I intend to post an eight part series on the recent break of Kosovo from Serbia. Throughout this series I will discuss issues of tribalism and globalism, religion and multi-culturalism, order and liberty. But at the heart of this discussion will be the notion of sovereignty. This will raise two questions that I will do my best to answer: what legitimates a state and what are the effects of undermining a sovereign state by means of 'humanitarian,' international intervention? Below is the first part of this series.
The nation state is dead. Multinational corporations and international organizations are the primary actors in today’s global system. The nation state is dead because it is no longer needed. The European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United Nations (UN) have filled the function that the nation state used to perform.
People everywhere are fundamentally the same. We are all consumers of the same products: we all drink Pepsi, eat pizza, wear Levi’s, and listen to U2. These shared desires lead to shared norms and values. Because we share the same norms and values we can coexist under the same global governing institutions.
This is the story of globalization that we are told. And to a great degree it is true, especially as it pertains to the west. When I travel to Western Europe or Australia I am no longer surprised that members of my generation eat the same foods, listen to the same music, watch the same movies, wear the same clothes, and in turn share many of the same values. I am not even surprised to hear that we watched the same cartoons growing up and played with many of the same toys. And really why should this be surprising? America, Western and Central Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand: the area commonly known as the west came out of a common culture (the Roman Empire, its German successors, and their colonies). This commonwealth shared a language (Latin), values (Christian), literature, artistic heritage, education system, and progressed through the same schools of philosophical thought. Because of these shared values and history, the growing interconnectedness of globalization within the west should come as little surprise and with few complications. In a world of shared values boundaries and distinctions are not necessary.
But what of Eastern Europe? What of the Balkan region? Their history is different than that of the west. They did not grow out of a common culture. Being at the crossroads of east and west they were constantly fought over, conquered, and divided in various ways by succeeding kingdoms and empires. There was no unifying religion. Instead the natives were subjugated and enslaved by a foreign religion.
In a region that lacks shared values and history globalization takes on different forms. It does not create unity; rather it reawakens and strengthens tribal identities. Nationalism unites differing tribes into a greater whole, while tribalism rips the nation state apart into warring sub-factions.
No where is tribalism more apparent today than in the Balkan region. With the breakdown of communism in the region the diverging tribes have broken away from Yugoslavia into new states formed along ethnic majoritarian lines. The west has ratified this movement in the name of simple majoritarian rule, or as they call it, democracy. The most recent example of this is the declaration of independence by the Albanian Muslims of the Kosovo region from Serbia. Analysis of this schism will be the topic of this paper.
The recognition of this rogue state by the west was an unmitigated mistake. Simple majority opinion should not be the legitimator of a state. Rather, legitimacy should be grounded in historical rights of a state over a region. And all states should have the power to maintain the integrity of those boarders.
There are two reasons why legitimacy should be grounded in historical rights and not the rights of a constantly fluctuating majority. First, the traditional nation state has a better record of protecting individual rights than any other institution man has devised. Second, nation states as they have developed since 1648 are far greater defenders of order than the rule of the simply majority of a region. And order is necessary for liberty to flourish. Because a paper of this length, by necessity, must be limited in scope, I will restrict my analysis to the latter reason.
My goal in this paper is to question the seemingly unquestionable. I will not take for granted the values that are taken for granted. I will have a bias, like Howard Zinn has in A People’s History of the United States, if only to restore a sense of balance. At the core of this paper will be the notion that what we take to be our common understanding lacks understanding.
Popular opinion assumes that the Serbs are the ones to blame in this conflict. I say that they are in the right and the Albanians are to blame. It is common to assume that religion is dead. I say it is alive and the main motivator for many. Many assume that simple majoritarian based democracy is the legitimator of the state. I say it can undermine our freedom by allowing the spread of terrorism and that it at times is so manipulated as to have no value at all. The unquestioned goal of the west, lead by the United States is to spread freedom. I say order creates liberty and that liberty cannot create order nor can it be sustained without it. In view of this truth our objective should be to create global order and not liberty. We assume we are free of our history, makers of our destiny. I say history plays a far greater role in our lives than we often recognize. The common understanding of the Serbian-Albanian conflict is that there was genocide against the Albanians by the Serbs. I say this was a masterpiece of manipulation and propaganda and in fact the only genocide in the region was carried out (and is continuing to be carried out) against the Serbs by the Albanians. Finally it is nearly an uncontested fact that it was good for the west to intervene in the Balkans in the 1990’s just as it is good that the west supports Kosovo’s recent bid for independence. I say that intervention made the situation far worse and our continued support will have unforeseen and devastating consequences.
To put the current crisis in conflict, I will begin with a general historical overview of the Kosovo region. Recognizing the central importance of the NATO campaign of 1999 to situation as it stands today, I will next proceed to consider in more detail the civil war of the 1990’s and NATO’s involvement in the conflict, as well as the consequences of intervention. I will then look specifically at the 2008 split of Serbia and consider its effects on the global order in general and then particularly for the United States. Finally, I will conclude by showing why western intervention in the area was misguided and why historical rights and not majoritarian rights should constitute the legitimacy of the state.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The Heart Follows the Eyes
As for you, keep away from the things devoted to destruction, so as not to covet and take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel an object of destruction, bringing trouble upon it (Joshua 6:18).
What a radical notion. The Israelites are instructed to keep away from certain things so that they will not desire (covet) these forbidden things, for we naturally act (here, take) upon our desires. This verse flies flat in the face of modern psychiatry and should act as warning to us. We must take our instruction not from the endless fads that pass as science, but rather only from God’s unfailing Truth as demonstrated in the Bible.
Modern psychiatry tells us that desires are natural. They are naturally good and they are natural in the sense that we cannot control them. If a certain person no longer feels in love with their spouse or feels in love with another we do not hold them to their marriage vows, for indeed that would be unjust. Modern freedom (as opposed to the classic notion of a virtuous moral freedom—a freedom from, not of, addictive vices and sins) entails the ability to follow ones desires for one cannot control their desires and if one is not free to follow their desires they will never have happiness.
The Bible observes that indeed we follow our passions. ‘The heart follows the eyes.’ (Job 31:7). The heart (the source of our will and choices) is prone to follow our eyes (the source of our desires) and seek after all that we desire. But our desires are not good. We are fallen and depraved, our hearts desire much evil. ‘There is no one that is good, not even one.’ (Romans 3:10).
Because we desire evil things we must learn to control our desires. We must follow the instruction given in Joshua and keep away from the things ‘devoted to destruction.’ We must be like Job and make a covenant with our eyes (Job 31:1) and by means of our will guide our desires toward good and noble objects. What is true, what is noble, what is right, what is praiseworthy; it is to these things that we must devote our thoughts and affections. (Philippians 4:8).
Too often we are like Eve. We hang around what is forbidden and dwell upon our desire for it. If we give ourselves over to our desires they will over take us as they overtook Eve. (Genesis 3:6). That is why we must subjugate our passions and make them good. A man will either rule his passions or be ruled by them, there can be no other way. The latter leads to addiction, slavery, and death, while the former leads to wisdom, strength, and life.
Aristotle (and St. Thomas after him) recognized that as we will ourselves towards good objects we will, with time, come to desire what is good. Much of virtue is habit. The things we give ourselves over to are the things we will desire.
Plato wrote that the way a human body is configured is a lesson in how we should live morally. On top of a man is his head, the source of his wisdom. In the middle lies his heart, the source of his will. Lowest in man is his stomach and loins, the source of his passions and desires. Wisdom should inform the will on what a man ought to do and the will must impose this on the rest of the body. Once this is done habitually, the body will come to desire good things. This is the character of a just man. The unjust man is lead by his passions, having his will follow them blindly, in doing so he loses his head.
But can man do this on his own? Can man be good without God? No. That is the heresy of Pelagius. Man cannot save himself; man is saved by God’s grace alone. And man cannot will himself to be good, it is by the power of God working within us that we may overcome sin and live virtuously. Yet, though God is acting, we are still responsible. Paul instructs us to ‘work out our salvation, for Christ is at work within us.’ (Philippians 2:12-13).
And we must educate our children in these truths. Modern education, modern science is based in magic. There is a desire not to know the truth, to understand the world around us, but rather to manipulate the physical world in ways most beneficial to man’s comfort. On the contrary, St. Augustine said that the sole purpose of education is to teach children ‘to love what is good and hate what is evil.’ To train their wills at an early age to desire good things and develop good character. For indeed if we ‘train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it.’ (Proverbs 22:6)
God reveals to us in His Holy Word what is good and what is bad. As He works within us, we must will ourselves to seek what is good. For if we seek, we will find. (Luke 11:9). As we seek after what is good we will come to desire what is good. In the world the heart misguidedly follows the eyes. But with God we may have a good heart that leads the eyes and teaches them to see truly.
What a radical notion. The Israelites are instructed to keep away from certain things so that they will not desire (covet) these forbidden things, for we naturally act (here, take) upon our desires. This verse flies flat in the face of modern psychiatry and should act as warning to us. We must take our instruction not from the endless fads that pass as science, but rather only from God’s unfailing Truth as demonstrated in the Bible.
Modern psychiatry tells us that desires are natural. They are naturally good and they are natural in the sense that we cannot control them. If a certain person no longer feels in love with their spouse or feels in love with another we do not hold them to their marriage vows, for indeed that would be unjust. Modern freedom (as opposed to the classic notion of a virtuous moral freedom—a freedom from, not of, addictive vices and sins) entails the ability to follow ones desires for one cannot control their desires and if one is not free to follow their desires they will never have happiness.
The Bible observes that indeed we follow our passions. ‘The heart follows the eyes.’ (Job 31:7). The heart (the source of our will and choices) is prone to follow our eyes (the source of our desires) and seek after all that we desire. But our desires are not good. We are fallen and depraved, our hearts desire much evil. ‘There is no one that is good, not even one.’ (Romans 3:10).
Because we desire evil things we must learn to control our desires. We must follow the instruction given in Joshua and keep away from the things ‘devoted to destruction.’ We must be like Job and make a covenant with our eyes (Job 31:1) and by means of our will guide our desires toward good and noble objects. What is true, what is noble, what is right, what is praiseworthy; it is to these things that we must devote our thoughts and affections. (Philippians 4:8).
Too often we are like Eve. We hang around what is forbidden and dwell upon our desire for it. If we give ourselves over to our desires they will over take us as they overtook Eve. (Genesis 3:6). That is why we must subjugate our passions and make them good. A man will either rule his passions or be ruled by them, there can be no other way. The latter leads to addiction, slavery, and death, while the former leads to wisdom, strength, and life.
Aristotle (and St. Thomas after him) recognized that as we will ourselves towards good objects we will, with time, come to desire what is good. Much of virtue is habit. The things we give ourselves over to are the things we will desire.
Plato wrote that the way a human body is configured is a lesson in how we should live morally. On top of a man is his head, the source of his wisdom. In the middle lies his heart, the source of his will. Lowest in man is his stomach and loins, the source of his passions and desires. Wisdom should inform the will on what a man ought to do and the will must impose this on the rest of the body. Once this is done habitually, the body will come to desire good things. This is the character of a just man. The unjust man is lead by his passions, having his will follow them blindly, in doing so he loses his head.
But can man do this on his own? Can man be good without God? No. That is the heresy of Pelagius. Man cannot save himself; man is saved by God’s grace alone. And man cannot will himself to be good, it is by the power of God working within us that we may overcome sin and live virtuously. Yet, though God is acting, we are still responsible. Paul instructs us to ‘work out our salvation, for Christ is at work within us.’ (Philippians 2:12-13).
And we must educate our children in these truths. Modern education, modern science is based in magic. There is a desire not to know the truth, to understand the world around us, but rather to manipulate the physical world in ways most beneficial to man’s comfort. On the contrary, St. Augustine said that the sole purpose of education is to teach children ‘to love what is good and hate what is evil.’ To train their wills at an early age to desire good things and develop good character. For indeed if we ‘train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it.’ (Proverbs 22:6)
God reveals to us in His Holy Word what is good and what is bad. As He works within us, we must will ourselves to seek what is good. For if we seek, we will find. (Luke 11:9). As we seek after what is good we will come to desire what is good. In the world the heart misguidedly follows the eyes. But with God we may have a good heart that leads the eyes and teaches them to see truly.
Monday, March 24, 2008
The Great Paradox
Man is of the soil.
God is of the sky.
In the valley men toil.
While God reigns down from a high.
We of the earth.
God is of the mountain.
We are fallen, sinful, hateful and selfish.
God is perfect, pure, loving, and generous.
We are born and die.
God’s days are without beginning or end.
We are broken and corrupt.
God is holy and just.
How do we reach God?
How do we climb out of the valley unto His Mountain?
The fact is we must be good to ascend.
The tragedy is we are not.
No man can climb those heights.
That is our curse.
The Good News is that no man need climb those heights.
Knowing man could never reach Him and wanting to be with man nonetheless, God came down to man.
Knowing no man could seek and find His Face, God revealed Himself to man.
The God of the mountain descended down into the valley of men.
He did not do this so that man could remain in the mud and filth of his own making, but that man may ascend on high with God Himself.
He is with us now, asking, beginning, enjoining us to join Him.
To leave this fallen world of pain and hate for a world of love and beauty beyond all comprehension atop that High Hill seems too good to be true.
The truth is, it is too good and in that lies its truth.
This is the greatest myth ever told.
It is the greatest not simply because it is true, but because in it lies the Truth itself.
God is of the sky.
In the valley men toil.
While God reigns down from a high.
We of the earth.
God is of the mountain.
We are fallen, sinful, hateful and selfish.
God is perfect, pure, loving, and generous.
We are born and die.
God’s days are without beginning or end.
We are broken and corrupt.
God is holy and just.
How do we reach God?
How do we climb out of the valley unto His Mountain?
The fact is we must be good to ascend.
The tragedy is we are not.
No man can climb those heights.
That is our curse.
The Good News is that no man need climb those heights.
Knowing man could never reach Him and wanting to be with man nonetheless, God came down to man.
Knowing no man could seek and find His Face, God revealed Himself to man.
The God of the mountain descended down into the valley of men.
He did not do this so that man could remain in the mud and filth of his own making, but that man may ascend on high with God Himself.
He is with us now, asking, beginning, enjoining us to join Him.
To leave this fallen world of pain and hate for a world of love and beauty beyond all comprehension atop that High Hill seems too good to be true.
The truth is, it is too good and in that lies its truth.
This is the greatest myth ever told.
It is the greatest not simply because it is true, but because in it lies the Truth itself.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Judgment
Here is an exchange I recently had with a reader that I think is worth re-posting:
Anonymous said...
it seems that now a days if you have a different view on anything having to do with the culture\society we live in (sex, family, marriage, work, finances, materialism) you're labeled as being judgmental. wanting to obey Christ and show your faith you're considered to be condemning people. people never want to check themselves as to why they feel that way (could it be guilt?) so they accuse someone trying to live rightly of being wrong and naive and "that's just not how the world is". why are people so ok with that?
March 20, 2008 12:26 PM
No doubt, great observation. The sad thing is when the church listens to them and refuses to comment on family or cultural morals and pretends like they have no understanding from the Bible of what is right or wrong. We are not to look down on those who lack the truth, for it is by God's grace alone that we have truth. But that does not mean that we are to deny the Truth that we so surely have.
Can salt water come from a fresh spring? Of course not, nothing can be anything, except what it is. We are the light of the world, we can be nothing other. John chapter one says that when light came into the world, the darkness rejected it because their deeds were evil. In the same way Christ said that the world would reject us.
The world rejects the light because the light prevents them from enjoying their evil deeds in darkness. We cannot stop being who we are and we cannot put their rejection upon ourselves. Yes, like Paul, we should always seek to be all things to all men so that all may be saved, but in doing this we must never water down the Gospel or deny its truth.
Anonymous said...
it seems that now a days if you have a different view on anything having to do with the culture\society we live in (sex, family, marriage, work, finances, materialism) you're labeled as being judgmental. wanting to obey Christ and show your faith you're considered to be condemning people. people never want to check themselves as to why they feel that way (could it be guilt?) so they accuse someone trying to live rightly of being wrong and naive and "that's just not how the world is". why are people so ok with that?
March 20, 2008 12:26 PM
No doubt, great observation. The sad thing is when the church listens to them and refuses to comment on family or cultural morals and pretends like they have no understanding from the Bible of what is right or wrong. We are not to look down on those who lack the truth, for it is by God's grace alone that we have truth. But that does not mean that we are to deny the Truth that we so surely have.
Can salt water come from a fresh spring? Of course not, nothing can be anything, except what it is. We are the light of the world, we can be nothing other. John chapter one says that when light came into the world, the darkness rejected it because their deeds were evil. In the same way Christ said that the world would reject us.
The world rejects the light because the light prevents them from enjoying their evil deeds in darkness. We cannot stop being who we are and we cannot put their rejection upon ourselves. Yes, like Paul, we should always seek to be all things to all men so that all may be saved, but in doing this we must never water down the Gospel or deny its truth.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Heaven and Hell
It is said among a sect of the Russian Orthodox mystics that there is no difference between Heaven and Hell; they are the same place. They only become different places in that we perceive them differently once we enter them. They become different based on our response to entering the presence of God.
Those that loved God in this life are filled with joy at once being one with Him. For those that rejected God and are full of darkness, nothing could be worse than entering His Holy Light. This place becomes Hell to them. In this way there is really nothing God can do about those in Hell, it is a place of their own making.
Now, I don’t think this is literally true, but I do think it is very thought provoking for it tells us some truths. 1) Heaven and Hell are places of our choosing: we determine how our afterlife will be based on how we relate to God in this life. 2) There can be nothing but Hell for those that reject God.
We are eternal, let’s start living like it! Everyone around us will someday a creature beyond beauty, or a thing from our worst nightmares. Every action we take pushes those around us closer to one of those two destinies. Let us live with that in mind and promote life.
Those that loved God in this life are filled with joy at once being one with Him. For those that rejected God and are full of darkness, nothing could be worse than entering His Holy Light. This place becomes Hell to them. In this way there is really nothing God can do about those in Hell, it is a place of their own making.
Now, I don’t think this is literally true, but I do think it is very thought provoking for it tells us some truths. 1) Heaven and Hell are places of our choosing: we determine how our afterlife will be based on how we relate to God in this life. 2) There can be nothing but Hell for those that reject God.
We are eternal, let’s start living like it! Everyone around us will someday a creature beyond beauty, or a thing from our worst nightmares. Every action we take pushes those around us closer to one of those two destinies. Let us live with that in mind and promote life.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Futile Questions
Sometimes I wonder if we don’t, in our excessive questioning, make things more difficult than they really are and have to be.
Why we ask, does evil exist on this earth? How can a good, all-powerful God allow evil? Either He cannot rid the world of evil (He is not all-powerful) or He chooses to allow evil (in which case He is not all good). It must be that simple.
But what about man’s free will one may ask. Isn’t that the cause of evil on earth? But like Descartes we think: how can man have any will of His at all if God is all powerful? If we control anything, if we decided what to drink, what to wear, or whether or not to be evil or good, something exists outside of God’s sovereignty, which prevents God from being all-powerful, and God thereby ceases to be God.
And by no means can man determine his salvation! That is the heresy of Pelagius! No, as Calvin says man has no choice in the matter. God chooses who to save and who to damn regardless of what we do or how to respond, how else could grace be free? If man played any part of his salvation, then Christ’s sacrifice would cease to be enough, depriving God of His grace.
But isn’t that unjust? To punish and hold man responsible for his actions when all we do is predetermined by God and man has no choice in the matter? As Descartes believed, who are we to question God, what do we know of justice? God makes justice. God could make evil good and good evil, God is all powerful and God determines all.
What about this: is God bound by his own laws? Can God break the laws of nature that He put in place? If He can He can do miracles, but why would a good God break the law? If He can’t He is not all-powerful?
These are the controversies in which ‘clever’ people become embodied. Yet does it all have to be this complicated? It seems there are very easy answers to all these questions.
God is all-powerful, but He allows evil to exist because the benefits of evil (the benefits of choice: love, honor, duty, etc) outweigh the negatives. He in His eternal wisdom can see this, while we may not be able to see this at all times. Just because He allows evil does not mean He couldn’t rid it if He wanted to; God is still all-powerful. And just because He allows evil does not mean that God enjoys it; God is still all good.
Man has a will and that is why man can be held responsible for his actions. Even we in our wickedness know that it is unjust to punish a man for something he had no control over. God cannot be unjust for justice is a part of God, it is found in God alone. God is the source of all justice, yet He punishes man, in this we may know that man has a free will. This does not take from the power of God. Man need not have a free will, he could have been like a beast, but God chose not to exercise His power in this area so as to allow man to have a free will.
Regarding salvation, how can man’s will and God’s grace co-exist? Easy, God makes his grace available to all and it is left up to every individual man to decide whether or not he will chose to enter that grace.
Regarding miracles, why can’t God intervene in His creation in such a way so as not to break any laws? Maybe, just maybe, we haven’t discovered all the laws of nature so that when there is a miracle it only appears as if a law of nature has been broken when all the while God is obeying an even greater and deeper law of which we do not have knowledge.
I think these conversations are interesting, but they are not the insurmountable paradoxes that people make them out to be. Too often we make God incomprehensible when He is readily knowable. And too often we make God evil out of our ignorance (like Descartes and Calvin did) when it clearly can be shown He is good. Yes there are tensions in the Bible, but many times when we dig deep into these tensions we find truth.
And when we can’t fully grasp the truth (like say, the complete workings of the trinity), we must embrace the mystery of God. God is knowable, but He who thinks He knows all of God knows not God. There is a part of God that is higher, mysterious, and unknowable. When we come upon that part of God we must embrace the mystery and vulgarize the Almighty God in such a way so as to make Him readily understandable.
Why we ask, does evil exist on this earth? How can a good, all-powerful God allow evil? Either He cannot rid the world of evil (He is not all-powerful) or He chooses to allow evil (in which case He is not all good). It must be that simple.
But what about man’s free will one may ask. Isn’t that the cause of evil on earth? But like Descartes we think: how can man have any will of His at all if God is all powerful? If we control anything, if we decided what to drink, what to wear, or whether or not to be evil or good, something exists outside of God’s sovereignty, which prevents God from being all-powerful, and God thereby ceases to be God.
And by no means can man determine his salvation! That is the heresy of Pelagius! No, as Calvin says man has no choice in the matter. God chooses who to save and who to damn regardless of what we do or how to respond, how else could grace be free? If man played any part of his salvation, then Christ’s sacrifice would cease to be enough, depriving God of His grace.
But isn’t that unjust? To punish and hold man responsible for his actions when all we do is predetermined by God and man has no choice in the matter? As Descartes believed, who are we to question God, what do we know of justice? God makes justice. God could make evil good and good evil, God is all powerful and God determines all.
What about this: is God bound by his own laws? Can God break the laws of nature that He put in place? If He can He can do miracles, but why would a good God break the law? If He can’t He is not all-powerful?
These are the controversies in which ‘clever’ people become embodied. Yet does it all have to be this complicated? It seems there are very easy answers to all these questions.
God is all-powerful, but He allows evil to exist because the benefits of evil (the benefits of choice: love, honor, duty, etc) outweigh the negatives. He in His eternal wisdom can see this, while we may not be able to see this at all times. Just because He allows evil does not mean He couldn’t rid it if He wanted to; God is still all-powerful. And just because He allows evil does not mean that God enjoys it; God is still all good.
Man has a will and that is why man can be held responsible for his actions. Even we in our wickedness know that it is unjust to punish a man for something he had no control over. God cannot be unjust for justice is a part of God, it is found in God alone. God is the source of all justice, yet He punishes man, in this we may know that man has a free will. This does not take from the power of God. Man need not have a free will, he could have been like a beast, but God chose not to exercise His power in this area so as to allow man to have a free will.
Regarding salvation, how can man’s will and God’s grace co-exist? Easy, God makes his grace available to all and it is left up to every individual man to decide whether or not he will chose to enter that grace.
Regarding miracles, why can’t God intervene in His creation in such a way so as not to break any laws? Maybe, just maybe, we haven’t discovered all the laws of nature so that when there is a miracle it only appears as if a law of nature has been broken when all the while God is obeying an even greater and deeper law of which we do not have knowledge.
I think these conversations are interesting, but they are not the insurmountable paradoxes that people make them out to be. Too often we make God incomprehensible when He is readily knowable. And too often we make God evil out of our ignorance (like Descartes and Calvin did) when it clearly can be shown He is good. Yes there are tensions in the Bible, but many times when we dig deep into these tensions we find truth.
And when we can’t fully grasp the truth (like say, the complete workings of the trinity), we must embrace the mystery of God. God is knowable, but He who thinks He knows all of God knows not God. There is a part of God that is higher, mysterious, and unknowable. When we come upon that part of God we must embrace the mystery and vulgarize the Almighty God in such a way so as to make Him readily understandable.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
A Well Balanced Spiritual Life
What makes up the Christian life? Well at its very core the Christian life is nothing more than a right standing living relationship with God. What practices and habits (what ‘disciplines’ as they’ve historically been called) should we engage in to promote and maintain the health of this relationship? We should fast, take communion, give time and resources to others, we should have regular fellowship with other believers, worship and pray, and study the word of God. This list could go on, but I want to focus on the last three: fellowship, prayer, and study.
Of course these things are not necessary for salvation, for we are not saved by our works, but they are necessary to have an intimate relationship with God. In the same way spending time together and being thoughtful and kind to one’s spouse is not necessary in order for one to have a legally binding marriage, but if one desires to have healthy, successful marriage they will do these things. And one must do all three things. One may not simply spend time, but in that time fail to be thoughtful and kind, what good would that time be? And one cannot be kind without being thoughtful? It does no good to make your spouse dinner if you haven’t thought enough to make a dish that they enjoy.
In the same way one must have regular prayer and worship of God, fellowship with other followers, and study and read the Word of God. If one only has one of these, they will encounter many problems.
But this does not seem right? How can one spend too much time reading the Bible or how can one pray too much? One cannot pray or study the Bible too much, but without prayer one’s study will suffer and without study of the Bible one’s prayer life will go off track.
To begin with, consider fellowship. Fellowship with other believers is very important, but if one only does this they become a hippy in the worst sense of the word. I have friends who are very relationship orientated, this is good. But some of them almost desire to hang out full time. They don’t want to work (who does!), but consider their non-work a job in itself.
The problem their witness to Christ is undercut by their way of life. How do they stand out when they look no different than other slacker twenty somethings who don’t want to work and spend all their waking hours hanging out? Paul tells us to work hard so that we may be a witness to our employers and those around us (I Thessalonians 4:11). He lived his teaching, working full time as a tent maker while he spread the Gospel.
Further, the only unity we have in Christ is in the Truth. But if we do not study the Word of God, how are we to know the truth? If we just get our theology from our friends and those around us at church, we may be getting bad theology. Paul says we must test everything that we hear against the Word of God. In order to do this we must know the Word of God and we may only know it by reading it!
Next, there are many people who think that prayer is all we need. Now prayer is a beautiful thing, and we surely need it, but without the anchor of God’s Word we can drift to some dangerous places. Christ told the woman at the well that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Worship alone is not enough; it must be anchored in God’s Truth.
Now some say that the whole of God’s Truth can be found in worship. They are mystics who are led by feelings and emotions. The problem is the Dark One can imitate any feeling or emotion. He can produce a false peace or sense of belonging. I can’t say how many times I knew of someone who got divorced or slept around because they felt like it was ok. These are clear sins and the Word of God must trump all our emotions.
Without the Word of God we may find ourselves chirping like birds or barking like dogs and criss-crossing the country to find the next place where we may recreate some feeling we once had. As we do this our focus moves from God, to feelings that we think God produces. We get obsessed with chasing after the presence of God and forget to chase after God Himself. God warns us about this. He tells us in the last day people will be sensual (led by their senses). All these spiritual feelings are recreated in false religions all over the world. This is not to say God doesn’t touch our feelings and emotions in times of prayer and worship, for I believe that He does, it is only to say that we must not run after all these things and that we must be sure we are grounded in the Word of God so that we do not fall prey to false movements. After all, we would all recognize the Wolf if he presented himself to us as such, but he always comes clothed as an angel of light.
Finally, let us consider the study of the Word of God. Promoting this value at the expense of all others is the weakness I am most vulnerable to. In study one can treat the text as any other text and try to understand the God of the Bible like an equation. Instead of reading the Bible to know God, one can find themselves reading the Bible to know things about God. Their spiritual life can become dry and dull without prayer and they can misinterpret verses if they are not in dialogue with others in the community of believers.
I have had professors who knew the Bible better than my pastors, but they didn’t believe in it. It didn’t change how they viewed the world or how they lived their lives. It was a very interesting book, but no more than a book.
But the Bible is far more than a book. It was written to teach and train us so that we may be ready for every act of righteousness (II Timothy 3:16). We need it to inform our prayers, so that we don’t fall into falsehood and so that we may pray God’s will. And we need prayer and daily interaction with God because salvation is a relationship, not a multiple choice test. And we need fellowship to keep us humble, to encourage us, and to keep us accountable.
Of course these things are not necessary for salvation, for we are not saved by our works, but they are necessary to have an intimate relationship with God. In the same way spending time together and being thoughtful and kind to one’s spouse is not necessary in order for one to have a legally binding marriage, but if one desires to have healthy, successful marriage they will do these things. And one must do all three things. One may not simply spend time, but in that time fail to be thoughtful and kind, what good would that time be? And one cannot be kind without being thoughtful? It does no good to make your spouse dinner if you haven’t thought enough to make a dish that they enjoy.
In the same way one must have regular prayer and worship of God, fellowship with other followers, and study and read the Word of God. If one only has one of these, they will encounter many problems.
But this does not seem right? How can one spend too much time reading the Bible or how can one pray too much? One cannot pray or study the Bible too much, but without prayer one’s study will suffer and without study of the Bible one’s prayer life will go off track.
To begin with, consider fellowship. Fellowship with other believers is very important, but if one only does this they become a hippy in the worst sense of the word. I have friends who are very relationship orientated, this is good. But some of them almost desire to hang out full time. They don’t want to work (who does!), but consider their non-work a job in itself.
The problem their witness to Christ is undercut by their way of life. How do they stand out when they look no different than other slacker twenty somethings who don’t want to work and spend all their waking hours hanging out? Paul tells us to work hard so that we may be a witness to our employers and those around us (I Thessalonians 4:11). He lived his teaching, working full time as a tent maker while he spread the Gospel.
Further, the only unity we have in Christ is in the Truth. But if we do not study the Word of God, how are we to know the truth? If we just get our theology from our friends and those around us at church, we may be getting bad theology. Paul says we must test everything that we hear against the Word of God. In order to do this we must know the Word of God and we may only know it by reading it!
Next, there are many people who think that prayer is all we need. Now prayer is a beautiful thing, and we surely need it, but without the anchor of God’s Word we can drift to some dangerous places. Christ told the woman at the well that we are to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Worship alone is not enough; it must be anchored in God’s Truth.
Now some say that the whole of God’s Truth can be found in worship. They are mystics who are led by feelings and emotions. The problem is the Dark One can imitate any feeling or emotion. He can produce a false peace or sense of belonging. I can’t say how many times I knew of someone who got divorced or slept around because they felt like it was ok. These are clear sins and the Word of God must trump all our emotions.
Without the Word of God we may find ourselves chirping like birds or barking like dogs and criss-crossing the country to find the next place where we may recreate some feeling we once had. As we do this our focus moves from God, to feelings that we think God produces. We get obsessed with chasing after the presence of God and forget to chase after God Himself. God warns us about this. He tells us in the last day people will be sensual (led by their senses). All these spiritual feelings are recreated in false religions all over the world. This is not to say God doesn’t touch our feelings and emotions in times of prayer and worship, for I believe that He does, it is only to say that we must not run after all these things and that we must be sure we are grounded in the Word of God so that we do not fall prey to false movements. After all, we would all recognize the Wolf if he presented himself to us as such, but he always comes clothed as an angel of light.
Finally, let us consider the study of the Word of God. Promoting this value at the expense of all others is the weakness I am most vulnerable to. In study one can treat the text as any other text and try to understand the God of the Bible like an equation. Instead of reading the Bible to know God, one can find themselves reading the Bible to know things about God. Their spiritual life can become dry and dull without prayer and they can misinterpret verses if they are not in dialogue with others in the community of believers.
I have had professors who knew the Bible better than my pastors, but they didn’t believe in it. It didn’t change how they viewed the world or how they lived their lives. It was a very interesting book, but no more than a book.
But the Bible is far more than a book. It was written to teach and train us so that we may be ready for every act of righteousness (II Timothy 3:16). We need it to inform our prayers, so that we don’t fall into falsehood and so that we may pray God’s will. And we need prayer and daily interaction with God because salvation is a relationship, not a multiple choice test. And we need fellowship to keep us humble, to encourage us, and to keep us accountable.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Biblical Minimalism
There is a popular notion that the Bible is tainted. People who believe this are called Biblical Minimalists. Radicals in this school will deny the divinity and even the existence of a historical Christ, while moderates simply doubt parts of the Bible. They say in essence: yes much of it is wise and universal and maybe even inspired by God, but much of it is false and from the corrupted mind of man. However, through sophisticated textual criticism we can find out what is true and original and what is false.
I for one think that the school of Biblical Minimalism is misguided and false. I think one can make strong arguments to disprove it by means of the history, literary criticism, psychology, logic, and the Bible itself.
The Biblical argument. In II Timothy 3:16 Paul wrote that all scripture is God breathed—all scripture is guided and inspired by God Himself. The other apostles too gave scripture great authority. The same could be said in Jesus. In Luke 20:37-39 Jesus proved the immortality of the soul by using the verb tense of one word from an Old Testament verse. At the burning bush God told Moses I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (not I was), God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, therefore men are eternal.
Scripture was viewed as Divine and authoritative by Christ and His apostles, if we consider ourselves part of that Christian tradition, how can we view it otherwise?
The logical argument. If man is created we may assume that like the rest of creation he has a particular end (telos) and to gain that end he must live in a particular way. If man is finite and unable to discover absolute truth on his own he needs a revelation so that he may know how he ought to live. It follows that a good God would provide a revelation for man on how he ought to live. As Christians we consider the Bible to be that revelation. Now if God is all good and all powerful and wanted to give man a revelation wouldn’t He be able to do so in such a way that prevented the revelation from being corrupted? If the Bible is God’s Word wouldn’t God want and be able to keep his Word pure?
Logically a good and omnipotent God would not allow His revelation to be corrupted by men in such a way that it would lead men astray.
For think of the consequences to us if part of it was corrupted. If we need a revelation of absolute truth, if we are unable to find absolute truth on our own, how could we determine what is truth and what is not truth in a revelation? We would be in the same situation as if we had no revelation at all.
The literary argument. The documentation of court life during King David seems just as authentic as that of Henry VIII (the number and quality of the sources). The Gospels ring with authenticity by nature of their radical honesty. The authors themselves confess their unbelief and misunderstanding of many key truths. The witness to the key event (the resurrection) was by a non-legal witness (a woman). Further, we have details that add nothing to the story (like in John 8 where Jesus writes in the sand, but we know not what). This style of writing did not exist in fiction until the nineteenth century. The only logical conclusion is that the author just wrote what he saw.
Anyone who calls the gospels myth has never read a myth! Myths are epic and existing. The gospels are proved not to be dishonest or myths simply by the fact that they are not good enough literature to be effective myths.
Some will point to the different styles of books like Isaiah and say that these different styles prove different authors. First off, one author can employ many styles and an author’s style often changes over time. Second, even if these are different authors all writing from the Isaiah school; it does not take away from the fact that they were all inspired by God.
Others say monotheism was a later invention and that the Israelites knew of and served many Gods of which Yahweh was simply the privileged God. Of course the Israelites knew of other Gods, tradition has it that Abraham’s dad was an idol maker. The Bible does not claim that they served only one God; on the contrary the Israelites are constantly rebuked for worshiping other Gods.
The psychology argument. Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Nietzsche said it was for the weak. The idea is that some people can’t handle the pain of life so they turn to religion. The myth of an afterlife helps them endure the suffering of this life. This may be true, but this argument cuts both ways. Biblical Minimalists have an agenda. They want to live a life without God so that they may live as they wish without need to give account to anyone for their answers. This desire leads them to systematically undermine and discredit God in His Revelation. Just as many turn to religion because it fulfills their wants, so too many turn from it for just the same reason.
The historical argument. In every revolution the rebels always attack the ministers before the king. The Bolsheviks attacked the Russian bureaucracy and discredited the ministers, claiming that the Tsar was good, but his workers corrupted him. When they undermined the government they finally turned on the Tsar himself. In the same way Biblical Minimalists attack God’s prophets and apostles, saying God is good, but the authors of the Bible have corrupted our notion of God and portrayed Him in a false light. After discrediting the ministers of God, they proceed to take on the King Himself.
That is why we must be aware of the teaching of Biblical Minimalists. They have an agenda and are working to carrying it out. What have we to stand on but the Word of God? If we cede its authority on what basis do we ground our faith?
Modern science constantly seeks to undermine the Bible, but what is considered good science always changes. If there is an apparent contradiction between science, archeology, or history and the text, we must be patient. The Bible has no falsehood, but misunderstanding of the text can produce the illusion of falsehood. Any contradiction between the Bible and what is taken for truth is based on a misunderstanding of the Bible, the truth, or both. In such cases we must not abandon the Word of God, for at the end of time it will prove itself to be the only truth left standing.
I for one think that the school of Biblical Minimalism is misguided and false. I think one can make strong arguments to disprove it by means of the history, literary criticism, psychology, logic, and the Bible itself.
The Biblical argument. In II Timothy 3:16 Paul wrote that all scripture is God breathed—all scripture is guided and inspired by God Himself. The other apostles too gave scripture great authority. The same could be said in Jesus. In Luke 20:37-39 Jesus proved the immortality of the soul by using the verb tense of one word from an Old Testament verse. At the burning bush God told Moses I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (not I was), God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, therefore men are eternal.
Scripture was viewed as Divine and authoritative by Christ and His apostles, if we consider ourselves part of that Christian tradition, how can we view it otherwise?
The logical argument. If man is created we may assume that like the rest of creation he has a particular end (telos) and to gain that end he must live in a particular way. If man is finite and unable to discover absolute truth on his own he needs a revelation so that he may know how he ought to live. It follows that a good God would provide a revelation for man on how he ought to live. As Christians we consider the Bible to be that revelation. Now if God is all good and all powerful and wanted to give man a revelation wouldn’t He be able to do so in such a way that prevented the revelation from being corrupted? If the Bible is God’s Word wouldn’t God want and be able to keep his Word pure?
Logically a good and omnipotent God would not allow His revelation to be corrupted by men in such a way that it would lead men astray.
For think of the consequences to us if part of it was corrupted. If we need a revelation of absolute truth, if we are unable to find absolute truth on our own, how could we determine what is truth and what is not truth in a revelation? We would be in the same situation as if we had no revelation at all.
The literary argument. The documentation of court life during King David seems just as authentic as that of Henry VIII (the number and quality of the sources). The Gospels ring with authenticity by nature of their radical honesty. The authors themselves confess their unbelief and misunderstanding of many key truths. The witness to the key event (the resurrection) was by a non-legal witness (a woman). Further, we have details that add nothing to the story (like in John 8 where Jesus writes in the sand, but we know not what). This style of writing did not exist in fiction until the nineteenth century. The only logical conclusion is that the author just wrote what he saw.
Anyone who calls the gospels myth has never read a myth! Myths are epic and existing. The gospels are proved not to be dishonest or myths simply by the fact that they are not good enough literature to be effective myths.
Some will point to the different styles of books like Isaiah and say that these different styles prove different authors. First off, one author can employ many styles and an author’s style often changes over time. Second, even if these are different authors all writing from the Isaiah school; it does not take away from the fact that they were all inspired by God.
Others say monotheism was a later invention and that the Israelites knew of and served many Gods of which Yahweh was simply the privileged God. Of course the Israelites knew of other Gods, tradition has it that Abraham’s dad was an idol maker. The Bible does not claim that they served only one God; on the contrary the Israelites are constantly rebuked for worshiping other Gods.
The psychology argument. Marx said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Nietzsche said it was for the weak. The idea is that some people can’t handle the pain of life so they turn to religion. The myth of an afterlife helps them endure the suffering of this life. This may be true, but this argument cuts both ways. Biblical Minimalists have an agenda. They want to live a life without God so that they may live as they wish without need to give account to anyone for their answers. This desire leads them to systematically undermine and discredit God in His Revelation. Just as many turn to religion because it fulfills their wants, so too many turn from it for just the same reason.
The historical argument. In every revolution the rebels always attack the ministers before the king. The Bolsheviks attacked the Russian bureaucracy and discredited the ministers, claiming that the Tsar was good, but his workers corrupted him. When they undermined the government they finally turned on the Tsar himself. In the same way Biblical Minimalists attack God’s prophets and apostles, saying God is good, but the authors of the Bible have corrupted our notion of God and portrayed Him in a false light. After discrediting the ministers of God, they proceed to take on the King Himself.
That is why we must be aware of the teaching of Biblical Minimalists. They have an agenda and are working to carrying it out. What have we to stand on but the Word of God? If we cede its authority on what basis do we ground our faith?
Modern science constantly seeks to undermine the Bible, but what is considered good science always changes. If there is an apparent contradiction between science, archeology, or history and the text, we must be patient. The Bible has no falsehood, but misunderstanding of the text can produce the illusion of falsehood. Any contradiction between the Bible and what is taken for truth is based on a misunderstanding of the Bible, the truth, or both. In such cases we must not abandon the Word of God, for at the end of time it will prove itself to be the only truth left standing.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Love and Obedience
According to the ancient Church Father Gregory, “obedience should be practiced, not out of servile fear, but from a sense of charity (charity in the sense of the Latin caritas, which is the highest form of love. Caritas is the sacrificial, active giving type of love), not through fear of punishment, but through love of justice.”
Fear versus love, this is what divides Christian ethics from the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was based in fear. If you disobeyed the state would punish you. In Christ we still strive to avoid sin, but for different reasons.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). Paul writes that all is lawful, yet we are not to live in sin (I Corinthians 6:12). We can do all and not lose our salvation—yet we won’t if we are truly saved. “Show me your faith without deeds and I’ll show you a faith that is dead.” (James 2:17)
We are under no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1). Just as no good act of ours earns our salvation, no bad act loses it. Yet we are still to obey God’s law. Christ said ‘if you love me, you will obey me.’ (John14:12) We need not obey in the sense that our salvation hinges upon our actions, yet obedience is an expected rejection.
Christ says we will be known by our fruit (Mathew 7:16). Our fruit (our works) do not save us, but one who is in Christ will produce good works while one outside of Christ will produce bad works. It is natural to produce fruit according to one’s nature. In Christ we have a new nature and new life and out of this new nature we will produce acts of life (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, etc). While the ones outside of Christ will naturally produce works of death (hate, sorrow, anxiety, meanness, debauchery, jealousy, etc).
Those that slander, gossip, disobey, etc will not enter the Kingdom of God. It is not because of their sin that they are damned (for we are all guilty of sin, Romans 3:23), rather because they have refused God’s offer of salvation and in so doing have damned themselves that they engage in sin.
Again ones’ good works do not save one and ones bad works do not damn them. But one who is saved and in Christ will produce good works while one is without Christ will produce bad works. For how can a spring produce salt water (James 3:11) and how can a fig tree produce thorns (Mathew 7:16)?
So what of judgment? It is for God, yet we are not to allow open, unrepentant evil to exist in the midst of the church and we are to not call something lawful that is sin (I Corinthians 5). When we are told not judge, what does that mean? We don’t look down on others for their sin for we too have sinned and continue to sin and it is only by God’s grace that we have been freed from our sin.
Bonhoeffer said that a man in Christ is so focused on Christ that he does not consider the actions of his fellow man. He seeks to please God and does not even consider judging the acts of other men.
Fear versus love, this is what divides Christian ethics from the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was based in fear. If you disobeyed the state would punish you. In Christ we still strive to avoid sin, but for different reasons.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). Paul writes that all is lawful, yet we are not to live in sin (I Corinthians 6:12). We can do all and not lose our salvation—yet we won’t if we are truly saved. “Show me your faith without deeds and I’ll show you a faith that is dead.” (James 2:17)
We are under no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1). Just as no good act of ours earns our salvation, no bad act loses it. Yet we are still to obey God’s law. Christ said ‘if you love me, you will obey me.’ (John14:12) We need not obey in the sense that our salvation hinges upon our actions, yet obedience is an expected rejection.
