Christianity is so ... Aporetic

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Christianity is so ... Aporetic

Paul Manata has been posting some wonderful articles at a new blog called Aporetic Christianity. With a philosophical flourish, he lays out the basic values that drive THEOparadox: God's infinite greatness, man's fallenness and finitude - and the pure, holy bafflement which sometimes results when they meet. If I can find a picture of him somewhere, Manata will surely be wearing one of our famous t-shirts soon.

Check out his article about the meaning of "Aporetic" and you will quickly see why.

5 comments:

AnonymousSeptember 16, 2010 at 9:05 PM
Thunks for the plug, Derek. :-)
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THEOparadoxSeptember 16, 2010 at 9:54 PM
Yur wulcome. Love the work you're doing over there. As I told a friend, your opening volleys are almost a point-by-point refutation of Michael Baumann's criticisms against theological paradox in his "Fortress Theology."
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AnonymousSeptember 16, 2010 at 11:08 PM
Derek, that's interesting; mostly because I've never read Baumann's critique! :-)
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proof for godSeptember 23, 2010 at 6:38 PM
PM's blog is new, moreover it is fresh and potent- i already have gained a lot from AC's articles, and like many i'm busy but it is a valuable & frequent read for me - Bookmarked it. blessings.
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THEOparadoxSeptember 23, 2010 at 8:49 PM
Mike,

Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, Paul's got a lot of good stuff to say. Being a deep thinker myself, but not philosophically trained or schooled in the deeper formal logic, it's nice to see someone take what I think are the most logical conclusions and expound them at a deeper level. This is also what I appreciate about James Anderson. Both take logic and human reason seriously (and use it more effectively than most), but take God's Word as the ultimate authority and submit their reason to it. That, in the world of academic rationalism, is a wonderful blessing to behold.

Grace & peace,
Derek
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THEOparadox MISSION Statement:

~To honor God by upholding the authority, inerrancy and sufficiency of His Word, the Bible.
~To help students of the Word to interpret Biblical paradoxes in a way that faithfully reflects God's heart.
~To ignite a devotional flame that will help believers to warm up their theology and burn up their pride.
~To encourage Christian faith by resolving or explaining apparent contradictions in the Scriptures.
~To explore the nature and extent of paradoxes in historically orthodox, Reformed, Biblical theology.

~To provide Biblical resources for those who desire to know God and His Word better.

~To glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, the Friend of sinners and the Savior of the lost.

What is a PARADOX?

A tenet or proposition contrary to received opinion, or seemingly absurd, yet true in fact.

Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 Edition

"... it is synonymous with apparent contradiction. A 'paradox' thus amounts to a set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent. Note that according to this definition, paradoxicality does not entail logical inconsistency per se, but merely the appearance of logical inconsistency."

James Anderson, Paradox in Christian Theology

Wise Words . . .

"By advocating paradox I don't want to give the impression that I'm giving a carte blanche to not think philosophically, to not think deeply, about these doctrines. Quite the opposite. . . . My position is that with each of these doctrines we reflect on them as hard as we can, we penetrate them as best we can based on the Scriptural data that we do have, but we also recognize that there are going to be limits, and that those limits are actually a positive thing and not a reflection of some inherent problem in the doctrines or in the process of theological reflection. . . . I think we can make progress, we can make

considerable progress, in understanding these doctrines and resolving some of the . . . initial difficulties that we have with them, but at the same time recognizing that we're always only going to get so far and when we bump up against the limits of our capacity to formulate them in certain ways or to resolve certain difficulties in them, we

shouldn't be too concerned about that. We certainly shouldn't say, 'Okay, we need to admit that Christians are ultimately irrationalists.' No. We don't need to say that at all. . . . It's a Biblically constrained rationality. It's a middle way between rationalism, of which I think [Gordon H.] Clark was a representative, and irrationalism, of which, to take an example I think the Neo-Orthodox - Karl Barth - would be an example, where you're saying that there are actual contradictions in there. So I think it's navigating a Biblical middle way between these two extremes: having too high a view of the human intellect, and perhaps too low a view of the intellect, of our ability to know the things

of God."

~Dr. James Anderson

Theological Paradoxes

Below I have listed some of the classic theological paradoxes (and a few interesting ironies, too) . . .

~The Trinity - God is One being revealed in three distinct persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
~God is transcendent (separate from His creation) yet immanent (in His creation)
~Omnipresence - God is always present everywhere, yet He sometimes speaks of Himself as "present" in a special way
~The Incarnation - God became a man
~The Virgin Birth - A Jewish virgin gave birth to the Son of God
~The Two Natures of Christ - Jesus is fully (100%) God and fully (100%) man

~The Atonement is sufficient to save every person, but efficient only for those who believe
~God is completely sovereign (in control of everything, everywhere, all the time) yet He is not the author of sin and he uses human choice to accomplish His purposes
~Inspiration of Scripture - The Bible was written by sinful human beings yet it is the inerrant and flawless Word of God
~Divine Revelation - Sinful man cannot comprehend God, yet God reveals Himself to sinful man
~Sanctification - Christians are sinners by nature, but saints by grace
~Suffering - God brings His joy and comfort into our lives through our experiences of pain, disappointment and suffering

There are many others. Paradox is everywhere when we attempt to understand God's ways in a genuinely Biblical way.

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Thursday, September 16, 2010

Christianity is so ... Aporetic

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