The Real Meaning of the Gospel
"Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?[a] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? 32 For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the days own trouble be sufficient for the day." (Matthew 6:25-34)
I like to think that the gospel is an attempt at helping people come to terms with their own existential angst that they experience; it is a statement against nihilism. Other than Kierkegaard, Berdyaev, and Dostoyevsky who advocate Christian existentialism I also find this approach in patristic thought (St. Basil the Great, St. Athanasius, St. Symeon the New Theologian, etc). Some western saints like Aquinas also understand this but I must admit I have been bored with it was of late; the movement of Existential Thomism that rose in the early 20th century would be something worth reading up on as I think it is a way of understanding the gospel as being anti-nihilistic. Contemporary Orthodox theologians like the late Kallistos Ware and saints like Nicholas Kabasilas also understand my point. Other than Kierkegaard, I cannot seem to find a Protestant with this same position. Not that they don't exist, of course; I am sure many do but I think the issue with Protestantism is that it has become such a loanword for anyone who isn't Catholic or Orthodox. Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists have a lot more in common with Catholics and Orthodox than most people realize. It seems to me that when you base everything on a subjective experience, like Paul does to a certain extent, or develop a dogma based on determinism, like Calvin does, the message of the gospel becomes perverted. I think the whole evangelical movement has ruined "New Testament Christianity" as Kierkegaard calls it and destroyed what the gospel really is about.
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the days own trouble be sufficient for the day." (Matthew 6:25-34)
I like to think that the gospel is an attempt at helping people come to terms with their own existential angst that they experience; it is a statement against nihilism. Other than Kierkegaard, Berdyaev, and Dostoyevsky who advocate Christian existentialism I also find this approach in patristic thought (St. Basil the Great, St. Athanasius, St. Symeon the New Theologian, etc). Some western saints like Aquinas also understand this but I must admit I have been bored with it was of late; the movement of Existential Thomism that rose in the early 20th century would be something worth reading up on as I think it is a way of understanding the gospel as being anti-nihilistic. Contemporary Orthodox theologians like the late Kallistos Ware and saints like Nicholas Kabasilas also understand my point. Other than Kierkegaard, I cannot seem to find a Protestant with this same position. Not that they don't exist, of course; I am sure many do but I think the issue with Protestantism is that it has become such a loanword for anyone who isn't Catholic or Orthodox. Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists have a lot more in common with Catholics and Orthodox than most people realize. It seems to me that when you base everything on a subjective experience, like Paul does to a certain extent, or develop a dogma based on determinism, like Calvin does, the message of the gospel becomes perverted. I think the whole evangelical movement has ruined "New Testament Christianity" as Kierkegaard calls it and destroyed what the gospel really is about.
Comments (66)
If the uses to which they've been put since they were written is any indication, though, I think it's difficult to maintain they were intended only as a remedy for "existential angst."
Jesus is a very strange being. Normal Jewish thinkers at that time (and now) do actual textual exegesis; Jesus makes very definitive statements about the text that far exceed what a normal human should be saying -- but imho it somehow works. For instance, there's 613 commandments one can draw from the OT -- Jesus just seemingly out of nowhere points to Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 as the two most important, but in doing so he situates love as the absolute foremost value which I actually buy into.
I suppose the human journey can be summed up as a struggle against nihilism. Some might even say it is the most dangerous idea to come out of the human mind - it rejects/denies/everything by definition and that includes the stuff close to our hearts and therein lies the seeds of untold suffering. :sad:
However ...
[quote=Sir Robert Hutchison][ ...] from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, good Lord deliver us.[/quote]
It is possible that we've jumped from the frying pan into the fire!
What you say here implies that the Gospel was written as a kind of self-help guide by persons knowledgeable in "psychology" (never mind the name) and/or philosophy and who had and experience in helping people by proposing self-help ideas. And that was what the Evangelists had in mind and that was their purpose. Which is certainly kind of crazy, isn't it?
You see, the word "attempt" that you are using indicates such a purpose. If instead you had said that "the gospel can be used as guide for helping people ..." or something similar, that could be acceptable. Jesus' teachings can indeed be considered a self-help material.
I think you are mistaking the message and intent of the gospel for something completely foreign to it in terms of time and place. Although someone today might find solace from their existential angst, that is not what the message in Matthew is about. Put differently, based on what you say:
Quoting Dermot Griffin
Although understandable, what is being ignored is what he says after what you quote ends, after imploring them to
Two points to note. The first has to do with "tomorrow".
The righteous should not be anxious about tomorrow because tomorrow, if not today or this hour, may be the day the Lord will come.
Second, what is promised when he says "all these things will be yours as well" is not food and drink and clothing for the body, but what will happen on the day of judgment for the righteous:
Rather than find solace from their existential angst the message should have been the source of existential angst for anyone who believed it. The day of judgment did not come as promised. To counter this the belief in a "second coming" arose, as hour after hour and day after day went by and a new generation arose who believed it would come in their time. Eventually, the belief and hope that the end was "near" was reinterpreted to mean something other than near in time.
