I really apologize! I had no idea you thought all this time I was just talking about "random, unspecified God" - I guess I took it for granted that we're talking about God. Just, you know, that same God that people throughout the ages, starting at a pretty barbaric level and working themselves up to huffing heights of inventiveness, have ascribed all kinds of attributes to. Most of those attributes seem ludicrously specific to me! Just some excuse to tell someone what to do: "God says don't eat hot dogs." BLASPHEMER!! God didn't say that! You did. I saw. Your lips were moving.
Kidding on the blasphemy. These little dietary rules and behavioral observances, restrictions and dedications, they're perfectly harmless and trivial in my view. Mosaic Law was a way to live one's life as a form of prayer. Beautiful, but I'm very glad I'm not bound to it! There's only one truly considerable blasphemy, in my view. It is three words: "God says kill." We must combat it, but we shouldn't be surprised when we see it. In every age, people of bad will will use every good, bad, or indifferent thing they can to shore up their power and justify their abuses as virtues. Church-based power structures have been one of the biggest targets for that in the past, and it's usually pretty easy to see what's going on. Human greed, grubby and bloody and nasty, uses any and every means to try to cast itself in a good light. Many times the power-mad will claim God's will, to justify their hate, or their greed or lust for worldly dominion. It is so easy to convince people that God shares their hate for the unbeliever, or the wrong-believer: the Samaritan.
But I don't know, somehow it always seems pretty clear to see this when it happens. When people misuse God's name to justify hate and wrath and judgment of their own, it's pretty easy for me - a Christian - to set their gospel against that of Christ.
I believe in one God, omnipotent, creator of all that is, knows all that there is to know, sees all that there is to see, created us for some reason (and who cares what that reason was? I trust God it's a good one), created the universe as a convenient location in which selves could be naturally generated, grow and learn, and self-determine who and what they were going to be. All in a natural and realistic setting! Maybe God thought the universe was cool. Wanted to show it off? Maybe God wanted to see what gifts we would make of ourselves, to each other and to God. But again, though: who cares? And: who can say? Who can say what God's reasons are? Because I believe God exists, I don't strain to dictate God's reasons to you. Not my job. God's got God's reasons covered.
Just so, with God's specific aspects and attributes. Ultimately if I'm wrong on any particular trait, I trust God to set me straight. Because, you see, I think God exists. So all the specifics of God's setup, I leave to God. It's no big deal to me. Personally I picture God almighty as an infinite being of spirit. But if God has a beard, or (God forbid) a penis, I don't care - if that's the way God wants to swing, swing away God!
None of this is anything unusual, theology-wise. No breakthroughs here. This is plain vanilla God, my conception is harmonious with that of thousands of years of theologians. I'm not very inventive when it comes to God. I even believe in Jesus: a unique instance of infinite, all-pervasive all-transcendent ever-present God choosing also a self-limitation, incarnation at the same time as a fully human homo sapien. I do believe in that. "What good did it do us?" is a reasonable question. I've got some personal feelings on that score, strong ones, but not really germane to the basic question about God's attributes.
Again: I expect God will set me straight on each unimportant detail I could have gotten wrong. If there is a God, those details don't particularly matter squat to me.
You see how careful I am always, to use phrases like "if there is a God." I haven't the slightest doubt there is a God. Not honestly, not in my heart. Oh, I can see quite clearly that it is possible God might not exist. I see quite plainly that the universe does not require God's existence in any way. But it's one thing to concede the possibility of something, and another thing to actually go in for it.
Why, I've known atheists aplenty who can concede that God's existence is possible. So's God's nonexistence. The mere possibility of a thing is no reason to say you believe what you honestly don't believe.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
The Name Of This Blog Kind Of Sucks.
I mean, it's not even funny or anything. Not that funny would be the goal, but surely it should add something. What you name a work should have something to say about it. If not, then that lack has something to say about you. Like a movie, you see the trailer, it looks okay, then the title hits you, and...it's some flat, uninteresting title. What does it say about the combined creativity of every individual pulling together on that movie when they couldn't even come up with a gripping name?
At least I am only one person. But the name of this blog is still flat. It adds no savor to the dish. Do I regret it? Yeah...I guess. I kind of do. It's hard to regret it for sure when I don't have a better name, to wish I'd used instead.
I suppose "exposing God" is ok. Flat is ok. I remember intending it as: not clever, as zero flash and frills exposition.
Still it disappoints me that I couldn't have come up with a no frills name that was in some subtle way, vainglorious. I feel that in some way I'm not being true to myself, here.
At least I am only one person. But the name of this blog is still flat. It adds no savor to the dish. Do I regret it? Yeah...I guess. I kind of do. It's hard to regret it for sure when I don't have a better name, to wish I'd used instead.
I suppose "exposing God" is ok. Flat is ok. I remember intending it as: not clever, as zero flash and frills exposition.
