Hot topic I

Operation Castle: Wikipedia

As I did my homework for my BSF study on Revelation 15 and 16 tonight, my observation was that Biblical scholars have come to some very different conclusions about what things mean in Revelation. My notes on Babylon and the 144,000 repeat the phrase, “This could mean…or…or…” Somehow I found this comforting. Even the experts are still learning, still debating, still changing their minds. I am free to look at the evidence and come to my own conclusions.

I was at a friend’s house, and I noticed the various magazines laid down on the coffee table. I find magazines (and books, especially comic books) at friends’ houses irresistible, especially if they focus on news or ideas rather than recipes and people, though I’m curious about those, too. The magazine was Decision, and as I flipped through it, I noticed an article on a current hot topic I’m interested in because it relates so much to cross-cultural mission. I skimmed through the article (in a break in the conversation; tea was being made or something, and I can skim fast), and took note of the categorical answer the contributor gave to the issue. He was the president of a Southern Baptist seminary. He has not been to my BSF class.

Earlier in the day, I had received an email bulletin put out by Christianity Today dealing with the exact same hot topic. The bulletin, however, approached the topic quite differently. It reminded me more of my BSF notes. It had drawn opinions from some thirty contributors, all of whom had some experience with the topic. Some were Biblical scholars and seminary profs. Some were missionaries or heads of missionary organizations. Some worked in Bible translation. Some were Christians who had come out of another religion. All of them had wrestled with this controversy and cared deeply about mission, but they certainly did not all agree. As I read through the articles, I began to form my own opinion based on what they were saying and my own experience. My opinion will put me at odds with some of the contributors and in agreement with others. I have a feeling that the contributors of that bulletin would be ok with that.

Before I tell you what the topic is, I need to introduce two terms that helped me navigate the controversy. Ontology refers to whether something exists or not. Anselm in 1078 gave Christianity its most famous ontological argument for the existence of God, which goes something like this: God is the greatest “thing” that can ever be imagined. Even atheists can imagine God, whether they believe in Him or not. But He has to exist, because a real God would always surpass the imaginary God in the atheist’s mind.  Later philosophers refuted this argument in several ways: for example by claiming that existence doesn’t imply superiority (hmm. I’ll take existence, thank you very much. And believe me; I had a choice).  Notice we aren’t saying much about what we know about God.

Epistemology refers to how we know things, how we arrive at our beliefs about God, for example. Epistemologically, all the religions of the world say very different things. Christians rightfully claim you can’t know God without knowing His Son as Lord.

The problem with the controversial question covered in the two magazines I read is that although it is a simple yes/no question, it doesn’t have a simple answer. It has two answers, one ontological and the other epistemological, and these answers contradict each other. You get yes or no, depending on what you are really asking.

More on this later. Meanwhile, I’m thinking about how questions that seem so straight forward can produce different answers when you enter new cultures, because what you think you are saying isn’t what people in other cultures are actually hearing. How do we help people realize this and relax around the paradox?