A beautiful bride, her pilfered pride brought to tears
By the Syndrome and his finest feature: an all-consuming fear.
Rape erased remorse and reason, too ravaged to recall.
"Is your phantom's love truly better than no love at all?"
We'd come to kill our hope by leaving childhood behind,
That very hope that ignites the lights in the hearts of humankind.
While he searched the streets and called her name, she'd been rendered paralyzed;
"Please don't run!"
She feared his wrath, yet he would have wiped the tears from her eyes.
"The dawn will come!"
And though she didn't understand, and lost her gift to give,
"Our hopes burn brighter than the rising sun!"
The man who loved that harlot would have died to see her live.
"I know what you have done has destroyed your peace,
But you must know that my heart pangs for your release.
I know these shadows, murky black, have dimmed your sight,
But my candle glows enough to melt this darkest night."
While he searched the streets and called her name, she'd been rendered paralyzed;
"Please don't run!"
She feared his wrath, yet he would have wiped the tears from her eyes.
"The dawn will come!"
And though she didn't understand, and lost her gift to give,
"Our hopes burn brighter than the rising sun!"
The man who loved that harlot would have died to see her live.
"Now dance with me, my Bride! Drink my Bacchic wine and play!
And all my Muses sing along as we dance the darkest night away!
Now sing with me, my Bride! Get lost in blood and joyous tears:
Our manifest eternal bliss in the blessed music of the Spheres!"
Showing posts with label Christian Living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian Living. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Irony
Now you’ve gone away to hide yourself;
Afraid I’m like the spectres that used to appear.
But alone, even in the brightest room,
How will you see yourself without a mirror?
You said, “But doing this could kill us both
When we’re lost and trying to find our way.”
Then I looked into your eyes and said,
“But dear, we’ll both die anyway.
Why can’t we make this one last day
One that is worth remembering?
Why try avoiding all our pain
When it makes life worth living?
Dearest, I know that you’re afraid,
But this could be worth our blood.
The sanguine irony is this:
Your perfect fear casts out love.”
Afraid I’m like the spectres that used to appear.
But alone, even in the brightest room,
How will you see yourself without a mirror?
You said, “But doing this could kill us both
When we’re lost and trying to find our way.”
Then I looked into your eyes and said,
“But dear, we’ll both die anyway.
Why can’t we make this one last day
One that is worth remembering?
Why try avoiding all our pain
When it makes life worth living?
Dearest, I know that you’re afraid,
But this could be worth our blood.
The sanguine irony is this:
Your perfect fear casts out love.”
Thursday, July 12, 2007
"I Said, You Are Gods!" - A Trans-Nietzschean Perspective on Christian Soteriology (Part V).
Part V:
Theogony
Thus, it is through our God-given love made possible through Christ that Nietzsche’s mantra of man becoming “beyond good and evil” is made possible— since it is obvious that a man who acts in Christ-like love toward both God and his neighbor will always freely do what is best toward them without need for moral guidance. This conclusion is especially ironic considering Nietzsche’s view of Christianity, since Nietzsche said that himself: “Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil.” Nietzsche may have recognized the truth of this statement, but even if he did, he had no means to bring it about himself, since he clearly did not know Christ. In going beyond good and evil, Nietzsche claimed that one would be immoral, building up his own moral construct against the moral construct of his time and culture— he groups himself in saying, “We immoralists….” However, I would claim that, in going beyond good and evil in Christ, we are not immoral in the least— we are supramoral because we transcend the need for a moral construct entirely!
Our salvation in Christ, then, has at least two major effects on man. The first is that the will of man is actively transformed by his God-given love through the Spirit, so that he more and more displays the “will to love” of Christ. The second effect on man follows directly from the first: man’s “will to love” enables him to freely act in love toward both God and man, freeing him from the restraints placed on him by moral construct. Now, man can do more than just the good action— he can love! Irenaeus says this as well in his treatise On the Apostolic Preaching. He states,
"Therefore we do not need the Law as a paedagogue…. For no more shall the Law say, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ to him to whom even come desire for another’s wife; nor, ‘You shall not kill’, to him who has removed all anger and enmity from himself…."
Put simply, this salvation in Christ makes us Christ-like— makes us God-like— completely free to love.
If this salvation in Christ is making us more Christ-like, then this salvation is the restoration of man to what he was originally created to be— the image of God, since Christ himself is “the image of the invisible God.” Athanasius was very concerned with the fallen state of man in light of what he could have been. He says, “What was God to do in face of this dehumanizing of mankind, this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself by the wiles of evil spirits?” We had “dehumanized” ourselves by marring the image of God that God had originally stamped on us in creating us. In our salvation, God makes us truly human again— that is, God makes us to be gods again, since to be truly human is to be godlike. Athanasius says,
"As, then, he who desires to see God Who by nature is invisible and not to be beheld, may yet perceive and know Him through His works, so too let him who does not see Christ with his understanding at least consider Him in His bodily works and test whether they be of man or God…. He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God."
As Athanasius says, Christ— acting like the Superman, acting as the God-man— gives us the example of what a human truly is in his fullest sense. He shows us a life lived in love, defying the set moral construct of the time and abolishing moral constructs embodied in the Law altogether, healing and giving life to man even in this earthly life, and destroying death once and for all, defeating nihilism through submitting himself to it.
As far as what being Christ-like means, Paul also gives us clues in his epistles. He says in Romans, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed into the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Christ, through this example, shows us, whom are called his brothers and coheirs in his kingdom, that men as we are now were meant to be like Supermen; free from the bonds of death and morality, we would be able to freely choose to love God and men in true freedom. Also, Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” Paul was not the only man of faith to give us insight in this area. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus said of the Christ-like life in his Five Theological Orations, “Walk like God through all that is sublime, and with a fellow-feeling through all that involve the body; but better treat all as God does, so that you may ascend from below to become God, because he came down from above for us.” Really, we Christians surpass even Nietzsche’s hopes for the continuing progression of man. Far from making man into a herd animal, as Nietzsche thought, Christ makes us into the men of true excellence that we were always meant to be. Following Christ’s example, we who are truly in Christ— and have thus received His Holy Spirit— are, through His ultimate sacrificial love, being remade to be like Christ, to be Supermen, to be gods; higher even than God’s angels, brothers to the only-begotten Son of God, coheirs to the universe! Immortality, eternal life, godhood, is ours for the taking, if we will only but receive it!
So often we make so little of humanity. Obviously, we are correct in saying that all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but in doing so, it seems as if we do not understand the glory for which humanity was really created. In understanding the greatness for which we were made, we can see our present depravity and rejoice all the more in our restoration to godhood through Jesus Christ. After realizing this, however, we must also understand that we are still underneath the God by whom we were created. We must realize that we are glorified only because He was, is, and will be glorious, and that though we are closer than brothers to the King of Kings, He is still King, and we are not. Between both of these represented extremes, we find humanity’s proper place. Christ, then, fulfills Nietzsche’s project better than Nietzsche himself ever could have. By restoring man to his proper place, Christ has restored the natural order of the universe, placing those who were meant to be strong back in a position of strength, excellence, and power. Through Christ, man is restored to where he was always meant to be: sitting at the right hand of God the Father, a god himself, crowned in glory, splendor, and majesty.
