From: REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: My last post on Re: Liberal vs. Conservative
Date: 13 Sep 92 03:51:16 GMT
Organization: FNAL

In article <Sep.11.00.23.58.1992.16437@athos.rutgers.edu> masimo@netcom.com
(Michael Maas) writes:
>In article <Aug.27.03.29.17.1992.5298@athos.rutgers.edu> REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov
writes:
>>In article <Aug.25.01.29.56.1992.18575@athos.rutgers.edu> masimo@netcom.com
>>(Michael Maas) writes:
>>>And the bible is just a collection of theological attempts by our
>>>Jewish and Christian predecessors and is therefore also only relatively
>>>true.
>>
>>     Did you really say that Mike?  Come on, you're pulling my leg aren't
you? 
>
>Certainly I said it, moreover, I've been saying much the same thing all along.
>If you haven't noticed it till now, I am concerned, really concerned that
>you're not listening.  

Hearing a thing a believing a thing are 2 different thangs.
>
>>    Was it Sartre that said that the particular (you and me, your ideas and
my
>>ideas) become absurd without an infinite reference point?  I say that when
you
>>allow the Bible to become errant, you remove the only objective infinite
>>reference point that we have today.  
>
>Balderdash.  There is no objective infinite referrent to which we can directly
>refer, only our rather relative perceptions of it.  I don't deny the existence
>of the Absolute, only that the bible is, in any sense, it.  I find that to be 
>a patently ridiculous claim and one that you continue to make over and over.  
>I cannot but think that you have made yourself liege to the bible in the place

>of God.
>
Now who's not listening?  This idea of relativism is what is "balderdash." 
I've been trying to think of examples and I've come up with two quick ones.  
1)  The garden.  You know, "Thou shall not eat of the fruit from the tree of
good and evil."  Hmmmm.  Shoulds like communication to me.  Its not exhaustive.
 It is either/or.  God created us in His image, therefore we can have real
communication.  It is not relative.  [You run off and say, "Let's talk of the
love of God."  I say, "Lets talk about God is light."]  He's a revelatory God. 
He communicates real communication.  He is infinite, we are finite.  He can
communicate with us and we with Him.  Thus the subordinate standard says: "The
chief end of man is to love God and enjoy Him forever."  How can you love &
enjoy without true communication.
2)  Are you married?  What if you're wife said to you, "Honeybun, I know I said
'love, honor & obey' but there's this guy at work, and well.... I love him. 
I'd like to have an affair with him.  As you've said, there are no objective
absolutes, therefore I hold that our marriage is relative.  Honey, I love him!
(meaning eros)
     I don't mean this to be mean.  It's an illustration.  The illustration
points to the fact that we live as if there are absolutes.  What good is a
marriage vow if it is only relative.  How about your authority over your
children.  You're 12 yrs old starts bring home HUSTLER mag.  You say, "You
can't have that in this house." Rightfully so.  But by what authority do you
have to say that to him?  By what authority do you have a right to feel
offended when your wife has an affair.  Where did you get that standard that
you have in your head?  And how do you feel about it being relative now?

>There are those of us who are willing to open ourselves to the spontaneity 

Well, there's your spontaneity.  And sadly enough, that senario happens too
often *because of* the relativistic worldview is now the predominate one.

>of the world, and to allow God to come to us as God chooses.  

I have a real problem with this because of the advent of the New Age movement. 
"Let go and Let God" is a dangerous attitude.  Those of us who have
participated in occult counselling know just how dangerous it is.  

>There there are those
>who wish to force God to come only through the scriptures, through tradition
>or through some other sacred cow.  

