Canfield on the Ground of Locality

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

If we "quietly and honestly" consider where Jesus was establishing His ekklesia in Matt ch. 16, we don't see any suggestions that it would be delineated by political/urban subsets like Jerusalem, Antioch, and Corinth. Nowhere do we see Jesus' proposed organizational schema, except in sayings like, "If you want to be great, be the least".
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If you study the originators of influential, but harebrained, ideas, like Marx (communism), Keynes (Keynesian economics), or Ayn Rand (egoism), you see a common theme. Often they retrofit a philosophy to produce a final result they believe is worthwhile.

• Marx sought to uplift the proletariat, so he invented communism.
  
• Keynes believed government should seek to improve the economy and that lenders had too much power, so he invented his economic philosophy of deficit spending and money printing to lower interest rates and stimulate economies.
  
• Rand believed in the absolute freedom of the individual, so she invented her version of egoism, called Objectivism.

All these philosophies are major failures.

You have to put Watchman Nee in that group, too. Nee saw the division brought on by denominationalism, and invented the Ground of Locality doctrine to address it.

The Ground of Locality is a major failure as well.

All these people were brilliant. But their brilliance worked against them, and us--except as examples of how not to approach thinking about problems.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

The Ground of Locality is a major failure as well.

All these people [Rand, Keynes, Marx, Nee] were brilliant. But their brilliance worked against them, and us--except as examples of how not to approach thinking about problems.

These points parallel (to me, anyway) Peter Debelak's recent comments on being known by God, versus knowing God. There are sharp limits on how much we can see, and how much we can know, and therefore how universal in application our schema actually can be. We may gather data, and create theories about how the universe works, either physically or socially or spiritually, and these ideas may have some limited utility. But if we think that we can create some unbiased prescription for all the ills of the world, whether physically, economically, politically or spiritually, we may very well make those ills exponentially worse. Karl Marx is a great example -- his critique of the shortcomings of capitalism in "The Communist Manifesto" is actually quite penetrating. His proposed solution, however, created an unmitigated disaster.

We can only see a little. I prefer with my small view to see Jesus, and I hope to have that view expand and deepen over time, but by no means should I think that my current view constitutes an all-encompassing match with reality as it actually exists.

Jesus said, "If you want to be great, be the least", and "Forgive one another's trespasses, as God has forgiven you". Those are arguably universal prescriptions, but they are arguably limited by our neighbor. Jesus gave us a new commandment: "Love one another" (John 13:34); we perhaps should leave the cosmic big-picture stuff to God.

Our ability to love one another usually seems to be rather weak. I find it to often be a challenge. Why should I think that some optimized social arrangement will allow me to bypass, or minimize, this new commandment of our Lord?

[Peter Debelak]

Originally Posted by Igzy

If you study the originators of influential, but harebrained, ideas, like Marx (communism), Keynes (Keynesian economics), or Ayn Rand (egoism), you see a common theme. Often they retrofit a philosophy to produce a final result they believe is worthwhile.

• Marx sought to uplift the proletariat, so he invented communism.
  
• Keynes believed government should seek to improve the economy and that lenders had too much power, so he invented his economic philosophy of deficit spending and money printing to lower interest rates and stimulate economies.
  
• Rand believed in the absolute freedom of the individual, so she invented her version of egoism, called Objectivism.

All these philosophies are major failures.

You have to put Watchman Nee in that group, too. Nee saw the division brought on by denominationalism, and invented the Ground of Locality doctrine to address it.

The Ground of Locality is a major failure as well.

All these people were brilliant. But their brilliance worked against them, and us--except as examples of how not to approach thinking about problems.

An insightful thought - a philosophy constructed around a desired end (though the verdict is still out on Keynes...but please don't take the bait on that...).

This is the opposite of what philosophy (and spirituality) should be. If you start with the premise that you already know the truth, well, then 1) you have a certain crazy hubris and 2) everything starts looking like supporting evidence regardless of whether it actually is. You end up with some screwy hermeneutics...

[Cal]

Originally Posted by Peter Debelak

An insightful thought - a philosophy constructed around a desired end (though the verdict is still out on Keynes...but please don't take the bait on that...).

This is the opposite of what philosophy (and spirituality) should be. If you start with the premise that you already know the truth, well, then 1) you have a certain crazy hubris and 2) everything starts looking like supporting evidence regardless of whether it actually is. You end up with some screwy hermeneutics...

Yeah, usually you end up with what would be a great philosophy... except for the big, fat, stinking elephant in the living room.

• Nee... with no provision for identifying local leadership, or limiting their power. (A strange thing. First you can't really know if they are the true leadership. But then, once you acknowledge them, you can't get rid of them.)
  
  
• Rand... with, among other things, her philosophy's inability to even explain why parents should care for their children.
  
  
• Marx... with communism's complete inability to manage an economy or keep pace with capitalism.
  
  
• Keynes... with $55 trillion and growing of global government debt. (Oops, I took the bait. )

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Yeah, usually you end up with what would be a great philosophy... except for the big, fat, stinking elephant in the living room.

• Marx... with communism's complete inability to manage an economy or keep pace with capitalism.
  
  

Marx made a big deal about how the poor oppressed workers were "alienated" from the means of production. They got no emotional return from the sweat of their brow. Good point, but, hey, you wanna talk alienation? Look at the alienation when the "state" owns everything.

Poor Karl -- he could have gotten rid of all of his alienation just by believing into Jesus.

With Marx the cure was ten times worse than the disease. Maybe a hundred times worse.