Still it disappoints me that I couldn't have come up with a no frills name that was in some subtle way, vainglorious. I feel that in some way I'm not being true to myself, here.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Judgment's Redemption
I think if I could try to tie the whole thing in one woven rope, it'd run something like -
original sin i.e. "the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil": own judgment is equal to/preferable to God's. One's life is one's own, and not God's (free will, free gift). Our state here is not one of guilt, but separation - and in separation, wretchedness. Regardless of "knowledge" of good and evil, our judgment of good and evil yields far from satisfactory outcomes. It is not equal to God's judgment.
Christ is God's judgment pronounced upon us - and upon human judgment. Christ submits meekly to human judgment, and accepts its sentence of death. Then, he lays the penalty aside, refutes human judgement as bollocks, and substitutes God's judgment of us in its place. We can of course reject it, but God's judgment of us is that God judges us worth being saved. God refutes death and refutes human judgment, in the person, sacrifice and example of Christ.
If we trace original sin to Adam, we see how a "perfect man" (at least, a perfectly innocent man) chooses to prefer human judgment to God's, and to sunder his life from God. Christ answers this: a perfect man who is also in fact God, refutes this choice of human judgment as preferable to God's. Through, with, and in him, we find again perfect unity with God. To declare this is the reversal of original sin: to be born again, a gift given back - and our life is now God's, to save and to keep.
Something like that, anyway. All pretty orthodox.
Those who prefer their judgment upon humanity explicitly reject God's judgment upon humanity (Christ).
original sin i.e. "the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil": own judgment is equal to/preferable to God's. One's life is one's own, and not God's (free will, free gift). Our state here is not one of guilt, but separation - and in separation, wretchedness. Regardless of "knowledge" of good and evil, our judgment of good and evil yields far from satisfactory outcomes. It is not equal to God's judgment.
Christ is God's judgment pronounced upon us - and upon human judgment. Christ submits meekly to human judgment, and accepts its sentence of death. Then, he lays the penalty aside, refutes human judgement as bollocks, and substitutes God's judgment of us in its place. We can of course reject it, but God's judgment of us is that God judges us worth being saved. God refutes death and refutes human judgment, in the person, sacrifice and example of Christ.
If we trace original sin to Adam, we see how a "perfect man" (at least, a perfectly innocent man) chooses to prefer human judgment to God's, and to sunder his life from God. Christ answers this: a perfect man who is also in fact God, refutes this choice of human judgment as preferable to God's. Through, with, and in him, we find again perfect unity with God. To declare this is the reversal of original sin: to be born again, a gift given back - and our life is now God's, to save and to keep.
Something like that, anyway. All pretty orthodox.
Those who prefer their judgment upon humanity explicitly reject God's judgment upon humanity (Christ).
Monday, January 7, 2013
Against Persistent Moral Certainty 4: Faint Damns; or: Love, and Where To Put It.
So we can tell whether someone has set himself or herself up as superior to Christ in judgment, by seeing how they teach and call you to treat those you (or they) revile and loathe most – whoever those may be. Ask yourself: do they teach and call us as Christ teaches and calls us, or is their call rather in the other direction?
Christ calls and teaches us very particularly how to treat our enemies, how to treat those who believe other than we do, how to treat those whose actions or afflictions have made them loathsome in our eyes, have placed them beyond our pale, beyond what we feel it should be reasonable for us to respect, in a human life. Christ taught us to love and forgive these wretches. Even, to love and forgive our own self - the main wretch in the passion play. The false shepherd, however, casts all these loathsome and reviled enemies into hell, inviting you to enjoy the same rousing task. If you should fail to join in, in the general damnation, you'll be bullied from the pulpit for a start – possibly damned for your hesitation, but definitely damned if you refuse!
Don't worry: these are false damns, and can reflect only upon the damners. When you know who the judge is, take all such faint damns as praise, for your faithful refusal to kow tow to all false judges. These pretenders will call you, with lip-smacking relish, to respectably shun and haughtily damn others, the better to savor your own privileged place. The better to fill yourself up with pride, as one who wields and revels in the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, making all the loud pronouncements and hollow judgments that follow on from vain glorying in such knowledge.
It's easy to know Christ when you hear Christ's call. Are you called to condemnation, to hatred? Does Christ push Christ's judgment off onto others - onto you? Can anyone but Christ be competent to utterly condemn another? Can you be? Do you, would you want to be?
It falls to Christians to heed Christ's call, and to go against bad news perversions of the gospel. Let us go meekly - questioningly, with calm insistence. Let us substitute a quiet strength of moral confidence for the loud bluster of moral certainty. Who does Christ save? Do I know? Is this for me to know? Or is it for God to know. Is this for Christ to judge, or is it for me to dictate who shall be saved, and who shall be found wanting?
Certainly Christ came to save us all. Yet God wants no one against their own will. When Jesus said "no one can come to the Father except through me," this is only to say: In me, God and human are one.
