A Reason for Views

Often it will be of help to us in life if we have a reason for views. I believe that often the greatest mistake parents have in relation to their children is expressing judgments on activities which have no thought out rational.

You may see for example a condemnation of video games with the rational of "you wasted all weekend playing those games." Of course the parent may "waste all weekend watching TV." It is often in the church you find many people expressing preferences for things as moral absolutes.

If they like golf than it is fine way to spend a weekend, but it is wasteful to spend the weekend surfing. It is often that there are constant streams of viewpoints which contradict each other on principle because they are preferences and not the absolutes they are claimed to be.

Of course it makes sense how many viewpoints there are floating around which have no clear rational base. We tend not to like to think. And to the degree we do not thing the more the rationality of our judgments comes into question.

It is difficult to understand how the person who spends the weekend surfing is in question and the golfer above reproach for his use of time. Maybe it is that the surfer is assumed to have questionable friends while the golfer's friends must be above reproach? Maybe an answer can be found but often many judgments simply lack any rational basis.

And that is often the issue in parents and people in the church expressing claims about reality. If the claims have no rational base thought out they are likely to be off. The reality is often there is far too many viewpoints. We would be better off with far fewer viewpoints expressed after more thought.

Love as the Apologetic

One of the few truly interesting apologetics Christian's have is love. Love in the Christian sense is interesting because it is so counter cultural to the world.

Christian love differs from love in the world in that it is beyond reason. We love not because of what is, but what could be or because of what Jesus has done.

You see Christian love is not without reason but its base is in an event in the past or in future possibility. Christian love often ignores what is.

That is why the early church spread so quickly. There was something very distinctive about their love.

Argumentation or debate are apologetics with little use. Most debates are ended emotionally long before the intellect is engaged. You see that man does not like the Christian message about himself because he must first accept his nature.

It is good for man to accept his nature. But he does not like the message.

Ultimately the solution of free grace through faith is dependent on the realization of need. The good news of salvation is only good when we realize the actual state we are in.

Reason, Emotion, and Submission

To me it seems the two fastest ways to get to bad theology is through reason and emotion.

Reason. Reason tends to go wrong in that we really aren’t as reasonable as we think we are. Also reason believes that it is capable of understanding. Much of theology must be accepted by faith as when we think of the eternal, the infinite as finite creatures we are often left with mystery. Reason through its own pride often acts to try to crush the mystery when it should not be and creates other mystery where it should also not be.

Emotion. Emotion tends to corrupt theology even faster than reason. To say by emotion that God cannot do something on emotion gets into trouble fast. Emotion is suspect because it is our emotion. Starting with emotion is starting with man. Man is fallen and does not know the truth. To start with human emotion and thus work toward theological truth is self defeating.

Submission. Submission is the only good way to do theology. If you accept the bible as God’s word than all answers to faith must begin and end in it. To use reason apart from scripture is futile. We need to let the voice of scripture be our voice of reason. To use emotion to interpret theology before our emotional understanding is firmly tied into the very spirit of the scripture is equally self defeating.

To me this setup seems the only logical one. But I constantly meet people who their own reason or emotion is higher than the reason or emotion contained in the bible.

Personally I tend to err on the side of reason. I should take heed of Calvin’s response of what God was doing before creation. "He was creating hell for the curious."