tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post2427061023783195597..comments2024-03-28T11:33:16.271-05:00Comments on Adventus: In the valley of the dry bones....Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-18161365858004778362012-08-01T11:40:04.144-05:002012-08-01T11:40:04.144-05:00Whoops, I meant to say a "fuller" explan...Whoops, I meant to say a "fuller" explanation, not a "full" explanation.<br /><br />Read and review.<br />Read and review.<br />Read and review.<br />Read and review. (Times 25)gratuitoushttp://www.theusualplace.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-29046923356622856112012-08-01T07:59:37.833-05:002012-08-01T07:59:37.833-05:00It's also important to note that we are using ...It's also important to note that we are using finite means (thoughts, our ability to express those thoughts, and even language itself) to approach the Infinite. We're not going to come to a complete understanding. We not even going to come to a complete expression of our own experience. But it's in the community of believers that we will get a full expression and understanding.<br /><br />If not a full expression, as close as we're ever going to get. Damned Platonic dualism!<br /><br />“Let us then content ourselves with seeing, as well as we can, what we are permitted to see, and reason upon it to the best of our limited understandings, as well assured that whatever is, is right.” --Sir William Hamilton, an early vulcanologist, in 1794. My source calls it an example of "scientific modesty."<br /><br />Funny how very close science and theology actually are.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-67379544974886395042012-07-31T14:16:18.930-05:002012-07-31T14:16:18.930-05:00"One answer is as valid as the other," b..."One answer is as valid as the other," but only insofar (I think) as consultation is had with the community of believers, a crucial step often skipped over.<br /><br />It's also important to note that we are using finite means (thoughts, our ability to express those thoughts, and even language itself) to approach the Infinite. We're not going to come to a complete understanding. We not even going to come to a complete expression of our own experience. But it's in the community of believers that we will get a full expression and understanding.gratuitoushttp://www.theusualplace.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-68612406176481570062012-07-31T13:11:46.673-05:002012-07-31T13:11:46.673-05:00I get the same stirring (from time to time) readin...<i>I get the same stirring (from time to time) reading theology.</i><br /><br />Me, too. I would never insist that God does not reveal Godself in the teachings of theology, because I have met God there. At times, we come upon God in the most unexpected places. <br /><br />And I quoted the Psalmist about my experience, who was, as you note, pre-industrial.June Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01723016934182800437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-1254868527794687392012-07-31T12:45:46.738-05:002012-07-31T12:45:46.738-05:00I get the same stirring (from time to time) readin...I get the same stirring (from time to time) reading theology.<br /><br />Just discovering the works of Kierkegaard in high school was a revelation, an epiphany.<br /><br />There are shortcomings to such experiences, of course; but then again, the last time I read Grumbach's memoir of her epiphany, I found it profoundly depressing, and Mother Teresa expressed such sorrow and despair about the loss her her mystical experiences it is heart-breaking even in a third-person account.<br /><br />I saw your post in the original; it was lovely. But it's no less lovely if I point out that, thanks to Romanticism, we all understand (or accept) that revelations of God can come through experiencing nature (an experience impossible to a pre-Industrial Revolution culture, frankly, although the Psalmist still writes of the storm that makes the people shout "Glory!"), and likewise we all but insist no such revelation is possible through the teachings of theology.<br /><br />And a critique of a cartoon is not a critique of the cartoonist, or of those who like the cartoon. As I say, mostly it just opened a conversational door for me.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-56572585032254488952012-07-31T12:21:13.658-05:002012-07-31T12:21:13.658-05:00Robert, I'm guessing that our main disagreemen...Robert, I'm guessing that our main disagreement here is about whether the cartoon is funny and hits home in some way.<br /><br />Although it's not at all the thing to quote oneself on the internet, I offer this short post from a couple of days ago:<br /><br /><i>A SPLENDID PANORAMA<br /><br /> Yesterday, as I walked still in daylight, the waxing gibbous moon was already high in the sky. The gorgeous sky was pastel blue and the clouds pastel pink from the sun lowering in the west. Then, seemingly in a few seconds, the clouds turned bright orange and the sky a brilliant aqua. The clouds further east became smoky blue. What a splendid and ever-changing panorama. Oh did I ever want a camera to catch the colors and shapes! But perhaps the better thing was to embrace the moments for what they were at that time and place and not try to hold on to them except in my memories.