From: Don Winterstein (dfwinterstein@msn.com)
Date: Fri Apr 11 2003 - 05:51:59 EDT
Good response!
Don
George wrote:
> 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).
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