I will be posting on my understanding of truth sometime soon.
I am looking forward to reading your perspective, Bill. To help you address areas of interest to me, I offer you a few comments below.
Bill Taylor wrote:
For far too long, far too many Christians have believed the lie: that truth is more important than relationships. This is wrong -- dead wrong.
From my perspective, truth sometimes helps define relationships. Forexample, if it is a truth that marriage is ordained of God to establish a relationship between a man and a woman, then anybody who tries to establish a marriage relationship between two men, or between two women, or between a dog and a cat, or between a man and his dog, would be in gross error and unable to do it.
Another example would be exactly what John Smithson taught us in a past post. Suppose a person comes to understand that sometimes ministering to a person's emotional state is more important than ministering to their intellect state by trying to get them to see that he is right about a particular viewpoint. So at certain times, he uses this understanding to lay aside his desire to argue a particular viewpoint in order to hold and comfort his wife or child at a time when they need that. In such a case, what we basically have is an axiom of truth that itself exists outside of relationships and independently from it. This axiom of truth serves as a guiding principle that actually enhances relationships.
Therefore, while I agree with your effort to temper the idea that "truth is more important than relationships," I think proclaiming this statement to be "dead wrong" is a bit of an overstatement. There exists the other extreme whereby somebody thinks that godly relationships can exist without truth, or that truth is defined only by relationships and in the context of relationships.
Bill Taylor wrote:
Friends, it is impossible to pursue truth in an Enlightenment, scientific (and by that I mean an impersonal, non-relational) manner. Truth cannot fit in a beaker. It's not some inanimate object.
I think the scientific revolution proves this idea false. Truth can fit in a beaker, so-to-speak. It does exist as both an inanimate object and an animate object (Jesus Christ). What you express here is exactly why many revolted against the church and Christianity, and why Christianity is no longer the pillar of truth, the pillar of education, that it once once. While I think the scientists go too far to reject revelation entirely, they did make a strong historical case that truth can be found in nature by studying it using only the physical senses and the God given gift of intellect. They proved that at least some understanding of truth does "fit in a beaker."
Bill Taylor wrote:
You can't boil it or dissect it, without destroying it in the process. Nor is it a vaulted concept. You can't dog it out like a bloodhound on the scent of a trail, without destroying the very relationships that it embodies. You can't roll over people in pursuit of "truth," without truth always eluding you.
What you say here does not apply for those of us who do not hold tightly to their viewpoints, who perceive that our understanding can change in an instant with one piece of hidden knowledge being revealed.
The only time dogging it out like a bloodhound on the scent of a trail would destroy relationships is if there are some people involved in the process who perceive their relationship to others is based upon philosophical agreement. The concept that we are related through the blood of Christ is exactly what destroys barriers like this. What groups are more distant from one another ideologically and culturally than the Jew and the Gentile? Yet in Christ Jesus, there exists a relational agreement despite the ideological and cultural disagreements. The Judaizers are an example of some who in words (in theology, if you will) saw that they could be united in relationship with the Gentiles, but only if those Gentiles accepted their ideological and cultural traditions. This is a common problem among human beings. We invariably want everyone else to be in our own image, and if they don't conform, we get bent out of shape about it. We start declaring them "enemies" or if not enemies, then aquaintances instead of friends, etc.
It seems to me that you are attempting to define all truth only in terms of "relationship," and I think this is a gross mistake. It is part of the problem that I had with Torrance's philosophy. While there is a basis of truth to it that I would not want to see you set aside, there is an exclusive nature to the idea that actually fractures relationships with others who do not buy into your personal ideology and understanding of this topic. In other words, the divisiveness that you seek to avoid by defining truth as relationship is the very thing that you continue to aggravate by demanding everyone else agree with your ideology or relationships will suffer. You theology is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy if you will.
I hope you don't take my statements as argumentative or as something meant to "one-up" you. I truly am simply sharing my thoughts as one who is fond of the sciences and its methods of pursuing truth and not so found of the approach of many theologians. I value your viewpoint as someone who has been trained in fields far away from my area of expertise. I share my thoughts only so you might know how to address me as part of your audience as you prepare to share your understanding of truth. I look forward to your future article on truth.
Shalom, shalom.
David Miller.
---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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