Sunday, December 03, 2006

There is no objective point of view

Everyone sees life from a certain point of view. Mankind has tried to step out of this point of view and look at things objectively, and even at times believed that he has accomplished this. But just as a man can try and run from his shadow and can even position himself so that it appears to have disappeared, he only need look behind himself to realize that he has only fooled himself. Our society seems to understand that the objectivity that we thought we gained with the enlightenment was only a mistake. It is funny though that the scientific arena seems not to have got word of the myth of objectivity. They theorize. They study. They test. Then their findings are taught as fact instead of our best understanding of things up to this point. The presentation of their findings, at least as they were taught to me in the course of my education, lacked humility. Their findings and understandings change over the years. Millions change to Billions and back again. Our galaxy of nine planets becomes one of eight over night. Another area of study has closely reproduced this blindness to their own limitedness and subjectivity, namely theology. In seminary I was taught how to read the scriptures in their original languages and then taught what to believe about what they said. The more I read the scriptures for myself the more I realized that there were a great many issues which the seminary had said could only be understood to say "A" which could actually be read to mean "A", "B", "C", "D", or "E" (and probably more that I just couldn't see from my point of view).
Now none of this is to say that there are not things that are objectively true. I believe there are things that are true. I just believe that none of them can be "proven" objectively. All of them must believe by faith. If God does not exist and the world and all that is in it came into being and continues to exist without him, that can not be proven, but only taken on faith. If God did seek to bring people who had alienated themselves from him back to himself by sending his son, that too can not be proven, but only taken on faith. The enlightenment taught us to only believe what we can prove, but as we know now today's rock solid findings are corrected by tomorrows. Some things have more evidence today than others but everything must be accepted on faith.
This shouldn't change that much because underneath it all I believe we know this is true. My dad, an avowed creationist, debates with a friend who is an avowed evolutionist. Both think their arguments are ironclad and should sway the other but in the end neither believes what they do because of the proofs but because they have faith that they are true.
I would like to see the church move in the direction of being more careful about the teachings that it says are absolutely fundamental to calling yourself Christian(fewer of these) and more humble about the conclusions it draws on non-fundamental issues(more of these). I believe this would create an environment that respected freedom of conscious and encouraged thought on difficult issues. As things are, I believe that doctrinal statements tend to scare believers into not thinking deeply about spiritual things. What happens if you study and then realized you weren't sure about the stands the church that you and all your friends attend takes? Will you really choose integrity and lonliness over brushing it under the rug? After all people smarter than you came to these conclusions. If I am even a little right this situation is more likely to create shallow liars than honest deep thinkers.

1 Comments:

At 12/07/2006 12:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you.

 

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