Posted on 02/15/2004 10:57:05 PM PST by lockeliberty
That is true. God finds people where he finds them. They awaken, when they do, where they are, and start the journey toward God from where they were when he found them.
So at one level there is nothing surprising in the fact that Roman christians would have a Roman world view, and American christians would have an American world view. And so on.
The other side of it is that, while each culture brings a certain flavor into Christianity, it is itself transformed over time. Plant the seed of Christ into a culture and the culture itself will be transformed.
But I reject the notion that as each separate culture is undone and redone, transformed, that they will be exchanged for some kind of uniformity. There will be a common philosophical language which will unite them, but people being as they are this common philosophical language does not mean uniformity. God didn't create billions of unique individuals with the idea of making them uniform, and they won't be.
I particularly like your observation that Jesus imposed no dogma, no doctrine, and planted no churches. Its a pretty simple message, love God and love your neighbor. Its one that awakens humanity, it isn't one that pushes humanity into uniform boxes. People often bring their chains with them when they come into the faith, and some make a virtue of them. It takes a while to clear all that out, like cleaning out the attic every once in a while. It is poignant work as you take treasured junk to the dump but you have to do it to make room for what comes next.
I am in agreement with you, I think. Whatever ground you occupy is God's ground, it is the stage from which you will work out your own story. You aren't less in God's will if you are a mechanic, or an accountant, or a real estate salesman, than if you are a minister. Really, we are all priests, where ever we are, but priests with dirt under our nails, and kids to raise.
The primary stage where God's people operate is not the physical church but the world itself. The people who devote themselves to full-time ministry have their place, someone has to keep pushing the word out there I suppose, but God's work is done when you and I go out into the world and create it. I believe it is a mistake to over-spiritualize things as much as it is to ignore the spiritual component of what we do.
The work we do, the battles we fight have a spiritual component, not because we apply it like a bandage, but because they do inherently. God is at work in history, he is at work in the economy, he is at work in every aspect of humanity because he is at work in us, and we carry that seed in us as we go out into the fray. He coordinates the battle even when we don't see it.
God's will does not depend upon every single human being believing in him, all he needs is a certain critical mass of people who hear and act and things start to happen. The result won't be necessarily any particular system, such things develop organically to fit the times and the people. The results will transform those systems, though.
What a wonderful essay, logos!
The only historical figure I can think of who actually tried to live the way Christ did -- in itinerant ministry -- was Francis of Assisi. He chose a life of total poverty, relying solely on the Lord for his daily bread, and a place to lay his head down to sleep at the end of the day. Only in this way, Francis believed, could he truly live a life in imitation of Christ. Obviously, there are few takers for this sort of thing. Very few people would choose a life like this -- with the possible exception of "street people." (I.e., the "homeless," many of whom have mental disabilities and substance abuse problems....)
I don't think we can blame Plato for the dualism of human life. His was a "cosmology of wholeness." He recognized that man was "part beast, and part divine" -- but sees the parts as complementary, and in their dynamic relations as constituting one whole -- Man. This model suggests that man actually does live both in time and in Eternity. I'm not sure, however, that Plato would see this as an instance of "duality." The material world is "in time"; but the spiritual world -- the divine -- is eternal; and man incorporates both within himself.
The symbol that comes to mind is the Christian Cross. The vertical is the timeless projection of the soul, from its ground in the cosmos -- which I also imagine to partake of the divine, since it is an expression of divine creative will -- to its search of the divine Beyond whose great symbol, for Plato, was the Agathon. (This not God Himself, but the vision of divine perfection and goodness.) For man, both "ends" stretch virtually without limit beyond man's ability to perceive them; but man's inner life is experienced as a tension between the two "pulls."
The horizontal of the Cross, running perpendicular to the vertical: This is the line of time.
In the vertical axis, time past, present, and future are simultaneous -- thus "timelessness" is the nature of the soul, psyche. This has been referred to as the Eternal Now. On the horizontal, time is linear, sequential, and unidirectional. This is the line that people spontaneously see, for its deals with past, present, and future -- and the last is of great concern to most men, both inside and outside the meaning you give, as an expectation of a "future heaven."
But actually, "heaven" is already "in us" -- along the vertical line. Few people notice this, however.
