tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post9017246662921891297..comments2023-12-15T21:49:46.651+01:00Comments on Pluralist Speaks: A Postliberal Happy Four HundredPluralist (Adrian Worsfold)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01922153724523820866noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-83244165942915382192011-01-08T07:22:22.884+01:002011-01-08T07:22:22.884+01:00"A picture of what human beings are really li..."A picture of what human beings are really like" is a metaphor and cannot be true. What are people "really like?" What is comparison and how does he decide that the scriptures function like a picture?<br /><br />Rowan's rhetoric is vague.<br /><br />How odd that a man who cites Wittgenstein that some people come to religion because of suffering would forget that the later Wittgenstein moved away from the metaphor of language being like a picture.<br /><br />GaryGary Paul Gilberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12941698776126034822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-77754807373168870562011-01-08T07:21:48.225+01:002011-01-08T07:21:48.225+01:00"A picture of what human beings are really li..."A picture of what human beings are really like" is a metaphor and cannot be true. What are people "really like?" What is comparison and how does he decide that the scriptures function like a picture?<br /><br />Rowan's rhetoric is vague.<br /><br />How odd that a man who cites Wittgenstein that some people come to religion because of suffering seems to forget that the later Wittgenstein moved away from the metaphor of language being like a picture!<br /><br />GaryGary Paul Gilberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12941698776126034822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-49130037649800240382011-01-08T07:21:46.056+01:002011-01-08T07:21:46.056+01:00Indeed, as according to the Archbishop, you can ad...Indeed, as according to the Archbishop, you can adopt your own packaged vision...Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold)https://www.blogger.com/profile/01922153724523820866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-75704274184875863282011-01-07T20:19:12.218+01:002011-01-07T20:19:12.218+01:00. . . a picture of what human beings are really li...<i>. . . a picture of what human beings are really like and why they're so unique and precious. . . .</i><br /><br />Yes, each creature is unique, and we're precious to one another -- but all life on planet Earth is one. All life, plant and animal, has common ancestors. Humankind's assumed superiority has got the planet in deep trouble. The big picture we need is one of our place among our fellow organisms.Murdoch Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10584498192562407670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-10246534294043506802011-01-07T06:00:51.903+01:002011-01-07T06:00:51.903+01:00Good analysis, Adrian, of Rowan trying to have his...Good analysis, Adrian, of Rowan trying to have his cake and eat it too! He exaggerates the unity of the church and the happiness of the so-called Anglican family. The everyday reality is fragmentation. He seems to have been taken in by synecdoche, the taking of a part for the whole.<br /><br />Muddling through sounds better than pretending to adhere to a package deal. The tradition, if it is a tradition, has not arrived yet because it has to be obsessively repeated.<br /><br />Gary<br /><br /><br />"A lot of people, though, muddle through. What is wrong with muddling through and asking questions; why not build up your own vision? Because postliberals believe in packages, and usually they are delivered whole, frozen from some past culture, to be performed again and again."Gary Paul Gilberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12941698776126034822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-54766774895140667792011-01-07T02:11:05.330+01:002011-01-07T02:11:05.330+01:00That might be hard to understand. It matters that ...That might be hard to understand. It matters that Barth, seen as a defender of ethical Protestantism, could not with his theology grapple with culture. And objectivity in the world depends on saying something about culture as true. But Williams is no fool, because objectivity is grasped by science and by research, which means that Christianity has to be a story, and occupies a postmodern space. He pushes but he can't push over the boundary. People think Williams is orthodox, but he's sawn off the branch he's sat on. It's all self referential. I remember Cupitt referring to him when Williams was still Bishop of Monmouth.Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold)https://www.blogger.com/profile/01922153724523820866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-70443559764640282522011-01-07T02:07:13.511+01:002011-01-07T02:07:13.511+01:00Yes, but I also read his recent piece given on Ful...Yes, but I also read his recent piece given on Fulcrum, so it's not that I am going by what I think, but by what he has said.<br /><br />Note: Barth's indifference to Germany as it is, says Williams, but the exhilaration that God is God, but then later he says of the need to get away from The Myth of God Incarnate and how he overlaps with and has some criticisms of Radical Orthodoxy. Now some of us know that Barth leads on to postliberalism and this is the Protestant version of Radical Orthodoxy, and my own view is that Williams pushes for objective-like via detail but is still within the grand scheme that Radical Orthodoxy develops.<br /><br />He says: So I do feel some sense of involvement in the history of Radical Orthodoxy; and the enormous stimulus and constant mental stretching that I’ve had from conversations with John Milbank is a big part of my life. I’ve expressed some of my reservations about the project from time to time. Basically, though I think it’s on the right lines.<br /><br />That has consequences because both the Protestant and Catholic versions are non-objective and cannot therefore compare with anything else. That's the logic, and it is why I wrote my recent fantasy Chadderbox as I did when Rowanov Treetri speaks up.Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold)https://www.blogger.com/profile/01922153724523820866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-21974319412467744342011-01-06T23:45:28.199+01:002011-01-06T23:45:28.199+01:00Adrian,
You are a great guy. Widely educated, incr...Adrian,<br />You are a great guy. Widely educated, incredibly intelligent and extremely good at writing.<br />But you tend to believe that every other intelligent person just has to think like you, or they're not intelligent.<br /><br />Yes, Rowan CAN (or could) believe that his belief system is more accurate than others. Easily.<br />Because he's not a relativist and he's not an abstract intellectual like you are.<br />He's a Christian. He lives and breathes within that framework.<br />He has probably had some experiences or intellectual thouhts that, for him, strengthen that way of looking at the world. And he might simply not agree with Karl Barth.<br /><br />You don't have to agree with him. You really don't.<br />But you also don't have to believe that because you find something intellectually impossible, he will too.<br /><br />There isn't a hierarchy of brilliance and logic in which everything you believe has to be shared by every other highly intelligent person.<br /><br />Two highly intelligent and educated people can genuinely have a different view of things.Erika Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01812376497361267014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-32956011213283116852011-01-06T16:31:50.880+01:002011-01-06T16:31:50.880+01:00He cannot believe his is the best, except on some ...He cannot believe his is the best, except on some subjective basis, but that subjective basis itself is denied for one that has more a collective 'language' performance.<br /><br />There is no objective basis for anything to be better in the world than anything else.<br /><br />There is a potential claim to revelation, but the revelation is never open to cultural checking - that is the legacy of Karl Barth.<br /><br />Williams can talk about God in this way but it is a self-referential package in terms of the package and the community that uses it.Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold)https://www.blogger.com/profile/01922153724523820866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5449677811690616608.post-83091587768074848282011-01-06T13:55:02.553+01:002011-01-06T13:55:02.553+01:00"Not when it is a story. You just have vision..."Not when it is a story. You just have visions as packages"<br /><br />I think you misunderstand him. I don't think he's saying that visions are just packages and that all visions are equal (because they're just story). I think he's saying that God's truth is expressed through story, which gives this story more weight than other stories. And which also means that the story isn't irrelevant because it was written 400 years ago or 2000 years ago.<br /><br />And yes, a postliberal can believe (could believe) that his vision is the best. It depends on whether the postliberal has a deep faith or not. Because he'd not be postliberal in some kind of abstract, reference free universe, but he'd be a postliberal Christian embedded in his Christian framework.Erika Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01812376497361267014noreply@blogger.com