The title "Sola Saliens" (and someone please correct my Latin if I'm wrong) is a new Sola for a "new" kind of reformation. This is not Faith Alone or Scripture Alone, but Leap Alone - the leap into the divine darkness. What I hope to do with this blog is create an atmosphere of open dialog on theological issues. I also hope to share with you some of my thoughts on the Christian faith. This is likely going to be a very Kierkegaard and Barth-friendly blog (thus the "Leap"), but by no means am I attempting to limit the discussion to existentialists and the neo-orthodox. I insist on the utter fallibility of mankind and his logic, especially my own, so please comment only if you take pleasure in learning, not fighting along party lines. Please stay only if you enjoy being wrong, and leave if you can't handle delightful disagreements.
I love being wrong. It helps me keep a proper perspective on my limited knowledge. So, let's all be wrong together, and take a leap into a world we can't ever reach... or maybe we can. I don't know, that's one of the questions, I guess...
Sunday, April 6, 2008
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6 comments:
Ah, yes. We are always wrong. We may, at times, be right - yet wrongness pervades even our rightness.
Ontologically, I suppose wrongness would be one of the defining qualities of humanity, that is if we consider animals and plants to be amoral creatures...
...but there are animals demons and trees that clap their hands and asses that prophesy.
Strike all of it. Wrongness is an ontological characteristic of all things in creation, save that which has been "graced."
I am postmodern so I don't believe anyone is "wrong." Just kidding. Wow! That sounded like such an uneducated response.
However, with that being said, someone (and I apologize because I can't remember who) once reflected on how Balaam's donkey spoke and said, "God once spoke through Balaam's ass, and he's been speaking through asses ever since."
So, let God continue to speak through asses. (Is that too harsh?)
Yet, even if we leave aside the question of moral rightness, it must be owned that our vision is certainly partial, even that which has been "graced."
We do not see "wholes," we see fragments. For example, say you look at a friend's exterior from all different angles. Yet you have never seen him as a whole - you have seen him from myriad perspectives (you cannot see both his face and the back of his head at the same time). Your mind takes those separate images and pieces them together so that when you see your friend, you believe you are seeing the whole man. And he is - in reality (if I may be so bold as to use the term) - a whole man.
So then, perhaps "grace" is the ability to see these limited snapshots and perceive some sort of coherency and order in the world. If there are things that are truly "whole," there must be a Creator who is Himself "whole" - else how could we perceive any wholeness through our fragmented vision?
Evan...
Ezekiel - Ass
Peter - Ass
Paul - Ass
Rebekah,
Well, if grace allows us to see in part, does this mean that we comprehend what we see? Does this mean that if we comprehend it, we see that it is whole?
Is it possible that grace allows us to see in part, and this seeing is a form of blinding, because partial vision of the infinite seems to be a total paradox. If we look at something that has no parameters, no borders, no definable qualities (at least no finitely definable qualities) how can one understand or know anything about that something?
Grace, then, would be "rightness" in our "wrongness." It would be the --experience of seeing nothing--, rather than the false experience of seeing a part of what cannot be seen.
Evan, Martin Luther said that quote.
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