Z-Theory #15: The Bible part 2
This is a continuation of yesterday’s post on the bible.
For me, the bible used to be The Truth. Then, the bible became truth. Then, the bible became something that contained the truth. These are all deficient. Now I see that the bible points to the Truth. Actually, this is quite Barthian. He compared the bible to John the Baptist who pointed to the Light.
Like all symbols, myths, sacred texts, objects and ideas, they are not the truth. Nor should we say that they simply contain the truth. Once one comes to a deeper comprehension of transcendent reality or truth, one realizes that this truth finds expression in the temporal, manifesting itself in the mundane. Incarnationally. It is not just a reflection, but somehow connected to the Truth. In a sense, I suppose, they contain truth, but only partially. It is fragmented truth. Like if I went down to the river and scooped up a cup of the river, I could point to the cup and say that I have the river in this cup. But at the same time we know that it doesn’t contain the river, only a part of it, a fragment of it.
I have found a helpful way of understanding this is to see that the bible refers to Truth, as well as mediates Truth.
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You put it so well. The Bible will lead us to the truth the same way a road map will lead us to a destination…but you must drive the road. Like the river in the cup, it has all the qualities of the truth without containing it.Do you ever wish you could start all over with the knowledge you have now intact, and be able to take 20-30 years to study quantum physics? Holographically if we have a piece of the Truth we have the Truth, but then we don’t. Its like the song “One Moment In Time” …if we can touch eternity for one moment it will change us forever. I don’t know if I’m making sense…I don’t articulate this very well. But I agree…the Bible is not the Truth, nor is it God, nor is it the entire Word of God, Barth’s example is the best I’ve run across. We can read about the Light, we can hear someone tell us about the Light, but we must experience the Light. The Eternal Infinite Invisible cannot be contained, rather we are contained in it.
Over 37 years in Pentecost, with roots in old-time holiness and a King James only indoctrination, I, too, came to the same conclusion about the Book; and I have found that, while many would burn us at the stake for such view, it has in no way hindered who He is in my life….
It seems to me that the Bible itself doesn’t say that it’s the Truth. It says that Jesus is the Truth.
Yips!
Truth is absolute, not quantitative. It can’t be a part of a greater whole. A statement stands on it’s own merit – within the confines of contextualization. A cup of water from a river is a cup of water. When pulled out of the river it is no longer a part of the river because a river, contextually, is a moving body of water. When the water is placed in the cup it ceases to be part of the river. It’s source was the river, but contextually it is now a cup of water.
The bible is truth because what it says is true. It came from God. It speaks of God, but it is not God; nevertheless it is true. We can then say the bible contains truth, came from truth, and is truth, because truth by definition is not the collective whole of everything that is true. Truth is a quality not a quantity. Therefore, the bible is truth. Truthfully speaking, that is.
You’ll have Barth spinning in his grave….. there is no way this is Barthian, not even “quite”.
damn right: Barth wrote: “it speaks to and is heard by us as the authentic witness to divine revelation and is therefore present as the Word of God.” (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2, tr. and ed. by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956), p. 457). He insisted that the bible was NOT the word of God, and could not be. But it could become so for us if he so wills during its reading or preaching.
Pastor Keith: I think we can make “true” statements, but they are not The Truth, but only partial and fragmented, and even often falsifiable.
Thanks, found this really helpful, you’ve articulated some thoughts i’ve been wrestling with for a looooong time!
kayte: hi. i’m happy to be helpful.
What I meant is that Barth would see abstract concepts like ‘the Truth’ as idolatry. For him, there is one Word of God in threefold form: Jesus, the scriptures and proclamation. ‘The Truth’ is not some undetermined, unknown reality ‘bigger’ than Jesus; for Barth it is Jesus!
