The precise of this blog is simple: with divine order comes divine authority; with earthly order comes earthly authority.
The definition of ‘order’ has more to do with an arrangement than a sequence, and this detail is pertinent to the previous post, which dealt with the difference between God’s intended order and our earthly interpretation thereof, which tends to be primarily chronological. I append to the previous post that our prophetical interpretations also sway in this direction, which is sometimes enlightening but can also be deceptive. Consider, for instance, the numerous ‘double-layer’ prophecies in the Old Testament, which can allude to both Christ’s first and second comings. Consider, for instance, the verse that instructs us that God does not differentiate between a day and millennium. Consider, for instance, the strange sequential jump that our conception of life after death must entail, especially if we adhere to theories of ‘ultimate resurrection of the dead’, whilst acknowledging that everybody dies at different points in time.
Expanding the etymology of ‘order’ is primarily religious. However, notice the elaborations of the term. ‘Order’ can denote a society, usually a select, sometime clandestine, group of individuals either with common interests, achievements or heritage. In this sense of the word, it is not very different from a ‘family’. Another extension of the word ‘order’ is in a command (think military). Moreover, ‘order’ can express calmness (think a court room). And finally, ‘order’ can allude to a specific sequence of events.
This elementary endeavour at etymological exploration, however rudimentary, is informative. There is clearly a common strand to all of these usages (a proper arrangement or sequence, a family, and a command). Think of earthly ‘authorities’ that are emerging or have emerged. The EU, for example, is an attempt to create a proper arrangement. It is a select group (entry is restricted), and ‘orders’ are given (there is a notional hierarchy of command). The Old Testament law was an ‘order’: it set out a ‘proper’ way of living, with explicit commands, and it established God at the apex of authority.
One of the interpretations of 'order' was the calmness of a courtroom: a setting conducive for justice. Notice how we can never be justifed by the Old Testament law, because we can never fulfill it. Notice how no earthly order (take the EU) will ever be completely at peace, because its conditions will never completely be fulfilled. Without a proper 'order' (arrangement), 'orders' (commands) are not obeyed, and so the 'order' (group/society) falls apart, and its authority diminishes. The environment is not one of 'order', but rather of war, and justice flies out of the window.
The New Covenant is a different type of order. We learn that ‘everything is permissible, but not everything is desirable’. When love enters the fray, interests should become mutual. Commands exist, but they supplement our desire to follow them. A hierarchy exists, but we are forgiven, and so are considered as equals. In this sense, an ‘order’ becomes a ‘family’, and we can truly be called sons and daughters of God. Divine authority allows for justification by grace through faith, rather than by adhering to the commandments. Love allows for fulfillment of orders, creating a divine order and a divine authority, establishing an environment of order and justice.
However, those commandments do not lose relevancy. The Bible tells us that there is no earthly authority that has not been established by God, and we are indeed instructed to abide by earthly laws. The reason is that with divine order comes divine authority; with earthly order comes earthly authority – and crucially, earthly authority is subservient to divine authority. For this reason, the Tower of Babel could never stand. For this reason, nonexistent money could not propel the financial system. For this reason, ‘the Law’ is still relevant to us as Christians, because when we fail to act in love, we must be checked to ensure that we do not fall out of the new order of love, by which we are justified. Rather than subside into obsolescence, the Law becomes fulfilled, and engrained on our hearts. An analogy can be made to ‘the Temple’: Christ stated that he would rebuild the temple – what he was meant was that a physical structure (along with physical acts of sacrifice) was no longer required to enter ‘the Kingdom’. The Temple would be inside of each of us.
Christ is King of Kings, and so his kingdom is above any earthly authority. It is imperative that we understand that this divine order is not waiting for us in Heaven; it is right here, on planet earth, inside each of us. We must live our lives in accordance with the directives and purposes mandated to us.
One salient point is that justice and love are intricately connected by the concept of an order. We are punished for not following commandments (orders), only out of love (divine order) for us, because being inside the society (order) is better for us than being outside of it, which is the consequence of unpaid sin (the result of an improper order). Conversely, we follow orders out of love and so enter into the peace that surpasses all human understanding.
