Re: [asa] Two questions...

...and thanks for your late night reply. I won't do this all justice
this morning before I scoot off to school, but again here are a few
comments.

I share your concern ---Christ is the center; and yes, knowledge of God
such as is fulfilled in Christ is not to be found in the stars or
creation. I suspect most on this list will agree with that (at least I
do).

...I do take Scriptures to be God's word ---and through the testimony
revealed in them we are introduced to the Word made flesh who, as I
think you agree, is (should be) the center of and in all of this.
Stating that Scriptures are God's revelation, though, doesn't
automatically make all our understandings of Scripture correct (as I'm
sure you would agree.)

I'm not familiar with the Bultmann you have referred to, but if his work
is similar to that such as the 'Jesus seminar' folks have produced, then
I'm with you (although not everybody here agrees about this). But I
don't see the validity in cutting the heart out of the Christian faith
(the resurrection) and then trying to maintain the label Christian.

I also am sensitive to science staying within its 'proper domain'.
There is much we agree on. Probably the major thorn we could discuss if
we ever wanted to invest the time would be on how each of us takes the
'two books' model. i.e. the written word and the revealed power of God
in creation. The way I read it, you are uncomfortable placing what you
would call undue emphasis on the second at the expense of the first,
whereas I would defend more of a complementary model. Enough for now
---as you've also implied, we have to get on with life.

God bless.
--Merv

wjp wrote:
> Merv:
>
> I am not so concerned about whether the heavens declare God's glory.
> They go on and on declaring His Glory to an indifferent and unbelieving
> world, and will continue doing so. Whether someone might by some
> implicit or explicit cosmological argument or impulse conclude, or
> come to believe, in an Uncaused Cause or Prime Mover is of little
> interest to me, although it is the best that any "natural" theology
> might be hoped to do.
>
> What is my concern is Christ, and Christ and His Cross of Salvation
> cannot be found in the stars, but only in the history passed down to
> us in Scripture.
>
> I fully understand the "stumbling block" you describe. What must be
> appreciated, however, is that there is another stumbling block: that of
> suspecting that Scripture is merely the product of human invention,
> which is just the presumption of liberal historical criticism: to treat
> Scripture as it would any other book of literature and supposed history.
>
> What especially troubles me is the extra-genesis presumption throughout
> the Scriptures and even by Christ.
>
> The issue, for me, is whether you take Scripture to be the Word of God, or
> the word of man. By the Word of God, I mean that in some fashion He has a
> direct Hand in the text. This is not taken to be something special, given
> only in rare times and ways. It is not something you or I could write.
>
> If this is not the case, then we have to wonder what relationship what is
> written bears to the text, thus begins the entire process of contextualizing
> the text to "primitive" minds, with even perhaps a different understanding
> of what they are writing, i.e., the entire hermeneutics of suspicion.
>
> It may be that this is what we have. But once I start to think that, it
> is but a small step to doubting claims about Jesus, the Resurrection, that
> Paul invented Christianity, etc., etc. Finally, I am left with a slim
> Bultmannian thread: a faith based upon nothing, put perhaps well wishing,
> but just perhaps inspired by an invisible God who has little to do with
> real history and a real world.
>
> It is very easy for me to find reasons to doubt the derivatives of science,
> but I have for the most part given up the exercise, and moved on to what I
> consider more fruitful work. This does not entail that I think science
> unreasonable. No, I have long argued that it is reasonable, but that does
> not entail that it is true. It is realist science that I have come to doubt,
> not science, a science confined to its "proper" realm.
>
> I do understand the perspective of most on this list. I, in any case, believe
> I must give up too much to embrace that perspective. Since there is no reason
> for me to pursue that distraction, I see little reason to undertake the
> challenge, although it remains something of a thorn in the side.
>
> Thank you for your reply,
>
> Bill Powers
> White, SD
>
>
> On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:44:33 -0600, Merv Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
>
>> Just a couple of comments ... you state below that "Scripture is all
>> we've got." But when those same Scriptures tell us that the heavens
>> declare the glory of God, or we can read the account of Jesus praying
>> for all believers and promising to send His Spirit, then it would seem
>> we aren't left with the written word alone. But if you mean that
>> Scriptures are to be our starting point -- our guiding light in how to
>> view creation, that would seem to be a more robust theological truth.
>>
>> John (in the gospel of that name) quotes Jesus as saying the world hates
>> him but loves its own. Do you think that the many Biblical references
>> to the world such as this one are referring to all creation or
>> specifically to people (as in "the world is going after him." --John
>> 12:19) Some N.T. passages refer to the world in the sense of "all
>> creation". But the ones that often refer to the tension between Jesus
>> and the world seem to be speaking more of the people sense of that word
>> --or so it seems to me to make the most sense. It seems problematic to
>> me that the heavens should have ceased at some point to declare the
>> glory of God.
>>
>> Regarding why YECism troubles so many (at least on this list) is that it
>> puts an unnecessary stumbling block in front of so many who then
>> conclude that faith must be (as Mark Twain so aptly put it) 'the art
>> of believing what you know ain't so.' Stumbling blocks are no new
>> thing --Jesus even refers to himself as a stumbling block to many. But
>> in other contexts, there are dire warnings for any who make extra
>> stumbling blocks. It would be an interesting study to see if these
>> 'stumbling blocks' could be said to have originated in nature (creation
>> itself apart from human beings or fallen spirits.) You may charge that
>> 'evolution' has been a whopper of a stumbling block for a lot of folks,
>> and you are probably right. But it wasn't cause for doubt for everyone
>> then or now (nor the apparent ancient age of the earth). So the
>> 'un-troubled folks', in turn, charge that those who paint science and
>> faith as exclusive choices are the real manufacturers of the stumbling
>> blocks whose kids then have crises of faith in college (even without
>> ever facing any militant atheist professors --- just any professor who
>> wishes to attempt objectivity of any kind may be unsettling to them.)
>> So you can see why YECism is disturbing on that level. But I do agree
>> with you that the 'Kurt Wise' variety that admits to contrary evidence
>> but then declines to be persuaded by it on Scriptural grounds alone is
>> probably more commendable than those who try to warp natural
>> observations into something they are not. But whether this "purer" YEC
>> is truly being more faithful to Scripture reading is, I think,
>> questionable. ---or is highly doubted in this listserve, anyway. But
>> Scripture is the agreed common ground we all have on which to sort it out.
>>
>> --Merv
>>
>>
>>

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Received on Wed Feb 11 08:24:00 2009