Do you hold to Christianity? If so,
why?
David
"Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of
what's good for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke
On 9/29/2011 10:13 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Comments in the text :
message dated 9/29/2011 7:41:16 P.M. Pacific Daylight
Time, [email protected] writes: This
was an attempt started whn you first posted this. I
wanted to think on it some more.
Your annotations
take a lot of stuff away. I'm not sure that's to the
benefit of theology. I removed the unannotated article.
More below.
David
"Anyone who
thinks he has a better idea of what's good
for people than people do is a swine."--P. J. O’Rourke
On 9/25/2011 1:46 PM, [email protected] wrote:
First, the essay as originally published. Then my
comments in BF in an annotated
version
which follows.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Annotated Version
Why You Should Take Theology Seriously
In J. I. Packer’s 1973 classic Knowing God, he
points out that “ignorance of God --ignorance
both of his ways and of the practice of communion
with him-- lies at the root of much of the
church’s weakness today.” And just how
sure can anyone be that he or she "knows God" ?
While it can be maintained that the Bible is a
prime source of revelation, it cannot be
maintained that it is only Pure
Revelation since, clearly, the text was written
by fallible human beings. The various mistakes
in the text in various places --for instance
historical inaccuracies in Daniel or the
inconsistent lists of disciples in the
Gospels-- also tell us that flaws of the
writers are often in play. And then there are
conceptual issues. Clearly, for example, there
are at least two very different strands in the
Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, between the
worldview of books like Ecclesiastes and Esther
and Jonah, for example, and Deuteronomy and
Jeremiah. Moreover, beliefs notwithstanding, we
are given conceptions of God in the
Bible. The reality of God, or your
choice in characterizing the nature of the
divine however you think of him or her or the
Unknowable Ultimate, is another matter, and
maybe the best the Bible can give us, even if it
really is the best available, necessarily won't
be the final word. That is, it is simplistic to
the point of arrogance to claim that "you"
--anyone-- knows God in an
"all-questions-answered" sense. That is not
possible for any of us. Hence the problem is one
of the inescapable need to
muddle through , somehow, despite large areas of
ignorance in our understanding. Far from being
a side issue, the agnostic critique of religious
faith is absolutely fundamental. The
ignorance to which Packer refers is first and
foremost theological. To some, the term theology
evokes images of scholasticism and ivory tower
elitism with little practical use. However, the
science What "science" ? Where are the
testable hypotheses ? Where is the empirical
evidence as the word "empirical" is understood
by scientists ? As close to a science as we can
find is in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, but
even that is more of a philosophy based on
deductive logic that anything else. This kind of
loose use of an important word with serious
meaning really compromises language, and does so
in a dishonest way. Theology
is a form of philosophy if you want a
more-or-less valid comparison. of theology
is simply the organized and systematic study of
God. Every Christian is called to know God and if
we deny that responsibility then we deny what it
means to be Christian. Therefore every Christian
is to be a theologian in the strictest sense of
the word. Utterly pretentious.
DRB: You are tempting me to fire up the soft-copy
version of The Baker Encyclopedia of Christian
Apologetics, When Skeptics Ask, and When Critics Ask.
With these annotations, do you ascribe to Christianity
at all? If so, why?
Do I
ascribe WHAT to Christianity ? I don't understand
the question. What is it that
I
am or am not ascribing ? Can you clarify ? Thanks
I don't really like asking those questions. I
struggle to maintain status at amateur theologian.
Professional Theologians from various seminaries vary in
quality, so I'm not going to guess what Packer (or this
author) means. Yes, it does sound pretentious.
I think many in the American church know God in
the same way they know the president --they
know some facts about him, where he lives, what
he does, and so on --but they do not have a
relational knowledge of the actual person who is
president. This could be described as a cultural
theology. A biblical theology is more akin to
the relationship between a child and a good
parent. The child in this sense has a much more
intimate knowledge that, through time and
maturation, transmits the character and
expectations of the parent. Experience only
confirms this knowledge, producing trust, which
in turn fosters obedience. This may
well be one way to look at the issue, but what
says this is the only way to do so ?
Nothing. After all, the Bible itself
sometimes says that it is best to regard God
as a friend. And that is not the same as a
parent-child relationship. Sometimes it says
that what we should be doing, which is
emphasized by Paul, is thinking deeply and as
objectively-- as truthfully-- as possible
about higher things and hard questions, which,
of course, is also a message in the book of
Job. Then there is Song of Songs in which the
love between a man and woman is how we should
think about "theology." To base one's
understanding of theology on a parent-child
metaphor to the presumed exclusion of other
ways of thinking is, quite simply, absurd. Others
may take seriously the study of the president
and his office, its history, legal powers, and
so forth, but this is only theoretical since
this knowledge exists apart from any
relationship with the person who is president.
For many, this is their approach to theology; it
is only theoretical knowledge that often serves
to “puff up” and make people intellectually
proud. In the end, they may be more enamored
with the office of the president than they are
the person of the presidency.
DRB: Well, if one puts any stock into the Lord's
Prayer, it starts out with "Our Father." So why not a
parent? I don't know why you are allergic to the term.
Here is the quote,
first sentence :
This may well be one way to look at the issue,
but what says this is the only way to do so ?
The point isn't that a
parent metaphor is b-a-d but that to make this the de
facto
ONLY metaphor
is to ignore all the other metaphors in the Bible. Not
a good idea.