After all, if God = Love, and Love = Life, then if you don’t love God, you haven’t lived.
Sunday 12 July 2009
Wednesday 8 July 2009
Divine Order: a season for all things
A question often heaved at Christians (often, by Christians) relates to the apparent contradiction between the coexistence of God's 'plan' and His 'will', especially if He is omniscient. In other words, if God knows what will happen, how can He have a plan that he wills us to follow, but which is still contingent on our obedience?
Again, I feel that the paradox is incorrectly presented. We have a very chronological perception of life. What we fail to take into consideration, however, is that (thanks to Christ), our life is not chronologically bound. Life on earth, to be sure, is finite - but a fundamental pillar of Christianity is that we are eternal beings.
If time is not an issue, then neither is this artificial timeline of causation. Christ's Kingdom is an eternal one. We come to Christ because he calls us, and yet each person has a choice. I propose that Christ's will is in actuality not a 'plan' as such, but rather an 'order'. It is not a system of causation, like a row of dominos, or even like Robert Frost reaching a fork in the road and picking one of two paths (see previous post). Rather, it is an entire existence; a holiness; a 'Divine Order'.
How would such an order appear? The Garden of Eden would bear close resemblence (essentially, Heaven). Everything is in balance. Male and female, God and man, Church and Christ, night and day, Heaven and Earth, water and land, mankind and animal, work and rest.
After sin, many remnants of this balance remain (if they did not, the Earth's proximity to the sun would mean that we would either smoulder or freeze), but many do not. It is not unreasonable to assert that natural disasters would not have occured in the Garden. Mental disorders, stress, hatred, violence, starvation - this are all symptomso of the abuse of the Holy Balance.
There is nothing new under the sun, according to Ecclesiastes. Our task is not to create the balance, but to discover it; to harmonise what exists, according to how God has ordained. How to discover this balance? I feel that other cultures often have a better grasp of this very spiritual way of living, even (or especially) non-Christian ones. When oriental cultures utilise 'unorthodox medicine', when Jews follow dietary laws and procedures of cleanliness, when the Spanish take a 'siesta' - these are all very spiritual attempts to tap into the spirituality of life that lies beneath everything we do, but which was veiled when sin came into the World.
Ironically, our attempts to alter this balance make us worse off and lead to the disorders mentioned above: depression, global warming, obesity/malnutrition, etc. Moreover, when people attempt to replace the balance, i.e. to create something out of nothing, God does not allow such alchemy to come to fruition. Furthermore, it is probably in God's mercy that such attempts are decimated before they are completed; for a temporary period of restoration to the Holy Order, however painful, is surely better than a permanent system of counterfeit order, which will inevitably be rife with dysfunction, mismanagement, and ultimately, death. The Tower of Babel was an attempt to supplant God's Divine Order with a man-made one, with devastating consequences, and other political ventures are comparable. Recent attempts to 'create life' in that weird Collider thing resulted in disaster. The creation of money that does not exist led to current financial crisis. For this reason, I am not afraid of the prospects of scientific research, such as stem cells. After all, there is nothing new under the sun.
All the strands of this argument are best summed up by Solomon: "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." There is a season for all things.
"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?"
Again, I feel that the paradox is incorrectly presented. We have a very chronological perception of life. What we fail to take into consideration, however, is that (thanks to Christ), our life is not chronologically bound. Life on earth, to be sure, is finite - but a fundamental pillar of Christianity is that we are eternal beings.
If time is not an issue, then neither is this artificial timeline of causation. Christ's Kingdom is an eternal one. We come to Christ because he calls us, and yet each person has a choice. I propose that Christ's will is in actuality not a 'plan' as such, but rather an 'order'. It is not a system of causation, like a row of dominos, or even like Robert Frost reaching a fork in the road and picking one of two paths (see previous post). Rather, it is an entire existence; a holiness; a 'Divine Order'.
How would such an order appear? The Garden of Eden would bear close resemblence (essentially, Heaven). Everything is in balance. Male and female, God and man, Church and Christ, night and day, Heaven and Earth, water and land, mankind and animal, work and rest.
