Eyre Lines

Here’s an interesting offer of a free ebook comparing 21 versions, for those who don’t already have a favorite or are thinking of getting another one.

I got into a philosophical discussion last night, thanks to Catherine (from this time’s Alpha, which ended yesterday), and was probably horribly overmatched. No, strike the “probably”; I was definitely carrying a sword to a gunfight there.

However, it was hugely interesting and stimulating, and I hope such conversations continue outside Alpha.
One topic which came up was as to whether there was something more than the material, the physical. Now, I am at least 99% scientific-rationalist-materialist, and was saying that we had no effective way of demonstrating that there was. Catherine, it seems, is a fan of Plato. There were bound to be fireworks! Where we didn’t finish was on an illustration of being put in a room with a set of instructions. Into the room came sets of chinese characters (and it is determined, rightly, that I don’t know Chinese); you then follow the instructions and send a different set of chinese characters out to the person outside – and, lo and behold, it looks to the person outside as if you are speaking Chinese.

The question is, are you? You have no comprehension of the individual characters. Can it be said that you “speak chinese”? (my brain throws up a side note – could the Apostles at pentecost be said to be speaking in other languages, on this analysis?).

This is obviously a derivation of a Turing test machine, slotting you into the mechanism.

I was attempting to work via the concept of emergence. It seemed to me that the mechanism was too simple; I used the analogy of simultaneous translators, who frequently have no idea what they’ve just translated as the translation process seems not to occur in the stream of conscious thought (and I can testify that for me, it’s a lot easier to speak in French if I think in French in the first place. Translation is much more difficult for me, and simultaneous translation impossible – I know, I’ve been asked to do it in the past). I suggested that with a few feedback loops (and it does seem to me that consciousness operates a bit like one or several feedback loops) things might be different – though I suspect, having had time to sleep on it, that however many feedback loops were contained in the room, myself as the operator would still be serenely unaware of what was actually happening unless one of them happened to include a Chinese-English dictionary).

But I definitely buy in to the emergence concept, where chemistry is an emergent property of physics, biology is an emergent property of chemistry, psychology is an emergent property of biology (perhaps with neurology slotted in between). And possibly God is an emergent property of psychology. I at least entertain the concept, although I have no idea how you would go about demonstrating that it was correct (I suspect it’s impossible, being a higher order emergent property than our consciousnesses) and it doesn’t work for me as a working theory – panentheism still does that job better than anything else I can come up with.

Our ideas of God are certainly something which emerges from our psychology, and perhaps that is the clue here. I tend to criticise Plato as reifying intangibles, thinking of derivative concepts (such as good, truth and beauty) as being more real than the things which exemplify those qualities, whereas from where I stand they are derived concepts without any external reality, in much the same way as you don’t get the psychology without first having the neurology, the biology, the chemistry and the physics. These things only have reality inasmuch as they are embodied.

Or, as the case may be, incarnated…

A while ago, there was a bit of an upset in the blogosphere when Tony Jones criticised Marcus Borg for an answer he was pressed to give on whether he accepted a physical resurrection; Marcus answered that he did not – and blogs all over the place erupted for and against the concept. Now, I’ve written before on the question of a physical resurrection, in particular in a series “And God saw that it was good” of which the first is here.

I’ve just revisited one of the responses, out of Homebrewed Christianity, with Tripp Fuller in conversation with Jonnie Russell (scroll down to “Marcus Borg, Tony Jones and the Resurrection, and in the podcast itself you can skip the first 20 minutes) talking about the pros and cons of believing in a physical (rather than a spiritual or metaphorical) resurrection. I have a lot of time for Tripp Fuller – he knows a lot of stuff. A LOT of stuff (and I say this having been introduced around my church on occasion as someone who “knows a lot of stuff” – I know very little compared with Tripp, and am not nearly so adept at juggling competing theologies and philosophies – particularly philosophies).  Incidentally, there are a load of really interesting podcasts available in their Homebrewed Christianity, Theology Nerd Throwdown and other series, and most of them can be downloaded free.

Now, I very much liked what Tripp had to say about what is essentially an operational view of the Jones versus the Borg view, commenting that absent the theoretical distinction, both of them would affirm that resurrection was fundamental to Christianity and a real and present force. I would affirm that myself. In addition, having accepted that, Jones and Borg would both engage in very much the same actions in the world, as I would myself. Operational definitions in psychology reduce situations to things which can be measured, or in other words what behaviours result from thought processes (rather than what is said about them). The operational definitions of these two viewpoints are therefore pretty much identical. And as Tripp remarked (paraphrasing), every Christian believes in the resurrection, they just believe in differing ways.

They do throw up some differences, however. First is outlined by Jonnie, and it is that there is a need among evangelicals to assert that in Jesus God was doing something new and unique, or in other words that the incarnation was the “fulcrum of history”.

Now, I’m not sure that I think this myself. On the plus side, we can now look back at history and observe that the Jesus event sparked a really major change in world history; history would have been radically different had Christianity not flowed from that event (and it’s worth pointing out that Islam flows in part from the existence of Christianity – the second largest world religion may not have existed or may have been radically different). We can look at the past lives of some billions of Christians which have been changed as a result (and the lives of perhaps similar numbers of non-Christians which have also been changed, not necessarily in a positive way – though those of some Christians have also been negatively impacted). But there are implications which I don’t necessarily go along with.

The main one is that this was an unique intervention by God, a deliberate act of God to change human history in its tracks. As might be gathered from my “no tricks” post which I link to above, I’m sceptical that the God of my understanding would intervene in quite this way, even if no individual miracles were involved. I know that God can and does intervene in individual human lives on occasion (he intervened in mine – there is no way I can see a causal link between anything about me or my environment prior to my first ecstatic experience and that experience absent something entirely non-physical) but this posits an intervention which God knew would have major repercussions, and which (inter alia) will have limited the free will of billions of people since the event.

But I’m even more sceptical that this intervention was unique to Jesus, or even the first time such an intervention had occurred, much less the first and only time. I can. for instance, trace the same kind of mystical consciousness as I see in Jesus in Buddhism, four or more centuries earlier, and in Vedantic Hinduism, probably at least six centuries earlier. I grant that Christianity is unique in its scope and development (although Islam had a more rapid early spread), but in the case of Christianity I can identify at least two and probably four other significant mystics during the first century (Paul and the author or inspiration for the Fourth Gospel definitely, Thomas and tentatively the author of “Matthew”) and one of these was also a seriously charismatic church planter.

