> I don't like leaps of faith. I don't understand them, either...
The point, I thought, was that one doesn't understand them.
> > We can't prove Christianity, if we could, then it would be a
> >philosophy and not a journey. One of the important things in this to me is
> >that we often apply the epistomology of our fields of study/work to the
> >living God, and I'm afraid its a very bad fit.
>
> On your first sentence in the previous paragraph -- I'm not sure
> what you mean by proof but the evidence for Christianity is quite strong,
> frankly. Not a mathematical proof... but then what is?
> I'm not sure about your second sentence ("epistomology of our fields").
I almost used the word paradigm instead of epistomology, but
paradigm is such a catch phrase today that I try to avoid it.
Epistomology, for those of you who don't know, is the study of how we
know things. What binds science together more than anything else is that
we all use the same epistomological paradigm (aka the Scientific
Method).
What I see happening too often is that we, as 20th century western
creatures apply scientific paradigms to revealed truth. That is that
God's revelation is true because.....
It is true that God became incarnate in Jesus, but that fact IMO is
secondary to what was revelaed in Jesus the man and also in the Christ as
a whole. (I think I'm being vague.)
Knowing about the "historical Jesus" helps us read the scriptures
and listen to the traditions with more pertinent point of view (know the
target audience), but we aren't Jesusites, we're Christians.
In other words, God has revaled himself in the whole of Christ, and
we therefore have additional refrences throughout the history of his
revelation to us. All of these revelations happened, yes, but it should
be important to note that God spent no effort revealing any kind of
scientific fact anyone anywhere recorded in the Cannon. (Any cannon.)
The reason is that these kinds of facts are not eternal. Why then
do we concentrate on them when trying to find what truths God wants to
reveal to us?
> Let me pose an overall response to your note. There are Buddhists
> and Hindus who "know" they are right because of their readings, meditations,
> feelings, the love from their religious community. Does the defense of
> *your* beliefs differ much from theirs? I argue that the Christian
> apologetic is fundamentally of a different nature than the apologetic of a
> Hindu or Buddhist.
No, it doesn't. Why would it? There are a few key, but very subtle
differences: God seeks me, not I seek God/Relaity. God reveals himself
to us, (not me) not we find out more about God. Et Cetera.
Do you see what I'm trying to drive at? My central worry is that
we're looking for the wrong kind of truth in all of this. Comments?
In his love,
Stephen