A Response to Spong's 'Twelve Points for Reform'

[wil]

You seem to promote that theology should take after natural science in it's paradigm shift, discarding old theories for new ones. But theology is more alike to the social sciences where ancient thoughts can still be as relevant as new thoughts.

Really? And what happenned to Norse, Greek and Roman religions (explanations of how we got here) We know the waters didn't split and half go to the sky and half goto the earth...we know it didn't not rain for the first years of this planet. We know that the world wasn't created in 6 days and man wasn't made first and then the animals later and Adam named them and tried them all trying to find a good helpmeet....and then G!d made woman.

These explanations of creation no longer apply....because of natural science... This is our first book...and this is what many base their religion on. It is time to say "No, that was ancient thought, it was the best they could do at the time.... it is not the best we can do today.

Christianity must stand up and say...yes, this is mythology, or allegory, or metaphor... No G!d did not sit down with Moses and tell him all that...there are children being taught that today! For what? It is almost a form of child abuse.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Really? And what happenned to Norse, Greek and Roman religions (explanations of how we got here) We know the waters didn't split and half go to the sky and half goto the earth...we know it didn't not rain for the first years of this planet. We know that the world wasn't created in 6 days and man wasn't made first and then the animals later and Adam named them and tried them all trying to find a good helpmeet....and then G!d made woman.

You know what, you are good, you don't to learn anything about anything. Good job!

 

[wil]

Explain. I agree with Spong, and am telling you why. Others disagree with Spong and wish to hold what they were taught in elementary school.

 

[wil]

Ok, let us try this... I am in America, where our literalists abound (not knowing this aspect of belief was given up by Christians around the world and only brought back by KKK types to object to slavery and flourished since then)... So let us say Thomas doesn't believe in the 6 days, and you don't ACOT, (I really don't know about you or Aussie on the topic) But starting from the beginning of the Bible.. What is the first thing said about something G!d did that is factual? Not metaphor, not allegory, not a puzzle to be deciphered but actual fact. We know the writers did not know about evolution...or the earth revolving around the Sun, or planetary action, or star formation, or even how water evaporates and rains...

 

[wil]

https://www.catholic.com/tract/adam-eve-and-evolution

https://www.catholic.com/tract/creation-and-genesis

These both work hard to protect the bible, and its sources as true...but. In early (first few hundred years) discourse, discussion and defense they knew 6 days was ridiculous...so they tried to change it to 6,000 (equally ridiculous, with todays knowledge, but not the knowledge of the day)

and then going on to give us choices? Fundamentalists can believe it literally if they wish...or they can believe evolution under the control and hand of G!d either is acceptable... (really? Either is an acceptable understanding? HOW??) Just don't believe it was just evolution and G!d the creator as a spirit entity wasn't involved.

In no way do I think we have evolution or creation nailed... we don't have all the knowledge of how things work...but we do know that Man was not created before the animals (his soul was? one of the apologetics conjecture above) We have a lot to learn about the actual science of creation (the big bang needs help (the hand of G!d?, not) and also about the nuance and particulars of evolution.. we are working toward that knowledge...while dragging the chain and ball of abrahamic religion along...

 

[wil]

This is what is meant by a new way of speaking about G!d.

The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic wand”, Pope Francis has declared.

Speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope made comments which experts said put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

Francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator – arguing instead that they “require it”.

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-9822514.html

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Explain.

It's very simple: I don't think you understand the difference between different forms of sciences. You only use terms uses by natural science, why do you think different terms are used in different disciplines? You agree with Spong, you have this opinion or that. It's irrelevant to me, or how anyone interprets any sacred text. I don't think you understand the difference between different forms of sciences.

What is the first thing said about something G!d did that is factual? Not metaphor, not allegory, not a puzzle to be deciphered but actual fact.

Tell me what is factual in this excerpt from On Liberty.

Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.
The time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be
necessary of the “liberty of the press” as one of the securities against
corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can
now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not
identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and
determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to
hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so of and so trium-
phantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially
insisted on in this place. Though the law of England, on the subject of
the press, is as servile to this day as it was in the time of the Tudors,
there is little danger of its being actually put in force against political
discussion, except during some temporary panic, when fear of insurrec-
tion drives ministers and judges from their propriety;and, speaking
generally, it is not, in constitutional countries, to be apprehended, that
the government, whether completely responsible to the people or not,
will often attempt to control the expression of opinion, except when in
doing so it makes itself the organ of the general intolerance of the pub-
lic. Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with
the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in
agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right
of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their
government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has
no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when
exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to
it. If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person
were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justi-
fied in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no
value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were
simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the in-
jury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar
evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the
human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dis-
sent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is
right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth:
if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer percep-
tion and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

I'm saying that a text can have meaning without messuring the natural world. And I'm saying that even if you know that you have a hard time applying that to theology because I think you are too critical and contrary to Traditions.

 

[Aussie Thoughts]

(I really don't know about you or Aussie on the topic)

How'd I get into this? Not a fan of the rabbit hole. Think I'll stay up here. For the record though, I tend to lean toward Thomas' thinking where Spong is concerned. For me, what we know now as opposed to what we knew then may, in some cases, change our understanding of the word, but in no way does it negate the word. Still applicable, as written.

 

[wil]

How? You stuck your nose in... that is how. Confused as to how that works?

 

[possibility]

First of all, I'm not going to make apologies for interview comments made by Spong nearly two decades ago. There is a distinct difference in my book between his 12 theses and his immediate reaction to comments or questions posed in an interview. I'm not going to defend Spong the man, his ability to debate, or his apparently naive view of African Christianity in the 1990s. I don't see him as a guru or mentor, as my church leader, or as having any superior insight into God. A lot of what he writes or is quoted as saying makes perfect sense to me. Some of it I chalk up to his limited personal perspective and move on.

I am, however, happy to offer my own perspective of why his thesis, as stated, resonates with me.

Point One:
Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

I agree with this because I don't believe that we can effectively 'speak of God' from any fixed, agreed upon definition of 'God' as a 'being'.

Most 'theological God-talk' assumes that an objective definition of 'God' exists, and discussions tend to revolve around, or gravitate back to, discrepancies in our understanding of this 'definition'. From someone whose understanding of 'God' transcends any and all attempts to define it, these discussions appear meaningless.

If it is at all possible to speak of 'God' without insisting on a clear boundary between what it is as opposed to what it isn't, then I think that is where we should begin.

I'll be the first to admit there is a part of me that insists this is impossible. Still, if I'm honest, this is where I am at.

 

[Thomas]

A parting comment:

I'm saying that a text can have meaning without measuring the natural world.

There's a critique of Spong's 'non-theism' here.

It's quite long, but necessarily so, well thought through, and with a mass of interesting ancillary comment detailing the arc of Spong's progression from one who initially expressed an agreement with an holistic Hebrew Biblicalism (and a critique of Greek dualism), to his later stance of rejecting the Bible in its entirety as far as its substance is concerned.

A point of interest for me, and relevant here, is the author shows how Spong has adopted a subjective theological idealism that can be traced back to Bultmann, but in so doing has adopted Bultmann's flawed logic in the interpretation of myth in light of our understandings of the natural sciences. (And his dependence upon the natural sciences as a valid commentary on things outside their sphere of reference.)

The author shows the logical flaw in the argument that you refer to in your discussion here with Wil.

As for Spong's post-theist position:

Taken from the above link — my comments in blue:

Spong suggests that the only pathway to knowledge of God lies in a moment of timeless, pre-linguistic religious experience that cannot be located in either the external world or in propositional statements. That God, as the creator of all things, cannot, or rather does not, act or effect anything in the world. Even prayer is useless. All God can do is reveal Himself in inexpressible subjective experience. Although why an Impersonal Force should choose to do so is not really explained.