A proper biblical theology that every follower
of Christ should pursue is one that seeks to
know the character, nature, and will of God as
revealed in Scripture so that they may live in a
way that pleases him. Are we to believe
that this is a simple matter ? That this is an
open-and-shut case ?It would be nice if it
was, but how can anyone who is realistic take
that kind of outlook ? The world is a
complicated place and life is hardly a walk in
the park. There are trials and tribulations
everywhere even if, now and then, islands of
peace and tranquility may exist
somehow. Besides, try as anyone might, the
testimony of "the" Bible is sometimes
difficult to discern. This is because, or
partly because, the book is a library of texts
by different writers. How do you reconcile the
view of God in Ezra or Nehemiah with the views
in Proverbs or the Gospel of John or the
Apocalypse ? A simple assertion that they all
say the same thing is an evasion when you get
down to it. There are consistencies to be
found, but they may require a good deal of
serious questioning to discover and, even
then, some major problem may remain that defy
solution --at least if you are honest about
where you may have gotten to in your spiritual
journey. There is a practicality to
theology that produces relevant wisdom for
living in the real world. Some refer to this as
the Christian worldview, which is really only
another way of referring to a coherent biblical
theology ; it functions less
as a set of academic facts than as an analytical
framework for living properly. How can one
successfully live in the world without knowing
about the one who made and continues to govern
that world?
DRB: Packer, while Church of England all the way, is also
a Calvinist. Don't know about Craven. (Never heard of him
before this article.) If one follows Calvin, for instance,
certain texts are often bent beyond recognition as the
Calvinist tries mightily (in some instances) to justify
limited atonement or irresistible grace. This seems to be
the majority view with lots of Baptists and Presbyterian
evangelicals holding to it. I think that they are building
their theology backwards, but they tend not to listen to
me. The battle is always about Biblical interpretation.
While the Calvinists build a "sound" biblical system, if
some of their fundamental assumptions are wrong, then the
whole thing collapses. They can't have that, so they make
up for their lack of clear statements from the Bible of
their tenets with condescension and derision.
In John 17 : 3, Jesus provides
the best definition of theology --he equates
knowledge of God with eternal life. Here,
eternal life is not merely a reference to our
experience after death, but a life lived now
that is qualitatively different from our former
lives and the lives of those around us. In other
words, the greater our knowledge of God, the
more abundant is our experience of life in
Christ. This is an unobjectionable and
even inspirational statement. Yet this is not
to say that it is definitive. After all, John
17 : 3 is followed by 17 : 4, and there are
many other related texts in the Bible. Verse
4, for instance, tells us that the work we do,
presumably our chosen profession, is
important in our understanding of spiritual
things. Or, in an alternative reading, God
gives each of us a mission on Earth and we
derive deep meaning from all the tasks that a
mission requires, not as hurdles to jump over
but as opportunities to learn and grow. Maybe
think of this as each of us having our own
"labors of Hercules" to accomplish, including
--at least by way of metaphor-- cleaning piles
of horse manure in the Augian stables. Another
perspective is found in Wisdom of Solomon
where it is the story of the Shekinah that is
crucial, she who was with the Lord from the
beginning, his companion and the source of
wisdom for all mankind. In other words,
personally I sometimes get rather annoyed by a
tendency among a class of Evangelicals who
insist that everything must be reduced to the
most simplistic understanding anyone can think
of, and that --and nothing else-- is the
essence of Christian faith.
DRB: If you are going to decry simplicity, then I
suppose that you are in favor of complexity. No? I think
that people have been adding their own restrictions to
the requirements for being or becoming a Christian in
order to make it difficult to get their "badge of
approval."
The
point is : What is the best way to think about any of
this ?
Best may mean most realistic, most accurate,
most to the point, most persuasive,
and
so forth.
It
can mean simplest, easiest to understand, most "on
point." The complaint
wasn't
about simplicity, but about reduction of all ( to
exaggerate ) issues
or
beliefs to their most simple form. At times that is
the worst thing to do
even
if, at other times, it is the best. Very complex to
puzzle through
many
mysteries in the Bible. But each part of the Sermon on
the Mount
is
simple yet ( mostly ) is profound. It should be easy
enough to figure out
when
to get your thinking cap on and when you don't really
need to
worry
about levels of meaning or parabolic concepts.
Remember,
Jesus did speak in parables and none have surface
meaning.
You
need to think them through to get the point. Then
there is Ephesians 5
which
is all about the need for being critical-minded, and
Paul, in chapters
10
and 13 in II Corinthians, makes much of examining
facts carefully, etc,
My
favorite verse on this subject is from Hebrews 6 : 1
--
"Let
us stop discussing the rudiments of Christianity. We
ought not to be
laying
over again the foundations of faith..."
In recent weeks I have tried to offer critical
analysis and a thoughtful response to
Christendom’s collapse and the lingering
influence of the Constantinian system. Many were
challenged and responded with recognition that
these are relevant and serious questions that
must be considered if we seek to recover a
biblical understanding of the gospel and the
mission of the church. Others however responded
in ways that reveal a lack of reliance upon
proper theology A "proper theology" as
defined Craven is not serious theology at
all. It is a species of apologetics, a
sub-field of rhetoric. And this is
extolled as good "theology" ? What a
mischaracterization. and instead
rely on emotional impulse or culturally induced
ways of thinking, which they attempt to validate
by use of selected proof texts.The proof
text approach is nowhere more evident than in
Craven's writing.
DRB: Well, that's what a Calvinist DOES.
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
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