Trauma Surgeon Dr. David Acuna describes the effect crucifixion would have had on the human body.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
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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