That quote is so far beyind Bosch as to be irrelevant. It would be like me quoting Hugh Hefner on sex as another source…

A He means we should be open to being wrong and corrected.

Q “[I]s he try to say that we should be open to the beliefs of other religions?”

A This is a much better question. He is saying w/i Christianity. Though this is not specific to the quote it is implied, I think by the fact that being open does militate against our own convictions.

 
A I’m not sure how you can even get that possibility from the quote, but anyway – he said – “…never think in mutually exclusive categories of ‘absolute’ and ‘relative.’” and “It is true that we see only in part, but we do see” – Both statements answer your question: No, he is not saying that.

Usually if I have not read the book and have an out of context quote, I do not trash the person… I do something like more research or go and read the quote in context… yet, often if I know the person or how that person sort of thinks of talks I can almost know what they meant…

As far as Truth… I see if you depersonalize it… or objectify it from the Person of Jesus Christ you then cannot have true charity. I often ask, if it is wrong to objectify a woman, why is OK to theologically objectify the Living God?

Truth, which in it contains charity (which is the idea of Love in motion… love in action) only become detached from the very things that make it truth if taken and objectified. Abstract thought could not Live. It could not forgive, it cannot give mercy and administer grace it cannot give justice or can it love… in all this it cannot give charity.

Also, one has the issue that if there is absolute truth, then there are “lesser” truths… which actually then creates the problem of relativism as opposed to the biblical understanding that a truth is true and anything less is a lie. There is no truth that can be more true… it is true or it is a lie… and that is were most emergents stand.

The sin to me is making God an object or worse just an abstract thought… that is Platonist dualism at it’s core…God is the Living God… the One that interacts with creation and is not detached from it. In fact God so interacts with His creation, He loved it so much He sent His Son, to die for it’s redemption. This is not some abstract thought or objective truth, this is the grit and morrow of our faith.

be blessed,
iggy

Whether I will necessarily “detract” or not, I’ll let you decide. I do have some thoughts on what he is saying, though.

–“[T]he real point here is that one should in all research, whether in theology or the natural or social sciences, never think in mutually exclusive categories of “absolute” and “relative.” Our theologies are partial, and they are culturally and socially biased. They may never claim to be absolutes.–

No having the book, I can’t comment on any context to the quote given, so must read it as a stand-alone as it is presented here.

So, I have for the moment a few questions. Is he saying that we cannot claim to know anything absolute about God? For example, consider Jesus’ statement that no one can come to the Father except through Him. As a statement, it has an absolute quality to it. Are we to think that such a sense of absolute-ness is not really what Jesus had in mind?

–We are committed to our understanding of revelation, yet we also maintain a critical distance to that understanding. In other words, we are in principle open to other views, an attitude which does not, however, militate against complete commitment to our own understanding of truth. . . . It is misleading to believe that commitment and a self-critical attitude are mutually exclusive.”–

When he says “we are in principle open to other views”, what does that mean? Does he mean open to different views of non-critical ideas within different Christian circles? Or is he try to say that we should be open to the beliefs of other religions?

I don’t know. Such language does raise some alarm bells in my mind, but that more to find answers then to assume.

Let me give some quotes as well, concerning this embrace of non-certain that I see in Bosch’s comments, from another source, a book called “Beyond the Death of God” and from an essay by someone named Vattimo.

–In Christianity there is a fundamental commitment to freedom. And, to add a bit of scandal, by standing for freedom, this includes freedom from (the idea of) truth. After all, if there really is an objective truth, there will always be someone who is more in possession of it than I and thereby authorized to impose its law obligation on me.–

–As I see it, Christianity is moving in a direction that cannot but lighten and weaken its moral load in favor of its pracrical-moral charity. And not only the weakening of its moral-metaphysical assumptions, but, by this transformation, charity will eventually replace truth.–

That is where I fear such thinking is going–where ‘charity’, or more accurate what some call ‘charity’–replaces truth, because truth required certainty–if I am not certain my beliefs are true, then they are merely opinions.

