“The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and loving towards all he has made.
The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth…
The Lord watches over those who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.”
Psalm 145.17-20
Outside Tara Street station, there is often a forlorn looking Dubliner in a green cap plugging the Big Issue magazine in quiet desperation. Every time he catches my eye, I resolve to buy a copy the next time I pass by. Just the other day, I was about to walk past him for the umpteenth time when I realised I’d put it off long enough. I paid him three euro for the latest issue.
As I waited for my DART, I turned to an article entitled “No Justice For The People of Bhopal”. The content was shocking.
In 1969 an American company (Union Carbide) built a massive carbide plant in the town of Bhopal, central India. It was an ideal location; Bhopal was situated near a large lake which provided a reliable source of water and only 2km away there was a residential neighbourhood as well as a squatter settlement containing thousands of people eager for work. Until 1979 the plant used to import methyl isocyanate (MIC), the dangerous chemical used in its pesticide production. However, in a bid to save money, the plant began to manufacture it on-site. It was this decision that lead to the destruction of a whole city and an eco-system that remains toxic to this day.
The article reads: “On the night of December 23rd 1984, the lives of the people of Bhopal would be irrovacably changed forever. At 11.30pm a dangerous chemical reaction occurred when water leaked into one of the MIC storage tanks (Tank #160). Workers noticed it when their eyes began to burn and tear and informed their supervisor, but in the spave of two hours almost 40 tons of MIC poured out of the tank and into the air, spreading about the city…Thousands were killed as they slept and hundreds of thoudands (the city had a population of 900,000) ran out into the streets vomiting, coughing with eyes streaming as their organs were decimated by the gas. The poor and the children died in huge numbers and hundreds were trampled to death in the mass rush away from the poisonous fumes.”
By morning, Bhopal was the site of a giant mass funeral as bodies piled up. 170,000 people were treated in hospitals and most of the livestock was dead. The trees withered and chronic food and fuel shortages followed the disaster. The long term affects of the gas leakage continue to afflict survivors with lingering diseases and disabilities. Many suffer from an array of serious health problems that have been misdiagnosed or ignored by local doctors. These include respiratory ailments like chronic bronchitis and emphysema, gastro-intestinal conditions such as chronic gastritis and hyperacidity, eye problems like cataracts, conjunctivitis, poor memory and motor skills, psychiatric problems and musculoskeletal problems.
Investigations and reports into the events leading up to the disaster have been repressed but it is clear that a combination of technical, organizational and human error caused the accident. The immediate cause was the leakage of water into Tank #160 but it was exacerbated by the failure of containment and safety measures and a complete lack of emergency procedures. Much of the carbide plant equipment was woefully out of order; temperature and pressure gauges were antiquated and unreliable, refrigeration units had been shut off, the gas scrubber and flare tower designer to neutralise and burn off any escaping MIC had also been off for some time. This ensured that the alarm on the tank – fitted to warn of any leakage – failed.
This litany of failings and the clear evidence of negligence on the part of Union Carbide should have ensured that the people of Bhopal revieved immediate and significant compensation. Sadly, this has not been the case. Beurocracy and corruption ensured that after a series of court cases, the people of Bhopal were awarded an outrageously paltry sum of money. Initially, a one time payment of RS1, 500 (26euro) was paid to families. Later, in 2007, after further court cases, certain individuals were paid RS25,000 (438euro). Out of the 1,029,517 who claimed for compensation, almost half were rejected. Furthermore, Union Carbide have never admitted any liability. In June of this year, local managers at Bhopal were finally sentenced to two years imprisonment for their part in the disaster, 25 years after the event. It is likely that these local Indian employees were scapegoats as no American members of Union Carbide, including the then chief executive Warren Anderson, have ever appeared in court.
The glaring injustice of such a situation is almost beyond belief. As I reflected on this article, I was reminded of the words of Miroslav Volf I had read in Keller’s The Reason for God (pp.74):
“If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence – that God would not be worthy of worship…the only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God...My thesis that the practise of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many…in the West…[But] it takes the quiet of a surburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence [results from the belief in] God’s refusal to judge. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die…[with] the other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.”
As I read about the disaster in Bhopal and the ensuing miscarriage of justice, everything in me wanted to do violence to a system of corruption and indifference and the individuals who assisted in perpectuating the untold suffering of thousands. The thought that there were those who deliberately aspired to pervert justice and deny the suffering people of Bhopal the compensation needed to pay their medical expenses sickened me. It sickened me even more to think that such a perversion of justice sprung from a desire to maintain the prosperity of an American multinational money-machine. The lives of thousands were ravaged to safeguard and protect the prosperity of the wealthy few. The case of Bhopal is one more sickening example of the injustice that plagues human society.
People will often say that those who believe in a God of judgement will never approach enemies with a desire to reconcile with them. Further, it is often said that those who believe in a God of judgement are irrevocably shaped into his image; they become angry, violent and puritanical. In fact, as Keller argues, the opposite is the case. It is the lack of belief in a God of vengeance that secretly nourishes violence. The human impulse to make perpetrators of violence and suffering pay for their crimes is almost an overwhelming one. It cannot possibly be overcome with platitudes like “Now don’t you see that violence won’t solve anything?” Many of the surviving men, women and children of Bhopal are seething with impotent rage and despair because of what they have suffered. They cry out for justice night and day. Can their passion for justive be honoured in a way that does not nurture their desire for blood vengeance? Can ours? According to Volf, the only resource for this is belief in the concept of divine justice. As Keller remarks, if I don’t believe in a God who will eventually put things right, I will take up the sword and I too will be sucked into the endless vortex of hatred, seething anger and retributive violence. Only if I am sure that there’s a God who will right all wrongs and settle all accounts perfectly do I have the power to refrain.
Volf, who himself has encountered the violence of the Balkans, argues that the doctrine of God’s final judgement is a necessary undergirding for the moral capacity to refrain from the hatred and bloodlust that grips us when we hear of cases like Bhopal. For the people of Bhopal too, in the grip of seething despair and loss, the prospect of a God who will right all wrongs is the only sure prospect of solace.
Signing off –
The Scribbling Apprentice
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Today I Went to The Temple
The Temple is an exhibition currently on show in the Monster Truck gallery, under the black church print studio in Temple Bar (http://monstertruck.ie). It is a joint venture by three Irish artists; Brian Coldrick, James Kirwan and Christian Reeves.
As the review says: “Taking note of the cast of characters and situations to be found in the heaving mass of subcultures, pilgrims and image worship at the swirling center of the modern city, the three artists have created a host of paintings, drawings and 3D work which pokes an eye at the robes, sacrifices and symbols of those who bow down at the temple of the city. Penitent drunks, merciless hen nights, iconic goths, preachy chuggers, awestruck tourists all weave their way in and out of the early houses, late bars, hipster stores and head shops that make up the city’s sanctuaries and apses.”