It may be that someone objects, and believes that this idea of human apotheosis as I have stated it— the idea of our Theogony— is absurd. After all, even as Christians, we still fall prey to sin and do “bad” things. In at least some real way, we are not truly free from morality. This objection would indeed present a problem for my argument, if I were arguing that, in Christ, we are made into perfect images of Christ immediately. However, this is not what I am arguing in the least. This is a simple objection to circumvent by simply arguing that our Theogony is another way of viewing our Christian sanctification. As the Holy Spirit, through the love of Christ, makes us into more perfect images of God, we are made more and more able to exhibit Christ-like love, thereby continuously lessening the hold of morality over us. C. S. Lewis talks about the surpassing of the moral construct by humanity in an essay entitled “Man or Rabbit?,” arguing that man was always meant for something much greater than our moral constructs. He says,
"The people who keep on asking if they can’t lead a decent life without Christ, don’t know what life is about; if they did they would know that ‘a decent life’ is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for. Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up."
Since, then, as we are still unable to completely and totally exhibit Christ-like love at all times to both God and man, morality must govern our actions insofar as we cannot love as Christ did. This can be shown as a kind of inverse relationship. Less ability to act in love requires more moral control; more ability to love requires less.
Now surely, this imperative of love is much harder to live by than any moral construct, since it comes into direct conflict with our “will to power.” Now, instead of repenting of our sins— those actions that did not conform to morality— we now must repent of anything less than unconditional love for both God and man. Until our “will to power” is completely replaced by our “will to love,” this is indeed a difficult thing— surely, it is a complete paradigm shift. But thank God for His Grace, and for His Holy Spirit, who is continuously reforming and reshaping us, transforming our “will to power” into the “will to love,” making us more and more into the likeness of the Son of God and His Glory. We will love and be loved as He does and is; we will be free as He is free; we will be glorious as He is glorious. We will be gods, but we are not quite there yet.
Theogony
Thus, it is through our God-given love made possible through Christ that Nietzsche’s mantra of man becoming “beyond good and evil” is made possible— since it is obvious that a man who acts in Christ-like love toward both God and his neighbor will always freely do what is best toward them without need for moral guidance. This conclusion is especially ironic considering Nietzsche’s view of Christianity, since Nietzsche said that himself: “Whatever is done from love always occurs beyond good and evil.” Nietzsche may have recognized the truth of this statement, but even if he did, he had no means to bring it about himself, since he clearly did not know Christ. In going beyond good and evil, Nietzsche claimed that one would be immoral, building up his own moral construct against the moral construct of his time and culture— he groups himself in saying, “We immoralists….” However, I would claim that, in going beyond good and evil in Christ, we are not immoral in the least— we are supramoral because we transcend the need for a moral construct entirely!
Our salvation in Christ, then, has at least two major effects on man. The first is that the will of man is actively transformed by his God-given love through the Spirit, so that he more and more displays the “will to love” of Christ. The second effect on man follows directly from the first: man’s “will to love” enables him to freely act in love toward both God and man, freeing him from the restraints placed on him by moral construct. Now, man can do more than just the good action— he can love! Irenaeus says this as well in his treatise On the Apostolic Preaching. He states,
"Therefore we do not need the Law as a paedagogue…. For no more shall the Law say, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ to him to whom even come desire for another’s wife; nor, ‘You shall not kill’, to him who has removed all anger and enmity from himself…."
Put simply, this salvation in Christ makes us Christ-like— makes us God-like— completely free to love.
If this salvation in Christ is making us more Christ-like, then this salvation is the restoration of man to what he was originally created to be— the image of God, since Christ himself is “the image of the invisible God.” Athanasius was very concerned with the fallen state of man in light of what he could have been. He says, “What was God to do in face of this dehumanizing of mankind, this universal hiding of the knowledge of Himself by the wiles of evil spirits?” We had “dehumanized” ourselves by marring the image of God that God had originally stamped on us in creating us. In our salvation, God makes us truly human again— that is, God makes us to be gods again, since to be truly human is to be godlike. Athanasius says,
"As, then, he who desires to see God Who by nature is invisible and not to be beheld, may yet perceive and know Him through His works, so too let him who does not see Christ with his understanding at least consider Him in His bodily works and test whether they be of man or God…. He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God."
As Athanasius says, Christ— acting like the Superman, acting as the God-man— gives us the example of what a human truly is in his fullest sense. He shows us a life lived in love, defying the set moral construct of the time and abolishing moral constructs embodied in the Law altogether, healing and giving life to man even in this earthly life, and destroying death once and for all, defeating nihilism through submitting himself to it.
As far as what being Christ-like means, Paul also gives us clues in his epistles. He says in Romans, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed into the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Christ, through this example, shows us, whom are called his brothers and coheirs in his kingdom, that men as we are now were meant to be like Supermen; free from the bonds of death and morality, we would be able to freely choose to love God and men in true freedom. Also, Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” Paul was not the only man of faith to give us insight in this area. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus said of the Christ-like life in his Five Theological Orations, “Walk like God through all that is sublime, and with a fellow-feeling through all that involve the body; but better treat all as God does, so that you may ascend from below to become God, because he came down from above for us.” Really, we Christians surpass even Nietzsche’s hopes for the continuing progression of man. Far from making man into a herd animal, as Nietzsche thought, Christ makes us into the men of true excellence that we were always meant to be. Following Christ’s example, we who are truly in Christ— and have thus received His Holy Spirit— are, through His ultimate sacrificial love, being remade to be like Christ, to be Supermen, to be gods; higher even than God’s angels, brothers to the only-begotten Son of God, coheirs to the universe! Immortality, eternal life, godhood, is ours for the taking, if we will only but receive it!
So often we make so little of humanity. Obviously, we are correct in saying that all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but in doing so, it seems as if we do not understand the glory for which humanity was really created. In understanding the greatness for which we were made, we can see our present depravity and rejoice all the more in our restoration to godhood through Jesus Christ. After realizing this, however, we must also understand that we are still underneath the God by whom we were created. We must realize that we are glorified only because He was, is, and will be glorious, and that though we are closer than brothers to the King of Kings, He is still King, and we are not. Between both of these represented extremes, we find humanity’s proper place. Christ, then, fulfills Nietzsche’s project better than Nietzsche himself ever could have. By restoring man to his proper place, Christ has restored the natural order of the universe, placing those who were meant to be strong back in a position of strength, excellence, and power. Through Christ, man is restored to where he was always meant to be: sitting at the right hand of God the Father, a god himself, crowned in glory, splendor, and majesty.
