Other religions!

We are often asked about 'other religions' with respect to either 'salvation' (however this is conceived in made-up religions) or moral performance: being a 'good' person (notwithstanding that Yeshua has pointed out that no one is good but Yahweh). 

Our reflex is to attempt to discuss the exclusivity of Christ, but often without knowing to start with him being Creator (Colossians 1:13-17ff).

Another way to approach this question is to have a 'grid' by which to talk about the other religion in terms of its structure of reality.

This grid has 3 elements, or dimensions of consideration for any religion:

The centre or 'What/who is god?'

This is the religion's 'centre', generally it is expressed in its conception of deity: for instance is it personal, or localized in a person who might or might not exhaust the deity (thus, Jesus localizes deity, but does not exhaust it). Is the deity communicative: is the communication propositional and thus congruent with our propositional capacity? Is the deity non-propositional, or non-pesronal, such as would be typical of Eastern religions. or even non-existent, as in Buddhism?

The deity or 'Where is god?'

Flowing on from the centre of the religion is the characterization or the place of deity. Is god contained by our general ontological framing, or external to it? On the surface, a deity-concept that is 'contained' by the context that 'contains' or grounds us, is within the system that hosts the dilemma of man (man's' dignity and his corruption being the joint bounds of man's experience of life). On the face of it, not a very encouraging conception.

 

Or is the deity outside of our life-world, to borrow a term? That is, outside 'the world'. As an example, the typical ancient pagan gods are within the world and seem to be contingent, much like flawed super-men. Some pagan gods are identical with the world but manifest in 'spirits' of place and dynamics (e.g. weather gods). Where the god is is the foundation, along with the 'centre' for understanding the connection, if any, between god and man.

Discontent and its Resolution

What is the fulcrum by which the resolution of the dilemma of man: or, as some may like to put it the 'problem of evil' (although the 'problem' goes far deeper than the superficiality of its typical expression). Is it the content of man's actions or is it external to man's actions?

 

This may obviously be a question that springs from the Bible; a Judaeo-Christian question, but still worthwhile: does man 'save' himself?. Does the cosmos 'save' him - or bury him, as in popular atheism?. Does the deity who is still within the 'system' 'save' him, but then, how? Or is saving, or the means of resolution of the dilemma, from without the 'system'?If it is not external to the system, then it must explain how a profoundly corrupted whole system can in any way be the source of the dilemma that is created within and configured by that very system.

Man's connection with reality

How is man connected to the external reality in his full personhood: How does the religion connect man's inherent telos (we cannot but think of the future in some way, as the future is always there as the next thing to do and every next thing subsequently in pursuit of our ambitions) with his contingent state? This is about purpose and its ground. How does man's life revolve about what does not exist: the future and his ambitions for it.

And then, what is the character of man's dilemma the tragedy of his greatness and his foulness which dogs us all and is inescapable historically and existentially.

 

No final answer can come from within the creation, from a non-person, and without relationship, connection and a basis in the real. Denial of the real, which some religions use as their ontological escape hatch, is a vain option.

The world thus connected to

What is the world that we can make sense of it in some way, or us in the world who want to and seek to make sense of it: of our relationships, of our whole 'life-world' (a useful term without wanting to import all of Husserl's ideas and those he influenced)? 

Where does our interaction come from, what is it, and how do we think we can trust it?

The start of analysis of how other religions deal with the concrete facts of the dilemma and its existential tensions is set in this grid that seeks the structure of other religions on these three pivots.It provides a starting point for inquiry and perhaps creates a path for coming to grips with the nature of the 'program' of the religion under consideration.

 

Or in other words

In brief we might inquire into:

• What is God?
• Where is God?
• Who is man?
• Why is man?
• What is the problem?
• Why is the problem?
• What is the solution?
• Why would we care?

See another way of putting this.

Chance based on chance

I came across an old debate of WL Craig's on science and Christian faith.

In the debate Rosenberg completely misunderstands Christian faith, confusing it with animism at best, rather than giving the basis for a rational world view deriving from the direct rational source of creation in propositional information: God thinks of it, speaks it and it happens. What happens is directly related to the words spoken opening up the creation to propositional access.

