The Weight of Proximity (Part 2)

I'm beginning to lend much more credence to the beliefs of the early Church Fathers and early Christian practices when forming my opinion on doctrinal differences.

The closer someone is to something, the more we value their opinion.

For example...

• My father is a better source of information on my grandpa than I am, even though we both knew him.
• My son will be a better source of information on my grandpa than his son.
• My mom is a better source of information on Grandma's Hobo Beans than I am. I have the recipe (read it here), I've watched my mom make them plenty of times. And I ate them plenty of times. but I never watched Grandma make them and don't have the context (home and kitchen and family) that surrounded that.

Other examples abound...

• Parents are better judges of children.
• Doctors are better judges of illness.
• An eyewitness to a traffic accident is a better source of truth than someone who heard it from a block away.
• etc.

We reason this way all the time on all sorts of things, but for some reason we often treat religious matters differently[1].

What I AM NOT saying:

It doesn't mean that because a lot of folks believed something, I can immediately trust their judgment.

What I AM saying:

It does mean that I am obligated by the weight of conviction of others to seriously consider their opinion unless I can find a reason to discount it, especially if they are closer to it in some way (eg experienced it or studied it).

Real life example:

There is some (IMHO very limited) support for Purgatory in the bible. But what interests me more is that early Church Fathers believed it, and the concept is reflected in catacomb inscriptions of early Christians.

That doesn't mean Purgatory exists. It does mean that those closer to other ideas I believe, believed it did.

Learn more on this page>
Direct link to PDF with a summary of information >
Also a very good page >


Here's the point:

If you set up a metaphysical construct in which you accept divine activity (God, angels, resurrection, eternal life, etc), you cannot ignore facts that contribute to that construct because they are inconvenient.

Clarence the Baptist talking:

My brothers and sisters long dead in Christ believed in a place the dead go where they can still hear us and pray with us and for us.

I must do something with that information.

I don't believe 500 years of Reformed theology (of which I have been a part) obviates my obligation to use my noodle when faced with sound evidence, in this case textual and archaeological.

CS Lewis wrote something to the effect that he was undecided on Purgatory but wouldn't be surprised if God asked him to wipe his feet before entering heaven.

That's about where I am.

c0

[1]
This conversation is with myself and the world's 2.3 billion Christians (give or take). That's a big bubble, but a bubble nonetheless. If you are outside that bubble, this post (and many others I suppose) may not be too meaningful, but the principle is sound for any topic.

Started: 2013-02-26