Theology and Science Fiction
Theolgians don’t read enough science fiction.
I’m serious. Really I am.
Properly though, I shouldn’t say science fiction, because I mean fantasy too, and both are subcategories of a larger genre called “speculative” fiction, which is the art of telling stories about things that ain’t real.
Ok. Now that I’ve (hopefully) offended the realists and literalists among us, let me explain. (No, explianing takes too much time; let me sum up.) Theology (presumably) is something we take seriously because it describes something real. As opposed to certain philosophers like PJ O’Rourke who have apparently gotten PHDs and gotten rich and famous by propounding things they don’t take seriously because they aren’t real (“Truth is whatever my colleagues let me get away with”?). But if we take it seriously ad we think it’s real, why am I suggesting that a good preparation for proper theology is a background in speculative fiction? I mean, it sould lose on two counts – first, it’s speculative, and second, it’s fiction. So why…?
Well, for starters, a little review of speculation might teach certain people to know the difference. Then, on the other hand, the “speculative” and the “fiction” might just cancel each other out and prove an antidote.
But in all earnestness, my reason is that theologians are entirely too esoteric. Properly, the only purpose for the work of theology is for the building up of the church, but many theologians spend oodles of time talking about things that have only the vaguest possible application for the church. They compound this by generally paying scant attention to rhetoric.
Rhetoric is the art of making sure that, when you say something, you say it well. One of the basic asperations of rhetoric is to take the effort at the very least, to be interesting. If the content of your argument cannot in itself be compelling reading, you ought to, at least, be entertaining. If this is too high, aim for amusing, but for heaven’s sake (literally), don’t expect your dry disconnected discussion to pull your reader along in dogged determination due to the urgency of the topic at hand.
Even more fundamental is basic simple clarity. Don’t lose the reader! I’m currently slogging through Anthony Hoekema’s book on escatology, The Bible and the Future. Generally, it’s been a quick read (much easier, in fact, than Calvin’s Institutes), but every once in a while he veers onto the shoulder, which seems to have been prepared with those lovely little pavement-grooves that sound so charming when driven over at 60 miles an hour. We’re talking about that “intermediate state” between death and resurrection which Christians believe all people will endure, either as a sleep without awareness or perhaps a temporary state of either glory or suffering. The question at hand is “what exactly, if anything, does scripture actually say about this state?” A key text for this question is II Corinthians 5, where Paul talks about the dilemma of living in our earthly bodies while longing for a heavenly body. He uses all sorts of great metaphors, like “tents” vs. “permanent buildings”, and being clothed and unclothed with our bodies. Hoekema spends four pages on this text without ever quoting a complete sentence. Frequently I found myself scanning up half a page just to find enough of a scanty quote for me to discover what on Earth (or perhaps, in heaven) he was talking about.
Now that’s not necessary is it? I mean, you’re writing a textbook. Your publisher is obviously unafraid of the book becoming too long. What’s wrong with quoting the sentence in question from time to time, perhaps with the introduction of each point? Surely there’s no harm in a little overlap. Surely there’s no fear that the reader will become too familiar with the text!
I had the same problem with Marva Dawn’s 1999 book on worship, A Royal “Waste” of Time. (I mention the date because frequently Marva Dawn is very… contemporary. I include the parenthetical remark because the great delight in reading Marva Dawn is her frequent – and very parenthetical – footnotes.) She included in the text several sample sermons to give example of how various topics might be taught from the pulpit. Frequently these sermons hinged entirely on the scripture reading for the day, which she referenced but did not quote, obliging me to read with one book in each hand. I confess frequently I was willing to sacrifice comprehension for convenience
Of course, the gauntlet thrown down is in the words themselves. Theologians are by nature theorists, and theorists love to fiddle with the language. They make up words; they take conventional words and use them in specialized ways; they do violence to normal grammar structures. Now, in another life, I fancied myself a poet, so I have a personal fondness for fiddling myself. One of my favorite axioms is that the only reason you ought to learn the rules [of grammar] is so that you can learn to break them properly. But that implies that I think there is a way to break them properly. Theorists (of every shape and size) break the rules improperly. They make up words when there’s already an apt term in the dictionary. They make up specialized forms of wordswhen there’s already a different version of the word with the required connotation already in general use. The obfuscate the grammar for no apparent reason!