Who's forcing.  It was His plan to reveal Himself to our dispensation via the
Scriptures.  Its not my plan.  The Messiah has come so there are no more new
revelations.  Thus Rev speaks of the judgement of those who add to the rev
given in the Scriptures.  As I've said else where, I don't only hold to the
inerrancy of the original manuscripts, but also the inerrancy of their covers. 
This is why LDS, and those who add other "writings" will have some explaining
to do.  All other standards are subordinate to the Canon.  However there is a
place for these standards and traditions, but in their place.  We don't tell
the unbeliever that he must believe in order to attend our assembly.  We do say
that you have to have placed your faith in the person and work of Jesus to
participate in the communion.  To be an officer of the church you have to agree
with, say for instance, the Westminister Confession of Faith.  However, we
would expect the Pastor not only to believe in it, but to understand it and
practice it.  Word for word?  No.  It is a subordinate standard.  Only the
Bible is taken word for word.  If the Confession is not taken word for word
then what use is it?  Plenty.  The individual assembly may disagree with the
Confessions statements regarding Church & State.  There is no problem here.  We
have a problem when we fail to understand the difference between Biblical
Theology and Systematic Theology.  Biblical Theology must come 1st.  In it you
start with Gen 1 and draw the conclussion of doctrine "a".  In Gen 2 you draw
out doctrine "b".  Systematic theology then comes along afterwards and
catalogues the doctrines into groupings.  That is the only difference, but
Biblical Theo comes first.

>The first group can be said to believe in 
>God or to "faithe" (intended to be a verb} in God, the second to believe or
>to faithe in a belief about God.  Unfortunately you have chosen the wider road
>of the second order.

This is an naive conclusion.  Let me tone that down so you're not affended. 
Lets say its a simplistic conclusion.  I understand your point, but I don't
think its applicable.  I'm surprised you didn't say I choose the narrower road,
you know -narrow minded.  
Hmmm. "Faith in a belief about God."  Ya, I can see that.  I do have faith in
my belief system of God.  But my belief system of God has faith in God. Tha'ts
why I think your statement "misses the mark."
>
>There is no guarantee that either of these roads will be successful, human
>fallibility remains a trap into which individuals can fall on either road,
>but our discussion has finally brought home to me this crucial difference
>between our two ways of approaching God.

THis is true if you're saying that rationalism will get us to the same
conclusions that we have in the Scripture, or even to a fuller understanding. 
There is nothing wrong with being rational, but it is an insufficient basis to
build upon.  Ultimately you end up with relitivism which ultimately is chaotic.
Thus the statement:
>
>>Again, Schaeffer: If you have no absolute
>>by which to judge society, then society is absolute.  
>
>Pure sophistry!  Schaeffer, apparently unable to face up to the fact that
>there are no concrete condensed atomic absolute values on which to depend 
>decides that the best reason to assert that there must be is that the choice 
>one is forced to, if one doesn't believe that, is to accept something else as 
>absolute (he has chosen society, but he might just as well have chosen 
>something else).  
>
You're right, he could have chose a host of things.  Society though I think is
one of the better one's.  It is definable and verifiable.  I certainly wouldn't
call it fallacious reasoning, equivocationalism.  What are your standards to
make this judgement?

>Let's look at society.  What does the word mean.  As a referrent for someone's

>absolute it will quickly break down because each and every "someone" has a 
>different, in a very real ontological and existential sense, society.  In
>other words, there is no monolithic society that can take on the quality
>of absolute.

