...truth...
Truth is not relative. I will say again - truth is not relative. I've heard the arguments, i'll hear them again, but I woke up this morning with truth on my mind; lo and behold! It continues to haunt me today. This is me, putting words to my thoughts...a musing if you will. Please bear with me. And please continue in our other discussions...they are going places.
Today, I see God in truth. Perhaps I am off base, but it seems that when truth is present, so is God. That's to say truth doesnt equal "good" I am sure there are truths that God greatly despises. What I am working towards is that the abstract concept of truth is becoming for me, well...much less abstract. The last couple of days my lit. class has been working on "In Cold Blood" by Truman Copote. Never have I been so affected by a tragic novel in my life. Today in class, i seethed, I boiled, I almost wept with the reality...the tangible reality of the death of this family. It was a family, a true family, a family with feelings, affections, pains, and to give Kirkegaard his due, a history. The truth is, is that this family being a creation of God was snuffed out by a sadistic utterly selfish impulse. No longer will the Father farm, the girl date. The truth of the matter makes our rationale recoil in horror and bewilderment.
I may be getting sick of reducing the concept of truth into a philosophical abstract. We ssuccessfully have done this, and inadvertantly reduced things such as ethics or theology to relativity. It is this limitation of truth that gives creedence to narcacism and a saving gospel that damns...
I wonder if I had ever comprehended the truth of murder before this week. Maybe in glimpses or concepts, but never like this. Can I explain the change? Probably not. But ask yourself, "When was I affected by God?" Was it when I could explain it, understand it? Is God truly God only when we can understand him? But the truth is, is that God's truth...indeed, truth itself is truth even apart of our intellects. What I am saying is this, I am beginning to believe that we can better understand a truth when it affects us to the core of our being; in other words, truth is more clearly seen when I feel it.
The truth for me the last couple of week is this. I am spiritually bored and hurting. I have gotten angry at God and don't feel guilty about it. The world continues, good and bad, salvation and murder. I love you guys. This is truth. And God, he is among us- laughing and mourning, He truly lives with us. Let us begin to understand truth, and in our context here, the truth of God's love as a standard; there are such things as standards, ethically they point towards God and good. Let us not be afraid to feel, perhaps we can see more when we do.
-Beardo-
Today, I see God in truth. Perhaps I am off base, but it seems that when truth is present, so is God. That's to say truth doesnt equal "good" I am sure there are truths that God greatly despises. What I am working towards is that the abstract concept of truth is becoming for me, well...much less abstract. The last couple of days my lit. class has been working on "In Cold Blood" by Truman Copote. Never have I been so affected by a tragic novel in my life. Today in class, i seethed, I boiled, I almost wept with the reality...the tangible reality of the death of this family. It was a family, a true family, a family with feelings, affections, pains, and to give Kirkegaard his due, a history. The truth is, is that this family being a creation of God was snuffed out by a sadistic utterly selfish impulse. No longer will the Father farm, the girl date. The truth of the matter makes our rationale recoil in horror and bewilderment.
I may be getting sick of reducing the concept of truth into a philosophical abstract. We ssuccessfully have done this, and inadvertantly reduced things such as ethics or theology to relativity. It is this limitation of truth that gives creedence to narcacism and a saving gospel that damns...
I wonder if I had ever comprehended the truth of murder before this week. Maybe in glimpses or concepts, but never like this. Can I explain the change? Probably not. But ask yourself, "When was I affected by God?" Was it when I could explain it, understand it? Is God truly God only when we can understand him? But the truth is, is that God's truth...indeed, truth itself is truth even apart of our intellects. What I am saying is this, I am beginning to believe that we can better understand a truth when it affects us to the core of our being; in other words, truth is more clearly seen when I feel it.
The truth for me the last couple of week is this. I am spiritually bored and hurting. I have gotten angry at God and don't feel guilty about it. The world continues, good and bad, salvation and murder. I love you guys. This is truth. And God, he is among us- laughing and mourning, He truly lives with us. Let us begin to understand truth, and in our context here, the truth of God's love as a standard; there are such things as standards, ethically they point towards God and good. Let us not be afraid to feel, perhaps we can see more when we do.
