Taken from an essay on the Bible written by a Christian pastor.
"There are hard and fast truths in it[i.e. the Bible], yes, but they are surrounded by soft truths, and slippery truths, and sometimes truths, and truths that once were true but are no longer true, and truths that are only true if you are in the right state of mind, and truths that are only true if you are not hurting someone, and truths that are true in the moment but not if you are talking about the moment, and truths that can only be lived and should never be spoken, and truths that we cannot hear, and truths that are more than we can bear.
The truths of the bible are utterly beyond anyone who seeks to own truth and who seeks truth above the Spirit of God."
Ummm ... are these claims about truth true? Or are they sometimes true? Perhaps they are just slippery truth claims which were once true but no longer are true.
I liked his essay until I came across this mish mash of self-refuting truth claims about truth. We can rebuke those who use the Bible as a weapon (which was his main point) without embracing relativism. This is scary folks.
I have to agree with you on this one. This essay starts as a cliche and ends as a muddle. I am sympathetic to the desire to broaden and deepen the typical evangelical's understanding of the Bible; we do need to appreciate it more as a narrative and view it less as a databank for systematics.
But I don't think, as the essayist suggests, that most evangelicals "enter every room with a blast of pretty Jesus words and a lot of fast talking" or "[drop a] big black bible on the table with a thud for emphasis." I've met people like this, but they're the fringe.
And yes, we have to be careful about how we "use" the Bible. I'm very sensitive to this. But, the Apostle Paul regularly "used" the scriptures to demonstrate the claims of the then-new Christian faith. (See, e.g., Acts 18:28. The scriptures aren't merely databanks for systematic theology, but neither are they merely a set of private devotionals.
As the late great Mr. Miyagi said to the Karate Kid, "balance, Daniel-san, balance."
Posted by: dopderbeck | November 29, 2005 at 12:34
I don't think there's anything particularly relativistic about what he's saying. I think you misinterpret him. It is true that God commanded us to stone adulterers to death, but it is also true that through Jesus he rescinded that command. To me, these are the sorts of "slippery" truths to which the pastor is referring, and there's nothing at all relativistic about it.
Posted by: tgirsch | November 29, 2005 at 13:49
This pastor means well ... but he has unknowingly sawed off the branch on which he sits.
Without the presupposition of truth, nothing the pastor claims is coherent ... nor are the scriptures.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 29, 2005 at 17:54
I don't even think he's arguing against a presupposition of truth. I think you're bringing baggage into your interpretation of what he wrote, and imparting meaning that's not really there.
Then again, I've been wrong before. :)
Posted by: tgirsch | November 30, 2005 at 15:03
"I don't even think he's arguing against a presupposition of truth."
Agreed. Because he has to presuppose truth in order to make an argument, right? Kinda hard to convince someone they are wrong if wrong and right are the same thing at the same time in the same way.
He is arguing against people who use the Bible to attack people. I join him in this.
The problem is he began babbling about truth being sometimes true and sometimes false and it greatly weakened his noble effort.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 30, 2005 at 20:25
"I think you're bringing baggage into your interpretation of what he wrote"
What you call baggage, I call my worldview ;-)
Posted by: Dawn Treader | November 30, 2005 at 20:26
Kinda hard to convince someone they are wrong if wrong and right are the same thing at the same time in the same way.
Except that it's not what he said at all. What he's saying, instead, is that things which are true in context are no longer true devoid of that context. That's far from the same thing as what you say he's saying. In fact, if you work at it, I'd bet you could come up with examples of real-life truths for each of the ferinstances he gives. Truths that were once true but are no longer? "Herbert Hoover is president of the United States." Truths that are only true if you're in the right state of mind? "I'm qualified to drive." Etc.What you call baggage, I call my worldview.You're worldview calls for the attacking of straw men? :)
Posted by: tgirsch | November 30, 2005 at 23:08
Ugh. "You're" should read "Your." Falling victim to one of my own greatest pet peeves!