That being said, those who follow my blog will know that I see God’s creation of the world (and universe) being the original act of kenosis and incarnation, pouring himself out into creation and thus abrogating the power to control it. In terms of humanity, that becomes particularly strong once humanity gains self-awareness, as I talked about in “The Fall and Rise of Original Sin” and follow up posts. However, it represents an initial act of self-limitation. Seeing things this way results from the fact that the only God-concept which at the moment really makes sense to me given my mystical bent is a panentheistic one, in which God is radically immanent in all things.

I would then argue that even in giving individual existence to (say) the original atoms formed shortly after the “Big Bang”, God limited his power over them; they became independent even if they were incapable of being aware of this, and in effect possess a form of free will, even if it is not “will” at all.

It is therefore unique that in Christ we see in sharp individual focus such an act of kenosis and incarnation, and one which subjects God to the vagaries of human existence. It is a microcosmic expression of the original and far greater subjection of God to creation. I think, though I cannot prove, that Jesus was uniquely aware of his status as part of God’s incarnation. We then see him as resurrected, as of course he has to be (God, with whom Jesus has identity, being incapable of being truly and absolutely dead short of the end of the universe, and probably all universes). In this sense, therefore, he was unique.

It’s also true to say that many people seem to rely on the promise of their own physical resurrection. Personally I don’t see this; I don’t see the eternal preservation of a physical body as necessary, as feasible or even as desirable. I can appreciate that some may feel differently – after all, a significant proportion of Second Temple Judaism did not consider that soul and body were separable; to have one you had to have the other. In addition, if (as may well be the case) consciousness is an emergent property of life, which is an emergent property of matter, those first century Jews may well have had the right idea. They are welcome to think that way, but I cannot, and would prefer not to feel excluded because of that inability. I have, after all, a rather light grasp on the self. The mystical consciousness assures me that I am part of a larger whole which is as immortal as immortal can get, and I think Paul refers to this when he talks of “not I, but Christ in me” living. If I am in Christ and Christ is in me, the “I” of me is not me but Christ, and Christ lives, then I live. I need nothing more than that.

Sadly, after the good things Tripp says earlier in the podcast, he then starts explaining (at about 40 min) why he is no longer a “Borgian”, i.e. follows Marcus Borg’s understanding of the resurrection. The argument runs (paraphrasing) “Jesus is the example of a perfect human life to follow; however Jesus was a poor homeless Jew who got axed by the Romans and didn’t really resurrect – is that what you put forward as ‘perfect’? Is that what we should aspire to?”.

As Jonnie comments “That will preach”. Unfortunately.

Now, in fact, Tripp then comes back from there to the “operational definition” kind of approach, and observes that although the difference in view is what actually drives Marcus’ or Tony’s theology, the practical effects are the same. I have confidence in Tripp – although the guy can preach, and he can preach viewpoints he doesn’t agree with completely with huge persuasiveness (perhaps there’s a great trial lawyer in there who’s missed a vocation, may the Lord be praised), he generally comes back to something with which I am comfortable.

But really, I think we probably should be preaching that you should follow Jesus irrespective of the fact that it may lead to poverty, homelessness and even death. As Paul remarked, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. In fact, during the period of Christianity’s greatest expansion (to the early fourth century) following him frequently did lead to poverty, homelessness and death, as Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire. Quite rightly persecuted, as well, from the point of view of the Empire, as “Jesus is Lord” excluded “Caesar is Lord”, and they were attempting to live the Kingdom of God within the Empire of Caesar. I would argue that they were doing that quite successfully. Quite rightly, too, as in fact after some 300 years, Christianity took over the Empire, and empires resist being taken over. (I grant that in some important ways, the Empire then took over Christianity, but that’s for another post!).

I’m not convinced that in today’s world, “take up your cross and follow me” preaches. I’m even less certain it preaches without the fallback of “and then you’ll be physically resurrected later on”.

But perhaps it should.

On Sunday, I congratulated the preacher after the service, and he commented that he enjoyed my facial expressions during his sermons. He singled out two items, firstly any time he mentions Lewis’ trilemma, secondly any time he mentions “the word of God”. Apparently I’m unable to prevent myself wincing. OK, frankly, I don’t try to prevent myself wincing at any mention of Lewis or any occasion when “the word of God” is accompanies by waving a bible in the air, and it was the second of those which had attracted his attention.

In the interests of full disclosure, previous winces during the same sermon included when a graphic appeared behind him in which the word “ressurection” appeared. Yes, that is how it was spelled – and despite the fact that it was correctly spelled “resurrection” further down the same graphic, but sadly in a less prominent position and typography. Clearly, blessed are they who do not proofread as part of their occupation! There were also a few winces associated with the four repetitions of the words “and finally” spread over some ten minutes.

However, my biggest wince was definitely the transition to waving the Bible and proclaiming it as “the word of God”, exacerbated by the fact that this had no sensible connection with the rest of the sermon and therefore engaging my inner editor.

There is a collossal baggage associated with the proclamation that the waved tome is the word of God (and I should probably capitalise “word” in order to show the stress). Mostly, it involves inerrantism (there can be no error of any kind in “the word of God”, quite clearly) and literalism (the term is far too solemn no admit of there being fictional stories, poetics, exaggerations and metaphor in there), but also the concept that you can proof-text, lifting any text out of context and having it function independently of the rest. After all, if the text is perfect, it must be perfect in every particular, no?

Well, no.I reject all of those pieces of baggage.

The text isn’t perfect, for a start. There are a host of textual variations, and while most of them are fairly subtle, some of them make a considerable difference when the words are taken in small doses as being propositional theology. We read in translation, unless we have the facility to read Koine Greek and Hebrew, and translation can make a huge difference. Textual analysis has revealed that most of the contents have been revised, extended, chopped about and thus moved in unknowable directions from whatever the original texts said – and we have no original manuscripts of any biblical text. We read those texts which a combination of popularity within the early Christian community and authoritative decisions by major church figures, often based on spurious claims as to the origin of the texts, has left us – and this has varied between different Christian communities and still does – the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, for instance, has quite a few more books in the New Testament than do we in the Protestant descendants of the Western Church, and the Catholics have the apocrypha, including ten additional books and additions to two others. Which of these is “the word of God”, we may reasonably ask?

