now taking requests

In a recent online conversation, my friend Terry told me that he was "troubled" by my opinions on Saint Paul of Tarsus. He asked me to specifically cover three things in a new blog post: my stances on the "divinity of Christ", the "Apostleship of Paul", and my thoughts on "New Birth" so that we could discuss this in greater detail. Without further ado. 


1. Addressing the "divinity of Christ" is not as simple as it seems. For the overly-pedantic mind like mine, this question is much more difficult than it would be for most. I want to try to deconstruct this question into two sections and then attempt to reassemble it into a coherent form. 

• In order to determine whether someone/something is "divine", one has to come to an understanding (or agree someone else's understanding) of what "divine" actually is. For most people, "divine" means "supernatural" or "metaphysical". This idea is predicated on the assumption (because it is currently an unproven hypothesis) that there is anything that exists outside of nature or the physical Universe. Cutting straight to the point: no one knows that the divine is actually real at all. Many believe it is, but none of us knows with any degree of certainty. In the strict linguistic sense of the word, we are all agnostic (Greek for a-gnosis, meaning "without knowledge") to the potentiality or actuality of the divine. Because I admit to a current state of metaphysical agnosticism (a state that all humans share whether we like it or not), I cannot therefore admit to knowing whether or not anyone in history had any connection to - or shared any kind of relationship with - the supernatural. It would be hypocritical and contradictory for me to admit otherwise. There is, however, a concept of the "divine" that exists within the framework of our own physical and natural universe. This concept of physis was explored by many of the ancient Greek philosophers and came to approximate a meaning of "that which comes of its own power" or, crudely, "nature." There are a number of modern philosophers and poets (such as Friedrich Holderlin and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as - in my opinion - Baruch Spinoza) that came to understand physis as the divine. Crudely stated (again), this worldview allows for no genuine possibility of a metaphysics or a "supernatural" as the natural is sufficiently "super" on its own. I cannot attest to the divinity of nature, but I can say that my experience with the natural universe lends me to a profound sense of humility, reverence and awe. As I heard a pastor say once, "Who can stand at the shore of the Pacific Ocean and feel anything but humility?"
  

• Another problematic element I have with a question of the "divinity of Christ" is the fact that there isn't really any one consensus on who/what "Christ" is. The Greek word "Christos" simply means "anointed." The word "anointed" means "to smear" (presumably with oil). The etymologies of these words are, as one can see, unhelpful. The conventional meaning of "anointed" is "chosen, consecrated, set apart" (again, presumably by YHVH, the "God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" and, subsequently, the Israelite, Hebrew-speaking peoples of the Jewish/Yahvist tradition). Terry's question also relies on a Christian belief that Jesus of Nazareth "is" christos. Not only that he is christos, but that he is "the Christos", meaning that he is the one and only "anointed" one. The idea of anyone being a "christ" or the "Christ" is tied directly to the concept of the divine. What one believes about the former has an ipso facto relationship on the latter. As I said of divinity, humans exist in a current state of agnosticism with regard to divinity and, therefore, we must also exist in a current state of agnosticism with regard to the "Christhood" of Jesus. Again, that doesn't necessarily dictate what one believes - by way of assumption - about the Christhood of Jesus, but only what someone knows. I fully expect people, particularly believers in Jesus, to argue with my definition of knowledge or challenge my claim that no one can know with any degree of certainty that Jesus is divine. While respecting the claims that many Christians "know" what they "believe", I wholeheartedly disagree and make the counter-claim, respectfully, that confusing knowledge and belief diminishes the inherent value of both.
  

At the end of the day, I have to say that I am unable to make any claims to knowing that Jesus is christos, the Christos or that he had any particularly unique relationship to the "supernatural". What I can say is this: Jesus is unique in history and the human imagination. As I've said before, I cannot imagine that there is one person in the Western tradition since Jesus that has not been forced to come to an understanding of him. We've all had to "come to grips" with Jesus in one way or another without any regard to religion, creed or culture. All great thinkers since him have been forced to comment on his teachings and the narrative of his life, including founders of other religions. The teachings attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospel tradition are, bluntly, inescapable. In a philosophical sense, they reach back to the most ancient of Judaic principles of justice as an ethical relationship of how "the other" makes a claim upon and appropriates "the self", while not being strictly decalogical. In this way, Jesus has earned the epoch-dividing status that we have given him.

My personal appreciation of Jesus is to give him the title of hypso-anthropos - highest among all humankind. 

2. Terry's second request was for me to explain my opinions on the "Apostleship of Paul". This, too, requires some preliminary explanation. 

