God’s Will and Journies
The will of God is not a destination but a journey. When you don’t hear if you should go left or right, its usually because he is saying: come this way as he points to himself.
I find myself questioning what the above means. Perhaps what is meant is this: “The will of God is not a destination in itself, but a journey towards God and who God desires us to be.” In this way the ‘will of God’ becomes both a journey and a destination. A destination in two senses. The first is something akin to ‘stops along the way’ — the ‘will of God’ places us in particular circumstances at particular times. The second is in the sense of a final destination, God. Thus I can see what is meant, though it is clouded by what is said (and rather poorly expressed). If some other sense is meant, … (Read more)
Modern Fascism
I just ran across the following (link below) review of Gene Edward Veith’s book Modern Fascism. I haven’t read the book (yet), being a meager 6 years old when it was first published. However, even though I’m linking to a book review (‘and partial paraphrase’), the topics discussed — such as the link between Fascism and the ideals being resurrected by postmodernism — are engaging, so much so that the book is, voila, on my reading list.
You can find the view here: http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue118.htm. Especially interesting if you’ve never heard of postmodernism being linked with fascism before.… (Read more)
The Search for Answers and Meaning
Recently I’ve come to view culture and society as a search for answers and meaning. It seems to me that this is something I should have happened upon a long time ago, however, that’s of no consequence now. What this means, though, is that how I approach postmodernity within Christianity has changed some what, in the sense that, I think, I have a better understanding of what exactly is going on. I’ve tried to create an illustration or analogy to capture my thought process, so hopefully what follows does exactly that, rather than fail.
In my illustration I view reality as a very long hallway. At the end of the hallway is a door, behind which is God. All along this hallway there are many other doors. These many doors represent different attempts to find answers and meaning to life’s question and purpose. Not every culture will try every door, they … (Read more)
Truth as a symptom
“The preoccupation with ‘truth’ among emergents has often been pushed on them by their conservative critics, primarily because truth is a central concern of theirs. And their preoccupation with truth is a symptom of their modernism. They want the Bible to be unswervingly factual (here, truth equals fact), for if it is, then its claims about eternal salvation cannot be ignored. So they publish books against emergents titled Truth and the New Kind of Christian and The Truth War, and blogs excoriate the emergents on the issue of truth.“[1]
The above comes from Tony Jones book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. What Jones says worries me, not least because this is yet another blog ‘excoriating’ him and by proximity emergent Christians on the truth question.
Al Mohler, in discussing the role truth plays within the emergent church, has warned that, “if you get the truth … (Read more)
A Proper Epistemology?
It occurs to me that a proper Epistemological foundation begins by acknowledging the premodern notion that all human knowledge is a sub-set of God’s knowledge, while at the same time permitting the postmodern notion that no one has a God’s eye view of reality, truth, society, etc., and that, in effect, we all have relative perspectives (there are many “I’s”). I would rather consider this following modernism through to its logical conclusion, rather than determining it to be a new phenomenon under the heading of postmodernism. The reason being is that I believe we can know truth to a substantial degree. That even if not exhaustively (omnisciently), we can say we hold a true, knowable belief.
In support of this I would turn to Karl Popper’s asymptotic approach, which was developed to explain knowledge acquisition in the field of science. The following diagram was also used by D.A. Carson … (Read more)
Whose Epistemology?
Postmodernism, like modernism before it, is built around the Cartesian idea that all knowledge begins with the “I” that exists (cogito, ergo sum: I think, therefore I am — Descartes). Postmodernism differs from modernism in the sense that the “I” is constantly changing (this leads into perspectivism). Premodernism, however, holds to the idea (correctly) that knowledge starts with God, thus, all human knowledge is ‘merely’ a subset of God’s knowledge.
To beg the question, why must Christianity adopt postmodernism to survive, if, presuppositionally, the adoption being proposed is at it’s core, wrong?… (Read more)
Truth and unbelief
John 8:45
But because I say the truth, ye believe me not.
I figure more could be said about the verse above (the words of Jesus). Jesus isn’t speaking these words without authority (although I say the truth, ye believe me not), as if to say them with a hint of resignation (I’m asserting one truth of many proposed truths, none any better than the other that we could know). Jesus is speaking strongly, but because I say the truth, regardless and in the face of his opposition.
If there are those who will not hear the truth after hearing it plainly, how much more for those who aren’t given the truth? It is a dangerous thing, equalizing Christianity, turning into a religion for moralists and humanists. Truth divides and the Gospel is offensive. How could any Christian imagine themselves enough of an authority to diminish the truth of the … (Read more)
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