but at the impact this has on confidence. How much confidence can anyone have in the veracity of anybody's communication if they always have an agenda?
Well, at a mundane level humans have had to live with this for, ooooh, as long as we have records of human existence. We get by, day by day, by accepting that knowledge is partial and apt to be misunderstood when set against a truth baseline. Consequently we make mistakes or are led astray and feel something of a fool later for being duped. But you can see how this state of affairs impacts on how we accept the messages in the bible. It's led plenty of commentators of the past generation of throw their hands up in despair and conclude that there can be no confidence – or insufficient confidence – to enable trust in what is read (and therefore in any application impacting on Christian life and belief). This has led to something of a crisis in biblical theology; Brevard Childs summarised the position quite well back in 1980. More on this below in response to B62's post.
I see this extreme lack of confidence as being misplaced. It also has a happy knack of latching onto a distorted understanding of what 'postmodernism' was all about – an easy prop for the afflicted. N. T. Wright addressed the issue of confidence in The New Testament and the People of God (chapter 4). Essentially it boils down to: Just because you're a gospel writer doesn't mean you are not telling the truth. In fact, being a specialist in a field is one reason for being taken seriously. We have more confidence in experts than we have in amateurs. Additionally, it is helpful to draw on the philosophy of knowledge and communication theory again here, invoking the finding that talk about objects external to ourselves should not be reduced to talk about subjective sense-data.
In other words, just because a writer has a point of view, or an agenda, does nothing to inform us whether he or she is telling it 'as it is.' They may well indeed be relating history. We have to go deeper, not back away.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I don't think all folks applying historical critical methods, including higher criticism share the same philosophical outlook
Yes, I agree that people may be draw on different philosophies and yet arrive at similar conclusions. One can travel by different roads to the same destination. Where I fear the issue has been is in assuming that different starting points can automatically predetermine similar ending points.
The crisis in biblical theology I mentioned earlier has proved informative in this regard. The consequence of this crisis has been a wide-spread move away from the traditional historical-critical paradigm, not necessarily because it was asking the wrong questions, but because it was fated to come up with the wrong answers. Philosophically it was groundless. This isn't just an opinion, it's the general state of acceptance now both among those who grew up within that paradigm and came to reject it, and also among the newer generation of biblical theologians who are trying to find a new foundation.
A whole host of ways have been and are being tested in the attempt to find a way out of this. Two series come to mind that provide examples of this: the Overtures to Biblical Theology series [http://www.goodreads.com/series/62689-overtures-to-biblical-theology] and the Scripture and Hermeneutics series [http://www.librarything.com/series/Scripture+%2526+Hermeneutics].
So I guess my warning is: by all means read the impressive tomes that came out of the traditional historical-critical powerhouse that existed especially in Germany for the 150-years or so up to the 1960s, it will provoke all sorts of useful questions and subsequent areas of interest for research, but hold at extreme arms' length the conclusions the writers of those times came to. They need to be tested against more recent findings.
Just on the meaning and significance point: I find useful the distinction made by E. D. Hirsch many moons ago (Validity in Interpretation still to be helpful: Meaning is the authorial intention; Significance is the application of that meaning to any given situation. There have been plenty of debates over authorial intention, but I have found no adequate replacement to the principle still common today that the human author retains moral right of ownership to his or her work – including the interpretation of what was intended and what not. Everything else (significance) is words, to plagiarise a saying from earlier in this thread!
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Nigel M
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Sorry - a couple of book hyperlinks were missed in that last post.
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Anglican_Brat
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When I was in homiletics class, the professor, a Methodist by origin, and no Bible thumping fundamentalist, instructed us to use historical criticism and have it inform our faith, but historical criticism is never to substitute for faith. The historical scholar, tied to principles of objectivity and neutrality, must for his enterprise, assume a secular outlook.
No one seriously thinks for example, that God directly orchestrated the sinking of the Titanic or the first world war. A historian who makes such a claim would be laughed out of the academy. Secular history, by definition, operates from Enlightenment presumptions. Both its advantages and pitfalls come from this epistemology. Secular history is beneficial because it is free from confessional commitments. I can read a good academic history of the English Civil War without worrying about it being a propaganda piece for either the Puritans or the Royalists. Not only that, but I can tell if something is propaganda or not.
But if you want to study Scripture from the perspective of faith, you do have to move beyond the historical method. For example, historians now say that the Exodus event was probably not of the large scale that the Bible records. Some historians maintain that there was no Exodus based on the lack of corroborating archaeological and literary evidence. But none of that makes a difference for the Christian who studies the Exodus as an allegory for liberation from the slavery of sin or liberation movements who study Exodus as an example of justice overcoming oppression.
