Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Bible

On the Accumulation of Tradition in Christianity

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Nicholas Taleb helps us understand why tradition is helpful::

Consider the role of heuristic (rule-of-thumb) knowledge embedded in traditions. Simply, just as evolution operates on individuals, so does it act on these tacit, unexplainable rules of thumb transmitted through generations— what Karl Popper has called evolutionary epistemology. But let me change Popper’s idea ever so slightly (actually quite a bit): my take is that this evolution is not a competition between ideas, but between humans and systems based on such ideas. An idea does not survive because it is better than the competition, but rather because the person who holds it has survived! Accordingly, wisdom you learn from your grandmother should be vastly superior (empirically, hence scientifically) to what you get from a class in business school (and, of course, considerably cheaper). My sadness is that we have been moving farther and farther away from grandmothers.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2012-11-27). Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Kindle Locations 3841-3847). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Now, in Christianity tradition includes, but is not limited to Scripture. The idea is that Scripture is the measuring rod against which other traditions are judged. Scripture takes pride of place whether the church is examining practices, beliefs, or ways of speaking about God. But this does not mean that traditions are always wrong.

Socrates is right that everything should be questions. Postmodernists are wrong that they should be rejected.

Power and Christian Spirituality

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The Christian and Power

Christians are understandably nervous about power.

You know the saying, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

But at its most basic level, power is “being able to do what you want.”  Therefore it is no different from strength, except that its associations transcend the athletic capacities of the physical body. And while we often want what is evil, this is not always so. Power is morally neutral in this sense.

I do not think that power is bad. Sought for its own sake, power is an idol. But that is true of food, sex, spiritual disciplines, romance, justice, and essentially everything but God or “the good.”

Power is a good, and as such has its place in the Christian moral landscape. I’ve written about Proverbs 24 before, but there’s more to say about it.

Go ahead and read this twice:

Pro 24:1-12 ESV Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, (2) for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble. (3) By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; (4) by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. (5) A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, (6) for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

 

(7) Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth. (8) Whoever plans to do evil will be called a schemer. (9) The devising of folly is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind. (10) If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. (11) Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. (12) If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

Now, there are different kinds of power/strength. But nevertheless this chunk of Proverbs says at the very least to get:

  1. wisdom
  2. knowledge
  3. might/strength
  4. wise counsel

A favorite genre in the Bible is that of praising/shaming two groups. One of ideal goodness and the other of typological badness. This rhetoric encourages us to place ourselves firmly in one category. The passage above praises:

  1. The wise
  2. Those with knowledge
  3. The strong
  4. Those who increase their might
  5. Those who use wise counsel to overcome obstacles
  6. The steadfast
  7. Those who protect the weak

The passage is shaming:

  1. The wicked
  2. Those who envy the wicked
  3. Individuals who do not increase their strength, wisdom, knowledge
  4. Those who plan evil instead of good
  5. Any who pretend not to see the plight of the weak

Why Seek Power?

I propose that if you have power and use it wisely and justly, you do not have to envy the wicked and you can wage your various wars*, survive adversity, and assist/protect the weak. Solomon praises several dimensions of power throughout Proverbs:**

  1. Financial – earnings, savings, and generosity
  2. Physical – heath of body
  3. Vocational skill – the ability to do something well
  4. Personal – ones persuasiveness and charisma
  5. Cognitive – ones problem solving ability
  6. Emotional – managing  your feelings is crucial
  7. Spiritual/moral – one’s habitual reliance on God and ability to say no to sin (see Hebrews 12 especially), it encompasses all the others because a spiritually strong person can manage poverty or wealth well, can deal with a strong or weak body, and so-on.

Indeed, the biblical authors only disparage human strength when it is arrayed against the purposes of God. The Bible assumes that humanity, with God’s grace, will develop strength. Taking dominion over nature requires persistent growth in power (in all its dimensions).

My point is to encourage Christians to actually seek power and strength. That sounds so weird to say, but again, Jesus says, “Be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” Grow in goodness, including the ability to make the good happen. That’s what he’s saying. His statement assumes the background of passages like Proverbs 24.

Closing Questions:

  1. What are you doing to grow in power?
  2. Is it working?
  3. Finally, are you growing in spiritual and moral power?

Notes

*The text may refer to literal wars if Proverbs was written for kings, but warfare is a metaphor in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes for the scribal struggle for wisdom.