No church currently includes the Gospel of Thomas within its scripture, nor the Didache, though both of these are accepted by a massive swathe of biblical scholars as among the earliest texts we have (the Ethiopian Church does have the Didascalia, which incorporates a substantial amount of the Didache, much amended, however). 1 Clement, similarly early, is now only accepted by the Coptic and Ethiopic churches, despite having clearly been canonical in many other places as late as the fifth century. There are many other works which might potentially have been included, but are not, and some of them we now know only by mention in other writers, as no copy of the full texts is now known to exist (though Biblical scholars continue to live in hope!).

In addition, if I stoop to proof-texting for a moment, John 1 does contain a definition of “the Word” (of God): “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God” and “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”. Jesus was and is “the Word of God”, and forgive me for this, but Jesus is not a collection of old books. Jesus is not something you can wave in the air during a sermon.

What at least the gospels in the New Testament are is a written understanding of what Jesus said and did during and shortly after his lifetime; most of the remainder of the New Testament as we know it records the understandings of various followers of Jesus (mostly Paul or attributed to Paul) written sometime after his death. The generality of biblical scholarship does not think that any of these books were written by someone who witnessed the events of Jesus’ life (the attributions to Matthew, Mark and John are traditional, but the probable dating of them and their contents do not admit of them having been written by direct followers, and Luke is admittedly a secondary source; Paul’s authority rests on post-crucifixion ecstatic experience). What they are is therefore in part tradition, in part early rationalising of the impact of Jesus.

That leads me on to the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” of scripture, tradition, reason and experience. A very interesting article by John Cobb discusses this in the context of process theology, and I agree his tentative privileging of experience. Let’s face it, tradition is experience, it’s the accumulated experience of other people, and as such extremely valuable to guide us and let us see where we may be mistaken or on which we can build the better to understand our experience (and, if current psychological thinking is correct, which I strongly believe it is, the better to be able to have experience). As I think I’ve shown, scripture is also tradition, albeit very early tradition (plus some reason), and is thus also experience.

I need here to counteract any impression that in stating the limits of scripture, I am seeking to negate its importance. It is the nearest we can come to the actual teaching of Jesus and our earliest tradition of experience of the risen Christ; the Hebrew scriptures form the basis for the New Testament writings and give a large amount of the context for those (as, incidentally, do at least ten of those books which are not now part of our canon, what we call “scripture”). It is therefore extremely important and very authoritative, just not of ultimate importance or authority (although the social gospel of Jesus comes very close to that status in my thinking).

To quote Cobb:- “The second pole is the Bible. The Christian tradition as a whole judges itself in light of the normative account of its origins. Although it prizes the Hebrew scriptures along with the New Testament, it reads the Bible as a whole in light of Jesus’ message,actions, death, and resurrection and of the early church’s interpretation of this. That there are four different accounts of Jesus blocks the attempt to absolutize any single picture of him. The fact that the epistles interpret the Jesus event diversely inhibits any claim to finality of doctrine about him. Thus there is no fixed reference for the tradition. From the beginning it was multifold and developed through interaction among various communities that sought to live from this event. To be a Christian, therefore, is to live in a fluid context, seeking to be faithful to God as one has come to know the God of Israel in the Christi event, informed by the many achievements of the tradition, but critical of every attempt to treat any of these as fixed or final”

This very much illustrates the resulting attitude. There are no simple pat answers. There is a tradition, but that tradition continues to develop, expand and accommodate new developments in thought and fresh experience; it is not a fixed and inviolate answer to everything, but it is part of the route towards better answers. This is entirely in keeping with my view of science; science does not give us truth, it gives us new approximations to truth which are a little closer to accurately and fully describing what is happening and what is out there. I do not expect theology and bible study to be able to do more than can science – indeed, in a sense, it is itself a scientific process, using much the same rational principles to move forward. Granted, it is perhaps short on the experimental, but I would not expect it to be short on the experiential.

In fact, without the experiential, there is no point in any of this endeavour. I would not be thinking about these subjects and writing about them now had I not had personal experience, personal convicting experience. For me, therefore, experience comes first. I then apply reason, and then call in aid scripture and tradition in order better to understand and explain the experience, and in order better to have future experience. My four legged stool, my quadrilateral, is therefore experience, reason, scripture and tradition.

(The title can be translated “Not only but also”, but refers mostly to doctrines such as “sola scriptura” “sola gratia” and “sola fide”)

A friend recently shared this video of Susan Boyle performing at Lakewood Church. SuBo as usual delivers a moving performance, although I think she is better in a venue constructed on a human scale. I’ve also recently viewed this video of Dr. James K.A. Smith speaking about liturgy.

What do the two have to do with each other, apart from the fact that they’re both shot in churches, the second being a more reasonable sized one?

Well, watching Susan’s performance impressed me with the sheer scary scale of Lakewood, and my wife and myself decided to watch some of a sermon recorded there from Joel Osteen. We lasted about three minutes, and the last two involved distinctly gritted teeth. I’m not linking to that; I wouldn’t want to impose the experience on any friends.

Dr. Smith was talking about how liturgy, repeated constantly, forms us psychologically, and focuses our attentions (hopefully, and if we’ve been paying attention – or possibly even if we haven’t, subliminally) in a Christian mindset. He contrasts this with the experience of visiting a mall, which focuses our minds in the direction of consumerism, and describes that as an alternative liturgy. He doesn’t actually channel Walter Wink and label consumerism as one of the “Powers that Be” to be battled as if Satanic, if not an actual manifestation of Satan’s work in the world (for those who accept a personal immaterial force of evil approaching the status of a second god), but the tendency is definitely there.

I look at Lakewood and I don’t see Christian liturgy or the ways of Christian formation, I see consumerist liturgy, a machine developed to deliver a mass-market product. I hear Joel Osteen talk (preach?) and I hear positive encouragement towards consumerism, towards the wish to accumulate more and more stuff.

