Blog 60--Contradictions and Inconsistencies: The Stuff of Life

I’ve been gone for a week, camping with daughter Cynthia and her family and some other friends. The group was great for socialization and the river-side facility was great—and free for us!  But in the latter half of July, you can expect warm weather, not so cold that you shiver and have to put on layer upon layer, especially when there is a camp fire ban due to extreme drought. We broke up camp and returned disappointed to the coast at Kent, near Seattle. But there the heat was so intense that camping was just as uncomfortable. We broke up camp again and returned home in Vancouver, disappointed, not to say disgusted. All of which is to explain the extra long time between posts.  

Blog 59 is full of contradictions and inconsistencies. I know these terms are not exactly synonyms, but I will kind of use them as such in this blog. Notice how imprecise that last sentence is?  When I wrote this post, it was Monday morning and I didn’t feel like forcing too much precision on myself. So our topic for today is just right—for me and, I hope you can live with it. 

It happens quite frequently that my wife (Fran) and I catch each other in contradictions, the term now including inconsistencies as well. We usually acknowledge it, but the conversation often leans toward a negative attitude towards such things. It seems more virtuous to be consistent, even though as years have taken their toll, we are becoming increasingly tolerant of contradiction. Is that natural with age?  Or is it the effect of post-

modernism on us? That we’re veering away from the demands of strict logic?

At any rate, the previous blog was full of it. I agree and disagree with Pete McMartin; same for the VS editorial. And then I reject both of their approaches for not going to the heart of the matter. I was fully aware of it and was good for letting it all stand. Sloppy thinking could be another reason I could add to the above paragraph. Combining “sloppy thinking” with “reason” is surely an example of the very thing I am talking about.

I am a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS) in Grand Rapids (MI, USA). It is a good seminary and I am proud of having graduated there (1965). I have given quite a detailed report on my three years there in our memoirs (Every Square Inch: A Missionary Memoir, vol. 1, chapter 12-- <www.Social Theology. com >. Once there,turn to the first entry on the Boeriana page.)

In terms of our subject for today, I wrote about how bored I would occasionally be in Systematic Theology (ST) classes. Systems are usually logically coherent entities. So, in these ST lectures the point was to fit the Bible and theology into neat logically consistent boxes. The result gave a static feeling. Everything stood still. Even God came out as a static being that is fully consistent with Himself, including even that most “illogical” construct of the Trinity. Sometimes I would get so tired of it, I would play hooky for a few days and spend my time reading other theologians. I especially liked the writings of professor Gerrit Berkouwer of the Free University of Amsterdam for the contrast between him and my CTS profs precisely because Berkhouwer did not construct such tight logical boxes; he was more open. 

Neither does God fit into our logical boxes. The profs did  acknowledge that when it came to issues of election/reprobation vs human responsibility. They had inherited that difficult conundrum from childhood and had grown up being comfortable with it. But somehow that mostly static view of God did not cut it for me.  Of course, I am talking the 1960s. I suspect that the atmosphere at CTS has changed like everything else in this world.

The emphasis at that time at least was on a God who tolerates only truth, truth being at least partially defined as logically consistent statements and intolerance for what we might call “gray” statements over against the plain black and white stuff.  I loved and still love the stories in the Bible that challenge that kind of static God in favour of a more fluid one. There is the story of the midwives who lied to Pharaoh in order to save the baby boys of the Israelites, but whom God blessed because of their courage (Exodus 1:15-22). Then there is the story of Samuel’s anointing David to be the next king. Samuel objected to God that Saul, the current king, would kill him for what amounted to a coup. Then God instructed Samuel to give a false reason for his coming to David’s town (I Samuel 16:1-3). God is described as repenting or regretting things He had done (Genesis 6:6-7; Exodus 32:14; Judges 2:18; I Samuel 15:11, etc.). At the same time, we also read in I Samuel 15:29 that God “does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” So, a very fluid picture of God under certain circumstances, though still faithful and trustworthy with respect to His people. 

So, I do not apologize for the occasional contradiction in my own life, including those in Blog 59.

The French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) coined the famous Latin phrase “Cogito, ergo sum,” meaning, “I think; therefore I am.”  It expressed the idea current among philosophers at that time—and still for some ordinary folk even today—that the essence of a human being lay in his rationality, his mind. If you know something—and that means you are thinking, you have a mind-- well, then you must be a human being. Something like the touristy trend of thought, “It’s three p.m.; hence this must be Victoria.” Taking off from there and following a radically dangerous step into the almost forgotten country of Latin, I would like to suggest, “Contradicio; ergo sum,” hopefully meaning something like “I contradict; therefore I am.” It does not define my essence, but it does make me feel just a bit more comfortable. At least, it gives me a vague permission to contradict myself—of sorts.