Which is why I've speculated that Hell is not necessarily a future possibility only. We can have living Hells -- which would result from the "poor order of the psyche" (which I interpret as lack of conformance with "the laws of Nature and of Nature's God" as a famous secularist once put it), running along the vertical line.
Of course, poor order there is inevitably played out along the horizontal time line. It is a translation of psychic disorder into the empirical realm, both personal and social.
I have to leave it there for now, logos, and get back to work!
Thank you so very much for your beautiful essay!
I have been thinking about this post a little more. I know I am not qualified to attempt to develop such a cosmology, it is plainly beyond my abilities. But I will foolheartedly offer these observations; before anyone makes mince-meat of me I only ask that you be quick and merciful...
I am generally more inclined to dig into political philosophy, where although we are dealing with intangibles, they are intangibles with a fairly ready connection back to the material world. Philosophy as applied to the nature of God and the Universe is of a different sort. In this case we are using Philosophy as a tool to see beyond the limits of our knowledge. In this case the connections back to known territory are a little more tenuous.
Of course, to see beyond the limits of our knowledge, we first have to know what the limits of our knowledge are.
In the case of God, we have scripture, and we have our own personal experiences with him. We tend to ignore the latter when putting together a philosophical position because it doesn't lend itself to use as direct evidence in developing an argument. But inevitably it will inform everything else, and provide the silent underpinnings, and this is not wrong. If we are developing a philosophy of God it has to take into account the real God as we know him or its just a pointless exercise.
At least in the case of the Universe, which has a material component, there is also material knowledge, and the possibility of further material knowledge. You are dealing with the melding of a number of different scientific disciplines, and in this case "philosophy" ought not to go beyond the known realm without at least a tip of the hat to what is "known"... or at least, thought to be known. That means our budding young cosmologist needs at least a metaphorical grasp of physics, and astronomy, and the life sciences. Someone attempting such a thing without trying to include what is known is only going to be made a fool the next time some grad student flips on his electron microscope. So to speak.
By which I mean to say that while its wise to approach the known sciences with a healthy skepticism, it is a mistake to ignore what is known when it creates problems in our dogmatic presuppositions. No one here would do that, but I have met people who would...
The next thing is that the purpose of such a philosophy must be to describe the world as it, in fact, is. This is why I prefer political philosophy where I get to worry about how it ought to be... but in the kind of study we are discussing here the actual nature of creation must harmonize with our philosophical model. We can't worry if the model we develop crosses some line that sets off alarms somewhere. We aren't trying to prove or disprove Plato, or Dualism, or anything else. A fair proportion of the physics text writers aren't Christians, but we won't let that bother us either, truth is truth, and it is where you find it.
The article that kicked off this thread points out the incompleteness, and the inapplicability of the dualist model in some cases, or even many cases. The medievalists used that way of arriving at a solution but we aren't required to, obviously. If as a metaphor for what we see we use some of their thinking in a particular case, we are tipping our hat to the old guys but we are not enslaved to them. Similarly we are often surprised at how much some of the Greeks seem to have gotten right. But we aren't persuaded because they are Greek, we are impressed that they seem to agree with us 3000 years before we graduated high school. Or at least I am.
My point, which I have tortured nearly to death, is that an attempt to accomplish a new philosophy coming from a Christian perspective will not be an explicit refutation of anything necessarily. It should simply start from what we know, or think we know, matched up against what we believe, or think we believe, and go from there chiseling and polishing the pieces until they fit. Sort of.
An honest effort to do that will bring out the peanut gallery to accuse you of some kind of heresy, I promise you, but I won't do it. I'll give it an honest reading, and if I can understand it, an honest argument. Some of the smarter people here may have to explain it to me first, though.
Jesus knew exactly where He was, and where He was going at all times during His ministry on earth. He wasn't a "wandering monk" going aimlessly about the Galilee and throughout Judea.
Just thinking about His trip through Samaria proves that. Jesus said that He "must needs go through Samaria." Why? Because He had an appointment to keep, just like on every other day of His ministry.
What would make one "unable" in your eyes? I would say that many are unwilling not unable. If they ate not willing , then perhaps they are unable because the lack the grace necessary
He made no direct attempt to establish an institutional church anywhere or by any particular liturgy or doctrine.