Me, I’m with Jesus when he speaks in Matt. 19:16-20. This is the parable of the rich young man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to get eternal life (which, frankly, was the wrong question in the first place) and which ended with him going away sadly as he was unable to contemplate selling everything he had and giving it away to the poor. I know few things, if any, so destructive to following the way of Jesus as accumulating riches, accumulating stuff, and I say this as someone who has huge problems with the concept of abandoning the security of having possessions and money; the nearest I get to this is expending a lot of time and rather less money in the service of the Kingdom from a position of reasonable financial security. I have been close to having nothing – at one point, six years ago,  I had debts far exceeding my possessions – and I found this remarkably freeing in some ways. Some of that freedom stays with me, despite the fact that I am now moderately comfortable.

What I see at Lakewood leads determinedly away from that way, to a kind of pornography of consumerism. To be honest, it makes me feel slightly sick.

Henry Fielding said “If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil”. I worry about where Lakewood is pointing people.

I’ve been reading Dale Allison’s “Constructing Jesus” and am struck by the force of his arguments in favour of Jesus as apocalyptic prophet.

Note that I say “struck by the force of his argument” and not “convinced that his argument is entirely correct”, because I see him as over-extending in an attempt to press home this main point. I suppose I have some past expertise in this business of “making an argument” from some 25 years as a lawyer; if this has taught me nothing else, it is that we shouldn’t ever just listen to one counsel arguing for a position, we should also listen to at least one opposing position and then weigh the arguments against each other.

My forte in court was to take the opposition’s case and show how it was almost entirely correct, and yet you should take a view which favoured my client. This was far more effective, I found, than setting up an entirely opposite account of facts and inviting a choice between the two. With the way in which the legal system actually operates, this was far too much like tossing a coin; my way allowed you to accept most of what the opposition said but just to interpret it a little differently, rather than forcing black and white decisions.

This is a technique I think I should commend to Dr. Allison. He starts really well, setting up the idea that you cannot say, for instance, that because Jesus plainly made statements typical of a social reformer, he could not therefore have been an apocalyptic prophet; because he talked a lot about living well in the present reality he could not therefore have expected divine intervention to instantiate the Kingdom of God in apocalyptic fashion. This is clearly right, and has founded criticisms I’ve made in the past of a set of commentators who have seen in Jesus, for instance, a social revolutionary (John Dominic Crossan) or a “spirit person”, in other words a mystic (Marcus Borg) to the exclusion or near exclusion of any other identity. There is a strong suspicion that they see in Jesus what they feel they are in themselves, and in the case of Dr. Borg, he is self-admittedly someone who has had his faith shaped by mystical experience.

Unfortunately, Allison then goes further and moves repeatedly towards the suggestion that “apocalyptic prophet” is the basic identity (adding into it self-designations which go beyond just “apocalyptic prophet”) and that really neither the social revolutionary nor the mystic are really the case; inasmuch as they are there, they are less important than “apocalyptic prophet”, and if anything flow from that base designation.

I think this is a mistake. I think that it is a mistake primarily because I do exactly what I criticise above, and read Jesus as primarily a “spirit person”. This is because I am a “spirit person” myself, and cannot see how, if one has had overwhelming mystical experience, that cannot be basic to whatever you then are. I can do thought experiments and consider the position were I basically an apocalyptic prophet or were I a social revolutionary, and none of the others flow naturally from that self-understanding. However, in the case of a “spirit person”, social revolutionary does flow naturally from the experience, and at least occasional prophetic vision flows as well, at least if the mystical experience is developed and felt reasonably consistently.

In terms of “social revolutionary”, I cannot see how this would not flow automatically from the dissolution of the felt boundary between the self and others. I can see how the depth of compassion engendered could be internalised and not acted upon (as it seems to me is often the case in Buddhism, and is a major reason why I have not pursued Buddhism more than I did in my dim and distant 20s), but I cannot see how the impulse not only to assist others as best you can but also to try to promote the dissolution or reform of systems which operate against the mass of people, particularly the poor, disadvantaged and marginalised would not be there.

Prophecy is perhaps a more difficult area. One thing granted by the constant practice of the mystical consciousness is, in my experience, an improved ability to discern trends and causes (sometimes without realising the fullness of the structure, intuitively). I do not on the whole see prophecy as “foretelling the future”, in the way in which it tends to be portrayed by, for instance, the evangelists looking for predictions of Christ, but in the more modern sense of speaking to the situation as it is and exposing it and its likely outcomes. The Hebrew scriptures have many examples of prophetic words which do not in fact come to pass when people change their ways, none more clear, I think, than the story of Jonah. Jonah is sent to predict destruction to Nineveh, and eventually does – but Nineveh changes its ways and escapes calamity (the book has also several other lessons which may need to be taken to heart by prospective prophets among others).

I’ve felt this in operation; I’ve only actually ever expressed any such prediction in small local matters, as I don’t think a wider scale prophecy would be likely to be heard in this day and age without a full scientific and rationalist work-up, and to date have never felt any compulsion to try to buck this trend. Jesus, however, lived in a different age, one in which prophets might perhaps be heard.

Now, one of the reasons I think liberal scholars are somewhat reluctant to label Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet is that at the least since Schweitzer (building on Reimarus) proposed this label to the exclusion of others, the end of the investigation says that he was a failed apocalyptic prophet, as the predicted apocalypse did not happen – and they take too high a view of Jesus to want that to be the conclusion.

However, thinking about that, and about a recent article I read about predictions made by Science Fiction writers whose predictions had to some extent materialised (the link to which I’ve sadly lost) and about Karl Marx and some of his followers (notably Slavoj Zizek) predicting trends in society, I’m struck by a number of factors.

Firstly, none of these presumably mundane and non-divinely inspired prophets has ever managed to be anything like accurate about timing. Mostly, they predict things far too soon. I sympathise – as a newly coined BSc in Physics some 40 years ago I was predicting commercial fusion within ten years. I gather it’s still being predicted within ten years. As an example, Marx predicted that industrialised society would not tend to level out income and capital, but would intensify the gap between richest and poorest. Pace those who still think that “trickle down” economics actually works, I think we are now seeing exactly that. Marx thought it would take place at least 60 years ago; 20 years ago I would not have agreed that it was actually the case, but we’ve now had more opportunity to study less regulated capitalist systems, and I’d now agree with him – and I think we are likely to see some of his other predictions within at the least my childrens’ lifetimes.