This is a move away from transcendence and a move toward interiority because such an experience is in effect an experience of one’s own subjectivity.

Note the distinction between interiority and immanence. In the former, it's the self's subjective sense of self. In the latter, it's the self's subjective sense of The Other — The 'I and Thou'.

It is a small step from arguing that God is only known through the experience of one’s own subjectivity, and identifying that subjectivity in some way with that which it experiences. If God is known in a timeless, experience of the self, might not God be identified in some manner with the self?

Indeed, this is the 'inner self' or 'higher self' — an idea of self borrowed from various sources and which possess no more an empirical foundation in fact than God (or indeed unicorns), and yet has become axiomatic in the 'populist' philosophies, by 'populist' I mean ideologies that critique others yet do not apply that same critical rigour to their own conclusions.

Finally, might not the God identified with the self be lost altogether, except as an affirmation of the self?

Or, once I remove theism from the debate, once I dismiss the 'Thou' from the 'I and Thou' dialectic, I am all that's left to talk about.

One cannot help but think of G. K. Chesterton’s wry observation:
“That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones.”

 

[wil]

Lol...parting comment. You are better than to try for the last word and run away.

The bible means more to Jack than it ever did in his youth, in his studies, in his time as a preacher or when he became a bishop.

First he was drawn in by religion, and simply took all the scholars, preachers, teachers and his religion at face value. Then when he really began to get into it he simply saw the house of cards his belief was built on. As discussed, the same exact thing happened to Bart Ehrman... Bart became an Atheist when the rug was pulled out from under him...as have many...and I believe this is the concern of many, the fear of thinking they lived a life in vain. It is what you express often...If Jesus is not the son of G!d he is just a good speaker and motivator....a Tony Robbins or Jim Rohn if you will. I think Muslims have the same issue with Mohamed...if he isn't the last prophet, all is lost. If G!d isn't some all powerful creator entity...than tis just no where else to go...

Sort of like falling in a dream... you don't die... as feared... you can bounce.

The bible is more to me now than it ever has been in my life. The words and concepts of Jesus are larger and more powerful then they ever... My amazement at what belief in G!d can do is enhanced by not believing in some being.

Religions are losing the intellectuals for this very reason...they provide no parachute, it is either have faith and believe with all your heart your mind and your soul....that which can't be proven... or examine why you feel that way, and the blessing and release of that control.

Worship? Shmereship. Do I worship myself by believing I could be a better person and have access to that better person should I choose?? Not even, the thought makes me chuckle.

 

[possibility]

Thanks, Thomas, for what on first read is a very comprehensive summary of Spong's theology, and some thoughtful commentary from a theologian's perspective. I am interested in rereading this in terms of how I articulate my faith perspective.

I will make two initial observations.

Firstly, the comment that wil makes:

It is what you express often...If Jesus is not the son of G!d he is just a good speaker and motivator.

This appeal to our deepest fears seems to form much of Witt's argument against Spong's theology: if we follow these thoughts through to a logical conclusion, then what we understand to be 'Christianity' is in trouble. Oh no.

My question: is the survival of 'Christianity' as a religion or an institution more important than developing our understanding of this relationship with God? Are we willing to explore the not knowing in search of a better 'knowing', or are we content with the illusion that what we have is the 'best', because it appears to have a solid foundation in words, traditions, rituals, culture, etc, and so, regardless of the example shown by Jesus himself in giving his own life, it's a risk we're just not willing to take?

Secondly, the practice of putting someone into a box and then destroying the box is a magician's trick that appears to be used often in arguments such as this. I'm not well practised in the art of debate or systematic theology, so I have no other way of describing what I observe. In my initial reading of Witt's argument, he has applied several different labels to elements of Spong's theology, and then proceeded to argue against the label as incongruous with Christianity. I'm not sure if that's an argument against Spong's theology.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

wil, stop baiting Tommy, he isn't trying to win an argument but sharing his perspective before leaving it.