Posted by: tgirsch | November 30, 2005 at 23:09
"Herbert Hoover is president of the United States."
If you had said that in 1929, your statement matched reality.
If you say that in 2005, it does not match reality.
Here is the kicker. In the year 2005, is it true that Hoover was president in 1929? Will it be true in 2006?
Posted by: Dawn Treader | December 01, 2005 at 07:05
"Your worldview calls for the attacking of straw men? :)"
No, of course not. My worldview is the baggage I bring to interpreting things ... baggage like, presuppositions about what is really real ... beliefs about truth, like it exists and it is not soft or slippery.
You believe the same things about truth too ... you are unconsciously attaching the word "moral" as an adjective to the word truth. The author of the essay never did that, but you did.
I bet if he put the word "scientific" in there, you would be in total agreement with me.
That is the baggage ... oops ... worldview you bring ;-)
Posted by: Dawn Treader | December 01, 2005 at 07:12
Actually, I'm not attaching any qualifier to the word truth. Bottom line is, you have yet to convince me that the author is actually trying to make the points you're arguing against.If you had said that in 1929, your statement matched reality.Not if I said it on January 2nd of that year. :)In the year 2005, is it true that Hoover was president in 1929? Will it be true in 2006?Depends when in 1929 you're talking about. :) But here's the thing: You've just added context. The author of your piece was, in my interpretation, arguing against generalizing truths beyond their intended contexts, to the entent where they are no longer true. Could certainly be that I'm the one who's reading him wrong, and not you, but only he can tell us for sure.
Posted by: tgirsch | December 01, 2005 at 16:42
"The author of your piece was, in my interpretation, arguing against generalizing truths beyond their intended contexts, to the entent where they are no longer true."
Your initial "thin-slice" reaction to read it that way is your worldview.
What the author intended is in the next paragraph:
"The bible is not a book for those who need a weapon. It is not a book for those who know where they are going and what questions they will ask. It is not a book for those who are in a hurry and looking for the shortest route.
The bible is a book for pilgrims and wanderers. It is a book for children and for those who wish to become children again. It is a book for seekers and searchers and dreamers."
He is condemning those who want to use the Bible as a trump card instead of read it as a narrative.
It is a heart attitude he is condemning. There are people who hold an attitude, and then mine scripture for a verse to justify their attitude. Then they quote the verse in triumph ... often wrenching the verse out of context.
It is this heart attitude of using the Bible to defeat others that the author finds repugnant ... and so do I.
Instead of sticking to the issue of the heart, however, he clobbers himself by taking on truth itself. This is a major faux pas. Christ had a high view of truth, and the Bible is unintelligible as a narrative if truth is not presupposed.
He may not have intended to water down truth, but his words open that right up ... calling "truth" sometimes true and sometimes not true etc.
He needs to keep the red dot on the real target ... which is *not* truth ... but sin ... the sin in the human heart.
Questioning truth only gets him into deeper doo-doo.
Posted by: Dawn Treader | December 02, 2005 at 08:16
Instead of sticking to the issue of the heart, however, he clobbers himself by taking on truth itself.Except that he doesn't actually do this. :) You attribute it to him, but I don't find it in anything he writes.
Posted by: tgirsch | December 02, 2005 at 15:16
I think you both are a bit off, actually. I read it as a call not to judge, as the truth of suburban America is not often the truth of people in a living hell like Iraq or Sudan. If a child is going to be tortured with no hope of escape, is killing that child wrong? How do you condemn a concentration camp survivor who, when ordered to choose one person to live, actually chose one person? Is a prostitute a sinner if the choice is sell or die?
So, yeah, he is saying that truth is kinda relativistic, but not in the way that Jeff seems to think. He is urging the reader not to judge, to think about whether or not their rules actually apply in every situation, and whether or not the entirety of the Bible would lead to a different conclusion than the simple rules we tend to make out of it would suggest.
Posted by: kevin | December 02, 2005 at 15:31