{"id":369,"date":"2008-06-21T07:29:04","date_gmt":"2008-06-21T07:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=369"},"modified":"2008-06-23T13:55:11","modified_gmt":"2008-06-23T13:55:11","slug":"dealing-with-apparent-contradictions-part-3-restraint-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dealing-with-apparent-contradictions-part-3-restraint-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 3 – Restraint (Dale)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nDon’t ask <\/small><\/em>me<\/small> what this doctrine means… I only believe it.<\/small><\/em><\/div>\n

Last time we briefly explored Redirection<\/a>, the first of our four ways to respond to apparent contradictions in theology.<\/p>\n

The response of Restraint<\/strong> is a little more reasonable. This person realizes that a certain way of understanding, say, the doctrine of the Trinity, seems <\/em>inconsistent. The Christian walking the path of Restraint declines to endorse that way of understanding the Trinity, or any other clear formulation. “Sure, if<\/em> it meant X, then it would seem<\/em> contradictory… but maybe<\/em> it doesn’t mean X.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Restrained believer neither affirms nor denies X, exercising Restraint . He declines to say precisely what the great Doctrine in question is, because (he says) he doesn’t know what it is supposed to be. Of course, he’ll say he’s committed to the truth of whatever it is that’s supposed to be expressed by the traditional formulas of the Doctrine, and he doesn’t rule out that others who are holier and\/or more informed have <\/em>understood it – not just endorsing words, but also grasping the truths they express.<\/p>\n

The main thing to say about Restraint is that it’s perfectly reasonable as an initial move<\/strong>, but nowhere to pitch camp. It is only a way of stalling. Stalling is often reasonable; no one has time to look into every difficulty, and we have a lot more to do than develop our theological thinking. The Restrained believer is saying that he believes, hopes, or is somehow committed to certain sentences expressing truth<\/strong>, but isn’t aware of what that truth is.<\/p>\n

Fair enough. One should be spurred on, though, by three concerns<\/strong>. First, some people have claimed to discern various important truths in those sentences. So, one should seek to find the same. Second, the sentences in question could be fool’s gold – it could be that they really express only falsehood. One needs to rule this out, to avoid forming false beliefs. Third, maybe the sentences express nothing – maybe they are unintelligible, non-understandable. If so, whatever their value, they won’t be a means of believing, thinking, or expressing truths. Again, this needs to be ruled out.<\/p>\n

So while Restraint is initially an expression of intellectual humility (one doesn’t just jump to dismiss a doctrine at the first sign of a problem), eventually it becomes an irresponsible stance, for the three reasons just given.<\/p>\n

(In my “Unfinished business of Trinitarian theorizing”<\/a> I more specifically address some kinds of Restraint about the Trinity in particular. (pages 3, 24-7 in this preprint version).)<\/p>\n

Next time: Restraint and “implicit faith”.<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Technorati Tags: Restraint<\/a>, mystery<\/a>, apparent contradiction<\/a>, paradox<\/a>, theological paradox<\/a>, intellectual humility<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t ask me what this doctrine means… I only believe it. Last time we briefly explored Redirection, the first of our four ways to respond to apparent contradictions in theology. The response of Restraint is a little more reasonable. This person realizes that a certain way of understanding, say, the doctrine of the Trinity, seems… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 3 – Restraint (Dale)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}