Joe M,

I realize I did label the author incorrectly, but if you think about it, he posted it on his site and agreed with it, and him bringing that up to discredit me was only a distraction from the point tactic.

As to why I should bang my head against a brick wall…

The conversation really kind of started over at symphony of scripture, where I was commenting on how many discernment sites blow the ‘apostasy’ in the american church way out of proportion and are not speaking from experience. Lane came in and kind of snipped at me a few times (Ben, the site owner was very amicable like usual, however), so I checked out his blog, saw the warren post, watched the vid, and realized he was totally twisting things around. So I thought I’d leave a comment. Well, I guess all I did was to get him to condemn me to hell. I stopped the ‘conversation’ after that. I can only handle so many brick wall head smashings lol.

Igg,

I’m not so insecure in my faith and salvation to actually think I’m a heretic because of some mean guy attacking me illogically. But I was more wondering if I had come off that way, or if he was just in the habit of trashing anyone who disagrees with him (or Chris R for that matter)? I guess not eh? Thanks for checking it out though, I appreciate it brother.

Neil,

Thanks for checking it out. I saw the same things. Warren used a bad metaphor, but he didn’t preach a false Gospel, by the time he got to mentioning the Gospel, it had nothing to do with a normal golf-mulligan. Like I quoted him saying at 2:38 in the video, God offers forgiveness and to have our sins wiped away in Jesus. Yeah…that sounds like a ‘do-over’ to me. Not.

I think Lane is just so caught up in Warren being a heretic in his mind, he’ll never see it any other way. It’s evidenced by how he totally twisted and missed what Warren was saying.

Joe

After reading the comments I saw:
Chris R. call Warren on a bad metaphor
Chris R. point out why that metaphor was bad
[up to this point we all agree]
Chris R. pins the bad metaphor to Warren as if that is what he meant to teach – the supposed second chance.

That is where Chris R. took one step too many. Geesh, if we were all assigned faulty theology for every poorly conceived illustration…

Neil

People who see Culture as determining Interpretation will have a gospel that is always morphing, following man through the eons of time, but never truly dictating to him a Truth which can anchor his soul.

Jeff,

Exactly. The Gospel does “morph” through the eons of time… but by “Gospel” I mean more than just the steps of salvation as it is often reduced, and the morphing is not based on the whims of man.

The examples are plenty: There was a time when the Gospel was used to promote/allow slavery; there was a time when the method of missions was more “make them come in” (using force if necessary) from Luke 14… just to name a couple.

Neil

I went and read a bit of the responses to your rather well written comment… and…

It seems that there is no difference in being hyper- critical on things in which grace to the “other” and being discerning.

I think many try hard to be “Bereans” and seem to miss that it was not to pick apart people, but doctrines. I mean, Paul jumps from metaphor to metaphor-to-metaphor to the point where if strung together, he sound like a mad man! LOL!

I could see the “spirit” from the first thing I read,

(This site was not developed with the intention of drawing a large number of visitors using trivial methods and shallowness. There is rejoicing among the angels of God over even one sinner that repents and believes in Jesus Christ. (Luke 15:10) If, for as long as this site is in existence, only one sinner is lead to repentance and belief with the aid of the material presented here, then the purpose of this site has been served.)

1. I see that he thinks all other blogs get readers by “trivial methods and shallowness” which I think is presumptuous of him.

2. And somehow, his blog is more spiritual as he believes if one read his, rejoicing in heaven will come even if one sinner repents and believes in Jesus.)

Now I do not disagree that Heaven will rejoice… even if it is from reading his blog, but the set up seems rather arrogant…

I recommend staying away from these guys as far as comments, I used to go and comment but it usually ended with “iggy, you are a heretic and a liar and need psychological help”… so I decided they care little for truth as in that very conversation I was defending biblical truth over their modernistic version of “absolute” truth… (That abstract thought is truer than material and truth is somehow separated from the Person of Jesus.)

These people cannot understand truth to simply be true without adding to it! LOL!

Be blessed,
iggy

I am confident that even if I do not go and look over what they stated about you, that you are not a heretic…

iggy