U.S.: TT&TO

It's amazing how much books can clutter space. Books on the floor, bed, night-table, dining table, and I don't have enough shelf space for all. The upside of not being in the program for a while is that I get a chance to read at a leisurely pace. I've had Hegel in the bathroom for months, some selections from his writings. I also had Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe; it's about string theory. That went in after In Search of Schröedinger's Cat went out. What does string theory and sub-atomic particle physics have to do with theology, you ask? A great deal. You can try to explain approaches to theological hermeneutics in terms of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics, but then, you come to this, Einstein came to the brink of the abyss in his Theory of Relativity and he withdrew. He couldn't believe that the theory led where it indicated that it would. Deconstructionists would have you believe that Einstein's relativity led to the rejection of truth; there is no truth, they say. In actuality, Einstein's relativity said that there is truth, but how we conceive of it is perspectival. What we see/think does not affect the existential reality of the thing perceived, in terms of is it real or not. The thing is real is true independent of us. Objective truth. For instance, God exists, whether or not we believe in Him. Our belief does not bring Him into or negate His existence. Where we stand, philosophically, theologically, and such determines our perspective. To come back to Einstein's example, where we stand in relation to the events occurring inside the train determines what we see. If our stance is one of unbelief, then the Christian God and His Scripture is nothing more than a moral person/teacher telling an instructive tale. The tale is not true, is not transformative, and has no spiritual benefit. However, this stance is perspectival and says nothing about the true nature of that which is observed -- God and His Scripture.

Anyway, just a few rambling thoughts. Nothing much coherent. The vacuum is quiet cuz my Latvian friend dropped in; she's pooped, so she went to pass out in the spare bedroom. She's in a PhD program at another uni and is reading Patristics, or something like that.

Later. Back to the final bit of grunt work.