The Evangelical Universalist Forum

You cannot discover history by finding facts ...

Hothorsegz - it would be really interesting to hear some examples of ‘evidentialist’ arguments/apologetics. You’ll have a memory stuffed full of them I guess (whereas I’m more familiar with the pressupositionalist arguments - and the ‘pre-’ word is such a mouthful :laughing: ).

If you’re game,
jJust give us a couple of notable evidentialist ones to show us how this form of defence of the Bible works. That would be really useful and interesting to me - and to others here I’m sure.

Blessings

Dick :slight_smile:

Hey you’ve all got me thinking deep. I must confess myself stumped by this one – just don’t know enough about apologetics – and hope that someone like Jason is looking in here!!!

My deeply inexpert two pence worth at the moment? – on second thoughts I reckon evidentialist apologetics can be perfectly valid in revealing the historically probable nature of the evidence for the life death and resurrection of Christ etc. This evidence is primarily the New Testament but also other bits and bobs like Josephus, archaeological evidence etc. I remember once reading a book by John Robinson – who had a reputation for radical scepticism about the reliability of the new Testament entitled ‘Can we trust the New Testament’ (in terms of authenticity)– his answer was a resounding ‘yes’, although he did not draw biblical inerrantist conclusions from this.

But more narrowly the evidentialist approach to apologetics is linked to fundamentalism. Fundamentalist evidentialist apologetics for the truth of the resurrection follow a similar pattern.

The Gospel are spoken of as if they are simply factual reportage of the event – like contemporary eye witness accounts – and along with the Gospel accounts of Easter Monday the vision of the risen Jesus by 500 people settles the matter. The resurrection proves the Jesus was God as a matter of fact. And the factual narration of the resurrection in the Bible proves that the Bible is the infallible Word of God.

As Robert M. Price has written (in ‘Three views of the Resurrection’)

In reading much conservative theological literature, one may be struck by the paucity of theological significance given the resurrection. This at first seems exceedingly strange, since conservatives are unflagging in their insistence that the resurrection of Christ be maintained as true in every nail¬ scarred particular. It is almost reminiscent of a museum curator who is eager to preserve an old cannon in perfect condition–no use can be made of the piece any more, but it is indispensable to the collection. Critic James Barr has sought to explain this kind of surprising gap. He believes that conservatives care very little about “theology,” i.e., a worked-out rationale for understanding faith. Instead, they are interested only in "doctrine,” a list of self-sufficient tenets whose only necessary relationship is their common membership in such a list of "Fundamentals."

(See robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ … indeed.htm if you are interested in this discussion)

I know that Barth’s response to this sort of evidentialist approach to the Resurrection was that although he was convinced of the truth of the resurrection (and the significance of the resurrection), and convinced that it did take place in historical/chronological time - it was still of a different order to other historical events and not reducible to these or open to investigation with the methods of ordinary historical research. He pointed out that not everyone saw the Risen Jesus – but only those who had faith (and even doubting Thomas had a doubting faith).

As well as Barth we have C.S. Lewis Christian apologetics that are also not dependent on evidentialism. Both Barth and Lewis in their different ways spoke of Christ as being ‘the Word as True Myth’ (‘True’ – being the operative word here, and ‘myth’ not meaning falsehood here). I wonder if anyone has some thoughts on this???

Greetings !

   :smiley:  :smiley:  :smiley: 

You said that you are not an expert ... but you already have done quite well...  (QQ has applause smiley )

 Actually if you really wish to get into this arena ...  ( hehehe)
  Then dive into some forums where JP Holding and the Infidels hang out ... 

    That will give you more than enough information to last you for decades...   

   I also know about presuppositionalist arguments too ...   :wink:  <img src="/uploads/default/original/1X/15680453330e74f929b585a237613f0bdf61e069.gif" width="15" height="17" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green"/> 

   But after a long stint of getting into tons of heated discussions and flame wars ...
   I finally realized ... so what ?

     I used to believe in being super active in evangelizing others ( but on the Evangelical manner
      not the Fundie way ( with all due respect to Fundamentalists )

      Handing out Chick tracts and bopping people over the head with so called facts was not my style either...
        trying to assert some "authoritative clout " over unbelievers ... well... * cough *  * cough * 
       As I went down the trail and path of living ...  I discovered more and more 
        that "stalemates" were not my cup of tea any longer ...

      I will share with you this -- at times I was obnoxious enough to pretend I was a "sinner"
      then get into apologetic conversations on the road side or where ever with whoever seemed
        to be getting too aggressive in my thinking ....

      I used to get into debates with University professors or evolutionary biologists too...
       Then I gradually decided this was not my cup of tea too...

       Personally if I had a chance to eat dinner with good ole JP Holding ...
          I would much rather invite any of the Infidels or local Chinese in this small town 
         to dinner or for a social activity than him .
         My friends here include those Muslims who work at a local restaurant 
         One of the guys who works in the Supermarket which is not big ...
            I give him hugs ... smile and act very friendly to many local people ... 
          He gives me excellent watermelons too ... 
           Recently, even tho his salary must be meager he paid for my meal one day at the Muslim restaurant
           My neighbor upstairs is a really great guy too...
          Many of the people from Upper Middle Class to those who surely are way below 
             the common poverty level in the States are my friends ...
           And yet .. these are all so-called "sinners" ( which by the way I gave up using this terminology 
             a really long time ago with Chinese --- really stupid and foolish Culturally to use this term 
          with Chinese ....especially since Asians do NOT come with the Western Introspective Conscience ) <img src="/uploads/default/original/1X/15680453330e74f929b585a237613f0bdf61e069.gif" width="15" height="17" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green"/> 

            I also have my own insights concerning "harmatia"  the greek word usually used for "sinner"

            So ....  jump on yer horse with yer Cowboy hat yelling "Giddyup"  
            just use Google search for JP Holding and Infidels ...   :laughing: 

         Now folks .. listen up ...  No need to rant to me about my attitude towards good ole JP .... 
            Everyone does what they have enough Passion to do ... especially those who are 
           really enthusiastic or really "pumped up " to do it ....
           My previous co-worker from the University I used to work at .. .
               She is a really conservative conservative border line Fundamentalist - Evangelical....
            and I receive her tidbits in my email box sometimes... 
              This year she is on "roll" with her enthusiastic hate Obama thingie ... 
                and yet Romney is most likely a Mormon ...  
              the point ?  She used to raise a wild ruckus about how the Mormons were....
              ( no need to replay that now is there ?   )

            I will let JP be himself .. 
              
            So if yer interested in getting into the thick of it ... jump on yer white horse with Tonto...

            all the best !

Greetings !

  since we are discussing History ... then I will post my not traditional comments about 
   Council of Chalcedon and share with you my insights as to the reasons for my view concerning it ...

 Theological thoughts on the biblical text and the Trinity.

The biblical text functions as a “witness” to the ‘reality’ of Our Creator who made everything. In other words it does not desire to draw concentrated attention to itself but rather points towards the One who is indeed the ‘real’ source of ‘Truth.’ Apart from the ‘inspiration’ (God breathed ) that is inherent in the biblical text when the Spirit illuminates it within the mind, heart and soul of mankind it is basically dormant as any other book on a library shelf. Our Creator freely acts according to His freedom which has no constraints to hinder those acts. Thus the biblical text has been ‘inspired’ in a manner that is different from other texts that are read by us. For example, where else can I find the words and parables spoken by Jesus? Where else can I find the interactions between the ‘chosen’ people and their Creator recorded? I would even go so far as to suggest that reading other theological resources will also function as a ‘witness’ to the One who is indeed the ‘real’ source of "Truth.’ Although the conductivity might be less than the biblical text. (to use the analogy of electric current)

Next – The Spirit “witnesses” to the activity, life, death, resurrection and ‘reality’ of the Son (who belongs within the Trinity – a distinctiveness beyond the “Unity” which --must-- be adamantly emphasized or else we begin to lean heavily towards Three individual Deities which then would form a committee (so to speak) or worst (a family). Anything that the Spirit does will “witness” – point towards what the Son has accomplished. The Spirit will persistently bring to memory, cause one to reflect upon the acts of the Son in His Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection. In fact, the Spirit displays this in the grandest manner via the ‘power’ of the resurrection itself! The Incarnation was only possible via the activity of the Spirit. The Spirit does not desire to draw concentrated attention to itself but rather points towards the One who is indeed the ‘real’ source of 'Truth – the explicit self-disclosure of God Himself
to emphasize the intense Unity

.’ Thus, in this way the Spirit is also our Paraclete. The Spirit works for us, in us and with us to conform us to the image of the Son.
Once again, the Spirit always “witnesses” to the Son.

