There are times when through confusion, temptation, or weakness, the mind cannot with any sureness detect the reasonable truth of God. It may be moral, as when temptation befuddles the mind and makes the body want one thing though the Spirit does not want that thing. Under the stress of immediate temptation, the mind cannot get traction to think through the problem without the emotions holding an infinite sway against its inner discourse. One should try thinking oneself out of a fit of anger, not from irritation, but from actual moral wrong committed by another against oneself. Does the operation of the mind in this moment suffice to cool the desire for local justice in the body? The mind knows information that should stop the anger (forgive others as God in Christ has forgiven you). But the wheels spin when the mind tries to climb that hill, and it gets no traction over the passions. Does greed ever stop gnawing at a person when they realize the rich are the most miserable people on the planet? The mind knows money does not equal happiness. But there is an affectional pull towards material wealth as an emotional answer even if it is not a logical answer to ultimate happiness. In another case, sometimes the logical proofs of God's existence are clear to the rational center of one's brain, but circumstances, despair, and incongruousness in perceived justice or fairness make one doubtful or scared that there is no god.
Why does the compass spin during this instance? Why does the feeble mind give up his ghost so easily when the emotions begin to tug at his hem? What would allow us to restore a sense of direction to the mind during temptation? What would allow us to feel where God is, when we can't feel God within? The compass spins for a reason, one cannot tell North when the arrow is always stuck in one direction. By having a spinning compass we gain malleability in our lives, but we also gain mutability. There are times we decipher the pulls and tugs of forces outside of us for the true way, yet we end up east or west of our mark. Yet the compass does not always spin amiss. By wandering, sometimes we find the lost path. And even on the wrong path, the compass eventually turns back northward.
Friday, June 18, 2010
VI. The Fury
Sin is always a liar first. It was in the beginning when it whispered, "Did God really say...?" It has to be a liar. Sin cannot look reasonable at first glance.
"Eat the fruit and die？ Do I really want that?"
"Of course you do, you won't die, in fact you'll be god."
"I'd like that very much...perhaps I do like apples."
And so the first defense, the unreasonableness of sin, is disarmed by a lie. Seems so cold, inglorious, and passionless. Why give into the deathlike embrace of foolishness, unless she has made herself seem reasonable? Sometimes, however, the reasonable appeal of sin is not needed. There are times that the fury besets you.
There are times sin asks One to make bread from stones. This is reasonable, a hungry man must eat. Why not make some bread? Then there are times sin asks God himself to bow to the enemy and worship a lie. Sin is not even pretending to be reasonable at this time. Sin has become the fury. The vile, serpent-like, slithering vomitous appeal of self unto self: give me my due in this matter whatever the consequences!
The fury makes Samson nap like a baby on Delilah's lap. The fury makes David a murderer and adulterer. It sends kings to burn incense in place of priests. It covets vineyards unto murder. It belches lies and false statements against God's servants. And it doesn't even pretend to be reasonable, it just is desireful. Under the fury, I act in no other way except in that way which attains the goal I want. Self becomes god under this movement of the soul, and no other coronation than that desire which self wants becomes the glory of the universe. Great things contract into shriveled prunes of value, and the small moldy crumbs of addiction become sumptuous morsels that we must scrape up and gum on in a vile attempt to feast. God help us against the fury.
"Eat the fruit and die？ Do I really want that?"
"Of course you do, you won't die, in fact you'll be god."
"I'd like that very much...perhaps I do like apples."
And so the first defense, the unreasonableness of sin, is disarmed by a lie. Seems so cold, inglorious, and passionless. Why give into the deathlike embrace of foolishness, unless she has made herself seem reasonable? Sometimes, however, the reasonable appeal of sin is not needed. There are times that the fury besets you.
There are times sin asks One to make bread from stones. This is reasonable, a hungry man must eat. Why not make some bread? Then there are times sin asks God himself to bow to the enemy and worship a lie. Sin is not even pretending to be reasonable at this time. Sin has become the fury. The vile, serpent-like, slithering vomitous appeal of self unto self: give me my due in this matter whatever the consequences!