As an intended creation, propositionally exposed to us, it is accessible to propositional inquiry: we can keep asking and exploring to find out what it is with no limits.

Schaeffer in The God Who Is There in the section on Musique Concrete reports an example of such:

"...The voice is first built up out of chance sounds, reflecting modern man's view that man who verbalizes arose by chance in a chance universe with only a future of chance ahead of him."

Chance here means irrationally, without reason, and so inexplorable and unfathomable. Finally without coherence and epistemologically void.

This is the world, finally ungrounded, the world that Rosenberg unwittingly seeks to build science upon. But his world, the world of mere material with random and informationless interactions, is only the basis for non-science, for the animism that he ironically thinks represents Christianity. Why would science want to explore anything...it's all chance; there is no rhyme or reason! 

But the Genesis creation account shows us that the creation, the cosmos is full of reason and knowledge..there to be found for man-in-God's-image. Not a stranger in the world, not an alien, but its vicegerent.

Incidentally, Rosenberg's dilemma lies at the heart of the fatal contradiction of theistic evolution: that the God who speaks, didn't in fact speak, but somehow worked into a non-speaking cosmos that denies on its own nature any system of information and 'just happens', undermining any basis for a rational epistemology.

The Bible as literature and history

A recent sermon was on the robust trustworthiness of the Bible.

Only so much (or so little!) can be said in the normal 20 minutes we compress sermons into these days, but the idea was good.

It might also be the basis of attracting non-church-goers who are interested in the Bible as a book. There are probably few, but there could be some, particularly contacts of church members.

Now, few non-church people would want to attend a church gathering (service), so any presentation and discussion would need to be a separate event: maybe a series of, say, three 2 hour sessions, including relevant refreshments (coffee and supper/morning coffee/afternoon tea).

The series would look at the structure, of the Bible, its historical books and general historical  flow, its view of man and history, the nature of its literature and text.

It could include relevant videos on archeology, manuscripts, historical connections, and the logic of the 'story of reality' presented by the Bible.

Even if no outsiders attended, it would be useful equipping for church-goers, many of whom, I'd be sure, have uncertain views of the Bible as literature, history, and overall thematic development.

Schaeffer's ontology and Genesis days

From  The God Who is There  - end of chapter 2

God has created a real, external world. It is not an extension of His (sic) essence. That real, external world exists. God has also created man as a real, personal being, and he possesses a "mannishness" from which he can never escape. On the basis of their own world-view often these experience-seekers are neither sure the external world is there, nor that man as man is there. But I have come to the conclusion that despite their intellectual doubts, many of them *have had* a true experience of the reality of the external world that exists, and/or the "mannishness" that exists. They can do this precisely because this is how God has made man, in His own image, able to experience the real world and man's "mannishness." Thus they have hit upon something which exists, and it is neither nothing, nor is it God. We might sum up this third alternative by saying that when they experience the "redness" of the rose, they are having the experience of the external world, as is the farmer who plows (sic) his field. They are both touching the world that is.

My comment

The days of Genesis 1 (which Schaeffer claims in his Genesis in Time and Space, are unimportant) underscore the external objective reality of the cosmos and our experience of it and within it.

God speaks and rationally related events follow that are congruent with the propositional word. Each event, and the events as a set are separate from God, but also real.

We can experience the reality as it is mediated in the 'days' -- the space-time -- of our normal experience of life in the objective world. The days of action overlap with our days of experience of the results of the communicative action by God and place our experience in the same domain as which God is active in creating.

Yet our experience is also subjectively but genuinely substantiated as we are real persons with objective existence in the objective created world separate from God: it is a world in which we can really know real things and represent them in meaningful propositions (created by word on God's part, understood by word on our part: this provides the basis for empirical inquiry of the created world).

We are linked to the external world and its objectivity by God's communication to us of 'imageness' which gives us genuine 'mannishness', to use Schaeffer's term, and real experience of the real external world. The link is grounded by the days of genesian action that place it objectively in the same days our history is denominated by, and separate it from God, while showing God is active, present and communicative in that domain by which his domain overlaps our domain he thus created by his word.