Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, January 21. 2007

Sunday Bible verse

This excerpt is from John 17, in which Christ is praying about his followers. We have been reading The Great Divorce, and talking about what it means to be "in the world, but not of it."

14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Posted by Bird Dog in Religion at 06:36 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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It is good that people have faith, even if it is unknowable. One of the great conundrums regarding faith is that once an individual has reached certitude on that faith, either through empirical proof or divine revelation then they move from a position of faith to "knowing", two separate propositions entirely. In essence they lose thier "faith" because they now "know".
So those who say they have "faith", have doubt.
#1 Habu on 2007-01-21 11:23 (Reply)
People with certainty about anything are insane.
#2 BD on 2007-01-21 12:26 (Reply)
BD,

Thanks for this post.

We can parse this passage in many different ways, (and doing so is always interesting) but one take I have on certainty is that to be certain is to be of this world. Certainty entails trusting entirely in immediate perception and to also allow oneself to be thoroughly seduced by ones own reasoning. I don't mean that we should reject reason, but that we should understand that we act with limited data, and a delimited perspective. If we are to grow, we must allow ourselves to be rearranged constantly, rather than always reaching to rearrange the external world the moment we sense a tension between what we "know" and what we encounter in the world.

As a form of play (and work) in the best sense, we can engage in rearranging what is external, becoming participants in creation, but always from the position subordinate to God, tempering our participation with the awareness of our limitations within the limited material world and with an openness to being rearranged by God's agency (the Spirit) in all forms that it may arrive. Here is where we especially need protection (separation) from rearrangement by evil that I believe is suggested in the passage.

I believe that evil often arrives as certainty, although it can do convincing imitations of faith as it does in much new age drivel that is ultimately about subordinating God to one's own petty aims. The package may be a liar; the heart is wherein reference points for truth can be tested with the help of grace.

Evil seduces with promises of relief from the tension arising from our limits and imperfection by promising to endow us with power and perfection that is of this world. But, intrinsic to faith is a state of tension in seeking what is just beyond our grasp (not of this world), and this draws condemnation from those who are certain -- regardless of whether they call themselves Christian, Muslim, atheist, right, left, communist, capitalist or otherwise.

To participate in creation is to recognize that we are never finished and final, nor are our views complete. Curiosity can only exist when there is uncertainty and faith entails a sense of trust that there is much more that is beyond us. We are in this world and we should feel free to enjoy engagement and participation in it, but we are not of it, ruled by it or seeking to rule over it. Herein lays the nexus between my libertarian beliefs and my faith.

My perspective as a Christian and the deepest level of my experience is that grace is what enables our ongoing existence with this state of affairs. The illusory sense of certainty cuts us off from the experience of grace, because we convince ourselves that there is no gap between ourselves and perfection.

Okay, your blog not mine. I'll stop before I go on too long or too far off course.

Best,

Dr. X.
#2.1 Dr X (Link) on 2007-01-22 13:57 (Reply)
Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so....

When asked to sum up his entire theology, the eminent German author of tomes more venerated than read, Karl Barth, summed it up in the above words he learned in Sunday school. And no one ever called him insane...

I am absolutely certain that God is in charge (and a good thing, too, as we royally screw things up) and that He will bring order out of this chaos again. Of course, I'm insane....

I love this Scripture passage. A great one for social misfits like me. Of course the danger of it is that one can make a virtue of necessity, and feel smug and self-righteous just because one is despised and isolated. That was not what Jesus meant, but it is how many of us miserable sinners read it.
#3 Antigone on 2007-01-21 13:22 (Reply)
Antigone,
If God is totally in charge he must have ordained us to royally screw up. How could it be otherwise?
#4 Habu on 2007-01-21 13:42 (Reply)
Habu: I have been reading a lot of Jonathan Edwards lately so this question is much on my mind, also. Predestination is a bit like lithium--foul-tasting, and likely to make you barf as you swallow it, but might keep you well when nothing else can...

Edwards says that freedom of the will consists in our choice to desire or nor desire all that God has ordained. We screw up because, as an otherwise vapor-brained former jock minister at my church reminded us, contentment consists in wanting what you have, instead of trying to get what you want, but we don't want what we have. We don't like our spouses, even tho we grudgingly call them our better half or ball and chain, so we screw up and have bad relationships. We don't want our jobs/bodies/station in life/brains/emotional makeup so we screw up and spend all our lives restless, irritable and discontent, making those around us miserable too.