It may be that someone objects, and believes that this idea of human apotheosis as I have stated it— the idea of our Theogony— is absurd. After all, even as Christians, we still fall prey to sin and do “bad” things. In at least some real way, we are not truly free from morality. This objection would indeed present a problem for my argument, if I were arguing that, in Christ, we are made into perfect images of Christ immediately. However, this is not what I am arguing in the least. This is a simple objection to circumvent by simply arguing that our Theogony is another way of viewing our Christian sanctification. As the Holy Spirit, through the love of Christ, makes us into more perfect images of God, we are made more and more able to exhibit Christ-like love, thereby continuously lessening the hold of morality over us. C. S. Lewis talks about the surpassing of the moral construct by humanity in an essay entitled “Man or Rabbit?,” arguing that man was always meant for something much greater than our moral constructs. He says,
"The people who keep on asking if they can’t lead a decent life without Christ, don’t know what life is about; if they did they would know that ‘a decent life’ is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for. Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up."
Since, then, as we are still unable to completely and totally exhibit Christ-like love at all times to both God and man, morality must govern our actions insofar as we cannot love as Christ did. This can be shown as a kind of inverse relationship. Less ability to act in love requires more moral control; more ability to love requires less.
Now surely, this imperative of love is much harder to live by than any moral construct, since it comes into direct conflict with our “will to power.” Now, instead of repenting of our sins— those actions that did not conform to morality— we now must repent of anything less than unconditional love for both God and man. Until our “will to power” is completely replaced by our “will to love,” this is indeed a difficult thing— surely, it is a complete paradigm shift. But thank God for His Grace, and for His Holy Spirit, who is continuously reforming and reshaping us, transforming our “will to power” into the “will to love,” making us more and more into the likeness of the Son of God and His Glory. We will love and be loved as He does and is; we will be free as He is free; we will be glorious as He is glorious. We will be gods, but we are not quite there yet.
Monday, July 09, 2007
"I Said, You Are Gods!" - A Trans-Nietzschean Perspective on Christian Soteriology (Part IV).
Part IV:
The Death of Morality
But how is this even possible? As I have previously mentioned, and as C. S. Lewis aptly points out in The Abolition of Man, fallen man requires a Law— a moral construct— in order to keep from destroying one another and himself. This is why Nietzsche failed, so how is it that we succeed where he did not? We succeed in this endeavor simply because we have the Superman, Jesus Christ, the man who was “beyond man.” Paul tells us, in his letter to the Romans, of the restoration of man through the great actions of Christ, and likewise, of defeat of sin and the law:
"For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In fulfilling the Law here on Earth and defeating death, Christ does what we cannot, and lifts up the whole of humanity in doing so. He makes us righteous, bringing us above the Law that could only condemn, giving us new life eternal here and now. Of our absolute freedom in Christ, Paul writes in Galatians:
"But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."
Christ sets us free, and we are free indeed! To do anything less than live our new lives in Christ as truly free men would be to turn back to our slave masters, as the Israelites did in the desert when they begged to return to Egypt, rather than face the hardships their new-found freedom brought them.
But how is this new life brought about? How do the life, death and resurrection of the God-man almost two thousand years ago affect our lives in such a way as to bring us freedom, specifically, freedom from morality? Christ himself tells his disciples before he ascends back into heaven: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Once he has gone back to God the Father Jesus will send us the Holy Spirit who will come upon us in power to guide us in the ways we should go. Christ acted analogously to the Superman, doing what man could not do by himself; restoring man to glory, and, more importantly, restoring man to God. Once that restoration took place, Christ could then send God’s Holy Spirit to dwell within us. In the Spirit, we are set free from the Law in its many forms, as Paul tells us in Galatians chapter five: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” This is true because since we are being guided and empowered by the Spirit, we no longer require moral constructs to curb and control our behavior. We no longer need the Law to act as our schoolmaster, as Paul says.
But what does the Spirit do within us to make us able to transcend our need for morality? Quite simply, He replaces our “will to power”— that product of the Fall that causes us to selfishly exert our own will for our personal benefits and happiness— with the even more powerful “will to love.” This “will to love” was first exerted by Christ himself, when, all for our sake, he made himself nothing, as Paul tells us in Philippians. Christ Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” and, in the letter to the Romans, Paul tells us that, rather than let us suffer death, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Arguably, in making himself nothing, Christ relinquished his “will to power” (his right to exert his omnipotence in any way he desired). But what an enormous display of power this is! To forfeit one’s will to act as he wished (his “will to power”) out of love, only to gain back the power over death itself, as well as the restoration of man to God, through that same “will to love.” Christ’s “will to love” was indeed much more powerful than his “will to power!” Our selfless “will to love” is similarly even more powerful than our selfish “will to power.” In our “will to love”, we relinquish our “will to power”— that desire to enact change to benefit ourselves— in order to benefit another, only to gain back what we desired: the power to benefit ourselves, the power to flourish, the power to be happy— as well as the ability to live harmoniously in community with other men.
This is the reason that the Law can be summed up in Christ’s simple command: “‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,’” and “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Paul says something very similar to the church at Galatia: “For you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” But what really makes love so much better than the Law? Why does acting in Christian love through the Holy Spirit transcend the moral construct and truly make us free? Within a moral construct, the goal, or the end, of the man that wishes to be “good” is to act in such a way that is considered to be good within that moral construct. This is generally in order to avoid its punishments. To do this he must conform to the construct’s standard of goodness; he must be moral.
Presupposing a man unable to exhibit Christ-like love (as we would have to do pre-Christ), the “good” man is being moral for the sake of being considered morally good within the construct. If the man wants to be good, and therefore remain unharmed, he must conform to the good action X as is defined by the construct. Nietzsche talks about this when writing about the taming of man by society and its moral constructs:
"Those fearful bulwarks with which the political organization protected itself against the old instincts of freedom—punishments being among these bulwarks—brought about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man turned backward against man himself. Hostility, cruelty, joy in persecuting, in attacking, in change, in destruction—all this turned against the possessors of such instincts: that is the origin of the bad conscience."
It then follows that if he wants to be good, the “good” man is effectively coerced into committing X. Even if this man “freely” chooses to commit this action X, his freedom to choose his course of action has been removed for the sake of his desired end— being good so as to avoid punishment. These effects of the construct cause man to turn his “will to power” on himself, and thus Nietzsche believes man experiences guilt or “bad conscience.” Therefore, the pre-Christ man cannot be freely good— he must be coerced into being so.
The moral construct then acts as an electric fence that curbs man’s “will to power.” If he wishes to not be shocked, he must necessarily stay within the fence— but this is really all morality can do. Nietzsche says as much in his Genealogy: “That which can in general be attained through punishment, in men and in animals, is an increase of fear, a heightening of prudence, mastery of the desires: thus punishment tames men, but it does not make them ‘better’—one might with more justice assert the opposite.” In this way, morality is insufficient because it cannot reform the “will to power” and therefore it cannot allow us to be freely good. Why then does acting in Christ-like love transcend the moral construct? Because when we come to know Christ and receive the Holy Spirit as a result, our “will to power” is gradually remade into a “will to love” that continually reforms us into the image of Christ. Thus, the law is summed up and surpassed in loving God above all and our neighbors as ourselves. About this, St. Irenaeus of Lyons says,
"And that, not by the prolixity of the Law, but according to the brevity of faith and love, men were going to be saved, Isaiah, in this fashion says, ‘He will complete and cut short His Word in righteousness; for God will make a concise Word in all the world.’ And therefore the Apostle Paul says, ‘Love is the fulfillment of the Law,’ for he who loves God has fulfilled the Law."