The fury makes Samson nap like a baby on Delilah's lap. The fury makes David a murderer and adulterer. It sends kings to burn incense in place of priests. It covets vineyards unto murder. It belches lies and false statements against God's servants. And it doesn't even pretend to be reasonable, it just is desireful. Under the fury, I act in no other way except in that way which attains the goal I want. Self becomes god under this movement of the soul, and no other coronation than that desire which self wants becomes the glory of the universe. Great things contract into shriveled prunes of value, and the small moldy crumbs of addiction become sumptuous morsels that we must scrape up and gum on in a vile attempt to feast. God help us against the fury.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
V. Bluffing
"Go, call your husband, and come here." John 4:16
The absurdities of the commandment evade us unless careful examination is taken. "Go." But didn't this woman just ask to get living water? Shouldn't she come rather than go in order to drink this water? "Go." The exact opposite of how you or I would deal with this woman. The exact opposite of what we'd expect to hear ourselves. Of course, Jesus would tell me to "come and drink", not to "go" in order to drink. Wouldn't he? How vexing: "go!"
And then the irony, "call your husband". Well of course this woman hasn't a husband, for we know the end of the story. So she has to go and call her husband to get this water? What an impossible command! You cannot tell someone to do something they cannot do upon condition of getting something they want and expect success in the venture. Jesus tries this route, however, and succeeds wherein we would fail. You want living water? Come face to face with your biggest failures. Embrace your inability to meet the conditions to drink, woman! This seems even worse than the command to "go".
And then the last step, "come here." At least she'd not be cast off forever, she could come back upon condition of bringing her non-existent (or pent-existent) husband(s). Oh the indignity she would face upon fulfilling this commandment. What if she came back with five husbands in her train, and another man, in fulfillment of the Lord's command? Would he then reward her with living water? Does he want the letter of the law fulfilled in this case? All that is meaningless speculation, because Jesus is bluffing. That's right, it's a ruse. There will be no going, calling, and returning in the bare sense of the words. Because Jesus isn't looking for moral fiber and commitment from the woman. You don't tune a broken harp. Jesus is bluffing.
What is the point of this bluff? It seems cruel to dangle out a carrot to so sad a donkey. Surely a miserable beast like this woman should be kindly dealt with. Why this need for a bluff? Why call her hand, just give her the living water and then have a talk about morality, right? The way out of Eden was by the covering of our skin with skins, and the way back to Eden is the figurative denuding of us all over again. The Gospel causes us to find ourselves naked and ashamed in front of our Lord, instead of weaving together the fig leaf excuses of our fallen natures. This bluff strips bare the covers put on sin. This woman, who has done a great deal of uncovering where she should have covered, now is uncovered where in fact she should be uncovered. Her veiled lifestyle of noonday water-drawings is now unveiled by our Lord's veiled command. She is honest now, because Jesus bluffed.
The absurdities of the commandment evade us unless careful examination is taken. "Go." But didn't this woman just ask to get living water? Shouldn't she come rather than go in order to drink this water? "Go." The exact opposite of how you or I would deal with this woman. The exact opposite of what we'd expect to hear ourselves. Of course, Jesus would tell me to "come and drink", not to "go" in order to drink. Wouldn't he? How vexing: "go!"
And then the irony, "call your husband". Well of course this woman hasn't a husband, for we know the end of the story. So she has to go and call her husband to get this water? What an impossible command! You cannot tell someone to do something they cannot do upon condition of getting something they want and expect success in the venture. Jesus tries this route, however, and succeeds wherein we would fail. You want living water? Come face to face with your biggest failures. Embrace your inability to meet the conditions to drink, woman! This seems even worse than the command to "go".
And then the last step, "come here." At least she'd not be cast off forever, she could come back upon condition of bringing her non-existent (or pent-existent) husband(s). Oh the indignity she would face upon fulfilling this commandment. What if she came back with five husbands in her train, and another man, in fulfillment of the Lord's command? Would he then reward her with living water? Does he want the letter of the law fulfilled in this case? All that is meaningless speculation, because Jesus is bluffing. That's right, it's a ruse. There will be no going, calling, and returning in the bare sense of the words. Because Jesus isn't looking for moral fiber and commitment from the woman. You don't tune a broken harp. Jesus is bluffing.
