The Contradictions of Scripture
Fr. Stephen Freeman
We can, however, only express the Truth if we foresee the
extreme expression of all the contradictions inherent in it, from which it
follows that Truth itself encompasses the ultimate projection of all its
invalidations, is antonymic and cannot be otherwise.
-Pavel Florensky
I wrote in a previous article about the importance of
contradictions in the knowledge of God. The Orthodox faith utterly delights in
paradox and contradiction and liberally salts its language of worship with
shockingly antonymic expressions. This is intentional and inherent to the
nature of the kind of knowledge (koinonia) that alone is saving
knowledge. Remembering this is important when we come to the study of the
Scriptures. Doubtless, the most devastating practice with regard to the
Scriptures is ridding them of contradiction. Today, this is done regularly, and
from a number of directions. Apparently, human beings dislike contradiction and
have a passion-driven instinct to minimize it. This diminution of reason goes
by many names – some of them being so bold as to claim that this is reason
itself. It is not. True reason is at home with contradiction.
Read more at http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2016/06/29/the-contradictions-of-scripture/ithin
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