Never before has the frenzied religiosity of Dublin binge-culture been laid bare so powerfully. Employing a mish-mash of comic-book imagery, collage and printed clichés, the artists manage to capture the spirit of our city by night. Two pieces in particular caught my eye. To the right, just as you come in the door, there is a triptych that perfectly conjures up the aura of heady devotion to unalloyed hedonism that, one could argue, characterizes our culture more than anything else. In the middle of the exhibition is a totem pole replete with images that communicate the numinous magnetism alcohol seems to exert on the Irish psyche. All in all, the viewer is offered a profound, and often shocking insight into the bleary, kaleidoscopic world of contemporary paganism. It is nothing less than a manic, cartoon depiction of the spirit of the age. Well worth a look.
The Temple is on show until July 28th.
As the review says: “Taking note of the cast of characters and situations to be found in the heaving mass of subcultures, pilgrims and image worship at the swirling center of the modern city, the three artists have created a host of paintings, drawings and 3D work which pokes an eye at the robes, sacrifices and symbols of those who bow down at the temple of the city. Penitent drunks, merciless hen nights, iconic goths, preachy chuggers, awestruck tourists all weave their way in and out of the early houses, late bars, hipster stores and head shops that make up the city’s sanctuaries and apses.”
Never before has the frenzied religiosity of Dublin binge-culture been laid bare so powerfully. Employing a mish-mash of comic-book imagery, collage and printed clichés, the artists manage to capture the spirit of our city by night. Two pieces in particular caught my eye. To the right, just as you come in the door, there is a triptych that perfectly conjures up the aura of heady devotion to unalloyed hedonism that, one could argue, characterizes our culture more than anything else. In the middle of the exhibition is a totem pole replete with images that communicate the numinous magnetism alcohol seems to exert on the Irish psyche. All in all, the viewer is offered a profound, and often shocking insight into the bleary, kaleidoscopic world of contemporary paganism. It is nothing less than a manic, cartoon depiction of the spirit of the age. Well worth a look.
The Temple is on show until July 28th.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Church History and Apologetics
In his book, Humble Apologetics, John Stackhouse Jr. speaks of the ahistoricism that blights contemporary Western culture. There is a widespread lack of historical consciousness that, more often than not, serves to prevent people from giving Christianity a fair hearing. Stackhouse quotes C. S Lewis: “the Present occupies almost the whole field of vision. Beyond it, isolated from it, and quite unimportant, is something called ‘The Good Old Days’ – a small, comic jungle in which highwaymen, Queen Elizebeth, knights-in-armour etc. wander about.” Of course, Lewis was writing about a generation ago. Nonetheless today (as in Lewis’ day) people can often be quite ignorant of, and even sceptical, about history. Stackhouse warns that this disregard for history “as something that frames our current experience and as something from which we can learn important information is not recognised enough by apologists” (pp. 50).
I think he’s quite right. The ahistoricism Stackhouse speaks of chimes in nicely with current postmodern epistemological doubt and a consumerist focus on instant gratification – arguably as much hallmarks of contemporary Irish culture as Canadian or American culture (the context in which Stackhouse is writing). People are generally focused on the now to the degree that the past (and certainly the long-ago past) becomes irrelevant and somewhat disassociated from the immediate present. Perhaps the barrage of media imagery, the twitching of screens and the instant flicker of digital technology causes us to loose our sense of a concrete continuum of history.
As Stackhouse says, for most, the past is not a righly complex continuum made up of a variety forces that require patient interpretation. Instead, for many, Christianity is purely a simplistic collection “of tableaux that sit fixed in one’s mind as stark moral lessons: Christianity mounted bloody Crusades against noble Muslims; Christians burned hapless women as witxhes…Christians oppressed women and spoiled sex…Christians abused the earth.” And yet, Christianity depends fundamentally upon what happened in the past; particularly in the career of Jesus and what the Bible (the New Testament documents, for a start) says about it. As such, apologists must consider how to respond to this ahistoricism that is so dominant in our culture.
This is one reason why I think Church historians often make wonderful apologists. D B Hart, for example, is (as far as I know) a Patristics scholar who specialises in the Greek Fathers (http://davidbhart.blogspot.com/). His book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolutiuon and Its Fashionable Enemies engages in extensive historical apologetics in the opening chapters, demonstrating from a close study of history the groundlessness of so many contemporary myths born of the prevalent ahistoricism Stackhouse speaks of.
Another church historian, writing within the context of the Presbyterian tradition, is Carl Trueman (http://www.reformation21.org/carl-trueman/ ). Having done much of his advanced study within the realm of seventeenth century church history (focusing mainly on the Trinitarian theology of John Owen), Trueman is surprisingly well equipped to engage in incisive contemporary apologetics. As far as I know, he has published two volumes of collected articles (The Wages of Spin and Minority Report). Both are replete with brilliant and quirky articles; one such article, for example, links the likes of John Calvin with digital radios and schmaltzy car-salesmen. Another explores the connections between a very unlikely pair of thinkers; Carl Henry and Edward Said. Like Hart, Trueman often delves into the dank corners of church history to unleash a salvo of crippling and on-the-botton critiques of modernity and contemporary atheism. In the case of both theologians, a deep grasp of church history makes for riveting, cutting-edge apologetics.
D B Hart writes: “much of modernity should be understood not as a grand revolt against the tyranny of faith, not as a movement of human liberation and progress, but as a counterrevolution, a reactionary rejection of freedom which it no longer understands, but upon which it remains parasitic. Even when modern persons turn away from Christian conviction, there are any number of paths that have been irrevocably closed to them – either because they lead toward philosophical positions that Christianity has assumed successfully into its own story, or because they lead toward forms of “superstition” that Christianity has renedered utterly incredible to modern minds. A post-Christian unbeliever is still, most definitely, for good or ill, post-Christian. We live in a world transformed by an ancient revolution – social, intellectual, metaphysical, moral, spiritual – the immensity of which we often only barely grasp.”
The ancient revolution – perhaps the only true revolution in the history of the West – is, of course, Christianity. If we are not careful to safeguard and communicate history effectively, we will slip into the mud of ahistoricism and lose our capacity to understand the infinite scope and beauty of that ancient revolution. And this pained world, esconced on the drab tides of modernity, will lose out on the splendour and bounty of the Christianity it has unmoored itself from.
Signing off -
The Scribbling Apprentice.
I think he’s quite right. The ahistoricism Stackhouse speaks of chimes in nicely with current postmodern epistemological doubt and a consumerist focus on instant gratification – arguably as much hallmarks of contemporary Irish culture as Canadian or American culture (the context in which Stackhouse is writing). People are generally focused on the now to the degree that the past (and certainly the long-ago past) becomes irrelevant and somewhat disassociated from the immediate present. Perhaps the barrage of media imagery, the twitching of screens and the instant flicker of digital technology causes us to loose our sense of a concrete continuum of history.
