When discussing process theology, is the Bible the primary source against which every other idea must conform? What is the standard?
And how can the interpretation not drastically affect the outcome? How can the best objectivity be attained and is it possible? If we follow the truth, wherever it might lead, does it not often disagree or even contradict the Bible?

Throughout the history of Christianity, even Judaism, there has always been an evolving belief and practice: The earliest biblical characters had only a glimpse of God and their explanations of his actions were according to their perceptions. A simple reading of the Bible will show a progression of thinking, culminating in the explanations and meaning of Jesus' life as demonstrated in the Gospels and Paul's letters: There are far too many discrepancies to be easily dismissed and each writer had an agenda differing from others. Attempting to understand God and Jesus has been the lifetime exploration for hundreds of philosophers, and will doubtless continue to consume more in the future. Each endeavors to answer questions, but often raising more than they are able to answer. Truth is a journey, like the gold at the end of the rainbow: never to be found. But man will continue to search.

Dave:

Concerning your #8: 'persuading others requires more true power than coercing them.' I'm wondering what Process Theology has to say concerning the problem of the Hiddenness of God? This problem can be reasoned atheistically in almost a straight parallel to the Problem of Evil. But the defense, it would seem to me, with the most traction would speak in some way to the need for God to attract without overwhelming. Twenty-ish years ago Phil Yancey wrote 'Disappointment With God', aimed at a broad evangelical audience, to try & deal with this. It's been a long time since I read it but recollect I didn't think he made much headway. So how does Process Theology approach this issue?

Dave,
While on vacation I posted the following under Annon. as I did not have my password.

Some say,
"Process Theology denies the deity of Jesus Christ, saying that Jesus has no intrinsic difference from all other men. Additionally, the humanistic philosophy of Process Theology teaches that mankind does not require salvation, while the Bible is clear that without Christ, man is hopelessly lost and doomed to hell for eternity(supplied by me-- could also mean annihilationism). Scripture teaches that Jesus Christ is God ( Matthew 1:22-23; John 1:1, 2, 14; 20:28; Acts 16:31, 34; Philippians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:9; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1) and that without His death on the behalf of sinners (Romans 3:23; 6:23; 2 Corinthians 5:21) no one could ever be saved (John 1:12; 3:18; 3:36; 14:6; Acts 4:10-12; 16:30-31)."
http://www.gotquestions.org/process-theology.html

I did not notice Christ mentioned in your 10 points. Is yours a unique approach to PT or do you share the mainline PT approach on Christ? Is the above in error about Christ, the need of atonement and judgment/hell?

pat

PS. Could this also be (PT) why you are not that interested in QOD conference and the nature of Christ?

Elaine, Rich and Pat

Thank you for your comments. I will respond to them as part of a continuing conversation. So nuances and sublties might show up later.

Elaine

For process theology and for me there is no absolute formal authority.

By "absolute" we mean any authority that is unquestionable. By "formal" we mean any authority that is legitimated solely by its identity, office or role wholly apart from anything it says or does.

I believe that there is no such thing. None at all.

Rich

Much to my regret, I have not read Yancey's book "Disappointed with God." He is a remarkably good thinker and writer, though.

I do believe that God must be somewhat hidden lest our freedom be overwhelmed by Divine Glory. We have the story of Moses who is permitted to see only the back side of God, right! Powerful message!

I'd like to know more of what you have in mind here, however.

Pat

Welcome back! I'm glad you added "annhilationism!" The list of 10 is only a beginnng. Process theology has made notable contributions to Christology. I have to run now, but perhaps I can sketch things a bit later.

Thank you!

Dave

Elaine

Although I believe that there is no absolute formal authority, I agree that there are many presumptive and substantive ones.

By "presumptive" we mean an authority that we follow unless there are good reasons not to. By "substantive" we mean an authority that earns our confidence by the reliability of what he or she says or does.

A good pharmacology textbook is an example of a presumptive and substantive authority. We "take on faith" what it says unless we discover that on some matter we shouldn't. Also, it earns our confidence by being reliable over time.

There are many different kinds of presumptive and substantive authority. One of these is "consitutive authority." This is the authority of something that constitutes something new. It is the new thing's constitution.

We call the founding documents of the United States its "Constitution." This is the right word because these documents "consitute," or bring into being, the nation. Eliminate the "Constitution" and the United States of America disappears.

Scripture is the "constitutive authority" for the three Abrahamic faiths. Quite literally, it is that which brings into being these three great religions. No Scripture, no Judaism, Christianity or Islam. It is not inerrent; however, it is important.

Pat

You are exactly right! My interest in process thought makes me think that many of the debates regarding the human and divine "natures" of Jesus are misplaced.

The word "natue" goes back to the term "substance" which refers to something that is what it is apart from its relationships and all changes in time.

But process thought holds that everything is related to everything else and that everything is always changing such that we cannot talk of the human "nature" of Jesus, for example, as though it underwent no transformations.

His "human nature" at three months, three years and three decades varied so much for him as it does for us that what we might not regard as "a sin" when he was an infant we would when he was an adult.

We see this most clearly in how the "two sides" deal with the sexual impulses of Jesus. One side holds that he was so unlilke us that he never experienced such "evil urges." The other side holds that by God's power he held them in check.

Neither side holds that these desires are natural and healthful but that how we should deal with them when we are adults is different from how we should deal with them when we are third-trimester fetuses, for example.

Christological controversies over the years have been beset by Greek understandings of "substance" and related matters. We need more processive and Hebraic approaches.

The trouble is that many of us today do not appreciate how much our understanding of Scripture is influenced by substantive [Greek] rather than processive [Hebrew] thinking.

We think that we understand Scripture when in fact our views are closer to Plato's and Aristotle's.

This is a big problem!

Thanks!

Dave

Hi Pat!

I do not think that the site you mention above gives a sufficiently accurate account of process thought [both philosophy and theology].

The goal in such circumstances is to describe the other person's position so accurately that he or she can say, "Yes, exactly, that's precisely what I believe!" I think that on this topic it, http://www.gotquestions.org/process-theology.html, falls short. I might therefore be cautious about relying upon it for other answers too.

Also, process theologians are not impressed by long lists of Scriptural texts that make no references to their varying historical and literary contexts. I agree with them on this too.

These lists of Biblical citations strike me as the theological equivalent of taking single sentences from many books that were written in different times and places and with somewhat different purposes. The result has very little value.

I think it an oversimplification to say that process theology teaches that God is always changing and that Scripture holds that God never changes.

Both teach that God's character never changes but that the specific and concrete ways God relates to the ongoing developments in our lives and throughout the universe constantly changes.

This is why process theolgy is often called "di-polar [not "bi-polar!"] theism. Hartshorne's "Philosophers Speak of God" sorts out the options pretty well, in my view.

For more information about process thought from a reliable source, people can visit www.ctr4process.org.

Many thanks!

Dave

Dave,

What's the relationship between your process theology and Richard Rice's open theology? In "God's Foreknowledge and Man's Free Will," Rice writes that his view is not process theology. Rice says he differs with process theology in that he does not think God is ontologically dependent on the world, and that God does act in the world (coercively, not just through persuasion). Do you agree with Rice here? Also, I would add, having read Hartshorne's "The Lure of God," that any Adventist theology would probably differ from at least Hartshorne's version of process theology by rejecting his conception of salvation and afterlife. Eternal life, if I remember correctly, for him means existence as a memory in God's mind - heaven is seen by him as too much of a bribe, I think. Salvation (for Hartshorne) is something achieved in this life by responding to the lure of God.

You mention Whitehead. I tried reading "Process and Reality" once and only got about a third of the way through. So I could be wrong, but I remember him as projecting some sort of free-will capacity all the way down to things like rocks or even atoms. Everything thus has a chance to respond to God, and thus God lures the world via evolution to higher levels of consciousness. Is this right, do you agree with that? Do you espouse process philosophy as a metaphysical system, or just take what is useful for theology, and only at that higher level? Sorry for so many questions.

Dave: from my question about what Process Theology might say about the problem of God's hiddenness (in light of your #VIII) you noted that hiddenness can help preserve freedom, which I certainly agree with (not that that matters). You asked: 'I'd like to know more of what you have in mind'.

Well, before I get to that let me note I'm afraid your post has generated a number of independent questions & I'd hate to dilute your ability to respond to all the various 'threadlets', and I'm pretty interested in what you might say concerning Tim Hanson's questions, so perhaps there is nothing more to comment on concerning my original question. However, at least let me amplify a bit. Then you can decide if there is anything further to add.

The 'hiddenness' issue was addressed, as I said, by Yancey & I recall being unsatisfied, but at the same time I appreciate Yancey tackling tough things (few popular Christian authors seem to) and it is a very tough subject. And now that I've pulled his book to scan the contents briefly I think I'll put it back onto my reading stack. Probably will get to it in about 3-4 years :-). I would note that Yancey's concern is mostly pastoral rather than philosophical. That is, people want to feel God's presence at least during difficult times and can experience some 'dark night of the soul' when there appears to be nothing coming back. So the pastoral question is how might we respond to such a friend (including when the 'friend' is ourselves)? But lurking under this contextual iceberg-tip is the philosophical issue of whether God even exists when you call on Him & apparently get no answer. This is where the skeptic makes a Humean argument parallel to the Argument From Evil to dismiss theism.

Now since I have not read the principal authors you alluded to, but one emphasis you say is on human freedom, I wondered whether there was discussion in the literature as to how Process Theology's views might assist in some type of theodicy-like response to this argument that 'hey, if God ain't talking maybe it's because there's no one there'.

My perception of Process Theology, to use a grammatical metaphor, is that it tries to examine reality from the perspective of 'verbs' rather than 'nouns'. A noun perspective is propositional and lots of theology - including historic Adventism - seems very propositional to me (and when that perspective degrades it becomes proof-texting). Anyway, I wondered what this noun -> verb paradigm shift (if I'm at all understanding correctly) might do to provide fresh insight on this most difficult problem.

Tim and Rich

I'll respond to your great comments and questions ASAP.

Meanwhile, you may enjoy reading at Barry Whitney's site John Culp's review of recent discussions between process theologians and evangelical ones: http://www.mnsi.net/~bwhitney/blw-4web-a.html.

I think John, an evangelcial who knows process thought inside and out, pinpoints the issues comprehensively and fairly. His is the kind of theological writing I like!

Thanks!

Dave

Dave,
The must-see event at AAR for many of us was the conversation between process theology and radical orthodoxy. Really it was standing room only... It was the only function where I saw sitting alongside of me half if not more of the LSU, LLU, APU and Aberdeen religion departments!

