Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
Aron,
Within the context of this thread, and of the Bible, I think that there is a definite place for logic and reasoning. And there is a place where it fails. There is he place where scripture itself calls to "come reason." And there are the places where there is great mystery that is left as such.
And even where Paul says that there are things hidden in ages past that are now made known, even that was not everything. It was something specific. Lee liked to make each of those things into grand metanarratives. But, for example, the rather grand statement in Colossians 1:27 "the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" is not as revelatory as some might think. First, is the last part referring to the riches or the mystery? (I'm sure that someone who knows Greek well might be able to tell.) But is the statement that follows really about the full mystery of God, or about the entirety of his riches? Probably not. And it is encapsulated in something that has a "known" factor, but is still not fully known or understood. "Christ in you" is something that is at one level simple, yet at another is not so simple.
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Certainly there is a place for logic, for rational thought. I am nothing if not a rational person. But at the same time I realize the limits of my rationality today, much more than 20 years ago, and I am less impressed with people who are so satisfied with their "revelation", however they present it, that they brook no questioning or conversation. And Lee certainly falls in that camp.
We need look no farther than today's newspapers, with wars either raging or simmering in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, and Missouri (?!?), with a large subset of our population either incarcerated or mentally incapacitated, and with millionaire movie stars committing suicide, to know that there are limits on our rationality. Under the veneer of our logic are animal instincts, not always properly tamed. We though Lee had somehow gone beyond all that and was "transformed", now our own logic was limited to "Brother Lee is always right"; but hard experience should have taught him some bounds, and it certainly schooled the rest of us.
"Christ is you" is a mystery which I suspect (barring some phenomenal breakthrough, which I always hold out 'irrational' hope for) that I will spend the rest of my life working on. He said, "It is finished", and it is, but my journey continues nevertheless. That includes my full faculties of rationality, but today I know that it goes deeper. It always goes deeper.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
We sometimes refer to it as complete, yet at others as incomplete, as if we have let him into the foyer and he will slowly move into the rest of the house over the remainder of our lifetime. And in this life, it is a hope. And while hope is not necessarily irrational or incomplete, it is not the same as certainty and complete knowledge. Oh, we are certain — or as certain as a fallen human can be. Yet we have an expectation that we do not understand. All we have is the present, and some notion of what is to come.
But enough on this.
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I think we are saying the same thing. My only difference is in the "enough on this" part. There is never enough on this.