To accept Christ is to accept that essential mystery. That through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the holy spirit, all humans – are one. One with God, one in Christ, through the power of the holy spirit can I get an amen? In fact, can I get an hallelujah! We are one in God - yet each of us unique, in as many separate beings as we down here on earth bubble over with, in procreation, in creation - in the natural way of all living things. Only if you love and accept what is human, is it possible to love and accept Christ. But to accept and love humanity is also to love God, for in Christ, God's unity with humanity is consummated and made perfect. Loving Christ, one loves God in the person of each human being, even to the point of loving God in the person of those who exemplify whatever is to us, least loved and most loathed.
Find Christ in that least and most-loathed person. Love that person, and you have loved Christ. Hate and murder and betray that person, and you have hated, have murdered, have betrayed Christ. Which, according to many of our proud old hymns, we all have done.
But let's let go of judgment, if we can – even of our own. Let's accept Christ's competence to judge us. Let's let justice be God's, and judgment be God's, as we are commanded to do. Let us forgive and have mercy upon ourselves and each other, as we are called to do. For what is necessary for us to do for God?
God lacks for nothing, yet God loves and wants you. God wished only to gather you in, to a plenitude! Yet God respects what only you can give:
Your self.
God wants you to make something of yourself, or put better: God wants you to make some one of your self. Not some thing to be proud of, just - someone, to love. Someone you love. Someone you could wish to consider a gift, a gift to give back – and only if you wish. Could God create all aspects of you without your will and participation, and love you in that creation, in that automaton? No, this would be pure God-on-God love. Transcendent perhaps - but nothing human. Only in your own voice, in your own will, in your own choosing could God find in you - you, to love. Which is all God wants. Which is why God creates the world.
Only if you would want to be with God, forever, would God want to gather you in. Only if you'd want to be with your self, forever, would God want to save you: permanent, to eternity, in that selfsame self you have made, that you in whom both you and God found love.
But make no mistake! You are not saved by your choice. Before you could choose, you have already been saved by God's choice: to love you, God's choice: to want you, God's choice: to declare you worthy of being loved and being kept forever. God's choice was to save you, in one act of salvation two thousand years ago and for all time. God's choice for you is embodied in Jesus Christ. Now you rest safe, gathered in the hollow of God's palm, by God's choice.
Of course you are allowed to jump out. This is not said lightly, but God would have to be a great big jerk, if God would "save" you to a permanent sentence of eternity, to be spent with a God you hate. Or to be spent as a self who you truly loathe. Read that again, and think about what it would be, first, to hate your self, truly hate your self: your self who you have chosen and made, your self who you are, at your core. And second, to be stuck with it. Forever. Stuck in the presence of a God you can't stand, stuck in the person of a self you can't stand. In eternal company with those we loathe, can any pleasure reconcile us to paradise?
God could only want the self you freely create and freely give to God. Every day you create a self who could never otherwise have come into being. The being you are is a unique person, your own personal act of self-creation, and precious in God's eyes. Your self is all God wants of you - but only if you want it, too. The creation only you can make is the gift only you can give.
Only you can decide, ultimately, if you love you - and if you are worth love, forever. Only you can decide if you love God, if you can forgive God for creating you, if God is worth spending eternity with. Or if you will make a radical choice against God, or self, or in the final analysis: against love. God would honor your radical choice against God, if you made it full knowing. If that were what you chose.
Remember, though, where you already stand. God already does love you. So much, so much God does love you! God gave everything there is for your wonder and contemplation; God made the world real for you - not some padded playpen, not some sandbox, God gave you the universe to grow up in. To create yourself in, with tools and with something at stake! And because God gave us life with so much at stake, God gives us the possibility of taking a meaningful role. It matters what we choose. It matters to what we put our hands. Though we are not saved by our works, yet there is important work to do - if we should look around at ourselves and others. If we should see and say to ourselves that good work is worth doing.
And if you do, remember also this: it may be harder for you not to love Jesus than you think. Because "Whatsoever you do, to the least of homo sapiens..."
An act of love is always to love God.
Christ calls and teaches us very particularly how to treat our enemies, how to treat those who believe other than we do, how to treat those whose actions or afflictions have made them loathsome in our eyes, have placed them beyond our pale, beyond what we feel it should be reasonable for us to respect, in a human life. Christ taught us to love and forgive these wretches. Even, to love and forgive our own self - the main wretch in the passion play. The false shepherd, however, casts all these loathsome and reviled enemies into hell, inviting you to enjoy the same rousing task. If you should fail to join in, in the general damnation, you'll be bullied from the pulpit for a start – possibly damned for your hesitation, but definitely damned if you refuse!
Don't worry: these are false damns, and can reflect only upon the damners. When you know who the judge is, take all such faint damns as praise, for your faithful refusal to kow tow to all false judges. These pretenders will call you, with lip-smacking relish, to respectably shun and haughtily damn others, the better to savor your own privileged place. The better to fill yourself up with pride, as one who wields and revels in the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, making all the loud pronouncements and hollow judgments that follow on from vain glorying in such knowledge.
It's easy to know Christ when you hear Christ's call. Are you called to condemnation, to hatred? Does Christ push Christ's judgment off onto others - onto you? Can anyone but Christ be competent to utterly condemn another? Can you be? Do you, would you want to be?