The worstest example of this (or should I say, most egregious?) was in my Christian Education class last fall, in which every text written in the last century discussed the importance of “nurture” as a teaching tool, or perhaps as part of the actual content to be taught. Now properly, “nurture” is a verb, but there are established ways of modifying a verb into a noun, depending on what aspect of the verb you wish to emphasize. You can turn it into a gerund by adding an –ing to emphasize the current application of it (“We have good nurturing practices at this day care center”). You can make it an infinitive to emphasize its boundless extent (“To nurture is a mother’s highest calling”). Or you can add a noun ending (either –ment or –tion) to emphasize the effect on its recipient: nutriment or perhaps nutrition (“You can never overemphasize the benefits of nutriment, uh, nutrition). The one thing you should never do is leave the word as it is – a verb (“The most important task we have at hand is nurture”). That’s nothing but a large vehicle stalled in the fast lane of communication. What good does that do for the reader? What does that communicate? “We is educators” apparently.
So what do esoteric theologians have to do with science fiction? SF begins with the primary skill of acting as if something imagined were true. The writing begins as the working out of implications. If x is true, what corollary factors must also be true? How do people live in this brave new world? (In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, they gets with the program, or they commits suicide.) This means that SF writers are in the habit of doing all the things with ideas that Theologians are supposed to do: Analyze concepts for consistency and for their practical implications, balance key factors that must be considered true against corollaries that only might be true, and create the terminology to describe things.
But SF writers have one advantage over theologians when it comes to communicating their treasured information: readers. SF writers are primarily writers of fiction, not merely writers of idle speculation, and their responsibility is – their very livelihood comes – in telling stories. Nobody kids themselves that the ideas they are discussing hold within them life and death. No one feels compelled by outside forces to read them. So SF writers have learned the art of kindness to their readers, because they know that simple strangeness doesn’t sell.
It’s the kindness that I’m missing from a lot of my theology books. I don’t mean the gentleness of saying harsh things nicely, but the simple courtesy of communicating clearly, of not merely insisting that their positions must be believed, but actually taking the steps to make them believable. If you want to send your characters on a journey to the center of the Earth, fine, but do me the courtesy of providing at least one character who fully expects the trip to be a failure. Another of my books this semester, Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray, takes a very firm Reformed approach to soteriology. When he comes to the question of Calling, Murray says,
Calling is an act of God and God alone…. If calling is the initial step in our becoming actual partakers of salvation, the fact that God is its author forcefully reminds us that the pure sovereignty of God’s work of salvation is not suspended at the point of application any more than at the point of design and objective accomplishment. We may not like this doctrine. But if so, it is because we are adverse to the grace of God and wish to arrogate to ourselves the prerogative that belongs to God. And we know where that disposition had its origin.I haven’t decided yet whether the position is true and already I’ve learned that I must be opposed to it because God’s grace has not yet overwhelmed all my faculties. What help am I supposed to obtain from this in order to come around to a fuller knowledge of the truth? None whatsoever. The center of the earth may be hollow, but there is no one I can find on the journey with me who will admit at least that it is sometimes difficult to believe.
You may think that I’m just asking too much of a textbook, but I don’t know that I am. I don’t expect academic work to be intellectually insipid, nor do I expect it to resemble entertainment. But please, let the difficulties come from the actual issues at hand, not from the roadblocks of poor writing and discourtesy to the reader. Even God, before he sent forth his Messiah, sent first a prophet saying, “Make straight the way of the Lord!”
They eat all your plants…
actually, they do more hedge-trimming than eating. you dont hardly notice them eating it. suckerfish and snails eat the plants too. We only had 1 crab that was really interested in clipping off the plant.. and then Jason just replanted it anyway. The other crabs have mostly just liked climbing in them. You have to get the right kind.
Check out Gordon Clark’s “The Johannine Logos” and he makes the case that there isn’t as a distinct difference in “rheema” and “logos” as some think there is.
Thanks. I’ll look into it.
Next time you splurge by a red claw crab. they’re fun.
I’m dying. I hate colds. You can interview me if you want. But ask actual questions, not “tell me about you in 9th grade” because i’ll answer “what do you want to know”
oh and p.s. if you had been here you wouldn’t have to ask. so enjoy your nice guilt trip
WHEN U CRACK THE CODE U FIND A POINT AND THATS IT STOP THINKING AND START LIVING YOUR DREAMS HERE ON EARTH.
