Tobias: hey nate, here are my thoughts. feel free to disagree. The more western society becomes dependant upon the logic of 19th century criticism, the more people will divorce themselves from the 'evangelical solutions' found within modern apologetics. Essentially, the church will be forced to accept a theory of blind faith in trying to reconcile the internal and historical ambiguities resulting in apparent theological inconsistencies.
What i've noticed nate is that the questions are getting tougher and every century the church is finding it hard to provide sufficient explanations not for the existence of God, but for the claim that Christianity provides that quintessential element to spiritual fullfilment. Prevarication and the unpopularity of Christianity in mwc is largely the result of the church providing insufficient evidence to provide valid answers (and even solutions) to lifes contradictions.
The post modern solution is to increase transparency; affirm the humanity of the church and admit its philisophical handicaps. But then, where does the church go from here? some explanation is needed to delieneate these apparent weakness and ambiguities. Remember, who are audience is.
Nate: As in Scripture - we are taught to respond to the activity of God, not generate it, apologize for it, encaspsulate it, etc... The only one who was, is and will be and can handle living in the past, present and future is the Trinity - we are incapable of that so we are called to live in the present only. Room for existentialism? There has to be? Should we acquiesce to it? Nope - don't have to. The Church is an embodied image that has its existence and being based upon a contingent Person - all we can do is be responsive (which doesn't mean uncreative or unimaginative) it just means that nothing is new under the sun of the cosmos - so is it our fault that we don't know everything. Our reality is not filled with a void of God but a super-saturation hyper-presence that invokes all of the ambiguity that we can handle. That ambiguity then becomes a "positive" ambiguity that provides us with the paradoxes that seem to rail against our existence but in actuality our existence
...as fallen created creatures (imago Dei) rails against the paradoxes because they exist in our perception as the reality of God's existence and therefore - we respond to them - we don't own them, we can't control them and we aren't responsible to explain them all - only to respond and participate in ambiguity.
Therefore the paradoxes that produce ambiguity are "positive" from God's point of view because they create a longing for something "more" beyond our circumstance and knowledge - something that only God can satisfy, but never completely. New Heaven, New Earth = uninihibited learning and exploration of truth without the "negative" effects of the fall. Paradoxes will will be the school of learning becuase fear will not exist and yet today paradoxes produce fear and a sense of not being in control. That is the human condition that perpetuates manipulation and sinful rebellion - not being in control. Therefore the postmodern condition has elevated the "positive" aspect of our finite limitations as humans but also has made it possible to be convicted in our hearts of the rage that we have against our fallen condition. We know that we can discover through the trajectory of paradoxes, but are unable to be leashed upon those paradoxes because of our innumerable frustrations with the...
(we are no longer able to be okay with paradoxes as a result of the Fall, but only in sin not as image bearers who still have undeniable imprints of God's image upon us, regenerate or unregenerate. Though the regenerates have a better advantage to reverse the Fall's effect in the here and now, though not exclusively. But after the new humanity begins, we will be okay with paradox as a result of our redeemed imago Dei. Paradox and ambiguity will not disappear but we will be able to desire it as source of education and discovery without walls. This gives new meaning then to the Lord's prayer in that we are called to bring the reality of Heaven to Earth and bring God's will to a broken planet, not just justice, mercy and righteousness but right learning, thinking and the discovery of the "other" as it pertains to Creation, ourselves, fellow humanity and the Trinity.)
limitations that Adam placed upon us through his sin and the inability to explore truth with hearts ablaze for it and a capacity to discover it at every turn. Our dormant discovery potential is what is railing against our present fallenness and the desire to know God, not fully, but in full capacity of our God given ability to know Him (which will never be exhausted but has the ability to be unhindered) is the desire of all mankind and yet we are inhibited and hate it because we are capable of so much more. Postmodernity says "there is more, never give up and never be fully satisfied and humble yourself under your limitations but don't give up on discovery and the exploration and necessary moving our your moorings." Modernity says, "here are the answers, don't ask unnecessary or flitting questions, accept the system, fit your part into the machine, there is a cause and there is an effect, it's that simple, why don't you just accept it and then go into the sleep or slumber of apathy,
play your role and then just die?"
