technology wonderous?
First off, some apologies. I started reading "Who Are We?" waiting for
my ride home as the holidays began, and after that, the whole thing
fell by the wayside. I guess not thinking about things doesn't make
them go away after all! I knew that.
Sometimes I can think on my feet. It seems to always be about two
hours after I needed to, and such was the case with my meeting with
Len. Unfortunately, I didn't take notes, but here's what I remember of
the things I needed to deal with:
- the individual-centric nature of my paper recommending against
individualism - some people disagree that we have free will
- the distinction I raised between communism and capitalism despite
GS101 lectures seemingly to the contrary - what happened to the group in Acts
- responses ("I think") along individualistic lines
- something about Soto and Guatemala
Starting with that last one, I was thrown off by that at the beginning.
Soto wrote about Peru (his homeland) in the book I read, and our group
went to Mexico. If that was a test, merely raising my eyebrows
probably didn't convey the right answer.
Working backwards up the list, I think the question had been, how do I
know that all native North Americans didn't go or aren't going to Hell
for lack of belief in God's Son, to which I responded with something
like "I think that wouldn't be fair, given that they didn't have the
opportunity to know about Him at the time." When I said, "I think," I
was actually plagiarising. I don't have many truly and uniquely
original thoughts. This was actually something that can be confirmed
in the Bible, had I thought about it a bit longer. To those who are
given much, much will be expected (parable of the talents), and in
general, God being fair is certainly a repeating theme. That said, I'm
not judging the natives, but in the same way, I don't think the
Europeans should have, either, for the same reason. Paul talks about
judging only within the church anyway. I can't remember how this whole
issue related to the main discussion unfortunately. :|
The early church in Acts doesn't survive in the form it was in, not
because the way they shared all their possessions was unsustainable,
but because God had other plans. He scattered and strengthened the
church via persecution so it would take hold over a wider area and
spread the Word to more people.
I took the wisdom of GS101 into account on the last page in
acknowledging the very point that was brought up. A system where
economics is God looks like the capitalism and communism of the
twentieth century. But a system that doesn't exist, because God alone
is God, is the system seen in Acts. Everyone gave up their possessions
and shared with everyone else as they had need. This I called
"communism" and tried to say so in a footnote. That is, it's a
framework in which the idea of possession is given little value,
whereas in capitalism, the idea of possession is an inalienable right.
What makes the distinction between the two disappear in either case is
that the twentieth century versions see the effects of evil desires
played out. In the USSR, the communism looked like American capitalism
because it was. Possession was still what counted, otherwise there
could be no notion of or reality to giving museumfulls of gifts to
Stalin, for example, or public servants being better off than peasants.
True communism, as I said, can work within legal capitalism, because it
involves giving up rights--but it all depends on the heart.
Free will has been the subject of many debates, so I suppose I should
not have stated it as a fact and used it as a premise without some
argument for it. I simply have never heard a very convincing argument
against it, especially given a Christian framework. Even without one,
though, no system of law, good and evil, reform, or meaningful life can
make sense without some notion of choice, which implies free will. I
know that good and evil I argued from the other direction, so that
would be circular by itself, but I have yet to meet someone who
believes that we have absolutely no free will and acts with absolute
consistency with that belief (never disciplines his/her children or
pets, has hope, thanks anyone, curses anyone, nor attempt to improve
his/her surroundings). At the very least, that we have the illusion of
free will is indisputable, otherwise no language would have the word
"choose" in its dictionary, and for the reason of the other
contradictions given above. Within a Christian framework, then, there
are many examples to support free will, such as God being just in
punishing the Israelites for their poor choices. I think CS Lewis
explained it well when he pointed out that God must logically have
existed outside of space-time to have created it, and although he
created it knowing exactly what kind of world it would be all along
(including all of our choices), so that in the overall, mind-bogglingly
enormous "big picture" of all of Creation He in some sense made our
choices for us, but that in any fair sense, we are still the ones
making our own choices at each moment while God looks on, seeing all
time at once. He said, to watch a man commit a crime is not to make
him commit it. In other words, as far as we, in our limited
perspectives, are concerned, we have free will, and that is enough for
the purpose of theology.
As for the individualism, I should explain in more depth than I had
room for in my paper, but much of it hinges upon what was said in the
previous paragraph. I certainly believe in community and wish our
society was more like those of the ancient world and various societies
around the world today (such as most mediterranean and oriental
cultures); however, people are still autonomous even while they are
members of communities. They choose to stay alive and act within the
boundaries and framework of the communities they are in. Groups work
because they strengthen and are strengthened by their individual
members. It's Paul's familiar body analogy again. However, that was
beyond the scope of my paper in my opinion, which was just to redirect
attention to God where it belonged, rather than trying to save the
world through means that ignore God or are God-optional for the sake of
the paradoxical religious tolerance pushed from so many paths in our
popular and academic culture.
I hope this clarifies my meaning a little bit.
Kev
-----------------------------------
Kevin Field
"In all your ways acknowledge Him."
-----------------------------------
Food for thought:
When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.
When in doubt, tell the truth.
-- Mark Twain
When in doubt, use brute force.
-- Ken Thompson
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