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pratumlatum
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Interests: I am on a quest to find something in God's creation that is NOT interesting. (Because that would be very interesting.)
Expertise: Deleting blog posts.
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Member Since:
5/4/2006
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| Viewing authority and infallibility in an automatic, mechanical way is lazy thinking. As such, it usually creates more problems than it solves. Searching for a perfectly clear answer sometimes muddies the waters more than ever. Apostolic Succession is the best example I can think of. From what I can tell, it seems to be a strange, almost mechanical transferral of authority and power, via the sacrament of “the laying on of hands.” And then you know who's in charge. No need to think about it any further. See what I mean? Lazy thinking. But of course, it doesn't really solve anything. Questions start arising immediately. Who really has Apostolic Succession? How do you verify or deny somebody's claim when they trace back their authority to an Apostle? And if you were ordained by an apostate Bishop, does that count? Can a Bishop ever “lose” his authority? What if a Bishop converts to Protestantism; does he carry his “apostolic succession” over with him? etc. Attempts to define authority mechanically never succeed; instead, they create a complicated and confusing machine. Likewise, the Ecumenical Councils have authority, but that doesn't mean they're perfect. That is to say, the Ecumenical Councils are right because they're right, not because they're Ecumenical. Yes, I recite the Nicene Creed, and I believe every word. But Presbyters are not guaranteed infallibility simply by gathering together in large numbers. Debates over the 7th Ecumenical Council would be a lot simpler if people granted this. Not even the Bible is mechanically inspired. It has numerous typos, and textual variants. Lazy thinking dictates a simple, clear-cut theory: every word in the Bible is perfect...verbatim. Well, if that's your theory, you're going to have endless arguments about textual variants, and you won't get anywhere. In your quest for an absolute solution, you won't find any solution at all. | | |
| Interesting excerpt from page xiv of the preface to The New Testament and the People of God: “Second, [in this book] I have frequently used 'god' instead of 'God'. This is not a printer's error, nor is it a deliberate irreverence; rather the opposite, in fact. The modern usage, without the article and with a capital, seems to me actually dangerous. This usage, which sometimes amounts to regarding 'God' as the proper name of the Deity, rather than as essentially a common noun, implies that all users of the word are monotheists and, within that, that all monotheists believe in the same god. Both these propositions seem to me self-evidently untrue. It may or may not be true that any worship of any god is translated by some mysterious grace into worship of one god who actually exists, and who happens to be the only god. That is believed by some students of religion. It is not, however, believed by very many practitioners of the mainline monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) or of the non-monotheistic ones (Hinduism, Buddhism and their cognates). Certainly the Jews and Christians of the first century did not believe it.” | | |
| Moralism: defining "good" merely as "the opposite of evil."
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| 1. Truth is absolute.
2. But whenever truth is communicated, it is communicated relatively.
3. Therefore, in a more practical sense, all truth is relative.
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| Exodus 1:12, 'But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.'
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