Biblical Critical Theory
The self-justifying myth of the ideology of autonomy is that the only alternative to autonomous self-sufficiency is a groveling and passive heteronomous fatalism: define your own reality, or be walked all over by others who define you into theirs. But it is these two complicit and mutually dependent options of assertion and passivity, autonomy and
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Human beings are in a bartering relationship with the gods: first I offer a sacrifice that the god desires, and then I can hope to receive the god's help as a consequence. We trade.
Christopher Watkin • Biblical Critical Theory
Completely antithetical to the Gospel
Both ontology (the existence of things) and axiology (the goodness of things) are equally and inseparably dependent on the divine word.
Christopher Watkin • Biblical Critical Theory
God did not discover but declared the things were good
First, it should present a positive agenda, not just a tool of critique. It will not just analyze contemporary society but provide a vision for its future flourishing and renewal. Second, it will present a challenge to customary and fashionable of thinking. It will not merely take whatever happens to be the current flavor of the month in
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What about digital culture with AI, VR, etc. it feels like we are on the precipice of an entirely new culture and content driven by FYP which I’m confident will not default to biblical engagement?
Evil is found in part of reality, and so the solution to evil is to "avoid, escape from, destroy the evil half, and to welcome, seek, enter and build up the good half."56 In the political sphere, "our picture of the world has safely located all evil outside of us," indeed "the very energy and hatred with which we combat evil proves its exteriority
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Had it not been for the stubborn presence in the Bible of 1 John 4:8 and 16 ("God is love"), I think I would have entitled this section "Ultimate Reality Is Loving." But in the light of John's repeated statement (in case we missed it the first time!), I feel I am selling the Bible short if I do not make the stronger claim: ultimate reality is not
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This chapter is about what God was like before he created the world, a starting point that requires a little explanation. You would be quite within your rights to ask how on earth we can know such a thing. The simple answer is that we on earth can only know because God told us. A surprising amount of material in the Bible concerns the precreation
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One of the crucial pennies to drop in the minds of those who find their way to faith in their adult years is often the realization that, if there really is a God such as the Bible reveals him to be, then he is smarter than I am and his judgement is more reliable than mine: if he and I differ on a matter, and if he is really God and I am really a
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Either God is who He claims to be or I have to be god on my own and we have seen how that goes - not well.
Interesting side thought. This sort of assumes that there MUST be a god, the question is who do we place in the role. Even self-proclaimed agnostics have to have *something* as a god.
Christians, wherever practicable, to use biblical language to describe the world. The Bible's categories of creation, sin, grace, idolatry, and so on are not neutral and interchangeable with other sets of terms; they are particular figures that belong to and provide the rhythm for the Bible's account of reality