After sin, many remnants of this balance remain (if they did not, the Earth's proximity to the sun would mean that we would either smoulder or freeze), but many do not. It is not unreasonable to assert that natural disasters would not have occured in the Garden. Mental disorders, stress, hatred, violence, starvation - this are all symptomso of the abuse of the Holy Balance.
There is nothing new under the sun, according to Ecclesiastes. Our task is not to create the balance, but to discover it; to harmonise what exists, according to how God has ordained. How to discover this balance? I feel that other cultures often have a better grasp of this very spiritual way of living, even (or especially) non-Christian ones. When oriental cultures utilise 'unorthodox medicine', when Jews follow dietary laws and procedures of cleanliness, when the Spanish take a 'siesta' - these are all very spiritual attempts to tap into the spirituality of life that lies beneath everything we do, but which was veiled when sin came into the World.
Ironically, our attempts to alter this balance make us worse off and lead to the disorders mentioned above: depression, global warming, obesity/malnutrition, etc. Moreover, when people attempt to replace the balance, i.e. to create something out of nothing, God does not allow such alchemy to come to fruition. Furthermore, it is probably in God's mercy that such attempts are decimated before they are completed; for a temporary period of restoration to the Holy Order, however painful, is surely better than a permanent system of counterfeit order, which will inevitably be rife with dysfunction, mismanagement, and ultimately, death. The Tower of Babel was an attempt to supplant God's Divine Order with a man-made one, with devastating consequences, and other political ventures are comparable. Recent attempts to 'create life' in that weird Collider thing resulted in disaster. The creation of money that does not exist led to current financial crisis. For this reason, I am not afraid of the prospects of scientific research, such as stem cells. After all, there is nothing new under the sun.
All the strands of this argument are best summed up by Solomon: "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." There is a season for all things.
"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?"
Monday 6 July 2009
The Road Not Taken
On one of my countless walks amongst the stunning nature of Cumbria, I was sitting by a river on a glorious summer’s day (imagine a regrettably ‘emo’ scene) in a very pensive mood. Perhaps ‘pensive’ is the wrong word. Rather, it was a state of stillness, of listening – ‘receptive’, so to speak. I was not attempting to formulate thoughts, but was rather facilitating the peaceful stillness necessary for knowledge to emerge. After all, there is nothing new under the sun. Knowledge is not invention; it is discovery of something already created.
This conception of knowledge is one that ties in nicely with the subject of this blog. Sitting by the river, a slight breeze was moving the trees. The river itself was flowing. I was struck by the ‘randomness’ of these movements. Then the wisdom ensued. Was it really random?
I had just finished reading ‘The Black Swan’ by Nicholas Taleb, a terribly mediocre ramble about our misconceptions of randomness (specifically, our attempts to ‘rationalise’ randomness and our consequent inability to forecast or adequately explain extreme outliers, the very events that really ‘make history’).
I began to realise that nothing is in fact random. The movement of the trees was caused by specific forces of gravity and wind, which emanated from the earth’s orbital rotation and collisions of hot and cold fronts. Likewise, the flow of the river was in fact dictated by the shape of the river bed, the momentum built up over time, the height of the source as compared to its estuary, etc. A virtual diagram superimposed on reality would reveal an indecipherable system of incalculable physical equations for any given moment of movement. The fact that we cannot account for all of these forces does not mean that they are random; only that they are complex (specifically, that they are too complex for our brains to synchronise).
Can this idea be applied to the problem of Free Will? There are many variants of this ‘problem’ (‘If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, how can we have choice?’ being the most pertinent). A commonly heard phrase when playing football is ‘unlucky’, usually declared upon a narrow miss of some sort. In fact, there is no ‘luck’ involved. Even if a sudden gust of wind carried your shot wide, the fact that the ball did not hit the back of the net is explained by very (unpredictable) rational forces.