On the contrary, the (canonical) Gospels are statements for nihilism insofar as they instruct us to prepare for "the resurrection" and "end of days" which, as Nietzche points out, places all value in "the afterlife" at the expense of completely devaluing nihilating this life, this world, nature. In other words, 'our (your) existence here and now is meaningless in comparison to the existence to come.' Escape from "existential angst" by denying, rather than affirming, existence how the Shepherd pacifies the sheep into bleeting happily on their way to slaughter. :mask:
An excellent point. In which case, the Stoic and Epicurean insights I thought were being repeated are instead being perverted, and used for an entirely different purpose, contra naturam. rather than secundum naturam.
Eh, only a slave interprets a book the same all the other sheep do, toeing the line.
I made the same point regarding nihilism in one of the other of the three (!) threads on Jesus.
Maybe you will get a response.
:up:
I am curious what you see as more 'objective' in the Gospel texts that countervails against the excessive 'subjectivity' you see expressed by Paul.
Kierkegaard, after all, emphasized that the experience of the Single Individual was where the struggle for one kind of life against another was happening.
But upon further scrutiny Jesus logic dictates that this life matters immensely because it determines where one ends up.
Jesus basically just says don't be afraid to die for the right reason which is in slight contrast with the OT's emphasis on trying to prolong life to the furthest extent.
How does the struggle of Job fit in with this objective?
There is conceived to be a general connection in the OT between acting good and living longer although this connection is not regarded as axiomatic... it is still a general theme. We see it in Proverbs and Deuteronomy. Of course the connection is not universal. The righteous will still suffer and Job is an early attempt at how to answer that question of why. Ecclesiastes also challenges this connection. I think it still makes sense as a general rule: Good luck trying to live a long happy life after one goes around killing or robbing. One's deeds do have a habit of catching up to them.
I agree that there is a lot of emphasis on the righteous getting help when needed. The greater part of the book of Job is devoted to whether Job can know his status in that regard by himself. His 'friends' keep telling him he must have sinned. The wager is on whether that kind of self-knowledge is alive or only an illusion of good fortune.
I read book of Job as a theodicy. It seeks to answer the question of why bad things happen to good people. Job is righteous, yet misfortune befalls him. The answer, given by God, points at humanity's limited knowledge and thus inability to judge. It is poetry.
I understand your view. My comments are a challenge to it. Perhaps a topic for a separate conversation.
Any given passage from the gospel preached by Jesus needs to be understood within the context of the entirety of the gospel preached by Jesus.
Seems like you've taken Matthew 6:25-34 out of context of the entirety of the gospel preached by Jesus and decided that what you'd like to think about that passage is the "real gospel".
Keep in mind that Jesus came to bring the unrighteous to righteousness.
The subtext for Matthew 6:25-34 is that Jesus is telling the unrighteous that transforming themselves into righteous individuals needs to be their one and only priority. They shouldn't be concerned about anything else. They concern themselves with the wrong things. It's part of a recurring theme.
It's akin to telling a heroin addict that getting clean needs to be their one and only priority. They shouldn't be concerned about anything else.
The core of the gospel preached by Jesus is contained in the parables, explanations of the parables, the Sermon on the Mount, passages where Jesus explicitly describes what is required to receive "eternal life" / "salvation" and passages where Jesus explicitly describes the Kingdom and what living in the Kingdom entails. In short, passages where Jesus is explicitly preaching the vision of His gospel.
The above passages can be found in the words attributed to Jesus from the beginning of His ministry through His crucifixion as presented in the "four gospels".
Gotcha. Now I understand what you're saying. Yeah, I would need to dig into Job again to answer your question better, but thanks for giving me a reason to give Job another go. Definitely a separate conversation.
Where will one end up? The messianic promise in for the kingdom of heaven on earth. It is "at hand" or "near," but it has been over 2,000 years and it is still not here. Why should we think it will come?
Quoting Moses
I prefer Socrates' solution from the Apology. We do not know what happens at death. If there are rewards and punishments then the just will be rewarded and need not fear punishment. If there is nothing beyond death then it does not makes sense to live this life in the expectation of another. But here again the just life is best.
But in the Republic there is the challenge of "perfect injustice". One who is perfectly unjust will get away with being unjust because everyone will be fooled and regard him as perfectly just. He will enjoy a reputation for being just, while someone who is just may be accused and suffer from a reputation of being unjust.
I see the wager somewhat differently. The adversary (the satan) says:
The claim is that it is because of his good fortune he is blameless and upright, and that if he were to suffer he would no longer be so. God accepts the wager and permits the adversary to inflict Job.
Job's friends, on the other hand, take the opposite view, they claim that he must not be blameless because if he was he would not suffer. We know, however, that he is blameless. Ostensibly we know why he suffers, to test the adversary's theory by testing Job.