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tclune
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Philosophically it was groundless. This isn't just an opinion, it's the general state of acceptance now both among those who grew up within that paradigm and came to reject it, and also among the newer generation of biblical theologians who are trying to find a new foundation.
What I find humorous in this is that philosophy recognized the bankruptcy of philosophy by the early 20th century. John Dewey's disciples virtually all left philopsophy out of a recognition of the aridness of the enterprise, and Wittgenstein became well-known for his notion that the only purpose of doing philosophy was to learn how to stop doing it. ISTM that you are looking to build a new foundation on sand..
--Tom Clune
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Nigel M
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To say there is no philosophy is itself a philosophical statement!
What I think you are referring to is the argument that one particular form of philosophy - one particular way of doing things (as Wittgenstein would have put it) - needs to be replaced by another. That's what has been going on.
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tclune
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quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
What I think you are referring to is the argument that one particular form of philosophy - one particular way of doing things (as Wittgenstein would have put it) - needs to be replaced by another. That's what has been going on.
No, this is simply false. The understanding was considerably more radical than that, although Wittgenstein could never bring himself to shut up.
To my mind, the real visionary on this was CS Pierce. His critique of Cartesianism was actually a critique on philosophy itself. His point was that we are really not very good at abstract thinking, and when we try to systematize our thoughts on metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, etc., we introduce error by that very enterprise. What we are good at is lots of small insights. As Pierce put it, any idea that is supported by a wealth of disparate facts and insights is vastly more reliable than any idea that emerges by a tortuous set of logical inferences from a seemingly innocuous premise of systematics. In Bertrand Russel's famous phrase, the real joy of philosophy is to start with innocuous premises and arrive at outrageous conclusions.
Now, you may want to say that thinking obout stuff is philosophy, and so we all do it. But that's not what philosophy really is -- it is systematizing that stuff using a particular set of tools and no others. Redefining "philosophy" to subsume, say, physics, is simply to make up your own meaning for words.
Or so ISTM.
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Nigel M
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Then we are talking about two definitions of philosophy. Philosophy as a technique or set of tools is one thing, but I'm talking about deeper stuff - the worldview or belief systems that underlie the use of those tools. That's what I was on about earlier - it's about starting points, not the road. I agree with B62's point that anyone could in principle use the methods associated with historical-criticism. What needs thinking about, though, before anyone can validate the conclusions reached, is the deep stuff that drives a particular use of those tools and can determine outcomes in advance. Coming to terms with that is the first step. Tools (or method) follows.
And it surely is questionable whether Pierce's pragmatism, allied as it was with a scientific enquiry approach, could entirely hold in the field of hermeneutics. It certainly doesn't seem to have done so successfully in the field of biblical interpretation, whether practiced by literalistic approaches or some historical-critical methods.
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Barnabas62
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Nigel M
I suspect the real argument lies elsewhere. The conservative argument, which I know you are not advancing, often goes something like this.
If, for example, application of historical critical methods leads to conclusions at variance with traditional beliefs - or even a range of conclusions which embrace both traditional and other beliefs as inherently possible - that is seen as an attack. How can such a thing be valid? Clearly there must be something wrong.
Stage 1 is to "check the arithmetic" i.e. go through the analysis produced by the historical-critical method and search for logical error, see if the analysis holds water. If (when) it does, then the conservative defence may move to Stage 2.
Under Stage 2 arguments, since the "arithmetic" cannot be shown to be false, then the "presuppositions" underlying the "arithmetic" must be in some way flawed. The whole process must somehow or other be affected by "philosophical presuppositions". Such as "miracles cannot happen", for example.
And I think that is how the "philosophical" dimension arises in this kind of debate. It is a questioning of the presuppositions of folks who are comfortable with historical-critical examination of sacred texts.
That's one of the reasons why I cited the "Sun stand still" OT text. If you want to see how seriously the inherent difficulties of this text were taken by those with conservative understandings of the inspiration of the Word of God, have a look at this 19th century commentary by Adam Clarke. Read the section dealing with Joshua 10:12. A stubborn defence of the text as a scripture fact; in some ways admirable in its perseverance. Yet there can be no doubt where the presupposition lies. It is with Adam Clarke, for whom a scripture fact is a scripture fact not to be contradicted. Even if one has to stand on one's head to save it.
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Nigel M
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One certainly doesn't have to go far, B62, on the internet to come across excellent examples such as that!
What I would say, though, is presuppositions underlie other approaches, too; e.g., a Hegelian-influenced presupposition that the highest and purest form of religion must be that of faith, not works, led plenty of historical-critics to assert that Israel began with a faith-based religion, but degenerated after the Babylonian exile into one of ritual-works based on Torah. That was something that could not be supported by the evidence (archaeological, sociological, or linguistic), but it held sway for quite some time.
