Replies

Thank you for sharing your insights!

1. Agreed, yet leaves unanswered questions of the imago Dei and the functions of the conscience, reason and will and those relations to Revelation.

Could you be more specific?

2. No doubt that experience and environment affect our understanding but it doesn’t answer the question of how God can reveal himself as ‘a’ to person 1 and ‘not a’ to person 2 and yet claim that both positions are correct.

If we apply Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle to God we either anthropomorphize Him or proliferate doctrines and traditions of men, e.g. do not kill v kill, do not judge v. judge righteous judgment, contend v. don't strive, prophesy v. commandments and so on.

The same happens if we apply the Law of Identity to God, e.g. Trinity v. Mormon doctrine, Catholic v. Orthodox on the filoque and so on.

And again, when we filter the revelations of God by science because methodological naturalism excludes miracles on principle. So some of the enlightened (ahem) modern doctrines pitch the resurrection, Mary as a virgin, Creation week, Noah flood, Jonah and the whale, etc. The red sea was parted by a natural phenomenon, etc.

Love God. Believe Him. Trust Him.

It really is that simple.

The gemstone analogy has merit but underlying the analogy is the unity of the light so that the light refracted is always the same light. Carrying the analogy further, light shone on coal is not refracted. Should we not discern between gem and coal? If someone claims their coal refracts beautiful light should we not dispute that claim? Since this side of glory none of us is a fully formed gem should we not be wary of the remaining coal in each of us or should we merely assume it’s a precious particularity?

3. Christ as unity. Christ undefined is not a unity. The Nicolaitans claimed Christ but Christ did not claim them. We must assume there was a unity amongst the seven churches about Christ that Nicolaitans did not hold. The Nicolaitans may have claimed to be lead by the Spirit through their experiences yet we know that not to be true. It seems clear there must be another grounds on which we judge beyond spirit and experience.

We should always be concerned about any coal within us lest we obstruct the Light.

To avoid false doctrine, we must discern the spirits (I John 4), test what we hear against Scripture (Acts 17) and discern the spiritual fruits (Matt 7 and Gal 5). These responsibilities should not be delegated.

But I personally draw the line at pointing to an individual and saying "you are a lump of coal."

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: - Luke 6:37

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. - Matt 7:2

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. - Romans 2:1

Maranatha, Jesus!

“The same happens if we apply the Law of Identity to God, e.g. Trinity v. Mormon doctrine, Catholic v. Orthodox on the filoque and so on.”

Alamo-Girl,
Thank you for the fascinating dialogue. The “Identity problem” is a fascinating study as well as the proposed solutions.

Of my reading, one of the most concise analyses of the identity debate and corresponding proposed resolutions is in Kevin Van Hoozer’s fine book, “First Theology”, chapter two. Tepidly, I will give a brief outline of the chapter and hope to illicit your reaction to Van Hoozer’s analysis as well as the reaction of a couple of other correspondents whom I’ve copied.

Van Hoozer classifies your position (Alamo-Girl) as a Christian Pluralist (hereafter,CP). The CP holds that other religions exercise a role in salvation history to some extent or equal to Christianity itself. The main contention that CP’s have against the orthodox (those with the same opinion) is that it is repressive against particularity.

Emmanuel Levinas accused Western Thinking of trying to reduce all difference to the same. Any “identity” is defined in opposition to difference. Instead of trying to grasp reality, he proposed we have an infinite duty to otherness, protecting particularity.

The CP’s finds two major problems with orthodox Christianity that violate the infinite duty towards the other. First, it is exclusivists and dares to divide between those in and those out. Second, it is repressive against the Other’s self knowledge. The basic presupposition of the CP is that all religion are expressions of the same fundamental reality.

Ironically, the CP suffers from the same problem they accuse the orthodox exclusivist Christian. As Van Hoozer puts it, “[the Christian Pluralist] reduce the particularities and otherness of the gospel’s narrative identification of God to a bland, homogeneous, unitive or “monistic” pluralism in which the differences in the Christian identification of God are subsumed, sometimes violently, under the intolerant category of the Same.”

Well, that’s just a partial, initial outline of the chapter with much left unpacked. Later he speaks about how the CP in some cases uses the Spirit as the unitive function while protecting particularity which seems to be similar to your (Alamo-Girl) emphasis on the Spirit.

The problem Van Hoozer shows in Christian Pluralism is I think also a problem with Secular Pluralism with its emphasis on Political Correctness as a putative means to protect otherness, it in fact promotes a pluralistic monism. The current “dust-up” regarding Ann Coulter’s remarks on a TV show regarding Judaism and the resulting reaction of the secular pluralist is a good case in point.

I look forward to further dialogue.