Tuesday, April 27, 2004
The most fundamental presupposition which gives content to my use of the word "God" when I speak of trust in God, is my belief that there is only one true God, and this God revealed himself to the Jews, and through them, to humankind. From this standpoint, Jesus comes into view as a Jewish interpreter of that revelation to the Jews. He addressed his teachings to Jews and his views engaged him in controversy with other schools of Jewish thought in his time. He criticized some Jewish beliefs and practices of his day by arguing that they contradicted other Jewish beliefs which were more fundamental and important. He gave his life at least in part because the controversy his ministry engendered gave rise to an alignment of forces within which submission to arrest, trial and execution became the only choice open to him which expressed continuing fidelity to his trust in God and his beliefs about his mission.
It seems to me that this picture of Jesus can be affirmed by both Jews and Christians. Jews, of course, will not regard Jesus as inherently normative or revelatory, while Christians will see in him the crown and capstone of the process by which the one God revealed himself to humankind through the Jews - but if either denies this basic statement of his Jewishness, I believe that they misunderstand the bedrock level of the historical relationship between Judaism and the teachings and events to which Christian faith refers.
It seems to me that this picture of Jesus can be affirmed by both Jews and Christians. Jews, of course, will not regard Jesus as inherently normative or revelatory, while Christians will see in him the crown and capstone of the process by which the one God revealed himself to humankind through the Jews - but if either denies this basic statement of his Jewishness, I believe that they misunderstand the bedrock level of the historical relationship between Judaism and the teachings and events to which Christian faith refers.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Here is an interpretation of the Biblical account of original sin and the fall of humankind:
When, in accordance with God's intention, intelligent life - man and woman, on earth - developed within creation, they enjoyed an unprecedented ability to control other created beings and things. God blessed their pursuit of the kind of knowledge which refined and extended this power, which God had ordained, to harness nature to the service of goals they consciously entertained. God warned them, though, not to place themselves in the position of freely formulating the ultimate ends (values) they used their God-given instrumental (tool-making!) skills to serve.
The man and woman were tempted to disobey this warning. The tempting thought which afflicted them was this: "It will be good to use these powerful skills in the service of goals I formulate for myself, and once I do, all my kind will see how obviously good it is," and woman and man succumbed to it.
In this way they ignored God's warning, were deceived by a false promise, and fell victim to inordinate self-preference. Then God told them that, as a species, this would cause their greatest unnatural afflictions, for now each man and woman would need to guard against the inordinate self-preference of all men and women. In particular, this would cause them to suffer more than would otherwise have been necessary in the process of getting what they needed in order to live by means of their labor, and in bearing and raising their children. God also told them that these very forms of suffering would become the means by which they would mitigate the otherwise lethal effect on their species of this venom of inordinate self-preference that they had ingested and unleashed on their kind. With this, man and woman were expelled from the place where a pleasant life had been theirs as a gift from God.
It is possible to read this account as everyone's story, rather than as the story of something that happened once in history and caused us to become the way we are today by means of some unspecified mechanism of transmission. It can even be seen as suggesting the inevitability of an inclination to sin on the part of self-conscious creatures endowed with sufficient intelligence to purposefully manipulate, or exercise dominion over, an environment which includes other creatures of their own kind. In any case, the original account in Genesis Chapters 1 through 4 is stunning in its theological and psychological depth of insight. I do not see how it could have been written as early as it was, without God's inspiration.
When, in accordance with God's intention, intelligent life - man and woman, on earth - developed within creation, they enjoyed an unprecedented ability to control other created beings and things. God blessed their pursuit of the kind of knowledge which refined and extended this power, which God had ordained, to harness nature to the service of goals they consciously entertained. God warned them, though, not to place themselves in the position of freely formulating the ultimate ends (values) they used their God-given instrumental (tool-making!) skills to serve.
The man and woman were tempted to disobey this warning. The tempting thought which afflicted them was this: "It will be good to use these powerful skills in the service of goals I formulate for myself, and once I do, all my kind will see how obviously good it is," and woman and man succumbed to it.
In this way they ignored God's warning, were deceived by a false promise, and fell victim to inordinate self-preference. Then God told them that, as a species, this would cause their greatest unnatural afflictions, for now each man and woman would need to guard against the inordinate self-preference of all men and women. In particular, this would cause them to suffer more than would otherwise have been necessary in the process of getting what they needed in order to live by means of their labor, and in bearing and raising their children. God also told them that these very forms of suffering would become the means by which they would mitigate the otherwise lethal effect on their species of this venom of inordinate self-preference that they had ingested and unleashed on their kind. With this, man and woman were expelled from the place where a pleasant life had been theirs as a gift from God.
It is possible to read this account as everyone's story, rather than as the story of something that happened once in history and caused us to become the way we are today by means of some unspecified mechanism of transmission. It can even be seen as suggesting the inevitability of an inclination to sin on the part of self-conscious creatures endowed with sufficient intelligence to purposefully manipulate, or exercise dominion over, an environment which includes other creatures of their own kind. In any case, the original account in Genesis Chapters 1 through 4 is stunning in its theological and psychological depth of insight. I do not see how it could have been written as early as it was, without God's inspiration.
Monday, April 12, 2004
Natural science has changed some parts of what we ask theology to illuminate.
More precisely, science has changed our understanding of the natural world, and that understanding is one aspect of what we ask our understanding of God to illuminate. The most important aspects of life that we ask our understanding of God to shed light on are anthropologically given by what is common to the situation of human beings in the world in every time and place, and those aspects haven't changed - the necessity to make choices with incomplete knowledge of their possible consequences, and awareness of the inevitability of death, to name several - but they are not the only aspects of life which we look to theology to illuminate. For example, extremely strong empirical evidence that species have evolved one from another is something new (in the long view of history) that we are asking our understanding of God to illuminate.
Some think that their theology has components less provisional than "their understanding of God", that they can make certain statements about what God has done or willed that are infallibly true, based on an infallible revelation. Ask them the meaning of any statement taken from the revelation they regard as infallible - ask them to tell you what it has actually revealed to them. What it means, and reveals, apart from their understanding of it, they do not know and cannot say. All they can tell you is their understanding of it, and however infallible the revelation may be, their understanding of it is no more infallible than their understanding of the empirical world. This point was made by the English philosopher John Locke as early as the late 1600's.
It is not my intention in the least to deny the unique revelatory potential of the Holy Bible. Rather, I mean to suggest that neither our theories about the empirical world nor our interpretations of biblical texts - that is, our theories about the sense in which a text reveals something about God's will for us or God's acts in our history - merit some special warrant of trusworthiness. We are in no position to decide, before the fact, that when they come into conflict, we can be so sure of one, that we can assume that the other is mistaken. The task of forming a coherent view of life from a stance of absolute trust in God - for Christian purposes, what Paul called "taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" - will sometimes require us to critically examine empirical theories for possible metaphysical content masquerading as scientific claims, and sometimes to revise our interpretation of what sacred scripture is revealing about God's will or deeds. The alternatives to such flexibility are idolatry at one extreme, atheism at the other, and a perpetual repetition of the church's failure to appreciate one of history's great opportunities for reverent wonder and awe, when it gave Galileo the back of its hand.
We need not - we ought not - fear that a frank admission of our thoroughgoing fallibility detracts from the glory of God, or somehow limits our ability to unconditionally trust only in him.
More precisely, science has changed our understanding of the natural world, and that understanding is one aspect of what we ask our understanding of God to illuminate. The most important aspects of life that we ask our understanding of God to shed light on are anthropologically given by what is common to the situation of human beings in the world in every time and place, and those aspects haven't changed - the necessity to make choices with incomplete knowledge of their possible consequences, and awareness of the inevitability of death, to name several - but they are not the only aspects of life which we look to theology to illuminate. For example, extremely strong empirical evidence that species have evolved one from another is something new (in the long view of history) that we are asking our understanding of God to illuminate.
Some think that their theology has components less provisional than "their understanding of God", that they can make certain statements about what God has done or willed that are infallibly true, based on an infallible revelation. Ask them the meaning of any statement taken from the revelation they regard as infallible - ask them to tell you what it has actually revealed to them. What it means, and reveals, apart from their understanding of it, they do not know and cannot say. All they can tell you is their understanding of it, and however infallible the revelation may be, their understanding of it is no more infallible than their understanding of the empirical world. This point was made by the English philosopher John Locke as early as the late 1600's.
It is not my intention in the least to deny the unique revelatory potential of the Holy Bible. Rather, I mean to suggest that neither our theories about the empirical world nor our interpretations of biblical texts - that is, our theories about the sense in which a text reveals something about God's will for us or God's acts in our history - merit some special warrant of trusworthiness. We are in no position to decide, before the fact, that when they come into conflict, we can be so sure of one, that we can assume that the other is mistaken. The task of forming a coherent view of life from a stance of absolute trust in God - for Christian purposes, what Paul called "taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" - will sometimes require us to critically examine empirical theories for possible metaphysical content masquerading as scientific claims, and sometimes to revise our interpretation of what sacred scripture is revealing about God's will or deeds. The alternatives to such flexibility are idolatry at one extreme, atheism at the other, and a perpetual repetition of the church's failure to appreciate one of history's great opportunities for reverent wonder and awe, when it gave Galileo the back of its hand.
We need not - we ought not - fear that a frank admission of our thoroughgoing fallibility detracts from the glory of God, or somehow limits our ability to unconditionally trust only in him.
