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The Biomechanics of Pragmatism
A blog of sound and fury, signifying nothing
Scattered Thoughts on Theology and Ministry...
Seeking truth and beauty from the heavenly city.
A desktop app that gives WordPress a permanent home in your dock
An exploration of the works of poet Charles Williams (1886-1945)
Some Thoughts on the Book of Acts and Pauline Theology
“Either we are fools for the world because of Christ or we are fools for Christ because of the world. O how short-lived is the sound of a word of the world! If the world would say to us ‘fool,’ the world will die and its word will die! What then is the value of its word? But if the heavenly, immortal ones say to us ‘fool,’ that will neither die nor is it removed from us as eternal condemnation.” + St. Nikolai Velimirovich
Blogging about philosophy, by a part-time student
A venue for anti-passivist thinking, from metaphysics to social theory
Miscellaneous Musings
A blog devoted to the translation of German New Testament scholarship
A Sydney based theological reading and discussion group
Theology. Philosophy. Life.
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The name of this blog is A Rigid Designator
"religion is above all an external word" (Lindbeck)
βιβλιο: "book"; σκώληξ: "worm"
Theologians, Inc. 
Well, the Bible assumes that some level of knowledge is possible. The entire purpose of the gospel of Luke is that Theophilus “may have certainty concerning the things [he has] been taught.”
The gospel of John, likewise, is written so that we may “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” To believe is to be certain of something, so we must be certain of that.
Paul, in the same vein, says to believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and to confess with your mouth that God raised him from the dead.
From that firm knowledge about who Jesus is and what he accomplished, we can arrive at other certain truths. It’s true that there is a lot of uncertainty: But there is also a lot that is certain, that can be known as truth.
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REAL intelligence is taciy, or intrinsically wordless, living existence.
True Philosophy is not a pattern of thinking. True Philosophy is a process, an art, a profound yoga which is necessarily associated with Reality itself, Truth itself, and Beauty itself.
In our normal dreaful fear-saturated “sanity” the death of bodies is a philosophical or theological matter that causes untrust, distrust, and hell-deep fear; a matter that fills us with philosophical and “theological” propositions that are Godless, Ecstasyless, Blissless.
As a matter of fact, the cosmic domain is just like Mother Kali. Exactly so. It is full of death, full of process, full of moment to moment changes, a beginningless and endless Light show.
Ecstasy, and thus Right Life altogether, requires trust and the utter acceptance of death!
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This topic was born out of a question asked on Facebook: isn’t all theology speculative?
To which I reply, well, yeah, in a sense it is. I was more thinking along the lines of what we think about God – doctrinal certainty, things like that. How certain can we be about someone so wholly other?
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Rather than speculative, might one say all theology (all our language about God) is “metaphorical”?
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I would definitely agree with that – does that then mean that all our theology is metaphorical?
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I’m inclined to say yes, or at least we should behave as if that’s the case…
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If that’s the case (or at least we should behave like that’s the case) how dogmatic do you think we should we be about doctrinal issues?
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I suppose, in part, that would depend on which doctine. But in general, I think we should approach dogma as St. Augustine suggested, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.”
I think the principle problem with a lot of modern Christianity is not that we’re too concerned with dogma. It’s that we’re not concerned enough with charity.
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I would definitely agree with your last sentence there.
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I would definitely agree as well: Many of us are not concerned enough with charity. The Church is having a significant problem in holding onto both solid doctrine and true charity.
Some churches use doctrine to actively wound those outside the church (and I believe those will be judged more harshly than most), while others discard doctrine entirely in the false belief that that will enable them to be more charitable.
(BTW: I hope you are not offended that I’m suddenly commenting on your posts. I’ve missed this type of discussion since college.)
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I’m hardly offended – the whole purpose of this blog is to be a dialogue/discourse on these kinds of thing. The more conversation the better!
I always liked C.S. Lewis’s take on doctrine/theology:
http://www.imperishableinheritance.com/2005/cs-lewis-on-the-importance-of-theology/
‘ I remember once when I had been giving a talk to the R.A.F., an old, hard-bitten officer got up and said, ‘I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!’
Now in a sense I quite agreed with that man. I think he had probably had a real experience of God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to the Christian creeds, I think he really was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper. But here comes the point. The map is admittedly only coloured paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.
Now, Theology is like the map. Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrines, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than the sort of thing my friend got in the desert. Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God-experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused. And secondly, if you want to get any further, you must use the map.’
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