Today in Issues of Physical Science and Religion we had some more presentations from people in the class about some of the books that they have been reading and few of the presentations struck my most definite interest. A couple ideas started to form in my mind. One was related to a presentation about the book called "The God Who Is There" by Francis Shaeffer. The presenter said that the author seems to emphasize a need to be in the world and know the world thoroughly.
How else can we know the context for truth?
What that means is: the most consistent warper and tester of truth is history and culture.
We CANNOT deny the profound effect of events such as World War I, that sweepingly changed view points, the arts, theater, philosophy.. how can we deny that it must have also had a profound impact on theology? And if not theology, at the least very way in which we look at everything in world, which would include what we consider to be the truths of our theologies and philosophies.
An example is the changes in art because of events. Art is a mirror of society, of what is going on in the minds of a generation.
First look at this example of post impressionism, a movement of art before World War I ::
Post Impressionism - 1910's //
George Seurat's "Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte"
Next look at this example of Dada art that was a reaction to World War I::
Dadaist Movement - 1916 to 1922 //
Otto Dix's "Stormtroopers Advancing Under Gas"
In the art you can see the reflection of what society was thinking about.. and at the same time where they started to place their value and how they started to rethink the world and reinterpret truth.
No wonder theology and truths can be twisted and warped. We must understand the world to understand the underlying principle of how it has changed, why it has changed, and at which points babies might have gotten thrown out with bathwaters, and where truths may have been added that are complete fallacies.
FACT: Truth can be gained through fallacies
FACT: Those fallacies that proved that truth are often used in and of themselves as the truth
but that doesn't mean they are true at all
Many theologians or evangelicals are ready to make you believe tradition is truth --> rather than a reflection of cultural changes -- and many liberals, on the other side, would make you believe that culture makes faith irrelevant. That doesn't mean it is true.
Immersing yourself in culture and understanding it from the inside out informs your faith, because you know why culture has come to the conclusions it has and you can see either the truth or the lie in it. You can really see whether you agree with it or not.
This is also why I see a desperate hole that is so perfectly filled by God. If culture is so chaotic and how we see the world so prone to change.. to what measuring stick can we calculate truth? Something that is consistent and unchanging and filled with love. Something like the God I've come to know.
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Part II .:.
We watched Citizen Kane the last night which is considered a classic classic film.
Really really well put together. Almost flawless in my mind.
It explores the nature of love.
TRUTH = loving others will add love to the world.
TRUTH = if you love others they are free and safe to love you in return.
TRUTH?= i should love others so that they will love me??
The movie's point seems to be that this is not true.
YES, if you are loving, others feel safe to love you.
YES everyone wants love.
But Mr. Kane was always left empty because his focus and his truth was --bottom line, loving himself.
"A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own"
-Charles Kane
In his youth, Charles Kane was unable to make choices for himself. At the beginning of the film, he is taken from his parents and sent away to school never to see them again. Later, he comes into a very large inheritance and has to bear the responsibility of this large sum of money, again, without his consent. As Charles Kane finally comes of age and is in charge of his own life, he tries to control everything and everyone in his life and does things purely out of pride and out of self love.
however, HE NEVER DOES A SINGLE blatantly EVIL THING IN THE FILM
but that is the very problem
instead he does something much worse..
he warps the truth of love
- Susan: What's the difference between giving me a bracelet or giving somebody else a hundred thousand dollars for a statue you're gonna keep crated up and never even look at? It's just money, it doesn't mean anything! You never really give me anything that belongs to you, that you care about!
- Charles: Susan, I want you to stop this.
- Susan: I'm not gonna stop it.
- Charles: Right now!
- Susan: You never gave me anything in your whole life. You just tried to bribe me into giving you something.
- Charles: Susan!
- Charles: ...Whatever I do, I do because I love you.
- Susan: You don't love me. You want me to love you. [She mimicks him] 'Sure, I'm Charles Foster Kane. Whatever you want, just name it and it's yours. But you've gotta love me!'
- [Kane slaps her.]
- Susan: Don't tell me you're sorry.
- Charles: I'm not sorry.
what a film to wrap your mind around
Mr. Kane agrees with our view of good and evil, but he agrees only because that is what people expect and perceive as love and that is how he can get them to love him in return. TRUTH! yes truth but the truth of his love is hollow and meaningless.
Love is a change of heart. Love is a change of the way we see things.. the way we desire things. I can't imagine ever being happy living like Mr. Kane, I don't think he was either. Seems like he got and did everything he ever wanted to, but at the end of his life all he wanted was to be back with his family on that farm that we saw during his childhood, playing in the snow.
by the way. the cinematography in Citizen Kane? AMAZING! way ahead of its time and stunningly gorgeous. compliments to Mr. Gregg Toland
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