I'm sorry for having abandon you all; I'm submerging myself in homework and won't emerge till spring break. I hope to make up for it by linking to a great post I just read, talking about last Monday and why it's special.
Without further ado, here's Andy Whitman's thoughts concerning the first Monday of March (also known as "Casimir Pulaski Day").
See you spring break!
6 comments:
I liked Andy Whitman's thoughts (as I usually do), and found some interesting ideas. But I think I'd disagree with him. I'm not sure if he understands the extremity of Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard suggests that a leap of faith is required to believe in God, because God is totally non-understandable, non-rational, non-logical to the human mind. In other words, to truly have faith we have to believe in something that doesn't make sense, and never can.
I cannot and would not adhere to that idealism.
I will say that where Whitman talks about questioning Christianity, that is perfectly normal for faith, and that a step out in faith is certainly required. But it seems fairly obvious to our minds that even though we all have a healthy bit of doubt, God doesn't contradict Himself. God is logical, even when we don't understand it. And the even better thing is that we are able to at least grasp a basic understanding of God here on earth.
There are a lot of "gods" on the earth espoused through a lot of religions, and if Kierkegaard were right, then it would be perfectly ok to believe in any of them. Because if God is an arbitrary idea in the human mind, then He can be whatever we want Him to be. However, we as Christians believe in a God who is true, not just because we say He is true, but because He has shown Himself to be true.
Hope that made some sense.
Good luck in homework! I know that feeling!
BTW, in other news, I got accepted to SPU! I haven't made a definite decision yet, but I'm pretty confident that it's the place for me. I'm hopeful anyway.
I suppose my last post sounded a bit cold, and really I understand where Andy Whitman is coming from.
I think what I would say is this: Yes, we all have questioned Christianity in our lifetime (or at least I hope we all have! It'd be a shame to believe in a faith that was just presupposed), and for myself, have gone through some times of sincere doubt. I completely sympathize with Whitman in that sense. I think it's just that even when those times of doubt come, it's like God always comes back around. God always comes full circle; if it seems that He is far away and non-understandable, eventually He will come to us in a way that we know that we were doubting or fearing for no gain. God is the full circle God, and that's what sets Him apart from the other gods in the world. He doesn't only go halfway around the circle, where He's inconsistent, He always comes back around to us. Where faith comes in is believing that He will come full circle back around to us, and waiting on Him for that.
There's my esoteric thought for the day, which hopefully rectifies my previous statement.
sping breakaliciousness, sweet!
Eucharisto,
Thanks so much for commenting! No, your thoughts don't seem too cold, (though I'd stay away from making such a harsh judgment of Kierkegaard without at least citing some of his work).
However, I'm not quite sure where you disagree with Whitman. You say that you know God by revelation ("He has shown Himself to be true."), and not human thought ("Not just because we say He is true"). As I understand it, all Whitman is saying is that, in the dark night of the soul, when worse has come to worst, it's not our finite, paper boat of a mind that pulls us through. He's saying that our ability to reason will ultimately fail when shown how steep the cliff of reality is. Not because our faith is unreasonable, but because our minds are corrupt, like a virus-ridden computer, hacked into at the fall.
Like I said, I'm not pointing all this out because I think you disagree with any of it, but because I'll bet that you do believe it, and maybe you and Whitman just phrase things differently. Maybe.
Anyway, great news about Seattle Pacific! Maybe we'll continue this discussion in person, eh?
Thanks again!
So, in other words, it's not God who fails to be logical, it's our own fallen minds that end up being the culprit. I'll definitely agree with that. All I was saying is that as far as I can tell, as a human being and a Christian, even though those times must and will come, God doesn't just leave us hanging.
They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength...
So, yeah, I agree!
And I'm really excited too about SPU! I'm putting everything in order for it. Lots of fun.
What is a 4-H stone?
Post a Comment