Job does not know about this wager and challenges God. God's answer is that he would not understand. While I am sympathetic to the idea that we do not know why things happen as they do, the more troubling question is why God would permit the adversary to do what he did. This is a challenge Job could not raise, but we can. In not understanding God's will we also do not understand His justice, which seems in this case to be injustice. In addition, not being able to understand the reason why things happen as they do seems to be because the are without reason. There is no good reason why God would enter into the wager and allow this to happen. Throughout all this Job remains faithful to God while God is not faithful to Job. A pious reading is that Job has the kind of faith we should all aspire to. But my impious, adversarial reading is that Job's faith is unreasonable.
To anticipate the obvious objection, yes this is not meant to be taken literally, but we should take the story on its own terms. These things happen in the story and if we are to understand the story we must attend to what happens in the story.
I'm talking about the afterlife or the fate of the soul.
Quoting Fooloso4
Sure, but what does that mean? The Ancient Greeks apparently had no issues killing disabled babies or sending off boys to be "mentored" by older men. Compared to the teachings of the Torah and Jesus my opinion of the ancient Greeks is fairly low morally. I'm open to having that position challenged. It has been some time since I've read the Greeks. You just see this sort of deliberate, powerful goodness in ancient Jewish texts that unabashedly advocates for the poor, the widow, the orphan that I just never picked up with the Greeks. Moses is disabled and the dialogue on that issue is beautiful.
We are told that is the case. His 'friends' doubt it. How does Job know they are wrong? Is that a keeping of faith or a better understanding of what righteousness is like?
But it seems to me that youre personifying in order to make this query - a character even in a story does not imply personification or being in the sense that we, Job or his friends are beings, much less imply human motivation or morality. Neither God nor the adversary are temporally or physically located characters, and its this aspect of their characters that is described in Gods answer to Job. The intentionality of either character is interpreted by this limited early experience of humanity and language - the apparent wager is a description for literary purposes, and to assume it as actual or happening is to make the same error as Jobs friends in taking convention to be truth. The story is an heuristic device.
I find that the majority of the bible is an attempt to describe extra-dimensional aspects of human experience - that is, atemporal (eternal or potential) and/or non-physical (intangible or ethereal). The words and even the story dont matter so much as understanding the human experience to which they refer. Its similar to the way we generate a 3D render by the relation of change between multiple 2D images, angles, etc. You cant understand a 3D render without this 4D awareness of change/time, and you cant understand the story of Job without this 5D sense of atemporality.
So, no - there is no good reason why God would enter into such a wager, and yes - Jobs faith is unreasonable. But anyone who considers or expects faith, or God for that matter, to be reasonable, is missing the point of Job, and then entire biblical record. Its not about understanding God in terms of will or justice, but about recognising the extra-dimensional aspect of this relationship between God and humanity. The way I see it, understanding requires more than reason.
Yes, I know. The problem is, what is the real meaning of the afterlife according to the gospels? Things are not as clear as you might think. In Matthew the kingdom of heaven on earth. Some believed in bodily resurrection, while others believed in the resurrection of the soul, and still others did not make this division, it was the person that was resurrected.
Quoting Moses
Plato was not the Ancient Greeks. In the Republic we find his most sustained discussion of justice. I will not go into it here. I will only point out that at the center of the dialogue devoted to the question of what justice is Socrates talks about the turning of the soul to truth illuminated by the Good.
In Plato's Phaedo we find the dualism of body and soul and the afterlife of the soul that became enormously influential for Christian ideas of the afterlife.
Quoting Moses
Let's look at what happened when Moses brought down the second set of tablets:
He does not say that they are wrong. He does not claim to be blameless.
He challenges Eliphaz the Temanite:
In the next chapter he asks God:
I am not sure about the distinction you make between a keeping of faith and an understanding of righteousness.
I think it is rather the case that you are imposing assumptions on the text. In my opinion, as a general principle of interpretation, the attempt must be made to understand the story on its own terms. Is there any indication that the author(s) of the story do not mean that they are temporally or physically located characters? See, for example, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, "God: An Anatomy". The ancient peoples of the Levant did think of their gods as temporally or physically located characters with intentions, desires, and emotions.
Quoting Possibility
And how can we learn from it if, for example, the wager is only an
Quoting Possibility?
In the story the wager was not an "apparent wager". A wager was made. If we are to understand the story then we must accept that in the story a wager was made. To read a novel and point out that the things that happen in the novel did not actually happen is pointless.
Maybe there's a resurrection, maybe there's heaven/hell, the key idea is that the righteous and wicked will be judged accordingly at some point. The idea of an "accounting" is described in Gen 9, presumably one which occurs after death. I don't see how a just God can exist in the absence of some sort of accounting.
Quoting Fooloso4
I'm curious as to why Plato isn't ancient Greek.
