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Our time has been labeled the Information Age.
We are certainly a far cry from the Stone Age, just look at the tools you use at work and around the house. We no longer ride chariots of iron or "iron horses"...it is clearly not the Iron Age. Our time is much too great to be described as a Silver Age, and we are much too young and hip to be graying. Yet, our present is simply not as good as that Golden Age of myth and memory--so that is out.
I think that even if these titles did describe our Age, we wouldn't use them. We reject the cultural and social rigidity these minerals and metals might evoke, metaphorically. We are all together too free-thinking, too original. So Information Age it is...or is it?
In our post-modern age, we have gone beyond information. Recently, I was searching the internet for restaurant ideas. Beneath the "official" descriptions of each food emporium were volumes of posts rating everything from the quality of the food, to the service, to the atmosphere and location. I found myself focused on these ratings more than anything else...and judging what I did not know for myself by them. Sure, I couldn't trust the "official" description--it was written with a conflict of interest, the bias was to advertise--so instead I was putting my trust in "Gastrolust" and "Bob's Stomach." My gastronomical lusts are not theirs, nor is my stomach Bob's stomach. But I took to heart what they said.
We live in an age when anyone can comment on anything. Online news articles with long threads; twitter; facebook; blogs--they are all opinions (without authority) and yet we give them authority. We willingly bow to the oppression of opinion. Feedback, comments, ratings, polls are prevalent, these prevail. I am afraid that we treat these opinions as truth instead of experiencing and/or reflecting for ourselves. We have transcended information and now live in the age of "insider knowledge," which is nothing more than the Opinion Age.
The same is occurring in our churches. Dogma is the devil and ethical principles are fusty. Many churches put it this way, "We are about faith formation, not information." The idea is that information, which is equated with doctrine (and perhaps rightly), is stuffy and boring, that formation is less oppressive. But let us examine these words.
"Information" is anything that informs. "Inform" comes from the Latin informare: "to shape, fashion, describe." Let's break it down: in- "into" + forma "a form." Information, then, is something that is put into a form. Unless an idea takes some form, it cannot be shared. Unless an idea takes some form, we cannot interact with it. That is, I can have no opinion for myself on something that is formless, but as soon as it takes form, I have the traction to come down one way or another in regard to it.
Information goes still deeper, however. We say, "She is informed" or "I was not informed." What "takes form" in this usage? I would say, poetically, that it is one's inward self (one's heart, soul, mind--however you wish to describe or shape the idea) which is formed. Information is that which "forms us inwardly." It is not knowledge per se, but knowledge to which we relate by mediating reality and our ideas. Information is knowledge that we know by heart...knowledge that has the potential to change the way we act by changing the way we think and feel about a thing. We are outwardly molded not by something external to us, but by our inward life...since it was we ourselves that interacted with information (we wrestled with it) and we were formed inwardly. The outward changes, therefore, come from within. This is the only genuine change and this is what Christians call conversion.
Formation is something different, is entirely external. It changes behavior without changing the inward life. Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia formed citizens and did not inform them. These governments control what information is available and modify what information is broadcast according to certain aims. This friends, is formation without information.
In democracies the world over, where freedom is an ideal, free speech is that mechanism that gives the people the right to be informed, the right to information. It is this passion for freedom that has given us news shows, blogs, polls, discussion threads, facebook, twitter, etc. We passionately defend our freedom of speech, and rightly so. But we forget that our freedom of speech is merely the freedom to give our opinion. News sources are not objective, but have biases. Facts always come with opinion. Information always comes to us in the form of opinion. Because only opinion is a form in which we can be informed. Opinion has no authority, and so we have the freedom to interact with it--to agree or to disagree. [Notice I do not say react.] Speech feeds and empowers a greater and more fundamental freedom, the freedom of thought.
So, we are not in the Opinion Age, for that is synonymous with information, which we have transcended (though not to the effect for which most intend and hope). Should we try, then, the "Age of Thoughtless Assent?" Is this not what I do when I allow Bob's Stomach undue influence upon my choice of restaurants? Now this is a small matter, but what if I am watching the news, instead of reading a food critic? What if I am reading the Bible? What if I do not think about the things I hear and see?