Christ says we will be known by our fruit (Mathew 7:16). Our fruit (our works) do not save us, but one who is in Christ will produce good works while one outside of Christ will produce bad works. It is natural to produce fruit according to one’s nature. In Christ we have a new nature and new life and out of this new nature we will produce acts of life (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, etc). While the ones outside of Christ will naturally produce works of death (hate, sorrow, anxiety, meanness, debauchery, jealousy, etc).
Those that slander, gossip, disobey, etc will not enter the Kingdom of God. It is not because of their sin that they are damned (for we are all guilty of sin, Romans 3:23), rather because they have refused God’s offer of salvation and in so doing have damned themselves that they engage in sin.
Again ones’ good works do not save one and ones bad works do not damn them. But one who is saved and in Christ will produce good works while one is without Christ will produce bad works. For how can a spring produce salt water (James 3:11) and how can a fig tree produce thorns (Mathew 7:16)?
So what of judgment? It is for God, yet we are not to allow open, unrepentant evil to exist in the midst of the church and we are to not call something lawful that is sin (I Corinthians 5). When we are told not judge, what does that mean? We don’t look down on others for their sin for we too have sinned and continue to sin and it is only by God’s grace that we have been freed from our sin.
Bonhoeffer said that a man in Christ is so focused on Christ that he does not consider the actions of his fellow man. He seeks to please God and does not even consider judging the acts of other men.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Disunity and Sin
Unity is our natural and ideal state of being. That which promotes it is natural law, (natural law being man’s participation in God’s eternal law). That which destroys unity is sin. No thing is good or bad in itself. If something is done right it is good. Badness or sin is simply a corruption and perversion of a good thing.
For example, sex. When sex exists outside of the bounds of the natural law it brings disunity. Extra kids are created without the benefit of both parents, there is jealousy between lovers, hurt and brokenness, addiction, devaluing in the form of pornography (which reduces a human being, an eternal soul, to a collection of body parts), people introduce pain into sex, and force others (including kids) to have sex. Sex outside of the natural law is a corruption of a good thing that brings destruction.
But when sex is contained to the boundaries of natural law (when it takes place only in marriage), it becomes a thing of beauty and promotes unity and harmony. It strengthens the love between man and wife and out of this love new life is produced. It builds up and encourages. One can be more free and honest and live without the fear of losing their lover. One may be themselves and not have to put up front to attract someone. Further, because it is a given, one need not to be consumed and obsessed with the pursuit of it.
Remember the story of the Garden. Disunity in all its forms (between God, nature, and other men) was the consequence of sin. Adam and Eve no longer had perfect intimacy with God, rather afterwards they had to toil against nature, and murder quickly entered the world.
God bridged this disunity by uniting Himself with mankind in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ took on the consequences of man’s sin and provided a way for man to live in unity.
As it relates to Hell, Hell is not merely a punishment but also a consequence. God has not been mean; he has been merciful and provided a way that all men may be saved. If a man persists in disunity with God in life disunity will continue in death in the form of Hell. But man may only persist in disunity by rejecting God’s gracious offer of salvation. We need not live with the consequences of our sin, but if we choose to hold unto them, God will let us.
For example, sex. When sex exists outside of the bounds of the natural law it brings disunity. Extra kids are created without the benefit of both parents, there is jealousy between lovers, hurt and brokenness, addiction, devaluing in the form of pornography (which reduces a human being, an eternal soul, to a collection of body parts), people introduce pain into sex, and force others (including kids) to have sex. Sex outside of the natural law is a corruption of a good thing that brings destruction.
But when sex is contained to the boundaries of natural law (when it takes place only in marriage), it becomes a thing of beauty and promotes unity and harmony. It strengthens the love between man and wife and out of this love new life is produced. It builds up and encourages. One can be more free and honest and live without the fear of losing their lover. One may be themselves and not have to put up front to attract someone. Further, because it is a given, one need not to be consumed and obsessed with the pursuit of it.
Remember the story of the Garden. Disunity in all its forms (between God, nature, and other men) was the consequence of sin. Adam and Eve no longer had perfect intimacy with God, rather afterwards they had to toil against nature, and murder quickly entered the world.
God bridged this disunity by uniting Himself with mankind in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ took on the consequences of man’s sin and provided a way for man to live in unity.
As it relates to Hell, Hell is not merely a punishment but also a consequence. God has not been mean; he has been merciful and provided a way that all men may be saved. If a man persists in disunity with God in life disunity will continue in death in the form of Hell. But man may only persist in disunity by rejecting God’s gracious offer of salvation. We need not live with the consequences of our sin, but if we choose to hold unto them, God will let us.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Law from Reason
I was recently reading an article in the paper regarding religious (specifically Christian) influence on politics. It was pretty run of the mill and contained the type of argument we have been accustomed to seeing when we read about this topic. That is to say it was an uninformed, unintellectual, lazy piece of propaganda.
The author said that nobody agrees on one religion and even people that share a religion differ with each other. This is uncontested and so obvious that it goes without saying. The author then proceeded to argue that since religious beliefs vary with individuals religion only provides subjective truth. Subjective truth cannot provide an adequate foundation for laws or politics; therefore he concluded that religion cannot and should not play any role in the shaping of public laws and policy. Only reason provides an objective foundation to laws, so reason alone should shape our politics. Sounds like a pretty good argument, too bad it is false.
First off, no one agrees about what conclusions reason provides. In fact philosophers disagree with each in far greater ways than religions (in particular the philosophers of the West in comparison to the religions of the West). What strain of reason is objective? What philosophy should we follow? Plato says democracy is the worst form of government, Jefferson thinks it is best. Hobbes, Bossuet, Fillmore, Dostoevsky, and Aquinas preferred a monarchy, but for very, very different reasons. Thomas More advocated religious communism Marx wanted secular communism. Hegel and Rousseau wanted a totalitarian state, but one that would increase man’s ‘positive freedom,’ while Nozick contends for a minimalist state.
These men are brilliant, heavy-weight thinkers. These are the men who have turned the pages of history. They all relied on reason to formulate their theories of government. Yet they all came to radically different conclusions when dealing with something as simple and foundational as the rational basis for the form of government. What’s the point of demonstrating this? Only to show that reason is not some silver bullet. It is not preferable to religion because it leads to uncontestable answers; on the contrary it is even more divided than religion.
Second, modern western liberal democracy (the form of government that prevails throughout the West) is grounded in Christianity. This is an uncontestable historical fact. This form of government is founded in a respect for individual rights. A respect for individual rights requires a notion of equality and equality was a concept introduced and grounded in Christianity. It was not present before the time of Christ and it has not developed independently anywhere in the world apart from the spread of Christianity. People have a notion of equality only to the degree that Christianity has influenced them.
Don’t believe me? Well, let’s consider the height of Western thought before Christ. In Greece we have Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle advocated a theory of natural slavery. In essence this theory stated that people are born unequal: some are born to rule, others are born to be slaves. Plato in The Republic compared people to metals. Some are made of fine metal, others out of base metal. People have different value based on what type of metal they are made from and justice requires that we treat people differently based on their value. The valuable should rule and the less valuable should serve. The height of Greek thought never produced any notion that remotely resembles equality.
What about the Romans? To begin with they, like the Greeks, divided the world into Roman and Barbarian. There were two classes of people, very unequal to one another, and the Romans belonged to the ruling class. They saw themselves justified in brutally conquering and ruling the world because of this inequality. Further, even within the Roman system there was rigid inequality. Their family structure was based in the notion of the Pater Familias, in which the oldest male was regarded as king of the family. He had the legal power to enact laws within the family and punish disobedient family members with death. Yet he himself was exempt from his own laws. There was no concept of equality to be found in Rome.
The Jews fared much better than both these groups, yet they had no notion of the equality of the sexes. In Judaism a husband could divorce his wife on a whim, but a wife could not divorce her husband even for abuse or inequality.
What about the Barbarians of Pre-Christian Europe and the Middle East? There slavery and abuse existed that horrified even the slave societies of Greece and Rome.
When we consider the East we fare no better. In India there existed till the modern age (and in some ways still exists) a rigid class system. One is born into a certain class (based on what they did in a former life). Some are born as rulers and priests, others as workers, and still others as untouchables. The untouchables are ostracized and forced to do degrading and humiliating work. They lack the same status before the law as other classes. This is really something else. Here we have a legally recognized and enforced caste system that mistreats some people on the basis of birth in ways we cannot even come to close to understanding.
The situation is not much different in areas influenced by Buddhism. There is no compassion for the weak and disabled in Buddhism, these people are seen as deserving their condition for some unjust action they did in a prior life. The whole religion in fact is founded on a notion of inequality. You rise or sink to different levels based on what you did in past lives and you must recognize and perpetuate these notions of inequality if you want to advance to a higher stage in your next life.