Secondly, they are far more accurate about trends than about specifics.Marx thought that first England and then Russia would be the cradle of his predictions bearing fruit; at the moment it seems most likely to be the USA, but I could put in a long shot of China considering the speed at which China is currently moving. (No, I wouldn’t ask the almighty for a predictive word on the topic; that’s all my own fault!).

I should point out that I don’t think God is omniscient in the conventional understanding of knowing everything which will happen, though I accept that God may be omniscient in knowing all the possibilities of any situation on which God focuses and their probabilities. I therefore don’t think that predicting the future accurately is possible even for God. However, God may (possibly through very bright or very inspired people) be able to predict events a lot better than the average man in the street could; at the least, one might expect God to know all of the factors which were at work, which we rarely can.

Within these parameters, what Jesus is said to have predicted begins to take a more sensible shape, particularly if one bears in mind that in part (and in the mid-term) he expected Judaism generally to adopt his path – and Judaism didn’t do that. I also bear in mind that just as a localised flood appeared a worldwide catastrophe to a small tribe in Mesapotamia, so the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the remaining Palestinian Jews qualifies as an apocalyptic disaster. 70CE (the first Jewish revolt) was the end of the world as Second Temple Judaism knew it, and if that wasn’t enough, 135 CE (the second) pretty much completed the job. By the end of 135, there was no Temple, there were no Jews still resident in Judaea and they were banned from returning. The heart had been ripped out of Judaism and the people scattered (again), and the religion could no longer function as it had been doing.

Now, I haven’t yet done the heavy lifting of going through Jesus’ reported statements which could be thought of as apocalyptic one by one and applying these ways of thinking (as Dale Allison has been doing with a more conventional outlook on apocalyptic prediction), but using Allison’s concept of a certain “fuzziness” in social memory as well, I feel reasonably confident that Jesus could reasonably have predicted utter disaster for Judaism and been right; they were “living in the end times”. I also have in mind that if the whole of Judaism had turned to following the non-violence of Jesus over the course of the 20-30 years after his death, there would have been no revolts and very probably no destruction of the Temple or scattering of the Jews. I’m seeing there a salvation which didn’t come to pass because the message wasn’t taken up, just as Jonah saw an apocalypse which didn’t happen because the message was heeded. It was, of course, a collective salvation rather than an individual one, the salvation of a nation, but I think the Hebrew Scriptures tend more to the collective than the individual salvation in any event.

I rather think that much the same result could be obtained by reassessing Paul’s statements, and possibly even those in Revelation.

In fact, though, I think that many of the sayings used to demonstrate that Jesus expected an imminent apocalyptic advent of the Kingdom of God can be better interpreted, via thinking of him as a mystic, as indicating that he viewed the Kingdom as being a present and growing reality, accessible already by some and in the future by many more. Yes, I agree with Allison that saying he was not an apocalyptic prophet is foolish, but I still consider that “mystic” grounds more of his basic nature. And, let’s face it, if we take him as being a person in whom God indwelt constantly in some way, whether the only example of God incarnate or as something slightly less unique than that, that is inevitably going to be the most dominant feature of his thinking, and the mystic (who feels oneness with God) is going to be the type of ordinary human being most similar.

As this has largely been a review of Allison’s book, I should conclude by saying that it’s wonderfully well researched and argued, and in the later chapters I think he makes an excellent case (in passing, as this isn’t his main thrust) for establishing Paul as a source for much of the bones of the passion narrative alongside the gospels; I was also intrigued by his bringing into play of the Didache as an additional early source, as well as Thomas.

As keeps happening with me, a couple of things have come together to give me an idea which I’d like to pursue. Firstly, I’ve recently finished reading E.P. Sanders’ “Paul and Palestinian Judaism” after too long a time (interrupted, I admit, by reading about a dozen other books), and secondly I’ve been listening to some podcasts at “Partially Examined Life”, which involves a set of former philosophy grad students talking about philosophy, including a set on Taoism and Buddhism (clearly looking at them as philosophy rather than religion).

Sanders was the first major writer of the “New Perspective on Paul” trend of Pauline interpretation. He devotes the majority of the book to demolishing completely the suggestion that Second Temple Judaism (the Judaism of New Testament times) was a religion of works-based righteousness; it is clear from his exhaustive reading of all the contemporary Jewish sources that almost no-one within Judaism thought that way. In fact, Judaism was at the time a religion of what Sanders calls “covenantal nomism” in which Jews are righteous by virtue of the covenant with Abraham (which Paul rightly pointed out was a gratuitous promise prior to Abraham undertaking any requirements, i.e. by grace). The Jews of the time, Sanders argues, obeyed the Law in order to stay faithfully within that covenant, if looked at on an individual basis.

I am not myself convinced that Sanders has the whole “feeling” of Second Temple Judaism wrapped up in that concept; I also see faithfulness to the Law as being the practical aspect of faith in God, which could be summed up as “if you love me, you will obey my commandments” (ascribed to Jesus in John 14:15), and as being a part of faithfulness to the group, striving for the day when the group as a whole could be called righteous. Judaism prior to that period had been, to my eyes, far more a communal than an individual religion, where what mattered was that the nation survive and prosper rather than adherence to an individualistic formula for salvation; it was the nation rather than the individual whose salvation was looked for. However, the point of what it was not is well established.

This, of course, gives a problem in the conventional reading of Paul, particularly Romans and Galatians, and particularly since Luther and Calvin reinterpreted Paul (and to some extent Jesus) in the 16th century. I learned in Sunday School (and I’m sure many others did as well) that Judaism operated on the basis of following the Law and thus pursuing salvation by works. Sanders shows that that is an entirely untenable viewpoint; it then becomes necessary to reinterpret Paul (largely in Romans and Galatians) to find what his attitude to “the Law” and salvation actually was. Sanders starts to do this, but I think the culmination of this effort is contained in Douglas Campbell’s “The Deliverance of God”.