Clearly process is on the move and anyone wanting to take theology seriously needs to bone up.

Thanks for the primer!

Why do we wish to eliminate Greek influence in our thinking? It was certainly most prominent during the late centuries B.C. and in the first centuries A.D., also. Are we not greatly influenced today by our postmodern culture? How can we reconcile our understanding of ideas originating more than two thousand years ago with ours today? Or, should we? Are the Scriptures permanently sustainable just as they are, or do we massage them to our perceptions today? Surely, we do, it is only those who go too far, not we ourselves, because we stay in the "middle of the road" and let others wander far afield. :-)

How does one know when his process theology has gone too far? Is it when he abandons all traditional understanding of Scripture, or only those that have been the untouchable "sacred cows" of Adventist Christianity? Is it much too liberal to question the miraculous events recorded in Scripture? Can a Christian accept the teachings of Jesus, as did Thomas Jefferson, and reject those events?

How necessary is to be a Christian in the U.S. today when there is a continuing shifting from one denomination to another? Fewer are holding their beliefs from birth and are either switching churches are leaving them all to improve their personal spiritual life. This is what Philip Yancey did as he recounts in his book on leaving the church to find faith. Are the highly structured churches such as Adventism not losing members in the postmodern U.S. but gaining large numbers in countries where illiteracy is much higher? Will there eventually be a schism, either painful or by choice, when these two patterns can no longer converge?

Is that not why Catholicism appeals to new converts because there is far less structure and control of beliefs and more on liturgy which has a comforting sameness and members believe a wide variety of doctrines. The churches that question, do so only in small numbers as in this forum. The far greater majority know little of why the believe what they do, except they were told it was the "truth" and had no way to judge and weigh its merits. Is this what our higher education has come to? God gave us both great inquisitiveness and insatiable curiosity to know more. Like our first parents, should we blame God for that blessing, or should we continue to blame Satan for the results? Had we been created automotoms, there would be no problem. With freedom comes responsibility; both for God and us. What we do with it depends on our own drives and personalities. We can never step in the same river twice; nor can we ever return to the innocence of childhood.

Elaine

Wow! You've written so much that I don't know how to respond!

Perhaps I can make just one comment now. This is that as far as I know no one is trying to eliminate ANCIENT GREEK THINKING thinking from our experience. It is so much a part of the philosophical ocean in which we swim that this would be impossible even if we tried.

Yet there are some aspects of some ancient Greek thought that better knowledge increasingly calls into doubt. Mind/matter dualism, which became even more pronounced in Descartes centuries later, continuingly falls before new developments in the neurosciences, to take just one example.

Among other things process thought is an attempt to overcome this kind of dualism.

One of the things I like about SDA thought is that it has been against dualism from the very beginning. We got that one right!

Tim

Great questions and comments!

If we have only two choices, the alleged process thought view that the world is NOT ONTOLOGICALLY DEPENDENT on the God and the historic Christian position that it is, I definitely join Richard Rice in choosing the second. I say "alleged" because I believe that Whitehead can be fairly read elsewise.

I hold with Michael Lodahl at Point Loma University in San Diego and others that, because God is love, God is always creating some kind of world, though not necessarily this one. Here is where Richard and I differ.

He holds that God's overflowing love can find full expression within the Trinity, such that God need not create other beings to love. I hold that even divine love is not really love unless it reaches out beyond itself.

I personally find Hartshorne's doctrine of OBJECTIVE IMMORTALITY, the idea that we forever remain as vivid objects of memory in the experience of God, very comforting. In fact, I personally would be satisfied with this kind of "immortality" even if this is all there is. But I have hope for subjective immortality, the idea that in the hereafter we will be subjects who act, too.

As you say, Hartshorne did not have this hope. Lots of his students do, however. My teacher John Cobb, one of the best of them, believes in both objective and subjective life after death, for example.

You corectly observe that PANEXPERIENTIALISM is a notable feature of process thought. This does not mean that aggregate things like rocks and tables can feel or exercise freedom, however.

It means that the most basic consitutents of the universe, which are much much "further down" than quarks, possess primordial forms of that which in higher organisms we call "mind."

Panexperientialiasm is process thought's flat rejection of dualism. Instead of holding that there are two fundamentally different kinds of reality, one material and the other mental, or even that as in emergence theory that which is wholly material becomes mental too, it holds to the notion of ontological continuity.

This is that there is only one kind of reality that is both "material" and "mental" all the way down; however, this does not mean "mentation" as you and I experience it.

I think we can see this in that Whitehead uses the word "prehend," rather than "comprehend" or even "apprehend."

Rich and Johnny: More later. I have to run to my Friday morning reading group. We're now watching and discussing video presentations from the "Teaching Company," or something like that, on the history of the universe. Very interesting!

This is the sort or thing people can organize for themselves everywhere. About six of us meet each Friday morning. It's great!

Thanks!

Dave

"Rice says he differs with process theology in that he does not think God is ontologically dependent on the world, and that God does act in the world (coercively, not just through persuasion). Do you agree with Rice here?"
Posted by: Tim Hanson (not verified) | 28 February 2008 at 9:27

"If we have only two choices, the alleged process thought view that the world is NOT ONTOLOGICALLY DEPENDENT on the God and the historic Christian position that it is, I definitely join Richard Rice in choosing the second."
Posted by: davidrlarson | 29 February 2008 at 6:34

I'm not sure that denying "God is ontologically dependent on the world" is equivalent to rejecting "the world is NOT ONTOLOGICALLY DEPENDENT on the God".

Nevertheless, is Rice correct in asserting that "God does act in the world (coercively, not just through persuasion)"?

Here's part of John Culp's review:

"God's ability to choose to create and love makes it possible for God to relate to events in the world as individual events making a personal relationship possible if God chooses to enter into a personal relationship (Rice 185, 189, 200)... Cobb and Griffin explicitly affirm the variability of divine action (Cobb xiii and Griffin 12-13). This appears to provide for God's specific action in relation to specific events. Rice, however, still finds that process thought is not helpful in thinking about God's relationship to the world at the level of God's involvement in specific events (181, 187). His objection appears to be that the generality of metaphysical description in process thought imposes limits upon God's action that are not necessary (188). Although Open theists and process theists both hold that God acts in various ways that are appropriate to specific situations, Open theists hold on to the importance of God's unilateral action."

Hi Dave,

I wonder how process theologians/thinkers reconcile the dotrine of objective immortality with the biblical teaching of bodily resurrection.

Paul himself said that the entire Christian faith and hope and his entire ministry and life were absolutely futile if there is no resurrection from the dead. This speaks of subjective exsistence in a new cosmos, the hope that can be seen sweeping through both old and new testaments. It speaks of a life that is integrated both physically and spiritually, thus speaking against dualistic philosophy. A life offering a meaningful continuity with life as we experience now in Christ, albeit on an entirely different plane than we know now.

I admit that I am not very familiar with process thought, however, the idea of objective immortality sounds closer to eastern thought in my mind. The whole concept of losing one's self and merging with the divine seems more in the same ballpark to me. And isn't this in the end more in line with dualistic philosophy and belief?

Though possibly comforting, it sounds to me like a subversion of the core of Christian belief and hope.

Frank

One comment only: The Teaching Company is a wonderful "outside-the-classroom" learning experience. I have been using their lectures for a number of years and have a gradually increasing library of those lectures. I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to enlarge his knowledge.

Waiting are a series on Twentieth Century Literature and the U.S. and the Middle East since 1918 to 9/11.

Elaine--

You and I finally agree on something: The Teaching Company. I have been a faithful customer for more than 11 years. I download all the courses now and play them off of my I-pod in my car, which has jack for it, and they are great!

I have learned so much.

Ah yes, The Teaching Company.

With friends, I've done weekend marathons on Western concert music, drinking mate into the night. And listened to the great J. Rufus Fears on Famous Romans while driving across the country.

Good times!

Usually I order CDs for playing in the car while driving. The latest set is on DVD as it's on the Middle East where maps are important to view.

It's hard to resist their sales, isn't it? So many topics, so little time.

I know; they're great.

Alan Kors on the Birth of the Modern, or Daniel Robinson on Great Ideas of the Western Intellectual Tradition, or Richard Wolfson on Relativity and Quantum Physics, and Dennis Dalton on Political Philosophy, or James Hall on the Philosophy of Religion, and the list goes on and on . . . .

BTW if you want my latest tirade against you know what . . . go to the Review web-site.

Cliff

Rich

The linguistic analogy of shifting the emphasis from nouns to verbs in process thought is a very good way of putting it. Excellent!

Every sentence needs both, of course. But much traditional thought puts primary emphasis on nouns [substances] whereas process thought puts primary emphasis on events [verbs].

The experience of the "hiddenness of God" seems multifaceted. What causes us to experience it? is one question.

Many things can trigger it, much like many different things can cause a headache.

What to do about it? Hang on, remembering that in the past one felt close to God and that in the future one will probably feel this again but that now in the middle time things are going to be rough.

In some cases medicine--pharmacology-can be very helpful. But many Christians over the centuries have felt "the black night the of the soul." Mother Teressa is a recent example. Even Jesus knew it: "My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?"

None of us can know with absolute certainty whether God exists. Some of us choose to live "as if" God does, others "as if" God doesn't and still others don't choose.

To my eyes the evidence on behalf of the existence of God outweighs the evidence against it; however, this evidence must be construed very broadly.

Putting too much emphasis on any one line of evidence, in this case the experience of the presence of God, can get one in trouble.

But if for a wide variety of reasons one chooses to live "as if" God exists, one is less vulnerable when the "dark night of the soul" shows up.

I'm not certain whether process thought has anything distinctive to say about "the dark night of the soul." If it does, I think it might be its encouragement to base all of our beliefs--all of them, not just our belief in God--on considerations of all the pertinent evidence.

Joselito

Thanks for reading John Culp's essay! Did you like it? If so, why? If not, why not?

Yes, the wording of the two sentences you cite is not the same but they point in the same direction.

The problem is that some process thinkers say things like: "It is equally true that the world depends on God and that God depends on the world." This drives some Christians up the wall, as it probably should.

But I counter with the reminder that this statement does not say that God depends upon the world in precisely the same way and degree as the world depends on God, just that in some fashion and extent each depends upon the other. To me this is a big difference.

But all this has to do with how to understand what Whitehead wrote and my interpretation of what he said is a minority one [even though it is better than all the rest!].

In any case, whatever Whitehead thought, I believe that the world depends upon God for its very existence and not vice versa.

Ian Barbour, one of our best specialists in religion and science, says that we Christians should "adapt, not adopt" Whitehead's thought. I agree.

