The Evangelical Universalist Forum

You cannot discover history by finding facts ...

Uh - my post, that was a bit boring :frowning: :unamused: . The discussion before me was far more exciting - including news from China :smiley: . Just to say that fundamentalist uses of scripture and alternatives to this is a very interesting topic indeed - and that’s the real issue here (at least i think it probably is). It’s a topic which I know others here have been interested in discussing.

Not only that, Dick, but things in the past (at least very far back) are typically impossible to determine with absolute certainty. A “probably true” or “likely true” is high praise from most historians for anything as far back as Jesus’ time. (As I’m sure I don’t need to tell you – but I like saying it. :wink: )

Even the most widely believed historical events are far less set in cement than we tell the school kids. Brings a whole new light to things. Attestation to Jesus and to His resurrection are so much better documented than many other uncontested historical events that we might have to dismiss whole volumes of the past if we were to apply the same rigor to their documentation that we apply to Christ’s life, death, and life again.

Of course, it’s fair to apply a high standard of scrutiny to such a miraculous claim. And it is applied. And unless the historian has an a priori requirement that there is no god and miracles never happen, it passes as well as or better than many other more ordinary events.

Love, Cindy

Yes Cinders I agree that the evidence for the resurrection - beyond it being an article of faith and a matter of personal experience - is very high indeed. That the eyewitness accounts don’t completely tally is to be expected (and I really love the fact that women are taken as key witnesses - that is so subversive!!!). But the transofrmation of the disciples for example takes too much explaining. I’m really not a sceptic here at all. I believe in the ressurection - pure and simple. There are ways of readnig scripture that are not fundamentalist but does not seek to strip it of mystery and miracle - the Early Church managed that one very well I think. (I know that a lot of the classical liberal theologians like Bultmann were sceptical about the ressurection - but I’m not in their camp).

love

Dick

Hi again Cindy – I really wasn’t trying to be controversial here. My first suggestion is simply that we don’t just make history up – although our view of it is a matter of interpretation. Regarding the Bible as history - in a sense it is history– for example I think that if we understand honour shame culture and the rabbinical debates of the first century Jesus teachings come alive in a different way. But the gospels are also sacred history – they are about the divine breaking into history. As for the miracles and the resurrection – I really do believe they happened. But when people try and give rationalist explanations for them – which is what some types of fundamentalists do to uphold then and some types of liberals do to debunk them – I turn off and think they may be missing the point. A lot of the miracle narratives are communicated in symbolic language - they point to transcendence -and I receive them as sacraments without getting too tied up in rationalist explanations. Wonderful and mighty things really did happen, but they were of another order, outside of everyday experience – and they have a meaning which only gradually discloses itself. And that’s the best I can do.

Love

Dick

Greetings !

 History bore ????   hmmmmmmm while I am here then ... I might be able to give you a run for yer money ... :smiley: 

      I was thinking ... hmmmmm  when will he mention Harnack, Bultmann along with others in 
       the Historical Criticism camp ...   Which is one good reason I have enjoyed having K. Barth around
      to tangle with these "turkeys"   :smiley: 

      Let me put forth a teaser for now ... then later I will try to flesh it out more...

        In Greek there are two fascinating words to delight one when musing over the issue of "time"
     there is kairos and chronos ...  
         chronos has the significant meaning of chronicle of time keeping 
         while kairos has another signficant meaning ... which  <img src="/uploads/default/original/1X/15680453330e74f929b585a237613f0bdf61e069.gif" width="15" height="17" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green"/> I need to dig into my 
          previous memory banks for a more complete wording to use here...

      I used to belong to the evangelical evidentalist camp ... where I would jump into the fray 
         with those who were either in the Historical critical camp... or Athesists or whatever ..
        but I will share one interesting insight from my experiences...

        Although during my beginning along this journey ... I was ceremoniously knock down 
          and flatten quite a bit ...  I was actually tooo stubborn to stay down ...
         Thus later on at least I was able to stand my ground and almost always came to a 
         stalemate with those on the other side...   
            JP Holding was another voice in these heated "flame wars" too...
          However, although he has a large enough "fan-boy" base of followers... I was certainly not 
           one of them ... for several reasons --  #1 I can hold my own as far as Historical research goes...
            #2  Holding has very little "respect" from the other side too ....
          Being able to have a aggressive attitude with cocky behavior at times or trying to Pontificate
            to others at other times ... does not increase the efficient effect of trying to 
             influence your so called "enemies"   
             The more intense the "flame wars" became ... the more tight and narrow one was trying
        to squeeze the proverbial camel through the "eye of the needle" 
           reaching a very tight thread ...
             both sides reaching a boiling point concerning the "evidence" to be presented ...

              Did it change anyone 's opinion of what had happened back then around 2,000 years ago ?

          Who knows?  I certainly do not ...  those within Holdings camp and those in the other camps
          became something akin to the 3 Kingdom Wars in Chinese History ...

             more in a short time ...

              all the best !

Hi, Dick

No worries. I was just chatting and sharing – it never even occurred to me that you might not believe in the resurrection (as indeed you do believe in it.) No, I’ve heard of that sort of thing, but it wasn’t in my mind as needing to defend the resurrection to Christians, let alone to you. I was thinking about a book I’m reading just now on that subject and very impressed with – enjoying it and all, and learning many new things.

So anyway – it was on my mind because of the book, and I wanted to share with you since what you said reminded me of it, that’s all.

Love, Cindy

I’m punch drunk at the moment my dear - I really am - and should take a wee break :laughing: .

Tell us more about the book?

love to you -

Dick

P.S. Cindy – I’m turning into a noisy little gander :unamused: :laughing:

Dear Hothorsegz -

I think I agree with you quite a lot actually - and you can give me a run for my money! Hey - another historian on site. Most people when I start enthusing about history at parties, smile thinly for a time but their eyes soon glaze over and eventually they shuffle away nervously with a soggy paper plate and some croutons. :smiley:

‘Evidentialist’ – am in right in thinking that these are the biblical literalists who seek to harmonise all discrepancies in the Bible through giving rationalist explanations of everything? I think it’s a bit like that. And then you have the other school of fundamentalist apologetics – the presupposition/worldview critics -who are very often Calvinists; they see the evidentialists as ceding common ground to the enemy. The only way to defend biblical inerrancy is to pull apart the inconsistencies in any position that claims to be rational while not being fundamentalist (because if we do not have a literal view of scripture we cannot be certain of anything). Well … yes we do have the warring kingdoms of China scenario here, most certainly

Hmmmmm. I’ve never read Bultmann in any depth - but they I know he’s the one who seem to reduce all kairos into kronos (while the evidentialists elevate all chronos to kairos perhaps?). I’ve got some stuff on these two words from the wikipedia – and I think it will do -

***Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment (the supreme moment). The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens. What the special something is depends on who is using the word. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature
In the New Testament kairos means “the appointed time in the purpose of God”, the time when God acts (e.g. Mark 1.15, the kairos is fulfilled). It differs from the more usual word for time which is chronos (kronos).

In the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, before the Divine Liturgy begins, the Deacon exclaims to the Priest, “Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio” (“It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act”); indicating that the time of the Liturgy is an intersection with Eternity.***

Blessings

Dick

Just to say Cindy that I agree with you here completely. I dunno what comes over me. I hate disagreeing with you so much - because I like you so much - that I pre-empt disagreement by, well, going on the defensive when I actually agree with you!

Oh dear me - :unamused: :laughing: I am a hopeless case and a box of frogs!

love

Dick :slight_smile:

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: