Opening Classical Theology

There is a theological model called the classical view.  Proponents of it claim the power and glory of God and God's wonderful plan for all things.

They also insist that God preordains all things, in the strong sense that the cosmic timeline is closed and decided long before we ever came along.  In classical theism every joy and sorrow is set by God from the beginning.  Every good and evil that happens is going to happen no matter what we say or do because it is part of God's plan.

As a result of this classical theism has a problem.  Namely, God's implication in evil.  How could God plan for the horrors of the past, or those of today?  There is also the problem with human dignity.  If God has planned everything, our sense of freedom and personal achievement loses all meaning.

Can we believe in the power and glory of God if God has planned everything?  Can classical theism be saved?

Thankfully there is a counter-current to classical theism which is commonly referred to as the "open" view.  It does not propose a closed system but rather an open-ended creation that God enters into with us.  God wants us to be free so that we can work together in a loving relationship toward what God has all along planned.  Even if granting us freedom runs the risk that we do something else, and take the world in a whole other direction.  In the name of human freedom and the possibility of true partnership God is willing to take the risk, and to abide all of the terrible things that we have done.  To forgive us even.

With this move open theism addresses both of the problems with the classical view.  When God no longer predetermines everything God is no longer complicit in evil.  Evil arises from the free choices of human beings instead.  A space is also opened for human dignity through what we accomplish with our decisions.  There is pride to be had as a human being through our contribution to the achievement of God's wonderful plan.

The only cost is a God who predetermines everything.  What is saved is a God who can do all things in power and glory.

Thanks be to Job.

The Serpent's Truth and God's Lie

We need to be careful with the serpent.  We need to remove any preconception that the serpent is evil. 

The serpent is not evil.  In fact it is the wisest of wild creatures in the beginning.

What we have to understand is that the serpent is not out to get Eve but to help her.  The serpent doesn't lie to Eve but tells her the truth.  It tells her a good thing, that eating from the tree of knowledge doesn't lead to death but to life.  That the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil should be eaten.

There's nothing false about what the serpent says.  If it is trying to tempt Eve it is because it tells her about a good thing, something that she is appropriately tempted by.  Something that the serpent wants to share because it is good.  If the serpent is blameworthy it is because it is not wise enough.  It doesn't understand why God would lie, and keep Adam and Eve from the knowledge of good and evil...

So why would God lie?  Why would God tell Adam that in eating from the tree he would die?

Like the serpent God knows that knowing good and evil can produce life-giving fruit.  But God also knows that it can be hard to swallow.  A certain maturity is required before we should have such knowledge.  Having knowledge of good and evil is an important stage in moral development...

It is important that as children we don't realize our nudity.  We might be ashamed if we did...

Thanks be to Job.

Why Truth Is Not Had Through Reason

What a piece of work, Plato's Parmenides!  What a call to discern and a challenge to our wisdom!

To give some context, Plato and Parmenides were among the greatest Greek philosophers.  Plato was taught by Socrates who was in turn taught by Parmenides.  Parmenides was an elder in the time of Socrates' youth and if we trust Plato's account they had dealings with each other.  Parmenides was a mentor.

In his own time Parmenides left us a wonderful poem about truth.  Only fragments of it remain but the goal of the poem is quite clear.  It is meant to show us the way of truth.  Parmenides also claims to show us the way of untruth but this part of his work is by and large missing.  As a result it is hard to derive Parmenides' teaching.

Plato's Parmenides is a great resource then because we have it in its entirety.  In the dialogue Plato also has Parmenides make a similar promise to his interlocuters.  To show them the way of truth (and untruth).

He says that the process is long and arduous, but I think if we abstract from the particulars the result is quite clear.  What follows is his method and what I believe is the result:

When showing the way of truth Parmenides first takes a thesis.  Any thesis would do but for Parmenides it is 'being is'.

From this statement Parmenides produces an argument.  He develops an incontrovertible result from the fact that being is.  For example, all is in motion.

He then starts over and does it again, but this time he shows something completely different from the thesis.  For instance, when before he showed from 'being is' that everything is in motion he would then show that everything is still.

In an indisputable way Parmenides shows how the potential truth 'being is' yields confounding results.  He leaves us with the feeling that the statement we thought was true cannot be trusted.

What is more, Parmenides then takes the counter statement 'being is not' and repeats the process!  He shows that this too, when rationally developed, leads only to confusion.

Parmenides ultimately presents us with four fully rational but mutually exclusive arguments that ultimately undermine both that being is and that being is not.  What is shown is not just how little we know but how little we can know through rational discourse.

And that's just it: The truth that glares us in the face once Parmenides is done is not a truth obtained through reason but the truth that reason is not the way of truth.

The way of truth is some other way.  Perhaps the only way that is left once reason is dispelled and discourse ceases.

Thanks be to Job.

The Decimation of Israel

God doesn't always come across so good in the Bible.  One place where God's actions are especially questionable is Exodus 32.  Or the story of the golden calf.  For those of you who are unaware it goes something like this: Moses leads the people out of Egypt.  Moses then goes up into the mountains.  The people grow tired of waiting down below.  The people commission a golden calf for their worshipping needs.

When Moses eventually comes down, 3000 Israelites die because of the betrayal.  Moses' command after gathering those loyal to him gives us a good idea why:

"This is what the Lord our God says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'"

In other words, it is the word of the Lord that Israel be decimated.  Hence why God doesn't always come across so good.  Ordering things like genocide.  And of His chosen people no less!

But as always with the Bible we must be careful.  When we see something so contrary we need to look closer.  To see what's really going on we have to wind our way back up the mountain, to when God first discovered Israel's betrayal.  If we do so we indeed see that God is in a genocidal mood because of it, for God says to Moses:

"Leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation."

In other words, God wants to start fresh with Moses and to scrap the rest.  God wants to do precisely what Moses eventually commands those loyal to him to do.  Decimate Israel.

The problem is, this initial decision of God's is unacceptable to Moses.  Moses calls God to remember Egypt.  Moses asks God whether Israel was saved only to be destroyed.  Moses begs God to remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the (potential) glory of the people.  And as we see Moses succeeds:

"...for the Lord relented and did not bring on the people the disaster that had been threatened."

So what gives?  Why is Israel decimated in God's name? 

What is clear is that it is only after Moses descends from the mountain that the command is given.  It is only after Moses sees for himself the idolatry of the people that his own anger is incited against them and he gives the order to kill (in God's name).

To understand what is going on we have to see Moses as God's representative to the people.  Moses speaks in God's name.  He is to do exactly what God would do.  And as we see this is precisely what he does: He becomes angry and wants to smite the people upon seeing their idolatry.

The problem is that Moses didn't have someone like himself to soothe his anger.

Aaron, Moses' sidekick, who was to be to Moses as Moses was to God, failed to change Moses' mind as Moses changed God's.  Aaron failed to be the wisdom that we are all called to be and as a result Israel was decimated.

Thanks be to Job.

Derrida's Cat

There was a famous philosopher named Jacques Derrida.  In one of his final works he wrote about the animal and nudity.  What I found immediately provocative about this work, which I have only begun to engage, is an experience that he describes with his cat.  Coming out of the shower one day Derrida was caught naked by the cat.

He tells us that in that moment he was ashamed.  He was naked and he was ashamed.

Now I don't know why Derrida was ashamed before his cat.  Shame is not something that I tend to feel when naked before an animal (my dog for instance).  But Derrida says he was ashamed.  He also says that he was ashamed of being ashamed. Standing naked before his cat Derrida was ashamed and he was ashamed of being ashamed.

As to why Derrida was ashamed of being ashamed I like to think that he was harking back to bygone days.  To childhood.  To that time in our lives when we were just beginners in wisdom and there was still pride and joy to be taken in nudity.  When we didn't know or care about our nakedness and we couldn't recognize good from evil. 

I like to think that Derrida was lamenting the loss of a remarkable openness toward others and an acceptance of others that we once possessed as children.  (An acceptance that I find for instance when I stand naked before an animal.  An openness that makes it impossible to feel any shame before them.  Unless I have done them harm.  Or have been too hard on them.)

I like to think that Derrida, in confessing that he was ashamed of being ashamed, was proclaiming the wisdom of nudity.  That while part of our moral development is finding out that we are naked the next step is not covering up or hiding in this state but persevering.  Whether we are ashamed or not.  Whether we should be ashamed or ashamed of being ashamed.

I like to think that Derrida is professing the potential glory of humankind by describing the experience that he has with the cat.

Thanks be to Job.

From Eschaton to Apocalypse

I recently read The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  You may know it better from the film released awhile back starring Viggo Mortensen.  I won't give away any spoilers here but I will say what I took from the story.

To set the stage, the book provides an account of a father and son travelling through, and struggling to survive in, a post-apocalyptic world.  But "post-apocalyptic" is probably the wrong word to use.  A better description would be a world between eschaton and apocalypse, where the eschaton is the end time and the apocalypse is the new beginning.  The Road shows us the journey in between, from eschaton to apocalypse.  It shows us a father and son making their way through a world choking on the ashes of the old and with only a childish hope for the new.

That hope still exists in this "between" world is evident in the fact that the pair are travelling south.  They are trying to make their way to the sea and to the possibility for life that the sea represents.  More palpably it is evident in the son.  Not in the sense that the son has hope but in the sense that the son is the hope (of the father).  The son is the seed of the new world.  The son is the goodness from the old that must be carried forward into the new, and that needs to be preserved in the process.  No matter what the cost.  By whatever means.

With this setting The Road offers us something like a theodicy.  I say "something like" because a theodicy typically provides a defense of the justice of God. The goal is to get God off of the hook for evil, or to show that God is just despite evil.  The Road offers us something like a theodicy because instead of defending God's justice it gives us a reason for God's injustice.  It doesn't give us an explanation for all evil but it does give an explanation for certain immoral actions that all of us could understand.

The point I take from The Road then, to finally get to my point, is not so much that we are to survive by any means possible once the end time comes, as if we are to be like the cannibals that the father and son try to avoid, but rather that we are to protect and preserve the hope that is the son by any means possible.  The goodness of the son must survive to bring about the post-apocalyptic world that we all dream of.  No matter what the cost.  By whatever means.

Thanks be to Job.

Jeremiah's Loincloth

Jeremiah was a prophet.

His story holds an interesting account where God tells him to go get a loincloth.  Any one that he chooses.

God then tells Jeremiah to wear the loincloth and not to clean it.  God wants Jeremiah to go about in dirty underwear (and nothing else).

From there the ridiculousness goes on, but instead of continuing the story I would like to change registers.  I would like to use this story to address a modern cultural problem, namely, that some people expect such foolishness of the Bible, and might jump to the conclusion that this story is a confirmation of their expectation.

In response to this pervasive belief that the Bible is absurd my point is simple: Such baffling moments in Scripture, moments such as the story of Jeremiah and his loincloth, are not a sign of the Bible's absurdity but are a call for us to discern.  Such moments are a challenge to us to figure out what the hell is going on.

For instance, in the case of Jeremiah's loincloth is this some kind of a punishment?  Is Jeremiah to go about in dirty underwear because of something he has done?  No!  Jeremiah condemns the iniquity of his people and works miracles among them.  He is a good man and has done nothing to deserve such treatment...

Is the point then to show Jeremiah that without his care the loincloth is ruined?  Is it to say that without God's care Jeremiah, and Israel more broadly, would be nothing, just as without Jeremiah's care the loincloth is nothing?  If so, why would God need to teach such a lesson to Jeremiah?  Doesn't Jeremiah already know the ingratitude of his people as well as his smallness before the Almighty?

This last possibility is closer to the mark though.  The trick to figuring out the story is indeed that the loincloth is to Jeremiah as Jeremiah is to God, but God's point is not that Jeremiah would amount to nothing without God, but rather that Jeremiah has been selected as an article of pride. Jeremiah's loincloth is in the same relationship to Jeremiah as Jeremiah is to God: they are both chosen adornments.  Articles of clothing chosen of their own accord to gird the chooser's loins.

In other words, it is not the grace of God that makes Jeremiah worthy, nor Jeremiah's tending of the loincloth that makes the loincloth worthy.  Rather it is the personal qualities of Jeremiah and the loincloth that make Jeremiah and the loincloth worthy of their place of pride.

Jeremiah is not to clean his loincloth because God wants him to learn this lesson.  God wants Jeremiah to learn that despite the iniquity of his people Jeremiah was, still is, and may continue to be the glory of God.  Israel and humankind more broadly were once articles of pride and may be so again.  Without the grace of God and of their own accord.

That is what we learn if we discern what is going on with Jeremiah and his loincloth.  We see our value as human beings in the eyes of God.  We find that we can be worthy of adorning God's own loins.

Such a baffling moment is not a sign of absurdity but of a humanism of greatest consolation and joy.

Thanks be to Job.