With a new regeneration of NT Wrong in the blogosphere, it is time to give him or her a proper blogger’s welcome. And we all know how that is done, don’t we? By pointing out that, as the saying goes, Wrong is wrong.
It is of course true that we project our own ideals, beliefs, and values onto God (or other figures we idolize, literally or metaphorically). But I simply cannot agree that this makes it meaningless or pointless to ask “What would Jesus do?” or other such questions. Presumably an analogy from a scientific equivalent might help make my point. If a scientist asks “What would Einstein think?” he or she is presumably not anticipating that by doing so their mind will suddenly transcend their normal limitations and achieve genius. The point, surely, is to recognize one’s own limitations, and try to do better.
Many Liberal Christians are aware that what we think about God is all metaphor and projection. It is at best a transcendent God drawing near to us in an ineffable way that we do insufficient justice to using inadequate concepts we can understand. At worst, it is us projecting our limited thinking on the infinite. I’m not sure we could distinguish between these two cases, or if we did so it would make any difference. But the very fact of trying to relate to the infinite, to a reality that we conceive of as ultimate goodness, is an attempt to transcend our limited horizons – to “think outside the box” as it were. And surely the attempt to do so is worthwhile. Otherwise, the history of religion has taught us nothing. Time and again, what are claimed to be divine revelations with hindsight can be recognized as sounding just like the thinking of the age that produced them. And so the fact that we often fail to see beyond our limited horizons surely should not be treated as justification for not trying to do so!
And so there you have it: I think Wrong is wrong. But perhaps I’m wrong. And it sounds like you have the opportunity to be Wrong/wrong too!
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