Inductive thesis: The New Humanity in the New Heaven and Earth needs to be okay with eternal internal contradictions, tension and paradox - it is the eternal perpetual state of perfection to always be learning truth. Truth is a Person - the discovery of any person is an inexhaustable well of discovery that our hearts really long to keep discovering. If you ever finished discovering your wife - you would cease to long for her in some aspect or maybe in total. The new humanity will be in the constant flux of discovery through paradox, experience, teaching and interaction with the Logos and His Community of which we've been invited into. We are therefore called to that which produces longing; but confusion was introduced in the Fall and truth became juxtaposed to its opposite - deception. No longer does the world long for truth as a discovery but they mourn the inability to do so rightly and therefore embrace deception from the sinful desire to be in control. (certitude vs. assurance)
Addendum: Mundus vult decipi - the world wants to be deceived (Walter Kaufmann). It's a much easier life as in a baby who sees a rattle in front of their face. Then when the rattle is taken from their face - the rattle no longer exists, until it is brought into the scope of their vision again. You see, the reality of the rattle is only cognizant from their perspective. This smacks of the complaints of postmodernism more than postmodernism accounts for. Modernism say that the problem is that p.m.'s claim truth is relative. P.m.'s claim that modernists believe that truth is only relative if it affects them or they can see it or believe from a verified source of authority. P.m. says that there are truths and levels of reality out there that we aren't aware of and as a result we are situated in a relative cicumstance that doesn't allow us to access all that can be known and therefore we are incredibly limited and small in the broad scope of reality and we need the "other" more than ever before. God hasn't given you everything you need to have to understand reality but He has given you all that is needed to be introduced to the Person of Truth wherein reality lies, but it then loses its focii on propositions and becomes an adventerous discovery of who Truth is as a person and then and only then can propositions be formulated. But any formulation of proposistions about Truth are subject to the continual pattern of Truth's forward momentum of discovery - therefore creating a lifestyle for us of a hermeneutical spiral - reconfiguring our belief system based upon being introduced to a new element that effects all of my known reality. Modernity claims that we know enough and we have the tools to know enough and there doesn't need to be much more said about it or there doesn't need to be any more major changes - only remodeling the existing structure as is needed. (This is anti-Biblical and doesn't follow the flow of redemptive history as it has progressed and continues to do so.)
Modernity is the baby with the rattle who believes in presuppositionalism but not in the limitless possibilities that exist beyond them and the presuppostions they've been offered. The reality to them is that the rattle only exists because it came into the view of their perspective. Once it is gone, it is irrelevent. P.M. says that there is a reality that exists beyond my perspective that I cannot contain explain or ignore and it has an effect upon my perspective that I cannot control, whether larger or great. It has an effect that I am unable to account for - therefore I need the "other" and I cannot fully account for reality from my perspective.
This is seen in the example of the blind men who are situated around the body of an elephant and are called upon to describe the elephant as an elephant. All of them will have a different perspective and diagnosis of truth on their own, but together they can describe most of what that elephant is like. The Fall created a rift in those relationships so that each blind man argues with the "other" blind man about the reality of his elephant and what it actually looks like as well as with the Creator of the elephant. The reversal of that is to bring each blind man back into fellowship with each other and with the Creator of the elephant - the ministry of reconciliation so that they can describe the elephant, though incompletely and not altogether coherent, they are able to do so much more together than on their own along with the aiding and direction of the illusive yet hyper-present Creator of the elephant. It would be impossible for the Creator of the elephant to give an exhaustive explanation and inutitive tacit knowledge of the elephant to the blind men, becuase then they would be equal in their existence, ability and power as it corresponded to the Creator of the elephant. The longer they spend with each other and the elephant the better descriptors they can come up with.
There is also the aspect of the understanding of my reality being on a continuum of discovery interconnected with my ability to be more aware and more mature in dealing with my awareness (maturity/life experience/ experiential tacit knowledge).
So is truth relative or is your cirumstance relative to truth (as whole)?
Who then is the real relativist, the one who recognizes that there is a reality beyond their perspective and seeks to honor that reality instead of just their own available perspective or is it the one who only acquiesces to that which has entered their perspective and can be contained within their field of vision. Reality to the second person is only that which is then centered upon their field of vision and their ability to describe what should be believed based upon their field of vision.
The question then is, are we responsible for that which is not available to our perspective? - the p.m. bellows YES because it requires us to depend upon the "other" and produces a lifestyle that has to exist in the place of need and dependence upon the "other" and can never exist in isolation.
The modernist claims that if there is a different perspective than their own, it exists to either be disagreed with, destroyed, as an antagonist to help me build my protaginism (strengthen my condition based upon on the challenge but weakness of yours) or as a perspective that I might have to obey, aquiesce to or completely shift towards while losing most or all of what distinguished my prior perspective and afforded me my differentiation from the "other".
P.M. says, Keep your differentiation, but bring it to the table of dialogue and discovery and let it contribute to the whole of reality that is beyond us all in our perspectives, positions, and situated circumstances. This is one of the most pertinent forms of reconciliation that our world needs to discover as it pertains to the Kingdom of God. With this we can invest in a kingdom that we participate in but is beyond our own selves instead of building our own kingdom securely in order to distinguish ourselves as better and more in touch with Reality than the "other." None of us has that advantage.
Who then is in danger of being the real relativist and which form of relativity is the most dangerous - honoring it, ignoring it, fighting against it, becoming apathetic towards it, etc...?
God is sovereign and controls the flow of history as well as what is unfolding now as it hasn't ever before. Can we trust Him to do that among us and allow Truth to be what it is on its own terms?
Future considerations:
1. Why did Adam, Eve and Lucifer choose to deceive themselves when there wasn't any brokenness as a propensity to deal with? They just chose to disobey out of a perfect and unbroken relatedness to God.
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