Next, The Son (God the Son, Son of God, Son of Man (it has been noted by some famous theologians that this is one of his favorite terms of self acknowledgment - the second member of the perichoretic koinonia intrinsically embedded in the Trinity)
“witnesses” to the Father’s will

, character , and the ‘reality’ of His existence as the One “True” God that deserves all worship, praise and glory! I utilize the English word ‘character’ instead of the common term used in those traditional systematic tomes of propositional compartmentalized doctrines – that being – the so-called attributes of God. In my framework God happens to be a living being ‘with’ a personality instead of some abstract yokel whose existence is inescapably tied to and depends upon the “Holy Bible” laying on a conference table waiting for a group of inerrantists to decide which attribute is more significant than the others & how to interpret the anthropomorphisms in Holy Writ. According to the biblical text Jesus always acted out of conformity to the Father’s will. At the same time it is intriguing that he noted – If you have seen “Me” you have seen the “Father.” Again, at the same time Jesus was a carpenter by trade and not a puppeteer who had mastered ventriloquism. (a cryptic ref. to Modalism – ) Jesus consistently “witnessed” to the Father by declaring that the motivation behind his -acts- were to display his keen discernment for the direction the Father wanted to take. This also suggests to me that there might be a provocative hint at the meaning of “Jesus did not sin” in that there was no selfish ambition (a concentrated investment of energy focused into accomplishing something that in all likelihood is autonomous from start to end).

Even the “signs” that repeatedly show up in the Gospels are there as a ‘witness’ to the ‘reality’ of the presence of the Creator (of all knowable and unknowable worlds) walking in the midst of his ‘chosen’ people. (cf. the prologue to John & his usage of this term) These miracles are not a means of displaying the abilities of Jesus the wonder-maker so as to ‘awe’ his audience. Nor should they be primarily considered ‘proof’ of his Deity either. This will only allow those who have a Modernist Cartesian Certainty complex some inner satisfaction and glee. The Creator walks in the cool of the day once again with his beloved! But, Alas! there are vision-challenged… sound challenged religiously correct folks who really need outside help (the Spirit) to have a ‘change of mind’ metanoia – {Greek which does not simply translate into the English word - repentance} to finally be able to recognize “Who” Jesus really was – The Creator Incarnate!
Even the night in the garden of Gethesame I do not find Jesus engaged in a sort of committee meeting with Dad (who happens to be the Absconditus Deus in some traditional models) in order to sort out the details of this sordid affair of being crucified for a bunch of utterly selfish-autonomous & ungrateful folks. He is not displaying his filial piety in going the second mile so as to appease the fiery angst that God the Judge has towards mankind and also is require to keep the balance between the attributes of “Love” and “Justice” .
What do I find?

The Creator (of all) is actually intricately involved in this situation, can agonize over the profound depths to which He must traverse in order to “in the fullness of time” reconcile his beloved to Himself!

To contemplate the traditional and abstract image of God the Almighty Judge and His filial Son willing to make the sacrifice for “all” Mankind (whether understood in a Arminian or Calvinist way) has surely elicited tons of fodder in order to motivate us on our part to focus our minds towards the same aim – that of ‘sacrificial obedience.’ Surely this is putting the cart before the horse [cf. Gal. 3] However, I continually met up with Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from a body doomed to a death such as this? Cassirer translation of Rom 7:24
I prefer to contemplate that Our Creator Himself persistently pursued me until I was reconciled to Him!
Once again The Son is a “witness” to the Father’s “actuality”

, and the ‘reality’ of His existence as the One “True” God that deserves all worship, praise and glory!

The Father ( God the Father, Almighty God, One who belongs within the perichoretic koinonia which is inextractably bound and enmeshed in the Trinity) sent the Son.
These simple words have challenged theologians for millenia upon millenia. A myriad of devotional literature could not even begin to be collated into a series of volumes. These words are at the very heart of the “gospel.” I have begun to contemplate these words from a different pericope than most probably have – The Genesis narrative. I decided to begin at the beginning of the relationship between the Creator and his work of art (which was declared by Him as “good”)

I will most likely need to edit this post … since I do not have time at this moment to do so …

   all the best !

Dear Hothorsegz -

I’ve enjoyed your posts :smiley: :smiley: I’m glad it is not only me who has been up against a brick wall with presuppositionalism too!

I think I’ll give JP Holding a miss though - and his rationalist interlocutors too :unamused: . Let me think about your post on the Trinity -but yeah, I think I like it.

All good wishes

Dick :slight_smile:

P.S. As a non-expert I’ve really enjoyed Gary Dorrien’s books on this topic - namley ‘The Remaking of Evangelical theology’ , and ‘The Word as True Myth’. The article I’ve given the link to above is also pretty good - for starters - because it suggests that the best insights of both theologically liberal and theologically conservative Christian apologists can be fruitfully combined.

Haven’t got a lot of time tonight - but yep, it’s very good IMHO :smiley:

Just a quick insight to chime with you here – concerning the resurrection. If it the resurrection is simply a piece of factual data like other facts yes it just goes to show that God is uncontrollably powerful and can do this sort of thing – and the God as conceived of by the most extreme Calvinists can do this too , so as to add ultimate authority to extreme Calvinism (I guess). But the resurrection as brute fact can completely miss or even wilfully ignore the significance of the resurrection; Christ as Victor over death, Christ as first fruits, Christ restoring humanity in the Incarnation and raising humanity to new life etc… The resurrection is a witness to God’s love and this love is relational as in the perichoretic koinonia of the Trinity ( I understand that this means something like the circling dance of the persons of the Trinity in eternity into which we will all become participants because of Christ’s redeeming Incarnation). Here we move into the mystery of divine love – and this is a fact, but it’s a living fact rather than a piece of ordinary lifeless data I guess.

I think you can discover true history by finding facts.

The problem is that the relevant facts are often very hard to find.

History is the story of what happened in the past. History and the interpretation of facts are two distinct entities.

I think you can discover true history by finding facts.

The problem is that the relevant facts are often very hard to find.

History is the story of what happened in the past. History and the interpretation of facts are two distinct entities.

Hi Paidon –
Love you because you are the man who I once misheard as the voice of Charlton Heston booming at me – mainly because you have a Mosaic beard – but I missed the every warm twinkle in your eyes. I’m still chuckling at myself about this one!!!)
Well this is one of those ‘it all depends what you mean by…’ discussions I reckon.
If we are talking about ordinary history here –

History is the human past (what happened in the past)

Using history in this first sense – yes we can keep this and the ’interpretation of facts’ separate. The past has gone for good – so it does not yield ‘facts’ of the same nature as those which we can observe and measure in the present and can verify through repetition (that’s a clumsy definition of the facts of science). But is does leave evidence.

History is the enterprise/need of all human societies to pass on an uncritical story/narrative of what happened in the past (because history is to society what memory is to the individual – without a story we have no compass)

Using history in this second sense – here the story what happened in the past and interpretation of what happened can and do merge together. The story will always depend on the story-tellers viewpoint. This type of storytelling can be harmless but obviously a story about the past can be told to inspire hatred and division in the present. I’m thinking of how this type of tribal history was sued by both sides in the troubles in Northern Ireland as a way of perpetuating the conflict; both sides emphasised the stories and evidence of conflict, but played down or even ignored counter-evidence of common sympathy and past collaboration between Protestants and Catholics.

History is the scholarly attempt to reconstruct and interpret the human past thought diligent research into all relevant evidence from primary and secondary sources.

Using history in this third sense; in the scholarly discipline of history as it has developed since the eighteenth century, diligent research into the evidence is the first step – and any historian who skimps on this is not worth their salt in my view. Research nito sources is a ‘distinct entity from interpretation. But in order to make sense of the evidence any historian is going to need to make connections between different pieces of evidence that testify to different events and phenomena from the past - this is interpretation; and they are also going to start asking questions about causes (when we’ve established what happened as far as we possibly can we still want to know ‘why did it happen as it did?’ to give us a real story) - this is also interpretation.

So I think that reconstructing the past and interpreting the past are different things – but they do overlap. OH my word – I guess the bog issue here is about subjectivity and objectivity in human knowledge. It’s what the philosophers call ‘epistemology’ , the discussion of that human beings can actually know about anything– and sends my head spinning horribly!!! My two pence worth on this subject is some very broad and clumsy generalisations:

We have people who call themselves ‘non-realists’ concerning knowledge. For this lot all human knowledge is subjective – it’s something we make up in our minds for our own convenience.

We have people how call themselves ‘realists’ concerning knowledge. For this lot we can be absolutely certain of our knowledge in various spheres. There is a clear factual truth and we can apprehend it.

And we have people who call themselves ‘critical realists’ – and I’d call myself one of this lot. For a critical realist there is a real truth outside of our heads. We don’t just make up morality, history, science etc (just to keep things in the secular sphere for the moment). However, our knowledge will always be limited – because that’s part of the human condition. We aim for truth, there is a truth that we can try and approximate to. We can make solid and valid distinctions in history for example between good historical research and writing, and biased nonsense - but we are all going to get things wrong and need to be humble about this.

Blessings

Dick

enjoyable thread so far! :smiley:

Good :smiley:

Another word that has different meanings is ‘Myth’ –

In terms of secular history a ‘myth’ is a distortion of the evidence. For example, there is an ‘historian’, David Irving , who is (or at least was)a holocaust denier. Part of the evidence he used was what Goebbels’s says in his diaries. Now Goebbels’s was the Nazi minister for propaganda – so this obviously raises grave questions about the veracity of anything Goebbels’s wrote about the extermination of the Jews )never mind the other overwhelming evidence that disproves the case of the holocaust deniers. SO ‘myth’ in terms of the discipline of history has a specific and negative meaning.

‘Myth’ as used by C.S. Lewis has a very different meaning. He used the word in its literary sense to mean a story that embodies in narrative and symbol our deepest human longings – pre-eminently the myth of the dying and rising God. Lewis found the same story in the Gospels – but told with an artlessness that was very different from how it is told it the sagas of the ancients (which Lewis came to see as one of the hallmarks of the historical authenticity of the Gospel narratives). For Lewis the story of Jesus was the same story as that of Baldur, Osiris, Dionysus, and Mithras – but with the crucial difference that in Christ the myth foreshadowed in the stories of the ancients entered history.

Rudolf Bultmann used myth to mean picture language rooted in am ancient worldview that modern Christians need to translate into modern terms in order to make the Gospel’s accessible. For example, when we talk of Jesus – ‘ascending into the heavens’ it would be foolish to think of him travelling upwards like a rocket. ‘The heavens’ is picture language not for a specific physical location, but for the transcendent realm of God. Bultmann’s ‘demythologising’ project can be taken too far into outright scepticism– but as a modest principle it make complete sense to me – with the proviso that we need to remember that the modern worldview like the ancient is only our best approximation to truth at the moment. I do believe that knowledge progresses but our picture language for transcendence today is not the final truth; it’s still picture language for a transcendent mystery.

For Rene Girard, ‘Myth’ has a negative meaning. Myths are stories that have grown up in hum so cities to disguise the violent scapegoating mechanism that is the basis for so much human and ‘civilised’ ‘peace’. So whereas the original event was actually a lynch mob tearing an innocent victim to bits, this event is disguised as a story of a dying and rising god. The Bible actually subverts this story by giving voice to the scapegoats who are the innocent victims of self righteous mob violence – and indeed Jesus in his life death and resurrection completely subverts/demythologises the scapegoat myth.
All of these meanings of ‘myth’ may seems to conflict – but I think that they are not necessarily contradictory. Any ideas?

P.S ‘Epistemology’ rhymes with ‘by golly gee’ :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Greetings !

I plan on expressing my views concerning Time, History and what I will describe as "Relational Theology"
  and how all of these fit within my conception of Church History ...   :wink: 

 In my past .. in order to give myself more than enough "security" I, with passionate zeal 
   insisted upon the literal - in time and space as we know it -- historical "real" actual ...
  Death and Resurrection of Jesus ( and by the way ... to me Jesus = Jesus Christ =
    Christ Jesus = the same ...  I do not agree with some that wish to view Jesus as the man 
  e.g. human and Christ as the "Spiritual aspect of ....  )

  During those years I indeed had very high level of Confidence ( with a capital 'C')  
  for the actual historical "real" ( not the demythologizing of Bultmann & Co.  -- which 
     includes all the rest of the other "Critical" methods of analyzing History for enough reasons )

  Of course I still do have the same viewpoint ... but at this point in my Life 
     I do not need the "security" of having the evidentialist arguments ... 
   that I once spent endless hours or research ... so that I might have enough 
    'live' ammunition to engage in 'live fire' with others online ... 

    Frankly speaking -- there is no way in this green earth that anyone is going to 
    dismantle or disprove the Resurrection of Jesus... along with the same on the 
    Evangelistic side as well...   

    However, this does not mean that the Resurrection of Jesus becomes 
    built upon "faith" or "Faith" only or mostly ...

    As I mentioned earlier -- facts or events in History certainly do not have nice 
      cute handy tags on them -- stating "Here is the meaning of this Historical event !"
    Even with all of the current high tech TV shows ... CSI ... and other Detective, Police,
     You be the Jury shows...  where the forensic tools available and even those shows
   with paranormal help ... or the likes of Mulder and Scully -- The Truth is way OUT there ...   :smiley: 

    Even with all those who are exceptionally talented in Historical Crictical tools ...

    Has any TV show ever finally cleared up the query ... Who killed JFK?  Pearl Harbor?  
     or even more recent shocking events ?

     notice... the key point being -- finally produced enough conclusive results 
    to reach a high probability of consensus for resolving these events ... 

      sure... there are a multitude of books written almost yearly ...
      even new books appear ...e.g.  1431 & 1434 .. in which Menzies has his 
     "Dan Brown " clone of a whopper ....
     [1421exposed.com/html/1434.html](http://www.1421exposed.com/html/1434.html)   for those with inquiring minds .... :wink: 

     What does this have to do with the NT texts relating to Jesus Resurrection ?

     I will assume many of the members here are familiar enough with the 
     "Jesus Seminar"  * cough *  * cough *   
      When historical criticism gets this fine tuned and then is able to split hairs 
       ( making it more exciting to watch those Ads for Shampoo to mend split hairs 
        returning your hair to a 'golden' shine )
       then I reach for another 'beer' & munchies 
       I certainly appreciate and admire keen scholarship but this seems to me 
       to be yet another 'rerun' of Mulder & Scully 
        while the Fundamentalists have more rebuttals 
      while blowing  a fuse, blow one's top, blow up, boil over, bristle as a cat who might be in danger 
          of losing one of their "9 lives"

       both are extremes... and a healthy dose of Scottish "common sense" is just the medicine 
      to cure the hiccups from observing such phenomena ...  
      ----The central concern of the school is the defence of common sense against philosophical paradox and scepticism. Common-sense beliefs govern the lives and thought even of those who avow non-commonsensical beliefs, and matters of common sense are within "the reach of common understanding". This isn't to say that critical thought isn't sometimes necessary in order to establish whether or not a particular belief is a belief of common sense,.....

        Therefore, what does "common sense" have do to with the Resurrection of Jesus ?
          and for that matter -- with earliest Chrisitian living ?
 
    certainly a lot ...  :slight_smile: 

      since this is a forum where there is a lot of healthy considerate behavior 
       I will breathe more easy ... than attempting to tangle with those on either extreme...

     #1 even though I find lots of Christian bookstore Apologetical books being published
       to its cheering applause of its targeted audience...  
        
          I will continue on ...   
        If we view MSS of all Historical documents during the period of the NT 
         then we can notice that there is a huge difference concerning the number of copies...
         also the time interval between the extant copies we have and the actual time of those events
        is also significant ....
          There are more than 5,000 Greek MSS and enough Syriac and Latin ... making 13,000 copies 
         and the time interval is significantly ( understatement) than the other historical documents
            available.   The amount of textual variations is rather tiny .. and even the eensy meensy
        spider would not have enough spider web material to make anything ... 
               or to put it another way .. if Spidey himself ran out of web fluid .. that is still much more
            than the eensy meensy amount of textual variations for the Multi-Valent Text at hand...

        When you put on the colored glasses ( that atheists, Infidels, evolutionary bio geeks 
          and my old co-worker with a BA in History constantly accused me of having ... 
            since I happen to have solid Scottish common sense for what I observe concerning 
           the Multi-Valent Greek text -- of which SBL at biblegateway surely has ... )

         When you done 3D skeptical glasses of any variety ... 
                  e.g. both extremes above 
           then you either ignore the situation, wave your hands, engage in various 
          historical critical methods along with their -- the "Truth is BACK there" ...  
          thus eliminating whatever remains in their path of historical  pursuit ... 
         or on the other side ...  use various devices like hammers, KJV bibles the 
          size of unabridged dictionaries that weigh a ton ... become a very annoyed 
           woodpecker pecking on someone's noggin ..  pointing out as many small 
          details as possible .. where Jesus or Christians ( these words ) are mentioned
        in secular documents, K-mart checkout receipts , Jewish historians 
         of that era , and eye witness testimonies 
          ( which in today's Courtroom could very well give you the Monopoly 'card'
          go to Jail do not pass Go and do not collect any money ... )
           Yes, I recently noticed an article online that reports that eye-witness
          testimony is becoming less and less reliable in order to be depended on ...
           and CSI TV show high tech is sought after desperately ...  
           
          Thus in today's TV "Reality show" society I really wonder and feel very curious
            as to the reasons for Crusading Evangelistic efforts with a very stubborn 
          Conservative bent ... who are still trying to "sell" eye witness testimony ...   :wink: 

           On the other hand, I, personally, have deep keen appreciation, admiration
           for Luke presenting his Gospel ( Literary genre ) in his manner.
           Luke surely knew that having Scottish common sense was full of adroit 
            skill including being Well done or executed: clean, deft, neat, skillful. 
        Showing art or skill in performing or doing:  
         artful, deft, dexterous, skillful. Exhibiting or possessing skill and ease in performance
         as an Passionate Artist to express his Invaluable insights concerning the Birth, Life, 
          Death and Resurrection of Jesus .... which was for his intended Audience 
        at that time and place ... and Praise be to God ( Father, Son, Spirit ) 
        for allowing me almost 2,000 years later to view, experience and contemplate 
         this "Witness" to Jesus ...   