As Stackhouse says, for most, the past is not a righly complex continuum made up of a variety forces that require patient interpretation. Instead, for many, Christianity is purely a simplistic collection “of tableaux that sit fixed in one’s mind as stark moral lessons: Christianity mounted bloody Crusades against noble Muslims; Christians burned hapless women as witxhes…Christians oppressed women and spoiled sex…Christians abused the earth.” And yet, Christianity depends fundamentally upon what happened in the past; particularly in the career of Jesus and what the Bible (the New Testament documents, for a start) says about it. As such, apologists must consider how to respond to this ahistoricism that is so dominant in our culture.
This is one reason why I think Church historians often make wonderful apologists. D B Hart, for example, is (as far as I know) a Patristics scholar who specialises in the Greek Fathers (http://davidbhart.blogspot.com/). His book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolutiuon and Its Fashionable Enemies engages in extensive historical apologetics in the opening chapters, demonstrating from a close study of history the groundlessness of so many contemporary myths born of the prevalent ahistoricism Stackhouse speaks of.
Another church historian, writing within the context of the Presbyterian tradition, is Carl Trueman (http://www.reformation21.org/carl-trueman/ ). Having done much of his advanced study within the realm of seventeenth century church history (focusing mainly on the Trinitarian theology of John Owen), Trueman is surprisingly well equipped to engage in incisive contemporary apologetics. As far as I know, he has published two volumes of collected articles (The Wages of Spin and Minority Report). Both are replete with brilliant and quirky articles; one such article, for example, links the likes of John Calvin with digital radios and schmaltzy car-salesmen. Another explores the connections between a very unlikely pair of thinkers; Carl Henry and Edward Said. Like Hart, Trueman often delves into the dank corners of church history to unleash a salvo of crippling and on-the-botton critiques of modernity and contemporary atheism. In the case of both theologians, a deep grasp of church history makes for riveting, cutting-edge apologetics.
D B Hart writes: “much of modernity should be understood not as a grand revolt against the tyranny of faith, not as a movement of human liberation and progress, but as a counterrevolution, a reactionary rejection of freedom which it no longer understands, but upon which it remains parasitic. Even when modern persons turn away from Christian conviction, there are any number of paths that have been irrevocably closed to them – either because they lead toward philosophical positions that Christianity has assumed successfully into its own story, or because they lead toward forms of “superstition” that Christianity has renedered utterly incredible to modern minds. A post-Christian unbeliever is still, most definitely, for good or ill, post-Christian. We live in a world transformed by an ancient revolution – social, intellectual, metaphysical, moral, spiritual – the immensity of which we often only barely grasp.”
The ancient revolution – perhaps the only true revolution in the history of the West – is, of course, Christianity. If we are not careful to safeguard and communicate history effectively, we will slip into the mud of ahistoricism and lose our capacity to understand the infinite scope and beauty of that ancient revolution. And this pained world, esconced on the drab tides of modernity, will lose out on the splendour and bounty of the Christianity it has unmoored itself from.
Signing off -
The Scribbling Apprentice.
Who or what did Jesus think He was?
Another brilliant almost-4-minute short of N T Wright describing who Jesus understood himself to be - touches on what Jesus understood by the Kingdom of God and the significance of his death on the cross. Well worth the time.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Scandalous Cross
I’ve spent most of the afternoon preparing a sermon on Acts 9.1-20, Luke’s account of the conversion of Saul. It strikes me that the reaction of Saul to the earliest Christians offers helpful insight just how the message of a crucified Messiah would have been received. As noted in the last post, only those who were cursed by God were nailed to a cross; only the most despised reprobates suffered crucifixion. The words of Deuteronomy 21.23 were burned into the mind of every religious Jew of the first century AD: “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” And so it was with Saul; the message of the atonement, the crucified Messiah, could not be tolerated. It was anathema. It was unthinkable. It was obscene and profane.
Saul first crops up in Acts 8.1, guarding the outer garments of the witnesses (in conformity with the law set down in Deuteronomy 17.7) as they hurled the first stones at Stephen, who would become the first Christian martyr. Saul is “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9.1), intent on rounding up and assasinating those who would contravene sacred Jewish law and preach a crucified Messiah. He secures letters from the High Priest to synagogues in Damascus so that he might round up Christians who were seeking refuge there. It is likely that he determinedly walked the 300 km between Jerusalem and Damascus, utterly fixated on rounding up those "who belonged to the Way” – the Christian converts who were making such a mockery of Jewish ancestral tradition by proclaiming that a crucified Nazarene was the Son of Man.
Saul’s intense hatred of the earliest Christians gives us an insight into just how scandalous the message of the cross was to the ears of a first century Jew. The concept of a crucified Messiah was outrageous blasphemy. The gospel the Christians proclaimed was totally incompatible with the Jewish tradition Saul was a part of. F. F Bruce writes in Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free: “No heed could be paid to them when they [the Christians] supported their affirmation with claims that Jesus had come back from the dead and appeared to them. In making this claim they were either deceivers or self-decieved, for none of the arguments which they used for Jesus’ messiahship could stand against one irrefragable argument on the other side: a crucified man could not conceivably be the elect one of God” (pp. 71).
“Hanging up alive” is the Hebrew phrase for crucifixion in 4QpNah, one of the Qumran scrolls; it well conveys the horror with which crucifixion was viewed by pious first century Jews like Saul. According to Luke (Acts 5.30, 10.39), the phrase “hanging on a gibbet” was used in the earliest apostolic preaching of the atonement, as if to convey how religiously shocking this mode of execution was. The cross was so cruel that the Romans refused to allow their own citizens to be crucified, regardless of what the person had done. Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher (106-43 BC) reputedly wrote that crucifixion was “a most cruel and disgusting punishment. It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one; what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.Let the very mention of the cross be far removed not only from a Roman citizen’s body, but from his mind, his eyes, his ears.”
After Saul’s dramatic encounter with the risen Christ, he began to preach the message he had so passionately sought to stamp out; the gospel of the crucified Messiah. He would later write, as the apostle Paul, in the midst of much hostility from his own countrymen: “we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block (skandalon) to Jews and foolishness to gentiles…” (1 Corinthians 1.23). The message of the atoning death of Christ was a scandal; it was repulsive to Jew and Greek alike.
To a great degree, we have assimilated the cross as the symbol of Christianity; it is a given, something taken for granted and causing very little stir or reproach. Certainly it rarely, if ever, shocks or appals anybody. It does not gall our religious sensibilities as it did the Jews' of the first century. In fact, it has become the world’s most prominent and beloved symbol of Christianity. Nonetheless, as Mark Driscoll points out, this is basically “akin to a junkie’s needle or a perverts used condom becoming the world’s most beloved symbol and adorning homes, churches, and bodies.”
And yet, Calvin could call the cross a glimmering, many-sided jewel. How can the bloody death of a man on a cross be described as a precious jewel, shining with radiant beauty? Some of the following posts will view the crucifixion of Jesus through the only lens that enables us to see the cross for the treasure it is; the words of Scripture.
