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Tuesday, May 29. 2012Reinventing The Faith
Christianity is a well established religious tradition with spiritual and cultural roots going back to ancient times. The figure of Christ likewise continues to command allegiance, unlike perhaps any other figure in human history. Multitudes throughout the world claim to honour him, desiring to be identified with his name, to be known in effect as Christians.
Yet many, today as throughout history, while thus confessing to allegiance with Christ, appear profoundly at odds with the spiritual legacy he represents, which is to say, the Judaeo-Christian prophetic legacy of the Old and New Testament. Christ, according to that legacy, is the Word – the logos in Greek – signifying the mind and thought of God as reflected in biblical scripture. As the embodiment and summation of the said body of scripture, Christ, in an essential sense, is identified with its statements, severally and as a whole. And this is the paradox, that self-confessed Christians, while claiming to honour Christ, will deny – sometimes openly and proudly – the very scriptures he represents. Here I am speaking less of syncretic co-options of the Christ figure, as by the Grail and Theosophical schools of thought, but of developments much closer to the heart of orthodox Christendom. So-called Christian liberalism portends from within the major Christian confessions and creeds; its adherents are known for their biblical revisionism – a reinventing of the faith. Exemplary among these is John Shelby Spong, theologian and former Episcopalian bishop. As reflected in his ‘twelve points’, Spong repudiates among other things: the God of traditional theism, Christ as the incarnation of this God, the biblical account of creation and fall, the virgin birth, the biblical miracles, the atoning sacrifice of the Cross, the bodily resurrection and ascension, and the validity of intercessory prayer. What is left, one wonders at this point, and as if by amends the bishop adds that the hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behaviourist mentality of reward and punishment, and that all human beings bear God’s image and must be respected as individuals. We are left in effect with an effete spiritual humanism, an elaboration of moral and ethical expediency as the mainstay of the faith. Not all Christian liberals go the distance of Dr Spong, but all feel compelled without scruple to ‘doctor’ the Word of God in accord with whatever their worldview demands. In the extreme, while the language of scripture is retained, that language is effectively divested of meaning. No longer imparting the faith as once delivered to the saints, it now serves to cloak an incipient atheism. Now why is this? Why would anyone take such a narrow, constrained, and ultimately impoverished view of scripture? Why take the immense trouble of revisionism, sifting the gold from the dross, as some would characterise it? Why not simply go the way of all saints, accepting the scriptures as transmitted and trusting God to reveal them? The answer is simple. It is scholarship, and here we see that a profound subversion has taken place at the very foundation of Christendom. Bishop Spong speaks eloquently to this subversion. Because of Darwin, Newton, and the Copernican synthesis, such is his claim, we now know better than the anointed prophets who wrote the Bible. Concurrent is the more general view that traditional / conventional interpretations of scripture are no longer sustainable in the world of contemporary discourse, that they do not speak to the modern sensibility, nor truly address the disquiet of the soul. But do we really know better? Or is it rather a matter of choosing where to place one’s confidence? And as to the evident failure of traditional / conventional interpretations, perhaps it is the interpretations which are at fault – not the scriptures. Here a historical perspective is of use. For some thousand years in the formation of Christian sensibility the Roman Catholic faith ruled effectively unopposed, enforced by secular as well as religious means. Being thus without effective competition, the faith became stagnant and deeply corrupt. Yet even the reformed traditions, for all their Reformation fervour, still implicitly hark back and defer to the mindset of the Middle Ages. This does not mean that the Reformation was a failure, merely that it is incomplete. Neither Luther, nor Wesley, nor modern Pentecostalism succeeded in fully restoring the original apostolic faith. The depth of historic subversion of the Christian faith has not yet been fathomed. Certainly the popular and folkloric conception of biblical scripture has more to do with Roman Catholicism than New Testament Christianity, and the reformed traditions remain similarly beholden. Yet while all this remains hidden in the traditional context of monolithic