The Sermon Part 2 (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Saturday, July 26, 2008, 08:37 (5746 days ago) @ Carl

I'd like to combine responses to Carl and Mark, as the posts overlap. - Carl, you should not regard your post as an interjection! I wish more people would join in these discussions, because I have no way of knowing if my failure to understand someone's reasoning is their fault or mine. By joining forces like this, we have a better chance of learning ... and that of course is the argument you have advanced in defence of Mark's concept of "the whole church". I can identify with that, but still not with the claim that "only the whole church knows the truth". Put all the churches together, and you will get a multitude of versions. I still say nobody "knows" except God, if he is there. Interesting that both you and George consider Mark to be a mystic, and Mark is surprised. I don't see how anyone can take the leap of faith in any of the established deities without embracing a degree of mysticism. David Turell's panentheism seems to me to represent the furthest one can go by reason alone (see his latest posting). - I'm grateful, Mark, for your detailed response to my pre-sermon post, and agree with many of the points you make: 1) I wouldn't take the OT literally either (though it does provide useful illustrations), but I'd apply similar scepticism to the NT as well. 2) The interconnectedness of everything in the universe. 3) The comparative freedom of human beings. 4) Even your linking of sin with self chimes in with mine under Sermon Part 2 (the system God may have created, whereby survival and self-interest are interlinked, though our perspective on this is different). 5) The limitations of logic and science. In all these areas, I can travel along the same road with you, and I can even accept that God would not want to intervene, but the implications of this constitute the point at which you go one way, and I get stuck. You say: "It is a matter of faith that the universe is as it is and that God is all loving and almighty." I'm not sure what you mean by "faith that the universe is as it is", but "all loving and almighty" is clear, and it is the crux of the second stage of my great conundrum ... the first being whether God exists anyway. The details are contained within my sermon on your sermon.