So Jeff has been posting some interesting stuff on some theology things that he has been studying, and I’ve enjoyed responding, arguing and critiquing other peoples arguements, which I always do because I like to debate things (except no one critiques me back, which kinda sucks because I would like to know where I’m screwing up in my arguement). But a couple of things have nagged me in this discussion, and Lauren hit on one of them in a recent post. My problem is, what good is a word or term that is susposed to define something if we can’t pin down the definition and people go around all willy-nilly making their own definitions for it. For example, besides postmodernism, “free will.” What the hell does that mean? I’ve always taken the most simple definition of free will to be “able to make at least one choice based one ones wishes or desires.” Simple right? I got that from the definition of “free” and “will” and added the “at least one” because I’m kind of a minimalist person when it comes to making definitions for a term from the definition of its parts (and engineering tends to define things by the minimum or maximum amount of info the system or theory can describe). But my parents, for example, would say that “free will” would mean going with my definition only taking out the “at least once” part, and subsituting always. Jeff made his own definitions that focused on responsibility. I’ve heard other stuff to, but the point is, what is the definition of “free will” or any other popularly debated topic. And how do you agree on a definition so you have a basis of arguement. In a theology context we of course go to the Bible for definitions. I was amused by one question Jeff had to answer about sin, and he literally just about quoted scripture because there are a ton of times sin is defined. And as far as I can rememer they all pretty much say about the same thing. But I’ve never seen a good definition hashed out for the word sovereign, and I have no idea what the context of the word was in the Hebrew or Greek from that time period. And “free will” is never even mentioned, so how do I define something like that. What good is debating anything when we can argue what the meaning of the word “is” is in our society today, and how do we keep from getting frustrated. Do we agree on a common source of greater collected knowledge, such as the dictionary, encycolpedia, or wikipedia. Do we go with classical theologians ideas and definitions, or do we go with the modern ones? And in the end, once I’ve agreed on the definition of “free will” (or postmodernism or whatever else I could be discussing) what good does that do me when I walk outside to talk about my life experiences as a Christian with any other marginal or non-christian.
And I stumble on to point two that is bothering me. What good are any of these discussions doing in terms of me growing as a person spiritually, or me reaching other people in an evangelistic effort. When I talk to any non-Christian, they assume we make all our decisions autonomously, so to tell them otherwise, or even admitting to believing otherwise would likely be a very quick conversations stopper. And it would get me labeled pretty quickly in their minds, and put me out of any short term evangelistic opportunities. I’ve been reading a fairly active community on LiveJournal called Challenging God which is populated by militant and close minded atheists, agnostics, pagans, etc., as well as very open minded atheists, agnostic, pagans, etc, and some Christians who also go in both directions sometimes. It is great, it is raw, and if it were discussing politics it would drive me up a wall because it would take far to much stuff as relative which I can’t agree with in politics, but religion, I can stomach that. I have noticed that spouting theology to any of these people would be worthless. Many of them are as read or more read in anti-Christian, and anti-religion skepticism / objectivism type of books than I am of Christian matters. So they know all the arguments against their thinking, and they see themselves as the oppressed religious minority, much like how devote Christians tend to feel oppressed by government and society recently (there was an actual post on this not long ago). I am following this to see some of the opposition I am going to get in Minneapolis on the extreme end of anti-religious people. I want to see inside their heads, know how they think, why they feel how they do, how they arrived at these conclusions. I haven’t posted anything just yet, but that is because I want to have more then rhetoric, more then theology to throw back at the people on there, I want to share myself and how I feel, and why I think what I do, and maybe ask questions to provoke thoughts in others like they are me. That is what theology should be. Not frivolously arguing on the nature of God, how he judges people, and how he does things. But instead we should go more to what Morphew talked about. That is the kind of theology I want to be interested in, something that is biblically built up to inspire me to action. A way to see the world working around me, in me, and God working in that world. I don’t want to get bogged down with fringe edge stuff about what God is thinking, and how he is doing stuff. I want to talk about what he is doing, what it should look like based on the Bible, and what the Bible says about how I can get in the game to work with God. That is what excited me about the “Kingdom Theology”, so maybe I’ll back out of these interesting discussions for a while, and keep reading my “Irresistible Evangelism” book which is providing me with some thought provoking valid ways of doing things to better myself and the message that I feel is important to share. Plus it has some great advice in it about evangelism that actually will work really well just to make you a better a friend if you can put it into practice.
OK, I’m tired now, and I ranted a little long, and I might not like this in the morning, but it was bugging me now, so I felt like I had to write about it. I reserve the right to be too tired, and wrong, but I will decide that more officially in the morning.