The electric fences of morality are gradually removed because we begin to understand where it is beneficial for us to go, and we desire those places rather than the harmful ones. In Nietzsche’s terms, we are no longer guilty, because the “will to power” that was necessarily turned inward against itself within the moral construct, thereby inflicting the “bad conscience,” has been replaced by the “will to love,” against which “there is no law.” Therefore, in the love of Christ lies the death of morality.
The Death of Morality
But how is this even possible? As I have previously mentioned, and as C. S. Lewis aptly points out in The Abolition of Man, fallen man requires a Law— a moral construct— in order to keep from destroying one another and himself. This is why Nietzsche failed, so how is it that we succeed where he did not? We succeed in this endeavor simply because we have the Superman, Jesus Christ, the man who was “beyond man.” Paul tells us, in his letter to the Romans, of the restoration of man through the great actions of Christ, and likewise, of defeat of sin and the law:
"For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In fulfilling the Law here on Earth and defeating death, Christ does what we cannot, and lifts up the whole of humanity in doing so. He makes us righteous, bringing us above the Law that could only condemn, giving us new life eternal here and now. Of our absolute freedom in Christ, Paul writes in Galatians:
"But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.’ So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."
Christ sets us free, and we are free indeed! To do anything less than live our new lives in Christ as truly free men would be to turn back to our slave masters, as the Israelites did in the desert when they begged to return to Egypt, rather than face the hardships their new-found freedom brought them.
But how is this new life brought about? How do the life, death and resurrection of the God-man almost two thousand years ago affect our lives in such a way as to bring us freedom, specifically, freedom from morality? Christ himself tells his disciples before he ascends back into heaven: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Once he has gone back to God the Father Jesus will send us the Holy Spirit who will come upon us in power to guide us in the ways we should go. Christ acted analogously to the Superman, doing what man could not do by himself; restoring man to glory, and, more importantly, restoring man to God. Once that restoration took place, Christ could then send God’s Holy Spirit to dwell within us. In the Spirit, we are set free from the Law in its many forms, as Paul tells us in Galatians chapter five: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” This is true because since we are being guided and empowered by the Spirit, we no longer require moral constructs to curb and control our behavior. We no longer need the Law to act as our schoolmaster, as Paul says.
But what does the Spirit do within us to make us able to transcend our need for morality? Quite simply, He replaces our “will to power”— that product of the Fall that causes us to selfishly exert our own will for our personal benefits and happiness— with the even more powerful “will to love.” This “will to love” was first exerted by Christ himself, when, all for our sake, he made himself nothing, as Paul tells us in Philippians. Christ Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” and, in the letter to the Romans, Paul tells us that, rather than let us suffer death, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Arguably, in making himself nothing, Christ relinquished his “will to power” (his right to exert his omnipotence in any way he desired). But what an enormous display of power this is! To forfeit one’s will to act as he wished (his “will to power”) out of love, only to gain back the power over death itself, as well as the restoration of man to God, through that same “will to love.” Christ’s “will to love” was indeed much more powerful than his “will to power!” Our selfless “will to love” is similarly even more powerful than our selfish “will to power.” In our “will to love”, we relinquish our “will to power”— that desire to enact change to benefit ourselves— in order to benefit another, only to gain back what we desired: the power to benefit ourselves, the power to flourish, the power to be happy— as well as the ability to live harmoniously in community with other men.
This is the reason that the Law can be summed up in Christ’s simple command: “‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,’” and “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Paul says something very similar to the church at Galatia: “For you were called to freedom. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” But what really makes love so much better than the Law? Why does acting in Christian love through the Holy Spirit transcend the moral construct and truly make us free? Within a moral construct, the goal, or the end, of the man that wishes to be “good” is to act in such a way that is considered to be good within that moral construct. This is generally in order to avoid its punishments. To do this he must conform to the construct’s standard of goodness; he must be moral.
Presupposing a man unable to exhibit Christ-like love (as we would have to do pre-Christ), the “good” man is being moral for the sake of being considered morally good within the construct. If the man wants to be good, and therefore remain unharmed, he must conform to the good action X as is defined by the construct. Nietzsche talks about this when writing about the taming of man by society and its moral constructs:
"Those fearful bulwarks with which the political organization protected itself against the old instincts of freedom—punishments being among these bulwarks—brought about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man turned backward against man himself. Hostility, cruelty, joy in persecuting, in attacking, in change, in destruction—all this turned against the possessors of such instincts: that is the origin of the bad conscience."
It then follows that if he wants to be good, the “good” man is effectively coerced into committing X. Even if this man “freely” chooses to commit this action X, his freedom to choose his course of action has been removed for the sake of his desired end— being good so as to avoid punishment. These effects of the construct cause man to turn his “will to power” on himself, and thus Nietzsche believes man experiences guilt or “bad conscience.” Therefore, the pre-Christ man cannot be freely good— he must be coerced into being so.
The moral construct then acts as an electric fence that curbs man’s “will to power.” If he wishes to not be shocked, he must necessarily stay within the fence— but this is really all morality can do. Nietzsche says as much in his Genealogy: “That which can in general be attained through punishment, in men and in animals, is an increase of fear, a heightening of prudence, mastery of the desires: thus punishment tames men, but it does not make them ‘better’—one might with more justice assert the opposite.” In this way, morality is insufficient because it cannot reform the “will to power” and therefore it cannot allow us to be freely good. Why then does acting in Christ-like love transcend the moral construct? Because when we come to know Christ and receive the Holy Spirit as a result, our “will to power” is gradually remade into a “will to love” that continually reforms us into the image of Christ. Thus, the law is summed up and surpassed in loving God above all and our neighbors as ourselves. About this, St. Irenaeus of Lyons says,
"And that, not by the prolixity of the Law, but according to the brevity of faith and love, men were going to be saved, Isaiah, in this fashion says, ‘He will complete and cut short His Word in righteousness; for God will make a concise Word in all the world.’ And therefore the Apostle Paul says, ‘Love is the fulfillment of the Law,’ for he who loves God has fulfilled the Law."
The electric fences of morality are gradually removed because we begin to understand where it is beneficial for us to go, and we desire those places rather than the harmful ones. In Nietzsche’s terms, we are no longer guilty, because the “will to power” that was necessarily turned inward against itself within the moral construct, thereby inflicting the “bad conscience,” has been replaced by the “will to love,” against which “there is no law.” Therefore, in the love of Christ lies the death of morality.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
"I Said, You Are Gods!" - A Trans-Nietzschean Perspective on Christian Soteriology (Part III).