My question: is the survival of 'Christianity' as a religion or an institution more important than developing our understanding of this relationship with God? Are we willing to explore the not knowing in search of a better 'knowing', or are we content with the illusion that what we have is the 'best', because it appears to have a solid foundation in words, traditions, rituals, culture, etc, and so, regardless of the example shown by Jesus himself in giving his own life, it's a risk we're just not willing to take?

Isn't this bit grandiose, declaring the death of Christianity because you can't relate to it's theology?
Are you saying that theologians of Christianity that reject Spong live in an illusion?

Poss, I just want to say that I really enjoy you posts but that you will probably not notice because I have a rather contrary nature so my interactions here are always critical and questioning. When it get's too much just ignore me, I don't mind.

 

[wil]

lol, baiting Thomas.... any idea who this thread was pointed at?

Isn't this bit grandiose, declaring the death of Christianity because you can't relate to it's theology?

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

lol, baiting Thomas.... any idea who this thread was pointed at?

View attachment 1741

Oh, ok, if it's on a poster it must be true!

 

[wil]

Oh, ok, if it's on a poster it must be true!

Not a poster, that is a book cover that Jack wrote in 1998...just about 20 years ago...

I provided it, regarding your comment about Possibility's comment regarding the end of Christianity as we know it possibly being inappropriate in a thread about Spong...

Seems on two counts (Spong and the demise of certain faith based beliefs) it is exactly on point in this thread.

And our perceptions and way we relate to a G!d principle are both addressed in this book, as well as the first point in the 12 points of reform we're discussing...

I have a rather contrary nature so my interactions here are always critical and questioning

you dang contrarian, don't be so critical of the possibility

 

[Thomas]

Lol...parting comment. You are better than to try for the last word and run away.

OK. When there's some solid theology and a reasoned dialogue, I'll be inclined to hang around. In the absence of that, I find my interest waning.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

Never said it was inappropriate, I said grandiose. Does Grandiose mean something different in English?
I am dang contrary, as are you wil! And I'm critical of all possibilities and impossibilities, and wils!

 

[Thomas]

Point One:
"Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found."
I agree with this because I don't believe that we can effectively 'speak of God' from any fixed, agreed upon definition of 'God' as a 'being'.

I rather think such a way already exists, and has been central to theological development since about the 5th century.

Apophatic theology.

I suggest this because I think everything you're looking for, and more, is there.

Dionysius (5th century) describes the kataphatic or affirmative way to the divine as the 'way of speech': that we can come to some understanding of the Transcendent by attributing all the perfections of the created order to God as its source. In this sense, we can say "God is Love", "God is Beauty", "God is Good". The apophatic or negative way stresses God's absolute transcendence and unknowability in such a way that we cannot say anything about the divine essence because God is so totally beyond being and therefore beyond knowing — God cannot be perceived by the intellect, but can be conceived by the intellect.

This two-fold path speaks of the immanence and transcendence of God and help us understand the simultaneous truth of both "ways" to God: at he same time as God is immanent, God is also transcendent. At the same time as God is knowable, God is also unknowable. God cannot be thought of as one or the other only — and the statements of one balances the statements of the other.

Dionysius is regarded as the founder of the apophatic tradition, but it's champion was Maximus the Confessor (6thc).

The Book of Revelation 8:1 mentions "the silence of the perpetual choir in heaven."
The silence of the perpetual choir in heaven has mystical connotations, because the heights of mystical experience end in 'darkness', 'silence', 'unknowing', etc.

The term "silence" alludes to the "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12) whose revelation to Elijah on Mount Horeb rejected visionary imagery by affirming a negative theology.

God's appearance to Moses in the burning bush was treated as an apophatic revelation by Gregory of Nyssa (4thc), realizing the fundamental unknowability of God, who says "I am that I am".

