Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Course 5 Week 5 Sean's Topics

Sean,
Please place your initial posts and answers to our questions here.
Tyler, please put one or more questions for Sean here.
Visitors, click on the word, "comments." to join our discussion.

12 comments:

sremery said...

The title of my course is Old Testament Survey: Poetry and Prophecy. The instructor is Dr. Garnett Reid. I'll watch 4 classes this week.I assume I'll be studying Song of Solomen this week.

sremery said...

We're back from Branson. It was a successful trip in that no one was lost. Even though I didnt sleep much, it was refreshing for me.

Tyler Owens said...

Hey guys. I am also glad to be home from the trip to Branson. I really enjoyed this trip. The youth were having a good time as well as the adults that went. I was glad to see all those kids praising God.

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Glad you all had a good trip!

sremery said...

Session 17 is about the Song of Solomon.
I find it interesting that it would be called Song of Songs, meaning its the greatest of all songs.
He mentions that some believe that its a group of different songs. I not sure how they come to this, it seems like to me that it is one story. The instructor gives examples of unity in it. One reason is that it has the same characters throughout.

sremery said...

He also discusses that it is viewed as being allegorical. He talks about how that it can be dangerous in viewing things like this. He says that theres no limit on the subjectivity in it. He warns of using things in the Bible as symbols for other things without anything to back it up.But I think of Sng of Solomon as a story of Gods love for us, it makes sense to me especially after reading the Bible as a whole.

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Sean,

I think the way to use what we call "spiritualizing" is to use other Scripture to back up the spiritual analogies we draw from a statement or even. Sometimes, we can say, "The primary historical meaning of this passage is . . . , but it reminds me of . . . . (something that is clearly taught in Scripture--we can even show where that support is). Then go on to talk about the possible allegorical, metaphorical, or spirualized message.

This is a way of using analogy where you compare one thing with another. Just make sure both ideas have biblical support even if they appear in different parts of Scripture. Also, be careful of saying that this is exactly what the original Scripture (the one you are making a comparison to) intended. I mean be careful of saying the original Scripture intended to produce the analogy you picked out.

Tyler Owens said...

I heard a message one time about the book of Ecclesiastes. The preacher used the part about him looking through the lattice. The lattice was the separation we have from God. In other words, the lattice is sin. God can see us, but we have built a "lattice" between us and Him. I just thought that was interesting to tell you guys about.

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Thanks for the lattice insight, Tyler.

sremery said...

Good Morning, sorry I havent posted much lately, I've been working on our barn. Its not very often I get 2 whole days to just do what I want to. My guess on what existentialism means is that you believe that we are just being.

sremery said...

Here is one description of it: In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterized by what has been called "the existential attitude," or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.
Here is another: A twentieth-century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices, with foundations in the thought of Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and notably represented in the works of Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Gabriel Marcel (1887-1973), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80).

Dr. Randy Carney said...

Sean,

Thanks for delving into existentialism so deeply.

"A twentieth-century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices"--this sounds good as related to the part of Free Will for Free Will Baptist :) !

The reference to Friedrich Nietzsche raises a little red flag because of some of the other things he taught.

Another person, if I remember correctly, that used the term of Existentialism quite a bit was Rudolph Bultmann. He was a "neo-orthodox" theologian.

I think the way to filter the term and relate it to our understanding of the Bible is to use the aspects of it that relate to experience, especially related to free choice; and to make sure that we maintain our commitment to Scripture over experience. (Experience is fine if it is in harmony with Scripture).