living proof
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
The belief policy of the Christian … is not “believe whatever you are told no matter how seemingly ridiculous” but rather “believe what you are told about God by those who have it on good authority and whose testimony — which includes their lives (and deaths — are reliable indicators of practical wisdom.” …
No special privileges or perogatives should be allowed to insulate theological truth claims from the crucible of testing. To pour onelsefl out for the sake of the evangelical truth claim mean making the way of Christ intelligible, both theoretically and practically. It means living a life that embodies the Word in the power of the Spirit in a way that is able to meet, an pass, the critical tests of human reflecting and human existence.
Kevin J. Vanhoozer in First Theology
I want to suggest that scientific proof, philosophical proof and riligeous proof follow the same rules…After a question has been defined … We must be able to live consistently with our theory.
Francis Schaeffer in The God Who is There
For the human makers of things, the incompletenesses and inconsistencies of our ideas become clear only during implementation. Thus it is that writing, experimentation, “working out” are essential disciplines for the theoretician.
Frederick P. Brooks Jr in The Mythical Man Month
Tags: apologetics, theology, worldview
Powerpoint theology
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
While on holiday recently, my thoughts turned to propositional truth. As they do…
It’s not always clear to me what people mean by this term — it seems to expand and contract depending on the individual’s views. I’m going to take it roughly to mean things that could be expressed in a Powerpoint bullet.
The existence, importance, etc. of propositional truth seems to be lurking a lot in post-modern/emergent discussions. I think you have to start by saying that of course propositional truth has value. Even the oft-quoted Uncertainty Principle and Godel’s incompleteness theorems are expressed propositionally and in a very precise way. So, we have to take propositions seriously.
On the other had, I wonder if, in many cases, propositions just doesn’t get us as far as we think they do. Let’s take an example: the statement ‘God exists’. Seems like a simple proposition, either true or not. But immediately we are lead to the question ‘What do you mean by God?’ OK, that’s not the end of the world — we could start to flesh things out with other propositions, like ‘God is love’. But, then I have to ask how good a grasp I, as a less-than-perfect human, have on love. And so on. And so on. Before you know it, I think I’m going to end up at ‘In the beginning …’ and find myself having to tell the whole story.
I think we have to be careful thinking that we can abstract propositions out of the Bible, without retaining the whole of the story. Otherwise, you have the danger of ending up with something that doesn’t match the source any longer, if not in our minds, then in the minds of those listening. And we have to realise that you can’t pick up a phrase or two on their own without the entire text coming with them. Like a bowl of spaghetti — you might try to pick out one piece, but you soon find that you have no choice but to go for the entire tangled mass.
I guess it was easier when we lived in a society that had an essentially common background. When you said ‘God exists’, etc. you could be reasonably sure that the people listen had something approximately similar in mind. But when the culture starts to fracture, it becomes less easy. Suddenly, you can’t rely on the assumed common ground and the propositions have to give way to other expressions, like re-telling stories.
You also have to be sure you listen carefully to make sure you have the common ground right. But that is a post for another day…
Tags: apologetics, postmodernism, provocations, story, theology
This changes everything…
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I went to see Tom Wright talk about ‘Can a scientist believe in the resurrection?’ last week (put on by the Faraday Institute). He had an interesting point about epistemology. The context was apologetics and the question: can we prove the claims of Christianity? Or alternatively, are the claims outside the realm of proof?
Wright took a middle-ish ground: If the resurrection is true then we are forced to re-shape our epistemology around it. However, our existing epistemology can get us to the point where the resurrection becomes a historical possibility; at that point we have to chose whether we accept or reject it. So, there is overlap between the two epistemological systems – our historical investigation gets us to the resurrection, but if we take the step of accepting it as truth then we are forced to re-build our entire view to accommodate what we have accepted.
You know what, he said it a lot better than that…
Anyway, this made two connections for me.