• The word "apostle" comes from the Greek apostolos, meaning "one who is sent out", with the context of Christian missionary work to a particular region or country. In this sense I can only answer: of course Paul is an apostle. In terms of numbers and metrics, Paul was the most successful missionary of the Early Church period. Some have also argued, I think successfully, that Paul single-handedly built the Christian religion as we know it.
• Terry's question of "Paul's Apostleship" as I understand it, however, comes with an underlying stigma of Paul's exceptionalism, his preeminence in Christian thought, and the authoritative quality of his writings and commentary on the overall meaning of Jesus as "the Christos". The number of churches that he founded are, alone, enough to indicate that he is both a brilliant writer and a powerful rhetorician. However, to speak of his "Apostleship" in the aforementioned way - I believe - is inappropriate. 
• Unlike most Christians, I do not regard the teachings of Paul as "inerrant" or "authoritative". In a purely Christian context, I would say that "Paul is not Jesus." I do not agree that Paul's writings were "dictated by the Holy Spirit" or that Paul was so devout and close to God - or the Resurrected Jesus - that he was incapable of interpreting the divine incorrectly or erroneously. Without a doubt, there are passages in Paul's writings that can hardly be argued with; they appear to be "self-evident" insofar as they have come to define an entire school of human thought that goes, mostly, without question. His teachings on "love" in 1 Corinthians 13 come immediately to mind as an example of this. But I, like Friedrich Nietzche, find that much of how Paul interprets Jesus is "hopelessly wrongheaded". His claims that Jesus was "sacrificed" on the cross for the "sins" of humanity (or, worse, for the "sins" of only the "elect") and that the power of human regeneration is found in the mystical power of Jesus' blood, transformed the paradigm-shifting message of Jesus into a new religion of mystically metaphysical phantasmagoria. I see Jesus' "gospel" as a counter-culture revolution against the violently oppressive dominion of human ego-centrism. Jesus' teachings (regardless of his ontology), crudely stated, free men from the thralldom of the "self." This revolution of the self - against the self - empowers a kind of reconciliation with - and a "rebirth" into - the "divine". I see Paul's "gospel" as one that pits the human and the divine against one another, relies on an over-emphasized concept of human "sinfulness", and requires a slate-clearing sacrifice in order to appease a "just", yet vengeful and bloodthirsty god. The fact that this sacrificial appeasement, in Paul's theology, was the "plan" or "idea" of the god is certainly unique, but I believe it is more a mechanism born from the limitations of monotheism than anything else. In the polytheistic mythologies, the god of vengeance and the god that helps orchestrate the "redemption" work against one another. Paul's monotheistic belief in YHVH does not allow for this narrative, so the One True God must be both the unintentional antagonist and the determined protagonist at the same time.
  
• The Christos of Paul's writings is a Greek hero: the superhuman, yet tragically-fated, figure whose divine parentage empowers an endurance and personal sacrifice that will save his people from impending doom. Perhaps the most unique Pauline twist to this classical Greek tragedy is, of course, his adaptation of the Jesus' alleged resurrection, which transforms the classical tragedy of Jesus into the classical "comedy" (from the Greek komos-oidos, meaning "song of happiness") of the Christos. Crudely stated, Paul brilliantly adapted the traditional narrative of Jesus of Nazareth into the Christian religion. And, as if that wasn't enough, Paul further alienates the "Jesushood" of his Christos by absolving his Greek converts from having to adhere to any of the cultural traditions that Jesus, himself, observed: circumcision, kosher dietary customs, the Jewish calendar and holidays and, yes, even the Tanakh. 
• By the time the apocalyptic Revelation of Jesus Christ was composed, the transformation from Jesus-as-Jewish-Rabbi/Mashiah to Christos-as-Greek-demigod was practically complete in the Greco-Christian tradition, as evidenced by the description of the Christos in chapter 1: 

"[I saw] one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength." - Revelation 1:13-16 (for comparison with ancient Greek gods, refer to images of Apollo, Zeus, Helios, etc.) 

• The very fact that the Christos is introduced by the author of The Revelation as the "alpha and omega" is indicative of the deliberate identification of Christos as a Greek personality. Some may claim that I'm "reaching" for this next point (a criticism I would accept), but identifying Christos with the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (rather than, say, the Hebrew equivalent of aleph and tav), places the figure of the Christos as the "beginning and the end" of Greek language, linking the figure of the Christos with the critical element of Greek cultural tradition.
• Moreover, Paul, in his writings, seems particularly concerned with "his gospel" - and his position as the preeminent apostle to the "Gentiles" - being maintained in the churches he established. This is highly suggestive that there were rival interpretations of Jesus that were common and spreading at the same time as he was preaching to the "Gentiles" (see Romans 2:15, Romans 11:27-28, Romans 15:17-21, Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 15:1, 2 Corinthians 11:4, Galatians 1:6-9, Galatians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 1 Timothy 1:11, 2 Timothy 2:8).
  

I expect, at this point, that some might be ready to accuse me of all kinds of apostasy, blasphemy and heresy. I think that would be unfortunate, albeit understandable. What readers should take away from my opinions about the "Apostleship of Paul" is: that I think Paul sincerely believed he had figured out the "mystery" of Jesus; I believe that he correctly adapts Jesus' ethics into his system of theology; I believe that he offers some brilliant and poetic adaptations of Jesus' narrative into a systematic theology of the Christos; I believe that he is mostly mistaken and that he - whether intentional or not - transformed Jesus the Jewish Rabbi into Christos the Greek demigod, and the paradigm-shifting message of Jesus into a re-imagined pagan mystery religion.

3. Terry also asked me to explain my thoughts on "New Birth". This appears to be much more straightforward than the previous two topics. In John 3, Jesus is having a conversation with Nicodemus about his "ontology". 

