Should Catholics and Protestants have a group hug?

Hans Kung, in his doctoral thesis "Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth and a Catholic Reflection", proposed that the Protestant Karl Barth was in 'fundamental agreement' with the Catholic teaching on the issue of Justification.

Essentially, he's saying: Why are we all arguing? Protestants and Catholics have overdone the differences between us just in order to keep a difference between us. Why not recognise that we're more similar than we think and just get along?

To be continued... chatting with my wifey. Sorry to keep you in suspense.

Darn I'm wrecked

Insufficient sleep makes Peter something something.

What's going on inside (part 2 of 2)

See part 1 here.

This helps us to understand something about ourselves and sin.

When people talk about 'working out who you are', my answer was: I know who I am, a dirty, rotten sinner and pathetic to boot. So the process of self-discovery isn't actually a beneficial one.

Using the tripartite view of a Christian that we looked at in part 1 means that we can now investigate something of person 1 from the messed up combination that we have now become.

Example: A person has a strong desire to lust sexually. Now the devil never created anything good, but only twists something good that God has made. My hypothesis is that the desire for something wrong has its basis in a good desire that's been twisted.

It's like archery. When you shoot and hit the bullseye, it's fun for everyone. When that good thing gets pointed in the wrong direction, someone's bum gets an extra hole.

So, the process of trying to work out your God-given passions becomes a process of working out something: What good thing am I desiring that my sinful nature is twisting and making evil?

So, in the case of lust, an example could be that the person desires a fulfilling and intimate relationship, but is reaching for something else to scratch that itch, or reaching for it in a wrong way.

I find this way of thinking helpful because it allows me to give my humanity, sin and redemption the full recognition they deserve:

1. My humanity, because I recognise that God created me so well.
2. My sin, because I have messed up so thoroughly something that was so good.
3. My redemption, because it ... (this is a fuzzy area in my thinking, so I'll leave it until I've sorted through the implications of my thoughts.)*

Lastly, it helps me to work out how I can rightly 'be myself'. It doesn't mean just doing what I feel like. It means unravelling the threads that have been knotted by sin, correcting yourself and working to be the man I was created to be with the help of Holy Spirit.

Thoughts?

*Yes, the redemption part hasn't been well-worked in this theory. Contributions towards that would be appreciated.

The art of not knowing everything

It's a lot harder than it sounds. I'm very tempted to assume that my perspective on life, the world and everything is sound, consistent and the most perceptive and worthwhile that there is. This occurs on multiple levels.

I've found that I have a habit of trying to defend my paradigm of thought, instead of opening myself up to understand things from another's perspective, and thus enriching my thinking. But of course, it's not just about enriched thinking, but enriched relationships where I can really respect the other person's views and treat that person and their thoughts with tenderness and love.

I find that the less I am protecting myself or my paradigm of thinking in any given conversation, the more genuinely I engage in meaningful interaction with that person (given a safe context, of course).

What's going on inside (part 1 of 2)

Over the last year or so, I've been reflecting on how I've often heard about the two natures struggling within us. That is, our sinful, fleshly nature and our new life in Christ by the Spirit. What I've realised is that I think that I've not heard as much as I should have about the third nature that we have, and how it relates to the others. That is, my original creation in the image of God, sustained by His common grace.

What I'm getting at is that:

1. I was created good. *
2. The good image of God was twisted in sin, and more as I sin more. **
3. I died to the second life, and was raised with Christ into a new life. ***

Thus, I actually have 3 natures, in a way. With me so far? I'll go further on the significance of this soon. (Or you could just spoil it for yourself and see what Simone reckons here. Or you could be patient and wait 'til tomorrow. I'm not going to decide for you.)

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* Insert trite prooftexts here.

** No prooftexts required for an evangelical readership.

*** Also, perhaps, able to be viewed as a redemption of the initial nature, though exactly how that works is as yet unclear to me.

Is everything? v1.3

I've decided that I'm going to reduce the scope of my claims. For now.

At this point I'm willing to assert that:

Everything has both existence and significance. When people confuse one for the other, or only see one of the two aspects of an entity, thinking becomes unclear.

In this schema, the 'existence' is what you might call the absolute aspect, while the significance is the relative aspect. As such, I'm trying to assert that both Arthur and Nathan are correct, and both incorrect. I think.

Less ambitious, and yet, perhaps still controversial?

I think I'm...

slowly becoming an adult, like Mark Driscoll is.

It's scary, though not in a "I'm being forced to read a Joyce Meyer book" kind of way.