Part III:
Jesus Christ: Superman
Therefore, the whole of Nietzsche’s project is a shout, nay, a scream of exhortation to mankind, saying, “Be excellent! Be excellent, and you will make us even more than this mortal man that we are now!” He believes that this will be achieved when mankind goes beyond good and evil by surpassing the need for a morality to control our actions. The man who is willing to destroy the ascetic ideals, willing to destroy moral ideals, and able to overcome nihilism—this man is the Superman. He spurs man on to a higher existence by allowing him to access his “will to power,” and through that, the excellence that Christianity and other ascetic ideals attempt to hold down. The rub: as previously stated, mankind requires a moral construct in order to be able to function without destroying itself because of the effects of original sin, man’s “will to power.” As long as man has the “will to power,” he is liable to destroy both himself and his fellow men.
C. S. Lewis, in his book entitled The Abolition of Man, discusses the dangers of the destruction of objective value, specifically dealing with the philosophies of those who, like Nietzsche, believed that the possession and exertion of power that is the most fundamental drive in man was a drive to abundant life, and should be embraced and encouraged, because it allows man to flourish and to conquer nature. In response, Lewis fully plays out the implications of their own philosophy and finds that those humans who hold ultimate power—and therefore those who determine ultimate value, if there are actually any such men—will be the least bound to any external force, including any objective system of value. These “Conditioners,” as Lewis calls them, will then be forced to determine new values completely from their own desires—their own natures. Therefore, Lewis says,
"At the moment, then, of Man’s victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely ‘natural’—to their irrational impulses. Nature, untrammeled by values, rules the Conditioners and, through them, all humanity. Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man."
In Nietzsche’s abolition of moral value, we become more and more like his “savage cruel beast,” but instead of achieving a race of transcendent men, we cease to be men. We do not ascend into a higher existence, we slump into a lower one; we become beasts, machines, or as Lewis says, those who hold power will “envy us as eunuchs envy men.” Nietzsche, then, in wanting to affirm life in the here and now and the potential power held within the human race, succumbs to the very nihilism he so adamantly hated.
Then, if we are all truly depraved, no man has the strength to be like Nietzsche’s Superman, for no man can destroy both the ascetic and moral ideals and overcome our tendency for death. Our options are either to be controlled or to be destroyed. What then is to be done? Only a god could succeed where men’s strength fails. But what good would this do, if man too did not overcome himself? He would still be left in the dust, while this god did his work for him. What would be required would need to be a fusion between god and man, and who better for this task than Jesus Christ, the Word Who Became Flesh? Christ, in coming to earth, does what all other men cannot do for themselves— by “overcoming” and “going under” himself and making himself nothing, he becomes the Superman. Through Him, we have abundant life and we live life fully and joyfully in the here and now, not just in some transcendent life to come. Through Him, we live life freely, and are no longer bound by the Law. Through Him, we overcome death.
If Christ was really so much like Nietzsche’s Superman, then why was Nietzsche so opposed to Christianity? Nietzsche must have had Christianity misrepresented to him, if he was to miss this observation that, in retrospect, seems to stare us in the face. Christianity is not based on some ascetic ideal— a rejecting of our lives in the here and now as base and unworthy for the benefit of a life to come. In Christ, we have life abundantly here and now. Paul states as much in his epistle to the Colossians when he significantly downplays the importance of regulations and asceticism in the spiritual life. He says of them, “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” Therefore, we live here and now joyously and without shame of our earthly lives, and Nietzsche misunderstood our faith. Also, Christianity is not a system of law and punishment meant to keep us under control, nor a set of regulations to maintain, because in Christ, we are set free from the law. Paul tells us in his letter to the believers in Galatia of the absolute freedom we have in Christ: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Therefore, the Christianity that Nietzsche was so vehemently opposed to because of its ascetic and moral ideals was not actually Christianity at all; it was merely sinful people misrepresenting the Gospel, as we so often do. Nietzsche completely misunderstood Christ, and therefore, his arguments against Christianity as it actually is are merely straw men.
It should be noted that even in the life to come, our new life will be lived bodily on this earth, when it too will be recreated as we are in Christ. The resurrection, then, should not cause us to live as always only looking forward to the life to come. The life to come will be better, to be sure, and looking forward to it is not necessarily bad, but the resurrection should cause us to start living that new life here and now, since we are in fact being recreated here and now. We Christians do not live nihilistically in the least, seeking after death, as Nietzsche thought. St. Athanasius tells us this very fact in his treatise entitled On the Incarnation. He says, “All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead.” Far from seeking death, as Nietzsche thought, we Christians laugh at it. But how do we do this? How are we to live in light of the resurrection of the dead, in light of the death of death? We live as Nietzsche suggests: free from any moral construct controlling us as far as we are able, free from the ascetic ideals that cause us to neglect the joys in this present life that we have been given, free from the guilt that comes from missing the mark of morality.
Jesus Christ: Superman
Therefore, the whole of Nietzsche’s project is a shout, nay, a scream of exhortation to mankind, saying, “Be excellent! Be excellent, and you will make us even more than this mortal man that we are now!” He believes that this will be achieved when mankind goes beyond good and evil by surpassing the need for a morality to control our actions. The man who is willing to destroy the ascetic ideals, willing to destroy moral ideals, and able to overcome nihilism—this man is the Superman. He spurs man on to a higher existence by allowing him to access his “will to power,” and through that, the excellence that Christianity and other ascetic ideals attempt to hold down. The rub: as previously stated, mankind requires a moral construct in order to be able to function without destroying itself because of the effects of original sin, man’s “will to power.” As long as man has the “will to power,” he is liable to destroy both himself and his fellow men.
C. S. Lewis, in his book entitled The Abolition of Man, discusses the dangers of the destruction of objective value, specifically dealing with the philosophies of those who, like Nietzsche, believed that the possession and exertion of power that is the most fundamental drive in man was a drive to abundant life, and should be embraced and encouraged, because it allows man to flourish and to conquer nature. In response, Lewis fully plays out the implications of their own philosophy and finds that those humans who hold ultimate power—and therefore those who determine ultimate value, if there are actually any such men—will be the least bound to any external force, including any objective system of value. These “Conditioners,” as Lewis calls them, will then be forced to determine new values completely from their own desires—their own natures. Therefore, Lewis says,
"At the moment, then, of Man’s victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely ‘natural’—to their irrational impulses. Nature, untrammeled by values, rules the Conditioners and, through them, all humanity. Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man."
In Nietzsche’s abolition of moral value, we become more and more like his “savage cruel beast,” but instead of achieving a race of transcendent men, we cease to be men. We do not ascend into a higher existence, we slump into a lower one; we become beasts, machines, or as Lewis says, those who hold power will “envy us as eunuchs envy men.” Nietzsche, then, in wanting to affirm life in the here and now and the potential power held within the human race, succumbs to the very nihilism he so adamantly hated.