<br /><br /> "The heavens are telling the glory of God;<br /> and the firmament proclaims his handiwork." (Psalm 19)</i><br /><br />That one experience of the presence of God in God's glorious creation was worth hours of reading or musing on theology. I say that even as much of my present reading includes theological works (loosely defined). Even today, as I remember the spectacle, I feel a stirring within me.June Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01723016934182800437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-77993858281298363522012-07-31T12:11:56.628-05:002012-07-31T12:11:56.628-05:00One thing I've learned from living in Houston:...One thing I've learned from living in Houston: when you are in a public space, you are always in someone else's way.<br /><br />I mentioned my friend from seminary at the outset specifically to identify my bias in this matter. She approaches her religious beliefs from her conversion experience; that is her touchstone. My religious experiences followed from my attendance at church, not in spite of it, or did those experiences lead me to church. I have always pursued a theological approach to God, but that isn't to say it is the only approach.<br /><br />So I specifically avoided any sharp definitions of theology, except as "words about God." No doubt the great Christian mystics would find me too dry here, and the great theologians would consider me far too imprecise to be meaningful. But having drunk deeply of the wells of historical, systematic, and biblical theology, I find them all wanting (indeed, biblical theology is now taught as almost as bootless a pursuit as logical positivism; both had such serious limitations at the beginning as to be mules; tough, enduring in some ways, but incapable of producing offspring.). In some respects my admiration for theology is like Molly Ivins' love for Texas: it's a harmless affliction I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And rather than veer off into my critiques of systematic theology or Paul Tillich, I decided to stay vague and imprecise.<br /><br />Must everyone be systematic, historical, or biblical, in order to truly believe? Heaven forbid. Rather, let us expand the confines of the conversation, and recognize that even the songs of the birds are praise to the Creator, and find our theology there as well.<br /><br />My friend and I get along after all these years because we agree to disagree. I don't consider her thoughtless, and if she considers me too frigidly abstract and ethereal, she doesn't mention it except in a loving spirit. My point in mentioning her was to identify what I think is a common weakness in using the term "theology": that is is an abstruse and hyper-technical field which speaks only to its devotees, rather in the same manner as the Anglo-American schools of philosophy.<br /><br />To the extent that is true, I'd rather theology follow the model of the Continental schools, which at least try to ground their concerns in history and literature and life as she is knowed. True, it produces the impenetrable prose of Derrida and the ponderous weight of Foucault, but whaddya want? Eggs in your beer?<br /><br />So if I try to ground my theological musings in a cartoon, the better to begin a conversation, forgive me my errors and don't hold it against me. I'm a jackdaw, I just grab at whatever shiny thing catches me eye, and pick it up, and caw about it.<br /><br />I should learn how to preach to the birds, so my words will be translated into song.Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-64859319112825956122012-07-31T11:09:46.527-05:002012-07-31T11:09:46.527-05:00Seems to me that Christian theology is, most funda...Seems to me that Christian theology is, most fundamentally, reflection on Christian revelation--how the teaching of Jesus in the scriptures and the Church is to be understood, how it is to be applied, made consistent, and related to other imperatives and experiences.<br /><br />Such reflection can bring us closer to God, or can be used as a defense against Him. And when we continue we sooner or later reflect, not only on the content of revelation, but on the value of reflection--does understanding itself get in the way of love and reunion? How important can an activity be when the vast majority of Christians have neither the time, nor the wealth, nor the inclination to reflect beyond the rudiments of prayer and charity?<br /><br />So though I instinctively balk at suggestions that theology is something inherently violative of divine simplicity, I understand the objection in the fact that a child or an illiterate adult may certainly be a better Christian than me. Reflection is not the only way to God--except, perhaps, for the reflective. But, I think, to tell the reflective, "Your own questioning imperative keeps you from God," is as much a sin as telling the more simple man, "You cannot know God unless you have a firm grasp of biblical, systematic and historic theology."rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9479398.post-67725029590431990112012-07-31T11:01:40.698-05:002012-07-31T11:01:40.698-05:00Cartoon = funny
Cartoon = oversimplification
Carto...Cartoon = funny<br />Cartoon = oversimplification<br />Cartoon = a bit of truth<br />Cartoon = hyperbole<br /><br />Why can't I enjoy the drawing for what it is? A cartoon. If the cartoon did not include a bit of truth, it would not be funny. What the cartoon says to me is that my concept of God (or theology, if you will) is not actually God, and the reminder helps keep me humble. I don't believe my enjoyment of the cartoon is evidence of disdain for theology...but that's me.June Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01723016934182800437noreply@blogger.com