Christian ideas are many. Christianity is designed to spread so needless ton say it would become enmeshed in the cultures and histories of the civilizations to where it spread.
Quoting Fooloso4
Sure, and this is a recurring theme in the OT: People of Israel stray by worshipping other Gods, the hand comes down!
Re Moses: I'm referring to the beautiful dialogue on disability that occurs in Exodus 4 where God affirms disability instead of treating it as a deficiency. It is a very advanced view that advocates a healthy view of disability. It is wonderful that the mythology of the Jews would choose a disabled person as their main prophet and his partnership with Aaron signifies a union between abled and disabled.
:up:
This, in my humble opinion, boils down to gambling (à la Pascal's wager). The stake: This life (low value). The prize: Heaven (high value). Many people buy lotteries and this proves my point. In considering this life to be low value, religion is nihilistic. In considering the afterlife to be high value, it isn't nihilistic. If I reject silver, it may seem I'm not greedy, but if I do it so that I can get gold, I'm avarice incarnate! :chin:
What I was responding to is this:
Quoting Moses
It may be that the specifics of an afterlife don't matter too much, but whether or not there is an afterlife does. But logic does not dictate that there is an afterlife. It is because we do not know that there are no agreed upon specifics. In my opinion, logic dictates that we should not live in accordance with something that may not be. That this life matters immensely because for all we know there is only this life.
Quoting Moses
Plato was an ancient Greek. He was not "the ancient Greeks", any more than you are the contemporary Americans or Europeans or Chinese. Your views need not be the same as those of where you are from. In the case of Plato they were not.
Quoting Moses
Plato did not have a doctrine of forms. The Forms are identified in the Phaedo as hypothetical. They are the result of what Socrates calls his second sailing.
Quoting Moses
Does he? God acknowledges the deficiency and says:
Quoting Moses
I read this in light of the question of authority, who is to lead the people. See Numbers 12. One aspect of this theme is the relation of brothers and birthright. Traditionally it is the older brother who inherits the birthright, but in several stories it is the younger brother, who by one means or another, takes the birthright. Aaron was the older brother. Even though Moses had a speech impediment and Aaron speaks well, Aaron plays a subordinate and spoke on Moses' behalf as his assistant. This is related to the question of the authority of the Levites and Aaron the Levite (4:14) The union of Moses and Aaron seems to be a symbolic representation of the union of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The differing beliefs were united. The gods of their fathers were identified as the same god. See the question regarding god's name.
Here is where I would disagree. I've never been in a car crash but I still wear a seatbelt. The stakes are very high if you're wrong here. If I'm wrong I'm just an idiot going into oblivion.
I'm honestly just not particularly interested in a universe where there is no afterlife/judgment. In that case I agree with Paul: "eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die." I think for the universe to be just there must be some type of accounting/judgment and a just universe is the only type of universe that interests me.
Quoting Fooloso4
There's no doubt that the speech impediment presents a challenge; but it's not a deficiency. Moses was created exactly as intended and we're under no warrant to question God's work.
11 The Lord said to him, Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
The Lord's work is not deficient; it is exactly as intended. The disabled are just another part of the human condition; not beings to be regarded as inferior. It is still of course a challenge. I think I see the same idea presented in gThomas.
(67) Jesus said, "If one who knows the all still feels a personal deficiency, he is
completely deficient."
E.g. a very short man may struggle in life with dating and self-confidence, and that condition no doubt presents a challenge, but I don't think we can call him deficient.
Quoting Fooloso4
Quite possibly, and I'm open to this interpretation I would just need to hear more about it. In any case, hierarchy reversal -- the younger leading the older -- is a recurring theme in the Bible, especially in Genesis and it pops back up with Jesus.
Since whether or not there is an "afterlife" is unknowable, I think investing more, or all, value in the merely imaginable instead of in this life is literally to value nothing. As Freddy remind us
[quote=On the Geneaology of Morals, Third Essay]... man would rather will nothingness than not will[/quote]
What would you do differently if you were convinced there was no afterlife?
Quoting Moses
For all you know, that might be the universe you live in. If your preference is to believe in an afterlife I do not take issue with that.
Quoting Moses
The quote is: eat and drink. No mention of being merry(1 Corinthians 15:25)
I agree with Koheleth :
Koheleth, did not believe in an afterlife, but unlike Paul, he believed that this life gives us occasion to rejoice, to be glad, to find satisfaction in our work.
Quoting Moses
If it was not a deficiency he would not have needed Aaron to speak on his behalf.
Quoting Moses
Right, he gave him a mouth that he was unable to use to speak to the people.
Quoting Moses
And yet in the garden was a tree that bore fruit that was bad or evil. God cursed the ground and caused the labor of childbirth to be painful after Adam and Eve ate of it. In the story of the Flood we are told:
The flood that God caused killed all but two (or 7) of every kind of land dwelling animal. Isaiah says:
Quoting Moses
We are all inferior to others in one way or another, but this is not the same as saying that some of us or all of us are inferior beings.