cultural theism, in the context of modern cultural pluralism it becomes painfully apparent – the conventional formulation of the faith is a failure, and it is interpretation, contrived and stagnant, which is the cause of that failure. Here indeed we come to the root of the problem in that something – a creed, a dogma, an interpretation – is interposed between the human soul and the inspired scriptures. Historically such a stance was first formalised under the Roman emperor Constantine whose Council adopted the Athanasian creed as basis for a politically sanctioned Christian faith. The Word of God was deposed along with the headship of Christ, the Holy Spirit, in favour of human government over the church. These two, the rejection of Spirit and Word, necessarily go together, and here we hark back to Dr Spong and his appeal to human intellect as arbiter of the faith. Thus rendered apparent is the essential error underlying his attitude, namely the notion that the scriptures, to be understood as meaningful, must needs be interpreted in accord with rational concepts and principles. It is the error of reducing the spiritual to the carnal, instead of transforming and raising the carnal man to the spiritual. Henceforth it is no longer the Christ of scripture who is object of spiritual engagement, but the interpretation, the dogma, the creed. The result, as per our historic example, is wholesale idolatry and the sanctioning of human depravity with the ostensible mantle of divine authority. The God of such a faith is indeed a delusion (see Richard Dawkins, 2006), which, of course, is the only God our secular critics are able to see. Even more fundamental here is the implicit assumption that the Word of God is addressed to the intellect. Indeed where intellect is deemed supreme this would simply be taken for granted. Yet the scriptures cannot be addressed to the intellect, to the rational or reasoning mind, emanating, as they do, from a higher plane of cognition. As states St Paul, spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and we are to compare spiritual things with spiritual. Properly understood the Word of God is a spiritual seed which transforms the mind to become spiritually cognisant, to conform to the mind of Christ by spiritual rebirth, such that we are one with Christ, one with his Word, and one with God. This is the salvation and eternal life of which it is spoken in scripture. Of course none of this is going to happen by denying the scripture or interpreting them – and let us be emphatic here that interpretation in this sense is the equivalent of unbelief. The person taking the latter route may indeed be ‘born again’, but not of the incorruptible seed of the eternal Word of God. He is reborn of a creed, and of his creed he bears witness. And though he be a bishop, he is a blind leader of the blind, having form of godliness, as speaks St Paul, but denying the power thereof. As Christians then we have no need to reinvent the faith. This is not because our reformed traditions are perfect – they are not – but because of ongoing revelation in the spiritual realm whereby the Word of God is revitalised and brought to fuller realisation in each succeeding age. If there is ought we must relinquish, it is our own unscriptural ideas and beliefs. Insofar as the Word is indeed a seed – a metaphor employed by Jesus himself – it must admit of seasons of growth until, coming to perfection, it again produces Christ – the original seed. Ours is an age indeed beyond the exhausted traditions of the reformers. It is the age of consummation, of the revelation of the seven seals, wherein the mystery of God is revealed to his bride. Concurrent with modern trends in theological revisionism, therefore, is the slow imperceptible ripening of the spiritual seed in the bride of Christ, with both being impelled by the momentum of the spiritual season. Thus in order to be Christians in this age we must conform to the spiritual seed. For it is his Word which God will quicken in the resurrection, and only his Word. Like St Paul, therefore, we must be bona fide, thoroughgoing, dyed-in-the-wool heretics, believing all things spoken by the prophets of God. Tuesday, May 29. 2012The God Debate – Part 3 : The Argument For Theism Distilled
In Part 2 I cited some seven arguments which weigh in favour of the existence of God. Here, for the sake of simplicity, I will present a distillation of these arguments into one simple proposition. It is simply this – that the world of human experience, a world characterised by mind, consciousness, value and meaning, a world in which we value truth, beauty and moral virtue, is better explained by intelligent creative agency than undirected natural causes. Insofar as complex specified information is more plausibly the product of mind than of a random process of chance and necessity, the inference from inherent mind is by far the more direct.