Mightily,
The Scribbling Apprentice
Saul first crops up in Acts 8.1, guarding the outer garments of the witnesses (in conformity with the law set down in Deuteronomy 17.7) as they hurled the first stones at Stephen, who would become the first Christian martyr. Saul is “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9.1), intent on rounding up and assasinating those who would contravene sacred Jewish law and preach a crucified Messiah. He secures letters from the High Priest to synagogues in Damascus so that he might round up Christians who were seeking refuge there. It is likely that he determinedly walked the 300 km between Jerusalem and Damascus, utterly fixated on rounding up those "who belonged to the Way” – the Christian converts who were making such a mockery of Jewish ancestral tradition by proclaiming that a crucified Nazarene was the Son of Man.
Saul’s intense hatred of the earliest Christians gives us an insight into just how scandalous the message of the cross was to the ears of a first century Jew. The concept of a crucified Messiah was outrageous blasphemy. The gospel the Christians proclaimed was totally incompatible with the Jewish tradition Saul was a part of. F. F Bruce writes in Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free: “No heed could be paid to them when they [the Christians] supported their affirmation with claims that Jesus had come back from the dead and appeared to them. In making this claim they were either deceivers or self-decieved, for none of the arguments which they used for Jesus’ messiahship could stand against one irrefragable argument on the other side: a crucified man could not conceivably be the elect one of God” (pp. 71).
“Hanging up alive” is the Hebrew phrase for crucifixion in 4QpNah, one of the Qumran scrolls; it well conveys the horror with which crucifixion was viewed by pious first century Jews like Saul. According to Luke (Acts 5.30, 10.39), the phrase “hanging on a gibbet” was used in the earliest apostolic preaching of the atonement, as if to convey how religiously shocking this mode of execution was. The cross was so cruel that the Romans refused to allow their own citizens to be crucified, regardless of what the person had done. Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher (106-43 BC) reputedly wrote that crucifixion was “a most cruel and disgusting punishment. It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one; what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.Let the very mention of the cross be far removed not only from a Roman citizen’s body, but from his mind, his eyes, his ears.”
After Saul’s dramatic encounter with the risen Christ, he began to preach the message he had so passionately sought to stamp out; the gospel of the crucified Messiah. He would later write, as the apostle Paul, in the midst of much hostility from his own countrymen: “we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block (skandalon) to Jews and foolishness to gentiles…” (1 Corinthians 1.23). The message of the atoning death of Christ was a scandal; it was repulsive to Jew and Greek alike.
To a great degree, we have assimilated the cross as the symbol of Christianity; it is a given, something taken for granted and causing very little stir or reproach. Certainly it rarely, if ever, shocks or appals anybody. It does not gall our religious sensibilities as it did the Jews' of the first century. In fact, it has become the world’s most prominent and beloved symbol of Christianity. Nonetheless, as Mark Driscoll points out, this is basically “akin to a junkie’s needle or a perverts used condom becoming the world’s most beloved symbol and adorning homes, churches, and bodies.”
And yet, Calvin could call the cross a glimmering, many-sided jewel. How can the bloody death of a man on a cross be described as a precious jewel, shining with radiant beauty? Some of the following posts will view the crucifixion of Jesus through the only lens that enables us to see the cross for the treasure it is; the words of Scripture.
Mightily,
The Scribbling Apprentice
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
What exactly is the Kingdom of God?
These two videos of Dr. John Stackhouse speaking on the Kingdom of God are apt, in light of our recent sermon series in Immanuel church (www.immanuelchurchdublin.org). We've been looking at precisely the same topic in the parables of Jesus, found in Matthew 13. RecentlyI've been reading Stackhouse's book, Humble Apologetics. It is a very helpful, concise and insightful work. I'm hoping to jam up a post containing some of the interesting things he has to share. In the meantime, enjoy these short videos.
The Crucifixion | A Medical Perspective
Trauma Surgeon Dr. David Acuna describes the effect crucifixion would have had on the human body.
Images of the Atonement
As mentioned, this post begins the first in a series of posts which will focus on a single image of the atonement event, drawn from Scripture. I aim to keep them short and simple. Before I begin the first one, a few words on what precisely Christians understand by the word “atonement” might be helpful.
“That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15.3b-4)
First of all: the atonement event involved the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Crucifixion was probably invented by the Persians in 500 BC and was outlawed by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 300 AD. Although the Persians came up with the torturous death machine of crucifixion, the Romans perfected it. Under Roman power, crucifixion was the most painful mode of execution reserved for the most despised members of society; slaves, the poor and Roman citizens found guilty of the worst high treason. Throughout history, crucifixion has remained the most brutal, agonizing form of torture and death. In the twentieth century, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, German soldiers crucified Jews in Dachau by running bayonets and knives through their legs, shoulders and testicles. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge performed crucifixions in Cambodia. The pain of crucifixion is so horrendous that there was a word invented to explain it – excruciating – which literally means “from the cross”.
Christianity affirms that in the year 33 AD, Jesus of Nazareth was publicly crucified under Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator of ancient Palestine.
Second: the atonement (at-one-ment) means that Jesus, our God, became man to restore the relationship between God and humanity. A crucial factor enabling such a reconciliation was the death of Jesus upon the cross. The death of Jesus was a substitutionary death. John Stott (The Cross of Christ): “The concept of substitutionary death may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.” A substitutionary death: on the cross Jesus substituted himself for man, bearing the penalty our sins deserve. Our sins entailed his death. Jesus atoned for our sins by dying in our place."
Third: such a death was a propitiation. Throughout the Scriptures, the price of sin is death. If we sin, we should die. However, Jesus the sinless one dies in our place “for our sins”. Indeed, Jesus atoned for our sins in accordance with the promises of Scripture. In the Old Testament, the Day of Atonement was one of the most central events. According to the book of Leviticus, the Day of Atonement (the most important day of the year) was intended to deal with the sin problem between man and God. On that day, two healthy goats were chosen; two goats without defect and therefore fit to represent sinless perfection.
The first goat was a sin offering; the High Priest slaughtered this goat as a substitute for sinners who rightly deserved a bloody death for their many sins. The High Priest then sprinkled the blood of the goat on the mercy seat on top of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Most Holy Place. The goat took the guilt of the sin of the people; its blood represented life given as payment for sin. This meant that the dwelling place of God was cleansed from the defilement brought about by the transgressions and sins of the people of Israel. God’s just and holy wrath was satisfied. This Old Testament ritual sacrifice brought about propitiation; God’s wrath was propiated, or taken from the people of Israel, on account of the sacrificial goat standing in their place. This is precisely what occurred on the cross; the death of Jesus propitiated the wrath of God, taking it from off of us. The substitutionary, propitiatory death of Jesus rescued us from the wrath of God – just as the goat saved Israel of old from the just wrath of God. The Levitical sacrifice of the goat was a prefiguring of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Fourth: the death of Jesus brought about expiation. According to Leviticus, the High Priest would then take the second goat and lay his hands on the animal while confessing the sins of the people. By doing so, the High Priest was acting as the mediator and representative between the people of Israel and their holy God. The goat, known as the scapegoat, would then be sent away to wander in the wilderness away from the sinful people of Israel, symbolically taking their sins with it. Precisely like the scapegoat, the atoning death of Jesus brought about the expiation of our sin. By dying in our place, Jesus expiated, or took away, our sin so that we might be made clean.