How do I gain such conviction? I would have to be delusional to have such conviction. I have no idea; I'm throwing in with the notion that there is an afterlife because it helps me live and maintain a sense of justice in the universe.
If for some reason I was able to gain absolute certainty that there was no afterlife, then tbh I don't particularly enjoy living and I have a few people that I don't like so I'd start there. No rules except man-made ones.
I'm gonna quote Rorschach on this one. It's not the Bible but if there's no afterlife then take whatever you want as authoritative:
Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves; go into oblivion. There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long.
If you want to try to enjoy life then you do that. I have other plans. Don't tell me what's reasonable. You are not me. Maybe some of us are in too much mental pain to start over again.
Quoting Fooloso4
On disability, I think it's apparent we all have different strengths and weaknesses. This is going to get very semantic so we need to be careful. It is reasonable to conclude that Moses had a disability. If he stutters, his speech was slower. However, I don't think we can tell stutterers (or others with some disability) that they ought to be "fixed" or "made fluent" because their condition was put there by design. If one wants to try to improve their condition or work with their condition that's on them, but in the stuttering community now there's been a definite shift away from treating the condition as something to be fixed and towards something to be accepted. Acceptance can bring progress. It's much healthier to embrace disability as part of the human condition then to refer to the disabled as deficient. I love the framing put forth in Exodus 4. In grounding their existence with divine intentionality it validates them as a part of the human condition. It is very woke.
This has taken a couple of unexpected, and for my part unintended turns. I do not wish to trespass, so will leave off.
Okie dokie!
No, youre assuming the story actually happened, but its literature. A storys terms should not be bound by what happens. This only limits understanding.
There is no physical or temporal description of either character, while there is of Job, his family and friends (in the land of Uz). If the author(s) meant for the Lord or Satan to be physical or temporally located, they would have described them as such. Their discussion/interaction may be temporally located, if vaguely (one day), but nothing more. Just because some people thought of their gods in terms of human intentions, desires and emotions, it does not follow that they are temporally or physically located characters, nor that this must be assumed for all gods, or authors. What ties the biblical writings together is this atemporal and ethereal (extra-dimensional) nature of God.
Quoting Fooloso4
We learn nothing from what appears to have happened, but from higher level interactions in the presented structure.
Quoting Fooloso4
Read it again - there is no talk of a wager made at all. Just a theory-based chicken-and-egg disagreement, followed by an experimental change in conditions for Job. We must NOT simply accept that a wager was made based on how it may have commonly been interpreted.
No, you're assuming that I am assuming it actually happened. This is what I actually said:
Quoting Fooloso4 [emphasis added]
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Possibility
A story's terms should be bound by what happens in the story.
Quoting Possibility
The term is 'commonly' used even when there is no money other thing of value exchanged.
WAGER
.
Job does not claim to be blameless but doesn't accept that he must be wrong by default either.
Your question about what I mean by distinguishing faith and understanding is a good one and I admit that I need to think about it more.
In the context of the OP, I am wondering how the reception of matters 'Christian' relate to a choice between a vision of revolutionary change versus something more 'normative' as suggested by Dermot Griffin. And by bringing up Job, I was thinking that expecting good results from living a good life is sort of an argument for the normative.
"In the context of the OP, I am wondering how the reception of matters 'Christian' relate to a choice between a vision of revolutionary change versus something more 'normative...'"
I think a great way of understanding the gospel is by unveiling the history of 1st century Roman Judea; many months ago this was discussed a bit in the discussion "Jesus and Greek Philosophy." However, the movement centered around Jesus in Judea at the time is what I really find interesting.
I remember the discussion well. What part of that history suggests to you that Christianity was a solution to an 'objective' problem? Or is that how you meant to put the matter?
I wasn't attempting to suggest that Christianity was the answer to an objective problem per say as I think here in the United States Christianity is a way to advocate for objective ethical universals politically (in other words Christian realism but that's another topic altogether). I do not exactly think Christianity is the "theory of everything." True evangelism is actually having dialogue with, say, a Buddhist or a Hindu, and trying to suggest my belief that Christ fulfills the underlying ethos of Buddhism and Hinduism; I've never met a Buddhist or a Hindu insulted by this because I'm not attempting to convert them. The Old Testament is very clear that attempting to convert others is a sin in and of itself (I'll touch on this later).
I'm more interested in how it actually came to be as a movement as I think that it would do Christians some good to look at the history. I am of the opinion that the Jesus of the New Testament was advocating a form of Judaic Cynicism (going by the definition of "Cynicism" used in antiquity). The Council of Nicaea formally established orthodoxy as you had several different groups with various definitions of what a "Christian" was (some of these groups were a tad nuts). John Dominic Crossan argues that the ministry surrounding Jesus and the Christianity of the Apostolic Era was a reaction to the political shift in the Roman Empire at the time, particularly the western half; the Kingdom of God cannot be brought about upon the earth because man is innately flawed but its ideals begin with the individual person. Because it was so controversial for the time this explains why Jesus asks those who want to follow him to take up a cross.