-Beardo-
posted by Mike Beardslee at 3:43 PM
12 Comments:
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Mick, I'll add your link to the site.
Micheal, I share your lament of abstract truth in a different way. I think we abstract the truth of God, the grace and truth that came in Jesus Christ, and he too easily becomes just a doctrinal formula in my head, rather than seeing him as the living and active and in our midst presence of God, and seeing that 'all things' hold together in him. He is our truth, grounded in the reality of heaven and earth, being reconciled to God. That's the hope that we have and cling to, and that all the wrongs that have ever been done will be righted by him. Justice will be served. Maybe not in any way we can understand, but I think that no tear, no heartache, no murder, no cruelty escapes our Lord's attention, and he doesn't just share in our suffering, but he HEALS it. He is not an impotent God.
Beardo, it's gonna take me a while to respond to this, but I'm working on it.
Mr. Beardslee,
I love you like somethin' fierce! Those are some great thoughts. It is too easy, too many times like Eric said, for us to abstract truth and turn them into doctrinal formulas. Unfortunately, I'm guilty of doing that on a weekly basis. You call us back to living truth and feeling truth. Basically, you're calling us back to embracing truth with not just our heads, but our hearts, no matter how scary it can be. Thanks bro'.
Thank you guys, Matt - you have a way of making it simply make sense. I take strengh in that I can comfortably bring stuff like this to you all.
-presently reading on Thoreau...for class- Beardo -
amen.
You eloquence strikes deep, friend. 'Truth is not relative'- what an uncommon thought for us today.
You mentioned the 'tangible reality of the death of the family,' and that the 'truth of the matter makes our rationale recoil in horror and bewilderment.' From where does our horror originate? That one is capable of such an act? The concept of cessation of being? Or perhaps that this too is God's truth.
It makes me ask "how do our emotions interact, depend on or effect truth?"
What strikes me most is something around which you are dancing- truth is tangible. Truth is tangible because God is the truth and God is absolute (then truth is knowable not through our own endeavor but through revelation). Truth is tangible. I don't even know what that means for us. How do we embrace truth and deny our illusions?
This is a really good conversation. I like your final question Michael Barrett, especially in our postmodern confused information overcharged and sometimes spun so we can't trust it world.
You ask
"How do we embrace truth and deny our illusions?"
I don't know if I know that answer, but I take comfort in the fact that it is not I who first embrace truth, but truth (Jesus Christ) embraces me. To do this, he must first destroy my illusions. To bring in a Bonhoefferen concept, the Logos of God destroys my Logos. Experientially and Existentially. The truth does not become relativized, because we don't first individually or even communally look for it, but it finds us (revelation). It does I think get misconstrued and splintered into hundreds of different doctrines and denominations, but I don't think this is Christ's work, but our own. We set up our own doctrines, and they are always based on our own perspectives (postmodernism has recognized this). But the One God who is not the author of confusion reveals himself to us, and his revelation is the same to everyone, if we just listen and wait. I have problems with static revelation (i.e. throught merely scripture or nature) because it is so open to our misinterpretation, but I love Barth and Bonhoeffer (and Dr. K) because they remind us that God doesn't just leave us to figure things out on our own, he comes to us, in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Therefore Paul can say that in the Holy Spirit he has the "mind of Christ." I think this is our hope in the postmodern world.
Sorry if I preach like I got it all figured out. I have thought about this alot, though.
beautiful theology eric
gorgeous, eric.
'truth seeks us' <--reminds me of X-files 'the truth is out there' lol-.
I love you guys.
Eric... your offspring will cling to your every word, but moreso, as a result of your awesomeness, they will cling to Christ's.
In all seriousness though, I needed to hear what you had to say.
What happened to Justin?
Yeah! You guys are going places. All of you even sound like theologians, sometimes I don't understand the big words you use.
I have no new thoughts to add you guys have said it all. Hear this lament by Jars of Clay "Oh my God, can I complain? You take away my firm belief and graft my soul upon Your grief."
I LOVE that song man! LOVE IT! It's just a great album...
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