Clement of Alexandria (2ndc) was an early proponent of apophatic theology. In Clement's writings the term 'theoria' develops further from a mere intellectual "seeing" toward a spirutal form of contemplation. For Clement, God is transcendent and immanent.

According to Tertullian (2ndc):
"That which is infinite is known only to itself. This it is which gives some notion of God, while yet beyond all our conceptions – our very incapacity of fully grasping Him affords us the idea of what He really is. He is presented to our minds in His transcendent greatness, as at once known and unknown."

Cril of Jerusalem (4thc), in his Catechetical Homilies, states:
"For we explain not what God is but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning Him. For in what concerns God to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge."

Augustine of Hippo explored this idea at a very subjective level ... too many references to choose from.
My favourite is the utterly staggering statement to the catechumenate in Sermon 272. Of the Eucharist, he said: "Be what you see; receive what you are."

In Acts 17, St Paul, speaking to the court of the Areopagus in Athens, makes a reference to an altar-inscription, dedicated to the Unknown God. For Paul, Jesus Christ is this unknown God:
"No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:18)

"And the Father himself who hath sent me, hath given testimony of me: neither have you heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape"
(John 5:37)

One could say that when Christ speaks of God, it is the apophatic God, buut when He speaks of Himself, it is the kataphatic:
"And he that seeth me, seeth him that sent me" (John 12:45)

"Jesus saith to him: Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou, shew us the Father?" (John 14:9).

In Orthodox Christianity apophatic theology is taught as superior to cataphatic theology.

The 4thc Cappadocian Fathers stated a belief in the existence of God, but an existence unlike that of everything else: everything else that exists was created, but the Creator transcends this existence, is uncreated. The essence of God is completely unknowable. Gregory of Nyssa (4thc), John Chrysostom (4thc), Basil the Great (4thc) emphasized the importance of negative theology to an orthodox understanding of God. John of Damascus (c7thc) employed negative theology when he wrote that positive statements about God reveal "not the nature, but the things around the nature."

Eastern Orthodoxy regards positive theology as always inferior to negative theology, which is a step along the way to the superior knowledge attained by negation. This is expressed in the idea that mysticism is the expression of dogmatic theology par excellence.

John Scotus Erigena (9thc) wrote:
"We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything [i.e., "not any created thing"]. Literally God is not, because He transcends being."

Theologians like Meister Eckhart and Saint John of the Cross exemplify some aspects of or tendencies towards the apophatic tradition in the West. The anonymous Cloud of Unknowing and Saint John's Dark Night of the Soul are particularly well known. In 1215 apophatism became the official position of the Catholic Church, which, on the basis of Scripture and church tradition, during the Fourth Lateran Council formulated the following dogma:
"Between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude."

Aquinas (13thc) said:
"God is not absolutely unknowable, and yet it is true that we cannot define Him adequately. But we can conceive and name Him in an "analogical way". The perfections manifested by creatures are in God, not merely nominally (equivoce) but really and positively, since He is their source. Yet, they are not in Him as they are in the creature, with a mere difference of degree, nor even with a mere specific or generic difference (univoce), for there is no common concept including the finite and the Infinite. They are really in Him in a supereminent manner (eminenter) which is wholly incommensurable with their mode of being in creatures. We can conceive and express these perfections only by an analogy; not by an analogy of proportion, for this analogy rests on a participation in a common concept, and, as already said, there is no element common to the finite and the Infinite; but by an analogy of proportionality."

C.S. Lewis, in his book Miracles (1947), advocates the use of negative theology when first thinking about God, in order to cleanse our minds of misconceptions. He goes on to say we must then refill our minds with the truth about God, untainted by mythology, bad analogies or false mind-pictures.

In short, there is a 'way of talking' about God which is exactly what you're looking for. It begins with St Paul: "We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12) and is there in – to my mind – the more luminous: "Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know, that, when he shall appear, we shall be like to him: because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

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