OK. I’m going to leave that comment up there, because I think it was actually made by a real person, even though I don’t understand what it means.
Mr. God 8:
Care to clarify?
hurrah! — hooray! — huzzah!
Yup. (Another comment from a fascinated fan!)
woot
nice.
you already know my ready response….if any man lack wisdom let him ask…. I say that instead of a blunt “yes” because I think the Holy Spirit has a strategy for reaching each individual and it’s not a one size fits all. At some time each individual needs to hear the truth. But sometimes we forget the parable of the seed and let the word be sown on the pathways where the birds come and eat it. {v}
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Acceptance of a false doctrine is not grounds for going to Hell, therefore telling someone they’re going to Hell for accepting a false doctrine is not an action in which the Holy Spirit will sustain you (since it only bears witness of truth).
Very Long Answer: witheld, on the grounds that if you’re not a Mormon, you’ll probably not believe it anyway.
–Howard “drive-by” Tayler
That makes perfect sense, if one accepts the idea that we can be saved despite having evil thoughts. And of course one can repent evil thoughts just as one can repent evil deeds, so we can be saved despite having evil thoughts.
I am fairly certain that this has very little in common to the very long answer Howard mentioned. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if from a Mormon perspective this was terribly mistaken, as I have no certain knowledge of how official Mormon doctrine deals with sin.
Since I’m not concerned with becoming a Mormon, I shan’t worry about it.
 
The amusing thing to me when I read that question was that Islam and Calvinism fall into two very different categories: For Islam, the error is obvious. They don’t believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (who died on the cross for my sins). For Calvinism, the error is much more subtle. In fact, so subtle that I don’t know what it is. I think most people say it has to do with predestination. But what most people call predestination, Calvinists don’t believe in that. I checked.
  So, I guess, the real question is, how do you answer a blanket statement masquerading as a question?
  Ooh! here’s another one! Should you warn people that their government is going to collapse when they believe in evil government, such as Direct Democracy or Republicanism?
…I have news for you. They’re all going to collapse — eventually. And eventually, every knee will bow to the one true King. Which, of couse, is why the world both hates & fears the followers of that King
amen, mom-to-be (about the goverment bit). We are called to preach not to convince. God’s spoken truth is the only thing that can convict a heart about falsehood; that includes everyone saint or sinner.
For my edification, please name one error of Calvinism with scriptural support.
Exactly. Couldn’t tell ya. I do understand it’s supposed to be different from Lutheranism. But the differences, from a modern perspetive, I think are pretty inessential.
if you got it you would be forced to wear it like that…just so I could tickle you easier.
You want me to walk around with my shoulders shrugged like that? I think it looks kind of girly…
Son, if you were to wear any t-shirt in such a manner as Miss “Travels-With-Lushes” can tickle you more easily, you certainly should not have the poor taste to be actually photographed wearing said t-shirt from a similar camera placement.-
You would have to change your name to Justin (Sir Justin once you have seen Shrek2) or grow your hair out a lot more and join the Hansons as their travelling uncle. I recommend neither by avoiding the photo session.-
In fact, I suggest not being seen in public like that. Out of public: that is none of our business and we don’t want to know.-
By the way, your sister seems to be amused by some of the goofy comments I come up with on certain blogs! Hard to believe . . .
Who said I was going to let him out in public with a shirt like that on? I was only going to use it for torturing purposes.
You are a very wise woman. Torture should only be done out of public view. No digital cameras allowed.
in the abstract, I say “loverly”….in the practical day to day….where does the aspect of “faith seeing the promise” com in?
Well, it’s a long essay, so I’ve broken it up into parts. Sorry I didn’t make that clear. I’ve added a “part 1″ thingy at the top now.
KB
This is a good post. Thanks for linking to my blog. I’ll definitely reciprocate.
“Fortunately for us, the Bible has never said that the sun revolves around the earth. In fact, it quite clearly states that everything revolves around the Son.”
Clever use of homophones(sun/Son), but it confuses the point. We know that the effect of the Sun and our rotation cause day and night for us on Earth.
