Ben Witherington has a good post on the limitations of our ability to exhaustively know God. This is worth a few minutes to read...and hours to contemplate.
Before I post any comments on BW III's comments I want to comment on the youtube clip of John Piper.
Amazingly, despite trying to sound humble, John Piper still managed to sound arrogant! UNREAL! But thats my own arrogant judgment which I too need to repent of, but that was certainly my "knee jerk" reaction.
Example 1. "Intellectuals are Calvinist." I certainly hope John Piper is not suggesting that Arminians are the non-intellectual type.
Example 2. That some Reformed Christians have anger over being misled by not having been taught grace. (And BW3 makes this point also)... really?! First, I don't know ANYONE like this. Secondly, are there seriously churches (within the bounds of traditional orthodoxy) that don't "teach grace?" Or is Piper referring to the Calvinist understanding of grace?
Example 3. Humility leads to truth and the conversion to that truth leads to zeal. To quote Piper: "absolutely we want to make everyone Calvinist." Wow! Evangelism WITHIN the church! Or maybe, if Arminians are heretics and therefore non-Christians, then its just plain old "evangelism." WOW!!!
Example 4. Again, to quote Piper, Calvinists "see what's really in the Bible." Wow! He said THAT?! Wow. Implying that obviously no Arminian (or other) ever really opens up the Bible.
Again, I hate to join the ranks of judgmentalism, and indeed I cannot judge his heart and can only trust he is being humble when he says he's being humble, but... wow... my knee jerk reaction certainly was one of "wow, he sounds arrogant even in trying to sound 'humble.'"
OK onto post 2, as promised. Now addressing your thoughts, Jeff.
I like a lot of what Witherington said. Indeed, to say that the 66 book canon we have EXHAUSTIVELY reveals God is not only teetering on heresy (a finite book exhaustively revealing the infinite God), but also teetering on "going beyond the book" or "beyond revelation."
Has God ANYWHERE or to ANYONE revealed that He has exhaustively revealed Himself? I just don't see the claim anywhere. So when we say things with "absolute certainty" we need to tread cautiously with such language.
That said, we also don't want the pendulum to swing to the opposite extreme: mindless, factless, extreme postmodernism and relativism where nothing can be known.
Someone in the happy middle (or maybe slightly to one side or the other) is knowledge, including knowledge of God.
If we believe Jesus really is the incarnation of God, then - as long as the biblical writers are at least somewhat accurate - we can know who God is. This knowingness is not in "absolute" terms, as if we have the divine perspective, but in reasonable terms, relational terms, experiential terms, the way most knowledge works.
And so our knowledge of God is not nothing and our knowledge of God is not exhaustive. What we need to begin to do is create an epistemology for theology. How do we know what we think we know about God?
I had a converstaion last Sunday with one of the teens in our congregation. I was speaking about 'truthfulness' in the context of the ninth Great Word of Love in Exodus 20:16. She asked me what I thought about people who lie for a living, like undercover agents, etc. Can a follower of Jesus embrace a profession that requires deception?
My response was "that's a good question." I know...I was supposed to have a thoroughly thought through and bullet proof answer as her pastor, but I don't. I think arguments could be made both ways based upon some OT examples. However, what is the Kingdom way? Why is deception needed in these professions? How many broken down ways of living are linked together in these problem/job connections?
I said in my message last week that part of the problem for us is that we don't always know what is true. (Don't load your ammunition to shoot the relativist just yet!) As finite beings we do not have the ability to exhaustively know objective reality. Even if it were to be revealed to us we do not have the ontological capacity to comprehend it all. So as we approach 'truth' it seems to me that we need to come with a truck load of humility, and turn to what has been revealed of the One who is referred to as "Faithful and True." But again, we have not had the full and exhaustive revelation given to us. We have been given enough revelation to enter into life and follow this One who is ontologically 'true.' So, with one hand firmly grasping truth and the other solidly holding onto humility, we see as through a glass dimly. We 'know' in part. We 'see' in part. But we hold onto what has been revealed of the One who is fully true.