It falls to Christians to heed Christ's call, and to go against bad news perversions of the gospel. Let us go meekly - questioningly, with calm insistence. Let us substitute a quiet strength of moral confidence for the loud bluster of moral certainty. Who does Christ save? Do I know? Is this for me to know? Or is it for God to know. Is this for Christ to judge, or is it for me to dictate who shall be saved, and who shall be found wanting?
Certainly Christ came to save us all. Yet God wants no one against their own will. When Jesus said "no one can come to the Father except through me," this is only to say: In me, God and human are one.
To accept Christ is to accept that essential mystery. That through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the holy spirit, all humans – are one. One with God, one in Christ, through the power of the holy spirit can I get an amen? In fact, can I get an hallelujah! We are one in God - yet each of us unique, in as many separate beings as we down here on earth bubble over with, in procreation, in creation - in the natural way of all living things. Only if you love and accept what is human, is it possible to love and accept Christ. But to accept and love humanity is also to love God, for in Christ, God's unity with humanity is consummated and made perfect. Loving Christ, one loves God in the person of each human being, even to the point of loving God in the person of those who exemplify whatever is to us, least loved and most loathed.
Find Christ in that least and most-loathed person. Love that person, and you have loved Christ. Hate and murder and betray that person, and you have hated, have murdered, have betrayed Christ. Which, according to many of our proud old hymns, we all have done.
But let's let go of judgment, if we can – even of our own. Let's accept Christ's competence to judge us. Let's let justice be God's, and judgment be God's, as we are commanded to do. Let us forgive and have mercy upon ourselves and each other, as we are called to do. For what is necessary for us to do for God?
God lacks for nothing, yet God loves and wants you. God wished only to gather you in, to a plenitude! Yet God respects what only you can give:
Your self.
God wants you to make something of yourself, or put better: God wants you to make some one of your self. Not some thing to be proud of, just - someone, to love. Someone you love. Someone you could wish to consider a gift, a gift to give back – and only if you wish. Could God create all aspects of you without your will and participation, and love you in that creation, in that automaton? No, this would be pure God-on-God love. Transcendent perhaps - but nothing human. Only in your own voice, in your own will, in your own choosing could God find in you - you, to love. Which is all God wants. Which is why God creates the world.
Only if you would want to be with God, forever, would God want to gather you in. Only if you'd want to be with your self, forever, would God want to save you: permanent, to eternity, in that selfsame self you have made, that you in whom both you and God found love.
But make no mistake! You are not saved by your choice. Before you could choose, you have already been saved by God's choice: to love you, God's choice: to want you, God's choice: to declare you worthy of being loved and being kept forever. God's choice was to save you, in one act of salvation two thousand years ago and for all time. God's choice for you is embodied in Jesus Christ. Now you rest safe, gathered in the hollow of God's palm, by God's choice.
Of course you are allowed to jump out. This is not said lightly, but God would have to be a great big jerk, if God would "save" you to a permanent sentence of eternity, to be spent with a God you hate. Or to be spent as a self who you truly loathe. Read that again, and think about what it would be, first, to hate your self, truly hate your self: your self who you have chosen and made, your self who you are, at your core. And second, to be stuck with it. Forever. Stuck in the presence of a God you can't stand, stuck in the person of a self you can't stand. In eternal company with those we loathe, can any pleasure reconcile us to paradise?
God could only want the self you freely create and freely give to God. Every day you create a self who could never otherwise have come into being. The being you are is a unique person, your own personal act of self-creation, and precious in God's eyes. Your self is all God wants of you - but only if you want it, too. The creation only you can make is the gift only you can give.
Only you can decide, ultimately, if you love you - and if you are worth love, forever. Only you can decide if you love God, if you can forgive God for creating you, if God is worth spending eternity with. Or if you will make a radical choice against God, or self, or in the final analysis: against love. God would honor your radical choice against God, if you made it full knowing. If that were what you chose.
Remember, though, where you already stand. God already does love you. So much, so much God does love you! God gave everything there is for your wonder and contemplation; God made the world real for you - not some padded playpen, not some sandbox, God gave you the universe to grow up in. To create yourself in, with tools and with something at stake! And because God gave us life with so much at stake, God gives us the possibility of taking a meaningful role. It matters what we choose. It matters to what we put our hands. Though we are not saved by our works, yet there is important work to do - if we should look around at ourselves and others. If we should see and say to ourselves that good work is worth doing.
And if you do, remember also this: it may be harder for you not to love Jesus than you think. Because "Whatsoever you do, to the least of homo sapiens..."
An act of love is always to love God.
Against Persistent Moral Certainty 3: Good & Evil, Fruits & Nuts.
To take on Christ's task of judgment, upon humanity - this is a dumb move. You'd have to be crazy to do this.
Why take upon one's self the judgment of Christ? When Christ has been at pains to tell us "No, don't, really – I have the job covered," - when it really is so wonderfully joyous to let that task go; to trust in God's mercy and justice, and to accept that God alone shall be responsible for meting out whatever vengeance and judgment God's justice may require?