The strategy that Jesus utilizes is typical of the Cynic thinker; short anecdotes like "He who has ears let him hear" and blessing the common folk (for example the Beatitudes) show that the message of Jesus was pretty inclusive. The ethical sayings of Jesus and what we find in his parables are also typical of the Cynic philosopher. Love of enemies and praying for those who judge you is revolutionary. Of course you get this in the Old Testament as well ("Love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt") but what makes the New Testament unique is that there is a theme of followers of Christ actually forgive people that judge them for what they preach. This is what is truly remarkable; St. Stephen asks God to forgive his persecutors in the Book of Acts. This brings me to the sobering fact that New Testament Christianity is dead and needs a revival. Kierkegaard, for example, wrote to an entire country that he felt had never been authentically Christian. Western Christendom seems to be ridden with lots of mixing of religion and politics. Certain reactions to this I believe are found in the rise of the Quakers, Methodists, and reforms of Vatican II. Eastern Christianity seems to have the harshest history of persecution; the Ottoman Empire wasn't exactly a tolerant place and the USSR was even worse. I think Evangelicalism has ruined Christianity here in the States. Instead of volunteering at a soup kitchen for the homeless or attempting to counsel someone they stand on street corners whining about they way our politics are going and come by your house at 6AM on a Sunday trying to preach their subjective feelings about Jesus to you.
Despite this the overall message of the gospel is, in my opinion, holding oneself to a standard that seeks meaning in a world that is completely insane and seemingly meaningless (i.e. Christian existentialism). In short I believe that the gospel is about taking charge of ones own life in the eyes of a God that none of us can prove exists, taking a leap of faith to cure ones existential angst and nihilism. Again this is not me preaching anything, just a summary of what I believe. I like to think that this understanding of the gospel is much more appealing than the nonsense that Sunday School's teach.
Thank you for the careful response. I will ponder upon it in coming days.
I agree.
Quoting Paine
Yes, this occured to me as well, as did Ecclesiastes.
Well, it supposed to be, right? They are connected to the same belief: God's existence.
I respect all your points and arguments and they are so interesting, indeed. Nevertheless, I see all of those "doctrines" as political "groups" or "conclaves" because they fought each other for the rule of power over the years.
Lutherans and Anglicans were so critical against Pope and Catholic church due to the political power of the latter. They wanted to be more "independent" from Vatican and Pope.
We can be agree here that literally all of them believe in God but... who is the responsible to profess it? I guess that's when the wars started out.
No, what happens in the story is a reduction of terms. And no wager happens in Job, it is only discussed.
I understand the preference to treat the text as a four-dimensional structure. Except that it isnt only four-dimensional, and you wont fully understand it by reducing it this way. That is, if your aim is to understand - and not to describe or define, which relies on (normative) conventions of language and story.
If we are agreed that the story doesnt actually happen - that it interacts in potentiality - then Im confident you will see that any wager, too, is only potential in this story. For a character to even say Ill wager is NOT a wager made in the story.
This may seem to be splitting hairs, but it points to the extra-dimensional aspects of the story itself - which I maintain is more the point of these writings than what happens in the story. As I see it, the point of the Book of Job is NOT that God appeared to make a wager with Satan which led to suffering, but is more along the lines of The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.
:snicker:
Jokes aside, people seem to have converged on one word as the nub of Christianity viz. love; as to whether this is drawn from scripture or people are simply projecting their intuition, which seems to be right on the money, onto the text is open for debate.
Yet ...
You ask each other about "The Real Meaning of the Gospel" and could care less what 2,000 years of philosophers and theologians have written about it since.
Your critical thinking skills have given to you the strange and unproductive idea to only ask each other.
You seem to never come to the honest conclusion that you and your fellow posters aren't doing a very good job with this question. And that's not very thoughtful, critically speaking.
...
The real meaning of the Gospel is simple to understand in three easy steps:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
"You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth"
Go into the world. Go everywhere and announce Gods good news to one and all.
...
It takes the most basic critical thinking to judge what person has been the greatest human being who ever lived, and to understand that when we know for certain, as this person did, that we have an eternal life, IT CHANGES EVERYTHING.
It is drawn very directly from scripture. See Mark 12:28. I believe it is the most important teaching in the NT. Many Christian denominations consider it the core of their religion.
It actually is meaningful. People could live life any number of ways and there's no reason that one necessarily needs to prioritize love.
In my experience, many read much into the first verse you've quoted even though it is ambiguous in and of itself.
In your opinion:
Who do you believe is speaking? Jesus or the narrator of the Book of John?