3 comments:
Before I post any comments on BW III's comments I want to comment on the youtube clip of John Piper.
Amazingly, despite trying to sound humble, John Piper still managed to sound arrogant! UNREAL! But thats my own arrogant judgment which I too need to repent of, but that was certainly my "knee jerk" reaction.
Example 1. "Intellectuals are Calvinist." I certainly hope John Piper is not suggesting that Arminians are the non-intellectual type.
Example 2. That some Reformed Christians have anger over being misled by not having been taught grace. (And BW3 makes this point also)... really?! First, I don't know ANYONE like this. Secondly, are there seriously churches (within the bounds of traditional orthodoxy) that don't "teach grace?" Or is Piper referring to the Calvinist understanding of grace?
Example 3. Humility leads to truth and the conversion to that truth leads to zeal. To quote Piper: "absolutely we want to make everyone Calvinist." Wow! Evangelism WITHIN the church! Or maybe, if Arminians are heretics and therefore non-Christians, then its just plain old "evangelism." WOW!!!
Example 4. Again, to quote Piper, Calvinists "see what's really in the Bible." Wow! He said THAT?! Wow. Implying that obviously no Arminian (or other) ever really opens up the Bible.
Again, I hate to join the ranks of judgmentalism, and indeed I cannot judge his heart and can only trust he is being humble when he says he's being humble, but... wow... my knee jerk reaction certainly was one of "wow, he sounds arrogant even in trying to sound 'humble.'"
OK, thats post 1.
REV
OK onto post 2, as promised. Now addressing your thoughts, Jeff.
I like a lot of what Witherington said. Indeed, to say that the 66 book canon we have EXHAUSTIVELY reveals God is not only teetering on heresy (a finite book exhaustively revealing the infinite God), but also teetering on "going beyond the book" or "beyond revelation."
Has God ANYWHERE or to ANYONE revealed that He has exhaustively revealed Himself? I just don't see the claim anywhere. So when we say things with "absolute certainty" we need to tread cautiously with such language.
That said, we also don't want the pendulum to swing to the opposite extreme: mindless, factless, extreme postmodernism and relativism where nothing can be known.
Someone in the happy middle (or maybe slightly to one side or the other) is knowledge, including knowledge of God.
If we believe Jesus really is the incarnation of God, then - as long as the biblical writers are at least somewhat accurate - we can know who God is. This knowingness is not in "absolute" terms, as if we have the divine perspective, but in reasonable terms, relational terms, experiential terms, the way most knowledge works.
And so our knowledge of God is not nothing and our knowledge of God is not exhaustive. What we need to begin to do is create an epistemology for theology. How do we know what we think we know about God?
REV
I had a converstaion last Sunday with one of the teens in our congregation. I was speaking about 'truthfulness' in the context of the ninth Great Word of Love in Exodus 20:16. She asked me what I thought about people who lie for a living, like undercover agents, etc. Can a follower of Jesus embrace a profession that requires deception?
My response was "that's a good question." I know...I was supposed to have a thoroughly thought through and bullet proof answer as her pastor, but I don't. I think arguments could be made both ways based upon some OT examples. However, what is the Kingdom way? Why is deception needed in these professions? How many broken down ways of living are linked together in these problem/job connections?
I said in my message last week that part of the problem for us is that we don't always know what is true. (Don't load your ammunition to shoot the relativist just yet!) As finite beings we do not have the ability to exhaustively know objective reality. Even if it were to be revealed to us we do not have the ontological capacity to comprehend it all. So as we approach 'truth' it seems to me that we need to come with a truck load of humility, and turn to what has been revealed of the One who is referred to as "Faithful and True." But again, we have not had the full and exhaustive revelation given to us. We have been given enough revelation to enter into life and follow this One who is ontologically 'true.' So, with one hand firmly grasping truth and the other solidly holding onto humility, we see as through a glass dimly. We 'know' in part. We 'see' in part. But we hold onto what has been revealed of the One who is fully true.
Thoughts?
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