I'm thinking I reached an impasse with the fundamentalist fellow. Here's his last message, unedited.
**** Edit. I did edit the post to take out some confusing line breaks that occurred during the cut and past process.
I think I might post my email that the below is a response to in order to provide context.
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Ray said..... It's all about intimacy with God. We are called to have relationship, not a one way relationship, a two way relationship, we talk, then God talks. Knowledge is not only found in books alone, for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom.The above was in response to an email where I explained that I wasn't sure that he understood the difference between subjective and objective reality. I kind of think that's important if you're gonna blog about 'absolutes' and 'truth'.
If you get close enough to God, God will reveal what is truth and what is not, everything can't be proven or disproved with the bible. I feel blessed to have this gift, you can'prove I don't have it, anymore than and I can prove I do, so I guess we will leave it at that.
I don't believe in in post modernism or relativism. It takes faith out of the equation, not t mention truth. These seem to be our fundamentaldifferences, where we can not agree. Emergent does not seem have eyes and ears to hear, spiritually that is. Now more than ever I am convinced of
this.
There is so much more than the graphe alone, the rhema word of God can teach you too. And guide you in ways the bible can't. Holy Spirit can be a GPS if you get close to him. The bible can't tell you whether to turn right or left at the light.
Sorry I can't think in terms of objective reality, because I don'believe in it. And don't tell me it's there whether I believe it or not. To me it's not. That Brother Parick, is a matter of faith. To me imposing your theory of objectivity on our dialog is just polite rational way of trying to beat my faith down, which I'm sure you don't mean to do.
No one can take away what God has spoke to me, you see, I know, that I know, that I know, for the Holy Spirit is my teacher. This has been enlightening though, to peer inside the mind of emergent has been interesting. I feel your arguments over rationalize everything. It makes me wonder how you came to faith in the first place?
And sorry Patrick, I don't buy into your objective reality theory any more that you buy into my beliefs on on the experiential realm. Maybe you don't understand how it works? If you had ever had any similar experiences as I have had, we would be in agreement. The battle has always been with the haves, and have nots since the day of Pentecost. So I guess your right about having honest dialog (shrugs) : ) How can we if we don't believe each other?
It looks to me like emergent has to see with the natural eyes in order to believe anything, even then it may not be real. Defining truths in subjective vs. objective terms is poppycock, nope, it's done through the Holy Spirit. I will stick with my little fundamentalist magic decoder ring, I guess some kids get in their cereal boxes, and others don't : ) I am praying really hard that God will fill you to apostolic proportions, this is the only way that the error in emergent will be revealed to you.
So, apparently reality is subjective, but what he tells me is supposed to carry more weight than just being his opinion. Not quite sure how that is even possible. It's a bit like saying that language is useless for conveying information. Saying it requires the assumption that it is not true.
Maybe I'll get back to blogging now. :)
2 comments:
I know the difference between objective and subjective it can still be a matter of opinion though as to what is obvious and factual and what is perceived as fact. This is all I meant to relay. I did not say there is no such thing, just that I don't beleive in in this system.
This is because people can twist things and make them look as if they are there when they are not, like a magician does with illusion people do with words. Listen to Doug Pagitt or Brian Mclaren and you can see what I mean. By making up new rules to interpretation, they can say what ever they what by whittling square pegs into round holes. YTou might want to read the truh wars by John MacArthur.
To quote someone I know, "objectivity vs. subjectivity is emergent hogwash"!!!
And...
"Sorry I can't think in terms of objective reality, because I don'believe in it. And don't tell me it's there whether I believe it or not. To me it's not. "
And...
"Defining truths in subjective vs. objective terms is poppycock, nope, it's done through the Holy Spirit."
Welcome to the information age, when what you type exists even after you type it.
Ray you still don't understand the terms. You're mixing epistimology (how things are known) with ontology (how things are).
If there is no objective reality then there is no where for you to stand and offer correction to anyone else. If there is no objective truth then all you have is your opinion. You don't have something to point at and say it is true even if other people don't agree with it.
Until you can understand the terms and use them in a logically consistent way there is no way for us to have meaningful dialogue. I don't really think you'll ever do that because making a point of understanding the difference and being consistent on it will cause a major change in the way you see the world, and I don't think you want that or think it is necessary.
Let it go.
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