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Post by Josh on May 23, 2011 20:36:35 GMT -8
"Paradox is normally defined as an apparent contradiction, but it might be better construed as an emphasis on two truths at the same time – a way of combining them without distorting or diluting them." -Karl Schmude
Here's a list I'm compiling of paradoxes of the Christian faith for our current series. Perhaps you can help me add to it.
In order to qualify for the list, each paradox must have two ideas which on the surface appear contradictory or at least in tension with each other, but are also at the same time, according to the Christian faith and the Word of God, essential truths, important concepts, or moral imperatives. The two ideas that are juxtaposed cannot ultimately be contradictory according to pure logic, but they may be difficult to harmonize.
Here's the list so far:
Faith/ Knowledge
Suffering for Christ/ The Blessings of Prosperity in Christ
Our free will/ God's predestination
Our work/ God's work
In the world/ Not of the world
Our still current struggle with our sinful nature/ Seeing ourselves as a new creation in Christ
Respecting God's laws/ Living in the freedom of the New Covenant
Pacifism/ Just Warfare
One God/ Three Persons Referred to as God
Jesus as man/ Jesus as God
The Image of God in humanity/ The fallenness of humanity
Experience/ Innocence
Evangelism/ "Social Gospel"
Heart/ Head
Certainty/ Mystery
Spontaneity/ Planning
Individual Responsibility/ Corporate Responsibility
Submission/ Resistance
Subjective Truth/ Objective Truth
The Bible Written by Men/ The Bible as God's Word
God's love/ God's wrath
Exclusivity/ Inclusivity
"Seeker Friendly"/ Not conforming to the Ways of the World
The Kingdom Now/ The Kingdom to Come
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Post by Josh on May 23, 2011 20:39:27 GMT -8
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Post by stevekimes on May 24, 2011 13:53:21 GMT -8
Here's some more from Jesus, who was a lover of paradox:
Seeking Life/Losing life
Obtain greatness through meekness (humility/exaltation)
Poverty/Riches (although you mentioned this one)
Laughing/mourning
Love all/hate family
"My peace I leave with you"/"I did not come to bring peace"
Treasures on earth/treasures in heaven
Then there's the famous one in I John:
Sinner not of God/sinner forgiven
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Post by Josh on May 24, 2011 17:25:30 GMT -8
Thanks. Keep 'em coming folks.
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Post by Josh on May 31, 2011 20:08:05 GMT -8
Christians as sinners/saints
Perfection/ Honesty
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Post by Josh on May 31, 2011 20:08:52 GMT -8
Here's a great Terry Taylor song that's perfect for this thread:
Glorious Dregs
from the album "The Berry Vest of the Swirling Eddies"
©1995 Words and Music by Terry Taylor
Resplendent riff-raff On our last legs Fuel for the fire Dust for the graves Earth and sky You an I The glorious dregs
Aluminum foil A crown for our heads Faithless and loyal To love we allege Diamonds and leaves You and me The glorious dregs
Worthless and worthy Like profane prophets we speak Of vengeance and mercy Of an eye for and eye And turning the other cheek
Selfless and selfish Alive and dead Brothers and bigots Blessings and plagues Forgiven and cursed The last, the first The glorious dregs
Earth and sky You and I The glorious dregs
Earth and sky You and I The glorious dregs
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Post by stevekimes on Jun 9, 2011 7:46:19 GMT -8
Do you remember the old Randy Stonehill song (produced by Terry T), The Glory and the Flame, speaking of the paradox of humanity? we are hungry and we are haunted we are groping in the night we are wrestling with our pain we are losing the fight we are liars and we are dreamers we're the guilty ones to blame and we're living out this nightmare between the glory and the flame
we are pilgrims and we are strangers we are names without a face we are stranded on this crumbling rock dangling in space we are heroes and we are villians we are lost within our shame and we're banished to this twilight between the glory and the flame
we are outlaws and we are wounded with our backs against the wall we are standing at the crossraods with the axe about to fall we are madmen and we are children with a lesson to be learned we are sitting in the ashes of the bridges we have burned we are hoping and we are praying we are holding to the claim that He's coming back to meet us between the glory and the flame
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Post by Josh on Jun 12, 2011 18:57:23 GMT -8
Steve,
I've always loved the lyrics to that song. I think I'm going to have to play it during my teaching series at some point.
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Post by carebear on Jun 12, 2011 22:13:09 GMT -8
Are we still supposed to call ourselves cursed as the 1st song suggests?
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Post by Josh on Jun 13, 2011 11:56:54 GMT -8
Well, anytime we suffer some result of the fall (sickness, futility, death) we are experiencing the fact that some aspects of the curse of all humanity remain on us until our full restoration.
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Post by Josh on Jun 16, 2011 18:49:56 GMT -8
The results of the interest survey on this topic were interesting- pretty much as diverse as the people who took it Some commonalities were Free Will/ Predestination, God's Love/ Wrath, Heart/ Head, In the World/ Of the World, Pacifism/ Just War, The Bible Written by Men/ God. I'm hoping to jump into one this Sunday. We'll see if I can scrape together the time to do one well this Sunday. It's been a crazy week finishing up the school year and being pretty ill last weekend.