What is the point of this bluff? It seems cruel to dangle out a carrot to so sad a donkey. Surely a miserable beast like this woman should be kindly dealt with. Why this need for a bluff? Why call her hand, just give her the living water and then have a talk about morality, right? The way out of Eden was by the covering of our skin with skins, and the way back to Eden is the figurative denuding of us all over again. The Gospel causes us to find ourselves naked and ashamed in front of our Lord, instead of weaving together the fig leaf excuses of our fallen natures. This bluff strips bare the covers put on sin. This woman, who has done a great deal of uncovering where she should have covered, now is uncovered where in fact she should be uncovered. Her veiled lifestyle of noonday water-drawings is now unveiled by our Lord's veiled command. She is honest now, because Jesus bluffed.
IV. A flicker in the Sun
God is past finding out. There are no mental footholds to his Being that one may climb up and so surmount the peak of his Essence. Were it a mere matter of assumption from one or another accidental* notion, we might gain elevation. As it is, the logic required to scale the cliff is one leap no mortal can make. The pygmy-like categories of thought we assume when we talk about beings cannot contain realistically the innumerable and expansive qualities God possesses. We are not merely talking about quantitative hindrances, however, when we discuss the perfections of God. We also limp along in a qualitative sense when we try to decipher from the ground knowledge of the heavens. We speak about music, as it were, with the language of colors and textures. We can communicate what God is like in reference to other things, but we cannot fully talk about what God is like. The sun flickers and we see it not, blinded by magnitude brightness; shades of indistinguishable brilliance.
So the counter to this is as follows: "if we can't know how would we know?" If we are left with complete epistemological skepticism, how could we tell we couldn't tell hide from hair in reference to the Almighty? Furthermore, if God is not distinguishable due to his qualities from nature by the human mind, what necessitates this God even exists? Perhaps the truth of the matter is we can't find what is not there. Of course you can't decipher the attributes of God, if that Being does not exist. That line of thought is so anthropocentric it needs not be answered with dignity, as it does with indignity. Who are we, as humans, to suppose by the limited power of our organic adding machines to scribble out the calculus of the Universe with any certainty. IF there is a God who possesses perfect, genuine knowledge of all things are we to go head-to-head with imperfect knowledge against his existence with any success? Were not it like a man with a crooked ruler trying to measure the folded, cracked sea floor while gathering his breath between submersed calculations? What certainty can this gypsum board logic produce compared to the cold hard marble of God's own self-existence? The truth is, if we can't know for sure, all the better and more surer we know that God exists. If this universe is fathomable by the mind, and presents itself further unfolded the deeper we think on it, what greater proof that a Perfect mind lies behind its construction and present operation? If this universe were not the produce of a mind, we would expect (though in an asinine, logic-lacking sense) the universe to be as structured and cohesive as tapioca.
*accidental in this sense is an older definition, it does not mean unexpected, but a subsidiary quality like a 'blue' marble. Taking away the blue does not take away its marbleness.
So the counter to this is as follows: "if we can't know how would we know?" If we are left with complete epistemological skepticism, how could we tell we couldn't tell hide from hair in reference to the Almighty? Furthermore, if God is not distinguishable due to his qualities from nature by the human mind, what necessitates this God even exists? Perhaps the truth of the matter is we can't find what is not there. Of course you can't decipher the attributes of God, if that Being does not exist. That line of thought is so anthropocentric it needs not be answered with dignity, as it does with indignity. Who are we, as humans, to suppose by the limited power of our organic adding machines to scribble out the calculus of the Universe with any certainty. IF there is a God who possesses perfect, genuine knowledge of all things are we to go head-to-head with imperfect knowledge against his existence with any success? Were not it like a man with a crooked ruler trying to measure the folded, cracked sea floor while gathering his breath between submersed calculations? What certainty can this gypsum board logic produce compared to the cold hard marble of God's own self-existence? The truth is, if we can't know for sure, all the better and more surer we know that God exists. If this universe is fathomable by the mind, and presents itself further unfolded the deeper we think on it, what greater proof that a Perfect mind lies behind its construction and present operation? If this universe were not the produce of a mind, we would expect (though in an asinine, logic-lacking sense) the universe to be as structured and cohesive as tapioca.
*accidental in this sense is an older definition, it does not mean unexpected, but a subsidiary quality like a 'blue' marble. Taking away the blue does not take away its marbleness.
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