What immediately interests me (further discussion of this “New Perspective on Paul” will have to wait, insofar as I haven’t written about it already) is that Sanders argues very persuasively that Paul was working back from his knowledge of salvation in Christ to what the problem was that this solved, rather than working out a systematic theology.

I think this is an important understanding which Sanders doesn’t really explore enough, merely noting it on his way to his rereading.

I add to that the conclusion that Paul was a mystic. F.C. Happold, in “Mysticism, a study and anthology” identified Paul and John as being mystics, and as Happold was so influential on me, in showing me that what I had become was a mystic (and not “slightly unhinged”), I accepted that, though with a note of caution as neither was really writing in a way which resonated well with my own experience – and I’ll come back to that.

It’s probably worth noting that in the light of recent work on the Fourth Gospel, I think “one of the multiple authors of the Fourth Gospel” rather than “John” would be a better way of wording that. John Shelby Spong has recently written about the Fourth Gospel from this standpoint in “The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic”, which I liked, although I don’t think it completely investigated the identification.

Paul and John were not the only Christian mystics with whom I initially failed to connect particularly well – St. Teresa de Avila, St. Bernard and St. John of the Cross are other examples. However, I connected really well with both the anonymous author of the Theologia Germanica and with Meister Eckhart. To my embarrassment, it took me a long time (decades) before a penny dropped in my thinking – what Paul, John, Teresa et al were doing was writing about what was actually at its root cognate experience, except that they were taking as an experience thought of as being of Christ what I was taking as an experience thought of as being of God and they were thus importing a set of Christ-related concepts. They were Christ-mystics (Happold had labelled them that, but I hadn’t been able to work through the concept structures), and I was (at least originally) a God-mystic, as were the author of the Theologia Germanica and Eckhart. So, I thought, was the Jesus of the Oxyrhyncus sayings, parts of the Gospel of Thomas. I’ve since found readings of many other sayings of Jesus from the canonical gospels (notably the “Kingdom” sayings) can be interpreted in the same way, as the statements of a God-mystic.

I pause here to note that some of my readers may be concerned about me identifying Jesus as a God-mystic, thinking that this is inappropriate as a description of God incarnate. However, assuming Jesus also to have been wholly man (as the creeds insist), what other way of identification of how Jesus-as-man would think and speak to which we could relate would be possible? (I am forced to a panentheist position by my own experience, and therefore see God as incarnate in the whole material universe; Jesus-as-God is thus not a difficult idea for me, but may be for others).

Returning to Paul, what we find is a participatory eschatology and soteriology which can be summed up in a few passages. “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20 NLT); “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph. 2:10 NIV) and “So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.“ (Rom. 7:4 NLT). Paul has had a Christ-mystical experience which has changed everything for him; he considers his past adherence to the Law as worthless in the light of his new understanding through an experienced unity with God-in-Christ: “Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ“ (Phil. 3:8 NLT).

I’m not surprised. Peak mystical experiences can do that, producing a paradigm change which changes everything about ones previous life and values, particularly if they are “out of the blue” rather than something worked for over a long period. I know this, having had one; a few others testify to something like the same thing. However, I have to ask myself whether the perspective on ones past life is in fact correct; yes, things are completely different from this side of the paradigm change, but were things before it actually “worthless”, as Paul puts it? I suspect not. Yes, they are incomparably better from this side of the line, but unless you have a means of moving someone through that paradigm change, telling them how much better things are from here and how worthless things are for them where they are is not only not useful, it’s potentially abusive. Someone who, for instance, is reasonably content in their relationship with God through a non-mystical religious praxis is likely merely to be convinced that that praxis is of no value without actually arriving at the changed viewpoint, the changed relationship with God, the changed experience of God necessary for this new way of looking at things. There needs to be a cataclysmic change first.

I spent many years after my initial experience looking first for ways in which I could repeat it, and then for ways in which someone else could have the same experience. I frankly didn’t see any way in which religious practice was worthwhile unless it did generate the same kind of paradigm change as I’d experienced, so was desperate to find how to induce it. I failed to find anything which was remotely reliable, though there does seem to be some evidence that many years of prayer, mediation and “acting as if” may be capable of producing at least a cognate state. I’ve come to suspect that Paul was in this position, and was proposing an “act as if” strategy.

It seems to me that this may well have worked for a significant number, no doubt initially carried along by Paul’s charisma and force of delivery, but I also suspect it was assisted by a form of ecstatic religion as a phenomenon. I say “suspect” because it appears that this is something I’m immune to, perhaps on the basis that if you’ve travelled from (say) Leeds to London on the A1, you can’t then immediately travel from Leeds to London on the East Coast (Railway) Main Line – you’d have to find your way back to Leeds first. If you should slip back, you’ll be slipping back along part of the A1, and can’t readily return via part of the East Coast Main Line without a cross-country trip (and, of course, finding a station…).

My experience indicates to me as well that there are significant numbers of people (very possibly a large majority) who are also unlikely to get caught up in ecstatic religion and do not have one of what I’ve come to think of as very rare initial “out of the blue” peak mystical experiences. I ask myself whether, for them, who may well be on another route (perhaps Ermine Street, the old Roman Road via Lincoln) altogether, it is sensible singing the virtues of either the A1 or the train.

I’ve therefore moved beyond saying “you need a peak mystical experience” to just saying “this is the way that I know”. I wonder whether Paul moved in the same way. Reading his epistles, I’m inclined to think not; they read to me as if he is imposing his route as being the only one available, and in this I think he may have been making a mistake. Sanders sees Second Temple Judaism as having not been deficient in the way Paul has historically been taken to have been, but Paul is still saying that being in Christ is a better, an immeasurably superior, way. Nothing I have seen about current day Judaism or in Sanders or other’s works on Second Temple Judaism convinces me that Judaism is not entirely capable, when practised assiduously, of making the journey to the same destination as Paul reached – just by another route.

This, I think, applies just as much (perhaps more) to the Fourth Gospel, which I also identify, as did Happold, as being at least in part the product of a Christ-mystic. I have in mind particularly statements attributed by the writer to Jesus such as John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. (NIV). If, as I suspect, the author meant to say that only by being a Christ-mystic could one have any personal knowledge of God, while I can understand how this would have seemed right, I think it was a mistake. The inspiration (or at least one view of it) behind John 14:2 “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” (NIV) seems to me far more correct. 