What does "believe in him" entail? What is the underlying meaning of "eternal life"? What is the underlying meaning of "his one and only Son"?
Specifically what do you believe is being said? What is the underlying meaning? What underlying concepts are being conveyed?
Your questions are a beginner's questions. Not everyone is a beginner about the Gospel.
The greatest person who ever lived was Jesus, but I can tell that you really don't think anyone even knows if he existed or what he said or what he did. And that's just not realistic or logical. Where in your experience has a nonexistent person changed any part of the world, never mind the whole world?
And you ask me what I "believe" because in your experience of the Gospel all you have is belief, or nonbelief. But the Gospel talks about something more than belief: "We are speaking about what we have seen and heard", Jesus said to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a person who thought he could read his way to knowledge about God. Jesus always showed that he was experiencing God, not reading about God. But you can't even bring yourself to acknowledge Jesus existed, never mind acknowledging what he said or did when he was alive.
I sacrificed 7 years when I was in my twenties and dedicated every moment to finding out if the "stories" in the Gospel were actually true. I only "believed" at the beginning of those 7 years, but I believed enough to deny myself the opinions that were bouncing off the top of my head. I gave a million-dollar effort, not a five-cent one, and ended up in a monastery for 5 years. And I was rewarded. And I now have absolute certitude that the stories in the Gospel are all true, and Jesus was the person he said he was.
I cannot give this certitude about the Gospel to anyone.
To "believe" in Jesus is just the first baby step. Jesus said that God wants to be known in "Spirit and Truth". And that takes many more steps in the right direction. Reading won't get you there.
God is not a book. Until you stop reading and go in search of God where you have been told to look by the Gospel (and by 2,000 years of truly wise people, not skeptics who read like you), you'll only find words on a page, and questions. The answers you will only find yourself. That's God's wisdom at work, because only his obedient children are his favorite children. Who rewards a lazy disobedient child who just won't listen?
I'm not skeptical of the gospel preached by Jesus.
I'm skeptical of the "gospel" of Christianity which is based on the Pauline gospel and the "gospel stories" that the writers of the "four gospels" wrapped around the gospel preached by Jesus . You speak of your "certitude about the Gospel". From what I gather, you are speaking of the latter rather than the former.
John 8
34Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin."
31 ...If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
Jesus' true disciples are those who abide in His word. That would be the words that Jesus spoke while He preached His gospel. It is they that know the truth. Not those who have "certitude about the Gospel" taught by Paul and followers of Paul.
When Jesus was preaching His gospel He used the terms "believe Him" and "believe in Him" essentially in three different ways:
1) Believe that He has the authority to speak the word of God
2) Believe that His words are the word of God
3) Believe His words in and of themselves. That is believe in living as Jesus exhorted people to live.
Of the three listed, the first two are as means of getting to the third and not the ends in and of themselves. Those who believe in living as Jesus exhorts people to live and therefore actually do it are His true disciples.
Jesus did NOT use them to mean to believe in the "redemptive work on the cross for salvation", "believe in the resurrection" or what have you - which is what many Christians think.
It is true that Kierkegaard greatly annoyed his fellow Christians by saying that their satisfaction with holding good opinions is not the same as doing the works of love as commanded by Jesus. He did not, on that basis, declare a separate congregation as others have. He was a voice, like Luther and Pascal, trying to separate a vision of authentic life from one made false through corruption and illusion.
What you don't like about modern evangelists sounds a lot like the complacency others have objected to in the past.
That may be one way to perceive it. I agree that nihilism by definition rejects/denies everything, as it were. But I see nihilism as a process, not a position. The human journey, then, may be summed up as a process inclusive of both nihilism and existential effort. It is in our attachment to this stuff close to our hearts wherein lies the seeds of untold suffering. Nihilism refers to our capacity to let go of these attachments without ceasing to exist, at least for a time. Theres a freedom in that understanding, to remake ourselves in every aspect, as part of the human journey.
As for its relation to the gospels, I dont see them as definitively either pro- or anti-nihilistic, and I think any attempt to label either Jesus or the gospels one way or the other is merely for arguments sake, as the concept of nihilism seems entirely foreign to their thinking. The idea that letting go of certain attachments gives us freedom to remodel our systems and structures is explored within a particular cultural context, in a particular (filial) relation to the assumed existence of one eternal God.
The way I see it, the gospel teachings are further along in this human journey than the teachings of the OT. But more than 2000 years later, our understanding is potentially further along again, if were willing to let go of any attachment to christianity, scripture, or even the example of Jesus, as the Logos. Through nihilism, however, we can also let go of attachment to the existential assumption of God - again, not a position to hold, just part of the process
Interesting!
Fab!
Jesus sent "the Paraclete".
Jesus was clear: "No one has seen God." "God is Spirit." "God desires worshippers in Spirit and Truth."
