From: george murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Jul 11 2003 - 22:28:08 EDT
Glenn Morton wrote:
> My worry is that lacking an experimentum crucis, we can't tell what 'divine' books were inspired by God and which are the products of the David Koreshes of this world. Which makes me think your enterprize will fail.
>
Concentrating on the question of "divine books" keeps us at a secondary level. The more fundamental question is, "In what phenomena do we know God/The Sacred/The Fundamental Level of Reality/Whatever you want to call it?" Of course that question is not completely separable from the question about "divine books" but they are not identical. & there are claims - e.g., Islam - that God _is_ most fully known in a book, but that isn't the Christian answer.
> >
> >It has long been my suspicion that the principal reason that
> >religious communities designate some particular text as the
> >authoritative canon is to achieve (at a cost) a sense of certainty
> >that functions to stabilize the community.
The primary reason that the Christian community came, over a long period of time, to designate a canon is that (sticking with NT for now) these books were thought to provide an authentic witness to the phenomenon of revelation - i.e., Christ. There is an important sense in which they _don't_ provide certainty in that there is a considerable (though not infinite) spectrum of interpretation of who Jesus is & what he does. Whether or not the books of the NT are the best witnesses, whether other books should be included &c can be debated. But that's what needs to be considered if the canon is to be debated.
& it should be added that, contrary to popular opinion, there was never a point at which the entire church sat down and determined the precise boundaries of the canon. Rome didn't do that till Trent & the Lutheran tradition has _never_ actually given a list of which books are in & which aren't.
............................
> >But the answer to the question, "Why is there a God rather than no
> >God?" is just as elusive as the answer to the question you just
> >posed. Ultimately, we are all staring in the face of deep Mystery.
> >To pretend to comprehend that Mystery is human hubris, whether
> >expressed by Christian, Buddhist or atheist.
>
& competent Christian theologians have always said that God is "incomprehensible" & is known only to the extent that God has revealed Godself. The 4th century bishop who said "I know God as well as he knows himself" was an Arian.
Shalom,
George
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