Rant: Object Oriented Faith
I have no faith in the sovereignty of God, nor in the love of God, nor in the power of God. No these are things attributes of God. I have faith in God WHO IS sovereign, love, and all-powerful.
Having faith in an attribute is like having faith in the explosiveness of Michael Jordan's fast-twitch muscles in his two legs for a last second shot. We as fans do not have faith in the attribute, but in the person. If that's just silly for something pretty trivial like basketball, imagine what it's like for our walk and relationship with God.
Where does this OOF (Object-Oriented Faith) come from? I would say our lust of knowledge. Some would say it is a product of Western thinking, but I think it goes beyond and before that. How about the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
But let's just look at knowledge. Why is it so important? We're talking head knowledge here, gnosis, not the personal abiding epignosis. I would think because of the issue of control. See the really subtle thing about knowledge is that once it is inside your head, once something is understood, this ownership idea shows up. And it is this that wreaks a great deal of havoc. Because with this ownership, there is this idea that one can control and control means effectively manipulate or appease.
Also knowledge can be broken down into manageable pieces -- manageable, what does that mean, ahhhh there is control again. It is from understanding these pieces that we hope to understand God completely. It is like to understand a car you disassemble it. Problem is it doesn't work when disassembled -- you do not have a relationship with the car, but with scattered random pieces. The other issue is at what point do you stop to understand the car fully? Each piece is made up of smaller pieces, and then materials such as polymers and alloys. Why stop there? You wouldn't understand how the pieces work unless you understand their physical properties. But you won't understand physical properties unless you understand chemical properties. And you won't understand chemical properties unless you understand quantum properties. So you see, knowledge (gnosis) can be a seductive thing. And as you deconstruct further and further you are inclined to think you understand things more and more, but you do not see the forest for the trees.
The point is not to necessarily know the nitty gritty functionality of something, or for that matter someone. It is to know THEM (epignosis). I could know (gnosis) my parents better if I had a mapping of their entire bodies' capillary system (each blood vessel), but what would I know? Nothing that's critically important for a relationship, that's for sure.
We must have faith in Him, not attributes of Him, for attributes are categories, squares of the mind. Important though they may be, especially for communication, they are not that which we put our trust in.
Having faith in an attribute is like having faith in the explosiveness of Michael Jordan's fast-twitch muscles in his two legs for a last second shot. We as fans do not have faith in the attribute, but in the person. If that's just silly for something pretty trivial like basketball, imagine what it's like for our walk and relationship with God.
Where does this OOF (Object-Oriented Faith) come from? I would say our lust of knowledge. Some would say it is a product of Western thinking, but I think it goes beyond and before that. How about the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
But let's just look at knowledge. Why is it so important? We're talking head knowledge here, gnosis, not the personal abiding epignosis. I would think because of the issue of control. See the really subtle thing about knowledge is that once it is inside your head, once something is understood, this ownership idea shows up. And it is this that wreaks a great deal of havoc. Because with this ownership, there is this idea that one can control and control means effectively manipulate or appease.
Also knowledge can be broken down into manageable pieces -- manageable, what does that mean, ahhhh there is control again. It is from understanding these pieces that we hope to understand God completely. It is like to understand a car you disassemble it. Problem is it doesn't work when disassembled -- you do not have a relationship with the car, but with scattered random pieces. The other issue is at what point do you stop to understand the car fully? Each piece is made up of smaller pieces, and then materials such as polymers and alloys. Why stop there? You wouldn't understand how the pieces work unless you understand their physical properties. But you won't understand physical properties unless you understand chemical properties. And you won't understand chemical properties unless you understand quantum properties. So you see, knowledge (gnosis) can be a seductive thing. And as you deconstruct further and further you are inclined to think you understand things more and more, but you do not see the forest for the trees.
The point is not to necessarily know the nitty gritty functionality of something, or for that matter someone. It is to know THEM (epignosis). I could know (gnosis) my parents better if I had a mapping of their entire bodies' capillary system (each blood vessel), but what would I know? Nothing that's critically important for a relationship, that's for sure.
We must have faith in Him, not attributes of Him, for attributes are categories, squares of the mind. Important though they may be, especially for communication, they are not that which we put our trust in.
posted by GBT at
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
