The Challenge of Pragmatism

[sag38]

Crabby, did God not tell Abraham to go to a land that He would show to Him. I don't think God told Abraham how to specifically go, how long it would take, what would happen along the way, etc.

 

[Revmitchell]

I would like people who use scripture in this way to give examples of how God has led them and how they know when it is God directing them. It is easy to hide behind a quote. Satan does that.

Why don't you take specific points out of the op and address them using scripture instead of worrying about what everyone else holds to.

 

[Marcia]

I'm sure you'll agree, though, that "does it work to share the Gospel without compsomising it" is a reasonable position to take, when it comes to the application of pragmatism.

I don't call that pragmatism. Pragmatism in a spiritual context is taking the criteria, "does it work" over God's word or truth.

I think we are sometimes to overcautious that we end up tossing the baby with the bathwater. It reminds me of the first generation Lutherans, who made a point to remove all the stained glass windows from their churches, out of a paranoid concern that the windwos might make Lutherans appear "too Catholic"

That's not pragmatism either.

 

[Johnv]

I don't call that pragmatism. Pragmatism in a spiritual context is taking the criteria, "does it work" over God's word or truth.

I think you're overdefining or redefining pragmatism. For the purposes of this thread, pragmatism is a practical approach solving problems. Taking a practical approach to solving problems in the church is permissible, and often effective, so long as it does not compromise the Gospel. That's pragamtism applied appropriately.

 

[Marcia]

I think you're overdefining or redefining pragmatism. For the purposes of this thread, pragmatism is a practical approach solving problems. Taking a practical approach to solving problems in the church is permissible, and often effective, so long as it does not compromise the Gospel. That's pragamtism applied appropriately.

Pragmatism is a philosophy that says what works is the bottom line. It is actually very contrary to Christianity, which has the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit and God's will at work.

Pragmatism values what works over truth.

 

[Marcia]

Pragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. Pragmatism began in the late nineteenth century with Charles Sanders Peirce and his pragmatic maxim. Through the early twentieth-century it was developed further in the works of William James, John Dewey and—in a more unorthodox manner—by George Santayana. Other important aspects of pragmatism include anti-Cartesianism, radical empiricism, instrumentalism, anti-realism, verificationism, conceptual relativity, a denial of the fact-value distinction, a high regard for science, and fallibilism.


Pragmatism enjoyed renewed attention from the 1960s on when a new analytic school of philosophy (W. V. O. Quine and Wilfrid Sellars) put forth a revised pragmatism criticizing the logical positivism dominant in the United States and Britain since the 1930s. Richard Rorty further developed and widely publicized the concept of naturalized epistemology; his later work grew closer to continental philosophy and is considered relativistic by its critics.


Contemporary pragmatism is divided into a strict analytic tradition, a more relativistic strand (in the wake of Rorty), and "neo-classical" pragmatism (such as Susan Haack) that adheres to the work of Peirce, James, and Dewey.


Instead of truth being ready-made for us, James asserts we and reality jointly "make" truth. This idea has two senses: (1) truth is mutable, (often attributed to William James and F.C.S. Schiller); and (2) truth is relative to a conceptual scheme (more widely accepted in Pragmatism).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism

Philosophy A movement consisting of varying but associated theories, originally developed by Charles S. Peirce and William James and distinguished by the doctrine that the meaning of an idea or a proposition lies in its observable practical consequences.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pragmatism

 

[Johnv]

You're referring to something different. That's not what we've been discussing.

 

[Marcia]

You're referring to something different. That's not what we've been discussing.

Maybe so, but it still remains that pragmatism should not be our bottom line. I can think of several things that work or seem to work that are wrong or evil.

 

[Revmitchell]

"If it works and does not change the message" is just as poor a standard as anything else.


The standard should be what is our role and what is the role of the Holy ghost and how do we not intrude on His role?

Drawing is done by the word of God and the Holy Ghost. Doctoring up the message with methods and entertainment is unnecessary, leads to false conversions, and ungodly.

 

[Deacon]

How is this done? What would the actions be? Who is to let us know what the Lord wants?

Obviously if pragmatism is defined as doing thing that work, we should start doing those things that don't work.
But Pragmatism works! We should keep doing it!!!


Eight Steps to a Successful Ministry

• Pray
• Seek the Lord's will
• Pray
• Develop a plan
• Pray
• Do
• Pray and give thanks
• Evaluate and return to first step

Rob

 

[stilllearning]

Obviously if pragmatism is defined as doing thing that work, we should start doing those things that don't work.
But Pragmatism works! We should keep doing it!!!


Eight Steps to a Successful Ministry

• Pray
• Seek the Lord's will
• Pray
• Develop a plan
• Pray
• Do
• Pray and give thanks
• Evaluate and return to first step

Rob

So what you are saying is that.......“the end justifies the means”!

This “might” be okey, if we could see into men’s hearts and see if they were being changed........but we can’t.
--------------------------------------------------
And the 100 years or so, that the Church has been using pragmatism, has resulted in a Church that is getting farther and farther from the LORD!

So it really isn’t working at all.

 

[Revmitchell]

1Co 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
1Co 2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1Co 2:3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
1Co 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Paul avoided pragmatism

 

[Johnv]

Maybe so, but it still remains that pragmatism should not be our bottom line.

Uh, that's what I've been saying all along.

 

[Jim1999]

We all tend to be pragmatic by times, but it should never be employed as part of hermeneutics. The modernists did this in the early days to tear up the real meaning of scripture. The end result surely doesn't justify the means.

Cheers,

Jim