• During this conversation, Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be gennao anothen in order to perceive the "kingdom of God". Nicodemus, making the same conceptual mistake as every Christian theologian I've ever known, thinks that Jesus is saying "born again" or "rebirthed". He asks, wrongheadedly, "How can one climb into his mother's womb when he is already old?" Jesus' response is not particularly kind. Yet every theologian, biblical translator, pastor and Christian layperson I've ever known has made the same mistake in translation! Jesus is not saying "new birth" or "born again" but "regenerated" as indicated by the root words themselves: gennao, meaning "generate" and anothen, meaning "another" or "anew". 
• My reading of this passage is that Jesus is telling Nicodemus that, unless he radically reorients his life, he will be unable to perceive or participate in the "kingdom of God" that Jesus represents. As is thematic throughout the synoptic gospel narratives, Jesus is showing people how to "repent" (Greek metanoeite, meaning to "change the direction of one's thinking" or "reorient one's mind") from their self-oriented existence and be "regenerated" into a new kind of human that is able to dwell (from the Greek ethos, meaning "habit, character, nature, disposition, custom, way of dwelling") ethically (also from the Greek ethos, meaning "habit, character, nature, disposition, custom, way of dwelling"). It is on this point that I can provide an example of how Paul interprets Jesus correctly. In his letter to the Romans (12:2) he instructs the members of the church to "not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."
• This regenerated human being, according to Jesus, looks very different from how we are used to behaving. It doesn't intentionally insult others, it harbors no anger against others, it regards interpersonal relationships and tranquility as more important than ritual or religious conventions, it does not "resist evil" people, it is detrimentally charitable, it is non-violent, it recognizes no person as an enemy, it is not publicly religious or pious, it is not materialistic, it is not judgmental, it does not insist on its own way. It is a difficult path that relatively few will ever be able to take up. Paul correctly reinforces this message when he writes to the Philippians (2:3), "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more significant than yourselves."

So, to summarize my opinions in response to Terry's questions:


1. Is Christ divine? It depends on what you mean by Christ and what you mean by divine. I can't claim that I know whether or not Jesus was divine, but I consider him to be hypso-anthropos, highest in humankind. 
2. Was Paul an apostle? Yes, but that does not mean he was always correct about Jesus. In fact, his metaphysics of Jesus were dead wrong. I believe he correctly interpreted the ethics and metanoeite of Jesus, but I believe his interpretation of Jesus' metaphysical ontology resulted in a mystical pagan mystery religion based on sin, atonement and blood sacrifice, coupled with an marriage of the Jesus narrative and pagan Greek mythology. 
3. What does it mean to be "born again" or to have experienced a "new birth"? In the context of John 3, it means nothing because Jesus isn't saying that. He's talking about regeneration and "repentance" (in the form of reorienting one's mind and worldview) from a self-oriented life to a new "ethical dwelling" that values the "Other" over the "Self". 


I imagine that this post has either given you, the patient reader, incredible "tired head", angered you terribly, or has - in a miracle of miracles - provoked you to thoughtful contemplation. Whatever the case may be, I am interested in your thoughts, comments and responses. 

As always, leave the light on. 

should i be surprised?

Yes, this is actually "for real". Click here for the link. 


Should any of us be surprised by this? I am absolutely dying to hear some responses to this.

martin luther on "faith"

Martin Luther is quoted as having once said the following on "faith":

"Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding."

There is an obvious linkage between Lutheran attempts to reform the Catholic Church and modern American Protestantism. His ideas, writings and values - whether understood or not - cast a large shadow over the various Christian sects (or "denominations", if you prefer) in existence and this opinion is certainly no different. 

There is a strong undercurrent of belief among those "religious" and "spiritual" men and women that insist that all knowledge, reason, sensory perception and even science must conform to what has been revealed by God via his holy "Word." I am curious to know whether or not people of faith believe that Luther is correct in this statement. Must faith be pre-eminent or dominate over all other forms of knowledge? Can knowledge derived from a separate source ever successfully challenge or contradict "faith"? 

I look forward to your responses. 

on the supposed inerrancy of holy scripture

I've been doing a lot of writing recently on empirical criticism as applied to all variety of texts, including religious texts. I got a number of excellent replies and comments (both on Facebook and here at Blogger) with regard to criticism as well as a few private notes on the "dangers" and "intentionally hurtful" implications of trying to apply empirical disciplines to texts like the Bible. I have no shortage of friends, family and colleagues that are frustrated with my critical exegesis of a collection of texts that they consider to be the "Living Word of God." At the end of the day, each person is responsible for what (s)he takes to be true about the world they live in. The important element of critically studying a text is not in reinforcing or undermining a belief(-system), but in "rightly dividing the word of truth" between a tradition of belief and allowing a text to speak for itself.

What I hope to explore in this post is not whether the Bible is truly "dictated by God" but whether it actually claims to be. I will be discussing a particular concept in order to set up the question: Does Paul claim (in 2 Timothy 3:16) that the Bible is inerrant? 

In his second recorded letter to Timothy, Bishop of the Christian Church in Ephesus, Paul writes the following passage:

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness."  - 2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

For purposes of transparency and for the reader to be able to read the text on his/her own, here is what the verse says in the original Greek:

"πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἐλεγμόν, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ"

I would like to break each word down and render a translation from the Greek to the English:

• πᾶσα (pas) - All, every one of such a thing
  
• γραφὴ (graphyin) - Any written thing [where we get the English words "graph" or "graphic" from]
  
• θεόπνευστος (theopneustos) - from two words theos (meaning "god" or "divinity") and pnuema (meaning "breath" or, loosely, "spirit")*
  
• καὶ (kahee) - and, also, indeed, even, but [Greek conjunction]
  
• ὠφέλιμος (ophelimos) - profitable
  
• πρὸς (pros) - to the advantage of
  
• διδασκαλίαν (didaokalian) - teaching or instruction [where we get the English word "didactic" from)
• ἐλεγμόν (elegmon) - reproach
• ἐπανόρθωσιν (epanorthosis) - correction, return to a state of uprightness
  
• παιδείαν (paideian) - the training and education of children
  
• τὴν (hon) - the, these [Greek article]
  
• ἐν (en) - in [Greek preposition]
  
• δικαιοσύνῃ (dikaiosune) - rightness
  

Paul, in my reading of this passage, is saying to Timothy:

"All writings are influenced [blown by god] and profitable in advantage of teaching, reproach, correction and training the youth in rightness."

