From: Josh Bembenek (jbembe@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 10 2003 - 10:24:57 EDT
Howard wrote:
>Agreed. But we must thoughtfully distinguish between God and portraits of
>God, especially those portraits inherited from portrait artists of the
>past,
>portraits cast not in stone, but in words that have been elevated, by human
>decision, to the status of canon.
Did not the writers of the canon not synthesize their portrait of God from
"Scripture, tradition, reason and experience"? And why should we make any
assumption that they were not privileged in experience such to elevate their
writings above others? I did not personally see Jesus, or visit the empty
tomb, nor was I capable of interviewing reliable witnesses of the account.
I therefore have no problem placing a higher trust in the Gospel accounts
than my own ability to reason/experience, etc. concerning the Resurrection
since the writers thereof had much more priviledged experiences.
>As I said above, God is what God is, independent of how we portray God.
>However, I believe we must recognize that we -- as individuals and as
>communities -- do indeed craft our own portraits of God. We do not "create
>God," but we do craft portraits of God, and I see no reason to pretend
>otherwise. Perhaps our atheist friends would even respect us for that
>honesty and candor...
In constructing our portraits of God, I think we are obligated to use all of
>the resources available to us -- portraits inherited from the past (canon,
>tradition), our own human experience, the experience of other humans,
>history, science, ......... In some circles this list is 4-fold:
>Scripture,
>tradition, reason and experience. Not a bad way to go.
Yes, this is very important, God will be who God will be despite our
understanding of Him. But your reluctance of "elevating the cannon" and
hesitation about the accuracy of our portraits does not necessitate that we
seek extrabiblical sources to be sure that we are correct. We can admit the
limits to our having "Knowledge" verses what constitutes our "Belief"
without needing to become wary of the accuracy of the bible's teachings.
The limit to our personal understanding in our portrait of God does not
increase the accuracy of other religious texts nor reduce the accuracy that
the writers of the biblical texts portray "The Sacred." I think the concept
of Nirvahna for example has nothing to offer in my attempt to grow more in
the likeness of Jesus Christ by the work of the spirit (assuming that this
is a common goal for us all.) Why throw the baby out with the bath water?
Josh
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