VE Part 1

After reading Bell's introduction over again, I am struck by the fact that writing about religion or philosophy (or the philosophy of religion!) is a difficult thing. It's difficult for two reasons:

1. Foundational truths have to be established.
2. Words have to be defined.

I say this because readers aren't tabula rasa. (sidenote: I suppose one can argue that at we begin that way, but you'd be hard-pressed to prove that by the time you're reading a book about religion this would be the case.) As such, the truths are either those to be universally understood within the tradition of the philosophy (e.g. presuppositional or axiomatic) or they have to be introduced and explained carefully. The same goes for words: either the meanings are agreed upon, or they are rigorously defined. Bell, in his introduction does neither.

The introduction is literally peppered with assumptions and undefined words. To paraphrase a few:

• Art, as a practice, has to continue evolving (p.10)
• People instinctively realize that art must continue evolving (p.10)
• Christians have the same understanding regarding their religion (p.10)
• For Christians, the *point* is to live in harmony with God and man. (p.10)
• The "Christian faith tradition" has had change and growth. (p.11)
• Jesus took part in the change/growth by calling for a rethinking (p.11)
• This change/growth process is endless (p.11)
• God created us to live in a particular fashion (p.11)
• Christians should live with "great passion and conviction" and be "open and flexible" (p.11)

I could go on, but these three(!) paragraphs are indicative of his style, that is to say, conversational rather than rigorous and exhaustive. The problem with this is that it is difficult to follow his line of thought to his conclusions when there's so much room for disagreement in his assertions:

• What if I don't agree that art must evolve? I can or cannot. It may or may not. But has to?
• What if I don't think that people instinctively realize this (if I agreed with the original statement in the first place)?
• What if all Christians don't have the same understanding of change and transformation regarding their faith?
• What if I disagree about the assumptions of the Christian faith (the necessity of change, people created for a purpose, etc.)?

As for definitions, what do terms like "exploring", "new perspectives", "change", "growth", "transformation", "rethink", "flexible" mean, much less imply?

To avoid these difficulties and confusion, I am introducing a framework by which I will evaluate the rest of the book in which I assume the Bible as basis of accuracy of any statement -- a traditional orthodox Christian position.