the christian logical dialectic (church, preaching, dogma, scripture)

[allen antrim]

I will begin to develop a christian logical dialectic. Dialectic as distinct from a mere opinionated or arbitrary subjectivism.

[nateswift]

Originally Posted by allen antrim

I will begin to develop a christian logical dialectic. Dialectic as distinct from a mere opinionated or arbitrary subjectivism.

I will not hold my breath.

[thrillobyte]

As soon as you join Christian to logical you produce an oxymoron, Moderator cut: deleted

[Fortoggie]

John Wesley, gave four ways to arrive at truth that still makes good sense.
!. Scripture
2. Tradition
3. Experience
4. Reason
All of these approaches lead you to a more comprehensive understanding of truth.

[thrillobyte]

Originally Posted by Pleroo

What is it with the potshots at Christians lately, Thrill? You never struck me as the name-calling type before.

Pleroo, lately I've just come to deplore all the dishonesty, hypocrisy, and outright deliberate bad theology being put out by the Christian Fundamentalist machine operating today. There is no depth to which they will not stoop to keep the status quo (and by extension, their grip on power---and that's all it is to them, POWER, and no concern at all for saving souls no matter what they say otherwise). I don't attack the little church on the corner that believes in fundamentalist values because they have no big $$$'s or power structure to defend like the Big Boys. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and the Christian Fundamentalist corporation is the best example I can think of to demonstrate this principle in play.

It's true and I deplore it.

What's even sadder is that the general Christian population just blindly follow these corrupt individuals without so much as asking a dissenting question. The prevailing attitude is, "If they said it, it has to be true." And that also is deplorable.

[nateswift]

Originally Posted by Fortoggie

John Wesley, gave four ways to arrive at truth that still makes good sense.
!. Scripture
2. Tradition
3. Experience
4. Reason
All of these approaches lead you to a more comprehensive understanding of truth.

Good, if under experience you put the experience of people whom you know to be living in the Way.

[hljc]

You should study the Word of God with Jesus Spirit , and pray in faith for understanding ...Then after Holy Spirit will quicken you ideas which you have heard from the Word of God ......Some people will stand before Kings and Political leaders and Jesus Spirit promises to tell them what to say ..... Instead of mocking the Children of God who Jesus has cleansed , you should bless what Jesus is doing though those People , which will give honor to God .....

[allen antrim]

Hold your breath, one does not need meat like you.

The trinity is logical, as syllogism, that is logic, so that is just too bad, what is is, what can we do? If there is no logic to it, or to the christian, how can one put it into language?

I don't care what Wesley said, what is he to me?

[allen antrim]

Probably ever since human beings could reflect on themselves, they have recognized a problem with knowing. This is even observable in the account of Eve’s conversation with the serpent (Genesis 3). Until they ate the fruit and their eyes were opened (allowing the kind of self-reflection we do after the fall), Eve and Adam did not know that they were naked; in innocence, they knew neither naked nor not naked, evil nor good. Knowing became a form of distinction between two ideas; for Eve, that knowing was in the form of good/evil.

How do we know what we know? Where do we acquire knowing? How is knowing organized? How does the mind know what is not mind? This is of special concern for religion, and in particular Christianity, because God needs to be known, as He is in-and-for-Himself. How does a Christian know God, and how is it possible for the church to communicate about God? Where does it acquire its knowing of God? How do both the Christian and the church know the truth of God? Theology’s “thinking” on this issue eventually led it to wonder how knowledge is even possible at all.

For the Jews in the Old Testament there was a time when there was no distinct political system. Basically they lived in a theocracy, where God managed these people directly through his appointed leaders. This gave the Jews a very religious view of the world; what they accomplished, God was accomplishing through them. In 1 Samuel 8 the Jews demanded a king and rejected divine governance. It is here that a distinction developed between the religious and the political “systems.” Throughout the Old Testament these two systems were many times in conflict, and the prophets warned the people and their leaders of their constant drift away from God as other concerns affected their behavior.

These conflicts arise because, as these two systems separate from each other, each system takes on a different view of the world. If this did not happen, there would be no religious/political distinction. Once the separation happens, careers are possible within these systems, such as priest and king. Once this happens, knowing becomes organized around the differences between these systems, and it becomes possible to have a stream of religious knowing that is different from a stream of political knowing. Antagonism also rises as both systems compete for their interpretation of the world.
I bring this up in order to show that knowing is not some singular stream or collection of facts, but that knowing is organized and categorized into religion, politics, economics, and such like. Each one of these categories or meaning systems develops its own methods for constructing knowing. Each has its own rules for putting together the language that structures up knowing. Each has it sources for developing meaning, and each sets up rules for selecting meaning. In other words, political communications attempt to keep communications political rather than religious; the same with religion. If politics communicates about religion, it must remain in a political context to remain political.

