Opus 2025-380: Sides of Labels

Labels are one of those things which can be useful or be all the way across the spectrum to destructive.  I am not talking about labeling cans but putting people in categories.  Labels can speed up and help the discussion between people if they both understand what they mean and apply them correctly.  They can be confusing if people use the same word, but mean different things by it even in an honest way.  They can also be used to conceal what you really believe.

The label that brought me to this thought was “reasonable faith”.  I’ve been listening to people who are making preposterous assumptions about truth.  They are resorting to what we would call blind faith.  The orthodox, small “o”, believing community has long made a difference between blind faith and reasoned faith.  For the most part the orthodox community rejects blind faith.  Walking through life there might be times where you have to fall back on that, but it is not where we stand as Christians.  Our faith is reasonable, and based on a coherent system of looking at God and His universe.

Something can be reasonable and yet still not totally understandable.  One reason I have a feel for understanding the meaning of infinity is because I believe in an infinite God.  I in no way come close to comprehending.  I can’t explain to someone who doesn’t want to listen, but I can communicate a general sense about who God is and what infinity is.  Or take the concept of the Trinity.  I have a general feel for what it means to have one God in three persons.  But as one of my professors once said when you think you really understand it, you have probably drifted into heresy.

In politics we see this in the label of democracy.  Most people don’t stop to think about the fact that we do not live in a democracy, and the founders of our republic deliberately avoided establishing a democracy.  Democracies don’t work in the long run.  They tend to lead to extremism and tyranny.  But we still use the term.  We use it in a generic sense and depending on how you use it, you’re either being honest or deceptive.  When you hear a politician, crying out that someone is destroying our democracy they are being deceptive.  We don’t live in a democracy.  The action is being decried is trying to establish a democracy.  It totally deceptive.

I would advise begining a discussion with defining terms and agreeing on what our labels mean.  For instance, earlier I used the term “orthodox” small “o” instead of “born again” or “evangelical”.  The reason is the Orthodox refers to a group of denominations and the other terms have lost their meaning.  If I was talking with you I would accept a word you chose.

Keep discussing.  Keep listening.  Keep growing.

homo unius libri