I'm certain that there are those that will disagree with my translation of this passage, this is one of the largest problems with translating anything from the Greek language into English: it's nearly impossible to come away from a Greek translation and say "this is precisely what it says," as there are any number of ways to translate/interpret any number of words within a text. In light of this rendering of Paul's encouraging words to Timothy, I would like to make a number of points that, I feel, go very often unsaid when studying the writings of Paul:

• This writing of Paul to Timothy is a letter, written from one very experienced and well-trained teacher to another relatively inexperienced teacher. In the most modern analog to this kind of letter, we might think of Paul's epistles as "memorandums" or, in political terms, "policy statements".
  
• Scholars know that Paul had extensive, two-way, correspondence with all bishops and pastors that he established in Anatolia, Thrace and Greece. In these letters - most of whom only Paul's end was kept for posterity due to its subsequent canonization - any number of problems, questions, concerns, requests for clarification and reports of church activity were transferred to Paul and Paul sent his responses to either the pastor/bishop in a private letter (as in Timothy) or to the church-at-large (as in his letter to "the Ephesians"). We should always be conscious that there is a whole narrative happening around these letters that we have limited-to-no information regarding. 
• What we do know about the context of this letter is that there was a considerable row between Jewish Christians and Greek Christians over the following "church policies": circumcision, keeping the kosher laws, keeping, teaching and application of the Hebrew scriptures (for more information see Galatians 2:12, Galatians 6:13, Acts 21:15-26, Titus 1:10, 1 Corinthians 7:18, Romans 3:27-28 vs. James 2:17, 26, etc.). This controversy, as evidenced by Paul's extensive discussion of circumcision and "the law" to churches in traditionally non-Jewish cities (like Rome, Corinth, etc.). We know that "men from James" (brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem church, most of which were Jews) went to a number of Greek churches to encourage them to adopt the Jewish traditions that Jesus himself observed (i.e. circumcision, the law and the Hebrew scriptures).
  
• What can be interpreted from this "policy statement" by Paul to Timothy, in my reading, is this: amid the controversy of what to do with all of the Jewish traditions still observed by the Jerusalem church and the Apostles, Timothy (a very young half-Jewish, half-Greek bishop of a large cosmopolitan church in traditionally Greek city) asks Paul how he should settle this highly charged question for his own congregation. 
• Paul's response "splits the baby" with regard to the Hebrew scriptures. He does not encourage Timothy to do as the Jerusalem church and the Jewish-Christian congregations did: which is make the Hebrew scriptures a centerpiece of the Jewish-Christian experience. He tells Timothy that these writings are "blown on by God" (an idea which was well understood by anyone exposed to Greek religious and philosophical culture as "inspired" or "blown upon by the gods") and, as such, they are useful for teaching Christians how to be righteous before God and Christ. 
• What is noteworthy here is that Paul does not say that the scriptures are directly dictated by God and, thus, "inerrant". There is a phrase in Greek that would have directly conveyed this idea. Here it is in the original Greek: "υπαγορεύεται από τον Θεό και δεν σφάλμα [upagopeuetai apo hos theos kai den ophalma]." Paul does not say this. Instead he, essentially, creates a whole new vocabulary word with an ambiguous meaning.
• The last point that should be made is possibly the "touchiest" of all. In the twenty-first century, we are very comfortable using the words "the Bible", "the Word" or "scripture". It is very important, when making claims about the "the Bible", that we understand the following: what we call "the Bible" is a compilation of various different texts, penned (if not actually authored) by a number of different writers, written across centuries of history, in at least two entirely different languages. Modern American readers read the Bible as one contiguous book, in one language as though it was penned by one person sometime in history and chosen by a god-ordained authority/apostle. The books of the Bible were selected in 393 AD at the Synod of Hippo, and chosen by this council of bishops to represent "sacred scripture." In the time of Paul and Jesus, "scripture" only referred to the Hebrew Tanakh (or the "Old Testament"). None of the Gospel narratives or apostolic letters were considered by any first-century Christian to be "canon." 
• In light of this, it is important to understand that if we insist that "the Bible" is "inerrant" we have to answer these questions: Which version of the Bible is inerrant? What texts are included in this version? Are all of the texts "inerrant" or just a select few? If Paul is saying that scripture is "without error", do we take that to mean only the "Old Testament" like he said? Or do we apply that error-less-ness to the decisions made by the Synod of Hippo almost four hundred years later?

In the end, the question still remains for each of us to decide thoughtfully, not capriciously or based on a potentially unfounded tradition: does Paul claim (in 2 Timothy 3:16) that the Bible is inerrant? 

Perhaps the even more important question is this: does it need to be "error free" in order to be "profitable for teaching, reproach, correction and education of the youth in righteousness"? 


I certainly look forward to everyone's comments and criticisms on the subject and hope to hear from you all soon.

you can('t) believe everything you read

In order to keep this post short and sweet, I just want to ask an open-ended question and see where the conversation leads us:

Is it appropriate to read any text as authoritative, or to read texts in an uncritical fashion?


In order to clear any confusion on what I mean by this let me provide some examples of what I mean:

- Reading news articles without stopping to question the sources or the biases (intentional or unintentional) of the author/journalist. This includes news from conservative, liberal and "non-partisan" sources.
- Reading history books without questioning their interpretation of the events, their significance and what they may have left out by virtue of space or limitations. 
- Interpretations of law and political theory. Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, wrote that "we hold these truths to be self evident..." But are any "truths" genuinely self-evident? This question applies to "strict interpretation" of political documents/laws and interpreting thse same documents as "living" and "dynamic."
- Perhaps most controversial of all: spiritual traditions, religious scripture and subsequent commentary. While this absolutely does not only apply to Christian texts and traditions, but to all religious and philosophical traditions. 