        Ahhhhhh  Yes I did write "Witness" 
           which could very well have its own Topic entitled "Unintellible Witness "   :laughing: 

         There is a powerful energizing spiritual intuitive awareness that is held to emanate from or give animation to 
        from "Witness" to the Father...  
            from the Son ... in which the Spirit will "Witness" to the Son ....
         
          What has this to do with "facts" ?

        When I first arrived in Taiwan many years ago ... I was to teach a class about Church History ...
         and suddenly memories of me attending Church History classes in undergraduate daze...
          brought chuckles and semi-boring emotive feelings ... chuckles because although the male
          students in the back row were supposed to have divine behavior ... in 'fact', these nitwits 
         would sit there and stick out their tongues repeatedly while the Prof was lecturing ...
         and semi-boring due to the 'fact' ... endless names, endless dates, endless events were 
         flowing like a waterfall which after a short time produced a drowsy feeling which was 
         very difficult to overcome...   

          Thus, I decided not to cause these Chinese students to quickly doze off into the netherworld ..
          I chose to teach from a biographical framework instead... Living people who were involved 
          within social events which consisted of a maze of interconnected phenomena surrounding 
         everything ....

          Which by the way .. is exactly what happened during the Life and Times of Jesus
          along with the Earliest Church as well....

             more coming soon ...  <img src="/uploads/default/original/1X/15680453330e74f929b585a237613f0bdf61e069.gif" width="15" height="17" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green"/>

That’s very intereting old chap. I’ve just been reading a book which argues that the Gospels do fit into the genre of ancient biography.

As for your intention to draw on the best of all aprroaches without going to extremes of scepticism or literalism - a round of applause :smiley:

As for Scottish Common Sense philosophy - hmmmm; isn’t that one of the bases for Christian fundamentalism? Alhthough I applaud a pragmatic and level headed approach that isn’t too theoretical, I think the Common Sense stuff has other implications (I think I’ve got something on it somehwere - and I really liked what you said about the authority of scripture in a previous post by the way).

Anyway keep posting - your views are very interesting; and your life sounds a saga of colour too. :smiley:

Greetings !

I am delighted with sparkling eyes … while reading your posts … not glazed over as in boring …

    We have a lot in common already .... 

 All of these meanings of ‘myth’ may seems to conflict – but I think that they are not necessarily contradictory. Any ideas?

P.S ‘Epistemology’ rhymes with ‘by golly gee’
Sobornost
and by golly gee … learning how to know how we know … rhymes with snow too…
which by the way the Eskimos have enough variations on it … :wink:

  I concur with your thoughts on "Myth"  and Chesterton has some interesting comments about Fairy Tales too ...
 
    For Barth and CS Lewis .. .Myth is much larger than the common ordinary variety ...
     another thought ---  Fairy Tales might have a 'kernel' of truth ... While a Myth will have much more Truth
      for us to realize, consider and then believe ....   

     This is yet another reason I have such praise for the Gospel Writers ... especially Luke ...
       I am thinking of my living experience here in Asia...

       If a newbie from the States suddenly shows up in Taiwan or Guangzhou ...
        then he or she will not suddenly be dis-oriented either ... because there is much common 'ground'
       much common "connections" with the City he or she left and the City she or he enters into ...

        However, sooner or later .. ( most likely sooner than either suppose or expect )
       there will soon be enough lessons in Cultural awareness...  
           especially when crossing the street after the traffic signal turns to "green"

       allow me to share with you ... 
             in Taiwan I will introduce the meaning of the colors found on a traffic signal...
          as You are aware ...  red means 'stop'   yellow means 'caution'  green means 'go'
       whereas in a lot of places in Taiwan .. .green means 'go'  yellow means ' go fast' and red means 'go very fast'
           :laughing: 
         so if you believe in "facts" then you will be "factually" dead if you suddenly attempt 
            to cross the street immediately after it turns to green ...

         there is a website .. need to google to find it later ...
             along the lines of .. You know you have lived in Taiwan too long when.....

         having the Cultural awareness which over time becomes internalized within your "living and breathing"
          makes you much more comprehend, realize and understand many Cultural "signs"

           this is where I completely disagree with the Jesus Seminar... along with Bultmann & Co.
         and where I completely agree with Barth & Co.     

          The NT multi-valent text has little to do with Myth in this sense ... 
             The Genesis "narrative" (1-3 for me which I have reflected over & over for more than 10 years )
           could fit this sense of Myth for me...

          Source criticism like feng shui is interesting and beneficial to a certain degree for learning about 
              something out of my daily living routine ...  but try to jump into the deeper end of its 
            swimming pool is of little Value to me .. due to the "luggage" I must carry in order to go along 
           with it and comprehend it more....
           feng shui has a lot of concepts, ideas, Asian philosophical tenets that I definitely prefer not 
             to get deeply involved with ... due to the influence upon one's thinking and belief ...
             which in turn has effects thus affecting my daily interactive behavior with others within society...

            
        thanks for your Valuable insights !

            all the best !

My eyes are sparkling too my friend. It’s a pleasure to do business with you - and thanks for your valuable insghts too! :smiley:

Here are a couple of resources people may find useful.

(I didn’t write this and I’m not sure where it came from)

***The Bible Says It.
I Believe It.
That Settles It.
Bumper Sticker

While most traditional Christians of the pre-modern period would not have used the phrase “inerrant,” certainly the bible was considered authoritative by them .

But fundamentalism went off the rails when it unconsciously employed the Scottish “Common Sense” philosophy. This school of thought was a rejection of the radical skepticism of philosophers like Kant and Hume, and stated that there was no reason to doubt such basic facts as the existence of the external world, cause and effect, and the continuity of the self. This philosophy had an anti-elitist tone and greatly influenced Americans — not surprising since both the nation and the philosophy took shape at the same time.

As American Christians absorbed this philosophy they began applying it to their religion, and in particular their bibles:
Common Sense philosophy affirmed their ability to know “the facts” directly. With the scriptures at hand as a compendium of facts, there was no need to go further. They needed only to classify the facts, and follow wherever they might lead. (George Marsden, Fundamentalism in American Culture, p. 56)

Results

In attacking a group that was undermining traditional Christianity, fundamentalists became unmoored from the traditions of Christianity.

By asserting their ability to know the simple “facts” found in the bible, they were unconsciously throwing out millennia of traditional theology involving allegorical interpretations, historical traditions and complex Greek philosophy. While traditional Christians may have accepted the bible as without error, fundamentalists were creating a new concept under the guise of the old. Inerrancy was now essentially literalism, and the fundamentalists put it front and center in their faith.
In attacking a group that was undermining traditional Christianity, fundamentalists became unmoored from the traditions of Christianity. Further, by embracing the anti-elitist undertones in “Common Sense” philosophy, fundamentalists were making every man his own biblical critic. The results of this are odd new “traditions” like pre-millennial dispensationalism and literal six-day creation (neither of these ‘traditions’ have any place in pre-modern Christianity – for example the Fathers of the Early Church were happy to think of the six days of creation as being symbolic).***

leaderu.com/marshill/mhr02/lewis1.html

And here’s an interesting, and enjoyable article from the Mars Hill Review by Duncan Sprague on C.S. Lewis and myth. It seems very sympathetic to Lewis’ orthodox but non-fundamentalist treatment of scripture – although it does include a critique of Lewis by Garry Friesen’s who does appear to be in the fundamentalist/inerrantist camp.

The Unfundamental C. S. Lewis

Key Components of Lewis’s View of Scripture

Perhaps, never in the history of Christendom has one man bridged so many levels of understanding to the story of Christianity. As Garry Friesen, friend and former professor says, “C. S. Lewis became all things to all readers.”{1} For the child at heart he created the land of Narnia and the untamed lion/saviour, Aslan. For science fiction readers he travelled to Perelandra with Ransom. For the philosopher and theologian he reasoned about pain and miracles, as well as debating doctrines of Christianity and the philosophy of men. For the lover of myth, he wrote an adaptation of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. For the pain stricken he observed grief and spoke of prayer. For those enchanted with rhythm and rhyme he wrote poetry. For those concerned with the afterlife he wrote about Heaven and Hell and exposed the mind of Satan. For the weak and questioning he wrote letters of personal encouragement and advice.

Unlike nearly all other influential thinkers and writers within Christian history, C. S. Lewis is not known for his reformation of or separation from the popular religious beliefs. Instead, he is known for defining, defending, and uniting the community of Christendom on what it “merely” (or in his own term “purely”) is. This is evidenced by the overwhelming appeal and popularity he has to all sects and denominational backgrounds within Christendom. I am amazed the extreme positions within Christendom that claim Lewis as the champion and defender of their own denominational faith. These extremes are seen on a continuum between the liberals and the fundamentalists; the Roman Catholics and the evangelical Protestants. Even within Protestant Christianity there are the extremes of the most conservative Baptists to the most charismatic Pentecostals claiming Lewis as one of their own. For example, there are John Willis{2} and Christopher Derrick {3}, both Catholic Priests, who claim that if Lewis had lived long enough to see Vatican II, his true colours of Catholicism would have come through. You have a similar claim being made in a Pentecostal magazine in an article by Kathryn Linskoog,{4} who asserts that if Lewis had lived to see the formation and branching out of the Pentecostal movement, he would have jumped on board.