Skeptics have intellectual ideas that are not complete and experienced, but patchworks of bits of reading from this source and that source. Skeptics never become truly wise because wisdom is only furthered when the compilation of "facts" is applied to "personal experiences" and "logical certainty".
The Paraclete was poured out of God at a particular time in human history--the fullness of time after the Way, the Truth, and the Life came and left, after the Light of the World shined upon humanity and left his light still shining.
The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. You've heard of it, yet you haven't listened.
Before the fullness of time, there were only a few people born in each generation who were close to God and knew his wisdom. History is filled with these special people.
Today, and for two thousand years, anyone can be close to God, experience God, and live with a lion's share of his Spirit. This is what Jesus did for humanity. This is how Jesus became humanity's Spiritual Messiah.
...
Paul received a direct revelation of Jesus on the road to Damascus, and it changed everything for him. He was filled with the Holy Spirit until his death. And all his talents and abilities were poured into his writings that were anchored in his "personal experience" that gave to him the absolute certitude that Jesus was still alive and the Messiah he said he was.
You can read. Good. But you can't apply your reading to personal experiences that will take your reading where it should go for you to become truly wise. All your reading hits your mere opinions and falls like a stone instead of rising upwards on the wings of personal triumphs and gifts from God.
...
Paul's experience was not a one-off. Jesus has knocked human beings off their horses for two thousand years.
Skeptics cannot get off their high horse of prideful opinions.
"The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone."
This stone is the Holy Spirit. Seek it. Desire it. Stop talking and listen for it. Stop moving and wait for it. And, above all, ask for it.
Much of your description of a 'continual process of change' reminds me of Gene W Marshall's Primer on Radical Christianity. One can safely say it is a very different response than the Evangelical churches of today but probably is an example of the 'modern' that Dermot Griffin objects to.
I get the sense (and I could be wrong) that in criticising the modern, Dermot Griffin is contrasting it with an original notion, rather than traditional practice, of christianity, church and evangelisation.
I havent read Marshall, but I have spent some time (a few years ago) exploring the movement of Progressive Christianity in which he writes, so I dare say we may agree on some similar points. Much of this primarily US movement does attempt to uncover the original notion of christianity, but its also a reaction to and disentanglement from Christian fundamentalism, without losing the sense of belonging and other social comforts that institutional church life brings. Thats not where Im coming from (my initial background, FWIW, was Australian Catholic) - I remain sympathetic to the notion of christianity as a shared approach to spirituality, but not as an institution.
A church in the original sense is simply an assembly, and the petras (rock) on which this was to be built is a ledge or mass of connected rock, as distinct from petros as a detached stone or boulder. And yet, the first church of Christians were hiding and meeting in secret - practice already diverging from the original notion.
Euangelos means to bring good news. It doesnt require membership, morality, or even acceptance on the part of those who hear it. It doesnt even require you to speak this information, let alone use particular words. If you understand it, share this with others, and learn to recognise this same understanding in its many different forms.
I think Christianity has spent far too much time, attention and effort on identity, power and especially survival, forgetting that its very foundation has rendered them moot.
Quoting Moses
Quoting Possibility
Comments!
Drastically oversimplified, attachment is when you pluck the flower
Nice! As per your assessment then love isn't attachment and, flipping the sign, it hasta be detachment, but then we end up with the problem of having to disentangle love from indifference/insouiciance because love also isn't that either. Ergo, my brain informs me we're in a pickle. In re attachment and its opposite detachment, love is adiaphora (logically undifferentiated). It, love, is something else entirely. It is neither attachment nor detachment, it is ...
Why is the binary necessary? I didnt say that love was opposite to attachment - so, no, it doesnt hafta be detachment.
I think that love is more about realising the fullness of potential in any relation. Christian love simply posits the Christ as the fullness of human potential in relation to the absolute. Our relation with reality is triadic, not binary.
The binary logic is just part of the process of negation. If I say "love is not attachment" then that would mean "love is detachment". I evaluated both in my previous post and came to the conclusion that love is neither attachment nor detachment. Perphaps it's somewhere in the middle or, even more intriguingly, nowhere.
How is our relation to reality triadic?
Im inclined to say nowhere. I didnt say love is not attachment, rather that it wasnt the same. Love can manifest as both attachment and detachment, or neither.
If love is neither attachment nor detachment, as you state, then this binary logic is insufficient. I would argue that its always insufficient in relation to reality, as a third point always exists, somewhere in the middle or, more intriguingly, nowhere. At minimum, that third point is us.
When I mentioned attachment, I wasnt referring to a maximal value for which detachment is its negation, but rather the qualitative idea, inclusive of negation. Love has a much more expansive meaning. As an event, love is realising the fullness of potential in any relation. As a value it is this fullness of potential in any relation. As a qualitative idea, love is the quality of any relation, but as meaning, love is pure relation itself.
So my argument is that love is inclusive of attachment/detachment, not the other way around.