These Levitical images of the High Priest, slaughter and scape-goat are all given by God to help us more fully comprehend Jesus’ work for us on the cross.
“He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53.5).
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3.18).
Luther called the momentous event of the atonement “the great exchange”, the day when the sinless One became sin for us: “For our sake he [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5.21).
Mark Driscoll writes: “…the sinless Jesus so thoroughly took our place that he became the worst of what we are – rapists, thieves, perverts, addicts, liars, gluttons, gossips, murderers, adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, and idolators. Importantly, Jesus’ work on the cross was not just a bookkeeping transaction in the divine economy. Jesus actually took to himself our sin with all its horror and shame (Hebrews 12.2-3).”
The shocking reality of the atonement should not be lost on us: God was crucified. We affixed him to a cross. Ancient records speak of the victims of crucifixion writhing and convulsing involuntarily in sheer agony, a pool of sweat, urine, faeces and blood gathering at the foot of the cross as their bodies wilted under the shock of excruciating pain. Crowds gathered and mocked the victims, spitting at them and shouting insults. And so it was with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the One who was substituted in our place. He died the death of a crucified brigand, a condemned criminal; cursed by God and cursed by man.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Galatians 3.13 (quoting Deuteronomy 21.23).
Mark Driscoll again: “As our sin was laid upon Jesus and he became the most heinous of beings, Jesus Christ was literally cursed by God on the cross. He came under the judgement of God the Father and God the Spirit as nothing less than the ugliness of damnable evil. Again we see the substitutionary reality: it was our sin and our condemnation, but it was Jesus, the sinless one, who took our place and in so doing took our sin and condemnation so that we could live a new life with a new nature by a new power free from sin and condemnation.”
Even in dying, the utter selflessness of Jesus is eveident in the words he muttered from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23.34). Jesus did not revile his mockers or declare his innocence but interceded for the very people who were putting him to death.
God loved us with an intensity that moved him to pro-offer his own Son as an atonement sacrifice to bring us to himself; the Son willingly and manfully endured the death our redemption would require – a death of excruciating pain and unbearable trauma. An unspeakable, divine love; our redemption secured at an unthinkable, unfathomable cost. Because of the substitutionary death of Jesus, we stand forgiven at the cross.
Signing off -
The Scribbling Apprentice
“That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15.3b-4)
First of all: the atonement event involved the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Crucifixion was probably invented by the Persians in 500 BC and was outlawed by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 300 AD. Although the Persians came up with the torturous death machine of crucifixion, the Romans perfected it. Under Roman power, crucifixion was the most painful mode of execution reserved for the most despised members of society; slaves, the poor and Roman citizens found guilty of the worst high treason. Throughout history, crucifixion has remained the most brutal, agonizing form of torture and death. In the twentieth century, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, German soldiers crucified Jews in Dachau by running bayonets and knives through their legs, shoulders and testicles. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge performed crucifixions in Cambodia. The pain of crucifixion is so horrendous that there was a word invented to explain it – excruciating – which literally means “from the cross”.
Christianity affirms that in the year 33 AD, Jesus of Nazareth was publicly crucified under Pontius Pilate, the Roman Procurator of ancient Palestine.
Second: the atonement (at-one-ment) means that Jesus, our God, became man to restore the relationship between God and humanity. A crucial factor enabling such a reconciliation was the death of Jesus upon the cross. The death of Jesus was a substitutionary death. John Stott (The Cross of Christ): “The concept of substitutionary death may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.” A substitutionary death: on the cross Jesus substituted himself for man, bearing the penalty our sins deserve. Our sins entailed his death. Jesus atoned for our sins by dying in our place."
Third: such a death was a propitiation. Throughout the Scriptures, the price of sin is death. If we sin, we should die. However, Jesus the sinless one dies in our place “for our sins”. Indeed, Jesus atoned for our sins in accordance with the promises of Scripture. In the Old Testament, the Day of Atonement was one of the most central events. According to the book of Leviticus, the Day of Atonement (the most important day of the year) was intended to deal with the sin problem between man and God. On that day, two healthy goats were chosen; two goats without defect and therefore fit to represent sinless perfection.
The first goat was a sin offering; the High Priest slaughtered this goat as a substitute for sinners who rightly deserved a bloody death for their many sins. The High Priest then sprinkled the blood of the goat on the mercy seat on top of the Ark of the Covenant inside the Most Holy Place. The goat took the guilt of the sin of the people; its blood represented life given as payment for sin. This meant that the dwelling place of God was cleansed from the defilement brought about by the transgressions and sins of the people of Israel. God’s just and holy wrath was satisfied. This Old Testament ritual sacrifice brought about propitiation; God’s wrath was propiated, or taken from the people of Israel, on account of the sacrificial goat standing in their place. This is precisely what occurred on the cross; the death of Jesus propitiated the wrath of God, taking it from off of us. The substitutionary, propitiatory death of Jesus rescued us from the wrath of God – just as the goat saved Israel of old from the just wrath of God. The Levitical sacrifice of the goat was a prefiguring of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Fourth: the death of Jesus brought about expiation. According to Leviticus, the High Priest would then take the second goat and lay his hands on the animal while confessing the sins of the people. By doing so, the High Priest was acting as the mediator and representative between the people of Israel and their holy God. The goat, known as the scapegoat, would then be sent away to wander in the wilderness away from the sinful people of Israel, symbolically taking their sins with it. Precisely like the scapegoat, the atoning death of Jesus brought about the expiation of our sin. By dying in our place, Jesus expiated, or took away, our sin so that we might be made clean.
These Levitical images of the High Priest, slaughter and scape-goat are all given by God to help us more fully comprehend Jesus’ work for us on the cross.
“He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53.5).
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3.18).
Luther called the momentous event of the atonement “the great exchange”, the day when the sinless One became sin for us: “For our sake he [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5.21).
Mark Driscoll writes: “…the sinless Jesus so thoroughly took our place that he became the worst of what we are – rapists, thieves, perverts, addicts, liars, gluttons, gossips, murderers, adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, and idolators. Importantly, Jesus’ work on the cross was not just a bookkeeping transaction in the divine economy. Jesus actually took to himself our sin with all its horror and shame (Hebrews 12.2-3).”
The shocking reality of the atonement should not be lost on us: God was crucified. We affixed him to a cross. Ancient records speak of the victims of crucifixion writhing and convulsing involuntarily in sheer agony, a pool of sweat, urine, faeces and blood gathering at the foot of the cross as their bodies wilted under the shock of excruciating pain. Crowds gathered and mocked the victims, spitting at them and shouting insults. And so it was with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the One who was substituted in our place. He died the death of a crucified brigand, a condemned criminal; cursed by God and cursed by man.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” Galatians 3.13 (quoting Deuteronomy 21.23).
