Thought of the day
Back to blogging today, so I wish all of my readers a belated Happy Christmas!
Rather off topic, but I've been thinking quite a bit about atheism recently; here is a thought I just gleaned from Pannenberg:
‘So long as faith in God the Creator holds firm, the question of theodicy can be no real threat to it because this faith also carries with it the conviction that God and his counsels are above all creaturely understanding. Only when we deal with the existence of the Creator as a debatable postulate that we have to support by argument does the problem of theodicy carry a weight that can easily tip the scales in favor of atheism’Pannenberg, Systematic theology, vol. 3, p. 634 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997)
posted by Chris Tilling @ 11:53 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Chris,
I'd be very interested (and probably helped/educated) to read your thoughts on atheism, should you care to post some "preliminary reflections" on this topic soon.
Thanks for such a great blog.
You mean that provided you claim that your beliefs are not open to discussion and debate, then your beliefs are safe?
I have opened a thread on Pannenberg's astonishing statement at Infidels
Although I realise that dialogue is not something which interests many readers of this blog...
Steven, you misunderstand the position being represented by Pan.
Given that God is not an object in teh world like any other, we a re dependent on revelation, and that revelation is only partial. Ergo, by definition, mystery remains. Were it not to remain, it would not be the Christian God we talk about, but some human idol. Does Pann. believe his position is open for debate? Of course! That is why he wrote his books, lectures, invites reponse. That you think this is an 'astonishing statement' means you don't understand theology. BTW, I for one only have time for dialogue here, not on the other wbpage you link to.
Chris, I enjoyed this quote from Pan too. Too often Christians are snookered into placing God as a being among other beings and an object among other objects where there is seemingly little remainder that man can't discern, but that was never the case in the tradition and rightly so.
Hi Plain John!
OK, perhaps I should get some of my thoughts out - but I'm no philosophical theologian, so many of my ponderings may seem rather basic to some.
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