Opus 2025-552: More Jellybean Philosophy

I sometimes wonder why people can’t see the inconsistency in their thinking and the application of their thinking.  My focus is on theology, but it would apply to just about any discipline.

Last Sunday in our Sunday school hour we were looking at Romans chapter 4.  The apostle Paul is discussing the relationship of faith and the law.  I had to sit on myself because the nuances that I would have wanted to go into could not be explained in that format.  The simplistic statement that all you need is faith was repeated again and again.  At its heart, that is a correct statement.  Faith, belief stating that you were on board with Jesus, is an essential element of salvation.  You can’t argue with that.  The problem is that everybody ignores the rest of what the Bible says.

But that’s not the inconsistency I’m talking about.  That’s just having a focal point of a lesson and emphasizing what is important.  Where it came home was an hour later in the sermon, by the same leader, in the same building, too many of the same people, the theme was making the right decisions in daily life.  Again, decisions are important. But when 2/3 of the sermon focuses on fornication and alcohol abuse I start to wonder, what happened to the faith being the only thing needed?

I am aware of these two requirements presented in the Bible.  We must have faith in order to be saved.  The problem with that statement is the Bible also makes it clear that we are to walk in righteousness.  It is not optional.  The way they were presented on Sunday made them mutually exclusive.  Anyone paying attention would’ve asked themselves, “What?”  They can be explained.  They can be brought together.  The problem is that requires a little deeper study and a broader application of scripture.

Somehow, I think we have the same problem in the areas of science, the pseudosciences such as psychology and sociology, economics, you name it.  People have their themes.  They have their thought at the moment.

And here’s where I get to my title.  I think most people’s thinking is like a bag of jellybeans.  Every jellybean has its own distinct flavor.  Every jellybean is separate from the others.  There might be a little bit of a coating wiped off on another, but they are still unique.  You might put several in your mouth and chew them up at the same time and get a totally different flavor.  All that time the jellybeans are kept separate within themselves.

We should have more of an approach of a nice beef stew or a clam chowder.  Perhaps a whole grain bread would work.  We need to get to where we take all of the ingredients in our intellectual pursuits as well as in our cuisine and realize that they work together for the finished product.

It’s not cynicism. It’s needed skepticism. It’s not naivety, but wisdom.

homo unius libri