Christ calls you to let go whatever it is in you that causes you to loathe, to hate, to revile, and instead love all. Of all the good news ever whispered in the world, what could ever be more sweet? Imagine: to be utterly absolved of our species' seemingly absolute need to practice upon each other – the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
Basically, to set one's self in God's place as judge of humanity, and of good and evil, is the original sin. Christ came not to pump our stomachs, removing the apple and the knowledge. It was never the knowledge of good and evil that was the problem. Rather, it was the consequent shame and loss of self-acceptance - of acceptance of our selves, and our innocent nature - it was the resulting self-hatred, and then - the hatred turning outward: murder and crime, jealousy and loathing of others, all resulting from our imperfect grasp of that knowledge, from our imperfect application of that knowledge as judgment. Upon ourselves. Upon each other. Our judgment, in place of God's.
Christ did not come to take back the apple. Christ came to take the bite out of it. To take back the judgment that humanity had taken upon itself.
Yet some won't let that judgment go. They stubbornly refuse. They claim knowledge of good and evil, superior to God's knowledge, judgment superior to God's judgment - for in place of Christ, who came of God to reclaim from us judgment's burden, these odd birds will flap and squawk about, posturing and making as if to be themselves the judge of humankind. Or as if to speak for Christ, in judgment of others.
Luckily, this is really easy to avoid doing accidentally, once you get the knack of seeing it for what it is. Doubly luckily, it's also really easy to see for what it is - to notice when people are doing it, and even to gently call them on it! Which you should, if you get the chance. We are called after all to spread the good news, especially to those who suffer in vain under a burden Christ himself has lifted.
As you are confronted by those who claim a persistent moral certainty, you can see for yourself, and ask yourself.
Ask yourself: do they set themselves up above Christ, claiming competence in the judgment of another human being? If so, they can't be in the right. Such a competence is Christ's alone.
Why? Because Christ is the only being ever in eternity to be both fully human, and fully divine. This a job requirement. Don't accept any less, when the position being sought or claimed is judge of humankind.
Why take upon one's self the judgment of Christ? When Christ has been at pains to tell us "No, don't, really – I have the job covered," - when it really is so wonderfully joyous to let that task go; to trust in God's mercy and justice, and to accept that God alone shall be responsible for meting out whatever vengeance and judgment God's justice may require?
Christ calls you to let go whatever it is in you that causes you to loathe, to hate, to revile, and instead love all. Of all the good news ever whispered in the world, what could ever be more sweet? Imagine: to be utterly absolved of our species' seemingly absolute need to practice upon each other – the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
Basically, to set one's self in God's place as judge of humanity, and of good and evil, is the original sin. Christ came not to pump our stomachs, removing the apple and the knowledge. It was never the knowledge of good and evil that was the problem. Rather, it was the consequent shame and loss of self-acceptance - of acceptance of our selves, and our innocent nature - it was the resulting self-hatred, and then - the hatred turning outward: murder and crime, jealousy and loathing of others, all resulting from our imperfect grasp of that knowledge, from our imperfect application of that knowledge as judgment. Upon ourselves. Upon each other. Our judgment, in place of God's.
Christ did not come to take back the apple. Christ came to take the bite out of it. To take back the judgment that humanity had taken upon itself.
Yet some won't let that judgment go. They stubbornly refuse. They claim knowledge of good and evil, superior to God's knowledge, judgment superior to God's judgment - for in place of Christ, who came of God to reclaim from us judgment's burden, these odd birds will flap and squawk about, posturing and making as if to be themselves the judge of humankind. Or as if to speak for Christ, in judgment of others.
Luckily, this is really easy to avoid doing accidentally, once you get the knack of seeing it for what it is. Doubly luckily, it's also really easy to see for what it is - to notice when people are doing it, and even to gently call them on it! Which you should, if you get the chance. We are called after all to spread the good news, especially to those who suffer in vain under a burden Christ himself has lifted.
As you are confronted by those who claim a persistent moral certainty, you can see for yourself, and ask yourself.
Ask yourself: do they set themselves up above Christ, claiming competence in the judgment of another human being? If so, they can't be in the right. Such a competence is Christ's alone.
Why? Because Christ is the only being ever in eternity to be both fully human, and fully divine. This a job requirement. Don't accept any less, when the position being sought or claimed is judge of humankind.
Against Persistent Moral Certainty 2: Certain Judgment.
Is it Christ's job or mine, to judge humanity? Is it Christ's job or mine, to say who Christ has saved? Do I accept Christ's redeeming gift of salvation, rendered two thousand years ago once and for all humanity? Or do I presume to usurp Christ's work of judgment - a task for which I am not competent? Do I take judgment onto myself? Does Christ call me to take judgment onto myself?
In the previous post, I spoke of "a confident embrace of Christ's call to each of us." By "to each of us," - to each human being, is what I mean. Or else, how shall I judge which human being is excluded? Faith, creed, color? Persuasion, perhaps?