Oh contrar mon capitan.  The collective consciousness of any society can
quickly become an arbitrary absolute.  Certainly it can not put forth a True
Absolute, only the infinite/personal can put that forth, and then He has
restraints.  I see the current viewpoint as that in which problems can arise in
the history of human action only when unconsciously acquired habits of action
no longer suffice for the situation in which men are placed.  It is only when
new wine has to be poured into old bottles that ferment sets in, and men begin
to think about the nature of morality.  So it is said that in the case of the
Greeks there were accepted moral codes which were not questioned till Athens
grew into the head of an empire and the Sophists brought about a general
restlessness.  Dr Muirhead, in "The Elements of Ethics" states:"Then a
condition of doubt, uncertainty, and general perplexity was created, out of
which in due time arose, under the influence of Socrates, the first sketch of
science of morality".  But such a claim rests upon the assuption of the truth
of the non-Christian position.  If Xianity is true, genuine problems can arise
even if man is willingly subordinate to God in all his thinking.  Not only
that, but if Xianity is true, it is only in it that man can really face any
problem at all.  If Xistianity be true the possiblity of the asking of any
questions about anything whether it be ethical or something else, depends upon
the presuppostion of God as revealed in Christ as absolute.  
     For Xians the differnce between theological and philosophical ethics can
be no more than one of emphasis.  Both have to interpret the moral life in all
of its manifestation in light of SCRIPTURE!  I don't mean to get off into a
look at the scope of Chritian ethics, but we could certainly do it from your
points mentioned above.  Lets just say Henry  King, Charles Briggs, and even
the more conservative James Stalker, have non-Xian working models of ethics. 
Notice I'm not saying they aren't/weren't Xians, I'm saying their ethical
models are.  Again, maybe some other time.
>
>What is clearly necessary is to go a step further into what it means to be
>a human being.  The best expression of this philosophically I have found is
>that of Alfred North Whitehead.  

WHITEHEAD!!!  Nuff said.  

>"Greased Pig"! nice talk. 

I take it that you preferred "bobb'n for apple's!"

>You, seem to have a blind spot, and to
>believe that because you consider the bible to somehow be outside of the 
>paradigm of subjectivism, that your assertion is more objective than is mine. 

>Well, again I say balderdash.  Your stance is every bit as subjective.  

My stance may be, but that does not argue away the inerrancy of Scripture, nor
Biblical/Xian absolutism.  Scripture is no more outside of subjectivism than
the next book, if you come from a humanistic presuppositional base.  If
however, via the Holy Spirit, it is not.  At least not in your terms.

>difference between you and I is that I accept that and seek through it to find

>God, while you deny it  and force God to come to you in a very limited and 
>constrained way.  Moreover, you deny to God God's ability to reveal Godself to

>you outside of a very limited context.  

No, I allow God to speak to me through circumstance, by I do interprete them
from my knowlege basis in accordance with the Scriptures.  They are simply my
standard to test a thing.  

>If this were my way I would consider it 
>to be unfortunate indeed.  However, I can accept that this may be the best way

>for you; we aren't all the same, and God is capable of working with us 
>regardless of the constraints or limitations we put on God by virtue of our
own 
>weaknesses.  (By the way, I have plenty of these weaknesses -- and constantly
>find myself admitting to God that I am a slow learner having to learn the 
>same lesson over and over again.)

(Ibid).  Yes God can work around our road blocks to get were we are and to work
with us there.  But I feel that I have His standard to draw upon so that I
don't set up road blocks.
>
>What I find most disturbing about your theology though is not the theology
>itself but the way you and several other conservatives continually want to
>push it on the rest of us.  I don't normally go out and try to convert
>people to my way of thinking, primarily because only a few people can 
>understand the way I think.  

Try and understand it this way.  I believe in a literal hell as I do a literal
heaven.  With the same word used for "eternal" life as "eternal" death, so I
believe that universalism is an extra-biblical doctrine.  Simply put, its
false.  I witness to people because of it.  I witness earnestly because of it. 
Too many Xian's only have Xian circles which they circulate in.  We're to be
separate, not isolate.  I strive for the salvation of friends that have not
come to an acceptance of Christ.  I strive in prayer, in action, in words.  For
me it is a desparate thing.  Just so with you.  I feel the necessity of an
objective standard is paramount.  I feel it so much so, yes zealously, that I
come across the net as I do.  I'm not saying that the end justifies the means,
I'm saying that I do it out of concern.  Concern that I feel is fundemenatally
grounded in a standard outside of myself.

>I'm calling an end to my participation in this string.  I'm sure we'll meet
>again on other issues, but I'm getting tired of repeating myself and I imagine
>you are as well.

Apparently not.  I guess I'm a glutten for punishment hu!  Hope you have spoken
prematurly and will continue the discussion.  But as I've said elsewhere, when
you mentioned Whitehead, you have told me a whole bunch.

nothing funny or cute to say-
Rex