Mark Driscoll again: “As our sin was laid upon Jesus and he became the most heinous of beings, Jesus Christ was literally cursed by God on the cross. He came under the judgement of God the Father and God the Spirit as nothing less than the ugliness of damnable evil. Again we see the substitutionary reality: it was our sin and our condemnation, but it was Jesus, the sinless one, who took our place and in so doing took our sin and condemnation so that we could live a new life with a new nature by a new power free from sin and condemnation.”
Even in dying, the utter selflessness of Jesus is eveident in the words he muttered from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23.34). Jesus did not revile his mockers or declare his innocence but interceded for the very people who were putting him to death.
God loved us with an intensity that moved him to pro-offer his own Son as an atonement sacrifice to bring us to himself; the Son willingly and manfully endured the death our redemption would require – a death of excruciating pain and unbearable trauma. An unspeakable, divine love; our redemption secured at an unthinkable, unfathomable cost. Because of the substitutionary death of Jesus, we stand forgiven at the cross.
Signing off -
The Scribbling Apprentice
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
D B Hart & the Conquest of Hithchensdom and Dawkinstown
D B Hart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bentley_Hart) has set out on a conquest to liberate the citizens of Hithchensdom, Dawkinstown, Harrisville and Dennett-upon-Tyne. Hearkening to the mouns and cries of the people locked away in these villages and towns with walls of towering grey concrete, D B Hart has taken upon himself to rescue them. He will blow apart the grey wieldy shackles that incarcerate the people locked away behind these walls, that they may be interred no more in a two-dimensional flat-land of drabness and boredom. And he will do this through the publication and dissemination of his most recent book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies.
In short compass, Hart sets out to detonate, with sublime style and a glistening vocabulary (evidenced in the use of exotic words like "farraginous", "scabrous" and "friability") the myths that currently hold a sizeable amount of the Western world capitive and benighted. Yes, in the mere spread of a single chapter he fells the four great horsemen of the atheist apocalpyse; the shambling ideological artifice erected by Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens and Harris crashes to the ground as Hart blows the project of scientism apart - effortlessly.
As the debris settles in the aftermath, he levels his mortar gun at the unexamined myths that have been perpetuated by the ancestors of those still dwelling in the like of Dawkinstown and Hithensdom: the myth of church suppression and hatred of pagan learning and philosophy in the early centuries of the Common Era, the myth of the Christian suppression of scientific truth (No, Galileo was never asked by the church to recount his theories on the basis of an appeal to an outdated cosmology - ie. that the earth was flat - no; patiently, Pope Urban VIII asked Galileo that he recount a theory that was embarrasingly simplistic in its dogged adherence to an outdated model Copernicus had developed - read more on pp. 63-66!), the myth that links the witchhunts of early modernity to the church, the myth of the fanatical Christian church resisting "enlightened" secular ideals - by jove, you'll find it all here! And what a job Hart does of gleefully tearing them all apart!
Gallantly Hart blows apart the myths that have blinded generations of citizens in Hitchensdom and Dawkinstown, holding them in bondage to a maddeningly simplistic and two-dimensional view of reality. Now, slowly, the grey walls are coming down as Hart pummells them with the mortar bombs of honest history writing, sound reason, readable prose and a clear presentation of the absolutely radical, unexpected and profund nature of Christian truth!
Be part of the revolution - pick up a copy now: David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. I got a hold of mine in Hodges & Figgis on Dawson Street for under 20 euro.
As time permits, I'll paste up some of the gleaming prose from the book itself -
Until then,
The Scribbling Apprentice
In short compass, Hart sets out to detonate, with sublime style and a glistening vocabulary (evidenced in the use of exotic words like "farraginous", "scabrous" and "friability") the myths that currently hold a sizeable amount of the Western world capitive and benighted. Yes, in the mere spread of a single chapter he fells the four great horsemen of the atheist apocalpyse; the shambling ideological artifice erected by Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchens and Harris crashes to the ground as Hart blows the project of scientism apart - effortlessly.
As the debris settles in the aftermath, he levels his mortar gun at the unexamined myths that have been perpetuated by the ancestors of those still dwelling in the like of Dawkinstown and Hithensdom: the myth of church suppression and hatred of pagan learning and philosophy in the early centuries of the Common Era, the myth of the Christian suppression of scientific truth (No, Galileo was never asked by the church to recount his theories on the basis of an appeal to an outdated cosmology - ie. that the earth was flat - no; patiently, Pope Urban VIII asked Galileo that he recount a theory that was embarrasingly simplistic in its dogged adherence to an outdated model Copernicus had developed - read more on pp. 63-66!), the myth that links the witchhunts of early modernity to the church, the myth of the fanatical Christian church resisting "enlightened" secular ideals - by jove, you'll find it all here! And what a job Hart does of gleefully tearing them all apart!
Gallantly Hart blows apart the myths that have blinded generations of citizens in Hitchensdom and Dawkinstown, holding them in bondage to a maddeningly simplistic and two-dimensional view of reality. Now, slowly, the grey walls are coming down as Hart pummells them with the mortar bombs of honest history writing, sound reason, readable prose and a clear presentation of the absolutely radical, unexpected and profund nature of Christian truth!
Be part of the revolution - pick up a copy now: David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. I got a hold of mine in Hodges & Figgis on Dawson Street for under 20 euro.
As time permits, I'll paste up some of the gleaming prose from the book itself -
Until then,
The Scribbling Apprentice
Friday, July 9, 2010
Dr. William Lane Craig humiliates Dr. Peter Atkins
Dr William Lane Craig in action. Well worth viewing after (or before) reading the article posted sometime in May entitled Refuting Scientism.
The Mac Shares Humorous Quote
Just now, as we sat together in the sermon factory that is ICM library, The Mac pointed me to a very funny passage in the book he's currently reading: T. C. Hammond: His Life and Legacy in Ireland and Australia. Of course, those of you who know of T. C Hammond will be familiar with that oft-repeated motto: "Get a sense of humour or get out of mission work". Anyway, true to the spirit of this wise dictum, there is a good deal of comic material in Warren Nelson's biography of the great man (incidentally, T. C was formerly the Superintendant of Irish Church Missions, where I now work). The Mac directed my attention to this gem on pp. 70:
"Sometimes for visitors a show of answering was arranged [for the children under Hammond's care to quote one or some of The Hundred Texts, verses they learned verbatim from Scripture]. On one occassion, some of the children were taken to England and at a meeting gave a display of their knowledge. One clergyman in the meeting thought it was too good to be true, and suspecting that the children knew which verses were to be asked he requested an opportunity to examine them:
Clergyman: What does Timothy say about the inspiration of Scripture? [Silence] Aha! you don't know that one.