Ultimately it is as simple as that, namely so far as argument is concerned. This brings us to a broad generic God – a creator and sustainer of the universe, who also is the origin of value and meaning. As to the God of biblical revelation, such is necessarily beyond the reach of rational argument, being essentially existential in nature. Like the appreciation of beauty, or the experience of being in love, although reasons may be adduced, it is the experience itself which is primary. Revelation, accordingly, denotes a more immediate form of knowing than logical inference, wherefore also rational belief in a theist universe is a necessary but not sufficient condition for religious faith. Indeed many ostensible atheist philosophers and scientists will admit to defacto metaphysical conceptions, being careful the while to avoid that vexed and vexatious concept – God – as the effigy of an unsound mind. Typical is a radical misconstrual of the religious worldview and psychology, maintained by a prejudiced antipathy which precludes proper examination of its object. What should further be born in mind is the infinite regress inherent in the rational analytical method, whereby ultimate synthesis, by its very nature, recedes from its grasp. Conclusions concerning ultimate meaning are necessarily beyond reach of that method, which is by nature contextual and relativistic. This is consistent with the biblical notion that faith – revelation or direct intuitive insight – is the proper basis for orientation in a universe of irreducible mystery. As previously stated, this does not negate the reason; it places it in context. Faith – apriori belief – as I further showed, is foundational to any rational worldview, whether religious or secular. It is the primary means of engagement with the mystery. Reason is mere elaboration of the fractal edge of the episteme. It is faith which delivers the substance, the archetype, the worldview, the reality. It is a question then of how one is informed on this more fundamental level – whether by constructs of mind and meaning or those of chaos and non-meaning. Here again is mystery in that the choice of the soul may constitute a metaphysical creative act, the universe of observation and reason merely supporting and confirming – within certain limits perhaps – whatever projections are placed upon it. Indeed this further accords with scripture – namely the idea that mind or consciousness is primary; the universe being a mind-created construct – a construct of language. Faith, it is stated, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It is the positive biblical faith of which it is here spoken – the faith of things hoped for – although, as a metaphysical principle it would necessarily apply to any faith. And so it is faith – not reason – which provides us with the ultimate basis for a language of meaning. Tuesday, May 29. 2012The God Debate – Part 2 : The Arguments for Theism, Problems and Observations
Having discussed the arguments on the atheist side, we now turn to the arguments for theism. Before exploring my own position in this regard, I wish to review the arguments which have become standards of the theist defence. Cited here are seven principal lines of argument, and only the briefest outline is provided. For a full exposition the reader may consult the work of prominent Christian apologist William Lane Craig.
1. The Contingency Argument: All that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in its own nature or an external cause. As the only reality which is self-existent, non-contingent, existing necessarily, God is the explanation why everything else exists. 2. The Cosmological Argument: All that began to exist has a cause of its existence. The universe began to exist. Therefore the universe has a cause. This cause, as the transcendent origin of all space and time, is the universal creator of classical theism. 3. The Argument from Design and Cosmic Fine Tuning: The observed fine tuning of the cosmos (as allowing for the emergence of life) is either due to necessity, chance or design. It is not due to necessity or chance. Therefore it is due to design, with the necessary inference to a cosmic designer. 4. The Argument from Objective Moral Values: If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. But objective moral values do exist. Therefore God exists. 5. The Ontological Argument: Extant in several versions, this defines God as the greatest possible being imaginable, who for this reason necessarily exists. 6. The Argument from the Historicity of the Christian Faith: Historically the life of Christ – i.e. Jesus of Nazareth – is well attested, including the facts concerning his burial, the empty tomb, his resurrection appearances and his disciple’s sudden faith in him as the risen Lord. The best explanation of these facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead. This entails that God exists and Jesus was who he claimed to be. 7. The Argument from Revelation: Insofar as God may be known directly, evidence of his existence is thereby provided altogether apart from argument. A cumulative case is thus made for a universal creator and designer, for God as the source of value and meaning, leading ultimately to the personal God of Christian revelation. Between divine creation and a fluke, it is argued, as the inference to the best explanation the evidence strongly suggests a spiritual