I haven't much time today, but I really must applaud you here, John. You are right on with the "not having all the facts" part. That is exactly how I was planning to address Debbie's comment. I'm thrilled somebody actually has some insight into the way I think on this issue. Thank you, John. It is nice to be heard by you.
Debbie wrote: > if everything conforms to reason, > then everything is ultimately discoverable > by reason. The unspoken assumption in Debbie's comment here is that all facts are known. If we had all the facts, then yes, it naturally follows that everything would be discoverable by reason. The problem is that we don't have all the facts, so our research progresses along like jumping from one stone to another across a brook. The stones, however, are not uniformly distributed. Some are closer while others are farther away. And some are missing altogether. This is the way in which revelation helps out. It transports us to conclusions which are unobtainable by reason alone. Looking back and seeing where the missing stones would have been, we find that logic still works even though it did not carry us to where we are at directly. Your very last statement is the only thing where I have some disagreement. I just don't think your word "illogical" is appropriate. What we might say is that when we don't have all the facts, then knowing God by logic alone is not possible. David Miller p.s. I was very disappointed to see Debbie and Lance mingle the word "gnosticism" with words like "dualism, reductionism, and rationalism." This is very telling to me about the bias and prejudice in theological circles these days. I truly did not think it was that bad. ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 6:03 PM Subject: Re: Fw: [TruthTalk] torrance and logic I think David might say, It IS logical, all of it -- we just don't know all the facts as of yet." I would think all our discussion about logic as applied to the knowing of God suffers from this present time limitation, making necessary the self-revealing that TFT speaks of. Am I off course here? The fact that we don't have all the facts, makes the fact of knowing God by logic an illogical fact -- AT THIS TIME. True? jd -------------- Original message -------------- From: "Lance Muir" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- Original Message ----- From: Debbie Sawczak To: 'Lance Muir' Sent: March 20, 2006 08:35 Subject: RE: [TruthTalk] torrance and logic The TFT quote is apropos. I am appreciating the way Victor uses the word 'logic' to mean something similar to what 'logos' means as used by TFT below; it is always the logic of something, that is, peculiar to something. It strikes me that the unqualified use of the word, i.e., as a sort of absolute standard to which all truth must conform, is the same thing as rationalism. What David calls the 'esoteric' sense of rationalism is just the normal sense. Interestingly, if he applies his own kind of logic, the distinction between reason as the source of truth and reason as the standard (or criterion) of truth is spurious, for if everything conforms to reason, then everything is ultimately discoverable by reason. D From: Lance Muir [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 7:17 AM To: Debbie Sawczak Subject: Fw: [TruthTalk] torrance and logic ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: March 19, 2006 20:15 Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] torrance and logic David , in other posts of the day, I find you saying that yoou and Torrance are in agreement concerninglogic. I may ahve misunderstood your wording, but that was what you said according to my perspective. Below you say this: If you define "rationalist" in the more esoteric sense of the idea that reason is the source of truth, then I do not believe the Holy Spirit is a rationalist. By this definition, I am not a rationalist either. However, I do believe that the Holy Spirit is rational. He also does not lie or employ deception to mislead others. The Holy Spirit uses rational thought to speak to us, and he expects us to include rationality as a basis of belief and action. ---------- DM Torrance might give caution with these words: ".............. we should seek to understand Christ, not by way of observational deductions from his appearances, but in the light of what he is in himself in his internal relations with God, that is, in terms of his intrinsic significance disclosed through his self-witness and self-communication to us in word and deed and reflected through the evangelical tradition of the Gospel in the medium which he created for this purpose in the apostolic foundation of the Church ...... When we adopt this kind of approach, whether in natural science or in theology, we find that progress in understanding is necessarily circular. We develop a form of inquiry in which we allow some field of reality to disclose itself to us in the complex of its internal relations or its latent structure, and thus seek to understand it in the light of its own intrinsic intelligibility or logos ..............Thus we seek to understand something, not by schematising it to an external or alien framework of thought, but by operating wit h a framework of thought appropriate to it" -------The Mediation of Christ pp 4,5 -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.5/284 - Release Date: 3/17/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.5/284 - Release Date: 3/17/2006 ---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." 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