John Cobb, in “Christ in a Pluralistic Age”, spends some time trying to assess whether Buddhism’s insights are compatible with those of Christianity. Buddhism is a religion with a considerable stress on mysticism, though not, of course, Christ-mysticism, and I would identify Gautama as a mystic, very probably a God-mystic, using the terminology I used earlier. Cobb comes to the conclusion that each tradition has something which the other lacks in it’s conceptions, and that something like a synthesis is actually possible. Put in a nutshell, you might say that Buddhism is too denying of real existence while Christianity is too accepting of it, according to Cobb. Gautama stresses personal experience, and the freeing of the individual from dependence on the other when seen as “other”, and this is indeed a facet of the mystical experience. However, in my own experience it is not the whole. Jesus, in my current conception, stresses finding the other as not actually “other” (including, for example, women, tax collectors, the hated oppressor, the hated heretic, the ritually unclean, the diseased, the morally dubious and even the gentile). It is a more engaged form of working out of the mystical experience, whereas Buddhism tends to stress non-engagement except in the case of the boddhisatva who leaves behind the non-engagement which he has in his grasp in order to help others. Buddhism, in other words, lets go the world in order to be able to reengage with it, the way of Jesus engages as fully as possible with it and, it seems to me, becomes able to let go of it in the process.

I am distinctly seeing a picture here of spiritual leaders who know a path because they have trodden it themselves, and then propose it as “the way”; in Paul’s and “John’s” cases, they say it is the only way; I fancy that Jesus and Gautama both said it was a practical way, but not necessarily that it was the only one. Yes, I am seeing myself in this, in the years during which I couldn’t understand any route other than the peak ecstatic mystical experience. Maybe I’m projecting myself onto these past leaders; then again, maybe that enables me to see something in them which might not otherwise be apparent. It’s obvious to me that Paul and John would think that everyone should have an experience like theirs, and that nothing less would do.

And then you have the Taoist tradition. In that, there is a huge stress on attachment to a single spiritual master, and (which, I think, transfers into Zen Buddhism) that master divines the way in which an individual can come to a paradigm change and displays that to them, often in a non-verbal way. Granted, for the most part the system bears far more resemblance to Buddhism than to non-monastic Western traditions (and in the case of Zen, is a form of Buddhism). It seems to me, however, that this understanding that each student may have a different way of reaching a paradigm change (enlightenment, a mystical experience, faith, conversion, or whatever term you may wish to use) is a very valuable one. Even then, the focus is on a sudden, dramatic change in consciousness, and my observation over the years is that actually most believers don’t have a sudden dramatic change, they inch gradually towards a new consciousness and then find that actually they’ve had it for some time, without being able to pinpoint their Damascus Road or their Bo tree.

But the sudden dramatic change in consciousness is definitely worth pursuing!

For my Alpha group, here’s a debate between Zeba Crook (a non-Christian New Testament scholar) and Richard Carrier (possibly the only reasonably weighty scholar who argues complete mythicism). For our purposes, as none of us think the mythicist position is correct, the relevant portion is from about 11 minutes to about 31 minutes, which is Zeba Crook talking (No, it isn’t necessary to watch the whole hour and three quarters).

Zeba give a good overview of the position that the early Christians progressively mythicised an historical figure with a few excellent examples.

I’ve been reading a bit about Heidegger recently. The reason (bearing in mind my aversion to philosophers) is that some ideas I’m coming across in radical theology seem rooted in a line of philosophy going back Caputo-Derrida-Heidegger-Husserl-Hegel and I wanted to trace some of the history of these so as to understand them better (or, arguably, at all). This post, however, is not about that. There may be a post sometime in the future when I’ve decided if I actually do understand this line of philosophy, but this is not that; it may never happen.

One thing which always seems to come up when Heidegger is talked about is that the man was a Nazi, a paid up member of the party who did not resign when a number of other German philosophers and theologians did, and that inevitably leads to musing about whether Heidegger’s ideas should be questioned in a more general sense, despite him being recognised among philosophers as a great albeit nearly incomprehensible philosopher who has been influential on many subsequent great philosophers. (I pause here to wonder if the terms “great philosopher” and “nearly incomprehensible philosopher” are actually just the same thing). Does the guy’s antisemitism and support of a totally reprehensible regime mean that his ideas outside the realm of politics and sociology should be either dismissed or treated with huge caution?

I’m inclined to think that the answer has to be “no”. Maybe a little caution, but not much more than I apply when reading any thinker.

There’s another parallel in the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, who is now known to have serially abused women; despite this, his theology is very influential, including and perhaps especially his specialist area, which was ethics – which brings to mind the old saw “do as I say, not as I do”, as his actual personal ethics would seem to have been very questionable.

This rather recalls to me the situation in another area which I found myself talking about a few days ago, the Donatist heresy. Briefly, as persecution of the early Christians slackened and ceased, there were significant numbers who had recanted rather than refuse to compromise their beliefs (which tended to lead to hardship if not martyrdom) and who then returned to the Christian fold when times were better. Some of them became priests, and the Donatists held that those who had denied Christ were not able to administer a valid sacrament. The church held against them. Their ability to act as priest was not compromised by their “treason against Christ” as the Donatists would have put it, in much the same way as Heidegger’s ability to think philosophically was not compromised by his odious political leanings.

So to contemplating various of my brothers and sisters in Christ who are unwilling to be taught by or receive the sacraments from women, or those in same sex relationships. I’m wondering in what ways you can distinguish those two cases from that of Heidegger, Yoder or of bishop Caecilian of Carthage, whose appointment really brought the Donatist tendency to the fore as significant numbers formed a breakaway church, and whether those distinctions ought to make any difference.

