Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]"The act of questioning is the point..."
".... And so on and so forth. Augustine is merciless with the text, probing it, comparing it against what we know of the world, searching for the deeper meaning, drawing on the science of the day to understand what it could all possibly mean. Sometimes he arrive ...[text shortened]... to question atheism nor to promote theism; rather to focus on the basic "concept of God". (Pg 1)[/b]
"The act of questioning is the point..."
"* How did God work and grow tired enough to need rest if He has no flesh?" (last sentence of 3/4)
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"And so on and so forth. Augustine is merciless with the text, probing it, comparing it against what we know of the world, searching for the deeper meaning, drawing on the science of the day to understand what it could all possibly mean. Sometimes he arrives at a settled answer, sometimes not. However, the act of faith, the act of the Christian, is taking place in the mere encounter with the scripture as he tries better understand the word of God.
This is what atheists always fail to understand, and they will never understand it as long as they remain mired in a materialistic mindset: in matters of faith, the questions are the point. The book of Job, for example, is a giant howl of outrage that, in the final analysis, is little more than a litany of questions from Job, his friends, and God. Job’s question–”Seriously, God, why me?”–is never answered directly (it’s answered with … more questions!), but he goes away satisfied. It is a riddle with no answer, but the answer becomes unimportant, because in the process of trying understand with our limited human capacity, we find enlightenment.
Perhaps because I was a Platonist before I returned to the Church, this never bothered me at all. I understand that the role of the question is central because it is active: it is the way people encounter each other and form a true relationship that can lead to deeper understanding. The act of questioning is the point. That’s because it’s not an act of raw data mining, stripping the shell from the world in order to get to the nut of truth. It’s because we’re humans, and exist only in relation to one another and to our world and our God. Relation is key. Relationships are questions we ask with every action we take and every decision me make. So is faith." (OP 1/4 in text sequence here)
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"The trinity is defined not as three people hanging about in one essence, but as three relations. Everything exists in relation to someone or something else. Everything.
Faith is a relationship with God. God is a relationship among the three persons of the Trinity. Existence is a relationship among all the creatures and objects and atoms of the material world. Material objects are a relationship among the atoms that comprise them.
And all these relations are understood by asking questions. Naturally, many of these questions have answers. I can express my relationship with my wife by asking how she’s feeling today, and she can answer by saying she’s just fine. In that exchange, my role was asking the question: that was how I expressed my love at that moment. If my question was, however, “Why do you love me?” what answer could she give that would make any real material sense?
There are questions that can have no answer, but we benefit from asking them anyway, or at least from considering them. “Why do you love me?” is something every lover wonders at some point. There’s no decent answer to that question, because often love lies beyond the realm of reason. It’s the one thing the atheists and materialists will never be able to probe and understand, and their deterministic, biochemical solutions are laughable in the face of the sheer power and mystery of love.
And that’s why we’ll never have a concrete answer to the mystery of creation as expressed in Genesis: it was a pure act of unselfish love. It was a pure gift, given in generosity as an expression of a love so vast and endless that it willed all things into being. It’s the puzzle at the heart of existence, and we do well to question it, to ask what it means, to try to make sense of it all. But in order to do that, we need to ask the right questions in a spirit of humility and genuine inquiry. Atheists need to stop asking silly questions about how plants grew before the sun was created, and start asking questions that are truly challenging for both believer and non believer.
You see, creation itself is a giant, complex, ever-renewing answer the most important question of all. It’s a question so profound and so basic to our existence that the answer has to be written across eternity.
The question is “How do I express love?” When we ask that question, our answers may vary. You can say “I love you,” you can give a gift, you can perform some act of love, you can make something, you can sacrifice, even unto death. All human life is bound up in the way we answer that question.
And how does God answer that question? The answer is all around us. We’re looking at it, walking on it, breathing it. Creation. Life. The Universe. Time. Space. Matter. God’s answer to that question was simple and profound: Let there be light. And that light was the life of the world." (4/4)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godandthemachine/2012/08/st-augustine-asking-the-hard-questions-atheists-dont-ask/
"Note: It's unlikely that either atheists or theists will concur with all of Thomas L. McDonald's conclusions. My purpose in presenting his paper is not to question atheism nor to promote theism; rather to focus on the basic "concept of God".
21 Feb '14 23:561 edit
"The act of questioning is the point..."
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