Scripture appears to indicate that Jesus spoke with purpose .
Mat 7:28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
Mar 11:18 And the scribes and chief priests heard [it], and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.
Jesus was after all a Rabbi , a teacher, that taught in the Temple at times.
Jhn 7:16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
The apostles knew the import of passing on correct doctrine
1Ti 1:10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
I am afraid if we see Jesus as a wandering and aimless man that had had no doctrine , we present a flawed image of God made man .
2Jo 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
If Ye have seen me YOU HAVE SEE THE FATHER that sent me.
I think we can all agree that the Father is the perfect model of organization
Wherever He woke on any given day He set out along the Way; speaking, teaching, healing and otherwise dealing with whomever He met as He traveled. He seemingly gave no thought most of the time to what direction He traveled, nor did He often seem to have any particular destination in mind.
I believe Jesus well knew His destination was Calvary and every step was ordained to bring him closer.
As shown in the Mar 11:18 quote above Jesus spoke at times and place that would lead to the crisis with the Jews and bring Him to the cross.
He could have come to heal Lazarus before he died...but He delayed coming so that He could display His power in a way that would be the catalyst that sealed His fate.
Even if my point concerning doctrine is moot, it still remains that He established no earthly church, let alone denominations or sects; His earthly ministry was the personification of the Two Great Commandments even while he purposely walked toward the Cross.
Ahhhhhh that is true ..which is why the practice of brining people into the church to be saved is anti scripitual . The church is for the equipping of the saints..we are to go and tell
Even if my point concerning doctrine is moot, it still remains that He established no earthly church, let alone denominations or sects; His earthly ministry was the personification of the Two Great Commandments even while he purposely walked toward the Cross.
I do not think our Catholic posters would agree. :>)
Here is something else you said in #39:
(I'm not saying there is no doctrine to be found in the gospels; I'm just saying that any there is, at best, indirectly alluded to rather than firmly established by our Lord.)
Why would you post something like that? Jesus is the most doctrinaire person in the Bible.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. - Jn 14:6 (KJV)He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. - Jn 3:18 (KJV)
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Mt 5:48 (KJV)
And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man. - Mk 7:20-23 (KJV)
Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell. He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me. - Lk 10:13-16 (KJV)
Are you saying that you see no "firmly established" doctrine in those verses?
Jesus is The Way; doctrine is Man's way of understanding The Way, limited and through a glass darkly.
For Plato, Man is the image of the cosmos. But Christianity holds that Man is the image of God. Jesus exemplifies this point, first in the Incarnation, then at the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. He was crucified at "the intersection of Time and the Timeless," on the Cross understood in the sense of the metaphor suggested in my last. Increasingly, I am beginning to suspect that part of the message of Christ to us all is that he shows us what we humans are in our own nature, so very imperfectly realized in human existence.
But that's probably highly speculative of me, and I'm sure many Christians would regard that statement as heretical. :^) Still, what is one to do when insights like this come to one, in deep contemplation and prayer?
In prayer and meditation on your post 45, I envisioned a great tear in the fabric of space/time when Christ gave up the Spirit, and Light of so great an intensity it engulfs all of existence. This thought was provoked by your post but it does have a parallel in Scripture:
I second that, Alamo-Girl! This point must be made very clear.
You wrote: "I envisioned a great tear in the fabric of space/time when Christ gave up the Spirit, and Light of so great an intensity it engulfs all of existence. This thought was provoked by your post but it does have a parallel in Scripture:"
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; -- Matthew 27:50-51
Oh yours is such a beautiful insight, A-G! The very world, the Creation itself, was riven, right down to the rocks (so to speak) when Christ gave up the Spirit -- and the Father caused that Spirit to irrupt, reflowing back into souls and all of Creation in a corruscating blaze of divine Light. And this seems possible to me, because somehow necessary; for when Adam fell, he took all of Creation "down" with him. So it seems that the great renovation made by Him Who "makes all things new" embraces not only man, but all of Creation, as well.
And though such things can be sensed in the Spirit, this unique event truly does "passeth all [human] understanding."
Creation was unaffected, Romans 8:22, and continues to be worse and worse
Right. The only hint of Plato vs. John is the Apostle's condemnation of gnosticism.
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