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re: proofs and people
hi peter and list,
peter:
> > But this just begs the question, *especially* if
these terms are
> > supposed to be different from inerrancy -- what
*is* perfection?
what
> > *is* infallibility?
>
j. marie:
> god communicating with me via himself? through
jesus, through his
word.
> me coming into contact with jesus via the word and
having it change
my
> life--en vivo?
peter:
So "perfection" and "infallibility" rest on how you
judge which things
in
your life come from God and which things don't? I
dunno, unless you're
perfect and infallible yourself, I don't see how that
follows.
marie:
-->i can understand the problem here. and that's
probably why i responded with question marks. b/c i
don't know how to answer what is perfect according to
god without relying on an intrinsically subjective
perspective. what else could we rest on?
----------------------------------------------
> . . . and getting to know god via a relationship
with the text. am i
> getting too postmodern here????
Well, there's more than one kind of post-modern. :)
The thing is, if you're going to get post-modern on
us, then I would
probably expect you to argue *against* "perfection"
and
"infallibility".
These seem to me to be very fixed, modern reference
points.
-->indeed. the whole point is plurality anyway.
fragments and the margins becoming central, many
centers. but i'm not a postmodernist per se. i can,
however, gell with some of their ideas regarding a
text and the passing on of messages and communication
in general. fred and i have talked about this
some--he's really helped me look at it in different
ways.
------------------------------------------------------
> next to "why?" and "is it really possible," "why
not?" might be an
> equally valid question.
Depends where you think the burden of proof lies.
-->but where i have the problem is that the decision
to place it isn't exactly made by an entirely
qualified and objective participant :) faith may seem
flighty, but i don't have any more confidence in the
impositions my brain might come up with, even if it
were with the rest of humanity. hey, we _could_ just
worship ourselves. like rich mullins said, "we are
not as strong as we think we are."
> > Ah, but like all images, it is polyvalent -- it
can be interpreted
in
> > more than one direction.
>
> even though i wanna think a lot more about this--a
very interesting
> point (go peter!), i'd hunker down with some context
right about now.
> what's the metaphor mean in its period (socially,
geographically,
> chronologically) and in its own textual context: the
>shadow of the old testament, with the light of the
>new testament and what else was being
> preached in it?
But what if there is *more* than one social or
geographical or
chronological or textual context for the image?
-->this is what has me thinking. will you say more
here? send me some examples, possibilities? are we
talking post and pre with chronological? are we
talking transmission issues?
> . . . in general if you look at death and
destruction, even in our
> limited world of if/then, we're looking at
disobedience and evil.
> they're the fruit of sin.
I don't know if I buy that, actually. I tend towards
the view
expressed
by C.S. Lewis in his space trilogy (and cautiously
echoed by, say, N.T.
Wright), that physical death was a natural part of our
creation, and
the
problem is that sin distorted our relationship with
death, just as it
distorted our relationship with everything else. What
is new is not
death
per se -- without it, creation as we know it, with its
food chains and
reproductive cycles, would be impossible -- but our
*fear* of it.
-->agreed. i should have been more specific with my
loose use of "death." sometimes i'd link it to its
counterpart spiritually. i probably need to do a word
study on that one soon :)
whether it's metaphorical or otherwise, i don't think
lewis would posit that it doesn't matter whether or
not you live eternally (but i'm not saying that you
implied that).
> > There is also the fact that the Holy Spirit does
not *do*
everything
> > that he *can* do. God *can* cure cancer, but in
almost every case
> > that I am aware of, he has not. So to say the
Holy Spirit *can*
> > ensure the Bible is "infallible" (whatever that
means) does not
mean
> > he *will* do that.
>
> good point, but it doesn't mean that he didn't.
there's not enough
> evidence that suggests that he didn't. i don't know
that there's
any.
Well, before we start *looking* for evidence, we have
to ask if such
evidence is even *possible*. Is there any way your
claim can be
falsified? If so, then we can start looking for that
evidence. If
not,
then your hypothesis is completely untestable, and, as
they say, that
which is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously
denied.
-->i don't know that it's that simple. one can take
it that way; but as far as evidence goes, i was
racking my brain for issues in modern science and in
literary investigation. a little revisionist history?
it seems to point to a lot of things--but it doesn't
dismiss all of the claims that have disgruntled and/or
been used to abuse people.
and anyway, i'm pointing not only to my perspective
that might be dismissed as easily as it is embraced
but rather to all. each point of view makes a lot of
assumptions. and when you keep pealing back the
layers, you find a faith of sorts--and admission of
not knowing all of it for sure. and so the basis for
whatever the view is rarely more clear or viable than
others even if we can all agree on a criterion.
take care,
j. marie
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