Yes my reading of Barth is that Jesus is the truth and Luther said that “The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.” Jesus is the Living Word of God not the scriptures. However, we encounter the living Christ through the Word whether spoken,read or sung. This goes back to the Bible as sacrament. Yes no one owns or controls or manipulates the truth but The Truth owns us and i believe all truth is God’s truth. I think you are saying this when you say that the bible mediates truth.Well, heck we see through a glass darkly until the end anyway.
Luther said that the Bible was the cradle that held the Christ child.
steve: he sure did.
im not sure, however, I do enjoy the stories…
“I have found a helpful way of understanding this is to see that the bible refers to Truth, as well as mediates Truth.” (NP)
I agree – I would even go one step further – it contains truth only in as much as it is lived, tested, and elaborated upon for our personal and communal lives.
The bible is simply a series of books/letters in all actuality – and contains nothing in that physical sense of meaning – it’s words. However, the meaning is found when the words find their meaning in our lives…how we think, our decision making, our judgment of situations, our values, etc. John said it best in his gospel ‘the word become flesh’…that is what I am getting at…the words of God are re-lived in us.
Guys,
Respectfully speaking, I am sensing some dangerous thought processes here. If the bible only contains the word of God, but is not the word of God and only becomes the word of God when we interpret it, then we infact become Gods because we are the source of truth. Falible becomes infalible through the application of hermenutics. Not only is this concept non-biblical it has it’s origins in Greek thought and is therefore a pagan concept.
I still stand by my earlier statement. Truth is qualitative not quantitative therefore any truthful statement is truth – qualitatively speaking. If you are looking for quantitative truth you are looking for the pleroma which is definately a pagan concept of God. Jesus Christ is the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The bible speaks truth about Him. Jesus is God. The Bible speaks truth about him which is the quality of truth.
Guys, we are not sophists, we are disciples of Christ. Jesus was not a Greek philosopher He was a Jewish Rabbi. Let’s stop being so heady and anylitical about the truth and start applying the truth to our lives. The only way to know how to apply truth is to read about it in the Bible and do what it says. That my friends is truth – qualtatively speaking. My master is Jewish so chasing after the pleroma to me is vanity and vexation of spirit. We have the fulness of God embodied in Jesus Christ. We need not squabble over the eaons.
“I am sensing some dangerous thought processes here” (Keith)
Nothing more dangerous than reality.
“If the bible only contains the word of God, but is not the word of God and only becomes the word of God when we interpret it, then we infact become Gods because we are the source of truth.” (Keith)
Here’s the thing Keith – if someone burnt the bible in front of you – then burnt some 10 more versions of that same bible in front of you – would you say the ‘word of God’ has been burnt? I would say a physical representation that held those written words was burnt – but that’s about it…some writings gone up in flames.
But what is the word of God then? I would agree it is the written words and how they can effect one’s life…but to think the word of God is not subject to interpretation is to claim ignorance to reality. We all read – we interpret through the only lense we have – our minds and knowledge we have on a subject.
As for Greek roots my friend – Jesus being divine has it’s roots in Greek thought also – not Jewish thought.
“If you are looking for quantitative truth you are looking for the pleroma which is definately a pagan concept of God” (Keith)
So a physical bodily resurrection is pagan?
“Jesus Christ is the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Keith)
This is also a pagan concept – Greco-Roman philosophies – shouldn’t we also abandon this idea?
“Guys, we are not sophists, we are disciples of Christ. Jesus was not a Greek philosopher He was a Jewish Rabbi” (Keith)
Jesus may not have been a philosopher – but then again he never wrote a single book or letter in the NT – the people that seem to have philosophical leanings are used are the core building blocks of the doctrine of tghe church – John’s gospel and Paul. So yes, maybe we need to know more about philosophy – namely in Jesus’ time to see why a Jewish rabbi cannot even be recognized in Christianity.
“My master is Jewish so chasing after the pleroma to me is vanity and vexation of spirit.” (Keith)
My teacher and messiah is Jesus – but if I want to know what that means I really need to search quite hard actually to get some actual truth on the concept ‘messiah’ that isn’t biased by Gentile sources in the NT. Or as you call it – philosophy.