The first is Michael Ramsden’s emphasis that becoming a Christian is a ontological change — it changes who we are, rather than simply being an intellectual shift, etc. As Paul says — ‘if anyone is in Christ – new creation!’. He draws an interesting conclusion: it is often said that to be honest in apologetics, we have be prepared to be proved wrong. But if the change is ontological not intellectual, then perhaps this is not true. Once a Christian, I do not conitnue to believe because I am persuaded, but because I am changed. Intellectual argument is not going to reverse that. As a poor example — if I have develop the power to see through walls, I may have to work to persuade you of this, but I am I being dishonest if I am not open to the possibility of being proved wrong? Of course, this may lead to the question of our confidence in the claim that we are changed.
Connecting this with Tom Wright — in both views new creation (of me or the resurrection) produces a fundamental re-structuring, which impacts the very basis of the process that got me there in the first place.
The second connection was back to a previous post. I was playing with the importance of having our worldview framed not just by creation and fall, but by incarnation and new creation. Again, when the resurrection comes in, it changes everything…
Tags: apologetics, worldview
Lessons from ‘a sinless society’
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, a bit of a mis-leading subject – I’ve been reading “Atonement for a ‘sinless’ society” by Alan Mann. I don’t have loads to say about it, but a couple of thoughts have stayed with me:
The first is comes from his comments on the Holy Spirit. It’s hard to quote without confusing, because the discussion comes towards the end of the book and assumes a lot of the preceding argument. So, I’ll try and summarise a little: The essence fo the books argument is that the atonement has relevance for post-moderns because Jesus is the only one with narrative or ontological coherence (which is what we seek and are most aware of our failing in). Sin is characterised by ‘the absence of mutual undistorted, unpolluted relating’ to the ‘Other’ (i.e. other people and God). Jesus shows a life characterised by the opposite of this.
(All of which is an interesting approach and helpful as long as it adds to other perspectives, rather than replace them. I don’t believe Mann is looking to replace, but to supplement.)
Anyway, in coming to the Holy Spirit, Mann says
… Jesus is ultimately enabled in his relatedness to the ‘Other’, and in his own narrative coherence, by the relationship he already has with the Spirit. Or, to simplify: Jesus’ ontological coherence comes ultimately not from his ‘godness’ as the second person of the Divine Trinity, but because of his relationship to the third person — the Spirit of God. By implication, this must also be true of all who seek a similar liberating narrative. We are freed form our self-seeking and self-justifying and enabled to love and be loved by the presence of the Spirit in our lives…
What stuck me was the idea of enabling coming from relationship. It seems to me that although Christians are keen to emphasise that the Holy Spirit is a person not a ‘force’, when talking about being empowered by the Spirit, it can be an impersonal force that we have in mind. The idea that it is in the relationship that empowering is found makes a lot of sense and fills in gaps in the picture.
The second is easier to discuss. Mann makes the point that our descriptions of atomement must not be ‘thin’. We should have ‘thick descriptions of the human plight and of God’s atonement’. (That quote actually from Robin Parry, but only because I know how to find it quickly!) We should make sure that what we say encompasses the full problems that we see and the depth of God’s solution. We shouldn’t reduce it to short and shallow statements. I think this is an important thing to remember.
Interestingly, I was struck by the last point in our church meeting today. We had an excellent apologetic preach (by Toby Skipper — not that you will know him, but it was good enough for me to want to name-check him!) This included the traditional problem-of-evil statement: In order to create a world with love in it, God had to give people freewill; people then used that freewill to go against Him, hence ‘the fall’ and evil enters. The emphasis is always on freewill in morality and breaking of the ‘moral law’.
Before today, I have always wondered if this statement implicitly made love a moral concept by explicitly linking love and moral choice; which seemed a bit narrow. Today I wondered if the statement is a good starting point, but is limited in a different way. It assumes that the result of ‘the fall’ is limited to morality and hides the fact that the problem fans out into all of life — everything falls apart, not just morality. Maybe we should retain the idea, but note that love is primarily a relational concept; so the centre of the ‘falling apart’ is not morality, but our inability to have mutual undistorted, unpolluted relating with God and others.
