This past week I've had some free time to surf the web as well as go through some of piles of papers and notebooks I've collected as a college/grad student. In one of my notebooks I came across a sentence written at the bottom of a page full of hebrew verb charts. Upon further inspection, I must have been practicing the charts while listening to a lecture in a different class. This must have been something the professor said that really struck me and so I wrote it down.
"When we say what we believe, we are necessarily saying what we don't believe."
This seems obvious in some contexts. Take the presidential election that is consuming the media. Every time I open my homepage (which happens to be BBC world news) I see some story about the Presidential campaign. I can only imagine what American news must be like. I don't own a tv, so I don't watch the 6:00 news. Instead, I know about world events ( and not many at that). Back to my point: when a political candidate makes a statement, it is immediately assumed that the negative is also implied. For example, Candidate A says "I am pro-life." Embedded in this statement is the implied statement "I am against abortion." Obvious, right?
Now, imagine you are sitting in church. A lot of Christians know of such creeds as the Apostle's Creed or Nicene Creed. These creeds are designed to outline the faith of the Christian church. They are positive statements of what people profess to believe. Implicit within these statements are also negative statements. If one were to say, "I believe in the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit" they are necessarily denying the belief in Buddha or the deistic belief that God exists without the trinity.
I could go on with examples, but the reason I was thinking about this is because often Christians affirm positive statements, but deny the negative statements. I believe in the Trinity, but I don't deny the power of Buddha. Okay, they may not say it that way. Instead, they may say, "I'm a Christian, but I think it's cool you're Buddhist. Your religion may not be right for me, but if it works for you, that's all that matters."
If we don't also accept the negative statements implicit in our positive affirmations of the creed, do we really affirm the creed? Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father, except through me." Do you believe that? The negative that is implicit in that statement is, "There is no other way except through Christ." Wow, huh? Pretty strong statement. Makes me a little uncomfortable just writing it. I believe it. It's the hard truth of Christianity - and it is what makes us so blessed.
We know the truth - the only truth.
Z and Luna
8 months ago
2 comments:
Interesting thoughts, Katie- and thanks for your comments- yeah, I have official plans for the summer-I'll tell you more later- but- I really like what you say about positive/negative statements and the inherent acceptance of them... I need to ponder this further, b/c for the most part I think I agree, yet have some reservations as well... like... I may disagree with some of the so-called 'implied' negative statements. LOVE YOU.
Yes, and this is why the important credal statements have always come about in times of intensely threatening heresies. The most recent important synod, many have argued, is the Barmen Declaration, where, not just in response to Naziism but to the whole modern culture of rationalistic neo-paganism in the West, declared, "Jesus Christ as attested to us in Holy Scripture is the one Word of God whom we must hear..." Is this not the perennial scandal of the Church, that we profess this one Prophet, this one man, as the whole and utter truth? By necessity then we tear down any other word that would raise itself against the Word.
Nathan
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