gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz) (06/20/85)
>Personally I do not find it either necessary or desirable to take every >such statement as historical truth. There is a line in one of the >traditional catechisms -- a Presbyterian one, I think -- which >describes the Bible as "the only infallible rule of faith and >practice", and I find that a more helpful approach than trying to take >it as an infallible history or science book. > Chris But an "infallible rule of faith and practice" would necessarily make implicit or explicit statements regarding the (meta)physical state of the world. And, I would think that a "rule of faith" or practice would have to be in some way consistent with the "common sense" of "everyday" affairs of the world. NOT to be in an intellectual state of schizophrenia is what draws a good amount of Fundamentalism into this "literalism" as regards taking the specifics of 1st century cosmology/worldview as THE worldview, as Reality as such, or Reality in itself and not as simply an obsolete pre-scientific interpretive system as would be understood in the Enlightenment tradition. You've got to do alot of theology to rid Christianity of its obsolete metaphysics(cosmology/mythology) and still retain the "essence" (variously defined) of Christianity. The most ambitious attempt in this century (1920's) was the work of Rudolf Bultmann in his project to "Demythologize" the NT by way of Heideggerian existential philosophy. What Bultmann left behind was the specific form of the message (1st century mythology) and retained the content of the message with the emphasis on the event character of preaching and hearing the Word (not unlike Luther). Fundamentalism and Conservative Evangelicals usually do not have access to such modern resources for their theological endeavors and as such they battle against modernity rather than using modernity as does Bultmann in an affirming constructive positive theological manner. Gary