Peri

Personal is not the same thing as private. Personal means unique to a person as each persons faith is unique to that person. Not everyone has the time or inclination to deconstruct their own faith in this way... though I would say it is worthwhile for everyone who chooses to undertake the endeavour.

Sells

If you are extending the meaning of 'rational' beyond the realm of propositional logic then yes narrative may have its'own logic'.Even so I would regard this as a highly truncated assessment of narrative in general and narrative theology in particular.

Narrative manipulates perspective often with the specific purpose of disrupting conventional, rational perception. It may have 'its own logic' but it need not be rational in the usual sense.Your 'bad story' might be my epiphany. The story of Jesus death on the Cross for example is a story of love not logic.You could, of course, rationalise the story in terms of the sacrifice which confers benefits on others but,as I said before, this interpretation truncates and diminishes the story. In this story the possibility of self sacrifice is a Divine perspective which challenges our perfectly justifiable logic of self-preservation.Through it we might experience the Love of God and find faith.Alternatively we might argue and cogently that to follow Jesus example would lead inexorably to the extinction of Christianity and to what purpose.

Faith 'transcends' reason and cannot be thoroughly explored through the mechanism of reason alone. Trinitarian theology is a classic example of my point. Essentially the stories of God the creator, Jesus the saviour and the Spirit as the immediate presence of the Divine are three separate stories each of which we can accept as truthful but propositional logic simply cannot resolve these three stories taken together. Each of the stories is told by the Church for its constructive and facilitative effect for faith. This is confessional theology and is the proper work of the Church. Attempts to rationalise trinitarian doctrine have largely been counterproductive in terms of nurturing faith and have led to many terrible misconceptions regarding the nature of God and faith

Sells and Pericles,

The Vatican astronomers whom examined Gallileo's telescope had faith in Earth being the centre of the universe, and, moreover Earth, over which Man has domain, is "nature/al" and space [as we know ot today] was "supernatural". The religious astronomers had faith that space was the releam of the supernatural.

Moreover, these guys would not look the telescope saying [based on faith], that any confirmation of other Earths [if you like] would be an illusion of the Devil. Based on the faith the religionists we, can now go to heaven and return safely to nature or alternatively interplanetary travel is an illusion.

As much as it hurts me to advance this thesis I am obliged to say that the Vatican astronomers and others that refused to look through Galileo’s telescope were demonstrating common sense.

In the seventeenth century nobody understood how the telescope worked. It was known from observing terrestrial objects with the telescope of the time that the image was distorted and full of artefacts.

The image was upside down and subject to what we now call spherical and chromatic aberrations. It would be interesting for experts on seventeen century science and optics to comment further on the limitations of the Galileo instrument. I also believe that is was known at the time that Galileo himself had defective vision.

Surely, distrust of the telescope at that time had some justification.

Anti-Green,

Thanks for your comments.

EARTH & SPACE

“The Copernican system displaced the earth from its central position, reduced it to the status of a planet, and wrecked the consoling Aristotelian--and medieval Christian--belief in the contrast between the transcendental, immutable, and eternal heavens, the home of the blest, on the one hand, and the sublunary sphere of the earth, the scene of birth, change, decay, and death on the other. “ - Source: The Renaissance: Its Nature and Origins. Contributors: George Clarke Sellery (1950).

TELESCOPE

Galilleo improved on the faulty Flemish telescope. It was initially used to look at trading vessels returning to port, to view the waterline of the cargo ships. A mercantile rather than a scientific instrument.

The telescope used by Gallileo was a refraction telescope, no inverted image.

My understanding is that Galilleo went blind, while under house arrest after his trial. I don't know whether it was a slow process [starting before the trial] or sudden. Anyway, the astronomers presumably could see okay. The real reason for their reluctance was theistic.

The Church was faced with a similar issue with orbits and epi-cycles, accepting the latter, because the former -if real- would break the crystal! Hailing Stewart from heaven :-)?

Amazing what Christians believe. The Chinese astronomers tries set them straight, but the Church [Jesuits] ignored them.

Waterboy.
I agree that the rationalisation of the story, in this case the passion narrative, has the potential to remove its unsettling aspects from our live and to domesticate it for our purposes. One has only to look at the Medieval theory of atonement to see that that is the case. This is why it is the narrative that is read in church and not any theological treatment of it. However, theology must be written with the narrative as the central concern and the understanding that any such writing will be provisional, like any scientific theory. Preaching may be the impossible task but that does not mean that it is not essential for the Word to go forth into the world. All of this must make sense. We cannot hide in the mystical or the experiential or the apophatic, the Word must be proclaimed as clearly as possible in the knowledge that all has not been said.

I must take issue at your suggestion that the Trinity may be divided into three separate stories with involving the three “persons”. It is the dogma of the church that any act of God involves all three persons simultaneously, otherwise we project pantheism, three gods doing their own thing. The proper name of God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not creator, redeemer, presence. The later is a travesty of Trinitarian theology that produces modalism. I think that Trinity can be understood and that if it is not then it will cease to play a part in the belief of ordinary Christians leavning the Church open to paganism.

That this has been the outcome in Western Christianity is obvious, Arius has won the day. So long as this is the case the Church will be crippled with an inadequate theology and open to the criticisms of the new atheists (which are not that new). The best book I have read on this is Robert Jenson’s “The Triune Identity.”

I tend to use “rationality” simply to mean the rules of logic, as applied to whatever factual premises happen to be on hand. If A is true then B is true. A is true. Therefore, B is true. And so on.

In that sense, I would have thought we were all on common ground, so the "irrational" label is misconceived.

The key difference I see between the theist and the atheist is in how we apprehend the factual premises. The atheists involved in debate tend to insist on empirical proof before they will allow themselves to accept something as a fact. So, if God happens to exist, they will fail to apprehend Him. My fact-apprehending equipment begins with faith in God. It includes the senses, of course, but is not limited to them.

We both use logic with equal enthusiasm. We disagree and argue because we have such different approaches to facts.

We may even be wasting our time. I cannot persuade an empiricist to leave the empiricist box; and they can’t persuade me to jump in and lock myself inside it.

Our time might be better spent putting the issue aside and working out what we agree about and what common action we can take to make the world a little better than it is at present.

Pax,