Even some process thinkers think that God occasionally acts coercively, as in the Big Bang. But they think this happens much less frequently then most people think.

I agree. If God frequently acts coercively, why did divine action not stop the murderous Nazis, etc.

I beleive that in our own lives for all practical purposes God acts only persuasively. There may be exceptions but we should not expect them.

As typically understood these days, miracles are very rare, virtually nonexistent. This is evident in medical centers all over the world in which patients who are praying for miraculous healing die.

This is what happens in the overwhelming majority of cases and we should be up front about it, I suggest!

Johnny

I missed most of AAR/SBL this year because I was saving money to go to a conference in Australia instead.

This means I missed the radical orthodoxy/process thought/openness of God discussion and you are the first to say anything to me about it.

I'd like to hear more from you because my understanding of the radical orthodoxy movement is way too meager, nonexistent actually. I need to learn from someone: you!

Frank

Much of what you say is on target; however, I might suggest one modification and this is that according to the doctrine of objective immortality one does not merge with the divine whole, as in some forms of Eastern thought. Rather one is forever an object of God's memory in the fullness of one's individuality and uniqueness.

You are right that the idea of the resurrection of the body permeates the New Testament. You are also right that those process theologians who believe in disembodied subjective life after death are saying something other than Scripture does and something that is at odds with their denial of body/soul dualism.

I share the New Testament hope of subjective immortality in the form of the resurrection of the body, not as an disembodied soul.

Yet I do not agree with the statement that if the doctrine of the resurrection is false we Christians are worse off than all others. If this is what Paul meant in the Corinthian Correspondence. I disagree with him.

I hold that in this life there are many good reasons for being a Christian even if there never is a resurrection of the dead, something for which I hope.

EVERYBODY: WHAT ABOUT A WEEKLY ONLINE "TEACHING COMPANY" SABBATH SCHOOL CLASS? WE COULD ALL VIEW OR LISTEN TO THE SAME ASSIGNMENT AND BE READY TO TALK ABOUT IT ONLINE.

Thank you!

Dave

Hi Dave,
From the "sidelines" regarding two thoughts of your last post:

You said,“I agree. If God frequently acts coercively, why did divine action not stop the murderous Nazis, etc.”
----------------------
Perhaps He did through the coercive Civil powers He ordained to bring down the Nazi’s. Similar situations were “giving Jacob to the spoil.” Isa.42:24,25.
Also, a look behind the scenes in 1 Kings 22:19-22. I believe God works in many ways that may end “coercively” when we are carried away by our own lust.
----------------------

Also you commented,“ Yet I do not agree with the statement that if the doctrine of the resurrection is false we Christians are worse off than all others. If this is what Paul meant in the Corinthian Correspondence. I disagree with him.
I hold that in this life there are many good reasons for being a Christian even if there never is a resurrection of the dead, something for which I hope.”
---------------------
Dave, you see this is where I disagree with your and others premise on this text. Christianity IS Christ and His promises. It is not merely an alternate lifestyle or better capacity to enjoy life in the present,though I would agree it definately does include those possibilities as fruit.

I see Paul as saying, “If these promises are not true and I am risking my life for spreading this message…well this is foolishness, incongruent and dung.”...yes we are to be pitied!

Christ is Christianity and if scriptures words and promises are not true, properly understood through the Spirit…count me out also brother Paul.

And Cliff, I would also as you would add Adam's and Eve’s literal creation from the dust (& rib) breathing into him life... to Paul's comment.

Regards

There is such a wonderful profusion of excellent lectures from The Teaching Company, that they could be a wonderful alternative to the Quarterly Sabbath School.

Also, why not include them with the book and movie reviews to alert others about those they highly recommend, and why.

Cliff has mentioned several I very much enjoyed, though not quantum physics, and there are so many on religion that it would be difficult to choose which would be best for SS discussions. Perhaps I'll stick my neck out and suggest it for our next project (the class chooses the particular book, or Bible selection they wish to study, not the quarterly).

I would just note that in Salt Lake we have a SS class that, for several years, has used Teaching Co lecture series as curriculum. It has been a mixed bag IMO but that is not generally because of the material. Although some courses are more discussable than others. And, it's a bit of a shoehorn to first have a half hour lecture, then have much time for a subsequent discussion to achieve lift-off. However, I think the idea has real merit, especially augmented with a web-based discussion.

Rich, do you have suggestions on the lectures you've used? Yes, the usual 30-minute lecture leaves little time for discussions, but can be very educational and informative which may prove to be worthwhile.

There are so many on the Bible and world religions, which ones have met with more receptivity in your experience? In the class I attend, I might suggest lectures on the formation of the canon, or something similar, as so many Adventists know little or nothing about how the Bible was first orally transmitted, edited, redacted and then the choices made to include or exclude the many writings, and how the eventual compilation became the "Word of God."

Dave, I like what you said about living "as if" God exists (though I feel like the evidence goes the other way), and I also agree in your disagreement with Paul. To me, it seems one of the most profound things one can do to forthrightly believe beyond or against the evidence in the hope of making a better world and in the conviction that your belief ought to be true. I've found Rorty, James, Unamuno, and Kierkegaard persuasive on these matters. Process theology has elements that I very much like, so thanks for bringing it back to my attention - it had been a few years since I read Whitehead, Hartshorne, or Barbour.

Pat and Tim

So you're with Paul rather than me on whether it would make sense to be a disciple of Jesus if there were no resurrection of the body?

Fair enough! But aren't there "Atheists for Jesus?" Why couldn't I be one of them?

I share your hope in the resurrection; however, Paul himself says that "hoping" is not the same thing as "seeing."

I take it that in this life we can be absolutely certain of nothing. To greater and lesser degrees, all of us are always living "as if" and this is so whether or not we are "believers."

Pat

I have often wondered how Reformed Theologians interpret Paul's claim in Romans 8 that we are saved "by"--or perhaps "in"--"hope" because this time he doesn't say "faith." Do you know?

Tim

You write: "To me, it seems one of the most profound things one can do to forthrightly believe beyond or against the evidence in the hope of making a better world and in the conviction that your belief ought to be true."

How very much on target this is, especially when the storms of life nearly or actually drown us! Well said!!

Perhaps in some larger view of things it makes sense to go against what appears at some time and place to be the best evidence. But we can't always figure out what this more comprehensive scheme is. That's when living "as if" becomes very serious business!

You've read some good books I haven't. Wonderful!

Pat, Tim, Elaine and Others:

The idea of having a "Teaching Company" Sabbath School seems to be having logistical problems because there isn't enough time for discussion. But perhaps it would be possible to arrange for more time.

The Sabbath School Class I usually attend typically lasts at least two hours each week.

I think it important seriously to study Scripture and SDA history too. "Seeking a Sanctuary" would make a good series. So would Kenneth Newport's book on the Branch Davidians even though I think it is too hard on SDAs.

I do not want to criticize the SS Quarterly because its authors and editors have the impossible task of preparing materials for adult SDAs all over the world, a huge number of whom can neither read nor write.

Trying simultaneously to meet their needs and others must be a HUGE AND CONTINUING FRUSTRATION!

That anyone is willing to do this on an ongoing basis amazes me. They are making unbelievable sacrifices.

Thanks!

Dave

Is anyone else perturbed by the idea that because we will one day be resurrected, that it is the hope that keeps us good? Like a child whose parents are watching over him?

Why can't we be good because it is the right thing to do, without being of any particular religious belief? All cultures have lived in peace when they adhere to the Golden Rule, which is found in nearly all cultures. The religions of the world have caused so much strife and so many wars that it's easy to relate to Gandhi, who, when asked why he wasn't a Christian, that he would if he could ever find one. Being a Christian is not synonymous with being "good," although it should. There are many good agnostics, and perhaps better in their ability to tolerate and "let be" others who are of a different peruasion; they have no need to "convert" as it is a position that one must read and discover himself, while Christianity requires preachers, teachers, missionaries (the latter have been a source of problems in many countries who resent the intrusion into the lives of its people). But, the Christians have been given their charge to preach the Gospel and often they go about it in places that, legally, would refuse them entrance.

If one must be a Christian and believe in his future resurrection, that's not necessarily the choice of some. Most of the Hebrew Scriptures have nothing to say about a future resurrection: they were to live peacably with their neighbors, which they certainly did not do.
Their future immortality was only in the hopes of a large progeny outlasting themselves.

Would anyone here live differently IF there were no resurrection? If you would, or would not, why?

Tim, Rich and Frank

Reading back through this thread I see that I misattributed your differing views on whether it would be worth it to be a disciple of Jesus if there is no resurrection of the dead. Also, I confused who said what about the Teaching Company. I regret this and apologize.

Elaine

I wonder if we can separate the two issues. On the one hand, there is the question as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead. On the other, there is the question as to whether our hope for an eternal reward should be our motivation for acting responsibly.

Maybe we disagree on the first issue. We agree on the second one.

To act out of fear of punishment or hope of reward is to act prudentially, not ethically. This is why those who are so motivated often go through moral meltdowns when the carrots or the sticks disappear.

Also, I agree that our basic ethical norms are logically independent of all religious teaching and living. We don't need to jusify the Golden Rule by appealing to any religious authority. That we can do this on our own by careful thinking is evident by how many have independently done it. So in this sense ethics does not depend upon religion.

Yet the Golden Rule is often embedded in particular religions historically, psychologically and sociologically. Maybe this is why we often mistakenly link them logically as well.

Perhaps I can make one more observation and it is that on this matter you and I agree with what Ellen White said and wrote on a number of occasions. At times she is almost Kantian in her insistence that we ought to do that which is right because it is right and not out of fear of punishment or hope of reward.

It is this sort of thing that makes me perplexed about why some are so angry at her. She wasn't flawless in life and thought, but on a number very important issues like this one she was heading in the right direction.

It seems to me that anyone who uses common sense when reading and applying what she and her sources and assistants wrote will stay out of trouble. The difficulty is that sometimes we don't use common sense and then we become angry at her for the unfortuante outcomes. Perhaps the fault is our own.

For some reason in my early teens I picked up the idea, perhaps from her, that I would forfeit eternal life if I had one unconfessed sin so I tried to remember and confess them all. I attempted this for a few days and then quit because it obviously was silly, partly because it wasn't always experientially easy for me to tell where my mistakes ended and my sins began though conceptually the line was clear enough.

I figured that God is at least as smart and sane as my parents and, very strick though they were about some things, they would never be that unreasonable. So why worry? Common sense came to the rescue. It usually does.

Johnny

Thank you for the list and the link. I am making good use of them!

