[themattperry]

Legion,

This is a very useful discussion for me ... the way you state your point of view is clear, and helps me sharpen my own. So thanks.

What you just posted brought up a few reactions in me ...

Originally Posted by Legion

Much of Christianity is paradox, as I think you would agree. If we are going to be Christians, we must learn to accept paradox, without necessarily understanding it. God is both mystery and manifest. Christ is both human and divine. Our modernist culture is reticent to accept the existence of unknowns, but our attempt to reclaim the mystery and the beauty of the Gospel should not require the sacrifice of some moral certainty.

I would absolutely agree with all of this! Paradox is at the center of the Gospel. God's grace will always surpass our understanding. I would, however, add that the modern naturalistic mind (ie the scientific mind) is often MORE and not LESS comfortable with unknowns and the unknowable that many religious ways of thinking.

Originally Posted by Legion

The basic moral laws are quite clear and evident in their dictation, but may be unclear in their application. Paradox again? Fortunately, God gives us grace and wisdom enough to apply His commands without being entirely lost and confused. Some issues are beyond our understanding, and will be so until we reach heaven. That does not mean that ignorance is an ideal. We should be perpetually striving for what understanding, wisdom and insight we can grasp.

I would differ with you here ... I don't think that moral laws are very clearly dictated, at least not by the Bible. As I stated before, the Bible contradicts its own moral dictates with regularity. Killing is forbidden in the commandments, but the Bible (particularly in the old testament histories) details and glorifies repeated God-sanctioned bloodbaths committed by the armies of the chosen. The sayings of the prophets and others routinely threaten death to the unfaithful, the foreigner or the transgressor. The only mechanism by which we can make moral sense of the Bible is by emphasizing some passages and downplaying others. (more on this below.)

Paradox should not be confused with contradiction. The Bible's moral message is contradictory, not paradoxical. Paradox implies a hidden order behind an apparent contradiction, or that the contradiction flows from accepted precepts, and therefore must be true in some way. There is little that is orderly about the Bible ... but then again, it all comes down to whether you believe the Bible is authoritative in every word, or not. It's really a very simple choice, and it determines how you approach what the Bible implies. By what you say in the following Legion, I realize that you think that this is not a choice you must make:

Originally Posted by Legion

I believe that the Bible is both literal and figurative. I choose not to try to cram myself into one particular category at the expense of other categories, because not all passages are literal and not all passages are figurative (though I think many can be taken both ways).

Certainly, the Bible is what the Bible is. Sometimes history, sometimes fable, sometimes genealogy etc etc ... but the question I originally posed, (about hermeneutics) is what are we? How do we read the Bible? You choose to read it in some ways for some passages and in other ways for other passages ... but then I would simply ask how you determines which passages get which readings, and what is the driving force behind this decision? What parts of the Bible are authoritative? And if you or I are deciding that for ourselves, isn't it really our authority that is being exercised when we bless one part of scripture over another, rather than the authority of the scripture itself?

You appeal to balance, Legion. This sounds very attractive, but some appeals to moderation are essentially compromises with our own deep desire for safety. We are willing to subject some Biblical passages to interpretation and scrutiny, but not others. Why? Because we don't feel safe calling the origins of certain culturally important moral maxims into question.

I guess I just believe that we are all fully called into living in moral conversation with each other and with ourselves. That is the bottom line for me. The soul -- the indwelling Christ conscience -- along the communion of saints (the world) ... these are the ultimate sources of my morality (on good days.) The Bible is an important guide to thinking about these things, and is our record of Christ among us. For me, it is simply not, in whole or in part, an authoritative moral instruction manual.