In making the preceding claims, I do not mean to say that Lewis did not separate himself from popular religious views about Christianity, because he did. Lewis, on many occasions, set himself apart from movements and schools of thought within modern and historical Christianity. My purpose then is to identify the areas of Lewis’s scriptural view and define how he embraces a liberal view of Scripture and distances himself from a Fundamentalist view of the Bible (defined as the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture.). The evaluation of Lewis’s view of Scripture begins with his hermeneutic, followed by his specific views of transposition, revelation, inspiration, and authority of scripture, ending with my evaluation of Lewis’s view.

Lewis’s Hermeneutic
It is necessary to begin an understanding of Lewis’s hermeneutic with the realization that Lewis brought his rich legacy of literary criticism to all of his reading, including the Bible. As a foremost literary critic and expert in ancient and medieval-Renaissance literature, Lewis was well aware of the problems involved in the writing, translation and interpretation of literature. His hermeneutic, however, is not purely academic. The academic aspects are combined with some presuppositions of Christian faith (namely that there is a God and He has spoken and revealed himself and continues to speak and reveal), that somehow blend together to form a strange hybrid of biblical interpretation that satisfies hardly anybody. Richard Cunningham, in his book C.S. Lewis: Defender of the Faith, expands this point by saying that Lewis’s, “…recognition of the absence of a theological system, of the mythological and metaphorical elements, and of error and inconsistency in the Bible causes uneasiness among fundamentalists and conservatives.”{5} The marriage of biblical assumptions and literary criticism has created many critics of Lewis’s hermeneutic view.

Before looking at some of the specific elements that make up Lewis’s hermeneutic, it is important to see the power that Lewis attributed to the story of redemption throughout the scriptures. I can think of no better place to turn than Lewis’s book, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,”{6} to understand the importance of story and myth for communicating Christian beliefs. In this example, it is possible to assume that the method Lewis uses, of embedding the truths of scripture in a story, is what he has assumed on God’s “transposition” of truth in the scriptures. In other words, Lewis is following the example of Jesus by burying truth in story. In the case of this specific example, Lewis embeds his beliefs about the Bible under the auspices of a children’s story.

The adventure within The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” which reveals Lewis’s understanding of the Bible occurs when Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace arrive at the island of the Dufflepuds. On the island they encounter strange creatures who are invisible and not particularly intelligent (in fact, they are downright stupid). For them to become visible again, a young girl is needed to go into the magician’s house, up to the second floor, to find the Magician’s book. Within the book she would find spells, one of which would make the Dufflepuds visible again.

Since the alternative was to fight invisible creatures, Lucy consents to brave the frightening house. When she enters a room, apparently the library, she notices many books of all sizes and shapes, but is instantly drawn to the large one on the reading table. There she finds the Magician’s book and begins reading the spells, page after page, in search of the visibility spell. As she reads, however, she eventually comes across a spell “for the refreshment of the spirit.” She becomes engrossed in the spell, aware that the spell is “more like a story than a spell. It went on for three or four pages and before she had read to the bottom of the page she had forgotten that she was reading at all.”{7} She began living in the story as if it were real, “and all the pictures were real too.”{8} After reading that story, she believes it to be the most beautiful story she has ever read and attempts to go back and read it again. But the pages will not turn back and the story begins to fade in her memory. All she can remember is that, “it was about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill.”{9}

What Lucy could remember as a cup, sword, tree, and green hill appear to be references to the closing scenes of Christ’s life. The cup recalls Christ asking God the Father to “remove this cup from me” (Mark 14:36), in the garden of Gethsemane. The sword could refer to Peter’s lopping off the ear of the high priest’s slave with a sword or the men with swords who accompanied Judas to take Jesus away (Mark 14:43-48). The tree becomes the cross that Christ hung on and died. And the green hill appears to be a portrait of Christ as He appeared and ascended into Heaven.

Lewis clearly depicts the theme in this, as in all his fiction writing, as being a shadow of the great story. I believe one hears Lewis himself speaking through the character of Lucy when she says, “a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician’s Book.” {10}The forgotten story is what Lewis frequently refers to as the myth that became fact. Here are C. S. Lewis’s own words as he is faced with the story of redemption in the gospels:

If ever a myth had become a fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like it . . . Here and here only in all time the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, man. This is not “a religion,” nor “a philosophy.” It is the summing up and actuality of them all.{11}

This theme of myth becoming fact has been described by Lewis as the “romantic longing” in man. It is the longing for something transcendent, mythical and infinite to enter the finite bodily creature bound in space and time. We are, as Lewis says in The Weight of Glory, always longing and trying to capture something, trying “to get in.”{13} Lewis spends much time contemplating this longing and frequently asks the question whether we can find any spell which offers genuine “refreshment of the spirit”–lasting refreshment unaffected by the corrosive and eroding powers of time. Lewis believes this refreshment is possible in myths and stories and believes that is the way they have been revealed to man . . . in the form of myth and story.

Transposition
In Lewis’s sermon “Transposition,” he describes what some have called one of his “most important contributions to theological thinking.”{14}The concept recurs repeatedly throughout Lewis’s writing. It is the idea that the highest does not stand without the lowest. This idea points to his understanding, once again, that God’s truth cannot be known without being immersed in both human imagination and human history (myth become fact). The belief of the Incarnation of God in the human form of Christ is an acknowledgment and acceptance of the possibility of the highest (God) and the lowest (human) being united. Transposition is also seen when an author, like Lewis, takes a timeless theme and exposes it in a temporal plot. It is, as Gilbert Meilaender says, “a temporal net to catch what is eternal.”{15} It is Lewis’s understanding of transposition that defines God as the greatest storyteller of all time, because He wrapped all of eternity’s truth in the story of redemption through Christ. We will see how Lewis’s view of transposition affects his understanding of inspiration in the section called “Inspiration,” but suffice to say now that inspiration is the conversion of human words (the lowest) into the divine Word (the highest).

Revelation
Lewis assumes that God is ultimately His own revelation of Himself, yet He has revealed Himself in various ways in different places. This explains why Aslan can appear as different animals throughout the Narnia stories. Some of these ways God is revealed can be deducted from Lewis’s writings: conscience, dreams, myths, the moral law, the creation of romantic or immortal longings, history, nature, religions, experience, pagan literature, the incarnation of Christ, the Scriptures, and in other ways in which the “divine pressure” has been exerted on the human mind. This may sound like a broad sense of revelation, but Lewis seems to also restrict it by saying that God can only be known by “self-revelation on His part, not by speculation on ours. We, therefore, look for Him where it is claimed that He has revealed Himself by miracle, by inspired teachers, by enjoyed ritual.” {16}

Garry Friesen writes about Lewis’s view, that the process of revelation, “emphasizes strongly its progressive nature as well as its basic unity. So nature often anticipates the truth revealed in Scripture.”{17} This idea of nature’s anticipation and revelation of scriptural truth is seen in Lewis’s writing when he records,

The corn itself is in its far-off way an imitation of supernatural reality; the thing dying, and coming to life again, descending, and re-ascending beyond all nature. The principle is there in nature because it was first there in God Himself.{18}
In the book The Problem of Pain, Lewis sees three main stages of revelation for all religions and a fourth for Christianity. The first of these stages is “Numinous”{19} (marked by the feeling of awe). The second stage is recognition that some kind of “Moral Law”{20}has been broken. Thirdly, subjects recognize that the source of the moral law is the numinous.{21} This third stage is evidenced by the Jewish understanding of God as the Law giver. The fourth and final stage of revelation is when a man is born and “claims to be the Numinous” and giver of the moral law. This is the picture of Christianity and the incarnation of Christ.

There is, as we will also see in Lewis’s view of inspiration, a sense of progression of revelation that has gotten clearer and more specific through time. This progressive revelation is seen in the fact that the Jews were given more revelation than the pagans. The revelation of God to the Jews was also more directive in how to live and gave a clearer and more focused view of Himself to them over the understanding given to the pagans. The focus becomes even clearer when what was “vaguely seen in them [the Jews] all comes into focus in Christianity–just as God Himself comes into focus by becoming a Man.”{22} We see in Lewis’s theory of progressive revelation a finish line that has not yet been reached. The finish line is the final and complete revelation of God in a face to face communion.

It is important at this point to explore and define another of Lewis’s big ideas which recurs throughout his writings, the idea of myth. As I mentioned earlier, Lewis concludes that myth had become fact in the story of redemption through Christ, but Lewis’s definition of myth needs more clarification since he believes that much in the Old Testament is myth by nature. (It follows that we should pursue this now since Lewis seems to see myth as “one form of unfocused revelation which was given to the pagans and early Jews.”{23}) Revelation comes into focus by a process of “crystallization”{24} in which revelation moves from myth to history. Lewis himself defines his view of Old Testament myth best when he talks about many Old Testament miracles as being mythical. He defines both, what myth is and is not.

