Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ssc-bee!ssc-vax!carroll@cs.washington.edu (Jeff Carroll) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Standing back to observe Message-ID: Date: 23 Jun 91 04:22:20 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics Lines: 51 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article daly@strawber.princeton.edu (John Daly) writes: >In article , janet@cs.arizona.edu (Janet Kerr) writes: >|> >|> I feel a genuine need to sit back awhile, get away from it all (zealous >|> well-meaning Christians) and try to get things in perspective. I don't >|> want to argue with anyone issuing volumes of Biblical quotes, I've heard >|> most of it. I just wonder if, on a human level, flesh and bone, if >|> there are other sincere Christians who experience the same thing, who >|> just want to do what is right but are weary of theological haggling. I have not read this group for some months for more or less this reason. I wince (probably visibly) every time I see someone dashing into s.r.c with Bible and sword both unholstered, ready to consign the doctrinally nonconforming to everlasting damnation. >I think these sentiments apply equally well to the doctrine arguments you >mention. I might as well add that I frequently don't have any idea who is >right in theological arguments either. This does not concern me all that >greatly though, because I believe God is sufficiently in control of his >creation that these arguments do not threaten him. Actually, I imagine >he finds most of them pretty amusing. Theology, as "words about God", will always be inadequate to the task of describing the One Who Is What He Is. I think it's important to remember that theology exists for the purpose of explaining God to mankind, and that man does not exist for the purpose of having the correct understanding of theology. Correct theology, if there is such a thing, is not correct by virtue of the authority that teaches it, but rather because it happens to be accurately descriptive of the reality of God. Because God transcends all the formal systems within which we live, any attempt at a systematic description of God will be incomplete; the best we can hope for, to use a loose analogy, is an optimal estimate of the projection of God into the subspace accessible to us. It is plausible to me that two radically different theologies could be equally complete and accurate descriptions of God. In recent months I have been exposed to a number of Christians who feel compelled to recruit others into a certain group to which they belong in order to validate the spiritual experiences they themselves have had in and through that group. We often do this with doctrine - it's easier for us to believe in something that is acknowledged to have some sort of "objective" validity in the eyes of society at large than to trust in an intangible and subjective understanding. -- Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com