What was the mood like at the AAR seminar on Radical Orthodoxy and Process and Openness of God theologies? Sometimes these feelings are the best indicators of how things are going.

Thank you!

Hi Dave,
As only a M.Div. novice in Reformed Theology, I would not pretend to know how the “Reformed” would view vs.24 with certainty.

I like Matthew Henry’s comment on Faith and hope, “It is acknowledged that one of the principal graces of a Christian is hope (1 Co. 13:13), which necessarily implies a good thing to come, which is the object of that hope. Faith respects the promise, hope the thing promised. Faith is the evidence; hope the expectation, of things not seen. Faith is the mother of hope.”

As regards our earlier thoughts on Paul in 1Cor.15, as it relates to this verse and thought of our expectation and waiting for the resurrection and redemption of our body. Faith is the “mother” of hope. There would be no “Christian hope” if the promises were not true which were part of “the faith” delivered to the saints initially in Paul’s mind… thus again we are to be pitied for our foolish belief if there is no resurrection.
------------------

Elaine & Dave,

In my understanding of myself and my observations of human nature, we simply can’t be good enough to attain to that peace and joy that would transform our present age. So it’s not a matter of just being “good” in Spiritual terms for me. We need a Savior...one who is faithful in all of His redeeming covenant faithfulness...including the resurrection!

In a relationship with Christ and others, it seems to me that we have spoken and inferred promises and covenants. I depend on these mutual promises as part of a healthy relationship. In this case, I do depend without shame on the promise of the resurrection as His promise to me. If this were not to be the case, it is my view that my relationship has been a fraud and I have been deceived. Therefore for me, I can not separate the resurrection from His promise of me being a "new creation" in the present as a power to relative "goodness."

This is but one example of why the promises of scripture should mean so much to the Christian and why we so tenaciously try and defend the faith delivered to us as true and not the mere non inspired whims of ancient writers.

Regards
Pat

Is the Christian hope based on being "good"? Is being a Christian the same as being a "good" person? While it is true that Christians are intended to be good people, does it then mean that all good people are Christians? I think it's obvious that isn't true; then, being a Christian must be something other than being a good (moral) person. The morality seems to be a by-product rather than the identifying mark.

C.S.Lewis has quite a lot to say about this; and as I remember it has to do with being a new "kind" of person once we respond to the Gospel message, not a better version of the "old" person.

I think SDAs have some problem with this concept and that's because we still insist (in practice at least) that sanctification is part of justification. We still have something to prove by our behavior. In fact, it seems that our behavior is what is to determine salvation, based on the insistence of the Investigative Judgment doctrine. (Unless that been watered down and modified by common sense, during the thirty years since Glacier View).

It seems that we have yet to define what it means to be a Christian and how we identify ourselves as one. On the one hand it isn't enough to simply proclaim our Christianity, but on the other hand, monitoring our behavior isn't going to do it either. Just maybe there remains an element of mystery to this process that has more to do with faith than with performance or adopting a Christian platform.

Sirje

Sirje,Dave, and Elaine on "goodness" as viewed by Luther and "me"...the goodness of the "white devil."

Luther on Gal.1:4............

"VERSE 4. That he might deliver us from this present evil world.
Paul calls this present world evil because everything in it is subject to the malice of the devil, who reigns over the whole world as his domain and fills the air with ignorance, contempt, hatred, and disobedience of God. In this devils's kingdom we live.
As long as a person is in the world he cannot by his own efforts rid himself of sin, because the world is bent upon evil. The people of the world are the slaves of the devil. If we are not in the Kingdom of Christ, it is certain we belong to the kingdom of Satan and we are pressed into his service with every talent we possess.
Take the talents of wisdom and integrity. Without Christ, wisdom is double foolishness and integrity double sin, because they not only fail to perceive the wisdom and righteousness of Christ, but hinder and blaspheme the salvation of Christ. Paul justly calls it the evil or wicked world, for when the world is at its best the world is at its worst. The grossest vices are small faults in comparison with the wisdom and righteousness of the world. These prevent men from accepting the Gospel of the righteousness of Christ. The white devil of spiritual sin is far more dangerous than the black devil of carnal sin because the wiser, the better men are without Christ, the more they are likely to ignore and oppose the Gospel.
With the words, "that he might deliver us," Paul argues that we stand in need of Christ. No other being can possibly deliver us from this present evil world. Do not let the fact disturb you that a great many people enjoy excellent reputations without Christ. Remember what Paul says, that the world with all its wisdom, might, and righteousness is the devil's own. God alone is able to deliver us from the world.
Let us praise and thank God for His mercy in delivering us from the captivity of Satan, when we were unable to do so by our own strength. Let us confess with Paul that all our work-righteousness is loss and dung. Let us condemn as filthy rags all talk about free will, all religious orders, masses, ceremonies, vows, fastings, and the like.
In branding the world the devil's kingdom of iniquity, ignorance, error, sin, death, and everlasting despair, Paul at the same time declares the Kingdom of Christ to be a kingdom of equity, light, grace, remission of sin, peace, saving health, and everlasting life into which we are translated by our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever.
In this passage Paul contends against the false apostles for the article of Justification. Christ, says Paul, has delivered us from this wicked kingdom of the devil and the world according to the good will, the pleasure and commandment of the Father. Hence we are not delivered by our own will, or shrewdness, or wisdom, but by the mercy and love of God, as it is written, I John 4:10, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
Another reason why Paul, like John, emphasizes the Father's will is Christ's habit of directing attention to the Father. For Christ came into the world to reconcile God with us and to draw us to the Father.
Not by curious inquiries into the nature of God shall we know God and His purpose for our salvation, but by taking hold of Christ, who according to the will of the Father has given Himself into death for our sins. When we understand this to be the will of the Father in Christ, then shall we know God to be merciful, and not angry. We shall realize that He loved us wretched sinners so much indeed that He gave us His only-begotten Son into death for us.
The pronoun "our" refers to both God and Father. He is our God and our Father. Christ's Father and our Father are one and the same. Hence Christ said to Mary Magdalene: "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." God is our Father and our God, but only in Christ Jesus.

Regards
pat

Pat

Please! Never depreciate yourself for having "only a M.Div!" That's three academic years of graduate work, or their part time equivalent. If you went to a Reformed seminary, I'm sure it wasn't a breeze. Calvinists know how to study!

Yes, Matthew Arnold's commentary on our topic is balanced and helpful. I think I'll look up Calvin's too.

In any case, wouldn't Paul agree that it is neither OUR faith, hope or love that saves us but THE ONE to whom we we offer these in gratitude?

Pat and Sirje

This part of our conversation reminds me of Richard Rice's comment that true disagreements are so rare that we ought to treasure them greatly!

I'm not sure that the two of you actually disagree with me and Elaine.

It seems that you are discussing whether we can be good enough or do the right thing well enough to be salvific in this world and saved in the next. I think we are discussing a much narrower issue: whether it is possible to know the differenece between right and wrong idenpendently of belief in God or the herafter, not that we can actually live it "on our own."

Maybe we are talking about what Paul says in Romans 1 & 2 about everyone having some knowledge about right and wrong and what he says in Romans 7&8 about us not being able wholly to do the right thing "on our own." [We are never "on our own," but that's yet another topic.]

This issue is intersting to me for pracitical reasons. Many of my students come from conservative Christian backgrounds in which their beliefs about God and about moral responsibility are so tightly interwoven that when they review and revise the first, which is as natural as losing our baby teeth and growing new ones, they sometimes become ethically wayward.

I is important to me that they realize that no matter what our beliefs or disbeliefs about God may be, there are still certain minimal ethical obligations we must honor.

Thank you!

I have been following this thread with great interest. Dave is so gracious and helpful. I note the references to John Cobb whom I met in 1963 and with whom I spent happy hours discussing and identifying the philosophical assumptions that most signature theologians have made through the centuries. Especially, we focused on the perennial oscillation between the subjective/objective assumptions in most theological and philosophical thought--which ultimately led to my dissertation on the transcendence of the subjective-objective dichotomy in Christian proclamation. Nothing ever has helped me more to appeciate the inclusiveness of Ellen White's contributions, primarily in grasping the Great Controvery Theme, thanks to John Cobb. I note references to Philip Yancey whom I first met by phone on New Year's Eve, 1986. Since then we have shared each book that we both have written. His Disappointment with God was a remarkable tour de force on how God relates to human suffering. His insights into Job's experience were profound, which jas led to our continuing conversations regarding the Great Controvery Theme. His continuing grasp of this Theme has highlighted later books. I sense recently that he has been exploring New Spirituality in ways that seem to contradict many of his earlier books--much the same way that Christianity Today is now doing. I am enriched by all those who are contributing to this thread. Herb Douglass

Elaine: regarding the Teaching Co & SS, you asked me: "do you have suggestions on the lectures you've used?" Well yes and no :-). Here are the ones, per my faulty memory, we *have* done:
- Great Figures of the New Testament
- New Testament
- History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon
- Book of Genesis
- American Mind (current)

My perception of the choices is that there was an understandable desire to keep it 'safe'. In SS you get walk-ins who sometimes get freaked with anything the least bit un-normal (meaning anything but the std. lesson quarterly). Plus some of the presenters (e.g. Ehrman for sure) can say stuff upsetting to a conservative Adventist. Also, what floats my boat is substantive discussion and (as I said earlier) after a 30 min lecture there isn't a lot of time left - given the traditional hour duration. But also, some material is just flat-out un-discussable. Interesting yes. We learn stuff, yes. But there's nothing to really discuss. Of course, sticking with undiscussable material is also safe. And I chafe - with safe.

Of the ones I noted above I thought the one on making of the Canon was the best. Although the one on the American Mind has started out well. But my interests don't seem to intersect much with the choices made for our SS. I have about 35 TeachCo courses and of the ones done in SS I only have the one on the canon.

Of the ones I do have (and thus know something about) I'd suggest a few - from somewhat safe to very un-safe :-):
- St. Augustine's Confessions
- Augustine: Philosopher and Saint
- Philosophy and Religion in the West
- Philosophy of Religion
- Ethics of Aristotle
- Quest For Meaning: Values, Ethics and the Modern Experience
- Questions of Value
- Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It
- Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy
There is also a course on C.S. Lewis, which I don't have, but would probably be good also.

Now you can imagine someone walking in on SS where the topic is Aristotle's Ethics (where's the Bible?) or Theory of Evolution (unless what was presented is just bashing, which would not be the case with TeachCo's course). And they just cannot handle it and there is a fuss. So a certain amount of safety is mandated. But perhaps, in a more Forum-like context, other un-safe but highly important subjects could be discussed.