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Barnabas62
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Yes, I agree, Nigel. The pilgrimage of the genuinely honest enquirer can be a difficult one. It is a good idea to look very carefully at all "glittery" theories!
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62
Under Stage 2 arguments, since the "arithmetic" cannot be shown to be false, then the "presuppositions" underlying the "arithmetic" must be in some way flawed. The whole process must somehow or other be affected by "philosophical presuppositions". Such as "miracles cannot happen", for example.
And I think that is how the "philosophical" dimension arises in this kind of debate. It is a questioning of the presuppositions of folks who are comfortable with historical-critical examination of sacred texts.
CS Lewis put it rather well:
quote:
Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our senses, something seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. And our senses are not infallible. If anything extraordinary seems to have happened, we can always say that we have been victims of an illusion. If we hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural, this is what we always shall say. What we learn from experience depends on the kind of philosophy we bring to experience. It is therefore useless to appeal to experience before we have settled, as well as we can, the philosophical question.
If immediate experience cannot prove or disprove the miraculous, still less can history do so. Many people think one can decide whether a miracle occurred in the past by examining the evidence 'according to the ordinary rules of historical inquiry'. But the ordinary rules cannot be worked until we have decided whether miracles are possible...
(Miracles, Chapter One. Emphasis mine.)
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Barnabas62
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Yes but it simply is not true that all the people who use the methods of historical critical analysis of the Word of God (or Tradition) have philosophical presuppositions which rule out miracles.
I think you already know most of this, but for the sake of other readers of the thread, this article gives a reasonable overview.
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62
Yes but it simply is not true that all the people who use the methods of historical critical analysis of the Word of God (or Tradition) have philosophical presuppositions which rule out miracles.
Which is not what Lewis was saying or implying.
We need to clarify our presuppositions before we tackle historical evidence, in order to avoid biased interpretations.
(By the way... I think that reading and interpreting Scripture in its historical context is absolutely essential, and I don't accept the "application" view of Bible interpretation, which tries to draw absolute lifestyle guidance from any part of the Bible without working its principles through the sieve of the socio-historical conditions in which they were originally established.)
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Barnabas62
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I think the findings of historical criticism are subject to peer review and other reviews. The associated methodologies are relatively independent of presuppositions, but of course the conclusions aren't.
It's not the same as peer review in the so-called "hard" sciences; the value of a finding or an interpretation might well be judged as "consistent with the facts" or "speculative" or "well-founded" etc. But the processes are open and so they cannot be used for propaganda purposes without comment.
Isn't that enough? On general grounds, I don't believe people should be compelled to publish their presuppositions along with their findings and conclusions. If those findings and conclusions are any good, they will gel with the understandings of people with many and various outlooks.
Thinking about the Synoptic problem and the primacy of Mark, for example. Or the different authorship strands in the Penteteuch.
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Barnabas62
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical in Purgatory:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62
The presuppositions of practitioners (re the supernatural or indeed anything else) are secondary; the primary dimension is methodological and subject to peer review.
Could you please give me an example of a metaphysically relevant* truth claim that has no reference to or dependence on any philosophical presupposition?
* i.e. a claim that has some bearing on what we believe about the nature of reality. So an idea in the same epistemic category as, for example, London being a city on the river Thames, which was called Londinium by the Romans, doesn't count, because this really has no obvious bearing on anything metaphysical.
I've transferred this post from a tangent to a thread in Purgatory, feeling that it would be on balance better and fairer to reply here.
I've got a few ideas about how to reply to EE's question, but want to reflect a little before posting a reply. I'm busy this evening - my aim is to get round to a reply tomorrow.
It's a good question.
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Fr Weber
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Hearsay, tradition, wishful thinking, nice warm feelings, voices in one’s head, arguments from authority by men in fancy dress, stories invented/embraced by nomadic stone-age goat herders and uncorroborated writings chosen as sacred by a group commanded by a despotic emperor do not meet the standards normally required for “solid evidence”.
I see the Bible as the 'story of Jesus' and I am a follower of Jesus.
Works for me.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Well, except for the sneering dismissal of "nomadic stone-age goat herders" (presumably because they were Dumb and we are Smart!), and for perpetuating the myth that the Council of Nicea, at Constantine's instigation, set the canon of the NT. Hold on, I suppose that means the whole paragraph's bullshit!
I would be interested in knowing how we tell the difference between which parts in the Bible are mere cultural conditioning and which parts are the Real Stuff. Is there a hermeneutic, beyond "this agrees with my politics and this doesn't," or "this offends my culturally-conditioned sense of right and wrong and this does not"?
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
Fr Weber; I really don't think my revulsion at the idea of genocide is mere cultural conditioning. I have this conviction that marching through cities putting everyone to the sword, down to babes in arms, is inherently wrong.
