call me thin-skinned, al mohler. ok, i guess you already did.
on one hand, there should be no reason to get bugged by crappy criticism. we should just dismiss it, right? but crappy criticism from smart often-insightful people who are just completely missing the point and doing hideously lousy research (or a complete lack of research) before promoting their absurdly reductionist and cartoon-like criticism — well, that gets about as old as this sentence.
if i read any polemic book (especially a poorly researched piece of opinion posing as scholarly thought) that summarizes and opinionates about a group of people, and i draw all my opinions about that group of people from that reading, i’m an idiot, right? yes, i most certainly would be.
please, al.
dr. mohler
this and this and this. maybe i’m thin-skinned. but this kind of thing just drives me ape-crazy.
sentences like these:
This is our proper epistemological humility – not that it is not possible for us to know, but that the truth is not our own. We are dependent upon the Word of God.
cause me to leave my hair very short, out of concern for otherwise tearing large chunks of it out. that’s humility? wow.
ok. i should not be surprised. i just wish smart peeps would offer smart criciticism.
i suppose if i’m going to rant like this, it would be good if i offered an alternative. so…
i haven’t read their blog lately (so this is a largely uninformed), but i’ve found “the a-team blog” to be an exception — i don’t agree with them on many, many points and approaches; but have found them to be interested in engagement, not uninformed lobs. they bothered to come to the emergent convention, and actually ask questions.
i commented on the first one… it really perturbs me that he seems to have only read Carson’s book and thats it…
Mark, thanks for your kind words about The A-Team. I hope you all will continue to dialogue with us.
Just as a clarification to the quote you mentioned here, are you upset because you think that a necessary ingredient of humility *is* that we admit we can’t know the truth, or because you think that he has mischaracterized the emergent position as believing this?
that particular quote bugged me because it assumes that the author has the only correct understanding of the word of god (when read in the context of the article). that seems the opposite of humility to me. of course, i do agree that we are dependent on the word of god.
I just read the third article (the one with the quote); he’s pushing hard for the idea that we can know truth, but I don’t really see what you’re seeing. It sounds to me like he’s just trying to say that we ought to draw our humility from the fact that we’re totally dependent on the Bible for truth–it doesn’t come from ourselves, so we have nothing to boast in. I think he’s just saying this is a better source of humility than lessening our convictions by saying we can’t know truth.
Would it seem to you that anyone making this claim (that we can know truth) is arrogant? I guess this is just another way of asking if you think that in order to be truly humble, it’s necessary that you not hold to any belief too strongly–even to the doctrines he mentioned (“the Bible is the Word of God, that Christ died for our sin, or that Christ is alive today at the right hand of the Father”)–because we can never know anything for sure. What are your thoughts on this?
Do you think it’s possible to think you’re right about something and still be humble?
amy, you and i had this round of discussion around a previous post of mine (about questions and answers). and, since i’m leaving the country again tomorrow, i’d rather not get into it again here. but i will say this: i think it’s totally possible to ge humble and right; i just don’t think we get to claim that rightness, in most cases. of course, i believe i am as right (or correct, would probably be a better word!) as i can currently be in many or most of my beliefs — and i hope they will continue to get more and more correct, thanks to god’s spirit, over the months and years to come. but humility also means holding loosely MY interpretations. i know you don’t agree with this, so you don’t need to defend your position on this, OK? thanks for engaging.
No problem–I really was just looking for some more clarification on your position, so thanks for your response.
I should mention, too, that I don’t disagree that we should be open to challenges to our positions and that we should adjust our beliefs based on any new information that comes our way.
Thanks!
ha ha, marko got shut down by a girl!