In a previous poll, I wanted to know the religious affiliation (or lack thereof) of you, my 3 readers. So that poll question gave "Other" as an option. I found it curious how popular that was, because it tied with "Catholic". I suppose I could have mentioned other religions, but that's dumb. Come to a Christian/Catholic blog, and you ain't gonna find a whole bunch of sympathy for The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever the kids are into these days.
The follow-up poll was:
"Other" means:
A. I will morally preen, pretending we have no biases/distinctives at all.
B. atheist.
C. pagan.
D. agnostic or undecided.
Winning that poll with a whopping 2 votes was "A". If you want the truth, I wanted to offend with that answer. I think of it as the Restorationist answer. It worked. I hope it did make you mad. I hope it gets you thinking about the arbiter/receiver problem, and frankly, if it is even a reasonable supposition that, from a Protestant/Sola Scriptura paradigm, "I am right, and others are wrong". The sheer magnitude of the pluralism, given the same paradigmatic assumptions and tools, gives this problem its weight. Do not mistake me: this is not a plea for unity, except perhaps very indirectly. It is rather like this: "Given that my hermeneutics are neither better nor worse than theirs, AND they also claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, such that I have no real cause to question their sincerity, what does this say theologically and dogmatically about God?" You can create a magisterium of sorts of expertise and scholarship; you can ignore it; you can also vastly oversell both the extent and the basis of the alleged unity. The only other option, besides some combination of these three, is to ask, "What if the premise(s) is/are faulty?" What if the Scripture was never meant to be used in this way?" Yikes. Don't say I didn't warn you.
The follow-up poll was:
"Other" means:
A. I will morally preen, pretending we have no biases/distinctives at all.
B. atheist.
C. pagan.
D. agnostic or undecided.
Winning that poll with a whopping 2 votes was "A". If you want the truth, I wanted to offend with that answer. I think of it as the Restorationist answer. It worked. I hope it did make you mad. I hope it gets you thinking about the arbiter/receiver problem, and frankly, if it is even a reasonable supposition that, from a Protestant/Sola Scriptura paradigm, "I am right, and others are wrong". The sheer magnitude of the pluralism, given the same paradigmatic assumptions and tools, gives this problem its weight. Do not mistake me: this is not a plea for unity, except perhaps very indirectly. It is rather like this: "Given that my hermeneutics are neither better nor worse than theirs, AND they also claim to be guided by the Holy Spirit, such that I have no real cause to question their sincerity, what does this say theologically and dogmatically about God?" You can create a magisterium of sorts of expertise and scholarship; you can ignore it; you can also vastly oversell both the extent and the basis of the alleged unity. The only other option, besides some combination of these three, is to ask, "What if the premise(s) is/are faulty?" What if the Scripture was never meant to be used in this way?" Yikes. Don't say I didn't warn you.
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