tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post2556224245336324491..comments2024-03-24T19:55:32.537-05:00Comments on The View from This Seat: Either/OrLKSeathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08860725174433173015noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8355086750486200439.post-40942742625709216692009-11-02T22:42:27.605-06:002009-11-02T22:42:27.605-06:00I have to admit that Kierkegaard bothers me. Bothe...I have to admit that Kierkegaard bothers me. Bothers me the way great writers can. Perhaps if I read him today, instead of decades ago in college, I would be more generous!<br /><br />The core of that bother was in what he called "the leap of faith." That bothered me. Some years later my wife got a book from a friend that had been used at a class in a conservative mega-church. My wife was bothered that her friend read it, and had me check it out. Well, I could see how church elders could misuse "The Normal Christian Life" by Watchman Nee, but I was delighted to find in it my long sought answer to Kierkegaard. Nee said that life was like a biscuit, made to be broken. The woman pouring out her costly jar of ointment on Jesus' feet was the model of Christian faith. I have seen leaps of faith, but I have lived broken biscuits.<br /><br />God speaks in both/and. Man speaks in either/or. We see this in the Old Testament, where God is the source of both good and evil, even as He speaks all those great "ands" in the first chapter of the KJV Genesis. We are the ones dividing up the either/ors so that we can try to understand our world. And then our either/ors lead us into paradox. Why does light behave like both a wave and a particle? Why is Jesus Christ both man and god? Why are our strengths and weaknesses often the same thing? Why did Jesus tell us two completely different messages in the parable of the talents, and why did I get busted for talking about it after Sunday School? OK, the last one is not a paradox, just one of my broken biscuits. And, before I wander off into evolutionary biology, I will call it quits!Craig Dempseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00033176451913108084noreply@blogger.com