Rich:

Thanks for your suggested Teaching Company lectures. I have some of them, and also several books by Ehrman, which we must protect the "children" from in SS class! Having read most of Luke Timothy Johnson's tome on making of the NT canon, that should be a good topic. It is sad, IMO, that SS class times are so short. The one I attend never is able to get through and could extend much longer, were it not for church service.

David, you wrote: "It is this sort of thing that makes me perplexed about why some are so angry at her [EGW]. She wasn't flawless in life and thought, but on a number very important issues like this one she was heading in the right direction."

My answer: Hitler proved to be an excellent organizer, even Stalin had his good points.
(No, I don't intend classify her with them). However, it was HOW she was used that led many of us to exclude and discard her from our religious studies. You and I both may be headed in the right direction, but it is the side detours (probably where we shouldn't tread--let the angels do that) which can affect other's perception. That is likely what has occurred with the many SDAs who cannot read her. That has been the experience of many, but may not be yours--hence your being perplexed.

"ethics does not depend upon religion." That should be true and well recognized from our own personal experiences.

Then, to play the devil's advocate, I ask: Why religion? It has both improved peoples of the world, and caused the loss of millions of lives and devastated others. To have a "hope" of eternal life is not new to Christianity, as you are well aware. That is the foundation of most religions: appeasing their gods and hoping for better harvests and life hereafter.

Has anyone answered why a hope for immortality and an afterlife was never a Hebrew concern? That it did not enter the Hebrew Scripture until the Babylonian captivity that greatly influenced and contributed to changes in Hebrew understanding, and into Christianity?

There's nothing new about resurrection: many of the pagan religions firmly believed in an afterlife and planned for it (Egyptian tombs and others testify to that). Was their hope less secure than Christians? Why? None of us here has ever seen, touched, or talked with someone who has died and been "resurrected." Why did no one during Jesus' life and years afterward ever mention this important belief? There are no first-hand accounts of his life. Was it because they began wondering about this most distinctive person who lived among them and had enormous powers which the repeated many times before they were written? But then, we ONLY know what the NT writers wrote. There is no secular reports of so many events in their writings, that leads one to question all. Was it not unusual at that time for someone to be resurrected? If it was such an historical event, why was it never mentioned by the secular contemporary writers? Historial and literal accuracy was not something they adhered to, but a theological rendering of what they believed.

It is a reassuring and comforting position to rely on the resurrection of not only our loved ones who have died, but for ourselves. Is it like Obama's "The Audacity of Hope"? Hope is not a solid, concrete concept, but very emphermal and illogical. If there is no resurrection, how will it affect me and my life today? I have buried many close family members, and their lives and our relationships would be enough. Why should we expect more? Everyone dies and we know so little, other than the Bible says on this subject (John's description of heaven and others was not based on having visited there). How is it different from hoping to win the lottery? Sure keeps people buying those tickets. Is there an analogy there?

Hi Dave...

Great thread!

Concerning your disagreement with Paul's statement that if the doctrine of the bodily resurrection is false then we as Christians are worse off than all others, I must say that I have to throw my lot in with Paul... and Pat for that matter.

This is the type of statement that I have heard in SS classes for many years, "Even if there is no such thing as heaven, it was worth it to follow Jesus here." This is nice sounding idealism that is easy for us to say in 21st century North America. It's a whole different story for someone like Paul who was "fighting wild dogs in Ephesus." The hope of a new heavens and new earth is much more palpable and integral to the practical faith of one who is continually exposed to hardship, danger and loss in this earth. In fact, despite how we may often feel, true faith can never exsist independently of the future hope. They are always presented in such interconnectedness... the triad of faith hope and love is repeated over and over in Paul's writings.

Beyond this, the entire Christian movement makes no sense without resurrection. Why would the apostles have put there lives on the line? For another moral or ethical system? And what sense would Jesus' death make? He would simply be a wayward rabbi, another failed Messiah wannabe.

In addition, Paul ties in the denial of our resurrection to a denial of Jesus' own resurrection. If we are not raised then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, then we won't be raised. One can't be true without the other.

Nor can we ever fully deal or grapple with the conundrum of the prosperity of evil in a good world created by a good and just God. This is what I see in the Psalms and the Prophets. The only hope of a solution was when the goodness and justice of God would one day be fully revealed. Resurrection implies that this will happen. There will be a day when the whole world will be called to account, and all wrong will be set to rights. Without this, we will ever see in a mirror but very dimly, we will ever be plagued with the unsolvable ills and injustices with which we now live.

Also, the idea of looking to the reward, while certainly not the sole motivator in following Christ, is still an essential part of the motivation. This is what Hebrews 11 stresses over and over again...Moses looked not only to him who is invisible, he also looked to the reward. Abraham looked for that city whose builder and maker is God. Those who had previously been given the promises, have not yet recieved their fufillment, God having planned something better, that they should receive them together with us...etc. The writer was writng to an embattled church, fueling them to press on in the assurance of God's promises.

And this is the root of the entire issue, as Pat pointed out. Does God make promises that he won't keep? To reduce the promise of resurrection to a less than essential reason for following Christ, is to reduce God's promises to a non-essential. Worse, if it isn't true, then God's faithfulness and integrity are totally jettisoned...he is not a god worth following...he cannot be trusted. This, I believe, gets to the root of what Paul means. If resurrection is not true, then we are following and dying for a god of our own fabrication, for a fable. Thus,we are to be pitied more than all people.

Once again, Pat...we find ouselves on the same wavelength.

Thanks...

Frank

Theology def: 1. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions, especially those posed by Christianity. 2. An organized, often formalized body of opinions concerning God and man's relationship to God.

Theologize: To make theological in form or significance. To speculate about theology.

Given the dictionary definitions, how can one know the nature of God and religious truth? Should there be RATIONAL inquiry, or merely hope? Where does one go to study about God? Surely, not simply the Bible, as there are multiple portrayals of God from which to choose.
If one goes see what has been written about God, the writers are also speculating, as none have seen or talked to him and they are merely projecting their ideas of God. Why is someone who lived 2,000 or more years ago better able to tell us about God today, than anyone of us? None of us knows other than what he has read about God. We can make claims about God, but they are very subjective and can be easily interpreted.

Theology has been called the "Queen of Sciences," but that label tells us nothing about a god. Why is Allah, Osiris, or Dionysus more powerful and to be feared than the Jewish, Christian or Muslim god? Each of these three religions claim God as their own, and each has different teachings and instructions to be a faithful follower. Why is one religion better or superior to any other? Or, is it simply one we inherited, as it is with most world religions?
Is it no different that claiming out children are the finest, simply because they are "ours"?
IOW, what does any one of these three beliefs offer and how should one choose? Perhaps, we haven't truly chosen it, but were born into it.
I dare say there are few here who are converts from another non-monotheistic religions. Your parents, in all likelihood, chose and taught you in their traditional beliefs.

Christianity has made little inroads in converting believers from the other three great religions, but only in third world counties where the population has a high level of illiteracy or has less education than in the developed nations, making them more vulnerable to a religion promising hope out of their present despair. Adventists, traditionally, have usually preached to other Christians: Sheep-stealing, it's often called. With the plethora of churches today, one has a smorgasbord from which to choose, all claiming to be the right one, or the only one that has the whole "Truth." Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions world-wide and yet Christians are endeavoring to convert the Muslims. Why?

BTW: Hindus in the U.S. have the highest levels of education of any religion and their religious beliefs include reincarnation and a supreme being of many forms and natures, accepting that opposing theories are aspects of one eternal truth, and by a desire from liberation from earthly evils. IOW, all religions have certain core values: belief in a god and future immortality. Do Christians simply accept that their beliefs are the one, true religion and everyone should be converted to Christianity? What does it offer them if there are so many similarities?

Elaine,
All these religions you name are based on man pulling himself up by his own boot straps. Only one religion claims God has come to this world and has pulled us up to His level. This is the one reason even Christian beliefs that focus on behavior as their one identifying mark have to be suspect. The Gospel is not about what we must do to acquire God's blessings, approval, salvation. It's about God extending blessings, approval and salvation by identifying Himself with us - it's about what god has done; not what we must do. As a result, we become conduits of those same blessings to others. It's only in this way that we can be of moral benefit to the world around us. Left to ourselves, we will mess up.

If it's only moral behavior, where everyone lives harmoniously with everybody else, that we're after, then any of those religions will suffice. Christianity works no better when it gets bogged down with religiosity. It's our devotion to our religions that messes us up, not openness to God. Christianity claims that Jesus is the reflection of what God is like - not up high relegating silly rituals but down in the trenches with us.

Sirje

Regarding the promise of the resurrection - didn't Jesus already break a promise by saying the second coming would occur before that generation had died? I haven't really heard this addressed by theologians who tend to interpret the Bible more conservatively so I was hoping maybe someone could tackle it. I'm not looking to argue it - I'm really curious what others have made of it because I just never have heard it discussed outside of more progressive theologians that Jesus even said this.

See Matthew 24, especially verse 34
Mark 13 (basically the same as Matthew though I should say that Matthew is the same as Mark)
Luke 9:23-27 (gives a little more wiggle room but not much)

It seems clear to me that Jesus thought the second coming would occur very very soon and it would be a serious theological Twister game to try and argue that a generation really means over 2.000 years. The early disciples clearly didn't see it that way and there was a real crisis of faith when that generation was dying off and Jesus still hadn't come.

I wanted to apologize too if my question is afield of the original topic. I just saw some serious theology going on and it seemed a prime time to ask something that has been bugging me for awhile.

Sirje,

I wouldn't be so sure that the other religions must "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." Believing is not all there is to being a Christian, is it? Surely one's life must mean something. That is why Matt. 25 emphasizes that those who help others in need will enter heaven while all the ones who said "Lord, Lord," will be sent away. There are few religious beliefs that do not require or expect certain behaviors, whether in worship, or other rituals.

Beth,

Should we evaluate the statements made about the Resurrection just as those about the Second Coming? If so, what did "in this generation" and "some standing here will see his coming" mean?
If we intepret those sayings as symbolically, why can we support our resurrection as totally literate? There are denominations that interpret these as metaphorically. We have spent too much time reading and quoting the Bible, and little, if any, on how it should be read. That is one deficiency in Christian theology.

Elaine,
While you correctly point out that those who merely give lip service to a system of beliefs will be turned away, it doesn't necessarily follow that one belief isn't better than another as the basis of altruistic behavior. Good behavior motivated by reward is not the same as behavior done without an expectation of payment. This doesn't leave Christianity off the hook either. However, Christian good behavior is supposed to flow from a genuine caring that may, in fact, result in pain and suffering. The other major religions vying for attention are based on a progression to perfection of some kind, or on appeasement. As I said, Christianity can be practiced with these characteristics as well, but they tend to be distortions from its ideals.

