Link-o-licious-ness-ity

July 3, 2008

So I now have a functional internet connection and google reader came up with over 350 posts. Here are my highlights. I really do love some google reader. Read the rest of this entry »

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Whiteheadian Witticisms: The Bible and the Infinite

July 2, 2008

An aside: Our internet and home is dead and should be revived today, so hopefully I can get back to posting more often. For now I must use the coffee house internet (luckily they have the best coffee in town).

A guest of Whitehead mentioned that the English as a people have been so formidable for centuries due to their committed reading of scripture and so Whitehead responds.

“The Bible excels in its suggestion of infinitude.” Suddenly he stood and spoke with passionate intensity, “Here we are with our finite beings and physical senses in the presence of a universe whose possibilities are infinite, and even though we may not apprehend them, those infinite possibilities are actualities.” He remained standing a moment, absorbed in his own thought, then reseating himself continued, “The trouble with the Bible has been its interpreters, who have scaled and whittled down that sense of infinitude into finite and limited concepts, and the first interpreter was the worst, Paul.”

I personally don’t think Paul missed the sense of the infinite, but I can sure think of some of his interpreters who did. None the less, I do think Whitehead’s sentiment is on to something. Within scripture we hear stories about a God who is actively involved in the world and developed a pretty good reputation for recruiting others to participate in God’s redemptive work. When I hear people talk about the famous stories in scripture, like the Exodus or the ministry of Jesus, I find that it lacks the expectation that God is calling them to do something similar, or that God is still up to the same things. If you can take the exodus story and turn it into a story that is really about us being freed from the bondage of sin and not also a call to lead a contemporary exodus with God in our own situations of historical bondage. When we are open to the horizon of the infinite in scripture then we can begin to see that horizon of possibilities in our present.

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Internet Goodies from the Obama-Dobson Spat

June 26, 2008

Dobson gets feisty with Obama’s interpretation of scripture and lost of people blogged on it and I would have but some many of these were good!

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Homebrewed Christianity: Suffering and Meaning with Prof. Bob Mesle (pt.2)

June 25, 2008

Here is the first episode of this discussion, so if you didn’t listen last week check it out first. I am at the beach with my youth group so finding new links to put on the podcast didn’t happen. So here are the ones from last week. I will say two of my adult sponsors and three high school students spent three hours of the ~~late night~~ early morning on the problem of evil at the beach, so after this podcast you can impress your friends at a late night conversation. See you all next week!

This week Dr. Bob Mesle is our guest for part two of a two part discussion of Suffering and Meaning. Dr. Mesle is professor of Philosophy and Religion at Graceland University and author of a number of books including my favorite introduction to Process Theology and also the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. You can download Melse’s article, “Teaching about Suffering and Meaning” from Creative Transformation.

I contacted Dr. Mesle when the internet was abuzz over the NT Wright and Bart Ehrman blog-o-logue on God and problem of evil. They both have published books recently dealing with this issue (here and here).

- Hear more NT Wright

- Melvin Bray, Brian McLaren, Mark Roberts, and Dan (Journeying with those in Exile) on the Blog–logue

- Kim Fabricius from Faith and Theology on theodicy

- John Cobb and David B. Har t

- The best single book on the problem of evil that includes multiple perspctives in dialogue

- James Wood on Theodicy from the New Yorker

Homebrewed Christianity: Suffering and Meaning with Prof. Bob Mesle (pt.2) [42:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Whiteheadian Witticisms:Distinction between Persons and People

June 25, 2008

“Each human being is a more complex structure than any social system to which he belongs. Any particular community life touches only part of the nature of each civilized man. If the man is wholly subordinated to the common life, he is dwarfed…Communities lack the intricacies of human nature…War can protect: it cannot create.“

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Pannenberg - Divine Action pt.2

June 20, 2008

God is not limited to the possibilities of each present determined by the past, but given the ontological priority of the future, the present opens towards the future which has its existence in God. The possibilities for God are then expanded beyond those that inhere in a given present, for God is the definitive future. For Pannenberg, the ontological priority of the future and God’s eternal pre-existence before creation lead him to develop an image of two planes of existence. God’s calling within an event is not in competition with creaturely factors, for God’s activity in both natural events and human history is “not on the same level; hence there can be no rivalry between us” (III, 502). It is then the acts of God’s creatures through which the Creator rules his creation. Read the rest of this entry »

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Whiteheadian Witticisms:The Faith of Liberals and Insight of Professionals

June 19, 2008

Both of these quotes were on the same page in the book and both I think are funny (and dead on).

Whitehead was asked about the decline of faith in American Liberal to which he said, “It turned to social service.”

Whitehead was asked if medical doctors see all of us and he responded, “No! Taken as a whole, I think the professional classes are bad judges outside of their professions.” This made me think of John McCain talking about the economy.

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Pannenberg - Divine Action pt.1

June 19, 2008

The previous discussion of creation Pannenberg’s philosophical argument for the ontological priority of the future was examined, but after the discussion of eschatology it is necessary to return to the topic of divine action and examine his affirmation of the omnipotence of God. For Pannenberg, the examination of divine action cannot be separated from either the goal of creation or the faithfulness of God. Human beings are loved creatures of God and when viewed this way God’s interaction in the movement of existence takes a different shape. God is not understood as the invader of human freedom, but the one who facilitates freedom. Pannenberg states that “every creature is itself an end in God’s work of governance and therefore an end for his world government as well” (II, 53). If the world as a whole is the concern of this governance and each creature within it is of supreme value, then God’s governance must be involved in the “relations of the parts to one another” and not simply equated “with the providence that simply sees to the well-being of individuals in isolation” (II, 53.) Read the rest of this entry »

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Homebrewed Christianity: Suffering and Meaning with Prof. Bob Mesle (pt.1)

June 18, 2008

This week Dr. Bob Mesle is our guest for part one of a two part discussion of Suffering and Meaning. Dr. Mesle is professor of Philosophy and Religion at Graceland University and author of a number of books including my favorite introduction to Process Theology and also the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. You can download Melse’s article, “Teaching about Suffering and Meaning” from Creative Transformation.