Chaos Theory may have something to say on the matter. A butterfly may flap its wings on one side of the world, initiating a series of events that may eventually result in an earthquake thousands of miles away. It is unpredictable, but it is not random. We can trace the path of causation using our understanding of physical forces. They key point is that it is explicable, but not predictable. For this reason, history books are easier to (accurately) write than prophecy.
When somebody makes a decision, there are usually forces that influence that choice. I chose to wake up late this morning because I had no deadlines or appointments. But I could have just as easily woken up earlier, If I had so chosen. In economics, I find this logic ubiquitously: Player A chose Option A because the value of Option A exceeded that of Option B. Economics often runs into problems when Player A instead chooses Option B (‘the narrow path’?).
I assert the following. The fact that we can attribute decisions to rational motivations and influences does not negate our free will. Rather, it makes our free will all the more important. Would you rather have choice that is blind, i.e. based on no evidence or value, or one that allows you to weigh up expected benefits and costs, and proceed accordingly?
I am not saying that trees are hit by a gust of wind and then face a decision whether or not to sway in the breeze. I am saying that humans are faced with counteracting forces. Unfortunately for us, a decision of indecision will lead us to ‘default mode’. Likewise, a decision to go against all forces (acting on our own understanding) will also condemn us to the default mode, as there is no wind to carry us. We will be reduced the deterministic sequence of trees and rivers. Moreover, our default mode is one of sin. So inaction and ‘going our own way’ both result in the forfeit of our free will, and for this reason, the actions of most human beings is regrettably predictable.
The value of free will is that it allows us to betray our human nature and follow a different force. We can ‘go against the flow’, but to do so, we must still submit to another.
Either way, the paradox of free will is that we are too weak to act on our own strength. We can serve one of two masters. Either way, the choice is between to countervailing forces. When Robert Frost faced a fork in the road, he chose the ‘Road Less Travelled By’. He could not walk through trees – he had to follow one path or the other. Nevertheless, he had the choice.
This conception of knowledge is one that ties in nicely with the subject of this blog. Sitting by the river, a slight breeze was moving the trees. The river itself was flowing. I was struck by the ‘randomness’ of these movements. Then the wisdom ensued. Was it really random?
I had just finished reading ‘The Black Swan’ by Nicholas Taleb, a terribly mediocre ramble about our misconceptions of randomness (specifically, our attempts to ‘rationalise’ randomness and our consequent inability to forecast or adequately explain extreme outliers, the very events that really ‘make history’).
I began to realise that nothing is in fact random. The movement of the trees was caused by specific forces of gravity and wind, which emanated from the earth’s orbital rotation and collisions of hot and cold fronts. Likewise, the flow of the river was in fact dictated by the shape of the river bed, the momentum built up over time, the height of the source as compared to its estuary, etc. A virtual diagram superimposed on reality would reveal an indecipherable system of incalculable physical equations for any given moment of movement. The fact that we cannot account for all of these forces does not mean that they are random; only that they are complex (specifically, that they are too complex for our brains to synchronise).
Can this idea be applied to the problem of Free Will? There are many variants of this ‘problem’ (‘If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, how can we have choice?’ being the most pertinent). A commonly heard phrase when playing football is ‘unlucky’, usually declared upon a narrow miss of some sort. In fact, there is no ‘luck’ involved. Even if a sudden gust of wind carried your shot wide, the fact that the ball did not hit the back of the net is explained by very (unpredictable) rational forces.
Chaos Theory may have something to say on the matter. A butterfly may flap its wings on one side of the world, initiating a series of events that may eventually result in an earthquake thousands of miles away. It is unpredictable, but it is not random. We can trace the path of causation using our understanding of physical forces. They key point is that it is explicable, but not predictable. For this reason, history books are easier to (accurately) write than prophecy.
When somebody makes a decision, there are usually forces that influence that choice. I chose to wake up late this morning because I had no deadlines or appointments. But I could have just as easily woken up earlier, If I had so chosen. In economics, I find this logic ubiquitously: Player A chose Option A because the value of Option A exceeded that of Option B. Economics often runs into problems when Player A instead chooses Option B (‘the narrow path’?).
