Thanks for your elaboration on Wright’s ideas about PoMo, by the way.
W.R.T. “love”…It seemed that Wright was contrasting knowledge obtained by reason versus that obtained by love. I’d reworded this in my notes as the value of reason versus romanticism. It seemed that Wright was critiquing the Enlightnment’s excessive focus on “dispassionate reason” --enlightenment thinkers believing that passions…such as love…were just distractions from perceiving the objective truth. A character like Spock from Star Trek came to mind.
I also have just a vague idea of what “Natural Theology” is supposed to be at this point. For me, it seems that natural theology has been linked to an Intelligent Design (ID) approach, i.e., look for physical things in nature to “prove” God. I don’t think treating scripture as history per se leads to a YEC approach as @Mervin_Bitikofer might fear? It all depends on the genre of the text and what the author intended. e.g., I suspect Wright would treat the genre of Genesis differently from the reports about Jesus in the gospels. Certainly, many Christians tend to “spiritualize” the scriptures, but I haven’t linked that to EC particularly, but maybe to modernist enlightenment thinking, the “rationalist versus romantic” tension, the modern tendency to be sceptical of “miracles” as physical/historical acts of God in the world.
As I understand it the Gospels are a unique form of literature that combines real history with theology. John especially places events with corresponding teaching. IOW the history is not strictly chronological. Matthew goes out of his way to incorporate as much prophecy as possible, while Luke emphasises the social aspects.
They are neither strictly history nor journalism.
In many ways they are closer to propaganda or spin but both those terms have a negative, even falsehood understanding in our modern world.
Those are solid answers - thanks, @klw and @Kendel. Indeed, knowing that Wright is no pushover, I wasn’t worried that he hasn’t made it all work together with both spiritual and historical considerations all satisfactorily or at least plausibly accounted for. Maybe it isn’t so much that any diehard literalist would have much occassion to be too excited here - but more that I can imagine some of progressive persuasion being made to squirm a bit with Wright’s thesis. But that can all be sussed out more effectively with some of his later lectures of this series.
You are correct. It is important to note the Gospels also share literary dependence and so do not really constitute 4 independent witnesses who are unknowable with any degree of certainty anyways. Matthew and Luke probably meant to fully replace Mark.
History is spun theologically and theology is also used to spin history. It cuts both ways.
Pinker’s “eliminated” is an overstatement, unless chattel slavery sanctioned by sovereign nations is the only measure. But even if you take into account economic systems of the past such as serfdom, fiefdom, crop-sharing, “company towns” or other measures that tied people to lords and land, humanity has made progress over the centuries in stamping out “slavery” in its many forms.
There was no such thing as the “middle class” until the Industrial Era, long before GDP was recognized or measured. (Finally, something that can’t be blamed on the Enlightenment. haha) Until then, society around the world was the top 1% and the bottom 99%. Technology created the middle class and subsequently has increased productivity to the point that I may live to see a 4-day work week become standard. That’s a far cry from the “objective” biblical mandate of six days work and one day of rest even for slaves and animals, which was “progressive” thousands of years ago.
In light of current upheavals, I have to agree with you. Hmmmm? is an understatement.
Linear as in constantly onwards and upwards? Nope. It’s mostly two steps forward and one step back, and occasionally two or three steps backward before humanity recovers its balance. Sorta like the individual spiritual life writ large.
My wife works in healthcare research. You’re absolutely right about access to care making a huge difference in outcomes. Regarding lifespans and overall health, I could go on and on. The turning point was the invention of “modern medicine” in the early 20th century. Life expectancy was 47 years in 1900, which is roughly what it was for all of human history prior to that. About 50% of children lost one parent before the age of 18, and 25% lost both. There’s a reason the prophets (and Dickens) constantly bring up widows and orphans. Until the 20th century and the invention of modern medicine, the average woman who gave birth to six children would see one die in infancy, another die before the age of 14, and a third die before turning 19. Barely half of live births survived to maturity. We take life for granted in the modern world.
