Thanks for the comments, Geoff. They definitely get me thinking, and hopefully doing.

On another note, do you think it’s only American churches, or just human nature in general throughout the church. Just a thought… I agree with what you’re saying but was just thinking about that.

Indeed! Good stuff… And you’re right, so little time!

You know, Barth, Bonhoeffer, etc, were all so good at pointing to the centrality of Christ. What’s been fascinating to me recently is noticing, unfortunately, the way we often define Christ according to who we are (or what we like), rather than using Christ to define ourselves.

I’ve been really thinking about this a lot recently – I am not sure that we should call much of what goes on in American churches today “Christianity”, since Jesus was pretty obvious in the Gospels as to what “following Him” entails… and let’s face it, most of us aren’t doing a very good job of that! (I mean, even on my best days, I’m not really living the way Christ asks!) So, maybe we should say, like Kierkegaard, that we are hopefully “becoming Christians,” rather than actually “being Christians.” I think that sort of honest humility could do us all a world of good.

On another note, I suppose that assertions like F’s lead me to prefer inquiries into epistemology more than anything else. And this is where Plantinga’s epistemology of warrant is somewhat helpful for me. It doesn’t promise any certainty or guaranteed perspective, but just a coherent way to look at how a Christian might look at epistemology after the enlightenment. But back to the point, I like what you said about being “modest in our assertions”. We all need to work on intellectual modesty, me first…. I suppose modesty is part of a good Christian epistemology isn’t it? Further, I think that’s why Barth knew without a shadow of a doubt that the revelation of God in Christ was an essential starting point for the Christian faith. I think that’s a good starting point in apologetics instead of “evidence”–which oftentimes is just tendentious rhetoric. Although there’s probably a place for that too. Consider the gospels and the miracles of Jesus to authenticate himself and his mission. Oh well, so much to discuss and think about, but so little time…

Just to play devil’s advocate a bit – I think Feuerbach’s response to the first point would probably be simply to say something like: You’ve got your premises, I’ve got mine… i.e. it seems like ultimately a debate over two views, neither of which can be logically resolved by logical discussion. Like you said, you either believe Jesus or you don’t.

I think the second point is more interesting, as it points out an apparent logical contradiction in F’s own assertion. In the end, any absolute statement either requires the ability to see the whole perspective from “outside” (God’s eye view), or it really means that the statement is not meant as an absolute statement, but rather as a “this seems so objectively true based upon X that we might as well call it absolute”-statement. And those sorts of statements are typically open to the charge of incoherency.

Of course, that creates a dilemma for many Christians who take it for granted that there is adequate “evidence” for belief in the truth of Jesus’ divinity/resurrection/etc. If no human being has the ability to know the correct status of “more-than” statements, we are all going to have to be a lot more modest in our assertions. And a quick look around should make clear that Christians make a lot of immodest claims! Thankfully, faith still has merit in the midst of inadequate assertions…

I read Feuerbach a little in my undergrad days and heard him quite a bit when Barth bashed him within his Dogmatics. In the end, he’s got some good points but actually misses the point when it comes to how we relate to God and vise versa. You should come to the theology group next week. I think you would have liked it this week…