Hi, Chris!

My responses begin with [J

Chris G Criminger wrote:

Hi Jon, Stephen and all,
All of us come with different baggage, concerns, and sometimes even a
different vocabulary that seems foreign to others.  I was one who was
raised in the academic world of modernity but more and more feel
alienated or uncomfortable with the language and its concepts.  So here
are some of my concerns:

[J yes!  This why we need to listen to each other and get by and past our understandings in an effort to understand each other.

 
1)  We can easily make unregenerate people feel like second class
citizens to those of us "in the know."  On some issues I find
unregenerate people have more insights or beliefs oriented to some kind
of "truth" than those who claim to be possessors of truth.

[J yes!  Absolutely.  Also, it is not so easy to know who is regenerate and who is not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  My wife and I have had "church situations" where we could find no fellowship in the context of much anger and hostility directed to us because we were encouraging ourselves and the congregation to take the Scriptures seriously and to become disciples of Jesus Christ, which we see as a life-long process.  We both had jobs in the world and found more comfort in our agnostic and atheistic friends then we did with the "Christians" who just wanted to stay where they were and rejected possibilities of their own growth.  We did see them change for the better, eventually, as we hung in there with them, many coming to see the possibilities in Christ that they had ignored and resisted for so long.

 
2)  Nor am I one that connects with "objective" and "propositional truth"
anymore.  It's not that I deny these categories or language totally but
so often they are used in inappropriate ways of describing the
truth------a person (and not just a proposition) or creating forms of
reductionism or either/or situations that neither reflect the whole of
reality we are speaking about.

[J  This is a bit more difficult.   I agree that these categories can be used and are used in inappropriate ways.  I paste some statements of mind in an email to a friend of mine that express this point:

 "I am the last one to disown proppositional knowledge of God.  But people who know God, have true propositions
AND experience of His presence in manifold ways in which He manifests His presence in them and around them and in other brothers and sisters. Look at 1 John and read it on your knees and look how much the theme of
fellowship plays a role in it right from the opening verses.  Look at 1 John 1:7, where when someone walks in the light as He is in the light, they also have fellowship with one another, and in that context they will be frequently confessing their
sinfulness and repenting and experiencing the truth of the promise of being cleansed by the blood of Jesus..  The vertical fellowship with the Lord in His light and truth, with our response of becoming ever more truthful to Him on a daily basis and naming our specific sins and exposing them and ourselves to His light leads to cleansing as 1 John promises. This vertical relationship in 1 John 1:7 leads to horizontal relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. It also leads to a deeper "experimental knowledge of God" as the old, dear, puritans used to say.  Here are the Puritans more propositional about
theology than any other group, yet they also have powerful writings on knowing
God and communing with the three Divine Persons and they teach about the experimental knowledge where disciples learn how to open themselves up to God in all things especially the embarrassing ones and where there is joyful trust about
this and joy in Him.  There is a rich deep and joyous life there for those who are
picking up their cross daily and denying themselves, the old man that wants control, and learning how to walk by faith in a conversational relationship of ever
growing depth and trust in Him while also doing ever better, their obligations
at work and seeing their spouses with the eyes of Christ and trying to be servants to
them. We are under command to love our spouses as Christ loves the church and
Peter warns us if we are not sensitive to them and their needs and to what they
tell us, our prayers will be hindered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, Enough theology!  Spend time with our Father and the Lord Jesus by 
the power of the Spirit....go boldly to the throne of Grace and ask Him to enable you to be much better as a disciple of the Lord Jesus on your job, in your marriage and every other place and obligation.  If you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then He will enable you to do this. If your intellect gets in the way, then the Bible says "Be still and know that I am God!  Begin to read the psalms and proverbs and where and when the Spirit leads, pray some
of the verses that move you personally about your life back to the
Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All this will do for you is give new life!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All of the
Lord's people need new life moment by moment.  That new life is from Him, we must
abide in Him to receive it for without Him, we can do nothing.  Learn the difference
between knowingly abiding in Him in a mutual interactive relationship with Him
and the religious flesh of abstract theological debate divorced from His
humbling presence!!!!!!!!!! Theology's sole purpose, as I understand it, is to
lead to practical Godly living in Him.  If it is not that, then theology begins
to stink because it is being abstracted from its rightful context of living by
the power of the Spirit, a Spirit filled life and has become an abstract philosophical law to beat people up with!  Sounds very sick and misguided to me!"