rather than merely material universe. And thus on purely rational grounds one might concur with Salvador Dali – the existence of God is a scientific and mathematical certainty. Nevertheless I suspect that, were I an atheist, I would not find any of this convincing. The problem is that the God being argued in (1) through (5) is conceptual – not a sensate entity – and thus to a large extent definitional. Unless one accepts the language of theism one necessarily remains a philosophical agnostic or atheist. Insofar as language defines conceptual reality, rational argument is futile where it cannot be grounded in a common language. Yet even more fundamentally, it does not appear that these essential questions of worldview are decided on rational grounds at all. Underlying the arguments on either side seems to be a prior commitment, which is intuitive in nature, and thus the basis, rather than the result, of rational argument. How we come by our basic worldview is an interesting question in itself. The mechanism involved would seem to be social and cultural – we tend to adopt the worldview of those we like and respect; we assimilate it intuitively and more or less whole-cloth, perhaps with a bit of rationalising after the event to convince ourselves we are being rational. This seems to me a matter of simple observation, and I am astonished by protagonists – individuals for whom rationality is a crusade – who seem oblivious to this elementary fact of human psychology. But there seems to be a mystery even more profound in the fact of human individuality, which we may call the mystery of the soul. Why do I exist, one is bound to ask, reflecting that beyond culture and biology, beyond genes and memes, there portends an individual essence – primary and irreducible – which makes for human free will and destiny. The arguments then are secondary. Belief in God, as philosopher Alvin Plantinga states, is properly basic to human consciousness and sensibility. This would seem to accord with the biblical view. As states St Paul, in him [God] we live, and move, and have our being. God, by this view, is identified with actuality itself, and thus exists by definition. This brings us back to the ontological argument, whereby God is effectively defined into existence. In any meaningful world, it may be argued, there is that which is foundational, which is primary, ultimate or absolute, and this we rightly define as God. In other words, something or someone is necessarily God, so that the real question concerns the nature of God, the nature of the reality we thus designate. It is here that the atheist stance is typically confused. Consider the following statement by the emeritus professor of physics and prominent atheist, Victor Stenger: An objective reality, with no special role for consciousness, human or cosmic, is consistent with all observations. Asserted with a straight face, presumably, this pronouncement nevertheless undermines itself in a stupendous self-contradiction. For what is observation – all observation – but a fact in consciousness? We see in effect that the empirical focus is too narrow. If we consider Stenger’s statement as an equation, we have on the one side objective reality, whatever that may be. On the other we have observation, mind, consciousness, reason, and the whole apparatus of science. But all these quasi subjective elements are curiously taken for granted. They don’t seem to figure as significant to the philosophy of pragmatic methodological naturalism, foundational though they are to the entire enterprise. The image I like to invoke is of a wizard, gazing through a hollow tube, insisting that what he thus beholds at the far end of his device is the only reality. One can only wonder at the lack of situational awareness, of any reflection concerning the gestalt wherein the enterprise is embedded. It is such observations which convince me that atheism is not so much a reasoned philosophical position, but rather a confused psychological state, essentially emotional in nature and predicated on an altogether justified distaste for religion in its regressive manifestations. It is God, misconceived as a crude and primitive construct, which seems to be the stumbling block. The impression is conveyed of individuals who never got over their dysfunctional Sunday school classes. It is at least curious that serious scientists should devote book-length treatises to disproving the existence of an entity which they would class with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Thus at issue, it would seem, is the religious sensibility with its perceived baggage of traditional piety. To entertain the God hypothesis, atheists insist, is to abandon experience and reason. Rational discourse thus necessarily ceases for them in the approach of this mystery. As St Paul ably observed, to the Greeks – the intellectuals and sophists – it is foolishness. Yet, and this is further revealing, in banishing the God-concept, something is necessarily put in its place – be it the quantum vacuum or the multiverse – to explain reality in its ultimate sense. So it is not the God hypothesis as such which is at issue, but what it is believed to entail. Indeed the God concept, in some form, is intrinsic to any meaningful construction of human experience. Any rational worldview necessarily positions itself with respect to an absolute. Consequently it is meaning