A consideration of the Old Testament miracles is beyond the scope of this book and would require many kinds of knowledge which I do not possess. My present view–which is tentative and liable to any amount of correction–would be that just as, on the factual side, a long preparation culminates in God’s becoming incarnate as Man, so, on the documentary side, the truth first appears in mythical form and then by a long process of condensing or focusing finally becomes incarnate as History. This involves the belief that Myth in general is not merely misunderstood history … nor diabolical illusion … nor priestly lying … but, at its best, a real though unfocused gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination. The Hebrews, like other people, had mythology: but as they were the chosen people so their mythology was the chosen mythology–the mythology chosen by God to be the vehicle of the earliest sacred truth, the first step in that process which ends in the New Testament where truth has become completely historical. Whether we can say with certainty where, in this process of crystallization, any particular Old Testament story falls, is another matter. I take it that the memoirs of David’s court come at one end of the scale and are scarcely less historical than St. Mark or Acts; and that the Book of Jonah is at the opposite end.{25}

It is in Lewis’s view of myth that we find the bridge from revelation to inspiration. If, in myth, there are extreme points on opposite ends of the continuum of focused and unfocused revelation, then it would follow that the quality and/or focus of inspiration may also be viewed as having extreme points beginning with the least inspired (unfocused truth) to the most inspired (meaning the most complete truth directly from God). But, before we leave the issue of myth in revelation I sense the need to simplify, as best I can, Lewis’s definition of myth. I would say that he views myth as a story that could be and might be true, but does not need to be historically or scientifically true because it is meant to communicate something bigger than history or science. Therefore Old Testament stories like Jonah, Esther, Song of Solomon, Job, some of David’s Psalms, and even the creation account and fall of man are not necessarily historical events. In fact, in addressing the last point, Lewis writes, “For all I can see, it [the fall] might have concerned the literal eating of a fruit, but it is of no consequence.”{26}

Inspiration
It is important to note at the outset of this section that C. S. Lewis would have claimed that all scripture in the Bible is inspired. At the same time he would say that not only the writers were inspired, but that the Jews and the Christians who preserved and canonized the Scriptures were inspired; as well, the redactors and editors who modified them also had a “divine pressure” exerted on them. But the pivotal point of contention is what he does with the word inspiration. I think what Lewis would say in defense of his definition for inspiration is that “not all scripture is inspired for the same purpose or in the same way.”{27} Because of his literary criticism background, he would claim that there are errors, contradictions, and even (in his words) “sub-Christian” ideas. Again we are faced with his beliefs that Job, Jonah, and Esther were non-historical and that the early stories of Genesis are mythical. But he would argue that their non-historical elements and mythology say nothing about their spiritual truth. Lewis would continue to argue that the writers were moved, guided, unctioned–whatever word you want–by the “divine pressure” of God.

For Lewis, there are degrees of inspiration outside of Scripture and intrinsic to Scripture. He argues that “all truth and edifying writing, whether in Scripture or not, must be in some sense inspired.”{28} Lewis rejects the idea that

inspiration is a single thing in the sense that, if present at all it is always present in the same mode and the same degree; therefore, I think, rules out the view that any one passage taken in isolation can be assumed to be inerrant in exactly the same sense as any other.{29}
Lewis claims to find support for levels of inspiration in 1 Corinthians 7:10-12, Luke 1:1-4, and John 11:49-52.{30}

The idea of transposition returns to influence Lewis’s view of inspiration. He believes that “the Scriptures proceed not by conversion of God’s word [the highest] into a literature [the lower] but by taking up of a literature [the lower] to be the vehicle of God’s word [into the highest].”{31}In other words, he is saying that inspiration is the conversion of human words (literature) into the divine Word. Or to say the opposite would be to say that divine words were not made into human words. Lewis expands this point by arguing for a greater meaning in Scripture by asserting:

If the Old Testament is a literature thus “taken up,” made the vehicle of what is more than human, we can of course set no limits to the weight or multiplicity of meanings which may have been laid upon it. If any writer may say more than he knows and mean more than he meant, then these writers will be especially likely to do so. And not by accident.{32}
Lewis’s theory of multiplicity of meanings allows him to say in criticism of systematic forms of theology that there is nowhere in scripture an “unrefracted light giving us ultimate truth in systematic form.” He continues this argumentation by examples of Jesus and Paul in the New Testament. Even in Jesus’ teaching there was nothing systematic to hang one’s theological hat on.

In conclusion of Lewis’s view of inspiration we can say that he believed in degrees of inspiration. The level of inspiration seems to be directly related to the writers’ closeness or relation to God. An ascending order of inspiration can be deduced from the least inspired writings, those being pagan myths, to Jewish writings because “they were closer to God”{33} than their contemporaries. The writings of the apostles and prophets are next in clarity and focus of inspiration because they communicated with God either in dreams, visions or audible words (from either God or Christ). And ultimately, the most inspired words would be in the teachings of Christ himself where “there was no imperfection.”{34} Obviously there are some gaps of other writings that would fit in the list, but I think the idea is adequately represented. Ultimately, Lewis defines and defends his position about inspiration best by writing,

The total result is not “the Word of God” in the sense that every passage, in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God and we . . . receive that word from it not by using it as an encyclopedia or an encyclical but by steeping ourselves in its tone or temper and so learning its over-all message.{35}

Authority
It should not be surprising, after examining Lewis’s levels of revelation and inspiration, to discover that in religious truth he finds different levels of authority among several authorities. Among these several authorities for the Christian, the highest authority is the Scriptures themselves.{36} In his evaluation of Lewis’s view of the authority of Scripture, Clyde Kilby gives a personal perspective around which to frame our thoughts.

It would be a bad mistake to infer . . . that Lewis regarded the Bible as simply another good book. He repeatedly calls it “Holy Scripture,” assures us that it bears the authority of God, sharply distinguishes even between the canon and the apocryhpha, presses the historical reliability of the New Testament in particular, and often assures us that we must “go back to our Bibles,” even to the very words.{37}

Creeds of the faith are the next level of divine authority. We can see that Lewis assumes the “truth of the creeds,”{38} as an embodiment of the pure doctrines of the faith.{39} Below the Scriptures and the creeds would be the level of “tradition” which include the authority of “Church Fathers, ecclesiastical authorities, great theologians and all good writers.”{40}Lewis maintains that he strongly belongs within the defense of the “traditional, dogmatic positions” of Christianity.{41}

Evaluation
By his own admission Lewis saw his view of inspiration as tentative. We can see this clearly in a letter he wrote in his later years to Clyde Kilby, when Lewis wrote explaining his view of inspiration: “Remember too that it is pretty tentative, much less an attempt to establish a view than a statement of the issue on which, rightly or wrongly, I have come to work.”{42}

The following concerns with Lewis’s view of Scripture are discussed more fully in Garry Friesen’s evaluation.{43}I provide a brief discussion and expansion to the main aspects of his concerns.

When Lewis discusses his view of Scripture he does not address Scripture’s own claims about itself, which are found in such important passages as 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21, and Matthew 5:17-18. I see this as one of the weakest points of Lewis’s view of Scripture. Lewis has a famous argument concerning Christ’s claims of being God, in which he concludes that Christ was either a liar, lunatic, legend or the truth. It appears that Lewis did not transfer this same line of reasoning to his understanding of Scripture. If he had, he would have made a similar argument about Scripture’s claims about itself … that they are either lies, ramblings of crazy religious men and women, myth (that did not become fact), or truly God-inspired words and thoughts through the instruments of people.

A second weakness in Lewis’s view of Scripture centers around his idea that some Old Testament passages are myth. Though I understand his intention in definiting myth as being that the story may or may not be historically true, it appears that he uses this argument to avoid having to admit that the creation account and the fall of man were actual historical events. Instead he appears to be protecting his belief in biologic evolution, clearly seen in his own interpretive version of the Adam and Eve story.

For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulating, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say “I” and “me,” which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgments of truth, beauty, and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past. This new consciousness ruled and illuminated the whole organism. . .

I do not doubt that if the Paradisal man could now appear among us, we should regard him as an utter savage, a creature to be exploited or, at best, patronized. Only one or two, and those the holiest among us, would glance a second time at the naked, shaggy-bearded, slow-spoken creature: but they, after a few minutes, would fall at his feet.

We do not know how many of these creatures God made, nor how long they continued in the Paradisal state. But sooner or later they fell. Someone or something whispered that they could become as gods. . .{44}

The difficulty I have with Lewis’s position of Old Testament myth is that much of Scripture refers back to Adam and Eve, the fall of man, as well as Noah and the Flood as literal people and historical events (1 Chronicles 1:1; Matthew 19:4-5; 24:37-39; Luke 3:36-38; Hebrews 11:7;1 Timothy 2:13-15).

Myth was also seen by Lewis as unfocused revelation in the Old Testament. This view allowed Lewis to make some good contributions to the Christian’s understanding of natural revelation. However, Lewis seems to discount and/or ignore the events of special revelation from God to his people throughout the Old Testament. These were moments of clearly focused and direct revelation in which God spoke directly to individuals such as Moses, Abraham, and the prophets. These moments of direct revelation hardly seem to fit into Lewis’s idea of myth and unfocused revelation.