“We have the fulness of God embodied in Jesus Christ. We need not squabble over the eaons” (Keith)
I am not sure it is squabbling as much as it is a practice to get things right – or as accurate as we can concering the man Jesus. The fact you see Jesus as God only speaks to the fact you believe Greco-Roman ideas that spilled into Christianity as Paul sought to win the Gentiles to this faith. I appluade him for it – it sustained Christianity. But after Paul was dead n gone – Christianity developed in Gentile territories with little to no Jewish ideology.
In the end, Jesus isn’t Jewish anymore…he looks and sounds more Roman or is ta least described using their ideals. He is spiritualized. He is trinitarized. He becomes all the things that Judaism would obviously come to reject. But I fail to find this Jesus in the synoptics. James’ letter doesn’t present this Jesus either. The OT defintiely says nothing like this of the messiah.
So yes, I see a need to continue the studies so I get to the core of the Jesus I am supposed to be following and what was at the heart of what he taught.
Pastor Keith said – “Respectfully speaking, I am sensing some dangerous thought processes here.”
Trying to understand what one believes, and why one believes it? The only thing that can be considered “dangerous” to, is tradition.
Pastor Keith – “If the bible only contains…”
That’s one of the question Pastor. “If”, “what”, “why”. And asking those questions is “dangerous” to tradition.
Pastor Keith – “…the word of God, but is not the word of God and only becomes the word of God when we interpret it, then we infact become Gods because we are the source of truth. Falible becomes infalible through the application of hermenutics.”
Which is what just about every bible believer does as they read their book, listen to their minister preach from their book, and disagree with other believers of the same book. They all believe the word of God says something different.
Pastor Keith – “Not only is this concept non-biblical it has it’s origins in Greek thought and is therefore a pagan concept.”
And yet, as I said, and as can be easily observed, believers of the same book have different views on what the book is saying.
Pastor Keith – “Jesus Christ is the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
How do you KNOW?
Pastor Keith – “The bible speaks truth about Him.”
How do you KNOW?
Pastor Keith – “Jesus is God.”
How do you KNOW?
You make bold statements, proclaiming them to be true, and yet you really do not know that they are true.
Pastor Keith – “Let’s stop being so heady and anylitical about the truth and start applying the truth to our lives.”
In other words, don’t think about it, just do it? How does one go about “applying the truth to our lives” anyway? What does that mean? Give me an example of one doing that.
Pastor Keith – “The only way to know how to apply truth is to read about it in the Bible and do what it says.”
Pastor Keith, this is naive. And unless you do this yourself, which I can guarantee you do not, it is hypocritical of you to make such a statement. Read your statement again and then make a list of all the things the bible says to do – that you don’t do, being careful to note verses about sexual lust, greed, gluttony, slothfulness, love, obedience, etc.
Pastor Keith – “We have the fulness of God embodied in Jesus Christ. We need not squabble over the eaons.”
In other words, “Ahhh, if only every one believed exactly as I do.”
A very profound statement, N.P. One that also happened to be near the core of my own
conversion to Christianity, funny enough.
We question, we challenge, and we seek. The path is not given to us, but rather pointed to by the Bible: a travel log for hungry souls setting out on a difficult journey.
The finite contains the infinite.
That goes for the Bible, the Sacraments, and the man Jesus himself.
Guys,
Your response to my comments prove you don’t actually believe what your saying. Think about it. I interpret the word. You interpret the word. You say that truth is not absolute. I say it is. I say your wrong. You say I’m wrong. Are you absolutely sure I’m wrong? I hope not, because that would weaken your position due to lack of continuity in your argument.
If I believe in absolute truth, I can make a statement like, “Your wrong,” and remain consistent.
According to Barth my interpretation becomes the word of God to me (a pretty ridiculous statement I think), and your interpretation becomes the word of God to you.
To espouse your position is to acknowledge that my position is my truth and therefore valid (I know, it sounds a little ridiculous doesn’t it?).
