"**Rowland Croucher**" <rccroucher@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:481c413f$0$17509$afc38c87@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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. ...
This is where hyper-sola-scriptura folk, like LoneRiver, come unstuck for
ignoring tradition and revelation outside scripture. I take it that
'tradition' is the distilled body of wisdom/knowledge of those who've gone
before us.
As for the authority triangle: rather than reading it as a hierarchal
construct, I wonder if it is more helpful to read it as a field wherein we
stike some balanced point between the three corners.
> ... 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/
|