Stemming from Lewis’s weakened view of revelation comes a weakened view of inspiration. We are left with an errant Bible in which we are to find absolute truth. Lewis may have tried to compensate for this weakened view of inspiration by introducing the idea of transposition and by heightening the importance of illumination. In his view of illumination, the reader is inspired to the point that human words (the lowest) are transformed into the divine word (the highest).{45}He argues that literature is only the vehicle for God’s word, not the word itself. Lewis also argues that at times he reaches the Voice of God “through all the distortions of the human medium.”{46} It appears that Lewis views the use of “the human medium” of communicating God’s Word as a liability rather than an asset in the process of finding God.

Conclusion
Though variants can be seen in how Lewis differs from the fundamentalist view of scripture, I think it is ultimately important to frame our understanding of his view of Scripture around the context from which he was doing most of his speaking and writing . . . that being the context of the Church of England. Lewis’s view of Scripture is, for the most part, in harmony with the Church of England. It was of little debate within his closest circle of friends that there were errors within the literature of the Scriptures. It was only as his popularity grew and influential writings stretched across the ocean to America that the challenges arose to what was important to the American Christian culture. At that point in history, the term “fighting fundies” was gaining popularity in describing the fundamentalist movement in America. Lewis was reluctant to leave his own church history and orthodoxy for an ultra-conservative and constricting movement. In the end, I am grateful for the liberal heritage that Lewis brought to his writings and Christian life. For in that heritage is found the richness of his wide and diverse impact as the writer of all things to all readers as he tells the story of Christian redemption.


{1} I am deeply indebted to Garry for spurring me on in our mutual admiration and respect for the life and writings of C.S. Lewis. Many of his thoughts bear their influential fingerprints in my thinking, research and writing.

{2} John Willis, Pleasure Forevermore: The Theology of C. S. Lewis, (1983) Chicago: Loyola Univ.

{3} Christopher Derrick, C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome, (1981) San Francisco: Ignatius.

{4} Kathryn Lindskoog, “C. S. Lewis and the Holy Spirit,” Charisma & Christian Life, Nov. (1988): pp. 91-93.

{5} Richard B. Cunning-ham, C.S. Lewis: Defender of the Faith, (1967) Philadelphia: Westminster ( p. 84).

{6} C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,” (1952) New York: Macmillian ( pp. 123-136).

{7} Ibid., p. 133.

{8} Ibid., p. 133.

{9} Ibid., p. 133.

{10} Ibid., p. 133.

{11} C. S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy, (1955) New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (p. 88).

{12} Carol J. Hamilton, “Christian Myth and Modern Man,” Encounter 29 Sum (1968): p. 251.

{13} C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, (1972) Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans (p. 12).

{14} Cunningham, p. 84.

{15} Gilbert Meilaender, “Theology in Story: C. S. Lewis and the Narrative Quality of Experience,” Word & World 1 Sum (1981) p. 225.

{16} C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, (1970) Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans (p. 144).

{17} Garry Friesen, “Scripture in the Writing of C. S. Lewis,” Evangelical Journal 1 Spr (1983) p. 18.

{18} Lewis, (1970) p. 144.

{19} C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (1962) New York: Macmillian (pp. 20-21).

{20} Ibid., p. 22.

{21} Ibid., p. 23.

{22} Lewis, (1970) p. 54.

{23} Friesen., p. 19.

{24} C. S. Lewis, Miracles, (1972) New York: Macmillian (footnotes p. 139).

{25} Ibid., footnotes p. 139.

{26} C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, (1958) New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (p. 64).

{27} Cunningham, p. 88.

{28} Clyde S. Kilby, The Christian World of C. S. Lewis, (1968) Grand Rapids, Michigan: Grand Rapids Book Manufactures, Inc. (p. 153).

{29} Ibid., p. 153.

{30} Ibid., p. 153.

{31} Lewis, (1958) p. 116.

{32} Ibid., p. 117.

{33} Ibid., p. 32.

{34} Ibid., p. 112.

{35} Ibid., p. 112.

{36} C. S. Lewis, Beyond Personality, (1948) New York: Macmillian (pp. 20-21).

{37} Kilby, p.156.

{38} C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, (1967) Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company (p. 26).

{39} Lewis, (1970) p. 92.

{40} Friesen, p. 21.

{41} Lewis, (1970) p. 60.42

(42) Kilby, p.153.

{43} Friesen, pp. 22-23.

{44} Willis, p. 88.

{45} Lewis, (1958) p. 116.

{46} Lewis, (1970) p. 60.

Greetings !

In QQ messenger or the Web-based QQ there are many different smileys ... 
   thus I will use english to indicate these smileys instead ...  :bow:  :bow:  :applause :  
   and the one where the left hand is flat on top of the right hand which is a fist ...
  indicating respect (  :slight_smile:  I will need to refresh this after I ask some Chinese  :wink: 

Really delighted with your post ... lots of fascinating insights and information ... 

quote ----
A second weakness in Lewis’s view of Scripture centers around his idea that some Old Testament passages are myth. Though I understand his intention in definiting myth as being that the story may or may not be historically true, it appears that he uses this argument to avoid having to admit that the creation account and the fall of man were actual historical events. Instead he appears to be protecting his belief in biologic evolution, clearly seen in his own interpretive version of the Adam and Eve story.

    clearly seen ?   really?   read CS Lewis really fine article ( which is one I remembered the title for it after
  many years have gone by ... while the other titles for his articles are lost in the "fog" of past memory )
     Fern Seeds and the Elephant ...

  Many attempt to use their own interpretative understanding of other Authors contributing to the mass
     of differing and divergent musings concerning what these Authors meant to communicate ...

      So many reviews of Barth, Lewis, Balthasar, Moltmann and on and on and on ....

   I do not need to "protect" my belief about *biologic evolution*  ( evolutionary biology ) 
   because I disagree completely with --- Macro Evolution --- but can accept Micro Evolution for 
    more than enough reasons ... 

   Thus I disagree with Friesen that this is the Case concerning Lewis or myself....  
which --  clearly seen in his own interpretive version of the Adam and Eve story. which comes from 
    Friesen's own personal hermeneutical method regarding the OT text along with his critical analysis
    of CS Lewis ... along with what I will call the Genesis "narrative"

    So there is no "perceived" weakness in Lewis theological musings or reflections in my opinion ....

  The Genesis "narrative" has no intention nor wish nor desire to express that view which includes
       a strictly Chronological  ( using chronos instead of kairos ) detailed map of what transpired 
    during this "narrative" ( Gen 1-3 )    

    ahhhhh  Yes I am utilizing these Greek words instead of Hebrew to express my perspective ...
     because I want to draw careful attention to the difference between a literalistic hermeneutic 
      which wants to "safeguard" some supposed "security" that will aid, support, enhance and 
      "protect" Belief, Faith and understanding --- That God indeed Created the Universe both 
     known and unknown ...    :slight_smile: 

     and a dynamic Egalitarian hermeneutic full of passionate innovative Artistic intuition 
      that will draw careful attention to the kairos of the events that occured during the 
     origin of Mankind along with the profound aspects of the interactive, interpersonal 
      relational events that transpired in it ...   from my perspective of "Relational Theology "

   Tally Ho !   Watson, the Case is Afoot !

       all the best !

        ( Although I am most certainly a Trinitarian Theologian ( having confidence in my research 
       while not holding any Thd degrees ( plural )  I do not need to squeeze, hammer or forcibly 
         tuck into any text... a Case for the Trinity ...  in the Traditional manner :smiley:

Greetings!

I wish to veer off my previous post to illustrate another concept of mine ...

          Let me attempt to elucidate it via the Gospel of Luke and his writing which includes Acts 
     and the much lauded praised Church Council of Chalcedon .....

          Tally Ho !   

      from Wikipedia --  to introduce this post ... and for the sake of convenience ...  

            An ecumenical council (or oecumenical council; also general council) is a conference of ecclesiastical dignitaries and theological experts convened to discuss and settle matters of Church doctrine and practice.[1] The word "ecumenical" derives from the Greek language "οἰκουμένη", which literally means "the inhabited world",[2] – a reference to the Roman Empire that later was extended to apply to the world in general. Due to schisms, only the two earliest councils can be considered to have included bishops of the entire Christian Church, as it existed before those schisms. Later councils included bishops of only parts of the Church as previously constituted, leading the Christians who do not belong to those parts to reject the actions of those councils.

      The Church of the East (accused by others of adhering to Nestorianism) accepts as ecumenical only the first two councils. Oriental Orthodox Churches accept the first three.[3] Both the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church recognise as ecumenical the first seven councils, held from the 4th to the 9th century; but while the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts no later council or synod as ecumenical, the Roman Catholic Church continues to hold general councils of the bishops in full communion with the Pope, reckoning them as ecumenical, and counting in all, including the seven recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church, twenty-one to date. Anglicans and confessional Protestants, accept either the first seven or the first four as Ecumenical councils.

