Getting back to an old post of mine, let’s assume:
- The Bible is exactly as God wanted it to be
- God is omniscient
- God had/has perfect foreknowledge
What does this mean?
I think it’s an obvious fact that there are many, many different interpretations of the Bible. Whether you think any particular interpretation is right or wrong does not change the fact that it exists and someone believes it. But God, in his perfect foreknowledge and omniscience must have known that each interpretation that exists would exist. God knew that we’d be confused. And yet the Bible is exactly as he wanted it to be. Now, I’m not talking about a few fringe ideas that go against an overwhelming consensus. If you’re reading, say, The Scarlett Letter in every high school (which still reads this book) I would guess that there would be a lot of agreement on meaning and interpretation with, perhaps, a few radical ideas. Not so with the Bible!
God may be just but he doesn’t seem quite fair. He gives us this book, knowing that some of us will interpret it differently and then (according to some) punishes us when we do. Kinda like the ol’ apple in the garden, heh? Isn’t that entrapment?
So, God must have had a purpose for the ambiguity, the confusion causing verbiage. Was it to test us? Was it to weed out some of us? What possible reason could there be? Furthermore, how can any of us even pretend to have the “right” answer? So many options, so many ideas, so many opinions and the one that appeals to me just happens to be the one and only correct interpretation?
But, hey … just a thought.
I’ve been lightly skimming (no offense intended 
) the Confessing Evangelical‘s posts on Ellul’s What I Believe. But I went back and looked more carefully at The Word That Grips Us and then at the list of Ellul’s other publications on Jesus Radicals. I just want to say a huge “thank you” to John for leading me to Ellul. It looks like fascinating stuff that’s right up my alley and I’m definitely going to read him. Well, I’m definitely going to put him on my stack of books to read. But up near the top! (I’m finding less and less time to read these days.)
Just a comment on The Word That Grips Us …
Ellul’s statement:
The revelation is not for me a matter of mystical contemplation. It is more like what many of us are familiar with; a word suddenly becomes so true to us that we can no longer doubt it.
We know well how astonishing this experience can be. I read in the Bible texts that I have read a hundred times, that I know by heart, that are part of my objective knowledge of the biblical God, and suddenly the word that I know so well intellectually takes on an unexpected significance, a blinding force that constrains me to accept it as truth, as a truth at once comprehensible, irrational, and rigorously certain.
seems to me to be precisely “mystical contemplation.” It immediately evoked images of Zen monks achieving a moment of satori or enlightenment as the master raises a finger or slaps across the face. The “contemplation” part was when Ellul read these passage “hundreds of times” and committed them to memory. And the revelation is when you suddenly see what you’ve been staring at. You see it in a totally different from; from a new angle; with “fresh eyes.” It’s been there the whole time but something in you has changed so that you really see.
Now, I don’t know Ellul and of course I can’t speak for him. If he does not consider this as “mystical contemplation” then it’s not. I just can’t help but notice the similarity.
Recent Comments