Then, if we are all truly depraved, no man has the strength to be like Nietzsche’s Superman, for no man can destroy both the ascetic and moral ideals and overcome our tendency for death. Our options are either to be controlled or to be destroyed. What then is to be done? Only a god could succeed where men’s strength fails. But what good would this do, if man too did not overcome himself? He would still be left in the dust, while this god did his work for him. What would be required would need to be a fusion between god and man, and who better for this task than Jesus Christ, the Word Who Became Flesh? Christ, in coming to earth, does what all other men cannot do for themselves— by “overcoming” and “going under” himself and making himself nothing, he becomes the Superman. Through Him, we have abundant life and we live life fully and joyfully in the here and now, not just in some transcendent life to come. Through Him, we live life freely, and are no longer bound by the Law. Through Him, we overcome death.
If Christ was really so much like Nietzsche’s Superman, then why was Nietzsche so opposed to Christianity? Nietzsche must have had Christianity misrepresented to him, if he was to miss this observation that, in retrospect, seems to stare us in the face. Christianity is not based on some ascetic ideal— a rejecting of our lives in the here and now as base and unworthy for the benefit of a life to come. In Christ, we have life abundantly here and now. Paul states as much in his epistle to the Colossians when he significantly downplays the importance of regulations and asceticism in the spiritual life. He says of them, “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” Therefore, we live here and now joyously and without shame of our earthly lives, and Nietzsche misunderstood our faith. Also, Christianity is not a system of law and punishment meant to keep us under control, nor a set of regulations to maintain, because in Christ, we are set free from the law. Paul tells us in his letter to the believers in Galatia of the absolute freedom we have in Christ: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Therefore, the Christianity that Nietzsche was so vehemently opposed to because of its ascetic and moral ideals was not actually Christianity at all; it was merely sinful people misrepresenting the Gospel, as we so often do. Nietzsche completely misunderstood Christ, and therefore, his arguments against Christianity as it actually is are merely straw men.
It should be noted that even in the life to come, our new life will be lived bodily on this earth, when it too will be recreated as we are in Christ. The resurrection, then, should not cause us to live as always only looking forward to the life to come. The life to come will be better, to be sure, and looking forward to it is not necessarily bad, but the resurrection should cause us to start living that new life here and now, since we are in fact being recreated here and now. We Christians do not live nihilistically in the least, seeking after death, as Nietzsche thought. St. Athanasius tells us this very fact in his treatise entitled On the Incarnation. He says, “All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead.” Far from seeking death, as Nietzsche thought, we Christians laugh at it. But how do we do this? How are we to live in light of the resurrection of the dead, in light of the death of death? We live as Nietzsche suggests: free from any moral construct controlling us as far as we are able, free from the ascetic ideals that cause us to neglect the joys in this present life that we have been given, free from the guilt that comes from missing the mark of morality.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
"I Said, You Are Gods!" - A Trans-Nietzschean Perspective on Christian Soteriology (Prologue).
Ever since he wrote in the late nineteenth century, people have been either glorifying or demonizing Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a self-proclaimed Antichrist, not finding much middle ground for serious critical acceptance or denial for him. This is particularly true of Christians, who, for the last century, have tossed Nietzsche in their philosophical wastebaskets, simply ignoring his enormous contributions to certain modern and postmodern views on ethics and psychology. In doing this, I believe that we have been missing an extraordinary opportunity to reconcile an enemy of the Kingdom of God to ourselves, granting us yet another weapon for use against the forces of darkness. While we, as Christians, should obviously not accept a Nietzschean philosophy wholesale, I believe that adopting a Nietzschean perspective in certain ways is invaluable to a Christian understanding of ethics, as well as a Christian understanding of the ontology of man. This is because Nietzsche says some particularly enlightening things in regards to the relations between the nature of man, his “will to power,” and moral constructions that have much more in common with Scripture than most Christians would like to believe. In this paper, I hope to reconcile elements of this Nietzschean perspective on morality and man with a model of Christian soteriology, our doctrine of salvation, as seen in the writings of the Apostle Paul, as well as several patristic theologians. Christ, in becoming a man, makes it possible for us to become gods by replacing our “will to power” with a more powerful “will to love,” thereby removing the need for the constraints placed on us by the moral construct.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Repeat.
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Eat.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Apollo.
Dionysus.
Repeat.
Head.
Heart.
Repeat.
Live.
Die.
Repeat.
Swim.
Sink.
Repeat.
Crash.
Dismantle.
Repeat.
Atrophy.
Theogony.
Repeat.
Fear.
Love.
Get out of the fucking shower.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Eat.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Apollo.
Dionysus.
Repeat.
Head.
Heart.
Repeat.
Live.
Die.
Repeat.
Swim.
Sink.
Repeat.
Crash.
Dismantle.
Repeat.
Atrophy.
Theogony.
Repeat.
Fear.
Love.
Get out of the fucking shower.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Thoughts to Chew On. Part VII.
"You had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little."
- Zarathustra
- Zarathustra
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Thoughts to Chew On. Part VI.
"You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you..."
- Zarathustra
- Zarathustra
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Thoughts to Chew On. Part III.
Having trust in someone is not knowing whether or not he can be trusted--and trusting him anyway.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Metaphorical Metaphysics. A Moral Dilemma.
(I apologize in advance for being horribly esoteric… I’m just writing down what all this feels like in my head.)
As another celebration of the wonderful holiday that is Thanksgiving comes and goes, I feel faced with the greatest and simplest paradoxes—I’m wrestling with what seems to be an enormous metaphysical conglomeration of things much too close to home and much too far over the horizon to make any ordered sense of it all. One big fight is going on in my head, and the bout bill is so large, it feels like the in-laws who can’t keep their own family matters straight came over to my place for the long weekend and started making trouble here.
My thankfulness and humble gratitude to God for the countless wonderful things He has blessed me with battles with my depression and loneliness.
The love I have for my friends battles with my frustration over their hurtful actions.
The delight I take in the relationships I have battles with my fears of not being good enough and getting hurt again.
My excitement for recent opportunities to realize my life's dreams battles with my fears of failure and commitment.
My desire to abandon my philosophical studies and my dreams to devote my life to feeding the hungry battles with my unmistakable knowledge that there is something much bigger at stake than the immediate comfort of the downtrodden.
My awe and wonder at the mystic and metaphysical battles with my disgust for empty ideological sophistry and gnostic bullshit.
At the epic war game in my mind, simplicity battles complexity.
Earth battles Quintessence, and the aether swirls around them, goading them on.
Past and Future battle, and Present keeps yelling at them both to quit complicating the situation.
The universe battles with the bum who sits at the freeway exit.
…
“What is to be done? We’re drawn to the terrible fallacy that man is desirable, and there’s no escaping into truth.”
*sigh*
At the moment, I’m at a loss for what to do… I guess the only thing I can do is just to keep singing.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him all creatures here below!
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts!
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone… and may we always keep singing.
Amen.
As another celebration of the wonderful holiday that is Thanksgiving comes and goes, I feel faced with the greatest and simplest paradoxes—I’m wrestling with what seems to be an enormous metaphysical conglomeration of things much too close to home and much too far over the horizon to make any ordered sense of it all. One big fight is going on in my head, and the bout bill is so large, it feels like the in-laws who can’t keep their own family matters straight came over to my place for the long weekend and started making trouble here.