Opinions don't hurt people. Thoughtlessness hurts people. Thoughtless assent to the the most random and untested of opinions...hurts humanity. Biblical literalists read the Scriptures and follow what is written without question. They are formed, not informed by the Bible. There is no interaction there. Meanwhile, scientists have tested the hypothesis of evolution so much that they have deemed to call it a Theory (the highest title of "proof" that the scientific method allows). Scientists have interacted with the information, with the world, so much that they know it intimately enough to have a well-tested opinion and belief about how creatures have come to be in all their diversity. Who gives more honor to the information before them? Who loves the truth more? Who is better informed--the source does not matter, for has not God set before us creation, just as the Bible is set before us? Should we interact with one to the exclusion of the other? But to deny Evolution is to refuse to interact with both scientific truth and with Biblical witness. If your science comes from the Bible, you haven't been listening to the point that the Bible is trying to get across. You haven't spent enough time letting the Bible inform you.
But I digress. Back to the task at hand.
Our Information Age is full of opinions, and rightly so. We have the freedom of speech, but let us not neglect that prior freedom: the freedom of thought. Let us keep to an age in which we remain steadfast to informed dissent (or assent)
How wonderful it is to be a human being, to be given such an inherent freedom!
Information presents us with a choice. We can either doubt or believe. God has given us the ability to choose. And so let us always remember that if we doubt, it is a choice...and if we believe, it is a choice. Truth changes my inward being and my outward behavior, if--and only if--I will to believe it.
Therefore, I will follow the advice of Bob's Stomach and not try the restaurant he disliked, but I have chosen to do so in freedom, aware of the risks. It is a leap of faith that goes against all of the other glowing recommendations for that particular restaurant.
NEXT TIME:
"Who Can Stomach Dogma?" or "How Doctrine is the Only Opportunity for Faith to Grow"
Bob's Stomach has given me a wonderful advantage. In my next blog-post, I will explore how Bob's Stomach relates to the doctrine of the Church--and even how Bob's Stomach is connected to faith in Jesus Christ! (The answer is not the Lord's Supper, but is much more exciting...I'll keep you posted.)
I think that even if these titles did describe our Age, we wouldn't use them. We reject the cultural and social rigidity these minerals and metals might evoke, metaphorically. We are all together too free-thinking, too original. So Information Age it is...or is it?
In our post-modern age, we have gone beyond information. Recently, I was searching the internet for restaurant ideas. Beneath the "official" descriptions of each food emporium were volumes of posts rating everything from the quality of the food, to the service, to the atmosphere and location. I found myself focused on these ratings more than anything else...and judging what I did not know for myself by them. Sure, I couldn't trust the "official" description--it was written with a conflict of interest, the bias was to advertise--so instead I was putting my trust in "Gastrolust" and "Bob's Stomach." My gastronomical lusts are not theirs, nor is my stomach Bob's stomach. But I took to heart what they said.
We live in an age when anyone can comment on anything. Online news articles with long threads; twitter; facebook; blogs--they are all opinions (without authority) and yet we give them authority. We willingly bow to the oppression of opinion. Feedback, comments, ratings, polls are prevalent, these prevail. I am afraid that we treat these opinions as truth instead of experiencing and/or reflecting for ourselves. We have transcended information and now live in the age of "insider knowledge," which is nothing more than the Opinion Age.
The same is occurring in our churches. Dogma is the devil and ethical principles are fusty. Many churches put it this way, "We are about faith formation, not information." The idea is that information, which is equated with doctrine (and perhaps rightly), is stuffy and boring, that formation is less oppressive. But let us examine these words.
"Information" is anything that informs. "Inform" comes from the Latin informare: "to shape, fashion, describe." Let's break it down: in- "into" + forma "a form." Information, then, is something that is put into a form. Unless an idea takes some form, it cannot be shared. Unless an idea takes some form, we cannot interact with it. That is, I can have no opinion for myself on something that is formless, but as soon as it takes form, I have the traction to come down one way or another in regard to it.