which is the ultimate issue. The God of classical theism is consistent with a world in which mind and meaning are primary. Atheism, by contrast, if it is consistent, begins and ends in metaphysical nihilism. For mind and meaning, on this view, are mere epiphenomena of material process, incidental and transient ripples in an abyss of unmeaning. Yet insofar as atheists insist on the validity of their own conclusions their position undermines itself. There is something inherently contradictory to the notion of a meaningless process which gives rise to meaningful insight. It is, at the very least, more consistent to propose that value and meaning are intrinsic. If conventional science baulks at this, it does so owing to its method of preferring simpler explanations over more complex ones. This facilitates scientific inquiry, but what if the universe is otherwise disposed? What if pleroma or plenum is the nature of reality? (Pleroma, in Greek mythology, denotes the full complement of Olympus – the sum of all possible meaning.) It is moreover questionable whether the idol of materialism – the quantum vacuum or whatever the conceived ‘simple’ basis of existence – is really that simple, considering the complexity to which it gives rise. Theories of evolution and self-organisation notwithstanding, does it even make sense to assert that the complex world experience is not implicit in the nature of universal process? It is the need to bring all things within rational surmise which necessitates a reductive view to the exclusion of mystery. Yet the idea of a rational universe is, on examination, appalling. For only a transcendent mystery provides the necessary ground for science and reason. A rational universe, by contrast, is inherently entropic – tending to ultimate non-meaning – which brings us to a startling parallel between the mind of rationalism and the universe of its surmise. The choice of worldview, it would seem, is primary, each providing its own confirmatory validation in the realm of reason and experience. We have seen moreover that the rational empirical mindset represents a deliberate narrowing upon the phenomenal, and so an intentional splitting off from the larger universe of experience and humane discourse. Historically we observe this narrowing and splitting in the Enlightenment at the rise of modernism. Indeed it may have been necessary for the development of modern science as we know it. Yet as an overarching philosophy it is evidently flawed, and unless the empirical contingent rejoin the party – as of the grand philosophic tradition – the debate must necessarily remain at an impasse. Reference: Victor Stenger, Quantum Quackery, Skeptical Inquirer, January / February 1997 William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 1994 Tuesday, May 29. 2012They Shall See God
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8
Among the questions which have caused controversy is that of the godhead. The God of the Bible – is he one, or two, or three ... ? How many of them are there? Confusion is worse confounded in that exponents of diverse persuasions take it upon themselves to interpret the scriptures, drawing primarily on reasoned arguments to demonstrate the excellence of their doctrine. Got to be scriptural, of course – yeah, got to be scriptural. The problem is that scholars from diverse traditions, credentialed typically to the nth degree, and after a lifetime of exhaustive study, draw on the same scriptural canon to arrive at widely divergent conclusions. Some, by a study of scripture, will conclude that God is three – the trinity. Other, by the same method, will conclude that there are just two – God and his Christ. Yet others maintain that God is One, manifesting in various ways. Of course they cannot all be right, showing that it is altogether possible for rational biblical scholarship to miss the mark entirely. What is the doctrinal partisan to say in his heart? God has favoured us – our own little conclave – and everyone else is either too wicked or dim-witted to apprehend his Word? Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Why then would anyone want to rely on a series of tenuous and contended conjectures concerning the divine nature, when the pure in heart may look directly upon its countenance? As the psalmist wrote, I have set the Lord always before my face, and, one thing have I desired ... to behold the beauty of the Lord and enquire in his temple. This was the experience of all of God’s apostles and prophets, who wrote and transmitted his Word. What right then have theologians to interpret that Word, who rely on scholarship, whose God is a biblical construct projected upon the numinous other? None! No-one has a right to handle that Word – to preach or teach it – unless, like Moses, he has met with God on the ground of revelation, beholding the I AM. What did Jesus also say? Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. Tuesday, May 29. 2012Personal Crusades And Axes To Grind : The Wisdom Of Agnosticism
We all have them, who are beholden of this imperfect world – areas of contention and personal crusades. It is intrinsic to the human condition, wherein knowledge is partial and understanding imperfect, to be mutually divided – philosophically, ideologically and politically. Such division, in turn, may lead to polarisation and so, as by way of compensation, to the adoption of extremes.