      Of the seven councils recognized in whole or in part by both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church as ecumenical, all were called by the Roman Emperor,[8][9][10] not by the Pope.

    The first seven councils recognized in both East and West as ecumenical and several others to which such recognition is refused were called by the Byzantine emperors. In the first millennium, various theological and political differences such as Nestorianism or Dyophysitism caused parts of the Church to separate after councils such as those of Ephesus and Chalcedon, but councils recognized as ecumenical continued to be held

Council of Chalcedon (451) repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, adopted the Chalcedonian Creed, which described the hypostatic union of the two natures of Christ, human and divine. Reinstated those deposed in 449 and deposed Dioscorus of Alexandria. Elevation of the bishoprics of Constantinople and Jerusalem to the status of patriarchates. This is also the last council explicitly recognised by the Anglican Communion.
This and all the following councils in this list are rejected by the Oriental Orthodoxy.

         ahhhhh... now we can notice that the following councils in the list in this Wikipedia article...
    (21 more councils for the Roman Catholics )

     more coming soon !

       as a preview I hope to showcase that while the Church Council of Chalcedon is widely held with very 
   high esteem and praise ... in my estimation was most likely held with huge political overtones ...
         along with aggressive enforcement of Leo the Great's Tome ....

      While on the other hand...  Luke in hands of many Higher Critical Scholars and their tools ...
           proceed with prodigious effort for their objectives ... with such enthusiastic fervor ...
      thus that we might be tempted to swim in the Lake of "de-Mythologizing " sulfur ...
        ( with all due polite and public display of general respect to those who agree with Bultmann & Co. )
      --- yes the sulfur is tongue & cheek reference to that so called perspective of Hades or Hell in
      John's Apocalypse or book of Revelation ...   :wink: 

      For Me, I prefer to view Luke as a Creative Passionate Artistic 
        (filled to the brim with the overflowing presence via the perichoretic koinonia 
        embedded within the active display of Grand Dance of the Trinitarian Particularity & Unity)
        exceptional example of one of the Earliest Christian Theologians
        along the lines of Capon, Barth, Moltmann, Wright, Volf, Lewis, Kreeft, Fee et al.....
        

   all the best !

Tally ho - and applause all round my courteous friend :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: thank you for your insights too.

I’d still like to look a little more at the issue of different views of scripture before hurtling on to the creeds. Is that OK? :blush: I just don’t want to leave heads spinning here!!! :laughing: :laughing:

Anyway - I am busy for a couple fo days; but will get back to you as soon as I can. I may manage a brief post over the next day or so.

All very good wishes

(and ‘Tally Ho’ :slight_smile: )

Dick

I’ve not read Lewis much, besides Narnia. What this guy describes as his philosophical framework of understanding revelation is so close to what I see. And described in such greater clarity.

"Lewis clearly depicts the theme in this, as in all his fiction writing, as being a shadow of the great story. I believe one hears Lewis himself speaking through the character of Lucy when she says, “a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician’s Book.” {10}The forgotten story is what Lewis frequently refers to as the myth that became fact. Here are C. S. Lewis’s own words as he is faced with the story of redemption in the gospels:

If ever a myth had become a fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like it . . . Here and here only in all time the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, man. This is not “a religion,” nor “a philosophy.” It is the summing up and actuality of them all.{11}"

When he goes on to speak of crystallization, my heart kind of jumped because thats the best description of the process that I’ve been able to see. He said their are 4 levels of understanding, I’d add a fifth; man realizes that the numinous becomes incarnated in all men.

I really found myself agreeing with Lewis’ view, though there were a few things I don’t. Like traditions holding weight, that high up the list. I’d put them at the level of pagan myth. They are mans decrystallization of the truth. Not that there isn’t truth in there, but usually it becomes so distorted through the years.

He mentioned Jonah being the furthest to the one end of the myth spectrum. Stephen Jones wrote of an occurrence of a whaler being swallowed by a whale then found alive a few days later. It happened in the 1800’s I think. They said the mans complexion was turned white, bright white because of the gastric juices in the whales stomach. Jones said that that would have likely happened to Jonah and been a sign to the people of Ninevah, because their god was dagon the fish god. Now whether that happened or was myth I don’t know. I agree that the storyline is what matters. I see this life as the grand narrative.

As for adam and eve, I also don’t really know (or care too much) if it was literal, because the spiritual application of what took place is written all over, and IMO is whats really important. With that said, I’m going to throw out a few thoughts about that way back time.

There are a few issues that come up with the traditional (and by that I mean the semi-fundie american background I’ve come from) interpretation of adam and eve. One is where did Cain get his wife, and move to? It seems that there were other people around. This ties in to Lewis’ holding to biological evolution. Just as Christ was a representative for all men, so is Adam a representative. He was the light bearer(heylel), the morning star. The son of God. He was put into the garden as an icon for mankind. As he went so went the rest. He was brought out of the dust region, where he was created, and placed into the garden. Him receiving the breath of life was God giving him the rudimentary understanding as mentioned in the above article. So consciousness came through Adam to all these early humans, or maybe it was supposed to. As the light bearer he was supposed to bring the light of life to men. Instead he brought death. I don’t believe they were elevated to the level of understanding of Adam and his family. So humanity was given consciousness, but not the full revelation. These were the sons of men. Adams family were the sons of God, who came down to the daughters of men. They would have been looked at as gods not only from their extremely advanced intellect, but their closer revelation to God. The primitive peoples were still in the awe phase. The giants, the men of renown were just like our giants now, our celebrities, our professional athletes, our politicians, our CEO’s. And they enslaved the human race. These men were deified like pharaohs, and were placed into the story that they had been told, that story that we forgot from the magicians book. Each time another “branch” came along, some of his story would be added, and so we see these compounded gods. These mighty men I’m sure played a hand in letting the people recognize who they purported to be (I’m sure their doting mothers played a role, B.C. stage moms? :laughing: ).

Now if the above is the case at all, (which this may all be just from my imagination anyway, my myth) and the role of the lightbearer is to bring greater light to the people, a greater height of awareness, and knowledge of God. Then possibly the flood is symbolic of that elevation to a greater height. Noah and his sons were the only people left that even had a glimmer of the light coming out of them. And so they were saved, raised up on the water. The rain of the HS came down and destroyed all the wisdom of men, which is earthy demonic. They were elevated to a new understanding, and revelation of God. It definitely foreshadows Israel coming out of Egypt, which is where the next great revelation came. And I would dare say that Jesus as the Israel of God, came out of Egypt also called Sodom (earthly Jerusalem), he brought light into the land of the shadow of death (the shadow of the law), Judaism had become an open grave, the decayed corpse of religion, and demonic wisdom, the traditions of men, they even had their own gods, their father abraham, and moses. Then that light that Jesus brought faded as the church became Babylon, and turned into the very thing Jesus came to undo. The traditions of men overtook the light. And He still calls come out of her my people. Each time this revolution takes place we have an elevation of knowledge and understanding in all aspects (science, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, morality, technology)because the light is made clearer. And I think the whole is raised (eventually) by the remnant. Look at slavery. For the most part most of the world looks at it as an absolutely horrid thing. But a few hundred years ago that wasn’t the case, it was just part of the way things are. I think this is a useful way to look at the questionable things that took place in the OT, or even the need for the law. When the people were more savage (for lack of a better term), they would need a very strict law to keep people in line, because their is no collective understanding that eating uncooked food is bad for you, or touching a dead body can bring disease. Take using computers. They are so integrated into our lives that kids can use them without any trouble whatsoever. There is a collective understanding of how operating systems work. The icon is universally used, double clicking, etc. But look back 20 years and you see a very different thing, where computers were still very limited and useless (compared to now). People may have had a hard time using Ipads back then because the groundwork had to be laid. Now that peoples consciousness has expanded into the realm of everyday computer usage, that old DOS system is completely foreign to us, and doesn’t work for our time. Just like the law that was given for Adam’s time didn’t work after Noah’s upgrade. And Noah’s laws didn’t work for Abraham’s upgrade, and then Moses’, then to Jesus the single man, then to Jesus the corporate man. Which is how I tie all this together :smiley: . The next upgrade is the corporate man. That info was given at the upgrade 2000 years ago. Paul was probably given the clearest understanding of it, the revelation of the mystery. The early church was founded on it. But we needed the 2000+ years to be ready for the full upgrade. We were only given the limited test program, the in-part, the downpayment, Revelation Beta? What informs most of my speculation in this long paragraph is not so much looking into the past, but into the future. That all men will be drawn up to Christ eventually, all of those events that foreshadow the reconciliation of all, had that as their seed, or framework around which their stories were told. As in Adam, So also in Christ. As in Christ, so also Noah. Whats that saying? A rising tide raises all ships

Thats my framework for understanding myth, both pagan and jewish/christian. At least thats how I see it for now.

liquid hot mag-maaaah,
thanks for that post, that was very cool and very interesting. methinks it’s time to revisit the old Bible with some of the perspectives i’ve heard lately. it might come to make sense to me again.
you argue quite well for progressive revelation, a concept i think is vital. the import of which is often totally missed!