Information goes still deeper, however. We say, "She is informed" or "I was not informed." What "takes form" in this usage? I would say, poetically, that it is one's inward self (one's heart, soul, mind--however you wish to describe or shape the idea) which is formed. Information is that which "forms us inwardly." It is not knowledge per se, but knowledge to which we relate by mediating reality and our ideas. Information is knowledge that we know by heart...knowledge that has the potential to change the way we act by changing the way we think and feel about a thing. We are outwardly molded not by something external to us, but by our inward life...since it was we ourselves that interacted with information (we wrestled with it) and we were formed inwardly. The outward changes, therefore, come from within. This is the only genuine change and this is what Christians call conversion.
Formation is something different, is entirely external. It changes behavior without changing the inward life. Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and Asia formed citizens and did not inform them. These governments control what information is available and modify what information is broadcast according to certain aims. This friends, is formation without information.
In democracies the world over, where freedom is an ideal, free speech is that mechanism that gives the people the right to be informed, the right to information. It is this passion for freedom that has given us news shows, blogs, polls, discussion threads, facebook, twitter, etc. We passionately defend our freedom of speech, and rightly so. But we forget that our freedom of speech is merely the freedom to give our opinion. News sources are not objective, but have biases. Facts always come with opinion. Information always comes to us in the form of opinion. Because only opinion is a form in which we can be informed. Opinion has no authority, and so we have the freedom to interact with it--to agree or to disagree. [Notice I do not say react.] Speech feeds and empowers a greater and more fundamental freedom, the freedom of thought.
So, we are not in the Opinion Age, for that is synonymous with information, which we have transcended (though not to the effect for which most intend and hope). Should we try, then, the "Age of Thoughtless Assent?" Is this not what I do when I allow Bob's Stomach undue influence upon my choice of restaurants? Now this is a small matter, but what if I am watching the news, instead of reading a food critic? What if I am reading the Bible? What if I do not think about the things I hear and see?
Opinions don't hurt people. Thoughtlessness hurts people. Thoughtless assent to the the most random and untested of opinions...hurts humanity. Biblical literalists read the Scriptures and follow what is written without question. They are formed, not informed by the Bible. There is no interaction there. Meanwhile, scientists have tested the hypothesis of evolution so much that they have deemed to call it a Theory (the highest title of "proof" that the scientific method allows). Scientists have interacted with the information, with the world, so much that they know it intimately enough to have a well-tested opinion and belief about how creatures have come to be in all their diversity. Who gives more honor to the information before them? Who loves the truth more? Who is better informed--the source does not matter, for has not God set before us creation, just as the Bible is set before us? Should we interact with one to the exclusion of the other? But to deny Evolution is to refuse to interact with both scientific truth and with Biblical witness. If your science comes from the Bible, you haven't been listening to the point that the Bible is trying to get across. You haven't spent enough time letting the Bible inform you.
But I digress. Back to the task at hand.
Our Information Age is full of opinions, and rightly so. We have the freedom of speech, but let us not neglect that prior freedom: the freedom of thought. Let us keep to an age in which we remain steadfast to informed dissent (or assent)
How wonderful it is to be a human being, to be given such an inherent freedom!
Information presents us with a choice. We can either doubt or believe. God has given us the ability to choose. And so let us always remember that if we doubt, it is a choice...and if we believe, it is a choice. Truth changes my inward being and my outward behavior, if--and only if--I will to believe it.
Therefore, I will follow the advice of Bob's Stomach and not try the restaurant he disliked, but I have chosen to do so in freedom, aware of the risks. It is a leap of faith that goes against all of the other glowing recommendations for that particular restaurant.
NEXT TIME:
"Who Can Stomach Dogma?" or "How Doctrine is the Only Opportunity for Faith to Grow"
Bob's Stomach has given me a wonderful advantage. In my next blog-post, I will explore how Bob's Stomach relates to the doctrine of the Church--and even how Bob's Stomach is connected to faith in Jesus Christ! (The answer is not the Lord's Supper, but is much more exciting...I'll keep you posted.)
Wonderful post, Ryan! It gave me a lot to think about. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteA blog like yours, Ryan is a good example of what you are talking about. Your thoughts and opinions are yours and we can take them or leave them. We can also respond, as I am doing. In my lifetime (over 50 years) there has been so much change in the information age. I think we are doing quite well with all the new stuff, considering how much there is to deal with.
ReplyDeleteHere are some synonyms for the word informed: knowledgeable, up-to-date, learned, cognizant, abreast, and primed. I like all those words and I like to be all those!