If you insist on pursuing a Barthian plurality of truth based on personal hermenutics, I would appreciate a practice of consistency by never challenging anyone else’s truth because, as Barth say’s, the bible does not become the word of God until you interpret it. Seeing as I interpret the word to be true please don’t tell me I am wrong because my conclusion is based on my interpretation and therefore is the word of God (according to Barth).
I however, do not agree with Barth and believe the word to be truth. Therefore, I will remain consistent with my system and tell you you are wrong.
Sorry guys, but the truth hurts.
Pastor Keith,
You mean, “you are wrong”?
You remain consistent within your belief pattern. But if Truth transcends belief, then what good is your belief pattern? What you believe to be true points back to what it is you believe to be true. It is a circular argument that can only point back to itself – not the truth. (And definitely not Truth with a capital “T”.
But I do agree. Truth hurts.
Truth also frees us from the confines of our belief patterns. Thank God!!
That was pretty weak, Arulba. But, according to Barth that’s the word of God to you. Makes no sense to the rest of us, but in Barth’s system your the only one that matters.
Pastor Keith: I’ve read Barth, but I don’t claim to understand him better than anyone else. But your understanding of Barth is completely foreign to my understanding of him.
Pastor Keith said – Your response to my comments prove you don’t actually believe what your saying.
Can I assume that you are not referring to my comments? I said nothing about Barth. If you could be more specific.
Pastor Keith – You say that truth is not absolute. I say it is. I say your wrong. You say I’m wrong.
I say truth IS absolute. So, again, you must not be responding to me.
Pastor Keith – Are you absolutely sure I’m wrong? I hope not, because that would weaken your position due to lack of continuity in your argument.
No, I am not “absolutely sure” you are wrong. I am confident you are incorrect.
absolutely sure – If I believe in absolute truth, I can make a statement like, “Your wrong,” and remain consistent.
I don’t disagree.
Naked Pastor:
Please read the statement you posted on Nov. 26th at 6:30 am. You yourself said The bible could become the word to us if God so wills during it’s preaching or teaching. Please don’t equivicate with me on this. Either you follow Barth or you don’t, but don’t change the rules when your logic starts to cave in around you.
Please understand, I don’t intend to be mean spirited here, I just feel a need to challenge you on this thinking. I believe you are a free moral agent and can choose whatever position you will, but you have a blog filled with people that agree with whatever you say.
Your far too intellegent to hide your blog and opinions in emergent circles. Jesus was a revolutionary. He was not afraid of the Pharisees. Paul was a Pharisee, who was not afraid of the believers. The difference: one was the truth, and the other – the truth set him free.
What this world needs is truth and pastors that will stand by it. If truth is relevant and the bible is not the word of God, then the artist should follow his art and quit hiding as a pastor (that statement was a little rough and I thought long and hard before placing it there, but I hope it causes you to seriously consider your calling. People’s eternal souls are far too precious to play around with).
I apologize if my words offend you. They were not intended to be offensive – just challenging.
Pastor Keith:
My blog isn’t just filled with people who agree with me. It is also filled with people who don’t care what I think and just enjoy my cartoons once in a while. Then it is also filled with people who don’t agree with me, you being a case in point.
You don’t have to intend to be offensive to be offensive. Of course you know that. And I’m not offended. I’m used to it.
I’m not equivocating. I just don’t agree with your assessment of Barth. I’m not fudging. My point was that Barth dared not equate the bible with the Word of God. Only God could make it so by the Spirit. Otherwise they are just dead words on a page. That’s what I meant.
My concern is for people. I am trying to help.
david
“You say that truth is not absolute” (Keith)
This is where it gets interesting – name on thing you think to be ‘absolutely true’? Truth is quite vague – lets get into the quality of this argument with some actual definable propositions of ‘truth’.
For example, the bible does make a claim that ‘all men will be saved’ – in John – does this mean everyone will be saved?
