Are Eggs Good Or Bad For You?
Posted: Saturday Sep 12th | Author: JohnO | Filed under: Uncategorized | View CommentsJim West is surely going to tell us. Hopefully his point is well taken.
What Is Truth?
Posted: Thursday Sep 10th | Author: JohnO | Filed under: Epistemology | View Comments
Worldview by David K Naugle
I just finished Worldview by David Naugle this past weekend. I needed to finish it before I started reading for classes. Otherwise it would have been too long. I appreciated it for its quick overview of the major philosophers in the modernist and post-modernist movement and their contributions to the topic of worldview. Coming from a non-humanities undergrad degree, and now in a Theology program – these are exactly the kind of books I need to get my feet on some good solid ground in these other topics that I might have learned about otherwise. Now that I’ve actually gotten a chance to digest this stuff – and it has already brought up fruitful conversations and insights – I would figure I’d write about it in the first substantial blog post in nearly a month.
Without going into terrible detail, or a book review – if you’re really interested buy the book for goodness sake, it is worth it – the author seems to conclude that truth is, and must be, contextual. Or at least that is my conclusion, if it is not the author’s. Contextual, meaning contingent on the social and historical construct with which it was presented. As readers of Scripture we should inherently agree with this idea of contextual truth. Reading the creation mythology in Gen 1-11 is precisely this idea at work. It is a theology worked around the cosmology of the time. It is not a theology worked around a cosmology of our time. And to assume the modernist and platonist approach – that is The Enlightenment approach – is to treat it precisely as relating to our own cosmology. It should go without saying that the cosmology of 21st century Westerners is vastly different than that of the Ancient Near Eastern world. To read Genesis as talking about material creation is to make that exact mistake – the modernist mistake. To approach any of the Scriptures as propositional truth meant to be timeless truth, speaking directly towards the heavenly patterns is, again, to make that Enlightenment mistake about epistemology.
Some have accused me of “going soft”, or “losing the faith”, or “becoming post-modern” – and I would say that they have made disparaging comments without understanding the debate whatsoever. Naugle gives us an example of this epistemology of contextual truth in NT Wright’s New Testament and the People of God (the first 300 pages or so). I would say that no one accuses the good Bishop of going soft, losing the faith, or being a post-modernist – though they have accused him on many other topics. He is as Orthodox as they come.
I was incredibly surprised to find that in my very first discussion group it seemed that the group understood the problem behind how to get “at” truth. We seemed to all understand the failure of modernism to get its project to stand on its own two feet. We seemed to all understand the critique of post-modernism about this idea (though we never did talk about the literary critique). I am hopeful for this generation.
Focused Life
Posted: Wednesday Sep 9th | Author: JohnO | Filed under: Uncategorized | View CommentsIn the wake of all the turmoil of moving and starting classes and a new work situation things have subsided. I’m still doing an amazing quantity of things. However, it is incredibly helpful that they are now only two categories. I am either working, or reading. I am working, or doing school work. It vastly simplifies what I can, and cannot do. No more wondering “what am I going to do”. Whichever path is least resistant, or more important at the moment gets done. It does not much matter if it is 8am on a Sunday – I’ll usually be reading. Nor 7pm on Wednesday – I’ll usually be working.
It reminds me of a famous phrase from poetry that I was remind: “eternity is now”. There is no before and after. It is all the same. All is focused. The eternity of my work and reading is always now, it was before, and it will be for some time.
First Day
Posted: Thursday Sep 3rd | Author: JohnO | Filed under: Uncategorized | View CommentsIt is like starting all over again. Sitting in one of those plastic desks. Listening to professors talk. Gladly I am not starting all over again. Since this is my first humanities degree, I could have been. My only saving grace is the amount of work I’ve put in on my own over the last three or four years. So I am happy to report that today, on the first day of class – nothing was surprising.
Crazy Life
Posted: Tuesday Sep 1st | Author: JohnO | Filed under: Uncategorized | View CommentsIn the last week I’ve slept on a foutton, slept on the floor, and biked in the rain two too many times. I’ve gone to my first Red Sox game, and helped several good friends move. I’ve been helped by good friends to move myself as well. As if that weren’t enough, I had orientation for the Masters of Theological Studies degree I am starting.
In the next week I’ll have classes, starting a new situation with work, and a new roommate to get to know. I’ll have colleagues to get to know, and a campus to learn. I will have too many books to read. And I will have gone to my old roommate’s birthday party, and a labor day bbq.
Pardon my absence. Life will not return to normal anytime soon.
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