It is said, "as you judge others, so shall you be judged," but this is really only to say: whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, so you do unto me. Anyone reviled, any heretic, any materialist or infidel, any sinner - who are these but the lepers, the Samaritans, the tax-collectors, the whores? Hated and loathed! Condemned by the righteous, condemned by their acts or by their very nature! But how did Christ treat these? Did Christ not bring to the afflicted, hope of healing? Did Christ not teach us to see - in the heretic, in the false believer, in the worshipper at another altar, in the Samaritan - our true neighbor, one of our brethren in the body of Christ? Did not Christ tell even the materialist, the tax collector that in God, there was hope - hope, even for those for whom salvation would seem hardest, would seem even impossible? Yet in God, all things are possible.
Even the criminal, condemned and standing under penalty of the law of the land, Christ spared. Every one in that crowd of proud pharisees knew better than to claim sinlessness, and stoop for a stone - not with Christ standing by. And note well: first Christ said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Then Christ, without sin - cast no stone.
Christ consoles us with the fact and finality of his judgment. Christ consoles us with the certainty of his judgment – with its soundness, and its sufficiency. Shall I proudly declare myself without sin, pick up the stone while Christ stands by? Do I declare myself the superior judge?
Would you take Christ's judgment onto yourself?
Christ gave us the great good news that judgment and vengeance are not ours. What a glorious blessing! What a gift and a blessing, to be able to render direct service to the body of Christ! To worship God by letting all hatred and judgment slide, and to serve with love all of humankind! Whatsoever you do, howsoever you treat the lowest and least person - any person out of all of the classes of the shunned and the loathsome and the reviled, even those reviled by you - as you treat that person, so do you treat Christ. Just so: as you put yourself above and judge another, so do you put yourself above and judge Christ.
When I judge another, I judge Christ's judgment insufficient. I declare myself, and my judgment, necessary. I declare myself not only without sin (and therefore, fit to cast the stone), but also I judge myself superior in judgment to him who died to remove my sin! He stands by, entirely without sin, and watches as I choose to stoop and rummage for something suitably smooth and hard, to hurl in judgment against my chosen target. The target I hate! But I will blame Christ for my hate, even as I cast the stone – I cast it at Christ. For I cast it at one for whose guilt Christ has already spoken. I cast it at one whose sins Christ has already accepted, and taken on, in judgment.
Christ's judgment is certain, and entirely sufficient. Should I not accept Christ's judgment of humanity? To accept Christ's judgment is to gratefully fall back into Christ's already-given gift of salvation! If instead I attempt take on Christ's judgment, I do a bad job. Rearing up, I refuse to accept Christ as judge of humanity. Braying, I render irrelevant judgment, in a case where I am completely incompetent to judge – a case Christ already has taken on.
This is a dumb move.
Advice to Christians. Persistent Moral Certainty: How to Proceed Against It, with Confidence
Persistent moral certainty: few things in life are more vile.
There is nothing wrong with moral certainty, certainly! Mere certainty is normally merely: a convincedness. A person with certainty has become convinced that such-and-such is true. Whatever begat it, this certainty becomes a feeling which itself compels belief. Yet such certainty, such convincedness carries within it, or ought to carry within it, the ability to become unconvinced. Not easily, maybe! Not willy-nilly. An open mind does not entail dropping one's hard-got convincedness, one's earned confidence, one's certainty, at every slight challenge, at any perplexing or vexing question. But still, one's certainty ought to carry with it an ability to hold one's certainty open to question - to one's own question. One's certainty ought to carry within it the ability to see one's certainty undermined - by one's own reason, given first-hand sufficient evidence to the contrary.
Example 1: if God's Son and a flight of angels descended in ranks and settled about you on a wide-woken Wednesday morning, in front of all of your friends and family, and declared: "Dipshits! You are all evolved from apes. That's just how God chose to do it; to make you feel a bit more at home in this burg, whilst you shape your self and soul amidst similarly DNA'd and habituated creatures." This would, to some, present compelling first-hand evidence. Would it be sufficient evidence? Possibly not. Skeptics witnessing such a visitation might posit some sham show, aided by cutting-edge high-tech stagecraft; or a mass-hypnosis or mass-hallucination event; or they might question the reliability of the testimony of these messengers, perhaps suggesting for them a diabolical rather than a heavenly origin. For sheer creativity of skepticism, it's hard to beat someone in the grip of a persistent moral certainty.
The question of whether a given evidence is "sufficient," or merely "compelling," or "interesting," can only be decided by the one in whom a given certainty rests. Note that, as in the above example, "moral certainty" need not be about anything moral - anything remotely to do with morality, anything to do with how humans should act. Many people hold it a moral certainty that only certain approved, specific views on biology, cosmology, or other fields of natural history, research and study are moral. That all contrary views are immoral to believe, immoral even to investigate with an open mind, immoral even to credit with the possibility of being true. This, regardless of any and all supporting evidence for such contrary views.
To persist in a certainty without any regard whatsoever for contrary evidence may be obstinacy, or it may be apathy, but it is certainly not faith.