In Genesis 1, day and night are created (Day 1) before the sun (day 4). Clearly a literal interpretation of the Bible (e.g. creationism) differs from what we now hold true through science.
“…there can be no disparity between my experience and the scriptures.”
Is thus not true, and the absolute authority of scripture is challenged.
Actually, it’s a pretty standard homophone.
I never said anywhere that I am insisting upon a literal interpretation of the Bible. In fact, some portions of the bible are quite impossible to take literally, since they are quite clearly metaphorical.
This is a series of essays discussing why I believe the bible is true, not discussing whether it is literal. Such a discussion would be extremely silly, and I’ve never heard anyone actually attempt to make such an arguement.
As to whether the earth is 6 thousand years old, or merely 4.6 billion, I think it is a very complicated issue, and I haven’t quite decided.
A word from The Great Experimenter, a title recorded on at least one recipe card:
How about if you substitute for just one can of beans and see how it turns out. Consider some of the properties of beans compared with those of eggplant. B and E may have similar densities, but that may be where it ends.
Eggplant may be a better sub for some tomatoes, or it may work well as yet another participant rather than a sub.
And, ummm . . . you don’t plan to have chili this summer, do you? Ice cream in the winter is ok, but chili in the summer? I don’t knowwww…!
chili is fine any time of year. eggplant tho…
No Chili in the Summer? What did cowboys eat before there were hamburger joints?
And there can never be a substitute for tomatoes!!!
Hamburger joints? Why would a cowboy want to eat a hamburger joint?
OK. Go ahead and eat chili all summer long. And defile it with eggplant but not in place of something else. Just add it. I’m sitting here shaking my head. I just can’t see a lasting place for eggplant in chili.
I would stick with ratatouille and eggplant parmigiana. It would be really tasty in pasketti, too. I’m just not seeing it in chili.
And that’s all I have to say about that for now.
Next time you talk to the Italy-visiting cabinet painting Tennessee slug, tell her hello for me.
besides, isn’t summer when people have chili cookoffs?
I’m not liking bloglet. it doesn’t notify about a new post immediately when you put something up, by the time I get anything from bloglet, i’ve seen your post for quite a while.
Hmm. MT has a built-in version, but it has the drawback of not being able to unsubscribe without emailing me.
I may set that one up and see if it works better… later
KB
this might help — if you’re not into soy [I'm neutral but my Maker's diet says no--not sure why]go ahead and try this with the regular ground beef:
Laszlo’s Eggplant-Soy Chili
12 ounces dried red beans 3 bay leaves 8 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed 3 large onions, diced 3 tomatoes, seeded and chopped 3 eggplants, unpeeled and diced into 1-inch cubes 2 cups dry red wine 2 cups vegetable stock 2 cups tomato paste 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/4 cup ground cumin 1/4 cup liquid smoke 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup hot pepper sauce 2 cups texturized vegetable protein (TVP)
Combine beans and bay leaves in enough water to cover beans. Soak overnight in refrigerator. Drain and add fresh water to cover. Cook beans for 45 minutes; remove from heat and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, sauté one-third of the garlic, one-third of the onion and one-third of the tomato over high heat. As tomato softens, add one-third of the eggplant. Stir gently, then cover and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Next add one-third of the wine and one-third of the stock. Simmer until eggplant is soft, then transfer to a large stockpot; keep warm. Repeat previous steps until all garlic, onion, tomatoes, eggplant, wine and stock are added to stockpot. Remove bay leaves from beans; add beans to stockpot. Add any remaining bean liquid along with tomato paste. Stir well and cook chili on medium heat. Pour oil into a small saucepan and heat on medium-high. Mix in cumin and quickly fry into a paste. Add to chili, stirring well. Add liquid smoke, soy sauce, hot pepper sauce and TVP; stir well, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Add water as needed. Serve over rice, if desired. Makes 12 servings.
now I’m sitting around with a worm on my tongue wondering how you’re going to wind this up.
I have not yet begun to write!!
“My car broke.It was the oddest thing.” hahahaha. sorry. I’ve just gotten so used to those cars dying every couple of months (or days) that I’ve told Jason if I get a new car its going to be a mid90s or later honda, no late80s. ha.
oh, and no, if you were given the pleasure of a spare half-grand in your account, you would have spent it on something else (like music), and when the car broke down you wouldn’t have that money available…
I wondered how they made records..happy birthday
Hey! You stole my comment!
