|
----- Original Message -----
From: Debbie Sawczak
To: 'Lance Muir'
Sent: January 15, 2006 21:04
Subject: leading into all truth And here is something else interesting, about the Spirit leading into all
truth. You may recall from the second lecture/chapter his explaining that the
Spirit mediates all revelation, including whatever the creation reveals
about itself:
"The second way of understanding the wider revelatory work
of the Spirit takes us beyond divine revelation to the matter alluded to in
connection with the Fourth Gospel, that of the universal implications of the
claim that the Spirit is the one who leads into all truth. It is, I believe
legitimate to extend John's strictly christological construing of the concept of
truth ["all truth" = Christ], so long as the extension is still christological.
For John, the one incarnate in Jesus is the one through whom all things came to
be and are held in being: Christ the creator. The co-eternal Word is thus the
basis of any and all meaning as 'foundation': not only of the faith of the
believer, but of the very possibility of knowledge of any kind. If Christ is the
mediator of creation, then he is the basis of created rationality and therefore
of human knowledge, wherever and whatever; we might say, of all human culture.
But that point must be developed pneumatologically also, so that all
rationality, truth and beauty are seen to be realized through the perfecting
agency of God the Spirit, who enables things to be known by human minds and made
by human hands. Christ is indeed the Truth, but the truth becomes truth in all
the different ways in which it is mediated by the Spirit."
That christological extension is interesting for its own sake. But also,
if the Spirit's leading into all truth includes knowledge of all kinds, it
seems to me that any claim that he has (as of moment X) delivered
a complete, finished understanding (i.e., with Cartesian
certainty)--whether of Christ, Scripture, or any created thing--is ruled
out. I do not know if I am right to draw this conclusion. After all, the
Truth that holds everything together must be in a different category from the
truth of that which is held together. But it is the same Spirit at work
regardless...
D
-- |