Not picking on you. Good thoughts, all. I’ll come back to Wright’s lecture tomorrow.
Ironically? Coincidentally? Providentially?, while I was putzing at housework, the book I was listening to finished, and I nearly randomly picked Wright’s book Surprised by Scripture next on my Kindle. Chapter 1 (second and third sections) give a very nice layman’s overview of Epicureanism, Enlightenment and they way they play out now. If anyone wants a little reinforcement on the main themes that Wright is covering in the lectures here, Surprised by Scripture might be a good place to look.
(I still don’t agree with his assessment of the church/state split here, though. But I like him in spite of that.)
; )
It is and it isn’t. Please excuse my jumping in the middle of this discussion. As much as I appreciate Wright’s post-millenialism, and lean in that direction myself, something I’ve come across and Wright may agree, the kingdom is now and not yet, Christ is ascended and his enemies are coming more under his dominion, and yet.
Peter’s sermon on Pentecost takes an optimistic view of the last days, yet there is also Paul’s reminder that in the last days, unrighteousness will continually persist.
More thoughts from this first lecture of Wright’s … (pretty nearly quoting him I think)
47 minutes in: How does a thinking Christian cope in this Epicurean world? A good answer would be, to read the Bible. But we invoke Plato. And this goes far enough back into church history that we can go a good ways down that road without noticing that the Bible is dragging its feet.
48 min: If this world is not our home, then our attempts to learn about God from this world become suspect at best. If we are to think of God as of an entirely other world, then what could we possibly learn about him from looking at this wicked one?
From the first quote above - I like how Wright put that. Plato runs so deep and far back in our ‘biblical’ understandings (courtesy almost entirely of Augustine?) that it is probably nearly impossible for us to tease those influences back apart again. And perhaps it doesn’t help that Jesus himself apparently repeats and therefore validates the same Hellenistic pervasive influences of his day (… don’t fear those who can kill only the body … but mind Him who can destroy your soul too.)
The second thought expressed above is then an interesting followup contention. Jesus’ persistent use of parables rooted in this world an its workings, seems to me to validate that we are supposed to learn about God by observing ordinary daily things. Shoot, we are even invited to see something of God’s character by meditating on the actions of an unjust judge!
While Jesus talked about the body and soul as two different things in the verse you quoted, he didn’t talk about one being inherently good, and the other being inherently evil or that combining the two, body with spirit, somehow perverted one or the other. They are both good, because God made them good.
So the Platonism, if I understand what Wright is saying, is exemplified in Christian thinking by the view that the soul will be liberated or freed from the corrupt and disappearing body, the view of an eternal sweet by-and-by where really nothing happens but existence, the view that with satisfaction imagines the world consumed in fires of judgement, while souls of Christians are somewhere else. Rather than a resurrection at which all who have died are made fully alive WITH physical bodies in a restored or perfected physical world.
@RichardG, thank you for talking above about the challenges that the texts of the Gospels give us, who have a contemporary view of what “history” looks like.
I was also wondering how you might respond to Merv’s question I quoted just above what I am typing here in this post. I believe a while back you commented in a discussion about the challenges presented by attempting to read the Bible through the lens of Evolutionary Creationism or Theistic Evolution. If that seems familiar, and it seems relevant to this topic to you, would you mind talking more about that? Thanks
Yes. Of course. That had slipped my mind. I will be keeping my eye out for that, too, as we go on in the lectures.
Basically, I have spent many years arguing Theistic Evolution, if this is the same as Creationist Evolution I am not sure. The point is that it involves accepting that the bible is not meant to be looked at scientifically, especially as much of the contention involves knowledge that (we think) did not exist when Scripture was written.
Early Genesis is clearly an attempt to give a beginning or starting point for faith in God. It would seem to me, also an attempt to try and explain why the world is not perfect, in fact, it appears to be cruel and ungodly It would seem unthinkable for God to deliberately create such a world? Yet, I would suggest that, as our understanding of God increases the notion becomes less outrageous. Scripture repeats that our ways are not God’s ways and it is a human view of Eden, or perfection that governs our view that the world is not right.