Sirje

Frank, Beth and (maybe) Sirje

By now someone on the world wide web must be wondering why we aren't discussing things about which we disagree rather than things that we might do if we didn't believe what in fact we do! ><><>(:>

Again, my hope is directed toward the bodily resurrection of the dead, not merely toward objective immortality, though I think it a very important part of what follows death, or some kind of post mortem subjective existence

But what would I do IF I could no longer share this hope? For a long time I thought that becoming a Theravada Buddhist would be a good idea. But the idea of being an "Atheist for Jesus" now makes more sense to me.

Why? (1) I'm not cut out for a life of meditation; (2) I don't think this life is as sorrowful as the First of the Four Noble Truths says; (3) I believe that social action and inward serenity are both important; (4) I hold that Jesus taught good things about how we should treat each other and (5) I aver that he taught one of the most honorable and effective ways of challenging oppression: nonviolent resistence.

As Elaine rightly reminds us, the only Jesus we have is the one that the New Testament gives us and its documents make no claim to be neutral. But we can't get much closer to Socrates than Plato's writings either, or to the Buddha than the recollections of his first followers. In each case we have to decide on the basis of what we have and I think we have enough.

But thinking about what one would do if one did not believe something that one does believe is a game, a useful one, but still a game.

Another good game is asking the members of a group which book of the Bible they would excise if they had to cut out one.

This can be lots of fun! It also helps us understand why we have the collection we do: each book has its advocates and we are the beneficiaries.

Beth

I think it likely that Jesus thought the End would come in the near future. This sort of statement is difficult for people who honestly hold that Jesus did not really experience the limitations that all humans know and that history is unfolding precisely as God's master plan dictates that it will.

Jesus was "the Word made Flesh." Both sides of this statement are important. Also, much of what happens depends on us and the choices we make. Some people sincerely doubt this too. Fair enough!

Herb

You have known John Cobb for more than forty years? Wonderful!

In my remarks at the conference in his honor I told the group of Fritz Guy's observation that if John Cobb doesn't get to go to heaven he doesn't want to go either. I hastened to add that I would not go that far. I revere my teacher, but not that much! We had fun!!

The objective/subjective dialectic permeates so much, as you've written. I wish more had access to this material, however.

Rich

Given the situation you describe, maybe the "Teaching Company" series should take place on Sabbath eve or afternoon. I think it too good to let some logistical challenges squelch it.

Elaine

I think that the best medicine for bad religion is not no religion but good religion. Defining it as braodly as I do, I think it impossible not to have a religion of some sort. I'm working on a column along these lines. We'll see how it goes!

Thank you!

Did I like John Culp's progress report? It was a fair, balanced, and respectful account of contrasting opinions by an insider. No votes were taken for or against any of the views that were presented. Thus, there were no winners and losers. (I'm borrowing Robert Johnston's comments in regards to the recent QOD conference in Andrews.) IOW, it was a genuine conversation, friendly at best and without the threat of administrative sanctions.

While traditional/evangelical theology is grounded firmly in Scriptures, process theology is purely speculative. The latter is a rational reflection without recourse to revealed truth or dogma.

Culp submits, in his summary, four topics for the future:

1) God's personal relation to individual, actual entities - an issue Rice raised.

Does God watch over me? Is God's "eye on the sparrow"? This relates to the question often raised on this blog: Can we have a personal relationship with God/Jesus? Is this not an experience that's only in our imagination or at best in the mind of the God whose proof of existence is beyond the reach of ordinary humans?

2) Is rational reflection, coupled with the results of scientific investigation, sufficient to know God? Is the nature of existence/reality itself that limits human understanding?

"Of what use is revealed truth if we could figure it all out?"
(asks Mortimer J. Adler in another place).

3) Focus on God's sovereign will vs emphasis on God's nature of love. This impacts the question regarding the problem of evil and suffering.

4) Sense of God's presence or hiddenness in the world: either by identification and co-creativity (as process thought suggests) or radical differentiation between Creator and creation (according to classical theism).

Just want to mention, in connection with #3, that someone told me of a new book by Bart Ehrman. I've seen only one work by him, on early Christian writings that my son bought for a course he'd taken at CUC. I immediately scanned the internet and was able to listen to a NPR interview with Erhman and also found this account by him:

"The problem of suffering became for me the problem of faith. After many years of grappling with the problem, trying to explain it,... about nine or ten years ago I finally admitted defeat, came to realize that I could no longer believe in the God of my tradition, and acknowledged that I was an agnostic: I don't "know" if there is a God; but I think that if there is one, he certainly isn't the one proclaimed by the Judeo-Christian tradition, the one who is actively and powerfully involved in this world. And so I stopped going to church."
- God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question — Why We Suffer by Bart Ehrman

"How many other Bart Ehrmans are there?" I asked myself while I was reading John Culp's review of the conversations among process and evangelical thinkers. At the same time I tried to recall what I learned back in the Adventist mission school.

Dave,
You stated: “This issue (ethical goodness) is intersting to me for pracitical reasons. Many of my students come from conservative Christian backgrounds in which their beliefs about God and about moral responsibility are so tightly interwoven that when they review and revise the first, which is as natural as losing our baby teeth and growing new ones, they sometimes become ethically wayward.”

As to your “baby teeth” illustration. My colleague Tom Z. would also point out to you that the interarch space occupied by the deciduous teeth is precisely the same for the adult replacement teeth (bicuspid to bicuspid) as the previous ones in a balanced arch. In the case of early loss or initial malformation the permanent teeth will most likely erupt out of alignment.

There is perhaps an "unseen" application in this. Teachers, preachers and professors…it is easy to remove “baby teeth” but be careful that if you remove a “tooth” an adequate replacement or space retainer is made or you will end up with a malformed arch requiring an Orthodontist to apply appliances with patient continual tension and guidance to restore proper esthectics and function.

WELCOME BACK TOM!

Thanks For your input Frank…and others

Joselito,

Thanks for your reading summary of PT. As to Ehrman, God has a difficult task doesn’t He... We want freedom and the ability to make right/wrong choices but no consequences for that freedom and “rebellion.” He is “damned” regardless!..

But…Christ who had no sin suffered wrongly that we sinners might have a future life without suffering.

PT and Open Theism focus primarily on the attribute of God’s "love."

As I have previously posited,If we do not see Justice as part of Gods Love, it is my belief that we shall never understand Him. God is Love however “Love” is not God.

As part of his love, God was just at the cross so that He could be the justifier of those who trust in Christ. What Love and Mercy (the just dying and suffering for the unjust) towards we the rebellious who would perhaps in most instances prefer He did not exist so that we could be our own "gods" framing our own universe...without consequences.

pat

Beth, Your's is an interesting question. Albert Schweitzer wrote an interesting little book titled "The Mystery of the Kingdom of God" that builds a picture of Jesus with your question at the center of analysis. He touches on the same themes in his more widely known "The Quest of the Historical Jesus," but his treatment of the question is much more thorough in the Kingdom of God book (which is a much shorter book, besides). Schweitzer thought, like Dave, that Jesus was simply mistaken, and that he really did mean what he seemed to have said. To me, it was a pretty persuasive case, and Schweitzer made sense of a lot of verses that had seemed odd to me before.

Beth and Tim,

Two books on the subject by those pesky "reformed" guys may be of interest to you if you are unfamiliar with them.

"The Coming of the Kingdom" by Herman Ridderbos

"The Modern Search For The Historic Jesus" by Robert Strimple.

Both reference Schweitzer in the work.

regards

Joselito

Thanks for reviewing John Culp's summmary of the PT/ET discussions. I also think it is "fair and balanced."

I am certain that the problem of evil is the most serious challenge to Christian faith. All other objections are "Micky Mouse"

I know Van Harvey, the author of my much prized "Handbook of Theological Terms," which is still worth buying if we can find any. He is very open about the problem of evil being one of the biggest reasons he is no longer a theist.

I love it when Van Harvey shows up at philosophical/theological conferences because he often explains to nonbelievers what we Christians mean more accurately and fairly than we do. He just doesn't believe it himself any more.

Nobody gets God completely off the hook, not even process thought which tries as hard as possible. I like the way David David Griffen, a very accomplished pocess thinker, sometimes puts it: "God is responsible but not indictable."

Pat

I agree with you that "justice" is a part of God's love. I deem it a mistake to put God's love and justice at odds with each other, as though there is some inner tension about this in God's own experience. God's love is just and God's justice is loving. You are right. No separation.

The closer we get to understanding the cross in exclusively forensic or satisfaction-theory terms, the more uncomfortable I get. Those metaphors are in Scripture and in theological history; however, they are not the only ones.

Always to frame our relationships with God as though we are in a court of law is a partial reading of Scripture, in my view. What about the all the other analogies? Especially the ones Jesus used?

I find it hard to contain my mirth when I hear people respond, "True, but Jesus was not a theologian."

All the best!

Dave

Tim

Schweitzer was among those who prompted a much more apocalyptic account of Jesus, as you say.

I do believe that Jesus expected something that did not occur in his lifetime or very shortly thereafter. This is partly because he was human; however, I also believe that history is contingent such that all predictions are conditional: "If this, then that."

Courage!

Dave

Thank you all who responded. I tend to go along with the idea that he was mistaken too but I'm curious of other ideas. Thanks Pat and Tim for the book ideas - I just put The Mystery of the Kingdom of God on hold at the library but unfortunately they didn't have either of Pat's recommendations. I'll try interlibrary loan.

Pat:

tt is a beautiful "dental" analogy and sharpens the perspective.

Dave:

Isn't it true that each person forms her own image of God--based on stories heard as a child, or deeper study of the Bible? Is there another way to be recommended? If I choose to believe that God is love, surely he must be at LEAST as kind and loving as my earthly father; how could he possibly be less? Others choose a soverign God--distant and impervious to us. The problem reconciling justice and mercy, as amply illustrated in the Hebrew Scriptures, becomes impossible to correlate with a god of love. No earthly father who truly loves his children could condemn them all to death, could he? Do we then disregard the story of the flood as simply a rehash of earlier "flood stories" in the Middle East? And if we pass those off as legends and myths, what about a virgin birth and resurrection or demons, common beliefs throughout the Bible times. In "processing" the study of God, we either have too many conflicting stories, or an impossible task to synthesize them into a god that humans can understand.

Dave,glad you agree on the danger of separating justice and love.

Sadaams daughter praised Him for His love...others cursed Him for his unequal justice.

