Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Tuesday, May 21, 2002 Sufficiency Dispatches from Outland has noticed the discussion (rather hit or miss) among some of us about sufficiency in religion and the problem with authority. A problem I've been grappling with ever since I became a Christian. Roy mentions that any reliance of an outside source or quality (like Reason) as an ultimate authority creates a circular argument. I'm not as sure about this since I'm certain that the existence of God is uncontestable. Reason can only support such an assertion in the same way that reason insists 1+1=2. So I think there are factual notions we can derive authoritatively through reason alone. But Authority as we apply it to Church, Scripture, Tradition - these areas do create circular argument. At last, we are left with what Jesus was left with - our experience of God (or lack thereof). Christianity has been fortunate in that its foundation occurred in a milieu which respected spiritual experience, had wisdom about such things, and many shared in the experience of the risen Man/God and still do today. Other religions don't have this and rely entirely on scriptures to support them. Remove the authority of the scriptures and you effectively destroy the religion. Islam will eventually encounter this problem very soon as Koranic criticism comes more into play and demonstrates clearly that the Koran has been modified, rewritten, edited and so on rather than coming out of Mohammed's mouth as pure, dictated verses. Buddhism relies more or less upon the effectiveness of its prayer life (which is very impressive, indeed.) Hinduism relies on cultural inertia and tradition with much wisdom literature. Judaism depends on scripture and on the certainty of the One God, the Sheckinah experience to sustain it plus the inertia of cultural tradition and tribalism. The Christian, though, when push comes to shove, must at last rely entirely upon Faith in what he knows to be true without doubt - Jesus lives. He can never prove it to another. He might persuade with arguments of Bible, prophecy, theology, doctrines, and such - but ultimately, the Christian can only say - I know him. I saw him. He showed me the way. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:30 AM | |
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