Great stuff. Fully agree. By coincidence, I read a story about Koko today. Part of her routine language training involved watching Mr. Rogers every day. When he heard about it and came to meet Koko, she gave him a huge hug, made him sit down and took his shoes off, just like he did on every episode.
I have bunches to say about imitation/mimesis, but now’s not the time or thread for it. Suffice it to say that God didn’t provide us with a philosophy to comprehend or a systematic theology to memorize. He gave us an example we could understand and imitate.
Exactly. I assume in light of his new experience he just had lost faith that language could adequately convey what mattered most. As important as his writing had been and still is for people who have not had that experience (most of us, no doubt) he realized the gulf between the two. I can’t imagine he no longer thought his writing had meaning; more likely he merely became aware of something more to strive for. I do wonder why he stopped writing it might not have been a strategic decision so much as a kind of shock?
And another thing to understand is where Christianity is wrong.
Christianity is not only a wide spectrum but a collection of many ideas from many different sources and clearly most of them are wrong since they disagree with each other. Certainly there are many ideas in Christianity which I have rejected as nonsense or even twisting the religion into something evil.
I accept that personal experiences are subjective, and these may be expressed in ways that are a reflection of the individual; my personal criteria are ways that enhance the meaning and goodness of life (very broad) and conform to how I comprehend things as reasonable (or reasonably true as far as I can determine). It is part of objective reality, however, that communicated knowledge may also be considered as given and its origin comprehended. In the case of an awareness that arises as a response of reason to the revealed goodness, this can be considered as lawful, as principles, and the equivalent of verified knowledge (i.e., believably true). The finest example of this is the great law, of loving God with all the heart, mind and soul, and the second law, which is similar, in that we would love our neighbour as ourselves, which sum the Ten Commandments. These articulations (and the prophets, the gospels etc.,) are the eloquent wording of the ideal, the response of reason to the revelation of God, contain examples of the life-activities of those filled with the goodness that comes from God (culminating in the life of Jesus Christ) and are therefore wordings synonymous with the meaning of the word God. These remarks would also apply to our weakness and faults, in that the Bible would contain examples of these faults to teach us that God realizes our wrong choices and acts and wants us to be sufficiently self-aware to repent.
The goodness of life is within the completeness and the continuation of life. Revelation is presented to us within such goodness and revealed things become meaningful. Furthermore, because revelation is comprehended as goodness, it is in harmony with reason. The possibilities regarding revelation arise from the response of reason, in that each person may respond according to his reason and heart, and because revelation can be comprehended within the framework of life and death, within good and bad. Our reasoning shows that God is synonymous with good and life. Death is comprehended as either cessation of life, causing fear and anxiety, or death is equated with that which is contrary to God and is outside of the meaning of God. The remarks concerning the idea(s) of god(s) and the capacity for us to conceptualize such entities within the context of human attributes, provides many possibilities that reason may ponder and consider, providing error to the meaning of god. Because of the many possibilities that confront reason I recognize the necessity of faith.
I consider poetry as an appropriate medium for expression of faith (metaphor, simile, analogy); when writing poetry, the words I use are a way that meaning is found within the finiteness of human life but may also include (as an expression of hope and faith) the meaning of God as believed.
I suppose our daily activities can be considered factual personal experiences, and also subjective if we want to; I have in mind religious ones that impact on our beliefs and way of life.
Everything we experience through our senses demands interpretation. That interpretation is not objective. We may experience factual events but our interpretations about the event are subjective. Two persons more often than not interpret the factual event in a different way or at least focus on and remember different details.
If you are suggesting a possibility of making statements or descriptions about God, even if they are limited, I would suggest that they would be mostly apophatic statements. But yours appears to be a personal belief or viewpoint that there is no definitive “correct” or “incorrect” way to express such ideas, as they often involve matters of faith, theology, and personal conviction.
You also seem to acknowledge the limitations of human understanding when it comes to God, and suggest that there is no end to the things people can say or learn about God, implying that our comprehension is always limited. Is that right?
I agree with your statement, that posits that what we know or say about God is insignificant in the sense that it represents only a minuscule fraction of the totality of what God might be. I think it is important to highlight the human limitations in understanding the divine, and not to pretend that we have expertise or mastery over the subject of God.
If I have understand you correctly, I acknowledge your appreciation of the vastness and mystery surrounding the concept of God and agree that we must encourage humility in the face of that mystery.
I see that we are closer in our thoughts than I initially thought. For me, it is the broad cultural tradition that is encouraging, but also the fact that, if we accept that circumstances can influence the cultural perspective, we might see that the idea of a God that only selects a small tribe in the middle east to begin with, and then expands his redemptive work once that tribe rejects its calling, is quite restrictive.
There is no doubt that the narrative surrounding Christ is exemplary, as indeed are many stories of saints that have kept the faith, but that doesn’t make it exclusive. There are just as many tragic heroes of faith that were burned at the stake by the church, whose case could also be seen as exemplary. Christ is a turning point for the Western world, but I believe that God has been redeeming people all over the world in ways that we just haven’t recognized.
Heiser’s interpretation of Psalm 82 challenges traditional monotheistic understandings and suggests that the Israelites had a more complex understanding of the divine realm, with Yahweh as the supreme God and other divine beings exercising authority under His rule. With this perspective, we are approaching a pantheon like the Greeks and others had, which taken as a mythological portrayal of the heavens, has its value, but is problematic from a monotheistic perspective.
Heiser may argue that this interpretation is in line with the worldview of the ancient Israelites, who believed in a divine council of gods or divine beings, with Yahweh (the God of Israel) as the supreme deity and the subordinate “gods” being given authority over various nations, but it sounds like an attempt at theological elitism, acknowledging that other religions are there, but “ours” is superior.
Where did you go to look it up? Curious because I didn’t find it problematic
A Triune God is superior in every way over other forms of theism. It’s both humbling and encouraging that my God did not know what it was to be alone until he became that in the person of Jesus to save me from my sin.
In addition, it is quite plausible to suggest that certain passages in the Old Testament, including Psalm 82, reflect the diversity of sources and theological perspectives that make up the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The Old Testament is a complex collection of texts that were written over many centuries by different authors in various historical and cultural contexts. These texts often reflect different theological, cultural, and religious viewpoints. This diverges from the idea of continuity in the Bible, but that was debunked some time ago, and scholars recognize that the Bible is a complex collection of texts with diverse theological perspectives, historical contexts, and literary genres.
The theological themes and perspectives found in the prophetic books of the Old Testament can differ substantially from those in the historical books or the wisdom literature, similarly, the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament are often distinct from certain Old Testament texts. Using methods like historical-critical analysis, source criticism, and redaction criticism to examine these variations and understand the Bible’s development over time, we can see the diversity and evolution of theological ideas in the Bible. Of course, scholars also seek to identify overarching themes and theological messages that may run through the biblical texts.