Concerning debated issues, however – such theism versus naturalism or Darwinism versus Intelligent Design – what I have noticed is that the voice more eloquent and illustrious is one of confessed agnosticism. Okay – I’m referring to David Berlinski, regarding whose work I confess admiration. I suspect, however, that a principle is involved – that the stance less partisan, less doctrinaire (it is difficult to find an apt descriptor) naturally tends to insights, to observations and questions, the more profound. One is open to contemplation and wonder. Agnosticism, be it understood, has a venerable tradition. Attributed to Socrates is the aphorism, I know that I know nothing, which we may take to mean that knowledge is preposterous, namely as it is conventionally understood. St Paul, in Corinthians, echoes this notion – if any man think that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. And – where there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part ... now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. The biblical apostle thus echoes the Athenian philosopher, and the more so in that he points beyond the conceptual, stating ... now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. Going more deeply into the tradition, we come to Job, reputedly the oldest book in the Bible. In clear emphasis of a meta-conceptual stance this states: Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. And when we come to Genesis, in the Bible the origin of all things, virtually from the outset is the theme established of knowledge as a poisonous fruit to be avoided. Emphatically, however, lest there be folly at this point, this is not to extol the virtues of ignorance. It is to weigh the very idea of knowledge against a universal absolute. Is decidedly not an evasion. Not everyone can be a profound agnostic, one beholden of the mysterium tremendum wherein knowledge dissolves as the absurdity it is, given the universal human clinging to concepts. In a world of infinite depth, what indeed is the omen of partial knowledge? Such knowledge may provide temporary advantage, but it is a double-edged sword. Invariably there is a price to pay, and here we recall the words of the Saviour – they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. While the context (Mathew 26) is prosaic, Jesus would have been aware of such esoteric traditions wherein the sword symbolises discursive or conceptual thought. Indeed the symbolic type covers the spiritual as it does the martial contingency. We note furthermore that science, in its etymology, is to cut, to sever, to divide. It is to break up the primordial wholeness in the pursuit of gnosis, which, spiritually understood, is separation, death and hell. While gnosis thus denotes the regress of mind and a mode of knowledge bringing separation and death, yet there is also the life-giving and progressive knowledge called in scripture the mind of Christ. John 17 states ... this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. There is then a spiritual knowledge, which is life itself, a knowledge which is relational rather than propositional. While it admits of propositions in that a doctrine is implicit, its essence is communion with the mind of Christ. The object of this gnosis is thus a person, and the mode of relation personal – conscious mind reflecting conscious mind. In scripture this mind is characterised as a seamless web. While it admits of detail and discernment of the specific, its nature is holistic. And it is one. The part therein is understood as reflecting the whole, and each moment in time as the temporal image of eternity. Discursive thought, as of universal narrative and doctrine, emerges from the seamless transcendent mind, and in that mind it is reabsorbed. The sages of the East understood this, positing that form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. Isaiah similarly wrote of him, stating, he has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. This is why the Bible must be understood as a whole, all scripture resonating in unison, and only the mind of Christ can do this, the Cross of redemption traversing the abyss of conceptual identification. And we note it is the Word which is crucified, where the Word, conventionally understood, is the carving out of concepts. To state this another way, the cross of sacrifice is implicit in the act of creation. God effectively conforms to his own nature, as being in subjection to his own law. This is the obedience of the Son of God, in that the Son does nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing, that does the Son likewise. Scripture, moreover, is the magical mirror in that whatever one’s personal axe to grind, the Word of God will reflect and magnify it. Whatever the reason apprehends, out of the infinite mind reflected in scripture, that provides a sure indication of one’s inherent spiritual state. The saint, accordingly, by the Cross of Christ, surrenders the burden of his imperfect understanding for the radiant perfection of the Father. No one can contend with him because he does not contend. As to Christians on crusades – well, they have missed the point. Tuesday, May 29. 2012The Bible – A Holy Book ?