I'm interested to hear comments from everyone on this.

Thoreau on Democracy as a Theory of Government

"Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen." - Civil Disobedience, 1849

Here are the questions that this quotation poses to me:
- Is democracy the best possible form of government? 
- If democracy is not the best possible form of government, do we have an inkling of what is? 
- Moreover, can government "work" at all?


Feel free to leave your answer via the comments section. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Influential Quotes and Ideas

In addition to my own musings, I wanted to add - from time to time - some quotes and ideas that I find both thought-provoking and influential. I hope that they will spark some critical discussion with our own selves and with each other.

thoughts on objective reality

In my last post, I attempted to explore and contrast the differences between assumption, fact, belief and knowledge and apply them to the standard of "objective reality." I recently received this comment from a reader:

I'd like to hear more on objective reality. Your "the world is round" comment made me think...is Earth round? Obviously, we know it is round from a extraterrestrial yet intra solar system perspective. But what about from another galaxy? Our solar system is not spherical. It is a flat disc. And our Earth is a non-dimensional speck. Without rambling, I'm just curious as to how objective is reality? And similarly, how universal can truth be?

I want to: a) thank the reader for his question and, b) attempt to answer this question to the best of my ability.

One of the prevalent definitions that I have been working off of for the purposes of this blog has been that of "objective and factual reality." Let me begin by making a clear admission: all three key words in that phrase are highly debatable in terms of conception. Allow me to explain further:

• Objective - the dictionary defines "objective" as "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased." The definition, however, can be deceptively straightforward. The problem is not necessarily the act of defining objectivity but achieving objectivity. It is my opinion that humans, because of their inherent first-person perspective, are not able to achieve complete objectivity. We all have limited perspectives as individuals and, as a species, our perspective is also currently limited. Whether that will change any time in the future remains to be seen. I do believe that there is a "reality" that is completely objective and free from personal bias and limited perspective, even if humans cannot perceive it. It appears to me that φύσις (physis or, crudely, "nature") is objective outside of νόμος (nomos or "human convention"). In this light one might say that nature, itself, is both objective and real because it does not conform to the biases, feelings or interpretations of human convention.
  
• Factual - this idea, too, is difficult to wrestle with. In modern, English-speaking traditions we understand the word fact to have the meaning of "holding a mirror to reality." From an empirical, and scientific, perspective this makes plenty of sense. There is a conflict, however, when one reads the idea of a fact in an ancient sense. The Latin word for fact - facere - means, roughly, to do or make with one's hands. It is the same Latin root that provides English words like "factory" and "manufacture". The ancient Greek analog of facere is poeio or poesis - the root word for poetry. Tying this with the previous definition, a fact is also a product of human convention because it requires a medium of communication in order for it to be shared between peoples and because it also, generally, requires an agreement between peoples to be accepted. Thus, in order to get to a place where your knowledge of the world is informed by facts, you must first come to terms with the idea of factuality and decide how you intend to deploy the word with language.
  
• Reality - this may be the most troubling idea of all. Every time I use the word "reality" I can feel my professors cringe. I use this word a lot, but I also try to use this word advisedly or, on occasion, by framing it in quotation marks. The English word "reality" has a Latin root in res - meaning "thinghood" or "thingness" - and in the Greek word onto - meaning "being". If that sounds confusing or pedantic to you, you're definitely not alone. How can anyone begin to define something like "being" or "thinghood"? This, of course, is the problem associated with using a word like "reality" without prefacing it with a specific definition.

Even with these logological difficulties with understanding "objective factual reality", I still think it is possible to employ the concept. If we refrain from framing our exploration of reality in a human-centered (anthropocentric) view and allow for a broader Being-centered (ontocentric) view, the idea of "reality" begins to take sharper focus. All of that is a ridiculously philosophical way of saying the following: "reality", as I understand it, is considerably larger than the human being's perspective and experience: unlimited, unaltered and indifferent to our attempts - successful or not - to understand it.

With regard to "how universal can truth be", I can only fall back to a simple answer: truth is only as universal as reality is; which is to say that it is only universal, since truth and reality are the same. How people understand, interpret or communicate truth may be prone to mistake or manipulation, but - again - reality (and truth) is unbiased and not influenced by human convention.

thoughts on the christian spiritual tradition

In a recent post on this blog, I stated two opinions about the nature of belief in general and the Christian religion in particular. A friend of mine sent me a message asking me to explain what I meant by them. His message read:

Can you explain [these ones] to me:
- "Belief, especially religious belief, is one of the only conventions in the human repertoire that will blatantly defy 'reality.' And no, that's not a good thing."
- "I'm not entirely sure that the Jesus talked about in Christian religious traditions is broadly-enough defined. In other words: Jesus is interpreted too narrowly for my tastes within most expressions of Christianity."

I will attempt to tackle these explanations as best as I can and I hope to satisfy the spirit of the request if not the actual request itself.

The first statement that I want to address is the one concerning belief. I've set out to explore - via this blog - the difference between beliefs, values, ideologies and their relationship to objective reality. Beliefs, as I've come to understand them, are based almost solely on assumptions. This is different from my understanding of knowledge insofar as knowledge is informed by commonly agreed-upon empirical facts. (At this point I could digress into a lengthy bit about the theory of knowledge, the Latin etymology for "facts" and classical skepticism, but I won't. Anyone wanting to understand more about how those three items relate to my previous statements can look those up for his/herself.) Let me explain, crudely, the difference between a belief and knowledge. "God created the Universe." This is a belief. "The world is round." This is knowledge.

