Rationality (was RE: NT inerrancy??)

--- "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu> wrote:
> Speakers and writers use all sorts of techniques to
> convey concepts, ideas, and truths. Christ used
> parables and we could have condemned Him for not
> making things clear.

Or we can understand the parables as able to convey a
fullness of meaning and context that otherwise were
not conveyable as say a "systematic" theology.

> I believe there is a struggle
> in people between their pride, based on their
> rationality and a particular worldview, and faith,
> based on rationality and a worldview that
> encompasses, in addition, the nonphysical.

Pride is often alloyed with ignorance -- both
scripturally and in practice, as discussed briefly
below.

> We all
> choose to believe on the inerrancy or lack thereof
> of Scripture on both rationality and faith. The
> atheist is at one end, all rationality, whereas a
> formally uneducated Christian may be at the other
> end.

I would disagree with this statement in part. A given
atheist is not necessarily "rational" and there is
nothing inherently rational in atheism.

Atheism often has a empiricist epistemology which
claims to be rational, even though, among other
things, 1) empiricism is not subject to empirical
testing, 2) if they were uniform about the application
of their empiricism vast swaths of human experience
have to be rejected, including the concept of self, of
other minds, aesthetics, etc., etc., and 3) rational
inquiry would recognize that their are limits to what
can be empirically examined and that there are limits
to rationality however defined. Because most atheists
don't recognize these, or other limits to their
worldview, I find them significantly irrational in
their approach to God and religion.

I find it deeply ironic that atheists love to label
their views rational, reasoned, etc. when often they
are anything but -- if rationality includes an
understanding of different worldviews and the actual
contours of a particular problem.

(SNIP)

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Received on Wed Dec 31 11:31:24 2003