tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8503927.post115628140354231984..comments2024-03-16T17:18:50.797+08:00Comments on The Agora: In the BeginningUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8503927.post-1156551114286149052006-08-26T08:11:00.000+08:002006-08-26T08:11:00.000+08:00A significant cultural reality we live in today (a...A significant cultural reality we live in today (and affects our mission) is people live long with better medicare/nutrition/cures etc<BR/><BR/>As such, the question of death tends to be postponed longer and focus is on the here-and-now - what difference does faith make in my life now is more pressing than wat happens after death? (though this question does not go away altogether when we see untimely deaths)<BR/><BR/>Nt Wright, for example, argues that the Christian eschatological hope is not in a spiritual 'life after death' but in the RESURRECTION - an embodied and transformed life after 'life after death' :D<BR/><BR/>Yet this emphasis on the here-and-now, while helpful to wean us off a platonic dualism (world is evil, spirit is good), also needs to be held in tension with what Ron says here...<BR/><BR/>Knowing that life does not end at the grave liberates us from "the unnecessary grip of this life to the exclusion of anticipating the life everlasting to come"<BR/><BR/>We are free from the compulsion to "memorialize ourselves" w children, fame, monuments, physical beauty. <BR/><BR/>It reminds me of CS Lewis' quote that those who are of most earthly good are those who yearn for heaven :DAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8503927.post-1156355376072694382006-08-24T01:49:00.000+08:002006-08-24T01:49:00.000+08:00Dear Dr.Choong,Thank you for your preview in what ...Dear Dr.Choong,<BR/><BR/>Thank you for your preview in what promises to be an exciting lecture in September. May I assume your target audience are non-Christians? I hope you do not mind to clarify a few of your statements so that I may understand better.<BR/><BR/>"The Christian worldview learns to unprivilege the unnecessary grip of this life to the exclusion of anticipating the life everlasting to come."<BR/><BR/>Are you saying that eschatology is not part of the Christian worldview? I find that this is in contradiction to your next statement where you quoted a commentator who said "the Christian belief in life after death in the presence of God liberates us..."<BR/><BR/>In your 'doctrine of creation' you stated "1) There is other reality than God and that it is really other than he. [The only ontological distinction is between creator and creature, there are no intermediate forms. God maintains this divide but crosses it by the energies of the Son and the Spirit. In Jesus Christ, creator and creation meet with the meeting of the two realities]" <BR/><BR/>You started the statement with one reality and ended your parenthesis with two realities in Jesus Christ. how many realities are they? <BR/><BR/>I agree with you in that there is a divide between creator and creature. What do you mean that "God maintains this divide but crosses it by the energies of the Son and the Spirit." ? I assume here that you are talking about God's work with his creatures and not about the Trinity.<BR/><BR/>In your second point you wrote "The world is supposed to be worldly." Please explain.<BR/><BR/>In your third point "Creation was ‘formed in Christ’ who holds it together (Colossians 1: 16). Unlike the pantheism of Spinoza or the postmodern retreat, this posits a fundamental unity of being and truth in Christ." v15 stated that He is the firstborn over all creation. How would you explain that in relationship to your first point. Would your third point be considered fidelism?<BR/><BR/>I agree with you fully in your conclusion- that the doctrine of creation has a very important role to play in developing a Christian worldview.<BR/><BR/>ShalomAlex Tanghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04003300678212296112noreply@blogger.com