Because I feel certain that I'll be interpreted this way, let me say very clearly: there is nothing wrong with having a belief. We all have them both despite and because of our expanding knowledge-base as a species. The problem that I have is when people take a belief, which is fine to have in its own right, and elevate it to the level of "unquestionable authoritative truth." It is my opinion that beliefs enrich our lives most when they are kept in their place: as beliefs. Beliefs, however, because they are often elevated to the level of "unquestionable authoritative truth" often cause believers to blatantly deny "reality" - the existence which can actually be confirmed and verified via empirically-derived factual knowledge.

I've gone round-and-round on this point almost two dozen times with friends, relatives and colleagues so pardon me as I return to it. The Book of Genesis is a beautiful collection of texts, narratives and traditions. It was (and continues to be) the basis for a number of traditions - when read literally - that blatantly defy what humans know about the Earth. The "heavens and the Earth" were not created in six, twenty-four hour periods. Humans know this. It isn't a guess. It isn't a belief. It is backed up by consistently validated, confirmed and verified facts. What's more is: these facts were originally discovered by committed and devout Christians whom, after having discovered them, did not become atheists or turn their back on Christianity but allowed this new information to expand and enrich their understanding of both the mundane and the divine. Holding to a literal interpretation of Genesis is every Christian, Jew and Muslim's right. It is, however, a profound example of how a belief leads people to blatantly defy reality. And no, I do not think that it is good for a person to deny a factually-informed "reality" for an assumption-informed belief. Especially when there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in support of one at the zero-sum expense of the other.

Turning, now, to the question of the Jesus and his relation to mainstream American Christianity, I would like to first say that I, personally, believe there is something special about Jesus in human history. This belief is informed by several assumptions: a) he actually existed as a historical figure of which there is almost no extra-Biblical empirical verification that I am aware of, b) his life had any relationship to the narratives and texts which became the canonized New Testament of the Christian Bible and, c) that the authors of the previously mentioned New Testament texts are trustworthy hagiographers and worth giving the proverbial "benefit of the doubt." I feel that it is incumbent on me to state, very clearly, that I do not treat the New Testament as "authoritative", nor do I approach the texts uncritically. In my own exegetical endeavors, I have come to a number of conclusions that would - and have - angered a number of devoutly orthodox Christians. Most Christians I know believe that, while the original texts of the New Testament were penned by men, the words are actually the direct dictation of God. My research on this question has led me to conclude that at no point in the New Testament do any of the authors claim to have been directly dictated to, outside of the Book of Revelation, which has significant - and currently irresolvable - authenticity issues of its own. (Again, there is a temptation to digress into an explanation of Paul's statement in 2 Timothy 3:16, but that will have to wait for another post if anyone is interested in hearing why it is not a claim of biblical divine dictatorship.)

What can be easily agreed upon by both the most devout and obstinate Christian and the most obstinate atheist is this: Jesus occupies an unprecedented place in human history. Major religious movements and traditions - as well as anti-religious movements and traditions - are devoted to him. Nearly everyone in Western society since him (or, at least, the birth of his movement) has been forced to think about him and come to some kind of understanding about him. Very few men, if anyone, have ever occupied this level of importance in human history: with all due respect given to Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and any individual whose religious patron I have not referenced. The claim that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus" set off a firestorm of controversy for a reason! In Western tradition - perhaps in all human tradition - no one is, or has been, bigger than Jesus. As Saul Silver might claim: Jesus is "the apex of the vortex" of Western spirituality.

It is both because of this and despite this understanding that I believe that Jesus is "too narrowly interpreted" for my tastes within most expressions of the Christian tradition. In my personal research into primitive Christianity, I have found that the earliest Christians were deeply divided over the nature of Jesus. Was he only human? Was he human at all? Was he to be understood only as a Jewish rabbi? Was he to be understood as the last of the Greek demigods? Despite the revisionist history that comes with the canonized New Testament, there was no monolithic movement which embodied a set orthodoxy of Christianity before - in the very least - the third century AD/CE. There were Ebionites, Paulines, Alexandrians, Romans, Nestorians and Donatists, just to name a few! The name "Christian" was given to anyone that followed the teachings of Jesus, according to the tradition they were exposed to.

"Orthodox Christianity" in a very real sense - despite the beliefs of many American protestants - is still not a settled question and, in my historical opinion, never has been. Deep-seated divides over what is "legitimate" within Christianity have not, to this day, been settled by anyone. From the earliest disputes between James and Paul to the Ebionites versus the Paulines, to the Pelagians versus the Augustinians, to the Roman Catholics versus the Eastern Orthodox, to the Roman Catholics versus the Protestants, to the Calvinists versus the Arminians... the divides continue, mostly because each side believes that they have an exclusive claim to the truth about Jesus. It is partly because of these exclusive claims - which are deterministically closed-minded about other interpretations about Jesus - that I claim that most expressions of Christianity interpret Jesus too narrowly.

Another reason that Christian interpretations of Jesus, in general, "turn me off" is that even with all of the intra-Christian dissent about Jesus, Christianity as a whole applies the same attitude about interpreting Jesus against "non-Christians." In short: Christians believe that you have to be a card-carrying Christian in order to contribute to a faithful understanding of Jesus. This, to me, is both odious and senseless. I feel that Jesus, according to my belief in his special-ness, is far too large of a personality in human history to be closed-minded about. Let me clarify further: the more solid and inflexible your beliefs become about Jesus, the more narrowly you interpret him - the smaller he becomes. I speak from vast personal experience on this matter. It is my opinion that the more you try to define something like Jesus (whether as a person, an ideal, or simply an idea), the more you attempt to contain him... the more you attempt to limit his being and inspiration. Despite his obviously central role within Christianity, most expressions of that tradition - to me - do far too much defining, limiting and containing for my tastes. I prefer to believe that if Jesus is "the apex of the vortex", then he won't mind any of my attempts to find his inspiration, example and the wonder he represents in "unlikely" places.

