Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sola Scriptura Message-ID: Date: 2 Jul 90 06:46:34 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 35 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Joe Buehler asks > Darren: I am curious. What do you want to found society on? What > should be the standard of what is good and evil, what is lawful and > unlawful? Not to answer for Darren, or anybody else, but we don't FOUND society on anything -- we FIND it. I mean this pun seriously. People who ask for the "foundation" of society are asking for a *theory* -- an explanation. Whether the answers you prefer are theological or not (maybe sociological or historical answers are more pertinent than the theological ones?) the answer has a different status than the reality. Even if we are talking practically, about the foundation of a new order of the world (a la revolutionary America) people necessarily bring to the task a whole culture's (or multiple cultures') worth of the ideas and presuppositions they grew up with -- possibly heavily overlain by revisions and criticisms or developments growing out of their personal committments. And these agendas do include theological ones, too. Insofar as we receive God's revelation in such matters, THAT enters as well -- whether as part of the criticism and revision or as a less revolutionary development. But human culture is the matrix in which all this happens, it is the vehicle through which we comprehend -- if we ever do at all -- divine revelation. Meaning -- even God's meaning -- can be conveyed to us only via human ways of understanding. That is not God's limit, of course -- it is our own, which we can never escape. Our nature is, we believe, given to us by God; let us not despise it: God apparently feels it is sufficient for us. I'm not at all sure that Joe does. -- Michael L. Siemon "O stand, stand at the window, m.siemon@ATT.COM As the tears scald and start; ...!att!sfsup!mls You shall love your crooked neighbor standard disclaimer With your crooked heart."