:: St. Stephen's Musings ::

:: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 ::

Are you a Finder or a Seeker....Or Something Else? Part I:

Chris makes some good points about being a "lifelong learner" and the necessity of humility in this recent post.

However, he posits a dichotomy (between being a "dispenser" of truth and a "receptacle" of truth) that I think is not merely simplistic, but betrays one of the chief errors of our postmodern age.

Wilfred M. McClay (who I'll return to in Part II) makes a great point against this dichotomy in a book review in the December 03 issue of "First Things" This postmodern attitude, he says,

"presumes something that one has no right to presume, but that right-thinking and 'spiritual' people in the Western world now presume every day: that ultimate truth is relative or pluriform, and the "journey" of pilgrimage is more important than the convictions of the pilgrim or the destination toward which they journey...."

It has been claimed that the individualism and pragmatism (in regards to the spiritual journey) we see so often in our churches is directly related to this false dualism between "seeking" and "finding." Once we've decided that those who seek have more to offer than those who find, we end up inevitably disparaging or distrusting the witness and truth of those who have found. This leads us to watering down and trimming the truth to fit the lowest common denominator.

"Seeker sensitive" becomes "finder intolerant" frighteningly fast.

Is it any wonder why so many postmodern Christians see themselves primarily as seekers yet no one seems to find what they are looking for? Like rats in a maze, we gleefuly stroll through the corridors of our spiritual life content being lost. (Unlike St. Paul in 1 Cor who says, "I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air.")

As Clifton notes, if we accept this worldview and way of understanding the Christian life, we fail to see Jesus as "the scandal of particularity." Worse, we end up glorifying and emulating those who refuse to walk the path and ignore those who have found the path and are walking it. Can you imagine St. Paul endorsing a view that dichotomizes between "seekers" and "finders" in this way? I think not--otherwise half of his own writings would have to be shunned because they came from a "finder"-- and a pretty staunch one at that!

However, I've left something important out. There is a more fundamental error within the dualism of seeking and finding that I'll explore a bit in Part II....

:: Karl :: 12:56:00 PM [Link] ::