The blind man and observation

Go read the entire article over at Koinonia. It is the best thing I've read this year. And for the person who will email me to ask what koinonia means:

Koinonia is the anglicisation of a Greek word (κοινωνία) that means partnership or fellowship. The word is used frequently in the New Testament of the Bible to describe the relationship within the early Christian church. As a result the word is used frequently within Christian circles to describe the fellowship and community of Christians - or more frequently the idealised state of fellowship and community that should exist.

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Contemporary readers want the Scriptures to be a newspaper, a history or science textbook. We want this because we fancy our view of an "objective view" of history and current events. But what is it that we mean when we imagine that what we are saying is "objective."

There is a curious pride in our attempt at a journalistic reading of Scripture. The contemporary notion of the objective observer whose view of the world is not influenced by outside facts, is a view of the human person divorced from community and tradition. To say that I am "objective observer" is fundamentally different from saying that I am telling the truth. Objectivity (in the modern sense) is based on my separation from others—really my intentional isolation from them. It is only a consequence of my isolation from the human community, or so the thinking goes, that I am able to understand reality better then my neighbor.

And the sin is that I allow myself to believe that it is this insight born of separation that best serves the common good.

In other words, for the modern mind we are most fully human not through love and communion, but through separation and isolation. It is alienation not fellowship that is the defining characteristic of the contemporary view of the human person. This anthropological model holds that I know you best not when I draw close to you in love, but stand far from you. This is does not place dispassion (απάθεια) at the center of human life, but indifference.
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The goal of human life is not objectivity modeled on the scientist in the laboratory, but our willingness to "proclaim the truth in love" (compare, Eph 4:15).
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Whether intentionally or not, when we try and rationalize or justify the differences in the Gospels, we do so because we have fallen into a trap, we have allowed ourselves to act as if human reason we separate from divine grace. Faith and reason are not separate; they mutual presuppose each other as the two wings by which we ascend to God in response to His invitation.
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