So what I am getting at is the semantics and context of the literature we are using to develop beliefs in our faith. How do we define them as true or what interpretation of the text is true?
For example, with the above example I provided – unitarians and universalists think everyone is saved in the end. However, we know many churches do not hold that position – namely any one that claims orthodoxy. So who’s interpretation of the wording is correct and why?
It is this kind of stuff that I am looking into. Now we can discuss when the word of God become the word of God – quite the loaded question when you think about – with many aspects. However, interpretation is one of those aspects that you seem to be over-looking Keith.
You may make a claim about the bible that needs to be backed up by evidence concerning it’s ‘truthiness’. Other can make counter claims on the same passage. Which one is ‘absolute’? Just because you believe in absolute truth doesn’t make your interpretation ‘true’. Same goes for all of us when dealing with the scriptures/writings. Thus we need a method to determine this. I go literary, context and historical analysis of the texts.
In the end, when does the word of God become the word of God? I guess after it is spoken. However, we have written words – not spoken recorded words…so how does that become the word of God? I still think the ‘word must become flesh’ – or the words must find a home in the human heart (metaphorically) before they become powerful.
Now where getting some where, Societyvs.
I think the bible is absolutely true in the original autographs.
I think interpretation is a necessary tool in discovering that truth. First we must employ criticism to determine the validity of the text. Then we employ systems of theology, grammatical, syntactical, lexical, and historical data to arrive at an interpretation.
I never said you had to adopt my interpretation of the truth, I merely said someone who holds to Barth’s view of interpretation relinquishes his/her right to critique someone else’s interpretation (See naked pastor’s comments on Barth on Nov. 26).
Barth makes interpretation the truth, therefore truth resides in the heart of fallible man. Barth never say’s God is man, but his logic goes there.
Our Job as Christians is (among many other things) to find the truth. We do this by taking the truth (Yes, I consider the bible to be truth) and doing our best to determine what it means. We do this through interpretation, but we are fallible, our systems are flawed and our interpretations vary as a result. That, my friends is not the fault of an infallible word, but the fault of fallible hermeneutics.
The danger with Barth is he gives too much credence to interpretation. The bible is true, we just have not learned all it has to teach yet. You can write volumes on supposed contradictions in the bible, but you won’t write a single word that has not been addressed by some system of theology that removes the contradiction (wether right or wrong). To discuss obvious contradictions would lead to a plethora of discussion and debate concerning theological systems. Frankly, I don’t have the time to enter into those discussions right now so I will leave your systematizing to yourself.
My systems may be faulty, I might miss the mark entirely, but someone who believes that the bible becomes the word of God when I interpret it cannot tell me I am wrong (even though I might be).
My concern is that there exists such a disdain for traditional thinking in our current culture that we are eroding the very foundations that make us Christian. The bible is foundational to Christianity. To take it away as the source of truth and replace it with our own intellect is a grievous error that harkens back to the garden of Eden when the serpent deceived Eve by saying, “Did God say . . .” then followed it up with, ” God did not say . . . ” and eventually finished her off with, “But I say . . . ”
I’m passionate about this guys. Yes, we need change in the church. Yes, we need to be more relevant. Yes, we need to throw out empty traditions that hinder the gospel. But we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water (what was it that Luther said about the baby . . .? )
I believe the bible is the word of God and it is infallible in its original manuscripts. I believe it is our guide for faith and practice and we as Christians have an obligation to discover the truths that it contains, not to create truths from it.
Truth is absolute, we are incomplete.
P.S. Naked Pastor – Thank you for giving me an opportunity to share my feelings. I apologize for being so abrasive. Thank you for maintaining a Christ-like character
everyone take a deep breath.Of course ideas are dangerous,that is why we talk about them.I am not so certain That Barth himself didn’t constantly contradict himself,or perhaps better evolve{From Romans II to the Humainty of God, or Reconciliation in CD,for example}.Either way,what I believe and how I live my life are far more important then what someone will say or write. Arguing with someone about belief is quite similar to pissing into the wind/. Respect for another ,the humility to be able to say’I don’t know”,living a life of service ,these are for me the Marks of a follower of Jesus. Being able to shout is not necessarily a qualification.We,I , need to get past the point where we give out theological urine tests each time someone disagrees with something we say. These are, for me, far better examples of belief than micro- hairsplitting on exegesis.