I could go on and on, but what’s the point. We all know that Muslim countries mutilate women’s gentiles at birth and don’t allow them the same legal standing as men. The Mayans had an empire founded on human sacrifice and slavery that was as brutal as they get. The fact of the matter is that the notion of equality, which is absolutely essential to Western government, has no historical foundation outside of Christianity.
The plain truth is that we are not equal. Some can run faster or jump higher, others are more creative, while others are more intelligent. Yet, Christianity insists that we are equal. How can this be? In Christianity all men are equal by their very nature, in their very essence. All are created by God. All are sinful and fallen, yet all may be redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ.
In contrast to Hinduism and Buddhism, Paul writes that no man may boast for no man may save himself, we are saved by God’s grace alone (I Corinthians 1:29). As opposed to Judaism, the Bible treats the sexes equally in marriage (I Corinthians 7:4). A slave economy existed at the time of the foundation of Christianity just as it had in ancient Greece, but slaves were equal to their masters and masters were to treat them with respect (Ephesians 6:9). Like the Roman systems parents had authority, but not unlimited power over their children (Ephesians 6:4). There are plenty more examples. James writes that if we treat people differently on the basis of wealth our faith is a fraud. In a culture when a woman was not a legal witness, Mary Magdalene is the first witness to the key event of Christianity (the resurrection).
The clear, historical fact of the matter is that Christianity said that all men are equal in the eyes of God. Men may have different gifts and purposes, but all men are part of the same body. This notion originated in Christianity and no where else and this is the foundational value of our political systems. Why shouldn’t we have slaves or forced labor camps? Why don’t we allow men to beat their wives and kids or give different legal rights based on wealth? Man has done these things in the past, but our notion of equality precludes differences in legal rights. All have inalienable individual rights that prevent us from being tortured or used as slaves or being placed under the despotic control of an abusive husband or father.
There is one last argument people will make and that is that liberal democracy is not founded in Christianity, but rather in the Enlightenment. They say that the Enlightenment was a rational reaction against Christianity; therefore our notion of equality is not based in Christianity, but rather a rebellion against Christianity.
First off the Enlightenment was in parts a rebellion against Christianity, but it was not a rebellion against Christian values. On the contrary the goal of the Enlightenment was to affirm and provide a rational foundation for the values of Christianity. Read Kant. His whole goal is to secularize Christian values. Read Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes. All of these guys were Christians (maybe unorthodox to some degree, but Christians none the less). They shared Christian values and grounded their thought in the Christian tradition.
So to those who say our government is founded not on Christian values, but rather on the values of the Enlightenment, I say you misunderstand history. There is no contradiction there. The values of the Enlightenment are the values of Christianity. Liberty, equality, fraternity? Show me a historical source outside of Christianity that provides them. The Enlightenment only took these values and gave them another source.
It is true that in doing this they undermined the historical foundation of these values, but never did they attack Christian values themselves. In this way the West still is a Christian society: our government is based on fundamental Christian values. Yet in another sense we are not a Christian society for we have undermined Christianity and have sought to do away with the source of the very values we hold so dear.
The sobering question we must ask ourselves is: if these are Christian values how long can they survive now that we’ve undermined their historical source? If the French Revolution is a warning to what happens to a society that thinks it can have Christian values without Christianity, we should be very careful in undermining the historical source of our values any further. When we want people to have a political system based on reason alone, we must remember history and ask ourselves if that is really such a good idea.
The author said that nobody agrees on one religion and even people that share a religion differ with each other. This is uncontested and so obvious that it goes without saying. The author then proceeded to argue that since religious beliefs vary with individuals religion only provides subjective truth. Subjective truth cannot provide an adequate foundation for laws or politics; therefore he concluded that religion cannot and should not play any role in the shaping of public laws and policy. Only reason provides an objective foundation to laws, so reason alone should shape our politics. Sounds like a pretty good argument, too bad it is false.
First off, no one agrees about what conclusions reason provides. In fact philosophers disagree with each in far greater ways than religions (in particular the philosophers of the West in comparison to the religions of the West). What strain of reason is objective? What philosophy should we follow? Plato says democracy is the worst form of government, Jefferson thinks it is best. Hobbes, Bossuet, Fillmore, Dostoevsky, and Aquinas preferred a monarchy, but for very, very different reasons. Thomas More advocated religious communism Marx wanted secular communism. Hegel and Rousseau wanted a totalitarian state, but one that would increase man’s ‘positive freedom,’ while Nozick contends for a minimalist state.
These men are brilliant, heavy-weight thinkers. These are the men who have turned the pages of history. They all relied on reason to formulate their theories of government. Yet they all came to radically different conclusions when dealing with something as simple and foundational as the rational basis for the form of government. What’s the point of demonstrating this? Only to show that reason is not some silver bullet. It is not preferable to religion because it leads to uncontestable answers; on the contrary it is even more divided than religion.
Second, modern western liberal democracy (the form of government that prevails throughout the West) is grounded in Christianity. This is an uncontestable historical fact. This form of government is founded in a respect for individual rights. A respect for individual rights requires a notion of equality and equality was a concept introduced and grounded in Christianity. It was not present before the time of Christ and it has not developed independently anywhere in the world apart from the spread of Christianity. People have a notion of equality only to the degree that Christianity has influenced them.
Don’t believe me? Well, let’s consider the height of Western thought before Christ. In Greece we have Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle advocated a theory of natural slavery. In essence this theory stated that people are born unequal: some are born to rule, others are born to be slaves. Plato in The Republic compared people to metals. Some are made of fine metal, others out of base metal. People have different value based on what type of metal they are made from and justice requires that we treat people differently based on their value. The valuable should rule and the less valuable should serve. The height of Greek thought never produced any notion that remotely resembles equality.
What about the Romans? To begin with they, like the Greeks, divided the world into Roman and Barbarian. There were two classes of people, very unequal to one another, and the Romans belonged to the ruling class. They saw themselves justified in brutally conquering and ruling the world because of this inequality. Further, even within the Roman system there was rigid inequality. Their family structure was based in the notion of the Pater Familias, in which the oldest male was regarded as king of the family. He had the legal power to enact laws within the family and punish disobedient family members with death. Yet he himself was exempt from his own laws. There was no concept of equality to be found in Rome.
The Jews fared much better than both these groups, yet they had no notion of the equality of the sexes. In Judaism a husband could divorce his wife on a whim, but a wife could not divorce her husband even for abuse or inequality.
What about the Barbarians of Pre-Christian Europe and the Middle East? There slavery and abuse existed that horrified even the slave societies of Greece and Rome.
When we consider the East we fare no better. In India there existed till the modern age (and in some ways still exists) a rigid class system. One is born into a certain class (based on what they did in a former life). Some are born as rulers and priests, others as workers, and still others as untouchables. The untouchables are ostracized and forced to do degrading and humiliating work. They lack the same status before the law as other classes. This is really something else. Here we have a legally recognized and enforced caste system that mistreats some people on the basis of birth in ways we cannot even come to close to understanding.
The situation is not much different in areas influenced by Buddhism. There is no compassion for the weak and disabled in Buddhism, these people are seen as deserving their condition for some unjust action they did in a prior life. The whole religion in fact is founded on a notion of inequality. You rise or sink to different levels based on what you did in past lives and you must recognize and perpetuate these notions of inequality if you want to advance to a higher stage in your next life.
I could go on and on, but what’s the point. We all know that Muslim countries mutilate women’s gentiles at birth and don’t allow them the same legal standing as men. The Mayans had an empire founded on human sacrifice and slavery that was as brutal as they get. The fact of the matter is that the notion of equality, which is absolutely essential to Western government, has no historical foundation outside of Christianity.
The plain truth is that we are not equal. Some can run faster or jump higher, others are more creative, while others are more intelligent. Yet, Christianity insists that we are equal. How can this be? In Christianity all men are equal by their very nature, in their very essence. All are created by God. All are sinful and fallen, yet all may be redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ.
In contrast to Hinduism and Buddhism, Paul writes that no man may boast for no man may save himself, we are saved by God’s grace alone (I Corinthians 1:29). As opposed to Judaism, the Bible treats the sexes equally in marriage (I Corinthians 7:4). A slave economy existed at the time of the foundation of Christianity just as it had in ancient Greece, but slaves were equal to their masters and masters were to treat them with respect (Ephesians 6:9). Like the Roman systems parents had authority, but not unlimited power over their children (Ephesians 6:4). There are plenty more examples. James writes that if we treat people differently on the basis of wealth our faith is a fraud. In a culture when a woman was not a legal witness, Mary Magdalene is the first witness to the key event of Christianity (the resurrection).
The clear, historical fact of the matter is that Christianity said that all men are equal in the eyes of God. Men may have different gifts and purposes, but all men are part of the same body. This notion originated in Christianity and no where else and this is the foundational value of our political systems. Why shouldn’t we have slaves or forced labor camps? Why don’t we allow men to beat their wives and kids or give different legal rights based on wealth? Man has done these things in the past, but our notion of equality precludes differences in legal rights. All have inalienable individual rights that prevent us from being tortured or used as slaves or being placed under the despotic control of an abusive husband or father.
