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Re: jaws

> Why not both?
> 
> Pauli
> 
> Alfred B. Johnson wrote:
> > It is only to say that the final and most important link in the 
> chain to
> > have faith in the God of Christianity is experiential.  Not 
> logical.

Well . . . this isn't prolly a good place to debate it, but I think that
human logic, coming from finite human minds, can't really get to the
infinite.  Which is to say, I think that we can build a lot of bridges
and draw a lot of conclusions using human logic, but in the end there's a
stretch between the end of human logic and the understanding of God. 
(*Understanding* is a problematic word here, of course, since it's all
caught up in our culture's notion of *understanding* as total logical
dissection . . . when understanding can happen in other ways.)

I think the church in our culture, since the Enlightenment, has
increasingly tried to apply Enlightenment logic to Christianity.  As if
we can tally the numbers, put God in a test tube, and, voila, there it
is, baby.  It's God, and we understand.  That's wrong.  There are
mysteries in faith.  Mysteries are things we experience and understand
without being able to explain.  And there are limits to human logic. 
There are limits to humanity's ability to formulate a perfect society.

And the notion of human-made Utopia died at Hiroshima, so it's about time
the church catches up with postmodernism and starts humbly recognizing
the limits of merely human mind and merely human endeavors.

This is not to say that I don't highly value logic.  I think we should go
as far as we can with the minds we have.  There are many things to learn
about God and scripture and the nature of faith that logic can help us
learn.  But faith itself is not logical.  It's not emotional either. 
It's something like a mix of logic and emotion that is distinctly neither
logic nor emotion.

I know this because I've experienced it.

I know this because others affirm my experience.

I know this because I have experienced it with others.

I know this because my experience of faith has been accompanied by God's
faithfulness.

But depending on logic alone, I can only conclude that God is dead, or
irrelevant, because he won't fit in the test tube at all.  Won't fit in
the lab.  Why factor in something we can't quantify?

 . . . but faith answers: because we must . . . 

Look at all them worms, bubba.  Spillin' out everywhere.  All kinds of
cans opened up.

Over the Rhine is a good band.

Fred

PS: Do people really keep worms in cans?  Like tomato soup?

NP: A-Ha, "Hunting High and Low"



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