“Arguing with someone about belief is quite similar to pissing into the wind” (Patrick)
I would like to note this – about the biblical passages. Jesus likely studied under Pharisee’s in his day – which involved a lot of ‘pissing in the wind’ in order to get to the truth behind scriptures and what they mean (elaboration on the texts). Judaism still does a lot of this kind of rigorous study of texts – in debate.
Jesus himself in gospel passages that I cannot even count at this moment – argued and debated with people constantly about beliefs – whether that was in question format or conversation…but it always involved scripture and interpretation.
You might think not much is arrived at over a good heated discussion – but has never a good argument help bring clarity to your position or even help shape it?
“I think the bible is absolutely true in the original autographs” (Keith)
(a) We don’t have a single original autograph – so moot point.
(b) If we did have the originals and they differed qualitatively from what we have in the gospels and letters – what would that say about the development of this faith over the centuries?
(c) Lastly, scripture is spoken word not written word. I think this needs to be looked at further since every passage we have about Jesus is a recorded conversation that was written down by someone else (about those convo’s). Even the Torah functions in this manner. So what is truly inspired – God words (literally would mean spoken by God – which to me are the originals) or written words (inspired writers wrote as they felt led by God – and they more or less try rehash what Jesus said or God said)?
The reason I raise point (c) is because I think when God speaks there is a power attached to that (authority to move people or things). Yet this is not what we have in front of us. There is no recorded voice of God when he speaks from Sinai, to Moses, to Abraham, or to Jesus…or even when Jesus speaks to the disciples…or to Paul in Acts. Does the literal words of God (spoken) lose some muster in being written down?
“That, my friends is not the fault of an infallible word, but the fault of fallible hermeneutics” (Keith)
And yet, even with this fault before us, churches can make doctrine that is equal in authority to God Himself (since it based on God’s written word – which God never wrote). And this is the rub, is doctrine based on biblical precepts subject to human error?
“but someone who believes that the bible becomes the word of God when I interpret it cannot tell me I am wrong (even though I might be).” (Keith)
I am not sure anyone believes that about the word of God. The point I make is it’s meaning doesn’t become noticed until we live it out in reality – when words become experience.
“The bible is foundational to Christianity” (Keith)
I agree – I would even say without it there is nothing about this faith we can ascertain. I am not sure anyone is challenging that concept either.
“I believe it is our guide for faith and practice and we as Christians have an obligation to discover the truths that it contains, not to create truths from it.” (Keith)
But are we creating truths – and is your Christian tradition also guilty of this? You see the creeds pre-date anyone on this site by some 1500 years easy. The Reformation and the introduction of a whole new set of theological ideas also pre-dates us all by some 400 years. These circles created the model for created truth – dogma, doctrine, and the guidelines that shaped every single Christian church I could name. I believe a lot of questionable doctrinal ideas also slipped in – with very little scriptural open-ness on the questions – you accept the doctrines or you leave the church.
Now these were discovered, then debated, and now remain unquestionable. I think many of us think they need to re-open the case on many of these claims concerning scripture. I also believe in scripture and that what it teaches us is ‘true’…but I don’t believe orthodoxy is the only ‘truth’. I see the human flaw in interpretation.
“Truth is absolute, we are incomplete” (Keith)
Might be true – but since you give no propositional idea that is absolutely true – I cannot believe you. The sentence is fluff and vague, without exacts how can one ascertain anything about this ‘truth’ you speak of?
[...] turn led to me mentioning David’s (Naked Pator’s) “Z-Theory.” I pulled up his last post on the topic and read it to my [...]