**I intentionally left political power out.

Hypocrisy: A working definition

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What a hypocrite is not

We use the word hypocrite a lot. But what does it mean?

John Piper (the ideas guy behind Desiring God) connects the heart in Scripture with the sentiments. When he does this, his apparent background in romantic thought and in “authenticity thinking” comes through. Another author, like Piper, essentially equates hypocrisy with doing something you don’t feel like at the moment:

What can we do when our hearts feel nothing?

What we must not do is think feelings are optional — and just go through the motions, acting as if we are feeling what we are saying and singing.

Jesus called that hypocrisy: “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me…’” (Matthew 15:7–8) But if our hearts are feeling far from God, and were not supposed to just go through the motions, what else can we do?

But is this really a reasonable definition of hypocrisy? If the heart, in Scripture, is closer to the faculty of reasoning and choosing, then Jesus’ comments above are about the reasoning behind the Pharisee’s actions, not their feelings.

Jesus’ Definition of Pharisee

In fact, Jesus uses the word hypocrite to describe those who do pious deeds purely for the sake of praise by people instead of for God:

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. (Mat 6:5)”

Hypocrisy the Bible is doing pious deeds entirely to be honored by others with no regard for God or the well-being of others.

The Distant Heart

The heart being far from God is a quote from first chapters of Isaiah. There the people follow the sacrificial practices as an excuse to ignore godly character. The solution to their worship problem is given in in Isaiah 1:17:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isa 1:16-20)

A Final Point

One of the prime commands in the New Testament is self-denial (Mark 8:34). Because our affections are damaged by sin, cultural influence, and neglectful habits we must do it against what we want in the moment. Not only so, but our bodies rebel against us when we want to do hard things. If we make self-denial into a form of hypocrisy then basic Christian spirituality stops making sense.

Paul even notes that the fruit of the Spirit comes to those who “crucify the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). Not feeling like doing Christ-like things is not hypocrisy. Sometimes people don’t feel like paying taxes, but it’s still moral for them do to so.

If you want to stop being a hypocrite, the best strategy, according to Jesus is to do your good deeds in secret, presumably before you attempt to be the light of the world.

Redeeming Self-Love

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For the Christian, there is a right and wrong way to love yourself or your own life. One can disqualify you from being a disciple of Christ:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

The other leads you to seek you own highest well-being: God, virtue, wisdom, and so on. 

Whoever obtains wisdom loves himself, and whoever treasures understanding will prosper. (Pro 19:8)

Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
(Psalms 34:11-19)

Elsewhere, Jesus puts the two ideas into a paradoxical statement:

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for life in the age to come. (John 12:25)

Now, why would you want to keep your life for the age to come unless you loved it? Chesteron once said, “One can hardly think too little of one’s self. One can hardly think too much of one’s soul.”1.G.K. Chesterton. Orthodoxoy ,174 Now, there are several ways to consider this apparent paradox of Jesus. I’ll offer three:

  1. The Radical View
    Jesus means for us to be martyrs for the cause or not be disciples at all. And if you’re not martyred, you’re not really to enjoy this present life, mired as the world is in sin. But rather you are to relentlessly spend yourself and trust only the Holy Spirit to give you joy. 
  2. The Two Natures View
    You must hate your life, insofar as it is defined by sin. To hate your life means something like, ‘hate the aspect of you which continues in its passions, loves to sin, is enslaved to the devil, and so-on.’
  3. The Wisdom View
    This is the idea that a knight, to survive must live as thought he has to concern for his life. In other words, because he loves his life dearly he must fight and risk as though his life meant nothing. Chesteron explains this well, “Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaneers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it.”2.Chesterton 171

The whole point though is that the motivation to ‘hate your life’ is the very love we have of our lives. In his less paradoxical moments, Jesus entices people to come to him to have life, and that to the full (John 10:10).  And so a love of your life that leads you toward truth, goodness, and beauty, toward disciplined acquisition of virtue, toward a deep and abiding love of God, and toward a willingness to risk lesser goods for greater is good for you. But to love your life as is or so much you will not risk for that very life is ultimately to hate you life and therefore to lose it. Perhaps Paul says it best when he refers to Christ as “he who is your life” (Colossians 3:1-4). If your love of life is the sort of love that loves what God has given you and God himself, then it is good. One might call it redeeming self-love. 

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References

References
↑1 G.K. Chesterton. Orthodoxoy ,174
↑2 Chesterton 171