----- Original Message -----
Sent: July 06, 2005 23:40
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Jesus of the
Bible
Blue.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 6:52
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Jesus of the
Bible
> David Miller wrote:
>>> When a
person says that they will always sin,
>>> this is the same thing
as saying that they will
>>> always fail to love their
brother.
>
> Debbie wrote:
>> Hang on. Surely you don't
hear anybody saying we
>> will always sin, or always fail to
love.
>
> Yes I do hear that.
Sigh. If by "always" you understand
"as long as we are in this life, on some occasions", then yes, you do hear
that. But someone might misapprehend your representation of our position
as "on every occasion".
> Debbie wrote:
>> The claim is that
we will not do all the
>> loving that we ought.
>
>
Hmmm. This statement can be taken different ways. In one way, I
would
> agree with you, but in another way, I would not. What are
you trying to
> say?
I am saying that I (and you)
will fail to love, will act out of something other than unadulterated
love, numerous times between now and death.
>
> Debbie wrote:
>> (This is
a similar mistake to the one you made with
>> Lance's statement about
interpretation, suggesting he
>> was making the claim that all
interpretation was error.)
>
> I think you misunderstood
me. I understand Lance's position to be that all
> of us have
error in how we practice interpreting the Bible. Did I get that
>
wrong?
What you said was, "[The
statement that all teaching is interpretation] is not the same as saying that
all interpretation is error." And I am saying, of course it isn't, nobody was
claiming that it was the same. Nobody has claimed that all interpretation is
error, but rather that any of it might be. The practical upshot of this
is not that we should have no confidence at all as interpreters, but that we
should stop short of considering our interpretation as oracular, on
the same level with Scripture itself. There has to be the
possibility of changing one's mind.
> ...if Christine and I both tried to draw a picture of an object,
> Lance would look at each picture and say that each picture had it
wrong in
> this way or that way. I look at both pictures and
point out how they both
> are interpreting the same object, but
differently for different reasons.
>>From my perspective, neither
picture is wrong or faulty. They just differ
because of the varying
talents, abilities, and perspectives of the painters.
But David, that is not what you say in practice. You
actually call the other person's picture a "doctrine of demons". You seem
to me to speak out of both sides of your mouth on this. Your subscription to
diversity, it turns out, is strictly an abstract ideal; I haven't seen it
in practice where a person's picture differs noticeably from yours.
Meanwhile, since Lance doesn't claim to have superior access to the
object, I think maybe what he would say is more like, "Careful now; let's
keep in mind they're both only pictures". But I agree with something
I think you have been suggesting at other times, though, which is that the
perspective problem is not so much with perspective on the object (we don't
have "perspective" on the object, in this analogy, since it is
invisible) as with "perspective" on the pictures. Sometimes, I am
looking at yours upside down through a green lens, and you have cut mine up
into little squares and rearranged the squares. --Or at least the part about
you is true! :-)
For me, error would be when somone draws the picture of
>
something else entirely, or puts such a half hearted effort into it that the
> picture in no way resembles what it is meant to resemble.
Ahem--not to mention any names. But of course, some
people when looking at a picture arrive at this judgment much more quickly
than others. I think--and I could be wrong--that what Lance has been
trying to establish, on various occasions, is whether any two
people on TT even agree on when to draw this conclusion. [BTW Lance: is
this whole discussion not reminiscent of Carver's
Cathedral?]
Here's my attempt at a statement that could be
unanimously amenned: "Jesus Christ is Lord." (If it ain't unanimous now,
it will be one of these days!)
Debbie