I assert the following. The fact that we can attribute decisions to rational motivations and influences does not negate our free will. Rather, it makes our free will all the more important. Would you rather have choice that is blind, i.e. based on no evidence or value, or one that allows you to weigh up expected benefits and costs, and proceed accordingly?
I am not saying that trees are hit by a gust of wind and then face a decision whether or not to sway in the breeze. I am saying that humans are faced with counteracting forces. Unfortunately for us, a decision of indecision will lead us to ‘default mode’. Likewise, a decision to go against all forces (acting on our own understanding) will also condemn us to the default mode, as there is no wind to carry us. We will be reduced the deterministic sequence of trees and rivers. Moreover, our default mode is one of sin. So inaction and ‘going our own way’ both result in the forfeit of our free will, and for this reason, the actions of most human beings is regrettably predictable.
The value of free will is that it allows us to betray our human nature and follow a different force. We can ‘go against the flow’, but to do so, we must still submit to another.
Either way, the paradox of free will is that we are too weak to act on our own strength. We can serve one of two masters. Either way, the choice is between to countervailing forces. When Robert Frost faced a fork in the road, he chose the ‘Road Less Travelled By’. He could not walk through trees – he had to follow one path or the other. Nevertheless, he had the choice.
Problem of Evil or Mystery of Love?
I have learnt, in my many hours spent engrossed in episodes of Aaron Sorkin's 'The West Wing', that the best way to respond to an inconvenient question is to repudiate the premise.
According to 'the World', the problem of evil is thus structured:
'If God is all-powerful, and all-loving, why does evil persist?'
Notice that this is not a statement: it is a question (albeit a semi-rhetorical one). It establishes three premises: 1) God is all-powerful, 2) God is all-loving, and 3) Evil exists in the world. The causation is semantically implied. A full logical argument would thus proceed:
If an all-powerful and all-loving God existed, He would not allow evil to exist.
Evil exists.
Therefore, an all-powerful and all-loving God cannot exist.
The inference is either that a) no God exists or b) a god exists that is either not all-powerful or not all-loving, or both (and assumedly this would nullify notions of monotheism).
Let us return to the original premises.
1) God is all-powerful, 2) God is all-loving, and 3) Evil exists in the world.
I accept these premises. However, I add another premise, which I believe to be indisputable.
4) The evil that exists in the world is man-made / Human beings are evil.
Now let us rephrase the Problem of Evil.
If human beings are evil, and God is all-loving, why does He love us?
Elaborating, I append a further premise: 5) God is all-righteous.
We are left with a more refined Problem of Evil, which really, is a Mystery of Love:
If human beings are evil, and God is all-righteous, all-powerful, and all-loving, why does God love us rather than simply destroy us?
The logic of the mystery is completed when we attatch a final premise: 6) God is love.
According to 'the World', the problem of evil is thus structured:
'If God is all-powerful, and all-loving, why does evil persist?'
Notice that this is not a statement: it is a question (albeit a semi-rhetorical one). It establishes three premises: 1) God is all-powerful, 2) God is all-loving, and 3) Evil exists in the world. The causation is semantically implied. A full logical argument would thus proceed:
If an all-powerful and all-loving God existed, He would not allow evil to exist.
Evil exists.
Therefore, an all-powerful and all-loving God cannot exist.
The inference is either that a) no God exists or b) a god exists that is either not all-powerful or not all-loving, or both (and assumedly this would nullify notions of monotheism).
Let us return to the original premises.
1) God is all-powerful, 2) God is all-loving, and 3) Evil exists in the world.
I accept these premises. However, I add another premise, which I believe to be indisputable.
4) The evil that exists in the world is man-made / Human beings are evil.
Now let us rephrase the Problem of Evil.
If human beings are evil, and God is all-loving, why does He love us?
Elaborating, I append a further premise: 5) God is all-righteous.
We are left with a more refined Problem of Evil, which really, is a Mystery of Love:
If human beings are evil, and God is all-righteous, all-powerful, and all-loving, why does God love us rather than simply destroy us?
The logic of the mystery is completed when we attatch a final premise: 6) God is love.
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