My thankfulness and humble gratitude to God for the countless wonderful things He has blessed me with battles with my depression and loneliness.
The love I have for my friends battles with my frustration over their hurtful actions.
The delight I take in the relationships I have battles with my fears of not being good enough and getting hurt again.
My excitement for recent opportunities to realize my life's dreams battles with my fears of failure and commitment.
My desire to abandon my philosophical studies and my dreams to devote my life to feeding the hungry battles with my unmistakable knowledge that there is something much bigger at stake than the immediate comfort of the downtrodden.
My awe and wonder at the mystic and metaphysical battles with my disgust for empty ideological sophistry and gnostic bullshit.
At the epic war game in my mind, simplicity battles complexity.
Earth battles Quintessence, and the aether swirls around them, goading them on.
Past and Future battle, and Present keeps yelling at them both to quit complicating the situation.
The universe battles with the bum who sits at the freeway exit.
…
“What is to be done? We’re drawn to the terrible fallacy that man is desirable, and there’s no escaping into truth.”
*sigh*
At the moment, I’m at a loss for what to do… I guess the only thing I can do is just to keep singing.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him all creatures here below!
Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts!
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone… and may we always keep singing.
Amen.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Base Jumping Is Scary. A Joke.
"We've lost our way,
And if we could only see us now...
The words of the dead ring in our ears,
But its only a lie.
The voice in your head brings you to tears,
But you don't know why.
Yes, it's only a lie...
Isn't it?"
"So Strange I Remember You"
- Thrice
I have this funny feeling that I get when I feel that an era of my life is over. Clearly and obviously, I'm only twenty years old, and life is just beginning, and there have been very few "eras" of my life that I have passed through, save junior high school (R.I.P. Five Iron Frenzy), and yadda yadda yadda. Still, the feeling of a coming completion haunts me.
Do you know the one? It's the one accompanied by that powerful scent of nostalgia noxious enough to knock over a cow (I realize this is an odd allusion at best, but I feel it works to give you a sense of the oddness of the previously mentioned feeling). The one that signifies that everything you've ever known is coming to a close, and leaves you wondering, "Where the crap did everyone go?" Yeah, that one.
And yet, while this funny feeling tells me that I'm sitting on the precipice of something incredible, I am for some odd reason failing to comprehend that I'm sitting on the edge of that incredible cliff. A good cliff, mind you, a wicked awesome cliff... but the fact that I can't seem to see an enormous cliff right in front of me bothers me. Although, I suppose my saying that completely negates the previous statement and the statement that I notice that I don't notice that I'm sitting on an enormous cliff itself is completely self-defeating... but yet I am still bothered. Humph.
So perhaps I do see the precipice, but am bothered by the fact that I can't see what treasure lies at the bottom of the canyon. This is a better proposal for certain. I suppose, then, that I can rule out that I'm NOT bothered by the notion that I might hit the ground and go splat; no, I'm more-than-fairly-certain that my parachute IS in fact inside my backpack and WILL in fact come out and open when I pull the cord. But, then I have to wonder: "Am I seriously bothered by the fact that I don't know if after having what could be the greatest experience of my entire life I'll land and not have a Nissan Xterra to take me right back to Suburbia and a Double Mocha Frappichino to sip along the way?"
One doesn't base jump in order to see what's down there, that's for horseshoes and hand gre--oh wait, wrong euphemism. Eh, maybe it still works...
Base jumping is done for the sheer sensation of falling. And you know what Van Halen says about it: "Might as well...JUMP!"
I have this funny feeling that I'm weightless.
Do you know the one?
It's the one where you feel like you've left both your stomach and your sanity back at the top, and you hope to God that you sprout wings and fly.
It's the one where you feel like you've surrendered to the wind, being okay with it blowing you this way and that.
It's the one where you've let it all go.
It's the one where you have this gnawing, ravenous feeling deep inside you.
No wait... I'm just hungry.
And if we could only see us now...
The words of the dead ring in our ears,
But its only a lie.
The voice in your head brings you to tears,
But you don't know why.
Yes, it's only a lie...
Isn't it?"
"So Strange I Remember You"
- Thrice
I have this funny feeling that I get when I feel that an era of my life is over. Clearly and obviously, I'm only twenty years old, and life is just beginning, and there have been very few "eras" of my life that I have passed through, save junior high school (R.I.P. Five Iron Frenzy), and yadda yadda yadda. Still, the feeling of a coming completion haunts me.
Do you know the one? It's the one accompanied by that powerful scent of nostalgia noxious enough to knock over a cow (I realize this is an odd allusion at best, but I feel it works to give you a sense of the oddness of the previously mentioned feeling). The one that signifies that everything you've ever known is coming to a close, and leaves you wondering, "Where the crap did everyone go?" Yeah, that one.
And yet, while this funny feeling tells me that I'm sitting on the precipice of something incredible, I am for some odd reason failing to comprehend that I'm sitting on the edge of that incredible cliff. A good cliff, mind you, a wicked awesome cliff... but the fact that I can't seem to see an enormous cliff right in front of me bothers me. Although, I suppose my saying that completely negates the previous statement and the statement that I notice that I don't notice that I'm sitting on an enormous cliff itself is completely self-defeating... but yet I am still bothered. Humph.
So perhaps I do see the precipice, but am bothered by the fact that I can't see what treasure lies at the bottom of the canyon. This is a better proposal for certain. I suppose, then, that I can rule out that I'm NOT bothered by the notion that I might hit the ground and go splat; no, I'm more-than-fairly-certain that my parachute IS in fact inside my backpack and WILL in fact come out and open when I pull the cord. But, then I have to wonder: "Am I seriously bothered by the fact that I don't know if after having what could be the greatest experience of my entire life I'll land and not have a Nissan Xterra to take me right back to Suburbia and a Double Mocha Frappichino to sip along the way?"
One doesn't base jump in order to see what's down there, that's for horseshoes and hand gre--oh wait, wrong euphemism. Eh, maybe it still works...
Base jumping is done for the sheer sensation of falling. And you know what Van Halen says about it: "Might as well...JUMP!"
I have this funny feeling that I'm weightless.
Do you know the one?
It's the one where you feel like you've left both your stomach and your sanity back at the top, and you hope to God that you sprout wings and fly.
It's the one where you feel like you've surrendered to the wind, being okay with it blowing you this way and that.
It's the one where you've let it all go.
It's the one where you have this gnawing, ravenous feeling deep inside you.
No wait... I'm just hungry.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Two Follies of the Saints. A Question.
"We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen."
"The Nicene Creed"
I have not quite gathered my thoughts on this yet, instead, I'm coming to you guys for your thoughts--if you happen to have any and are willing to take the time to dialogue about them with me.