I have watched the thread on trying to rationalise Original sin with despair. It is so human centred. As if we have the power to undo what God created in a single stroke of disobedience.
If God is omniscient or all knowing then He would have taken disobedience into consideration or made it impossible. You cannot have freedom of choice if one line of action is forbidden or impossible. Instead God has provided a get-out claus in the form of forgiveness.
Humans want justice. Humans want punishment (even self-punishment), humans want some sort of process for restitution, preferably involvng heroism or some sort of struggle. The simplicity of the cross was always the intention but God had to wait for us to be able to understand it,.Even now there are many who prefer the idea of living a saintly life,or behaving selflessly, who want discipline and order. “say three hail Marys” etc, or bow to Allah morning, noon, and night… They satisfy human needs, It seems to me all God really wants is for us to live our lives socially and without guilt for any errors we might (do ) make.
Humans seem to need an organised religion and some sort of standard or benchmark. I am not convinced God does and His prophets seem to agree with their condemnation of thuughtless ritual or literalism.
But that is me. I am probably not a typical Christian, Evolutionary or otherwise.
My mind is in rebellion against that thought - and my own understanding of scriptures wants to turn it on its head. I.e. - it seems to me that it was in the Hebrew centuries before Christ that the prophets and psalmists were so glibly able to imagine God bringing both evil and good into the world - blessings, catasrophes (punishments) - all of it was from God; and maybe they didn’t think of it as ‘cruel’ in the same way we do, perhaps. Certainly they didn’t worry about charges of cruelty if it was what happened to others (especially outsiders and enemies). But it all came from God. Hence the psalmists’ agony about it all (think of psalm 90) when he himself is suffering those very slings and darts that must be coming from God after all!, at least to his mind - that’s just how God’s world works.
But Jesus turns at least some of that understanding on its head. Suffering is not all from God - or certainly is not always God punishing somebody for their sins. He had to correct that frequently trafficked assumption of the day among his own followers even. If Christ’s presence and teaching to us isn’t ‘progress’ in our understanding of God, then I would be at loss about what any Christian thinks Christ was even teaching or preaching for.
Perhaps I can ask you why? Is it your understanding of God? Or your need for God to be good? (Dependent on your definition of good)
Good needs evil as a counterpoint and for clarification. How can we understand what is good if we have no concept of what is evil? How can God show us good if He cannot show us evil?
The latter. (or … I guess both then.) But I absolutely need for God to be good. (Even if that goodness includes actions or allowances that I don’t yet understand and may not look or feel good to my limited understanding).
If God is not good, then Christ’s teaching us to “be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect” is absolutely gutted, the way I think about it. If we are to allow that perhaps God (contrary to John’s teaching) does have at least ‘just a wee bit’ of darkness or cruelty in him, then … well, most of the New Testament is reduced to trash then, and there is no salvation we can look forward to to separate us from our sins if God himself embodies some of those very same characteristics that are the very sin we need to be delivered from. It would be like an abused woman being rescued from her violent husband, only to discover that the priest running the crisis shelter was himself cruel to women too. So not only do I lose Christ if God isn’t good (because that would mean Christ was wrong about him) - but I also lose the New Testament and for that matter - even much of the old, which itself already starts to give us prophetic foreshadowing (to say the least!) that God is not like the other gods.
Oh - sorry, yeah. I didn’t think you were suggesting anything at all, but just asking a question. Which I answered. But I guess I didn’t need to answer it with a sledgehammer.
I think all God has to do is call our attention to it. He doesn’t create the evil himself. We commit the evil, and God asks us … so … how’s that workin out for y’all?
Evil was not created. Like sin. It is a consequence not a being. It can be personified but it has no shape or form
God neither created good or evil. Perhaps it is a human concept?