Scripture tells us that God longs for us to return to Him, to stop screwing up. Like the whore-bride who represents the nation of Israel in Hosea, we go and sell ourselves on the highways and byways, but God like a faithful husband loves us still. He is in charge, but he knew we would not learn if he moved us like marionettes in the right direction. He doesn't want us in His arms unless we really want to be there. Otherwise we will just be fakers, people who endure the manipulations of a stronger one. Remember the story of Queen Victoria comforting a weeping daughter about to be made to marry Kaiser Wilhelm "just close your eyes and think of England...." That is not the kind of forced intimacy our Lord wants with us.

And so He ordained that our restless hearts would sail the oceans first towards then away from Him, our whims varying...the Early Church Fathers saw the human soul as a boat and the person could hoist sail and either take advantage of the wind, God's Spirit and power to save, or be blown to pieces fighting it....

But I dunno. Slept, went to church, talked at length with the kid about his confusion about the Trinity after the discussion in youth group, bought kid new trousers despite howls of anguish at being made to try them on (toenails being drawn out might have elicited fewer protests!), home and cooked Sunday lunch, and don't really know what it's all about. He sure has a roundabout way of accomplishing His purposes...
#5 Antigone on 2007-01-21 14:02 (Reply)
Antigone,
Well put. I will continue my education, blessed with thought provoking epistles like yours.
Best,
Habu
#6 Habu on 2007-01-21 15:08 (Reply)
Habu, thanks. And of course that's why He gave us churches and computers and classes and friends, etc. We educate each other. I don't know about you, but I read some massive tome and struggle to keep the line of argument straight, but it doesn't come alive until somebody asks a question related to it, then the two dimensional prose takes a solid form and you can see if the word building will stand or will fall. Off to exercise the dog and idle teenager who would rather play computer games...Brrr, cold out!
#7 Antigone on 2007-01-21 15:16 (Reply)
Tried to post this earlier and it doesn't seem to have taken. please remove one if I end up with a repost. Thanks.

BD,

Thanks for this post.

We can parse this passage in many different ways, (and doing so is always interesting) but one take I have on certainty is that to be certain is to be of this world. Certainty entails trusting entirely in immediate perception and to also allow oneself to be thoroughly seduced by ones own reasoning. I don't mean that we should reject reason, but that we should understand that we act with limited data, and a delimited perspective. If we are to grow, we must allow ourselves to be rearranged constantly, rather than always reaching to rearrange the external world the moment we sense a tension between what we "know" and what we encounter in the world.

As a form of play (and work) in the best sense, we can engage in rearranging what is external, becoming participants in creation, but always from the position subordinate to God, tempering our participation with the awareness of our limitations within the limited material world and with an openness to being rearranged by God's agency (the Spirit) in all forms that it may arrive. Here is where we especially need protection (separation) from rearrangement by evil that I believe is suggested in the passage.

I believe that evil often arrives as certainty, although it can do convincing imitations of faith as it does in much new age drivel that is ultimately about subordinating God to one's own petty aims. The package may be a liar; the heart is wherein reference points for truth can be tested with the help of grace.

Evil seduces with promises of relief from the tension arising from our limits and imperfection by promising to endow us with power and perfection that is of this world. But, intrinsic to faith is a state of tension in seeking what is just beyond our grasp (not of this world), and this draws condemnation from those who are certain -- regardless of whether they call themselves Christian, Muslim, atheist, right, left, communist, capitalist or otherwise.

To participate in creation is to recognize that we are never finished and final, nor are our views complete. Curiosity can only exist when there is uncertainty and faith entails a sense of trust that there is much more that is beyond us. We are in this world and we should feel free to enjoy engagement and participation in it, but we are not of it, ruled by it or seeking to rule over it. Herein lays the nexus between my libertarian beliefs and my faith.

My perspective as a Christian and the deepest level of my experience is that grace is what enables our ongoing existence with this state of affairs. The illusory sense of certainty cuts us off from the experience of grace, because we convince ourselves that there is no gap between ourselves and perfection.

Okay, your blog not mine. I'll stop before I go on too long or too far off course.

Best,

Dr. X.
#8 Dr X (Link) on 2007-01-22 19:04 (Reply)
The dangerous thing is not certainty, per se, but certainty in the wrong things. Here is St. Paul on the subject, from I Corinthians, Chapter II: 1-12

1: And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
2: For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3: And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
4: And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
5: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
6: Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
7: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9: But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
10: But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11: For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12: Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
#9 Antigone on 2007-01-22 19:31 (Reply)

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