I already knew how they made records. That’s because no matter how many birthdays you have, at least to a point, I will always be older than you. It’s on record.
I’m a member from R.A.T.S. and I was reading this post. I under stand what you’re saying, and agree, but I think you’ve fallen into an anachronistic trap. You say:
People usually interpret the word to mean “belief,” or better, “really really strong belief.” But the word “faith” comes from the Latin “fides,” which means something along the lines of “trust” or “adherence,” not just belief.
My response is that it doesn’t matter what faith means, if faith is not a good translation of pistis and pisteuoo. “Belief” is just as legitimate a translation as faith. And I think faith is misleading. You may ask a hundred different people what is faith, and you will get a hundred different answers. You attempt to show the meaning of faith by tracing it, correctly, to its Latin origin of fides and then showing that fidelity is an english derivative of fides. You then seek to use fidelity to define faith. This is rather anachronistic and misleading. Fidelity does not mean the same as faith, though there may be overlaps.
Also, I think you run into some theological problems with wanting to define faith as differently than belief. Many reformed (and not reformed) theologians see 3 steps in saving faith. 1. Understanding 2. Assent 3. Trust. Yet, even though I am reformed, I see problems with this setup. Most people want to define “assent” as “merely tipping the hat”, or “nodding the head”, and yet this does not what assent means. It means to agree, to concur.
What does the Bible say about the gospel? One must believe the gospel. But to define faith as you are doing, seemingly would have to make an extra step beyond belief inorder to have “faith”. Gordon Clark tackles this in several books, “The Johannine Logos” and “Saving Faith”. The problem with people that don’t have faith is not that they believe the gospel but don’t trust Jesus, it’s that they don’t really believe it.
The problem is not that the Pharisees believed but didn’t trust, but Jesus tells them that they do not really believe Moses, for if they believed Moses, they would believe Jesus. Now, there are implications to true belief, for if I truly believe that the lovingkindness of God is better than life, then I’m going to act in accordance with that. This isn’t easy believism, this is true belivism.
So while I agree with the thrust of your post, I believe your energy would have been better spent looking into the meaning of pistis and pisteuoo. I believe that biblical faith is simply belief. There are those who claim to believe and do not actually believe. It’s not that they believe and don’t trust, it’s that they don’t really believe.
Great post.
Thanks Zac. It’s good to have somebody really engage and debate me. (I would say Praxis is a good thing, but I’m not so sure praxis should be discussed outside the bedroom
)
You did catch me in an error. I knew I should have reviewed before I started posting these. I completely forgot to look the original word up. Usually I do better than that. When I get done with the series, I’ll go back and do some more research before I republish as a single document.
I think the metaphor still holds, though. You don’t believe the message, you believe the messenger. I don’t believe the Word of God the same way I believe my school report card. I believe the word of God the way I believe my stock broker. He says the market’s going up and I invest. What’s more, I tell all my friends to invest, because by golly the market’s going up.
I don’t have my Strong’s with me here at work, or I’d check myself, but Jesus repremanded the disciples for having little faith. This corresponds quite well, I think, to a low fidelity stereo. It’s playing the right music, but the quality is so low that it’s hardly evocative.
I’m glad we can have some constructive interaction. My point of contention isn’t in the main thrust of your posting, but something that I’ve been thinking about for a while now…what is faith? Is it merely belief or is it more?
Well, because I’m not writing a paper, but commenting on your blog I’ll make this short…hopefully. I think that biblically faith is belief. The noun is pistis, the adjective is pistos and generally the verb is pisteuoo (the “oo” being an omega). Generally the noun pistis is rendered “faith” in most translations–though this may speak more of the tradition involved than an adequate translation.
The adjective, pistos, is generally translated faithful, believe or believers. The verb, pisteuoo (a cognate of pistis), is in the vast majority translated believe. Before proceeding it’s obvious that generally speaking one word can never communicate the full range or exact nuances of another word in another language. But it has become my belief that we hide behind vague terminology in our theology of faith.