What must the King of the universe be like?

As you say there are other illustrations in scripture but as Jesus said, "If ye believe not I am he, ye shall die in your sins"...and, "for this is the blood of me of the covenant the blood being shed for many for the remission of sins."

Jesus, the Ultimate Theologian, God's only Son, and
fulfiller/ratifier of Covenant promises.

pat

PS.

Elaine, thanks for the "teeth" comment.

Beth,

Close to a local seminary library, perhaps they can retrieve for you?

Dave, can we infer then, that you think it is probable that God's original plan was as stated by Jesus, but that things didn't turn out as expected and that somehow the world wasn't ready? Some of those statements by Jesus came pretty late, so either he was misinformed at that point, or the plan changed pretty quick. Quicker than one might expect if the variables were on the scale of a society and not just individuals. There is a lot of material here for interesting speculation.

Pat

Pat

This is excellent:

"There is perhaps an "unseen" application in this. Teachers, preachers and professors…it is easy to remove “baby teeth” but be careful that if you remove a “tooth” an adequate replacement or space retainer is made or you will end up with a malformed arch requiring an Orthodontist to apply appliances with patient continual tension and guidance to restore proper esthectics and function."

This is why I try not to "pull teeth out" but attempt to be helpful when they fall out on their own.

Elaine

I agree that we all form our own pictures of God. I'm not certain how else it could be.

I could not form your picture of God for you and none has dropped out of the sky for either of us. So, yes, this is a human enterprise because we are human. Something else might also be at work, though. Just perhaps..............

True, there is much diversity in Scripture. This is why those of us who regard it not only as a cultural classic but also the religious canon must have some "norm within the norm." Clearly, we make some things more front and center than others.

For those of us who are Christians, Jesus of Nazareth, as the New Testament in its present shape portrays him, is that norm. Why we choose him rather than someone or something else is a question for another time.

I read Hebrews 11 differently than some. It seems to me that the chapter is not about "faith and evidence" but about "faith and courage." All the references in the chapter are to people whose faith gave them much courage in the face of huge difficulties.

My impression is that in Biblical interpretation and elsewhere the value of analysis, when this is understood as breaking the text down into the smallest possible units and then dealing with them, is increasingly questioned.

I myself think that much is to be gained, both historically and theologically, by taking the literary unit as a whole and trying to understand its overall message, whether or not we then agree with it.

Some people do textual analyses of Shakespear's plays and the world is better off because they do. But most of us just enjoy the play as it now is without too much worry about how it got to its present form. I think this is just fine.

Faith [as in Courage]!

Dave

Wasn't there some famous theologian who told his students that if the problem of evil wasn't keeping them up at night then they just didn't really understand the problem? I'd have to put the hiddenness of God pretty high on the list too for me currently. Though I try not to let either keep me up at night.

Tim

I don't know for certain because I am not privy to "God's original plan," except that it probably did not intend everything we now find around and within us.

But in a universe in which everything is not determined in advance things often take unexpected turns. That's why I don't get upset when things don't turn out as anticipated. Thanks again!

Dave

Great idea Pat, thanks. We do have a seminary. The church I mostly attend now is Presbyterian and I know they have an extensive library so I'll try there too. Though the pastor just preached on why predestination was a terrible doctrine so who knows what lurks in the library :)

Elaine, I think you are right that the conflicting stories are impossible to synthesize in a plausible way. The task, as I see it, however, is to create a useful God using our collective imagination. The Bible need not restrain us, but I think we ought to let it do so to some degree in order to maintain continuity with what previous generations thought, because what is needed are shared values and ways of thinking. I think the process ideas that God acts through persuasion (at a very deep level) and that he changes in response to us are useful and beautiful ideas.

Beth,
I suggest that predestination and election are biblical words and scriptural concept.(i.e Eph.1:11)...as well as foreknowledge/full knowledge.(2 Peter 1:1-4.)

The problem is a particular form of predestination...that is "particular election" and "reprobation" from the foundation of the world. With those forms I disagree.

Regards

Tim:

" The task, as I see it, however, is to create a useful God using our collective imagination. The Bible need not restrain us, but I think we ought to let it do so to some degree."

That is the only way God can be perceived: through imagination. Why should one book, describing God in so many ways, restrain our imagination and limit him? If the Bible is the only source for learning about God, we are bereft of true learning, as it is only the Hebrew Scriptures, that tell us of God.

The NT tells of the Messiah, or Jesus, but it was much later identified as God "in" Jesus, which binds us forever to traditional thinking. We should all be more creative, and why set limits? That is anachronistic today to establish parameters that we cannot bridge. God should be compared to the sun: all the rays represent the hundreds of ways that people benefit ("He shines on the just and unjust), each one benefits, but what he believes about God is no better or superior to the others. Or, He is like a powerful magnet drawing to himself from every tribe and nation, ID cards not required.

Beth,
I see Ridderbos recently died at 98 {after a steak :~). }

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Nicolaas_Ridderbos

Elaine, the reason we might want to constrain our imaginations is that if each of us creates too highly-personalized a theology we will balkanize ourselves and the social benefits of sharing an inspiring story will be lost. A theology that is shared and discussable is superior to one that is not, at least on a social level. On both social and logical levels, a truly limitless conception of God seems to me useless, like the via negativa. Accepting the bible as a constraint of some sort (I didn't say it needed to be a strong constraint) isn't just a matter of adopting a coordinating convention (like which side of the road to drive on), however - it does tell a good story with perennially appealing themes.

If we truly "perceive" God via our imaginations rather than create him, then perhaps there is hope that we will all converge on a common conception. Nancey Murphy's "Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning" explores this idea in extremely interesting ways by proposing a model for theology as a science, but I don't think anything is being perceived - or if it is, not with any reliability. One could also hope that human nature itself would constrain the sort of God we imagine (that is, the values we project), but I'm sceptical there, too.

Pat, well I suppose at 98 one couldn't really blame the steak.

Collective imagination means by common consent, I hope, a joint disciplined rational reflection that results in conceiving/apprehending truth. We want to be sure our theological speculation results in knowledge about that which exists not just in the mind (imaginary) but in the real world/cosmos. Process theology's application of metaphysical categories does not exempt God; rather God is the eminent example for process theology's metaphysics.

This conversation is of genuine interest for me and I thank Dr Larson and others for their input. IMO, the subject of God's hiddenness and the problem of evil deserve more attention than anything else we've discussed so far on this site. Though Whitehead reportedly started his philosophical reflections as an agnostic, he ended up admitting his process metaphysics requires a reference to God. Process theism is the result. It's in stark contrast to Bart Ehrman's journey from belief to agnosticism. Why?

Elaine

You are right, we should not limit our reading to Scripture. We SDAs can read EGW too! <:)<><><

I'm only partly kidding because wisely reading EGW is one way to stay in touch with our Wesleyan roots.

We should read everything we possibly can. [You know I'm talking about good stuff, not junk; but I need to say this lest I be misunderstood.]

Because none of us can read all there is, we all can enjoy learning from and teaching others. This is why we have Sabbath Schools and this Site, among other things.

The Bible will always have a special place for those of us who are Christians because it is the text that created our community. Without it, we would not be [as a community,that is].

I am of the opinion that some religions are better than others. I think that those that are trying to get past racism and male priviledge are better than those who aren't, for instance.

I like the image of the sun and especially the one of the magnet. Process thought often uses the analogy of a "lure." In any case, God's presence is permanent and pervasive rather than episodic and capricous.

Tim

I think your disticntion between "perceiving" and "creating" is intensely needed today.

Two schools of religious thought that worry me are those that say that truth/error can only be adjudicated within particular cultural/linguistic systems, never across them, and those that say that when it comes to language "meaning is nothing but use." To make all language functional and non-referential is going too far, I think.

I share your enjoyment of Nancey Murphey's books. I think her theory of language is less referential than mine. Also, when it comes to the question of freedom, I think she more of a compatiblist than a libertarian. I'm very interested in her work on emergence theory and am also trying to read Philip Clayton on that. John Cobb thinks he is the most informed person on religion and science today.

Johnny

Thank you for this list from you and Andrew Willis! Please extend my gratitude to him and my hope that someday we will meet in person.

I much appreciate learning from what you are reading in your graduate studies. NO was around when I was in school, but not RO. I'm trying to catch up!

I was surprised to read of RO's possible tendencies toward dualism, imperialism and monism. Both NO and RO seems pretty self-confident!

What is the historical linkage between RO and NO? Is RO a child of NO, or does RO have a different pedigree? I thought NO was more Continental and RO more English, but I honestly don't know. Hence my question.

Joselito

I appreciate your empahasis upon the "real world/cosmos" too. I think that the pendulum has swung almost as far as it should in the direction of the "social construction of reality."

All of our social constructions of reality are not equally congenial with the way things are apart from our perceptions of them. Since Kant's split between the phenomenum that we can know and the noumenom that we can't, this has been increasingly difficult to affirm, however. As you say, this is a big problem!

Thanks!

Da

Briefly, IMO, social construction of reality should be compatible with process thought in so far as we admit with process thinkers the categories of change, temporality, and mutual dependence among actual entities, including God. Don't open theists suggest the doctrine of the Trinity in response to process theism's claim regarding the social nature of God?

Dave,
Great question. In truth neo-orthodoxy is a useless label because it doesn't really exist but some sort of difference has to account for the fact that Barth is drawn on heavily by many people who fiddle with RO and Millbank has serious questions about Barths Christiology yet It is also true that RO also has a very positive relationship with Barth. One defining difference, a reason I would say someone is more comfortable with the non-existant NO than RO, is ones comfort with natural theology as Barth dismisses it almost entirely- something Millbank says is revelatory positivism.

I don't know how useful it is to bring in the label Neo-Orthodoxy but it's the one way I could think to distinguish people who side with Barth on issues Millbank differs starkly. But is that the early Barth or the later one? At some point the labels become useless because they don't actually describe anything remotely autarchic. Is it possible to have an absolutely independent school of thought? I don't think so myself but anyways perhaps the best universal descriptor of such theology today is post-modern.
/even that's a problem because my thesis advisor is convinced we're in modernity and all that is post-modern he calls modern. Very frustrating. My solution is to ignore the label and ask about the idea itself.

Joselito

I wonder if we are using the word "social" in three different ways: (1) To refer to the social as distinct from the psychological Trinity doctrines of the Trinity; (2) to refer to process thought's idea that reality is social or relational through and through; (3) to refer to the teaching that our beliefs are impositions upon the world rather than discoveries about it.

There is much truth to this third doctrine. The idea that some races are inferior to others in all respects is a social construction not based on fact that serves the interests of some but not others. As such it needs to be deconstructed.

