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  • From: Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Why did Paul choose the Aegean?
  • Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 12:51:48 -0500

At 11:37 AM 12/4/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Perhaps Paul would "only" say that he was "led" there, or that this was due
>to the leading of "the Holy Ghost." Paul might say such a thing, but he was
>also capable of attributing his actions to reasonableness,

i reject your a priori presumption that people who attribute directions to
some supernatural source are less than reasonable. i also reject your
implication that only reason is able to direct lives.

[examples noted and clipped]. None of your examples are on point in the
present discussion. the question was asked about why Paul went the way he
did into europe. the answer, in the mind at least of the author of acts is
because he was divinely led there. paul himself was not averse to such
spiritual guidance. he did not separate reason from faith as postmodern
thought attempts to.

>
>The point is we should not make Paul too one dimensional, too representative
>of only one kind of soul

but that is precisely what your examples would suggest.

>(per William James analysis, which allows at least
>for sick and healthy souls), personality, group tendency, and so on.

i dont think Paul would care one driblet what william james thought. so
dragging him into the discussion is likewise irrelevent.

>
>So while the answer, "by God's Spirit" or some such phrasing should be
>included

not merely included- it should be the central response with the other
possibilities given lesser importance.

>in developing an answer to the question posed, it seems a bit to
>trite and anti-intellectual to stand alone

ah the old bugaboo anti-intellectualism... and so far as "triteness" is
concerned, it is extraordinarily trite to dismiss Acts testimony as though
21st century folk somehow have a better eye for what motivated Paul than
some first century writer did.

>(it at least seems to me to have
>been delivered in the first case in a polemical way; no?).

no.

More importantly,
>it does not lead to the kind of interesting discovery available to those who
>make the effort to see what the texts might say about the matter at hand,

wow thats remarkable. you have quite a gift for demeaning the viewpoints of
others while trying to appear pure in your scholarly objectivity. those who
dont see things as you do, like the author of acts evidently, are simply not
able to find anything interesting! yet i suspect that your disinterest in
the centrality of spiritual leadership demonstrates your own bias.

>and the range of interesting hypotheses that might result, and then the
>search for logical probabilities, which can take a lifetime of work,
>perhaps, some would claim, guided by God's Spirit too.

perhaps. but if you dismiss the possibility in the case of pauls missionary
direction why should it be granted to you?

>
>So I think the question still stands, for those who do not deny the place of
>reason in the pursuit of knowledge:

there it is again. that subtle hint that anyone who thinks paul was led by
the spirit to go to europe is unreasonable and in some way less intelligent.

>why did Paul choose the Aegean?, and
>when?, and from among what other available choices?, and how freely or
>compelled by circumstances or convictions, including those derived from his
>understanding of his role and its dependence upon his interpretation of
>Scripture?, and so on...

he went the way he went because he was impelled to by the spirit. that is
what the text says. now of course you can disagree with it, but
disagreement is not demonstration.

best

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr Jim West
Pastor, Petros Baptist Church
http://biblical-studies.org
http://petrosbaptistchurch.org

"Habent sua fata libelli" Terence.





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