Sorry.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Fr Weber; I really don't think my revulsion at the idea of genocide is mere cultural conditioning. I have this conviction that marching through cities putting everyone to the sword, down to babes in arms, is inherently wrong.
Sorry.
And yet genocide is a phenomenon in human history which recurs again and again, which suggests that not every culture believes it to be inherently wrong. Your revulsion (and mine) is therefore culturally conditioned.
My question still remains : what hermeneutic allows us to point to a passage and say, in effect, that it doesn't belong in Scripture?
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Fr Weber; I really don't think my revulsion at the idea of genocide is mere cultural conditioning. I have this conviction that marching through cities putting everyone to the sword, down to babes in arms, is inherently wrong.
Sorry.
And yet genocide is a phenomenon in human history which recurs again and again, which suggests that not every culture believes it to be inherently wrong. Your revulsion (and mine) is therefore culturally conditioned.
My question still remains : what hermeneutic allows us to point to a passage and say, in effect, that it doesn't belong in Scripture?
That something keeps on happening does not make it any less wrong. Are you suggesting that it isn't inherently wrong; it's just our culture that thinks it is? Should we look at Rwanda and say "nothing wrong with what happened there; just our cultural conditioning"?
I never said it doesn't belong in Scripture. I just said that I don't see "God's Word" as a good way of describing something that contains things like this. If you like, I'd be more inclined to expect God to be "culturally conditioning" folk to reject genocide.
[ 21. May 2013, 16:08: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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# 17687
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
The Bible is the word of God in the same way that Jesus is the Son of God
They are both fully human and fully divine.
If you want to know God looks like, look at Jesus.
If you want to know what God thinks like, read the Bible.
The problem I have with this is--
"Did God become insensate, deaf and mute 2000 years ago when the Bible's LAST WRITER finished?"
I don't think so.
I don't think God stopped being Intelligent, Wise, Witty, Insightful and Tactful ... 2000 years ago.
Therefore, the Bible is merely the beginning of The Word As We Know It ... in my estimation.
And the Holy Spirit of Truth is what is to make up for lost time.
EEWC
Posts: 326 | From: California | Registered: May 2013
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Emily Windsor-Cragg
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# 17687
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
What Brian McLaren said - as SCK has linked.
quote:
[qb]And how is that philosophy justified?
"You don't have to listen to them, you can read it for yourself! Don't worry. God has made His Word clear to us all." That sort of thing. Nonconformism still has some anticlerical suspicions.
What we have not done is COMPARE what YHVH taught as Law and what Jesus taught as ETHICS against the backdrop of Annunaki [SECRET] culture, legalism and meta-physics.
That comparison says it all. [I hope I got the quote code correctly.]
When you compare Annunaki-Babylonian rules of hierarchy (top-down dictation, no questions asked) one realizes, this is not what Jesus was teaching.
It WAS however, what Paul was teaching, who was inserted into the 4th century canon at the same time Church Fathers removed the Gospel of Barnabas, the Book of Enoch and the Gospel of Thomas.
Unsettling accounts where the Church wanted to be undoubted Hierarchy.
If not for the Holy Spirit of Truth and the possibility of receiving Light in the privacy of one's own meditations, the Teachings of Jesus, which were anathema to 4th century church fathers, might have been lost completely.
[There's no way to edit or fix this if I got the quote codes wrong. Apologies up front.]
Emily
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TomOfTarsus
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# 3053
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Posted
Well, FWIW, I stay away from things extra-Biblical that claim inspiration. It has nothing to do with God having become mute, etc, and everything to do with the fact that we're (collectively and individually) about as sharp as a bowling ball, and have yet to digest the rich meal He's given us in Scripture to begin with.
There's a ton of outfits running around claiming inspiration for their extra-Biblical works, and there are a ton of Sola-Scriptura denominations, and other denoms, that have their own slant on how things should be done. Against all these claims I hold only the Scriptures as a measuring rod - it's similar to business, say what you want about we should do this for you or give you that, in the end everything is measured against the contract.
This position comes out of my own childhood problems and religious deception/manipulation. In His glorious word, I have exactly what I need, fixed, its integrity kept (I believe) by the power of the Spirit, so that I have a certain source for truth.
Plus, quite honestly, I've never encountered any information outside of the Bible that has much relevance to my life (aside from writers who discussed the Scriptures and their application).
I don't mean this to be hurtful, but this whole buisness of Nibru and the cabal of aliens and elites that run our earth doesn't mean much to me - I still have problems loving my neighbor as myself! And if aliens are out there, or if evil men are oppressing us with their hierarchies (nothing new there, aliens or not!) God can and will deal with them - it's sure no surprise to him.
Blessings,
Tom
edited to add: Cross posted with you. This was in response to your first post above.
[ 21. May 2013, 17:51: Message edited by: TomOfTarsus ]
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
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