What do you know, I’m back to Alan Mann again. Hummm, maybe I did have a lot to say after all.
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A final comment. The book has an interesting addition — Robin Parry adds clarification questions which Alan Mann responds to. Mann seems a little uncomfortable with this at first, but I have to say it help enormously. I think it should be welcomed. It would be good if others took a similar approach. It’s nice to start debates on a amicable note!
Tags: apologetics, books
Teach us to care and not to care
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
It’s been a long time since I last posted, but work has dominated the end of the summer and there wasn’t much mental bandwidth left.
At the risk of sounding like I only think about a very limited number of subjects, someone returned my copy of Engaging Unbelief and my thoughts wandered that way again…
I’ve been pondering why a lot of apologetics leaves me cold. I think perhaps it is because frequently the writes/speakers don’t seem to care about the questions, only giving the winning arguments. (I don’t want to imply that their motivation is necessarily poor. It may be presentation, it may be the situations in which I have come across the presentations, etc. And in many cases I have a lot of respect for the people.) What I really want to feel, even as someone in ‘the choir’ being preached to, is that the speaker cares deeply about the issues and has wrestled with them, not simply that they have figured out a convincing repost.
If you remember Engaging Unbelief looks at the apologetics of Augustine and Aquinas. For them, apologetics meant going inside the story of the people you are talking to and showing how Christianity resolves the plot tensions. I think this related to what I’ve been feeling. Loving apologetics, doesn’t look from them outside & point out problems; it gets inside and wrestles with the issues alongside those already there. More risky, perhaps, but only if we’re not sure that what we believe is true.
I think this is what Francis Schaeffer tried to do. You get the impression that he truly felt the issues he was addressing. And that he wrestled deeply with the intellectual problems of those he came into connect with. Consequently, I’m more than happy to listen to his arguments, even when some of my opinions have wandered from his.
Interestingly, I have a similar response, from the other side, when reading Terry Ealgeton’s review of Richard Dawkins. When someone takes time to get inside your worldview to that extent, you have to respect it. If, after such a presentation, Eagleton offers problems with Christianity, then I would feel it valuable to talk with him about them. If people come with arguments without really engaging with the issues, then my motivation to listen is far less.
Tags: apologetics, provocations
modifying symbols
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Another quote from Art & Soul:
We have the dilemma of using a symbol system that was not made for our worldview… I think the thing we’re waiting for is a genius to come forth who can make a new symbol system… or more properly, as symbol systems don’t come overnight, a group of people to modify the symbol systems of our day, so that we can use them for our Christian message without a disadvantage.
Francis Schaeffer
This brings all sorts of things up in my mind. For a start, it bounces interestingly off the posts from a couple of weeks ago (on Engaging Unbelief, etc.) I find the start interesting, but perhaps questionable (questions to follow below!) But I get happier as he refines the comments at the end.
Random thoughts/questions:
Is hoping for a symbol system made for our worldview the right start? Is it even practical? What would a symbol system ‘made for our worldview’ even look like? Perhaps it’s better to think of our worldview being expressed through whatever symbols are available. Maybe that give space for new things we didn’t even know were there to be expressed. If we have something ‘made for our worldview’ it may only let us say things we already know.
It’s really the ‘waiting for a genius’ idea that I have most issue with. (Admittedly he backs off and takes a position that seems far more valid.) Surely art in a Christian view has to be a community activity. And forming symbols can’t just be left to one ‘genius’. This seems to give into the Romantic view of artist as lone hero type view. And again, would producing a new system of symbols get us anywhere? Would it connect with anyone. You are likely to end up with a group of people (or an individual genius!) who can only talk amongst themselves.
It’s when he alters this to ‘a group of people’ who are ‘modifying the symbol systems of our day’ that I think he is on a better track. And now we are getting back to the ‘Engaging Unbelief’-type view: Entering another’s story and retelling. Or subverting the symbols. And there is a useful hint of community, which is surely the way this has to be done. Especially in a post-modern world.
Tags: apologetics, art, L\'Abri/Francis Schaeffer
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...