Chris, without the use of propositions, we cannot go the Lord and we cannot talk to Him about things he tells us in Scripture!  The Scripture itself is in sentences.  As we come to understand the sentences we interpret the sentences and they become propositions.  Propositions are the uses of sentences to express what a person means.  The very denial of propositions, is done in a proposition.  The real issue which I attempted to address in my quoted, pasted, passage above is to see that we as living beings know more than we can express in propositions and that the function of propositions are to take us to the realities that they are about.  The person I was writing to is an engineer and very, very, bright.  He loves theology and he has been in some very destructive theological conversations with people who think that all cognition is propositional and so are oblivious to the whole human being and also to the manifold non-propositional ways that God communicates to us, in addtion to propositional communication.  What I am getting at is that holistic views of human existence will include propositional knowledge, objectivity will never be confused with reality but just will be understood as a person's understanding of something at a time t in their life, in the knowledge that in fuirther living new experience will probably modify our understanding and to be open to that.  To identify objectivity with reality is a disaster and fatal to any attempt to understand the way things really are for all of us in terms of knowledge and belief.  It is fatal also because it leads to what I will call theological phariseeism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Where sanctification is identified with theological knowledge and ability.  Most seminaries use academic models best suited for secular learning and do not emphasise a Biblical model of learning that would be holistic and take into the consideration the whole of of a person and the fact that knowing can be non-propositional as well as propositional.  Heidegger who is a "father" to many of the post-modern thinkers saw what I am trying to express and wrote marvelous works addressing these issues.  "Being and Time" is one of the great books in philosophy and it lays out an action oriented wholistic model of human being and human knowing recognizing that, for example, moods bring knwledge, non-propositional knowledge.  This book is a great assault on modern intellectualism that leaves out the rest of human experience in its concern with the propositional in abstraction from the lived experiences of those who utter and who receive propositions.  Only in this wider context can there be justice done to what propositions are and to how they are to be used as guides and pointers to reality which exceeds all of our concepts and propositions in its complexity and even sometimes in its simplicity and multidimensional aspects that defy all conceptualization but challenge poets and metaphysicians to try to describe!!!

I agree with you about reductionism. one of my tasks is to construct more adequate models of human knowing in the context of the immediacy of human existing.....I will have to do this in propositions, if I am going to communicate with others, but my propositions will be invitations for readers to look and see for themselves.  That knowing and intellect became detached from being and existing is a cause of the reductionisms in modernism and in post modernism.
 

 
3)  Nor does one have to believe in an epistemological system like
foundationalism or the rational-scientific Innerancy view to be obedient
to scripture or to follow Jesus.

{J  I agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  One just has to be open to His unceasing communication and begin to obey it by paying heed to it and responding to it for the most incredible living that there is, with Him!

 
4)  Lastly,  the locus of our confidence does not come from our knowing
(which is very man centered as Stephen has suggested) but in God knowing
us (2 Tim.1:12).  Or to put it differently, the way we come to know God
is not primarily through the mind (therefore a form of rationalism) but
through faith (which always has reasons which Reason will never know).
 

[J   It comes from being known by God where He comes into our lives and lets us know that He knows us and He loves us!!!!!  What you say about faith seems better said about the heart!  Pascal in the Pensees somewhere says the heart has reasons that reason does not know!  I recommend a book by a dear friend of mine, Roy Clouser:  "Knowing with the Heart: Religious Experience and Belief in God.  Intervarsity Press pb.

In regard to regeneration, I respond to somethings said in related posts.  I think it is clear that many, even most, born again Christians cannot date the time of their regeneration.  They were perhaps raised in some faith community or other and at some point of time realize that their faith has become more radical more serious and see that there has been a change but it was not something they discerned when it happened but only later.  Then there are the dramatic changes as Paul's experience.  Well, the Lord knows what He is doing.  I have seen people come to be born again over periods of time where they attend fellowship meetings and eventually leave their status as "lurkers" and become participants with evident manifestion of their new knowledge of the Lord.  Leading people to the Lord is a many faceted and diverse process as people and situations are so different.  We need to be all things to all people as Paul tells us that he was also.

Having said this, for those who are interested in epistemology and most importantly Christian epistemology, the distinction between regenerate and unregenerate in terms of knowledge of God is a major distinction illustrated by many passages of Scripture in the OT and the NT.  The practical import of this is huge in the doing of evangelism and in caring for the souls of people.

Thanks Chris, for your excellent statements and others as well!  My long two cents!!!!

Have a great day all!