Feel free to leave any comments that you feel are appropriate. As always, please leave the light on.

addendum to "it's all greek to me"

The following anonymous comment was left on the post "it's all greek to me":

"Your greek translation is wrong. The greek actually states: 'OutOs gaup egapesen o Theos ton kosmon Oste ton uion ton monogenE edoken, ina pas o pisteuon eis auton mE apoletai alla eche zoen aionion'."

The poster is correct. I did not use a conjugated translation of the John 3:16 passage but rather provided the key words of the passage for the purposes of readers being able to look up the vocabulary on their own.

I appreciate this comment and his/her attempt to hold my translation to a higher scholarly level. I want to go ahead and provide the un-transliterated Greek text so that readers have this for their purposes.

"Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ' ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον."

This translation was provided by the online source Greek Bible.

new functionality!

Hey everyone, I just wanted to point out that there is new functionality here at veritas regnum! A friend of mine clued me into a quick "Reaction" section at the bottom of each post. Just click on the one that best fits your reaction to what I've written. Thanks to my buddy for helping me figure it out.

it's all greek to me

I've danced around the idea that there is a greater need for anyone reading the Bible (believers and non-believers alike) to develop a robust familiarity with classical Greek and ancient Hebrew in several posts over the "history" of the blog. I want to be clear: what I'm suggesting is both bold and unpopular. It goes against quite a bit of tradition, especially in England and America, of faithfully reading and interpreting the Bible in the vernacular English. I decided to post this entry to explain what I mean by my claim and, hopefully, to back it up. As always, I have no intention for anyone to simply take my word for it but, rather, to approach this question with an open mind, study it for the him/herself and incorporate it into their understanding of the sacred.

I plan on using a specific example to explain my position, but the main point I want to make is this: whether you're using the Bible to justify your belief or criticizing the Bible from a place of unbelief, it's much better to know Greek and Hebrew language, culture, history and literature. The more you know about ancient Hebrew, Greek and - to an extent - Latin, the better you will be able to come away with an interpretation of the texts that is both fair to the text itself and to the individuals that transcribed them.

Example - The Gospel of Jesus Christ According to John, chapter three, verse sixteen (John 3:16)

I think that nearly any Christian - or even some non-Christians that have been to church before - will be familiar with this text. In many ways this passage is the passage which acts as the common thread for all of the various different denominations and confessions within the Christian tradition. During a private conversation that Jesus is having with a member of the religious/political elite, John records that Jesus explains his "ontology". The passage - in the English Standard Version of the Bible - reads: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." For most Christians, this passage is very straightforward. To them it outlines the following basic truths (if I miss something, or get something wrong in this list, please feel free to tell me):

- God loves the human race
- He sent his son to the Earth in the form of Jesus
- If you put your trust in the divine power of Jesus as the son of God, then you will be enter the church of redeemed saints and allowed into Heaven when you die

In order to understand this incredibly deep text I'm going to provide the original key words in the Greek from this passage and then break down the passage itself.

"Theos houto agapao kosmos didomi monogenes huios pas pisteuo [negative article] apollumi echo aionios zoe."

There should be no doubt as to why this verse is so popular in Christian traditions: it's absolutely beautiful! Pure poetry. What little bit that comes through in the English translation is eclipsed by its stunning Greek origins. Allow me to offer an alternative translation of the Greek text to English:

"God had such a perfect compassion on the entire Universe, that he generated a singly unique being for it. Everything that is entrusted to this singularity will not decay into uselessness and futility, but continue to exist without boundries."

When looking at the actual Greek vocabulary that John used in this text, the whole passage begins to take an entirely different shape. Here are a few key points to illustrate what I mean:

- The word for "the world" that John uses is kosmos, which carries a unique Aristotelian concept along with it. In a nutshell, John is saying that God loves not just the people on the Earth (which would have been the word anthropos) but everything in the Universe and the Universe itself.

In other words: The God that John is describing in this text is not only concerned with people, but with the order of the entire Universe. From a scientific point of view, one could argue that God's concern with the Universe is at a subatomic level.

- Traditional interpretations of monogenes huios as "only Son" or "only begotten Son" are problematic, not because it is "incorrect" but because it is a very narrow interpretation for a pair of terms that have very wide interpretive meanings. A fair interpretation of the Greek word monogenes huios would be "a singularity that was generated from one's own being." To simply say that John is calling Jesus "the son of God" actually limits and subtracts from the text since the phrase he uses is much larger and broader.

In other words: the Jesus that John is describing is actually bigger than "the son of God."

- Probably the most interesting and potentially troublesome translation in the English versions of the passage are for the words pas pisteuo. The trouble here is almost entirely linguistic in nature. Most European languages that are derived from or influenced by Latin have a complete lack of a "middle voice" that Greek has between the active and passive. Moreover, the Greek word pisteuo can be read in all three voices, making it difficult to understand outside of a context. Finally, the original Latin translations of the Bible (from which English versions later came) do not have middle or passive connotations for their analogous versions of pisteuo (both credo and fidelus).

In other words: pas pisteuo could mean "all who believe" or (perhaps more likely given the context of Jesus' statement) "all whom have been entrusted to." This, obviously, poses serious questions to orthodox Christian theology because it implies that the belief of the sinner is not a requirement for the soteria (complete healing) of God.