Christians today take the Bible for granted, as a fact of existence, like it was faxed from heaven – authoritative, whole, the pure Word of God. Yet on the surface at least its history tells another story. Written over some two thousand years, by some forty authors, widely separated in time and culture, it comprises a collection of texts, compiled into something like its present form only in the sixth century AD, centuries after the apostolic age had come to a close. Two questions thus arise. How did these texts come into being? And how were they selected for inclusion in the biblical canon?
Readers are aware that the source documents of the modern Bible are historically and culturally embedded within a much larger body of literature, which includes the so-called apocryphal and pseudepigraphical texts. We may cite the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Texts – writings of the Essenes and Gnostics – among them exotica like the Book of Adam, the Secrets of Enoch, and the Apocalypse of Abraham. In content and style these resemble the canonical texts at least superficially, such that a categorical distinction becomes a matter of perhaps quite uncommon discernment. Varying compilations appeared during the early Christian era, and to this day the Eastern and Western orthodoxy adheres to a different canon. The canon, as this term has come to be used, denotes the standard, the rule, which, in the case of the Bible, signifies a text divinely inspired. But what distinguishes such a text that its heavenly imprimatur should be evident to mortal eyes? And when we consider the range of literary genres and styles represented, the matter becomes even more perplexing. Who, by any rational surmise, would have included, say, the Book of Ruth – a pastoral romance about a woman who makes a good match. Who would class the mystical prophets with the logician Paul – Leviticus with the Song Of Songs – or Proverbs with the Apocalypse? And what of the possibility of other divinely inspired texts, which, for reasons only known to God, were not included in the final authorised version of the Bible. Only a transcendentally guided mind, I submit, could make the relevant determinations. Even more fundamentally, what does it mean to say a text is divinely inspired? Opinions differ in the latter regard. There is the plenary school which holds to something like literal word-by-word dictation of scripture. Opposed is the visionary school, as I will call it, which holds that God’s prophets were subject to insight or understanding, typically received in exalted states of consciousness, which they expressed in words of their own. Which of these is correct? Let me be peremptory here and state that the plenary school is essentially mistaken, namely if indeed it posits something like a disembodied dictating voice and a perfunctory scribe. Except for relatively rare instances which record actual angelic dialogue, such a scenario would be discontinuous with the observed order of both nature and scripture. Visionary or mystical experience is such that the seers mind is quickened, exalted to partake of a heavenly vision, as born out by interior testimony of the texts in question. Further evidential is the observed variety of individual styles, as indeed by the more elementary fact that God does not personally crank the lever which turns the world. Natural history should be our guide, and thus the elegant, non-coercive, non-interventionist style which characterises the God of creation. Yet it is possible nevertheless to posit the divine perfection which evangelicals demand of their holy book. We shall return to this point in regard to its compilation. Essentially it is this, that in the providence of God his purpose is accomplished, as it were naturally, namely where his Holy Spirit holds sway. Inspiration indeed may be so profound, as artists and mystics are aware, that the agency of a higher mind appears immediate and direct. The question, to some extent, is addressed in the Bible itself. 2 Peter states that the prophecy came not in olden times by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. In this essential respect then, irrespective of the mechanism involved, the Bible is not the word of man, but indeed the Word of God, in that the inspired prophet does not record his own thoughts, but reflects some aspect of the mind of God. We thus confront the intriguing fact that the universe, as an opus of divine creation, is accompanied by a book – a manual so to speak – providing a conceptual interface to accompany the physicality of sensory experience. To some extent also the question of the biblical canon is addressed, the internal testimony of scripture comprising both historic and prophetic accounts regarding the reception