Subject: Whats the point? |
Bible Note: Doc, it occurs to me that possibly some readers of the Forum -- am I being too assumptive? :-) -- may not be able to produce a definition of "supralapsarian" off the tips of their tongues! -- even though it is certainly a doctrinal concept worth knowing. Therefore, I "appoint" you an ad hoc committee of one to give the Forum a definition of "supralapsarian" as well as the related word "infralapsarian" in a way that does not invite debate, of course. We don't want to go there! But I think it would be helpful to define these terms. And you're just the man to do it. It might add a touch of class to the Forum! (We can always use some of that :-) For some time I've thought how helpful it could be to the readers of the Forum if someone would take it upon himself to give us accurate definitions of some of the most important "theological" words -- a concise theological dictionary, not all at once but in dribs and drabs, a word or two at a time. Some of the problems that lead to argumentation and debate have their root cause in words being bandied about freely without the parties to the discussion having a clear concept of the exact meanings of the words and concepts on which they appear to disagree. This is merely a suggestion, and I defer to your judgment of whether it would serve any useful purpose. But ever since I studied semantics in school back in 1812, I've been burdened with the notion that a great deal of misunderstanding in religion, politics, law, and other fields of human endeavor could be averted simply if both sides to an argument know and agree on the precise meaning of the words and terms they are using. I've known opposing candidates for public office to disagree vigorously with one another when it was fairly apparent that neither knew the meaning of the words he was using. They didn't really understand what they were disagreeing about and semantics could help, assuming, of course, that politicians want to be helped :-) But that's another subject altogether. --Hank |