Small Dublin Boy: Please Sir, Timothy doesn't say anything about inspiration, but Paul in Second Timothy Chapter three verse sixteen says 'All Scripture is inspired of God..."
Further on, Nelson writes that when T. C Hammond and his team went out into the streets of Dublin to share the gospel, they had a certain necessary survival tactic:
"[Evangelism] was thankless work carried on against prevailing ignorance, suspicion and hostility. That is well-illustrated by a survival tactic the visitors [Hammond & Co.] had to adopt when visiting the tenements which housed many families. The rule was to start on the top floor in order to keep a line of retreat open. One visitor was met on the doorstep with a sword. Even when they offered the Douay New Testament it was slandered as 'a communist book'!"
Ahh, the good old days.
The Mac promises to alert me to more stirringly funny passages as he reads on, so there may be more to come.
Over and Out -
The Scribbling Apprentice
"Sometimes for visitors a show of answering was arranged [for the children under Hammond's care to quote one or some of The Hundred Texts, verses they learned verbatim from Scripture]. On one occassion, some of the children were taken to England and at a meeting gave a display of their knowledge. One clergyman in the meeting thought it was too good to be true, and suspecting that the children knew which verses were to be asked he requested an opportunity to examine them:
Clergyman: What does Timothy say about the inspiration of Scripture? [Silence] Aha! you don't know that one.
Small Dublin Boy: Please Sir, Timothy doesn't say anything about inspiration, but Paul in Second Timothy Chapter three verse sixteen says 'All Scripture is inspired of God..."
Further on, Nelson writes that when T. C Hammond and his team went out into the streets of Dublin to share the gospel, they had a certain necessary survival tactic:
"[Evangelism] was thankless work carried on against prevailing ignorance, suspicion and hostility. That is well-illustrated by a survival tactic the visitors [Hammond & Co.] had to adopt when visiting the tenements which housed many families. The rule was to start on the top floor in order to keep a line of retreat open. One visitor was met on the doorstep with a sword. Even when they offered the Douay New Testament it was slandered as 'a communist book'!"
Ahh, the good old days.
The Mac promises to alert me to more stirringly funny passages as he reads on, so there may be more to come.
Over and Out -
The Scribbling Apprentice
Beyond Consolation: Vital Apologetics from John Waters IV
In chapter 9 of Beyond Consolation, Waters goes head-to-head with none other than that great monolith of Irish culture and literature, Famous Seamus. When being interviewed by Mariane Finucane on the occassion of his 70th birthday, Seamus Heaney was asked about his experience of a recent stroke that had temporarily immobalised him. Mariane Finucane asked him whether, in the straits of sudden immobility and weakness, he had thought much about life's fundamental questions and the possibility of life after death. Heaney responded by saying that his sense of religion (Catholicism) had eroded over the years and that beyond death there was only one certain outcome: extinction. Waters notes that Heaney's attitude ("we've moved beyond the superstitious religiousity of yesteryear but Christ's example and moral teaching are still valuable in themselves") is reflective of the contemporary cultural atmosphere. As such, his pronouncements about religion and life after death were readily recieved by the public at-large but also (it appeared) by Mariane Finucane who did not press him to justify his assertions.
Such is the context for Water's spirited critique of our Nobel Laureate. There are just two things I very briefly want to zone in on. First, pp. 117-119, where Waters manages, with what I think is great aplomb, to deconstruct the notion that is religiously accepted and promulgated by many as a stock answer to some of life's deepest questions (ie. two in particular: where did we come from? what comes after death?) That notion is, of course, 'Nothing'. I might as well just quote a chunk:
"We throw the word 'nothing' around as though it were obvious what it means. But there is no such entity, knowable to the vast majority of humankind, as Nothing. A few mathematicians and philosophers may have some tenuous grasp on some abstract sense of what Nothing is, expressing it as zero or emptiness or vacuum, but for most of us it remains an abstraction. We cannot conceive of it. Nothing is beyond our grasp, like Infinity and Eternity and the Absolute....we know nothing about Nothing. And yet, although we readily throw cold water all over the idea that a human being might live forever; or that our humanity is an infinite phenomenon that, like matter or energy, cannot be destroyed...we speak of Nothing as though it were the most self-evident concept in existence, throwing the word around as if we had meditated upon the question at great depth and come up with words which by their very essence contradict the concept we are seeking to communicate. Nothingness, extinction: names for things that cannot be seen or known. How then can they be named?"
The bottom line, of course, is that such things cannot be named. There are conjectured, self-created concepts that correspond to a reality that cannot be known. Insisting that extinction and some vast Nothing follow death seemingly smacks of intellectual acuity of the highest order and a sober spiritual maturity. But it is, in fact, nothing but sheer fideism (believing in something despite the sheer lack of reasoned justification or evidence for its existence). It is a whim-based presupposition that can not be demonstrated by the appeal to argument or evidence. Waters presses this home:
"For a human being to think about nothing, not to mention to think about Nothing, would require the thought and the human thinking it to disappear, and for the space from which both the human being and the thought had emanated to be absorbed into an absolute nothingness containing neither space nor matter, a non-entity that could not possibly exist and could neither observe nor be observed. No, it would require more: it would require this not to have happened, for time to reverse itself and erase even the possibility of such a human ever existing, never mind having such a thought, and for time then to curl itself into a ball and evaporate itself into something that could not be air or space or anything at all, but would not be amenable to sense or description, even if those phenomena could exist without the intervention of humanity which of course, because humanity had never existed or had become 'extinct', they could not..."
...and this sentence you are reading could never happen (never mind whatever other evidence you might care to mention) or even be contemplated, which must mean, if it means anything, that Nothing does not exist.
Now, Seamus Heaney has written some great poems but unless he has somehow satisfied the criteria Waters outlines above (ie. unless he has metamorphosed into Absolutely Nothing - impossible anyway - then returned from this state of being (Nothing cannot be "a state of being") to state some irrevocable truth about the nature of Nothing and the fact that it will succeed the event we call 'death'), his assertion on extinction following death turns out to be mere uninformed opinion. More broadly too, this same opinion held by so many, is just that: uninformed opinion. An opinion that, when analysed properly, is actually a fallacy. The very notion of Nothing is a self-contradictory notion. It cannot be known nor demonstrated.
Poignantly, however, we stash away this talisman called Nothing into a bundle of established and incontrovertible truth and deploy it in the course of thinking processes for the whole of a life surrounded by Somethings but no Nothings. And we hand on such a bundle to children who must have necessarily emerged from this Nothing to do the same thing.
A belief in Nothing is despair dressed up as realism. Further, although it smacks of a sober, insightful resignation to "things-as-they-are", it is actually just lazy thinking.