You say: “You don’t believe the message, you believe the messenger.” I hope I don’t come on too strong (for we don’t really know one another), but this is just silly. You’ve just forced a false disjunction between believing the message and believing the messenger. Now obviously, I admit that in persuasive speaking there are the traditional 3 parts to persuasion. The pathos, logos and ethos of the speaker. So yes, the ethos of the messenger does play a part in our being persuaded, but when one says, “I believe the messenger,” we ARE stating that we believe the messege.
What does it mean to believe a person? It is to believe that which they say. The message. Jesus says to the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” The problem with the Pharisees is that they really didn’t believe the propositions in the Scriptures. By the way, I’m arguing that only propositions are objects of knowledge. The Pharisees searched the Scriptural propositions, and these propositions testified of Jesus, and yet we see that they were unwilling to come to Jesus (i.e. believe the propositions of Scripture).
So what does it mean to know a person? It means to know and believe certain propositions about them. Again Jesus says to the Pharisees, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me.” But people often point to James, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” People point out that there must be a qualitative difference between believing something and having faith, or else why would the demons believe and not be saved?
The word for believe here is pisteuoo…it could be translated “The demons also have faith…” But it’s not a qualitative difference, it’s a quantitative difference. The reason demons aren’t saved is that, at least here in this passage, the object of their belief (and only propositions are objects of belief/knowledge) is monotheism, and James is saying monotheism won’t save you.
But people may respond and say, “No, it takes more than just belief, but it takes trust as well.” My response is, “What is trust?” Trust is simply believing someone’s word. At the heart of trust is belief, it is simply emphasizing something about the concept. Many people believe that one may believe but not trust…or to put it another way…one may believe something but not act in accordance with that belief.
I’m saying that we always act according to our strongest beliefs. As Christians we all believe that the lovingkindness of God is better than life (Ps. 63:3), but at the moment that we sin, we simply do not believe that to be true, thus the man said to Jesus, “Lord I believe, only help my unbelief!”
To have faith in God is simply to believe God’s Word. Not to claim to believe, but to believe. To say that we must trust God’s Word is another way of saying, “You must really believe, not just claim to believe God’s Word.” To say that we must trust in Jesus is another way of saying, “We must believe the Words that Jesus spoke.”
People, affected with anti-intellectualism, like to claim that my sort of thinking offers up dry orthodoxy, and that we don’t have faith in some doctrine, but in God. This is simply a farce. Propositions are the only objects of knowledge. A person cannot be an object of knowledge, but we may believe and know certain propositions about them. The Scripture says we must believe God’s Word, the Scriptures. There are certain, central doctrines that must be believed, and that is what saving faith is.
I’ve rambled, and now I must leave work, I’d love to discuss this more. Grace.
“Propositions are the only objects of knowledge”
I think I disagree pretty strongly with you on that statement. I can konw a great number of things without reducing them to discrete statements. I may or may not be capable of clearly expressing such knowledge, but I can know know them just the same. Take the classic example: “Adam knew Eve” (Hebrew. Strongs # 3045. To know, properly, to ascertain by seeing–I did my homework on that one
) There is a kind of knowledge that is wholly experiential and cannot be reduced to a single proposition (such as “Eve makes good babies”).
I was an English major, so please forgive me while I adamantly stand by my metaphor. You seem to wish to reduce belief to a binary statement, a thing that is either on or off, a 1 or a 0. Binary oppositions serve a very useful purpose, primarily for evoking clarity and making fine distinctions. Nevertheless, life is experienced in analog.
To know God, you must experience Him. Any number of statements about him would be insufficient, the same way any number of statements about my fiance would have been insufficient to convince me to marry her. In the same way, belief in God is not the sum of assents to certain theological proposiitons. That’s belief in a creed, not belief in a God. A creed is what you create after the fact to reduce your experience to clear, mentally digestible understandings.
Granted, if you have experience the same God that I have, you and I should be able to reduce our experiences down to roughly the same set of doctrines. But the doctrines must follow after experiencing God, or we will be in danger of idolizing our doctrines in place of the living God.
You pointed out that believing the message is essentially the same as believing the messenger. This is true. As long as the message did in fact come from the messenger. Ever play telephone? If I “add to or take away from” the message before I pass it on, then the message is no longer from the same messenger. Then you can believe the message all you want, but you’ve got the wrong messenger, and your belief is useless, because your message has lost a certain degree of truth. That’s the point I was trying to bring out with my discussion about “alignment.” I’m not trying to make a controverted disjunction between the message and the messenger; I’m trying to join them as closely as possible. The only way you can ensure that you have the right message is to ensure you have the right messenger. An overwrought focus on the message will eventually result in “sound without substance” while your internal voice tries to go on saying the message from memory without constantly checking it against the original messenger.
