Monday, July 03, 2006

Wise words

“It is prudent, methodologically, to hold back from too hasty a judgment on what is actually possible and what is not within the space-time universe. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in post-enlightenment philosophy, as those who have lived and worked in areas of the world less affected by Hume, Lessing and Troeltsch know quite well. This is not to say that there are not such things as gullibility, credulity, culpable ignorance, and self-deception. Nor is it to deny, what is manifestly true, that the evangelists have written their stories of Jesus, not least their accounts of his extraordinary deeds, in such a way as to make particular theological points, by echoes of the Old Testament, juxtaposition with other stories, highlighting certain elements. Nor, we should stress, is this to say that, if we reject Hume’s stance on miracles, we are bound to embrace a non-Humean worldview in which a (normally absent?) god intervenes in the world in apparently arbitrary and irrational fashion. The appeal for suspension of judgement, then, cannot be used as a Trojan horse for smuggling in an old-fashioned ‘supernaturalist’ worldview under pretence of neutrality”
... are the wise words of who, written where?

8 Comments:

At 7/03/2006 11:56 PM, Anonymous nykänen said...

These are either Küng's words or not.

 
At 7/04/2006 12:02 AM, Anonymous David said...

Nice hedge, Nyk.

 
At 7/04/2006 12:08 AM, Anonymous Chris Tilling said...

Good guess, but ... Nope. It's not Küng.

You so look like a friend of mine from Oxford, David, it is spooky.

 
At 7/04/2006 2:04 AM, Anonymous Jonathan said...

Has to be Tom Wright, in NTPG (or maybe JVG).

 
At 7/04/2006 2:29 AM, Anonymous Jonathan said...

Yes, found it. Funnily enough, I was reading Ch. 13 again today...

 
At 7/04/2006 11:20 AM, Anonymous Chris Tilling said...

Jonathan, you are absoltely right! JVG, Tom Wright. I love that book.

 
At 7/04/2006 8:18 PM, Anonymous ntWrong said...

"god" with a small "g" is rather a giveaway, isn't it? Or do other scholars do the same thing?

Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of Wright's theology, the calibre of his writing is superb.

 
At 7/04/2006 11:55 PM, Anonymous Chris Tilling said...

Good point, Q! That was a bit of a give-away.

 

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