Often the concept of wisdom is lost in the current day. Wisdom implies that many situations in life require thought and prayer to understand ethically.
I believe at times the church is afraid to teach the concept of wisdom which pervades scripture because it feels "post modern" and the church wishes to oppose post modernity.
The reality is that wisdom and the idea that there is a great fuzziness in many situations is not post modern at all. It is not a denial of absolute truth but rather an appreciation that as people who live in a fallen world it is often difficult to know what to do.
You see wisdom and the great need to think long and hard about what is right in many situations is not at all a postmodern impulse. Few churches will overtly bash wisdom, but they will bash the idea that there are many situations which are ethically difficult to understand.
They implicitly undermine the concept of wisdom in scripture by suggesting that ethical living is easy. Often we are more prone to theological error in what we omit from our theology and life than in what is in our theology.
What is missing in a theology is often of far greater significance than what is in a theology. You see theology is supposed to be a faithful understanding of the word of God as revealed in the bible. Thus omissions in theology are often of great concern since theology should attempt to be a faithful understanding of all scripture.
Showing posts with label postmodernity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label postmodernity. Show all posts
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Specificity vs. Generality
A seemingly frustrating aspect of the bible at times is that the bible prefers to lay down general principles rather than specific guidance. The bible always turns to wisdom to decide between priorities of principles rather than delve into specifics.
Why is this? Does God not know the proper answer to tell us?
The reality if we think very clearly is that each situation in life is too specific for a hard and fast complete rule book. We often see this in human governments where laws to protect people seem to harm some people.
A sort of rigidness to rules is the difficulty. Ethics carries a certain degree of situational to itself. The bible is wise to not overextend itself on guidance to people.
An over extended set of rules produces wrong outcomes at times. This is why the bible always expounds wisdom.
A lot of philosophers have noticed the situationality of ethics and wished to move away from absolutes. The basis of postmodernity is an understanding that there is a grayness to the world and how we should live that the modernism has missed.
I believe that absolutes are important. We can have absolutes, but also realize that while there are many absolutes in the world there are also many situations where ethics are situational.
We can clearly see that many things are always wrong. But there are things which are sometimes right, sometimes neutral, and sometimes wrong.
The parable of the good Samaritan is a good example. The many people on the road would often be right to hurry to their important business, but in this case they were wrong.
Ethics has both absolutes and grayness where discernment is needed. The bible has already seen this. This is why the bible is neither a friend of modernity or postmodernity in an absolute sense.
Why is this? Does God not know the proper answer to tell us?
The reality if we think very clearly is that each situation in life is too specific for a hard and fast complete rule book. We often see this in human governments where laws to protect people seem to harm some people.
A sort of rigidness to rules is the difficulty. Ethics carries a certain degree of situational to itself. The bible is wise to not overextend itself on guidance to people.
An over extended set of rules produces wrong outcomes at times. This is why the bible always expounds wisdom.
A lot of philosophers have noticed the situationality of ethics and wished to move away from absolutes. The basis of postmodernity is an understanding that there is a grayness to the world and how we should live that the modernism has missed.
I believe that absolutes are important. We can have absolutes, but also realize that while there are many absolutes in the world there are also many situations where ethics are situational.
We can clearly see that many things are always wrong. But there are things which are sometimes right, sometimes neutral, and sometimes wrong.
The parable of the good Samaritan is a good example. The many people on the road would often be right to hurry to their important business, but in this case they were wrong.
Ethics has both absolutes and grayness where discernment is needed. The bible has already seen this. This is why the bible is neither a friend of modernity or postmodernity in an absolute sense.
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