Jason Derr's Article, the comments are way down on that page.
More information about theopoetics.
Is Humanity Certainty?
Jason Derr's Article, the comments are way down on that page.
More information about theopoetics.
Callid, what a timely post. I just happened to be reading an old essay from John Cobb where he discusses what Whitehead says about this issue of subjective vs. objective reality:
"Whitehead showed that causality, natural law, and temporality are given, or derivative from what is given, in our subjective experience. So are novelty and freedom, and also the sense of better and worse. He shows that we have nonsensory perception that is more basic than that which is mediated by sense organs. It is in the analysis of this subjective world, excluded by science, that God plays an important role."
This quote from your buddy Tripp Fuller also came to mind:
"grasping at the ungraspable may be the beauty & irony of the religiously committed person"
What a beautiful, poetic sentiment 🙂
While we're sharing pertinent quotes, I'll share a quote from a man who loved to share quotes: Walter Benjamin.
Villemessant, the founder of Le Figaro, characterized the nature of information in a famous formulation. 'To my readers,' he used to say, 'an attic fire in the Latin Quarter is more important than a revolution in Madrid.' This makes strikingly clear that it is no longer intelligence coming from afar, but the information which supplies a handle for what is nearest that gets the readiest hearing. The intelligence that came from afar–whether the spatial kind from foreign countries or the temporal kind of tradition–possessed an authority which gave it validity, even when it was not subject to verification. Information, however, lays claim to prompt verifiability. The prime requirement is that it appear 'understandable in itself.' Often it is no more exact than the intelligence of earlier centuries was. But while the latter was inclined to borrow from the miraculous, it is indispensible for information to sound plausible. Because of this it proves incompatible with the spirit of storytelling. If the art of storytelling has become rare, the dissemination of information has had a decisive share in this state of affairs" (from "The Storyteller" in Illuminations).
I hope my theological endeavors are always something more of "the art of storytelling" than just the "dissemination of information."
Alright all, I've got another related set of thoughts on that here: http://theimageoffish.com/2010/07/15/the-impossible-kingdom/