- The final two ideas that benefit from a more objective interpretation are those of "die" and "eternal life." The word used here for "death" and "die" is rooted in the Greek word apollumi. Death is a faithful translation of this word, but it also has a broader understanding. It is not only "die" but it means "decay" and "descend into futility." John is not only talking about physical death, but he's also referencing a qualitative lack of "life." It is this idea that perfectly contrasts the following image presented in the words aionios zoe. This is traditionally interpreted (via the Latin) as "eternal life" or "everlasting life." This translation is incomplete because it focuses only on the quantitative aspect (like duration and time) rather than incorporating the qualitative aspects. More than just "life that goes on forever," the Greek says "life without limitations or boundaries."

As I said at the beginning of this post, I hope that the information I've presented explains my opinion that literacy in Greek and Hebrew is important for Biblical research and readings. Of course it is possible to "get something" out of reading the Bible in English. Christians in the English-speaking world have been inspired by English vernacular passages of the Bible for centuries. My argument is that those that would use the Bible to make claims about truth or reality (both believers and atheists) should do so from an informed and educated point of view and not to rely on shoddy interpretations based on incomplete vernacular translations.

Feel free to comment as you see fit.

what i've learned since my 'vacation'

I know it's been a while since last I posted. I know I've spent a lot of time away and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this (I'm talking to you Willie Chuck!). Needless to say, I've done a lot of thinking since my last post(s), spent a lot of time in study, reflection, meditation and active interpersonal exchanges (is that redundant?). I'd like to think that I've learned a couple of things since last we all met in cyberspace... but I've decided to let you all be the judge of that. It's not a complete list just yet: I may add to it from time-to-time. No formal format this time... just off the proverbial cuff. Everything I've listed below is something that I've had to learn myself the hard way because I was, at one time, the worst offender I knew. Anyone that's known me for more than a year will laugh at how true this is.

What I've learned about politics, government and economics and would like to share:
- The republican form of government is a particularly clever way of continuing the feudal aristocracies of the Middle Ages. To entertain the notion that the United States is an actual democracy is to be mistaken.

- Capitalism was not the founding economic model of America... open up a history book sometime. There was a significant movement in the 19th century to adopt Marxism by the emerging "middle class". This movement was effectively shut down by the efforts of the robber-baron industrialists of the period. If you support capitalism, that's fine - but you should do so from an informed and factually accurate point-of-view.

- Glen Beck is a grade "A", irresponsible, first-rate and ideologically-charged demagogue... and a jack ass.

- Socialism isn't the devil, it isn't un-American and it isn't un-Christian. Claiming otherwise only proves two things: a) you apparently don't understand what socialism is and, b) you don't understand traditional American values or traditional Christian values.

- If you think that having no military experience disqualifies you from being the President of the United States, I'd like for you to look up the military records for the following men: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Quincy Adams. Four out of the first five presidents of the United States did not serve in the military and the one that did (George Washington) claimed that the greatest threat to liberty and democracy was a standing army.

What I've learned about religion and would like to share:
- A lot of evangelical Christians in America balk at the word "religion", so I want to make sure people understand what I mean when I use that word: a religion is a framework of beliefs concentrated around an idea of the sacred or divine. Technically the word religion means, in the original Latin re-ligio, "that which binds together." As I've said before in other posts, this definition is the equivalent to what I call "ideology". It not only includes theology and worldviews but traditions as well.

- I get the accusation of sounding smug and elitist when I say this to people. I realize how it comes across but I still think it is worth saying and I apologize ahead of time if you take offense to this: if your primary understanding/interpretation of the Christian Bible comes from an English translation - then it is highly likely that you don't understand what you're reading. Unfortunately for Americans without fluency in Greek and Hebrew (myself included), the Bible was not written in the English language or with an Anglo-Saxon cultural context. In other words: if you want to understand the source-text for the Christian religion, then you cannot approach the text with a modern American Christian mindset. Period.

- The God talked about in most religious (or sacro-ideological) communities and traditions is impossibly small and shallow to me. There are ways to approach an idea of the sacred and the divine that exist outside of institutional religious communities that are worth exploring without condemnation.

- I'm not entirely sure that the Jesus talked about in Christian religious traditions is broadly-enough defined. In other words: Jesus is interpreted too narrowly for my tastes within most expressions of Christianity.

- The Bible is not a historical text, despite the presence of historical events described in it. It is a work of hagiography. The sooner you read the Bible with that understanding, the sooner a lot of the information in it will begin to make an incredible amount of sense.

- I've read the Bible and quoted it as much as anyone else I know, but beginning a claim about truth with "the Bible says..." immediately undercuts one's credibility.

- Belief, especially religious belief, is one of the only conventions in the human repertoire that will blatantly defy "reality." And no, that's not a good thing.

- Superstition is the most offensive kind of ignorance I've ever encountered - in both its "charmed" and "cursed" forms.

What I've learned about education and would like to share:
- Education is the process by which you take an empty mind and replace it with an open one.

- Too much of what passes for education is really just indoctrination. To educate someone is not to teach them what to think, but how to think.

- Students are the only demographic in America that want to get less-and-less for the money they pay.

- What you put into your education, you will get back with dividends.

- A Master's Degree is just that. Think about it for a second. It is a degree that confers on you the title of master. If you think it's ok to just "get by" in a Master's program, you have completely missed the point and don't deserve to have the title. As a graduate student, you should be shooting for a hard-earned "A" in every class. Period.

- Open-mindedness isn't a cure-all for what ails us intellectually... but it's a good start and the foundation for a truly educated person.

That's all I've got for right now. I'm sure to add more to it later. Feel free to comment as you see fit.