Yes, there are obvious distinctions. Heidegger and Caecilian went through a phase, while Yoder was apparently combining writing about ethics while acting unethically at the same time; arguendo the incapacity of women or homoamourous individuals is innate rather than a chosen behaviour. Alternatively in the case of the homoamorous the behaviour may be continuing. I could, I suppose, in the case of women quote the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 114, Layton translation) “Simon Peter said to them, “Mary should leave us, for females are not worthy of life.” Jesus said, “See, I am going to attract her to make her male so that she too might become a living spirit that resembles you males. For every female (element) that makes itself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps we should consider this as a sop to 1st century male chauvinism, which could not contemplate that “female” was not automatically linked with “incapacity”, and finding a way round that, with the underlying message that for all sensible purposes Mary could and should be regarded as entirely equal with males? Then again, perhaps more popularly, I could reference Gal. 3:28.

My question is, do these distinctions actually matter to the main point; are all the things that people think, say or do tainted by some past action or character trait which we may find reprehensible? Or should we just accept that people are complicated and imperfect, and judge them purely on their ability to do the task in hand and not on something unconnected? Even, in Yoder’s case, something actually connected but which does not appear to have adversely affected his power of thought on the subject.

My strong suspicion is that we are here looking at the kind of purity issue which Richard Beck talks of in “Unclean”. If I’m right on that, it involves a non-rational tendency of human psychology which is very difficult to shake off – but one which Jesus, in ministering to lepers, outcasts (publicans and sinners), members of the hated occupying forces (a Centurion) and even members of an even more hated competing religion from the same root (Samaritans) sought by example to show us we should not base our actions on.

There’s a very good post at Kelsos (otherwise adversus apologetica) which I’ve just read.

The writer is not a fan of apologetics (and neither am I), but in this case interestingly accepts that miracles can and do happen, analyses the crucifixion and resurrection account with that assumption, and still comes to the conclusion that it can’t have happened as described. Miracles, of course, are unlikely in the extreme; we do not have any really reliably documented miracle to persuade us otherwise, pace the Catholic saint-making apparatus, nor indeed any conclusive evidence of any supernatural occurrence. I include here the medical “miracles” which are so popular in apologetic anecdote; none of them really bears scrutiny in a field in which spontaneous cures for many ailments do actually happen without any suggestion of supernatural intervention.

A major feature of the article is that the account in Matt. 27:51-54 (link NIV from Bible Gateway) would have attracted comment from Roman sources which we actually still have (unkind people have referred to this as “Matthew’s zombie apocalypse”, which is funny enough for me to repeat despite the possible offence).

Another mainstay of the argument is that there is actually far better and more believable evidence for witchcraft in Salem in the late 17th century. There, there is a plethora of sworn statements in court as to the activities of the alleged witches, and no evidence against other than the presupposition that supernatural events do not happen. Very few people these days would, however, accept that the “Salem witches” were actually that, and possessed of supernatural powers, including (I think) the vast majority of Christians.

I hadn’t considered Salem in that way before, and it makes sense as a far more recent (and far better documented) example. My own major stumbling block has always been the miracle claims of other religions. I do try very hard not to allow my presumption against supernatural causes to drift to a dogmatic “there are no miracles and never have been” stance. However, using very much the technique of Matthew Fergusson in that blog, if I suspend disbelief in miracle claims in the New Testament I also have to suspend disbelief in miracle claims in, for instance, the Iliad and Oddysey, in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, even in the Epic of Gilgamesh. I have to consider that it’s likely that Nero was raised from the dead, and probably Elvis as well. I also need to take account of miraculous births of, say, Alexander the Great and many other legendary and even historical figures.

So, with a small but niggling regret, I have to interpret the Bible as if all or almost all of the accounts of miracles and supernatural events are literary decoration rather than hard fact. This doesn’t usually give me a problem, except when talking with fellow Christians who take a different view – and mostly, the fact or non-fact of miracles in the Bible isn’t actually significant to the metaphor or allegory in the passage, and I can move past historicity and concentrate on what the story really tells us, which is in the metaphor, the allegory, the parable.

But there are two problems. Firstly, I quite commonly find myself talking with people who report healing “miracles”. I think of these very much as does Aric Clark in a “Two Friars and a Fool” post. I don’t think they’re actually miracles. But I don’t really want to come out and say that; I’m happy for them that healing has occurred, and I don’t want to shake trust in God. Granted, I think trust in God should be leavened with a reading of Job and Ecclesiastes; while God can be trusted, he can’t necessarily be trusted to do what you want or expect, or what is most comfortable or comforting for you.

The other aspect is in considering the impact of Christ in the world. I find it extremely difficult to think of his birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection (the last of which I interpret largely non-supernaturally) as being a case of God doing something which changes the world radically (for instance, making it possible, perhaps for the first time, for all people to be resurrected after death). I have no problem in thinking of it as changing the thinking of mankind radically, which I think it provably has and continues to do.

But there are those who say that if Christ didn’t actually die in order that I might be saved from something (whereas had he not existed, I wouldn’t have had this possibility), then he died for nothing. Now I don’t remotely believe that to be the case, but it seems that for them, they can see no possible reasoning beyond the PSA which they have been indoctrinated in. If they were to accept any merit at all in my thinking, it seems, they would lose all faith.

I don’t want that to happen. I want them to continue to follow Jesus as their lord, to love God and to love their fellow men as themselves. And if the only way in which they can continue to do that is to believe in miracles and PSA (repugnant as I find PSA), I will walk gently away. I may even apologise – not for saying what I think is true, but for saying it to them at what was the wrong time.

If, for some reason, they find they are having difficulty with the concepts in the future, I can offer other ways of thinking. But I don’t want to offer solutions where there’s no perception of a problem. That, it seems to me, is too much like trying to evangelise by first convincing someone – who was previously comfortable in their alternative belief (whatever it was) or lack of one – that they’re a vicious sinner destined for Hell.

Where I do think miracles occur (although it’s maybe a stretch to call them miracles) is within human consciousnesses. I see many cases of cures of addiction and lives transformed in and (less frequently) outside twelve step. And twelve step requires a “God of your understanding” in order to work. It doesn’t matter (experience has proven) what that understanding actually is. Sometimes it’s a conventional protestant PSA one (which is particularly attractive to addicts, who need no convincing that they’re hopeless sinners), often it involves believing in miracles.

So, my more conventional friends, you don’t have to think the way I do about Christianity in order to be my brothers and sisters in faith. But if you’re having problems with conventional readings (or are merely interested in how someone else thinks), I’m here. And may your God go with you, as Dave Allen used to say.