On another thread I think I have read you suggsting that the "homsexual orientation" is an essentialist social construction that is insufficiently grounded in human biology. I take it that those with this viewpoint think the "orientation" idea should be deconstructed too.

But I doubt that gravity and entropy are nothing but social constructions. Some very extreme positions come close to suggesting that they are.

Neither do I think that religious beliefs are nothing but social constructions. In ways that are better or worse, they all try and to some extent succed, if only slightly, in getting hold of some objective feature of the universe.

Wholly to cut off religious convictions from appropriate "reality checks" is a bad idea, in my view.

Johnny

I take your point that some don't like the label "Neo-Orthodoxy."

What term do they prefer to the "school" of thought we see in Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, etc?

Or is it their point that these and others between the two World Wars were so different that they should not be thought of as a "school" in the first place. We can sort out their differences pretty swiftly; nevertheless, as a group I think they were all very different from what took place in Europe theologically before WWI.

Barth and Brunner clashed infamously on natural law, for example.

Barth's reaction to Brunner on this question of natural law is one of the most needlessly hurtful theological works I have ever read.

The only sense I can make of it is that maybe Barth [wrongly] felt that to yield to natural law thinking even as little as Brunner did was to open the conceptual door all over again to religions of nature and race and fatherland and, in fact, new Naziisms.

Only this can explain to my mind the harshness of Barth's "Nein!" But for me this still doesn't justify it.

Rumor has it that Barth apologized to Brunner shortly before Brunner died. I hope this rumor is true.

Millbank's openness to natual law theories reinforces my impression that he must be more or less related to the Anglican tradition. It has always been more comfortable with natural law.

And because we SDAs descend from the Anglicans through Wesley--who was also in touch with members of the Radical Reformation-- we, too, are more comfortable with natural law thinking.

Some SDA theologians from Europe have been uncomfortable with this, thinking it "Anglo-American." They're right!

Thank you!

Dave

Dave

My definition of social construction of reality follows Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann's sociological theory of knowledge. It means very simply that my experience of the world (sense data) results from interaction with social structures. I interpret (experience, prehend) events via the prism of my social network. To the extent that I use language to describe what I experience, this in itself is a social construction.

According to Berger there is a subjective and an objective social construction of reality. I believe it's the subjective element we both want to join Berger and others in deconstructing. (Social Construction of What? by Ian Hacking responding to John Searle's Construction of Social Reality)

I'm still waiting for sociologist Ron Lawson to respond to my query. My understanding of heterosexuality and homosexuality is undeniably colored by my kind of Adventist upbringing and network of social relationships. This includes interactions with my family circle, previous mentors I admire, set of books I've read that impacted my behavior. I could be very subjective in my knowing consequent to my social situation. Nevertheless, does God not take this subjectivity of mine into account - prehending it, depositing it in God's memory bank, just as well as all other events in my life that I happen to apprehend more or less objectively?

Dave,
You're right. Barthian would be a correct descriptor. You are also correct in identifying the NO project as stemming from Anglicanism.

Joselito

This sentence of yours is very agreeable to me:

"According to Berger there is a subjective and an objective social construction of reality."

Perhaps the fault is mine; however, some deconstuctionists to whom I have listened at conferences, etc. come across to me as pretty much obliterating the objective pole.

That's what worries me. To say that "reality" is always nothing but a subjective and often unjust projection strikes me as a bit much. But again, I may be misunderstanding things.

As I understand SDA Fundamental Belief 1, it says that Scripture is the supreme source of wisdom for SDAs, not that it is the only one. I don't know exactly what those who wrote this had in mine.

I think you are right when you say that many SDAs say we should choose Scripture if it clashes with one or more of the sciences. I think what usually happens is that our interpretations of Scripture clash with our interpretations of the scientific evidence. When that happens we should re-examine both to see where we've gone off track.

Thanks, too, for Psalm 19 and I Corinthains 13.

Dave

Concerning question whether nature is an independent source of revelation, I have found this quote from EGW interesting:

"Nature cannot be read aright save through the cross of Christ."

I once came across it in a SS quarterly...don't remember the original source. To me, it puts things in to perspective, and is in line with the the biblical picture, particularly Romans, reading into Rom. 8.

Frank

This it Frank? Seems true to me....

"When Adam and Eve in Eden lost the garments of holiness, they lost the light that had illuminated nature. No longer could they read it aright. But for those who receive the light of the life of Christ, nature is again illuminated. In the light shining from the cross, we can rightly interpret nature's teaching.
He who has a knowledge of God and His word has a settled faith in the divinity of the Holy Scriptures. He does not test the Bible by man's ideas of science. He brings these ideas to the test of the unerring standard. He knows that God's word is truth, and truth can never contradict itself; whatever in the teaching of so-called science contradicts the truth of God's revelation is mere human guesswork." {8T 325.1}

Regards,

pat

Hi Pat,

If this isn't it, it's certainly close enough!

This is just what I see when I read Romans. Mankind, under the bondage of sin can only take God's revelation in nature and twist it into all kinds of distorted pictures of God, exsistense, etc. This is the evidence of human history and behavior up to the present day.

This is why I think that it's only through the power of Christ can we begin to see that creation itself gives a mixed picture...a good creation that gives evidence of a good God but that has also been distorted by the power of sin... "subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope, that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

Apart from the revelation of Christ, how can anyone ever have this view of creation? How can we ever see a creation that is "groaning in the 'pains of childbirth?'" How can anyone ever see that there is an apocalyptic goal towards which creation is moving?

This is why I believe that what we read in 'nature's book' needs to be read in light of 'The Book.'

Take care, Pat...

Frank

Frank,

Ditto..spot on from my view. The "new creation" does not eclipse the status of the "present age" as in bondage. It is the liberation from the absolute bondage to sin while yet sinners.

Have a wonderful weekend as we anticipate the consumated sabbath rest to come at His appearing!

pat

David

Thank you for your “take” on Process Theology. I now understand Spectrum. Of course your explanation of John B. Cobb Jr’s view is quite a distance from Whitehead/Hartsborne. However, it does make it clear why Johnny is so ecstatic about “Progressive Adventism” and why Rick Rice can postulate that God could have painted Himself in a corner.

One can understand why a Methodist could construct his own Process Theology and why an Adventist would be enticed to follow. It would be difficult to imagine a Calvinist taking the same road.

You mention that some would have difficulty with postulates V, and VIII. Certainly Calvinists would have difficulty with IV.

My astonishment was why you didn’t point out that orthodox Process Theology would have difficulty with all of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church—The Trinity, The nature of Christ, Inspiration of Scripture, The Spirit of Prophecy, The Sabbath. I don’t think Process Theology as postulated by Whitehead/Hartsborne would endorse or concede on any of the 28.

The absolutely amazing turn of events is the endorsement of Progressive Adventism by Dr. Douglass.

Would the real Dr. Douglass please stand up! Certainly: “Why Jesus Waits” is the antithesis of Progressive Adventism and its sire Process Theology. Tom

Thanks Tom!

In view of what you've rightly written about the greater affinity between Wesleyan and process thought than between it and Calvinism, it has long amused me that Westminster John Knox, an excellent firm with roots in the the deep and rich theological soil of Calvinism, has published many books on process thought by John Cobb and others!

What's the point? Calvinism today is not always what it used to be and fairness and truthfullness require us to note this and take it seriously. Also in Calvinism there are regional differences.

If it is not right to hold contemporary Calvinists responsible for what many of their theological ancestors thought and did, and for what Calvinists today in some regions think and do, perhaps it is not helpful to do this to people in other traditions either.

Can we agree on this? Hope so! Many thanks!!

Dave

Dave

I agree on Calvinism past and present. I do believe that Whitehead, a mathematician, was taken in by Greek thought and attempted to hellenize Christianity. Thomas Aquinas had done quite a job in that direction for Rome.

Obviously, Seventh-day Adventism is largely a Judaizing influence in Christianity that needs some gentle correctives. I would be reluctant to call that movement “Progressive” it seems much too close to “permissive” at least in “project choices”.

My plea is let us all get back to Jesus Christ, plus nothing—like Paul. That is why I favor authors like John R. W. Stott, Edward Heppenstall, and Graham Maxwell.

I would like to see more Pauline scholarship and less paganism.

Tom

Tom: Everytime I see your name I think of my fond memories of your Dad and his input in certain buildings at AUC that he helped construct. Not much escaped his opinions! Great guy!
Am still wondering how you deduced that I was "endorsing" "progressive Adventism." I surely commend anyone who embraces "open-mindedness" and "insatiable interest" in what others are saying, or one who is in tune with better ways to express "unfolding" truths. For example, Adventists in the 19th Century surely refined and repackaged "unfolding" truths as it reassessed what is meant by the "everlasting gospel." And Adventists in the 21st century are still trying to sharpen its understanding of the everlasting gospel (that's our mission statement).

But, it seems to me, that it should not aim at deconstructing the unfolding rose of truth in order to find a new kind of flower. Yes, freshness, openness, etc., but not deconstruction. I note your reference to my 1975 book, "Why Jesus Waits." It just keeps on selling and for many, it is genuine "progressive" Adventism. Just kidding, Tom. Cheers, Herb

Thanks Herb

Thanks for remembering Dad, During your career at AUC you also had a campus dotted with "Zwemer" built academic buildings. I agree that "Why Jesus Waits" brought M.L. Andreasen forward a generation or two. I still view it as an expansion of pages 621-623 and pages 647-649 of Great Controversy. Who would have thought in the early 1940's that we would be in our 80's and still here.

The Lord has blessed us both. May we continue under His wings. Tom

I haven't done much extensive reading of process philosophy and theology, though I did find Cobb's integration of Buddhist discepline and practice interesting.

Thank you David for giving us your take on Process Theology. I am very aware, however, that process theology has largely been the domain of neo-liberalism, and it comes with all the neo-liberal baggage.

I am quite open to the dialogue over evolution and such things as God, humans, sin, (re)creation etc. However there are aspects of (some) process theology's use of evolution that is, in my opinion, less than desirable. For example, if any are familiar with Teilhard de Chardin's use of evolution in eschatology, which of course lacks any sense of justice.

I agree that we should move away from some of the notions of greek philosophy, such as the mind/body split and the emphasis on substance; but I would rather see a re-Judaized Christianity than a Whitehead Christianity. Some of the things that are being discovered by process theology would of course fit well in a re-Judaised Christianity, however the two are not identicle. Instead of relying on philosophical panentheism to rescue our doctrine of God, I would instead look to the dynamic and relational character of YHWH.