There. Now I’ve rambled too.
Good interaction. Sometimes with text one cannot discern a light-hearted conversation and an argument, so before I begin I’ll reiterate that I mean all of this in friendship.
You say:
“Take the classic example: “Adam knew Eve”"
I think you’ve fallen pray to a figure of speech. It’s very apparent that the term “know” is not speaking of what we are speaking of, namely intellectualy apprehension. The term know here refers to affections, completely different. It’s similar to me saying, “God heard my cry.” Well God has no ear drums, so God didn’t hear anything in the sense that we hear something, it’s a figure of speech.
“There is a kind of knowledge that is wholly experiential and cannot be reduced to a single proposition (such as “Eve makes good babies”).”
I will simply disagree with this. Define knowledge that is experiential. Many mystics have tried to hold to such things…a big modern day way of saying it is, “You can know with your head, and with your heart.” But that’s simply undefined double-talk. I do not disagree that one has experiences, but all knowledge is propositional. Truth is a characteristic of propositions alone.
“To know God, you must experience Him.”
False. To know God you must know the propositions that are in His Word. And what does this mean “experience”? I believe this is another undefined term that carries little weight with me. Experience how? Everyone experiences His providential love and control, so does that mean everyone knows God? Can one know God apart from His Word, the Scriptures?
“Any number of statements about him would be insufficient, the same way any number of statements about my fiance would have been insufficient to convince me to marry her. In the same way, belief in God is not the sum of assents to certain theological proposiitons. That’s belief in a creed, not belief in a God. A creed is what you create after the fact to reduce your experience to clear, mentally digestible understandings.”
False. Your confusing interaction with knowledge when speaking of your fiance. On the contrary the Scriptures repeatedly proclaim that to know God is to know His revelation. The only way we come to know God is through revelation, and all revelation is propositional. Only propositions are objects of knowledge. Repeatedly the Scriptures tell us how one is saved…and what is it? To believe. To believe what? God’s Word…i.e. the Scriptures…i.e. the propositions that God has revealed to us.
“But the doctrines must follow after experiencing God, or we will be in danger of idolizing our doctrines in place of the living God.”
Again, I’ll wait for you to define what you mean by “experiencing God” in a way that does not include every single person ever to have lived…in that case the word would have no meaning. But one would only idolize one’s doctrines if they believed the doctrines were God. On the contrary, I believe epistemologically one can only know propositions, and thus to believe in God is to believe His revelation about Himself. So when one asks me, “How do I know God? How can I be saved? What does it mean for me to believe God?” I’m not going to respond, “Go experience Him man, and then I’ll tell you about some doctrines…” No…on the contrary, I will do what the prophets, Jesus and the apostles did…point them to God’s Word, i.e. the Scriptures. It’s naught for not that the Bible says, “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth”, “you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God”, “faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of Christ.”
What of Lazarus and the rich man? The rich man begged that God would send Lazarus back to warn his family that they might be saved. His plea was rejected, but what was told him? “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” But then the rich man pleads again, saying that if someone from the dead visits them, they will believe, and what was told him at last? “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.”
It’s through reading and being persuaded to believe the Scriptures that one is saved. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life…” He does then say, “But you should seek some experience from God…” But what does our Lord say? “It is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” He basically says, “You are right to look in God’s self-revelation to man, but you simply just don’t believe it!”
I am also still waiting for an explanation by what you mean “We believe the messenger, not the messege.”
“You pointed out that believing the message is essentially the same as believing the messenger. This is true. As long as the message did in fact come from the messenger. Ever play telephone? If I “add to or take away from” the message before I pass it on, then the message is no longer from the same messenger. Then you can believe the message all you want, but you’ve got the wrong messenger, and your belief is useless, because your message has lost a certain degree of truth.”
You’ve simply evaded the issue. If the message is “added to or taken away from” then it is no longer the message. That is X+Y no longer equals X. I completely agree with this section of the statement, that if one does not believe the true message (the gospel) then belief is useless. There are certain key doctrines that one must believe, there is disagreement (as always) as to what the essentials are, but I think they are probably:
Something to that effect.