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tim
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by tim on Aug 8, 2011 1:35:32 GMT -8
The book "Flatland" [read here- www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland] showed that things seemingly paradoxical in 2 dimensions are easily resolved in 3 dimensions. When discussing how things like predestination and free will can both be 100% true at the same time I had always used a cone to show that it is a circle when pointed directly at you but then becomes a triangle when turned to the side, thus a cone can be 100% triangle or 100% circle without contradiction. Therefore, if God exists in at least one more dimension than we currently do, it is probable that issues such as predestination vs. free will are paradoxes to us but perfectly natural to God. But recently I used a glass instead of a cone to illustrate this to my boys and found that I liked it much more for purposes of analogy! You can tell the person you're demonstrating this to to reduce their perspective to only 2 dimensions of space; only height (up and down) and width (left and right), but no length (as in depth from them to you.) Then you put the glass on the table; it is a rectangle, right? From their 2-dimensional point of view it should be. What's cool about a glass instead of a cone is that if you lay it on its side you can smoothly "roll" this rectangle toward the person, even though the rectangle has absolutely no rounded edges in 2 dimensions of space. This was really fun for my 8-year olds to wrap their heads around - much simpler than "turning a basketball inside out using 4-dimensions of space" as is more commonplace in higher learning. But they wouldn't have followed that, and thus would not have been interested in the point. Yet this kept their attention since this was simple. Even better, it still had the same degree of profundity that the 4-dimensional basketball example has. And with people being less knowledgeable with things like science and geometry these days, you have a good chance of connecting with just about anybody using the 2-dimensional glass. I also like that with a glass you can point the open end of the glass toward them, have them insert something small and push it to the bottom, then you turn the glass a half-turn so the open end is now facing you. Not only does a 2-dimensional being watch all the details of a circle turning into a rectangle and back again, they are now unable to touch the object they placed inside the glass, even though they can see it just as easily as before. Why? What has changed (from their perspective?) I like these little things! Much better than the simple cone I've used for this analogy for the last 15 years, anyway! Anyway, I know Hugh Ross likes to do stuff like this and many probably know this basic idea. I just wanted to share my small discovery of using a glass instead and the fun that the differences using it made!
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 14, 2011 19:02:35 GMT -8
Seems like an interesting read, Tim. I struggled with reading some of it in its-uh-older language I love your analogy about the rolling glass. Do you know or can think of what the analogy of "hiding" the small bit of something in the glass and then hiding it by turning the glass around might possible represent in our world? Josh sent me an email asking if I remembered some similar analogy a pastor (Ted) used at East Hill, several years ago. I know Josh remembers the analogy but I'll state it here (he's just trying to get me to post; I guess it worked ). Anyway, the analogy was he (Ted) had two cardboard cut-outs of stick figures and described them as living in a two dimensional world as two dimensional beings (if we ignore the small amount of the depth of the cardboard). He then asked the question "How close can these two beings ever be to each other in their world?" To each other the closest they could ever be together was to touch at maybe their arms and legs and only at the edges [he demonstrates this visually]. He then said "now imagine me existing as I do in another dimension of space, how close can I be with them?" He demonstrates by taking his hands and put one on the back of the figures and one on the front. He can more fully know them and feel them by possessing an extra dimension of space. I think his point was that God if he has extra dimensions of space he could more fully touch and know us that we ever could ourselves - even in the most intimate of human relations: physical union in marriage. The recent advances in cosmology about the mystery of black holes have possible resolutions that include extra dimensions. Ross talks about this in Beyond The Cosmos - string theory and such. Scientists/cosmologists theorize that there are possibly as many as 10 dimensions, 6 of them "curled up" so tight we can't see them, curled up from practically the very beginning of the universe. Very interesting. If this turned out to be the case, God, to have created our world/universe, would have to exist outside of those so he would have to possess at least 11 dimensions. Another dimensional analogy I like: If God possesses extra dimensions he could do things which seem impossible to us not just in space but in time as well. For instance, how can Jesus death and resurrection at one instance in time, lasting a fixed amount of time (1.5 or 3 days depending on how you view it) cover the penalty for every single person that ever lived and still has yet to live? In our world we possess only a single dimension of time - a line. But what if God had an extra dimension of time, as in time x time (ie, width x length) - that is, a plane of time. At any one instant in our one dimensional timeline God has an infinite timeline in the other time dimension. Therefore Jesus death can be still ongoing even today; he is still dying today in that other dimension of time. I think Ross even extends this further saying God could have 3 dimensions of time, where our time line is like a line on a sphere although I forget the point he is trying to make with that one. Come to think of it, I tend to like this time analogy less when I think about personally applying a verse about God's timing "in His time" (Book of Eccl, i think) to some situation in my life where I am waiting for something While God doesn't have to work with extra dimensions, I personally still think it is the best possible explanation for how God can resolve paradoxes in our world. "Not only does a 2-dimensional being watch all the details of a circle turning into a rectangle and back again, they are now unable to touch the object they placed inside the glass, even though they can see it just as easily as before." Just to clarify here, what I think you meant here is a 3-dimensional being viewing the circle/rectangle transformation through a 2-dimensional window such that they only see height and width with no depth.
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tim
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by tim on Aug 22, 2011 23:31:19 GMT -8
"Not only does a 2-dimensional being watch all the details of a circle turning into a rectangle and back again, they are now unable to touch the object they placed inside the glass, even though they can see it just as easily as before." Just to clarify here, what I think you meant here is a 3-dimensional being viewing the circle/rectangle transformation through a 2-dimensional window such that they only see height and width with no depth. Hi, and thanks for your well-thought out response! I actually did mean a two-dimensional being viewing the glass (length and width, but no height) who would observe a 3-dimensional glass, though only 2 dimensions at a time, of course. So a 2-dim. being would see only limited effects of a 3-dim. being's actions, which would seem very odd to it. Thanks again! Tim
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