A Little More Light - Part 1

[i][ii]

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord….  Isaiah 1:18a(KJV)

Albert Outler was a Methodist scholar who, in 1964 first coined the phrase Wesleyan Quadrilateral.  He understood John Wesley to have a system of understanding God through four connected sources available to humans, Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience.  Of the Wesleyan tribe, the United Methodist Church is one descendant that still (in various degrees) holds to this theological approach, which is laid-out quite clearly in its book of faith and practice, The Discipline:

Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason. Scripture [however] is primary, revealing the Word of God 'so far as it is necessary for our salvation.[iii]

For the next few days I’d like for us to talk about these as a means of doing theology…the human activity of thinking about God.  And, while Scripture is primary (supreme in Wesley’s words), we begin today with Reason.

The “founding fathers” of this nation were men of strong reason.  Among the most respected was James Madison.  Although a man of genuine belief in God, and a man who painstakingly applied himself to conforming his life to integrity, morality, and obedience to Godly principles, Madison’s intellectual prowess sometimes stood as a roadblock to accepting that there is something beyond human reason upon which we must count for interpreting Scripture, the words of God.  It was not until later in life James Madison finally came to accept the fact that reason, if rested firmly in faith, and without doubt in Scripture, would be vivified in experience, and validate conforming to the tradition of the church.  In other words, it would all fit together!

In a letter to his good friend David Hume, Madison wrote:

Reason can only take us so far – it is mystery arising from the darkness of the human sight.

Hume replied:

The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery.[iv]

In doing theology, thinking about God, Madison and Hume understood correctly that life’s mystery is chiefly not “understandable” merely in the human capacity to explore our human social environment, evident life, and this universe.  Without revelation from God, (or mystery) human reasoning has earth-bound limitations.

So, what is the importance of reasoning?  In concert with human personal experience (the whole of humanity, not just one or a few individuals), and tradition of the church (doctrine concerning God), reasons’ task and possibility is to respond to the faith God places within each of us in examining the culture in which we find ourselves.  Given that, reason helps us apply God’s truth to bending that culture back to God.  It is Godly reason, informed by tradition and experience with which we evangelize our environment.  Reason, born of faith, sheds a little more light on our purpose (loving God and each other), and the pathway of the journey towards our eternal home.

For You Today

Letting God shed light on your reasoning…that’s reasonable!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[iii] United Methodist Church (2004). The book of discipline of the United Methodist Church. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press. p.77

[iv] Lynne Cheney, James Madison, a Life Reconsidered, (New York, Viking Press, 2014), p.43

Meditating on Miracles

[1]

Friday, January 18, 2019

I will exalt you, my God and King, and praise your name forever and ever.  I will praise you every day; yes, I will praise you forever.  Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!  No one can measure his greatness.  Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power.  I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor and your wonderful miracles.  Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue; I will proclaim your greatness.  Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness; they will sing with joy about your righteousness.   Psalm 145:1-7(NLT)

Every now and then I read something that pushes back against my long and closely-held beliefs.  It’s not a bad thing to touch base with why you believe something, and not something else.  That gives you the opportunity to have your heart reassured that the anchor is still there.  Or, it gives you ample reason to reexamine something you may be questioning.  Either way, it is not wrong to use reason to work out your salvation with fear and trembling (as Scripture[2] urges). 

This is very Wesleyan, part of the Quadrilateral’s methodology to determine how we shall interpret a Godly approach to life.  Scripture is our keystone, the bedrock authority, and it is supplemented with reason, experience, and tradition of the church.  By “supplement” we strongly mean just that.  Scripture is God’s Word; reason, experience, and tradition are human thought.  Considering the nature of God (who does not lie or make mistakes), and humans (who frequently lie, especially in any branch of government, and make huge, stupid mistakes), it is a good practice to have a bedrock belief that, when your thoughts contradict God’s Word, the default ought to place faith in what God has declared, rather than human imagination.

I love reading about the founding fathers of our nation, particularly the presidents.  I’m currently reading a huge volume on James Madison, who, as a young man, was instrumental in constructing the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  His was a brilliant mind, and although quiet by nature, had such a discipline and studious way about him, that he steered the Constitutional Convention and subsequent First Congress through the ratification process to successfully unite the states from 13 nearly separate countries into what we now enjoy as a strong and vital federally-governed, constitutional republic.

James Madison’s good friend and Revolutionary-era ally was Thomas Jefferson.  Their friendship included many brilliant discussions on freedom, government, and life in general.  Among the views they shared was a distinct unbelief when it came to the supernatural or miraculous.  It is a commonly held piece of history that Jefferson created his own “Bible” by cutting out favorite passages of the New Testament which depicted or explained the morals and exemplary character of Jesus and pasting them together in a notebook.  It is usually called The Jefferson Bible, and it has no trace of anything supernatural.

One author expressed it this way:

The most interesting, and disappointing, aspect of the Thomas Jefferson Bible is the fact that, as a naturalist, Thomas Jefferson did not believe in the supernatural. He therefore removed virtually all the miraculous events recorded in the Gospels. While some references to angels, heaven, hell, and a future eternal life remain, the accounts of Jesus’ miracles, allusions to the deity of Christ, and the story of Jesus’ resurrection are absent.[3]

The resurrection? Mr. Jefferson; Mr. Madison…REALLY?  From a purely theological basis, what part of Christianity makes any sense whatsoever without the resurrection of Christ?  Yet, Jefferson (and his close friend Madison) did not think supernatural events, being unexplained by natural science, were worthy of holding close.  But Christianity is entirely faith-based.  Scripture[4] declares that we walk (live in Christ) by faith, not by sight.  You do not need the brilliant mind of a Jefferson or Madison to have faith in Jesus from the virgin birth to the resurrection; just a little humble trust in God.

For You Today

With all due respects to our founding fathers, if all Jesus was is summed up in his morals and ethics, how is he the savior of our souls?  Have a little faith, Thomas!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com

[2] Philippians 2:12

[3] Darrell L. Bock, Rediscovering the Real Lost Gospel (quoted on GotQuestions.com)

[4] 2 Corinthians 5:7