lynx wrote:
> Mark T wrote:
>
>> "Pastor Dave" wrote:
>>
>>> And this truth comes to you from God,
>>> but is not found in the Bible, right?
>>>
>>
>>
>> The finite bible does not contain infinite truth.
>>
>> All truth is God's truth no matter where it is found.
>>
>
> Stupid argument. That's the same as saying every car is my car because I
> say so. You can't claim truth or anything for that matter as God's or in
> God's name. Truth stands on it's own as truth, and you can't even
> establish the existence of God as a certainty. All you have here is
> another of your wacky beliefs.
>
>> All that is error is not truth even if it is found in the bible.
I'm somewhere between these two positions (what's new?). Try this, Pete
and Mark:
We know what's true through our senses, or via the 'authority' of
someone we trust. But what about phenomena outside our sensory
experience, and/or that of our trusted authority-figures? For example:
What is God like? Does God actually exist? Will I live forever - and
what will that be like?
Now nobody I know has actually seen God, or experienced a verifiable
out-of-body experience, or been to heaven and come back and told us
about it.
So Christians have to answer this broad question by submitting to
'outside' authorities, like the Bible, or Jesus, or the Church, or
'traditional belief-systems' or our reason, or, occasionally, personal
'peak experiences' which, for some, open a window through which they see
beyond what their senses can verify.
Actually all these 'authorities' can be reduced to three: Scripture,
Tradition, and Rationalized Experience.
As an Evangelical, I'd put Scripture at the top of the 'authority
triangle' - but bring the other two authorities to bear on its
interpretation. I meet too many people who switch off their reason, and
believe about the Bible whatever 'pastor/preacher/Bible teacher' told
them to believe, when they were impressionable. Among
Pentecostals/charismatics I often meet folks who put experience at the
top: the 2 minute 'word of prophecy' is more memorable than the
45-minute Bible-based sermon...
Another question: how am I supposed to know not only what to believe but
how to behave? What's 'normal' here?
My favorite preacher John Claypool tells the story of a small boy who
was given a 'quarter' (which meant he was American) to go to the circus.
He went downtown and saw the circus parade - animals, gymnasts, clowns -
and was so excited by it all he gave one of the clowns his quarter and
went home. After questioning by his parents he learned that he'd not
been to the 'circus' but only to the parade.
Life's like that. We live on a level which is well this side of our
ideal. We fall short of what we in our better moments would like to be.
We read about someone like Francis of Assisi and feel we could never be
as saintly as that great man. Or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who disagreed with
the State Church in Nazi Germany about how a 'normal Christian' should
behave. (He was executed aged 39 on April 9, 1945, and later that year
the war ended). Both of these Jesus-followers combined personal holiness
with a passion for justice - as their Master and Lord did.
So a good way to be both rational and good, is to encourage in yourself
a 'healthy skepticism' sometimes about where others' or societies'
standards might be. F W Boreham said the best way to see how crooked a
stick is would be to place it next to a straight stick.
Annie Dillard in her Pulitzer prize-winning book Pilgrim at Tinker's
Creek wrote: 'We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are
raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.'
(Climbs down from soap-box)...
avagoodweekendeveryone...
--
Shalom/Salaam/Pax! Rowland Croucher
http://jmm.aaa.net.au/
(20,000 articles 4000 humor)
Blogs - http://rowlandsblogs.blogspot.com/
Justice for Dawn Rowan - http://dawnrowansaga.blogspot.com/
Funny Jokes and Pics - http://funnyjokesnpics.blogspot.com/
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