Jon

 
Grace and Peace  -  Chris Criminger
Vallonia Indiana

*****************************************

On Sun, 22 Jul 2001 09:17:57 -0400 Jonathan M Gold
<goldj@...> writes:
>
> Stephen wrote!
>
> I  would love to see an epistemology that extends beyond the
> objective,
> beyond the classroom and helps us love God with all within and
> others as
> ourselves (as we love Him with our mind) I’m certain it’s an
> achievable
> philosophical objective. Perhaps we can work on that here….
>
> Jon responds:  such an epistemology needs to start with what the
> Bible
> says the unregenerate knows, what the unregenerate knows and avoids,
> and
> what the unregenerate cannot know until and unless the unregenerate
> become regenerate.  See Romans 1:18-32 and 1 Cor. 1:21 which tell us
> that the unregenerate know God through the existence of everything
> and
> also in their conscience in Romans 2:15 and yet in 1 Cor. 1:21 where
> in
> the Wisdom of God, the world by its wisdom does not know God.  Now,
> the
> world by its wisdom knows God because God shows Himself to everyone
> at
> every time and in every place but unregenerate people hate this
> knowledge and exchange it for a lie, etc. Romans 1:18-32.  Now, they
> can
> never fully repress this data because the existence of themselves and
> everything else show forth their maker, He who is existence itself:,
> God.  So, the world erects false wisdoms to insulate out the
> awareness
> of the true God and the world erects false gods in the place of the
> true
> God. Which is why unregenerate people have FALSE knowledge of God
> versus
> regenerate people having true knowledge of God when they have
> propositional knowledge of God that is true to the Scripture and to
> the
> God of Scripture and when with this propositional knowledge there is
> the
> living and on-going dynamic interactive relationship with God going
> on.....where propositional understanding is always being modified and
> corrected in the light of the actual interactive experience of
> God....where it is clear that knowledge of god as objective is always
> being developed, corrected By Him as He communicates, simultaneously
> on-going knowledge of Himself and us in our prayer-conversational
> life
> with Him and in all the providential circumstances that He
> unceasingly
> provides in every situation that he has us in and which he gradually
> teaches to pay attention to and to begin to increase our on-going
> awarenss of Him and how, as pagan poets said Acts 17: "in Him, we
> live,
> move, and have our being."  We are enveloped by Him who gives us the
> power to be and to continue to be and gives us existential space
> where
> we, once regenerated, begin with the understanding and sight and
> hearing
> that He provides, 1 John 5:20, Deuteronomy 29:4 to have a true
> knowledge
> of Him and of ours selves.  There is much here to learn from
> Scripture,
> from Calvin, from the early Methodist, John Fletcher who wrote a
> book on
> the Spiritual senses that was so good the modern Calvinist,
> Lloyd-Jones
> wrote a preface to the paperback version!  Secular epistemology will
> not
> be all that much help here except to provide excellent analyses of
> concepts that are necessary for good work.  Though see William
> Alston on
> "perceiving God."   Note also that what I am hinting at are the
> existential foundations for knowing both God and oneself that God
> provides for His people once they are regenerated!
>
> Peace!
>
> Jon
>
>
>
> This
>
>
> Stephen Shields wrote:
>
> > Chris,
> >
> > You wrote:
> >
> > “I would be interested in Jon's take but I would look at Polanyi
> as an
> >
> > epistemologist even though that was not necessarily his field per
> se.
> > I
> > am not aware of any others who have been influential like Polanyi
> (but
> >
> > there are probably others I am unaware of).  A Christian scholar
> who
> > has
> > incorporated Polanyi's thoughts is Jerry Gill.”
> >
> > From the Mars Hill Audio offering that was mentioned earlier, I
> take
> > it that because Polanyi came into philosophy sort of sideways (from
> > chemistry) that he never was entirely accepted by … many?All? In
> the
> > philosophy field.
> >
> > Regarding Gill, are you referring to
> >
> > The Tacit Mode : Michael Polanyi's Postmodern Philosophy (Suny
> Series
> > in Constructive Postmodern Thought)
> >
> >
> >
>
ttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0791444309/qid=995756559/sr=1-5/ref
=sc_b_5/102-4838640-2787340
> >
> > ?
> >
> > I had put that in my wish list on Amazon some time ago.
> >
> > Prompted by your comment I did a search on Jerry Gill and Polanyi
> in
> > the Web and came up with
> >
> > “A POST-MODERN EPISTEMOLOGY
> >
> > Language, Truth, and Body
> >
> > By Mari Sorri and Jerry Gill
> >
> > Modern philosophy has been predicated on the assumption that
> knowledge
> > is exclusively a function of the mind. Using the insights of
> Maurice
> > Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the
> authors
> > seek to trace out the implications of such a disembodied
> epistemology
> > and critique the subject-object dichotomy that follows from these
> > assumptions.”
> >
> > http://www.mellenpress.com/html/sorrpost.html
> >
> > which looks promising.
> >
> > I’m looking forward at some time in the future to read Polanyi
> more as
> > I continue to study other epistemologists.
> >
> > I would love to see an epistemology that extends beyond the
> objective,
> > beyond the classroom and helps us love God with all within and
> others
> > as ourselves (as we love Him with our mind).I’m certain it’s an
> > achievable philosophical objective.Perhaps we can work on that
> here….
> >
> > Stephen Shields
> >
> > sshields@...
> >
> > http://www.faithmaps.org
> >
> >
> > You can visit the faithmaps Yahoo groups web site to modify your
> > delivery settings and review former messages @
> >
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/faithmaps
> >
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> > email (all emails can be read and responded to at the site above)
> >
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> > faithmaps-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service.

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