From: Graham E. Morbey (gmorbey@wlu.ca)
Date: Fri May 23 2003 - 10:47:47 EDT
Years ago a professor of mine once asked Tillich if a camera could have
recorded the Resurrection of Jesus. The curt reply was "no!"
Now, was that because of the limitation of the camera (no record of a
personal observation of the actual Resurrection in Scripture)? Perhaps a
better question
" Would the camera have recorded the three of them on the road to
Emmaus?" The answer for Tillich, I believe, is still "no". The Creeds
teach a camera faith!
Graham
John W Burgeson wrote:
>Howard's thread is so fascinating I almost (not quite) am reluctant to
>return to an earlier one.
>
>I had said my books were packed away for the move, but I was mistaken;
>Tillich's DYNAMICS OF FAITH was still on my night table. Here are a few
>passages from this book -- a primary source on Tillich:
>
>"Reason is the precondition of faith; faith is the act in which reason
>reaches ecstatically beyond itself. ... Reason is not bound to its own
>finitude. It is aware of it and, in so doing, rises above it." (Pg. 87)
>
>"Reason can be fulfilled only if it is driven beyond the limits of its
>finitude, and experiences the presence of the ultimate, the holy." (Pg.
>88)
>
>"Science tries to describe and to explain the structures and relations in
>the universe, in so far as they can be tested by experiment and
>calculated in quantitative terms. The truth of a scientific statement is
>the adequacy of the description of the natural laws, which determine
>reality, [!] and it is the verification of this description by
>experimental repetitions. Every scientific truth is preliminary and
>subject to changes both in grasping reality and in expressing it
>adequately. This element of uncertainty does not diminish the truth value
>of a tested and verified scientific assertion. It only prevents
>scientific dogmatism and absolutism.
>
>"Therefore, it is a very poor method of defending the truth of faith
>against the truth of science, if theologians point to the preliminary
>character of every scientific statement in order to provide a place of
>retreat for the truth of faith. ... scientific truth and the truth of
>faith do not belong to the same dimension of meaning." (pg. 93-94)
>
>"When the representatives of faith impeded the beginning of modern
>astronomy they were not aware that the Christian symbols, although using
>the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic astronomy, were not tied up to this astronomy.
>... if representatives of modern physics reduce the whole of reality to
>the mechanical movement of the smallest particles of matter, denying the
>really real quality of life and mind, they express a faith, objectively
>as well as subjectively... science is their ultimate concern -- and they
>are ready to sacrifice everything ... for this ultimate...the create a
>monstrous symbol of this concern, namely, a universe in which everything,
>including their own scientific passion, is swallowed by a meaningless
>mechanism. In opposing this ... Christian faith is right."(Pg. 94-95)
>
>Note the place where I have interjected a "[!]." This seems to me that
>Tillich regarded natural laws as prescriptive, not descriptive (of
>course, he recognized that our expressions of those natural laws are
>always preliminary). That is one of the passages that leads me to see
>him, as with Bultmann, rather convinced that the resurrection event,
>whatever it was, was entirely natural and that a "return from the dead"
>did not happen. Borg, I think, takes a similar view.
>
>BTW -- the quotation in my earlier post was made in 1935 by some guy
>named Einstein in a fairly famous (EPR) paper in the Physical Review. The
>full paper (JPG form) appears on my web site at the end of the QM page.
>
>John Burgeson (Burgy)
>
>www.burgy.50megs.com
>
>
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