From the human perspective, all knowing is contingent, or one might say, all knowing is not necessarily stable but is subject to change: to be altered, manipulated, made into lies, become errors, die away, and overwhelmed by its sheer abundance. How then is Christian knowing possible at all? God guarantees this (John 14:26), and that is all that need be said as the statement contains it all; however, if we stop at this statement we miss out on how God accomplishes His will.
Here we are not concerned with the process of economic or political knowing, but with the particular knowing of a particular expression of the Christian church. This focus on the Christian, a selection that we make about a particular form of knowing then already excludes many other forms of knowing. A first distinction is drawn between religion/not-religion, a second distinction is drawn in religion between the Christian/not-Christian, as well as a third distinction within the Christian itself with the distinction Reformed/not-Reformed (the form I wish to use), and a final distinction between truth/false. In the next post I will begin to examine theology, preaching, and dogmatics, as derived from the Biblical text, as these are the primary modes for the development of Christian meaning in the form of knowing.

[allen antrim]

The philosopher Hegel wrote that if we are not talking about God, we are wasting our time. Anyone acquainted with his complex thinking will know that by, “talking about God,” he was not implying a stream of “Praise Jesus.” Talk about God reaches into every topic that man talks about, as his philosophical project revealed; however, why would someone say this? Well, God is the creator of everything that is not Him. He is creation’s absolute beginning and its absolute end, its only Sustainer, and as this Creator, He is the Lord of all that is made, and all of creation should praise Him for who He is in-and-for-Himself. All talk should be about God. All talk, however, that the individual Christian and the Church experience is not about God; modern talk divides into the secular and the religious. From the perspective of Theology, secular talk that chooses to go its own way should also be talk about God. That it is not is disobedience on the part of this secular talk.

Not too long ago the main theory for communication was the “transmission model.” This model held communication to be simply composed of a sender and a receiver, similar to a telephone system. This theory, however, was not complex enough to adequately explain communication; a more complex theory was developed by the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, although its theoretical components that he used reached back into antiquity. To account for successful communication, Luhmann’s theory used three parts or moments: information/utterance/understanding. To utter something means that the something must be information (a difference that makes a difference, according to Gregory Bateson); other wise, the utterance is mere babble. One may utter some information, but if there is no understanding by the one hearing the utterance, then communication was not successful. Without understanding, there was an “interaction” between the two, but communication did not happen. For successful communication, there must be information to utter, and then there must be an utterance, and then the one that hears must have an understanding of that utterance of information.

What is interesting about this theory is that utterance is the mediator of information and understanding. Utterance brings the two moments of information and understanding of the communication together. Understanding is the unity of information and utterance and completes the communication. How is this abstract theory related to theology, talk about God (which includes proclamation and preaching), and dogmatics? Well, one can place theology into the information moment, place talk about God into the utterance moment, and place dogmatics into the understanding moment. A significant parallel may also be made with the Trinity. One may place the Father into the theology and information moment, place the Son into the talk about God and utterance moment, and place the Holy Spirit into the dogmatics and understanding moment. This structure may be illustrated by this matrix:

information/utterance/understanding

theology/talk about God/dogmatics

Father/Son/Holy Spirit

Of course, God in His Tri-unity is not a communication theory. God is not our theology; we never capture the Father in our information. We do not talk about God as if our communications are the Word. God is not our dogmatics, as understanding is only from the Holy Spirit. Rather our communications about God are a pointer to this Triune God, and as Trinity, God reveals this about Himself through Himself in His communications with us through His Word, which is Jesus Christ. Even so, there is a miraculous exception: the sermon (preaching as proclamation). Proclamation is distinct from talk about God although it, too, is talk about God. Proclamation strives to change the paltry human endeavor of talking about God into a Divine communication from Jesus himself. When this happens as a proclamation brought about by the free act of God, then perhaps one can say he/she speaks as the Divine.


All communications attempted by the church and those that fall within the Reformed expression attempted by individual Christians and the church are Theology. The Christian never gets away from Theology. By Theology, using the capital “T”, I mean the term that identifies the completed communicative act that must be done in faith and is composed of theology/talk about God/and dogmatics. As Christians we hear many communications. How do we know His voice (John 10: 4-5)? Faith. Only the Theological can be done in faith, which confines to the Church the possibility of this form of communication. "Theology" from outside the church cannot be accomplished successfully, either as communication to the church or to the outside itself, as the outside lacks faith.
Next post I will begin to look at the content of the three moments of the communication of Theology.