and preservation of the sacred texts. The Bible, therefore, in these respective ways, is what we call self-referential – like a post-modern novel containing itself in quasi holographic fashion, or the genetic language of DNA specifying the protein structures by which it is stored and transmitted. This internal mirroring extends outwards in that prophecy is a contextual phenomenon within human consciousness and culture. Like a spiritual seed – and this is the principal metaphor – it is contextually embedded within the larger experiential sphere to which it also gives rise. We are speaking in effect of a living, conscious, creative current of which scripture is the fixed physical form. We might adduce that the Word of God, like the atomic particle, has field properties. It exists as a seed in the letter and concept of the word. Yet it also has the potential to unfold into myriad worlds of experience. It may be, furthermore, that implicit in the paradox of a seed which generates its own field is the very secret of existence. From a perspective of sceptical scholarship, needless to say, all this is fraught with difficulty. The documents of assumed divine authority, as stated, take their place within a wider body of relevant literature – as one seed, so to speak, among many. In this class are superficially similar texts with ostensibly comparable claims to divine provenance. Indeed among the historic compilations a significant few, such as the Luther Bible, include apocryphal texts. A distinction, however, has become the norm. Luther defined the apocrypha as texts not divinely inspired, but nevertheless edifying to the devout reader. If liberal theologians moreover call into question the very fact of divine inspiration, the process of biblical compilation must appear even more dubious, being often the outcome of rivalling factions in a secular rather than spiritual context. The Christian answer – necessarily, implicitly – is that of faith in divine providence. The God who can create living creatures, it is argued, can also put a book together – even if the process appears to us as a series of historic accidents. Scriptural allusions are here relevant which speak of divine omniscience. Not a sparrow falls without God’s apprehension, and the very hairs of your head are numbered ... as the Saviour himself remarked. The notion is of an infinite God, boundless in apprehension, from whose transcendent vantage all mind-space-time events appear as a unified whole. This should be born in mind when we reflect on the seemingly indirect means by which the divine purpose is accomplished. (For we have seen how rationalists stumble at this: If there was a God he would ...) We need, in effect, to assume the mind of Christ. Indeed from that transcendent vantage the entire redemptive opus is an accomplished fact, even while, from a relative perspective, it would seem a precarious process, contingent on endless imponderables, each improbable in the extreme. One thus comes to suspect that a principle is involved – from the babe cast adrift on the waters of the Nile to the crucifixion and beyond – God accomplishes his purpose not despite, but by and through, the seemingly random, chaotic and adversarial. From this perspective it is immaterial whether the Bible was compiled by enlightened sages or ecclesiastical bureaucrats. Though the seed is sown into the earth and seemingly abandoned to the elements, the greatness of God is such that his purpose prevails inexorably. And so we have, in consequence of this imponderable process – the Holy Bible, exceedingly improbable and yet, by divine providence, inexorable in its specificity, not unlike the living creatures on the face of the earth. Mystery is here, which we might call the mystery of the actual. Why is it thus and not otherwise? And though the spiritual seed represents the power of creation and eternal life, in the realm of creation it is but one seed among many – as it is written ... out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden ... (Genesis 2). The seed of God is distinguished therefore in that it is an excellent seed. It is called the incorruptible seed, not being subject to the fall which otherwise affected all nature. But cherubim and a fiery sword guarded its sanctuary until the guardian was satisfied by the blood of the Saviour. It is therefore Christ alone who can open the scriptures, and so the way of the tree of life. The true and inspired books of the Bible reflect all this – in every part, and as a whole – bearing witness of the One, for those who have eyes to see: Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. A sacred mystery indeed, which should be treated with the utmost reverence. |
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