“The only way you can ensure that you have the right message is to ensure you have the right messenger. An overwrought focus on the message will eventually result in “sound without substance” while your internal voice tries to go on saying the message from memory without constantly checking it against the original messenger.”
I’m not really sure what you mean in this quote…could you elaborate? I think the way you know you have the right message is to do what the Prophets continually tried to make Israel do…go back to the Word. We only know anything about God because of His revelation…so we turn to the Scriptures and steep ourselves in them.
Rambling is good for the soul…muhahaha…
I’m saying that biblical faith is simply belief. When I present the gospel, I don’t ask the person to seek some mystical encounter or spend 30 minutes trying to explain fidelity
…but I say what the Scriptures say…”Believe…take God at His Word…don’t nod your head and tell me you believe…BELIEVE…live by what God says, and not by what you say. If the Bible says you deserve hell, then believe that…truly believe that…if the bible says that the only way to be saved is to trust in Christ, then believe that…”
It’s not that I dislike the terminology “trust” or “faith”, but it’s that those terms are so vague and many people end up communicating something unbiblical. What is trust? Believing the proposition that this person’s statements are true…what they say is true and they will do what they say they will do…i.e. it is true. I trust my fiance because I believe the proposition that what she tells me is true. She tells me that she won’t cheat on me, so I take that as true.
I offer a friendly challenge to show that anything other than propositions can be objects of knowledge…hehe…that should only take 15 years or so…grace.
By all means, friendship. No offense taken, I assure you.
However, I am at a bit of a loss for words. Each of us thinks that what the other person thinks is absolute nonsense. For instance, I consider intellectual apprehension to be the weakest part of knowledge, something that you forumulate after you perceive. I consider the initial perception to be the foundational part of knowledge. But this is because I am, in fact, a mystic. The creedal statements you listed are all things I believe, but I believe them as a direct result of a series of mystical experiences that I have had. If I had not had these experiences, I would not believe any of these statements, and I would have no reason to.
You ask, “Can one know God apart from His Word, the Scriptures?” But of course. Why do you ask such silly questions. Abraham was called the friend of God, and what did he have but mystical experiences? A voice or an angel telling him to sacrifice his son to God. A debate with an angel over destroying a city. A smoking torch passing between two sides of a ram. These were not universal experiences of God’s love and control. Nor was Israel’s experience with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Nor was Ezekiel’s experience with the valley of dry bones. They were real and specific experiences with a real and specific God.
A proposition about God may give you knowledge about God, but it doesn’t give you knowledge of God. This is why Job said “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you,” because there is a difference between knowing propositions about God and actually encountering Him in person. I’ve already discussed my thoughts on this here. I thought I mentioned it in this series that I’m working on, but it looks like the link is broken. I’ll have to go fix that.
You say:
“However, I am at a bit of a loss for words. Each of us thinks that what the other person thinks is absolute nonsense. For instance, I consider intellectual apprehension to be the weakest part of knowledge, something that you forumulate after you perceive. I consider the initial perception to be the foundational part of knowledge.”
I do not think that the content of knowledge comes from perception.
“You ask, “Can one know God apart from His Word, the Scriptures?” But of course. Why do you ask such silly questions. Abraham was called the friend of God, and what did he have but mystical experiences?”
Then you deny Sola Scriptura…which may of be no consequence to many, but some consider this an essential part of evangelicalism. Abraham had the Word of God, as we have the Word of God, except in the present time the Word of God is found only in the Scriptures. This will of course lead us to discussing cessationism.
“A proposition about God may give you knowledge about God, but it doesn’t give you knowledge of God.”
You’re using the term “knowledge of God” to really mean “experience of God”, which is simply using the same word “knowledge” in a completely different sense. But be that as it may, these experiences that you would claim to have…what do you know about them other than the propositions of what happened?
“This is why Job said “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you,” because there is a difference between knowing propositions about God and actually encountering Him in person.”
Firstly I don’t think this is what Job is talking about. Secondly, I have not claimed that there is not a difference, I have simply claimed that an encounter of God is not an object of knowledge, only the propositions about an encounter with God are.
Grace