There is one last argument people will make and that is that liberal democracy is not founded in Christianity, but rather in the Enlightenment. They say that the Enlightenment was a rational reaction against Christianity; therefore our notion of equality is not based in Christianity, but rather a rebellion against Christianity.
First off the Enlightenment was in parts a rebellion against Christianity, but it was not a rebellion against Christian values. On the contrary the goal of the Enlightenment was to affirm and provide a rational foundation for the values of Christianity. Read Kant. His whole goal is to secularize Christian values. Read Locke, Rousseau, and Hobbes. All of these guys were Christians (maybe unorthodox to some degree, but Christians none the less). They shared Christian values and grounded their thought in the Christian tradition.
So to those who say our government is founded not on Christian values, but rather on the values of the Enlightenment, I say you misunderstand history. There is no contradiction there. The values of the Enlightenment are the values of Christianity. Liberty, equality, fraternity? Show me a historical source outside of Christianity that provides them. The Enlightenment only took these values and gave them another source.
It is true that in doing this they undermined the historical foundation of these values, but never did they attack Christian values themselves. In this way the West still is a Christian society: our government is based on fundamental Christian values. Yet in another sense we are not a Christian society for we have undermined Christianity and have sought to do away with the source of the very values we hold so dear.
The sobering question we must ask ourselves is: if these are Christian values how long can they survive now that we’ve undermined their historical source? If the French Revolution is a warning to what happens to a society that thinks it can have Christian values without Christianity, we should be very careful in undermining the historical source of our values any further. When we want people to have a political system based on reason alone, we must remember history and ask ourselves if that is really such a good idea.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The End of Man (Part 10), Man's End Rightly Understood
Now, man has an end to which his whole life and all his actions are ordered; for man is an intelligent agent, and it is clearly the part of an intelligent agent to act in view of an end.
--St. Thomas Aquinas.
Man has an end. But what is that end? As this brief study has shown, from happiness to sex and from money to power, men pursue a number of different ends.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that, “The end of human life is bliss or happiness.” But wait a second, didn’t Bentham say that happiness was the end of man? Didn’t we already debunk that theory?
Yes Bentham was wrong when he said that happiness was the end of man. Yet, St. Thomas is right and he asserts the same thing. How can one be right and another wrong when both assert the same thing? The answer, Bentham misunderstood happiness, while St. Thomas rightly conceived the meaning of man’s happiness.
Bentham viewed man’s end as pursuing happiness free from any moral constraint. Sex, greed, envy, betrayal—all was lawful so long as it made a man happy. This leaves man with only perishable pleasure. The thrills form sex, money, and power; always wear off and man is left empty and alone. Man is eternal, but these things are finite and perishable. None can satisfy the eternal longings of man’s soul.
Everlasting happiness is only found in unity with the eternal, the eternal being God. Therefore man’s end is happiness; man’s end is unity with God.
According to Jacques Maritain (a St. Thomas Aquinas scholar), man’s ultimate end (or telos), his eternal purpose is explained in Luke 23:43. There Christ declared to the thief on the cross next to him, “today thou shalt be with me in paradise.” This is our end, the place wherein our perfect happiness lays, to be with God.
The scriptures support this understanding. When we look at the period of creation, the time of the law, the church age, and the eternal age we are left with but one conclusion: man’s end (man’s telos, man’s purpose for being, the only place he attains perfect completion) is unity with God.
Before the fall of mankind God and man lived in perfect unity and harmony. This is the way God designed things and this design was good. God walked in the Garden daily with man (which at this point consisted of just Adam and Eve). They communicated with one another and lived in intimate relationship with one another. But man disobeyed God and destroyed that unity. His sin created a block between him and God.
Despite this disunity between God and man, man’s end remained unchanged. God’s purpose for man was still to live in communion with Him. In Leviticus 26:11-13 God states:
I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
In John 1:14 we are told how God Himself became man and chose to dwell physically amongst mankind in the person of Jesus Christ. When Christ ascended to Heaven the Spirit of God descended to earth so that God could dwell within us (Ephesians 3:17).
Finally, Revelation 21:3-4 gives us a picture of what life will be like when all is made right. God declares that “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." That is our eternal end, that is the purpose for which we were created, that is where perfect satisfaction and infinite happiness lie: in unity with our source, in unity with our God.
We have rejected our end and have suffered the consequences of disunity with God. Suffering, disease, poverty, crime, and death: these are the consequences of our sin.
Jesus Christ united God and man in one body. This body took on the curse and consequences of sin. We need not suffer for our sin anymore, all is atoned for. Our end is once again available to us; we may once again live in unity with God. Yes Heaven is a literal place where we will physically join God and live with Him for all time, but Heaven is far more than that. Heaven is a standing or connection before God.
Think of a world full of wealth and beauty, but without God. That place would be Hell. Men would despoil the beauty and use the wealth to dominate and harm one another (like they have done on this earth). You can have all, but if you lack God, you have nothing. On the contrary one may have noting but God, and in God, have everything.
Christ provided a way for us to Heaven, provided a way for us to be at unity with God. We need not wait for death for that unity to begin, it may begin now. In fact death does not bring about a change in location, rather only a change in degree. Those who live in unity with God on earth will live in even greater unity in Heaven. Those who choose not to accept the sacrifice of Christ and enter God’s unity will be completely without God at death (in Hell).
Our end is open to us, but it is our choice to live according to it or not. Accepting it leads to life and blessing, rejecting it leads to destruction and death. Everyone must choose.
What will you choose?
--St. Thomas Aquinas.
Man has an end. But what is that end? As this brief study has shown, from happiness to sex and from money to power, men pursue a number of different ends.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that, “The end of human life is bliss or happiness.” But wait a second, didn’t Bentham say that happiness was the end of man? Didn’t we already debunk that theory?
Yes Bentham was wrong when he said that happiness was the end of man. Yet, St. Thomas is right and he asserts the same thing. How can one be right and another wrong when both assert the same thing? The answer, Bentham misunderstood happiness, while St. Thomas rightly conceived the meaning of man’s happiness.
Bentham viewed man’s end as pursuing happiness free from any moral constraint. Sex, greed, envy, betrayal—all was lawful so long as it made a man happy. This leaves man with only perishable pleasure. The thrills form sex, money, and power; always wear off and man is left empty and alone. Man is eternal, but these things are finite and perishable. None can satisfy the eternal longings of man’s soul.
Everlasting happiness is only found in unity with the eternal, the eternal being God. Therefore man’s end is happiness; man’s end is unity with God.
According to Jacques Maritain (a St. Thomas Aquinas scholar), man’s ultimate end (or telos), his eternal purpose is explained in Luke 23:43. There Christ declared to the thief on the cross next to him, “today thou shalt be with me in paradise.” This is our end, the place wherein our perfect happiness lays, to be with God.
The scriptures support this understanding. When we look at the period of creation, the time of the law, the church age, and the eternal age we are left with but one conclusion: man’s end (man’s telos, man’s purpose for being, the only place he attains perfect completion) is unity with God.
Before the fall of mankind God and man lived in perfect unity and harmony. This is the way God designed things and this design was good. God walked in the Garden daily with man (which at this point consisted of just Adam and Eve). They communicated with one another and lived in intimate relationship with one another. But man disobeyed God and destroyed that unity. His sin created a block between him and God.
Despite this disunity between God and man, man’s end remained unchanged. God’s purpose for man was still to live in communion with Him. In Leviticus 26:11-13 God states:
I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
In John 1:14 we are told how God Himself became man and chose to dwell physically amongst mankind in the person of Jesus Christ. When Christ ascended to Heaven the Spirit of God descended to earth so that God could dwell within us (Ephesians 3:17).
Finally, Revelation 21:3-4 gives us a picture of what life will be like when all is made right. God declares that “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." That is our eternal end, that is the purpose for which we were created, that is where perfect satisfaction and infinite happiness lie: in unity with our source, in unity with our God.
We have rejected our end and have suffered the consequences of disunity with God. Suffering, disease, poverty, crime, and death: these are the consequences of our sin.
Jesus Christ united God and man in one body. This body took on the curse and consequences of sin. We need not suffer for our sin anymore, all is atoned for. Our end is once again available to us; we may once again live in unity with God. Yes Heaven is a literal place where we will physically join God and live with Him for all time, but Heaven is far more than that. Heaven is a standing or connection before God.
Think of a world full of wealth and beauty, but without God. That place would be Hell. Men would despoil the beauty and use the wealth to dominate and harm one another (like they have done on this earth). You can have all, but if you lack God, you have nothing. On the contrary one may have noting but God, and in God, have everything.
Christ provided a way for us to Heaven, provided a way for us to be at unity with God. We need not wait for death for that unity to begin, it may begin now. In fact death does not bring about a change in location, rather only a change in degree. Those who live in unity with God on earth will live in even greater unity in Heaven. Those who choose not to accept the sacrifice of Christ and enter God’s unity will be completely without God at death (in Hell).
Our end is open to us, but it is our choice to live according to it or not. Accepting it leads to life and blessing, rejecting it leads to destruction and death. Everyone must choose.
What will you choose?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