Well, that's the first of two things I wanted to touch on here. But I've already gone on too long. No matter, I'll cover the rest in the next post,
Until then,
The Scribbling Apprentice
Such is the context for Water's spirited critique of our Nobel Laureate. There are just two things I very briefly want to zone in on. First, pp. 117-119, where Waters manages, with what I think is great aplomb, to deconstruct the notion that is religiously accepted and promulgated by many as a stock answer to some of life's deepest questions (ie. two in particular: where did we come from? what comes after death?) That notion is, of course, 'Nothing'. I might as well just quote a chunk:
"We throw the word 'nothing' around as though it were obvious what it means. But there is no such entity, knowable to the vast majority of humankind, as Nothing. A few mathematicians and philosophers may have some tenuous grasp on some abstract sense of what Nothing is, expressing it as zero or emptiness or vacuum, but for most of us it remains an abstraction. We cannot conceive of it. Nothing is beyond our grasp, like Infinity and Eternity and the Absolute....we know nothing about Nothing. And yet, although we readily throw cold water all over the idea that a human being might live forever; or that our humanity is an infinite phenomenon that, like matter or energy, cannot be destroyed...we speak of Nothing as though it were the most self-evident concept in existence, throwing the word around as if we had meditated upon the question at great depth and come up with words which by their very essence contradict the concept we are seeking to communicate. Nothingness, extinction: names for things that cannot be seen or known. How then can they be named?"
The bottom line, of course, is that such things cannot be named. There are conjectured, self-created concepts that correspond to a reality that cannot be known. Insisting that extinction and some vast Nothing follow death seemingly smacks of intellectual acuity of the highest order and a sober spiritual maturity. But it is, in fact, nothing but sheer fideism (believing in something despite the sheer lack of reasoned justification or evidence for its existence). It is a whim-based presupposition that can not be demonstrated by the appeal to argument or evidence. Waters presses this home:
"For a human being to think about nothing, not to mention to think about Nothing, would require the thought and the human thinking it to disappear, and for the space from which both the human being and the thought had emanated to be absorbed into an absolute nothingness containing neither space nor matter, a non-entity that could not possibly exist and could neither observe nor be observed. No, it would require more: it would require this not to have happened, for time to reverse itself and erase even the possibility of such a human ever existing, never mind having such a thought, and for time then to curl itself into a ball and evaporate itself into something that could not be air or space or anything at all, but would not be amenable to sense or description, even if those phenomena could exist without the intervention of humanity which of course, because humanity had never existed or had become 'extinct', they could not..."
...and this sentence you are reading could never happen (never mind whatever other evidence you might care to mention) or even be contemplated, which must mean, if it means anything, that Nothing does not exist.
Now, Seamus Heaney has written some great poems but unless he has somehow satisfied the criteria Waters outlines above (ie. unless he has metamorphosed into Absolutely Nothing - impossible anyway - then returned from this state of being (Nothing cannot be "a state of being") to state some irrevocable truth about the nature of Nothing and the fact that it will succeed the event we call 'death'), his assertion on extinction following death turns out to be mere uninformed opinion. More broadly too, this same opinion held by so many, is just that: uninformed opinion. An opinion that, when analysed properly, is actually a fallacy. The very notion of Nothing is a self-contradictory notion. It cannot be known nor demonstrated.
Poignantly, however, we stash away this talisman called Nothing into a bundle of established and incontrovertible truth and deploy it in the course of thinking processes for the whole of a life surrounded by Somethings but no Nothings. And we hand on such a bundle to children who must have necessarily emerged from this Nothing to do the same thing.
A belief in Nothing is despair dressed up as realism. Further, although it smacks of a sober, insightful resignation to "things-as-they-are", it is actually just lazy thinking.
Well, that's the first of two things I wanted to touch on here. But I've already gone on too long. No matter, I'll cover the rest in the next post,
Until then,
The Scribbling Apprentice
Momentous things are a-foot: a brief post outlining what is yet to come
Well, I know I did promise a follow-up post that would serve as a sequal to the one which succeeded Scot McKnight's visit to IBI and his talk on atonement theory. I promised I would cover the remainder of what Scot covered that night. However, upon subsequent reflection (as I began to think about the atonement event and its vast scope) I have decided to post up a series of reflections on different aspects of the death of Jesus Christ instead. So rather than one more post summarising a lecture now in the near-distant past, I thought I'd paste up a series of posts investigating about 12 different images of the atonement event, taken from Scripture. An ideal friend for such a task is Mark Driscoll's (http://www.theresurgence.org/) excellent book, Death By Love - which I will make extensive use of as I blog about the incredible and glorious event of the atonement.
The motive? First: to enter deeper into that profound mystery of love and divine self-sacrifice that the atonement event signifies. Second: many young Christians I have met through Immanuel and elsewhere struggle to understand why the death of Jesus is ongoingly significant for them. It appears, at times, as if the cross is seen as an event in the past with significance only for the beginning of the Christian life. Perhaps many struggle to see the significance of the atonement event for day-by-day living. Driscoll does a remarkably brilliant job of relating the purpose of the atonement event to the messy, despairing lives of those he addresses in the book. And that, to my mind, models precisely how theology ought to be done: the effective application of the events in Scripture then to the souls of people living now. After Driscoll's example, I think that passionate, stirring soul-work is vital when it comes to relating the atonement to daily life. People need to see how the cross still applies to day-by-day struggles; how the event of the atonement speaks into the bleak mess of doubt, addiction, abuse and chronic depression.
So, in (what I project will be approximately) 12 posts (over the course of a yet to be determined time frame) I will be exploring the atonement event, the death of Jesus of Nazareth by crucifixion in the year 33AD. The starting point in each case will be a text from Scripture.
In the meantime, cropping up between these posts will be a few more reflections on John Water's book, Beyond Consolation. I realise that material from the ApologetiXperiment on postmodernism was also promised. That will also appear over the coming days, in little pieces.
Yours,
The Scribbling Apprentice
The motive? First: to enter deeper into that profound mystery of love and divine self-sacrifice that the atonement event signifies. Second: many young Christians I have met through Immanuel and elsewhere struggle to understand why the death of Jesus is ongoingly significant for them. It appears, at times, as if the cross is seen as an event in the past with significance only for the beginning of the Christian life. Perhaps many struggle to see the significance of the atonement event for day-by-day living. Driscoll does a remarkably brilliant job of relating the purpose of the atonement event to the messy, despairing lives of those he addresses in the book. And that, to my mind, models precisely how theology ought to be done: the effective application of the events in Scripture then to the souls of people living now. After Driscoll's example, I think that passionate, stirring soul-work is vital when it comes to relating the atonement to daily life. People need to see how the cross still applies to day-by-day struggles; how the event of the atonement speaks into the bleak mess of doubt, addiction, abuse and chronic depression.
So, in (what I project will be approximately) 12 posts (over the course of a yet to be determined time frame) I will be exploring the atonement event, the death of Jesus of Nazareth by crucifixion in the year 33AD. The starting point in each case will be a text from Scripture.
In the meantime, cropping up between these posts will be a few more reflections on John Water's book, Beyond Consolation. I realise that material from the ApologetiXperiment on postmodernism was also promised. That will also appear over the coming days, in little pieces.
Yours,
The Scribbling Apprentice
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