Or at least, it is not certainly faith. It is no requirement of faith, to willfully make one's self blind. Faith may come garbed in obstinacy or apathy - garbed in, and garbled by. But such is not faith's natural or necessary attire. "Blind faith" is not demanded of us, or even requested of us - we are told to seek and find, encouraged to question, and given promise of an answer. Blind faith is demanded only by certain powers on earth, high priests and visionaries whose need is for a blind flock to prop their power and feed their coffers. Their pride, joy, and desire is a flock willfully and obstinately certain of the substitute truth these high priests wean them on and feed them with, a flock apathetically disinterested in questioning it, or opposing to it truth from any other source but their own creed, calculated and constructed to keep any and all contrary truths at bay. A flock that huddles ready to disregard all entreaties to the contrary - even entreaties of their own compassion, even of their own conscience. A prized flock, ready to be used as soldiers and weapons by the favored and impassioned high priests who shape for them their limits, and set for them their enmities. Such sheep are trained up most unnaturally, with slavering fangs, reared and bred with hatreds to tear into and rend God's proper flock - which is far larger than their false shepherds would have them believe.
Those in the grip of such certainty live eager to spread its poison, proud in their status as elect and chosen, eager to harm and hurl down anyone with a contrary gospel, no matter what reason or reasons should arise to oppose them from without or within - and especially including the word of God.
What fangs, you say, what poison? How shall we know the damaging certainty from the undamaging certainty? How shall we tell the true shepherds and vicars of Christ from the false pharisees and high priests?
We will need a simple faith, but not a blind one. Faith may be strong, but this strength can be misused as soon as we allow ourselves to be dupes, fools and tools of others. To discover those who would blind our faith to misdirect our strength, to thwart those who would deceive the faithful, and misuse their faith as a power base for worldly pride and position - we must not be blind. We must have open eyes. Only if we are wise as serpents, can we be harmless as doves.
So we must have a questioning faith - but what shall we question? What questions shall we ask? When someone presents you with a claim they say is a moral certainty, if the claim seems inconsequential to you, why then - ponder on it as you wish. No urgency to come to a conclusion in an inconsequential matter. But if the claim seems dubious, or just plain wrong, even harmful - ask yourself:
For those who have a strong yet questioning faith, for those who are willing to confront questionable moral certainty and test its foundations with well-founded moral confidence, those two basic questions will serve to strike at, undermine, and demolish much of the bad, false teaching that tries to pass itself off as good news these days (and honestly, in all days). The question of "What is mine to know, to determine?" and the question of "Who is to judge?" can both be answered with humility, and trust in God. Or, they can be answered with a haughty pride, one that puts one's own certainty above one's faith.
Faith is of God, certainty is ours. To question one's certainty is humility. Faith trusts that God has answers, if we humble ourselves to seek and to ask. Unquestioned and unquestionable "blind faith" can come to an acceptance of all manner of abominable justifications for cruelty and murder. An ill-founded, persistent moral certainty glories in setting up as less "believers" than gods ourselves - Righteous! Capable of knowing the cosmic and primordial truths of how God has accomplished all things! Capable of judging humankind!
This is where simple, humble moral confidence, founded in the true good news of Jesus Christ, can help bring us back to earth - and so, that much closer to heaven. When faced with certainty that seems wrong, that seems against Christ, we can question, possibly remonstrate, maybe even find a way, together, gently out of the bondage of false pride that teaches us to raise ourselves contemptuously above the least of our brethren. In questioning such false certainty, humility can lead us away from astray, and towards a confident embrace of Christ's true call to each of us: to human mercy, human charity, and human forgiveness in what is ours to live and to perform; and to abide in a simple faith and trust in God, in all that is God's to know and to bring to pass.
There is nothing wrong with moral certainty, certainly! Mere certainty is normally merely: a convincedness. A person with certainty has become convinced that such-and-such is true. Whatever begat it, this certainty becomes a feeling which itself compels belief. Yet such certainty, such convincedness carries within it, or ought to carry within it, the ability to become unconvinced. Not easily, maybe! Not willy-nilly. An open mind does not entail dropping one's hard-got convincedness, one's earned confidence, one's certainty, at every slight challenge, at any perplexing or vexing question. But still, one's certainty ought to carry with it an ability to hold one's certainty open to question - to one's own question. One's certainty ought to carry within it the ability to see one's certainty undermined - by one's own reason, given first-hand sufficient evidence to the contrary.
Example 1: if God's Son and a flight of angels descended in ranks and settled about you on a wide-woken Wednesday morning, in front of all of your friends and family, and declared: "Dipshits! You are all evolved from apes. That's just how God chose to do it; to make you feel a bit more at home in this burg, whilst you shape your self and soul amidst similarly DNA'd and habituated creatures." This would, to some, present compelling first-hand evidence. Would it be sufficient evidence? Possibly not. Skeptics witnessing such a visitation might posit some sham show, aided by cutting-edge high-tech stagecraft; or a mass-hypnosis or mass-hallucination event; or they might question the reliability of the testimony of these messengers, perhaps suggesting for them a diabolical rather than a heavenly origin. For sheer creativity of skepticism, it's hard to beat someone in the grip of a persistent moral certainty.
