orichalcum

What's the asterisk by Socratic dialogues about? Just curious.

The principle of acceptance is not the same thing as the command/advice distinction. One can accept Scripture as prima facie true and still believe some or much of it contains advice, specifically meant by God to apply in some cultural contexts and not others. If I still started off from a principle of acceptance, I'd consider that an important point to make.

Instead, much like you (though less Arian!) I start off from a principle of critical engagement. Sacred texts seem to me to be human records of divine interactions with humanity, which are like any text subject to human distortions and misunderstandings, and were written through a particular cultural prism.

No text is infallible, nor is any human mind. God is infallible. To the extent that the omniscient God's advice is conveyed accurately through the screen of a particular text, I certainly think it trumps my own framework, and I try to read sacred texts with an openness to changing my framework. But of course, my own fallible moral and mental framework influences how I judge the fallibility of a particular text. There's no Archimedean point of interpretation from which I can know the mind of God.

I think there's a reason for that, that moral or epistemological certitude could too easily be mistaken for divinity (as we see with the strains of monotheism that essentially come to worship an infallible text). Fundamental uncertainty is one of the many severe mercies that drives us back in our weakness to rely on God Godself.

(Incidentally, I don't see non-procreative sex condemned anywhere in the Bible (or to my knowledge the Quran). The story of Onan doesn't seem to demand any moral beyond condemnation of filial disloyalty. So that one's not really an issue for me. I read St Augustine with critical engagement as well, and don't see any reason that his interpretation of scripture or sex should be normatively binding on all Christians.)

Yay for the popularity of Ori's Roman Civ class!

I'd take Romans 1.26-27 as one of Paul's condemnations of homosexual behavior -- not on the grounds that it's non-procreative or masturbatory, but on the grounds that it's unnatural, indecent, and prohibited by the Law (Lev 20.13).

I also apologize if I wasn't clear: I don't believe that Scripture is prima facie true (and I think Paul's beliefs in Rom 1.26-27 are mistaken). My point was that even if I did, that wouldn't necessarily mean I thought that everything in Scripture was a command, or that every command was still binding today. Plenty of fundamentalist Christians feel perfectly justified ignoring the clear commands of God on the eating of pigs, shellfish, and hoopoes. Plenty feel justified seeing certain of Christ's words as hyperbole (hate your family, pluck out your own eye, sell all you have and give it to the poor). They've got exegetical justifications for all of that -- and that kind of exegesis is critical engagement of a sort, though not nearly critical enough for my satisfaction.

"A severe mercy" may have been coined by CS Lewis -- I forget. It's the title of a book by one of his acolytes, Sheldon Van Auken, which I didn't find particularly appealing, but which others have appreciated.

OK, maybe not hoopoes.