From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Thu Apr 10 2003 - 07:40:16 EDT
Don Winterstein wrote:
>
> George wrote:
>
> > ...The attempt to know God from nature, independently of revelation,
> usually
> > results in the construction of idols - of which the Intelligent Designer
> or the God who
> > "left his fingerprints all over the evidence" may be examples.
>
> St. Augustine in his Confessions describes how he came to know God first
> through study and practice of Neoplatonism. Philosophy is nature perhaps
> one step removed. After his conversion to Christianity, Augustine still
> considered this religious experience to have given him valid knowledge of
> God. It was, however, he concluded later, not saving knowledge.
>
> If by "revelation" you mean more than just Scripture, then Augustine's
> Neoplatonic experience might be included. Abraham and Melchizedek, etc.,
> obviously had no Scripture, but they had revelation. So I suppose I agree
> with you if you're willing to accept a definition of revelation that
> includes more than just canonical Scripture.
>
> However, I don't think people become idolaters by attempting to know God.
> True idolatry--i.e., the setting up and worshiping of idols--is just the
> natural human response to the "powers of the air." Implicit forms of
> idolatry--such as the Bible worship that leads to efforts like "creation
> research"--is often an attempt to substitute the authority of a thing for a
> relationship with the Person. So implicit idolatry would be done to avoid
> the attempt to know God. Who needs the Person if you have the Thing? Both
> true and implicit forms of idolatry thus do not involve any effort to reach
> God but rather detour around him.
It's often hard to disentangle the effects of "revelation" (by which I mean
"special revelation" if one wants a category of "general revelation" as well) and
experience. Remember that Augustine's mother was Christian & that there were a lot of
Christian influences on him as he was growing up. Of course his mother's influence
wasn't "revelation" in the sense that the burning bush, e.g., was but it (like other
Christian teaching) ultimately derives from revelation. Thus revelation played some
role in his early life - as is the case with many people in a country like the US who
aren't Christians but who in some degree or other have been exposed to symbols, stories,
&c from the biblical tradition.
& certainly there are aspects of other religions, philosophies &c that have
things in common with the Judaeo-Christian tradition. One doesn't need revelation to
conclude that there's one God, though you may have no clue _who_ that God is. There's
good stuff in Plato (some of which, interestingly, some of the Fathers thought he'd
gotten from reading Moses!) But there's also other stuff, & Neoplatonism wasn't an
unmixed blessing for Augustine. E.g., it - & also his experience as a Manichaean - gave
him negative attitudes toward the body that he never completely got over.
By "revelation" in the primary sense I do _not_ mean Scripture, which is the
authoritative witness to revelation. We don't know precisely how revelation came to
many of the people in the OT - "In many and various ways God spoke to our fathers by the
prophets." My broad characterization of revelation is "God's actions in the history of
history which reach their culmination in the cross and resurrection of Christ." But the
community which receives that revelation becomes a witness to it with the task of
continuing to proclaim it.
I do not deny the possibility of special revelation outside this community: The
Holy Spirit can act when & where the Spirit wills. But one has to be very cautious
about this because of the dangers of people mistaking their own fantasies for
inspiration. In the present discussion what I'm dubious about is the idea that there is
a "general revelation" kind of out there in the world & accessible to human
investigation, kind of like scientific data. Sin means that people run away from the
true God, like Adam & Eve. We don't find God, God finds us.
I agree with the sense of your last paragraph, but people who set up idols
generally don't do so with the _intention_ of abandoning the true God or detouring
around him. They think that what they're worshipping _is_ the ultimate power in which
they should place their trust. "Mortal, these men have taken their idols into their
hearts" (Ez.14:3).
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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