The question of whether a given evidence is "sufficient," or merely "compelling," or "interesting," can only be decided by the one in whom a given certainty rests. Note that, as in the above example, "moral certainty" need not be about anything moral - anything remotely to do with morality, anything to do with how humans should act. Many people hold it a moral certainty that only certain approved, specific views on biology, cosmology, or other fields of natural history, research and study are moral. That all contrary views are immoral to believe, immoral even to investigate with an open mind, immoral even to credit with the possibility of being true. This, regardless of any and all supporting evidence for such contrary views.
To persist in a certainty without any regard whatsoever for contrary evidence may be obstinacy, or it may be apathy, but it is certainly not faith.
Or at least, it is not certainly faith. It is no requirement of faith, to willfully make one's self blind. Faith may come garbed in obstinacy or apathy - garbed in, and garbled by. But such is not faith's natural or necessary attire. "Blind faith" is not demanded of us, or even requested of us - we are told to seek and find, encouraged to question, and given promise of an answer. Blind faith is demanded only by certain powers on earth, high priests and visionaries whose need is for a blind flock to prop their power and feed their coffers. Their pride, joy, and desire is a flock willfully and obstinately certain of the substitute truth these high priests wean them on and feed them with, a flock apathetically disinterested in questioning it, or opposing to it truth from any other source but their own creed, calculated and constructed to keep any and all contrary truths at bay. A flock that huddles ready to disregard all entreaties to the contrary - even entreaties of their own compassion, even of their own conscience. A prized flock, ready to be used as soldiers and weapons by the favored and impassioned high priests who shape for them their limits, and set for them their enmities. Such sheep are trained up most unnaturally, with slavering fangs, reared and bred with hatreds to tear into and rend God's proper flock - which is far larger than their false shepherds would have them believe.
Those in the grip of such certainty live eager to spread its poison, proud in their status as elect and chosen, eager to harm and hurl down anyone with a contrary gospel, no matter what reason or reasons should arise to oppose them from without or within - and especially including the word of God.
What fangs, you say, what poison? How shall we know the damaging certainty from the undamaging certainty? How shall we tell the true shepherds and vicars of Christ from the false pharisees and high priests?
We will need a simple faith, but not a blind one. Faith may be strong, but this strength can be misused as soon as we allow ourselves to be dupes, fools and tools of others. To discover those who would blind our faith to misdirect our strength, to thwart those who would deceive the faithful, and misuse their faith as a power base for worldly pride and position - we must not be blind. We must have open eyes. Only if we are wise as serpents, can we be harmless as doves.
So we must have a questioning faith - but what shall we question? What questions shall we ask? When someone presents you with a claim they say is a moral certainty, if the claim seems inconsequential to you, why then - ponder on it as you wish. No urgency to come to a conclusion in an inconsequential matter. But if the claim seems dubious, or just plain wrong, even harmful - ask yourself:
Is it God's job or mine, to know such-and-such thing to a certainty? Am I called to know all things? Or am I called to know God, and to trust in God's love and mercy - to say nothing of trusting in God's competency to have managed, by whatever means, all the infinitely vast minutiae of the universe?
Is it Christ's job or mine, to judge humanity? Is it Christ's job or mine, to say who Christ has saved? Do I accept Christ's redeeming gift of salvation, rendered two thousand years ago once and for all humanity? Or do I presume to usurp Christ's work of judgment - a task for which I am not competent? Do I take judgment onto myself? Does Christ call me to take judgment onto myself?
For those who have a strong yet questioning faith, for those who are willing to confront questionable moral certainty and test its foundations with well-founded moral confidence, those two basic questions will serve to strike at, undermine, and demolish much of the bad, false teaching that tries to pass itself off as good news these days (and honestly, in all days). The question of "What is mine to know, to determine?" and the question of "Who is to judge?" can both be answered with humility, and trust in God. Or, they can be answered with a haughty pride, one that puts one's own certainty above one's faith.
Faith is of God, certainty is ours. To question one's certainty is humility. Faith trusts that God has answers, if we humble ourselves to seek and to ask. Unquestioned and unquestionable "blind faith" can come to an acceptance of all manner of abominable justifications for cruelty and murder. An ill-founded, persistent moral certainty glories in setting up as less "believers" than gods ourselves - Righteous! Capable of knowing the cosmic and primordial truths of how God has accomplished all things! Capable of judging humankind!
This is where simple, humble moral confidence, founded in the true good news of Jesus Christ, can help bring us back to earth - and so, that much closer to heaven. When faced with certainty that seems wrong, that seems against Christ, we can question, possibly remonstrate, maybe even find a way, together, gently out of the bondage of false pride that teaches us to raise ourselves contemptuously above the least of our brethren. In questioning such false certainty, humility can lead us away from astray, and towards a confident embrace of Christ's true call to each of us: to human mercy, human charity, and human forgiveness in what is ours to live and to perform; and to abide in a simple faith and trust in God, in all that is God's to know and to bring to pass.
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