My question:
Why do we Christians have so much trouble reconciling having sound doctrine with being salt and light and loving the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strengths? Why do some of us feel we must abandon and ignore the doctrines that proclaim the truths that we believe in order to serve Christ, and others of us are content with having doctrine and merely watching while Rome burns to the ground? Why are some of us so afraid that doctrine will get in the way of serving and loving Jesus that we toss Truth by the wayside, while others think that if we have doctrine, we have Jesus? Why must we swing to these extremes, and what is characteristic of a true relationship with Jesus Christ, if Christ is Truth AND Christ is Love?
I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this matter. If you are so kind as to engage in the dialogue here, please leave your name (first name and last initial) if you don't have a Blogger account and/or if I don't know you.
Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and comments so far. I look forward to pursuing the Logos with you all, both here as well as back at school in a few weeks.
Love and Grace to His Saints,
Garrett
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, light from light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen."
"The Nicene Creed"
I have not quite gathered my thoughts on this yet, instead, I'm coming to you guys for your thoughts--if you happen to have any and are willing to take the time to dialogue about them with me.
My question:
Why do we Christians have so much trouble reconciling having sound doctrine with being salt and light and loving the Lord our God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strengths? Why do some of us feel we must abandon and ignore the doctrines that proclaim the truths that we believe in order to serve Christ, and others of us are content with having doctrine and merely watching while Rome burns to the ground? Why are some of us so afraid that doctrine will get in the way of serving and loving Jesus that we toss Truth by the wayside, while others think that if we have doctrine, we have Jesus? Why must we swing to these extremes, and what is characteristic of a true relationship with Jesus Christ, if Christ is Truth AND Christ is Love?
I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this matter. If you are so kind as to engage in the dialogue here, please leave your name (first name and last initial) if you don't have a Blogger account and/or if I don't know you.
Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts and comments so far. I look forward to pursuing the Logos with you all, both here as well as back at school in a few weeks.
Love and Grace to His Saints,
Garrett
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The Flesh Post-Mortem. A Repentance.
"If Jesus Christ is Truth, then I am mostly lies.
If Jesus Christ is Love, then I have failed to try.
If Jesus Christ is Life, then please just let me die."
excerpt from "Eulogy"
- Five Iron Frenzy
I am so glad that Jesus is Jesus, and that I am not.
I am so glad that Jesus is Life, and that I get to die.
If Jesus Christ is Love, then I have failed to try.
If Jesus Christ is Life, then please just let me die."
excerpt from "Eulogy"
- Five Iron Frenzy
I am so glad that Jesus is Jesus, and that I am not.
I am so glad that Jesus is Life, and that I get to die.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
The Fate of the Pharisee. A Heart's Cry.
"What can you do with a heavy soul,
When you dance but there's no rock and roll?
Where can you go if the sun doesn't shine?
You sing the words but none of them rhyme.
What would I have done if it wasn't for Jesus?
Where do you go when you've lost the keys,
When all is dark and you're on your knees?
And in a world where its love betrays,
There is a light that will save the day; don't go away.
What would I have done if it wasn't for Jesus?
And what would I have become if it wasn't for Jesus?"
"What Would I Have Done?"
- Delirious?
Maybe I'm just lazy or selfish, but sometimes I feel so bogged down in our church culture. Maybe I'm just insecure, but sometimes I feel a little bit crushed by the Christianese weight on my shoulders. It feels like there is always something holding me back from being a good Christian, whether it be I don't say, "Hallelujah!" enough, or I don't raise my hands in worship, or I swear too much, or I don't send enough money to missionaries or tithe often enough, or I don't go serve in soup kitchens enough, or I don't witness to non-believers enough, or I don't attend chapel or college group enough, etc, etc, you fill in the blank. It feels like my heart goes unheard because I don't volunteer at the church enough, or because I'm too young, or just because someone is attached to their own opinions about my behavior.
Amidst the talk and expectations of having proper church practices and of what doctrines to teach and of having "good" worship music and of "appropriate" behaviors for dating, how do I save my faith from becoming a checklist?
How do I avoid the fate of the Pharisee, whose proud hearts denied them the chance of healing because they saw fit to judge with planks in their eyes and because they were focused on the semantics of church-going rather than the condition of the heart before God?
It would seem that when we are acting out of REAL love for/submission to Christ, he will direct these lesser issues into their proper order… or have we forgotten that He works for the good of those who love Him, that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him, that He will direct our paths? Has He not set us free?
All this to say that for me, all of this seems to (pardon the misappropriated phrase) "beg the question":
Why can't I just love Jesus?
When you dance but there's no rock and roll?
Where can you go if the sun doesn't shine?
You sing the words but none of them rhyme.
What would I have done if it wasn't for Jesus?
Where do you go when you've lost the keys,
When all is dark and you're on your knees?
And in a world where its love betrays,
There is a light that will save the day; don't go away.
What would I have done if it wasn't for Jesus?
And what would I have become if it wasn't for Jesus?"
"What Would I Have Done?"
- Delirious?
Maybe I'm just lazy or selfish, but sometimes I feel so bogged down in our church culture. Maybe I'm just insecure, but sometimes I feel a little bit crushed by the Christianese weight on my shoulders. It feels like there is always something holding me back from being a good Christian, whether it be I don't say, "Hallelujah!" enough, or I don't raise my hands in worship, or I swear too much, or I don't send enough money to missionaries or tithe often enough, or I don't go serve in soup kitchens enough, or I don't witness to non-believers enough, or I don't attend chapel or college group enough, etc, etc, you fill in the blank. It feels like my heart goes unheard because I don't volunteer at the church enough, or because I'm too young, or just because someone is attached to their own opinions about my behavior.
Amidst the talk and expectations of having proper church practices and of what doctrines to teach and of having "good" worship music and of "appropriate" behaviors for dating, how do I save my faith from becoming a checklist?
How do I avoid the fate of the Pharisee, whose proud hearts denied them the chance of healing because they saw fit to judge with planks in their eyes and because they were focused on the semantics of church-going rather than the condition of the heart before God?
It would seem that when we are acting out of REAL love for/submission to Christ, he will direct these lesser issues into their proper order… or have we forgotten that He works for the good of those who love Him, that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him, that He will direct our paths? Has He not set us free?
All this to say that for me, all of this seems to (pardon the misappropriated phrase) "beg the question":
Why can't I just love Jesus?
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Fighting the Cosmic Forces. A Dance of Death, A Call to Arms.
"How are we ignorant of our hunger,
Inebriated by too much sleep?
How have we fallen into so deep a slumber?
How are we so deceived?
It's as if we starve to death at the wedding feast.
DO YOU NOT GET IT?! DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!
THIS PRESENT DARKNESS SEEKS YOUR VERY LIVES!
WAKE UP, YOU SLEEPERS! OPEN YOUR EYES!"
excerpt from "Opiate"
- Looking for Atlantis
*cue Killswitch Engage*
As I sat in church Sunday morning and listened to an excellent sermon on spiritual warfare, I wondered if I'm alone in my desire to really eff up a demon, Iliad style.
We often sing of battle and the war in heaven and the victory we have in Jesus Christ, and so it boggles my mind how so many of us think we can just watch from a distance as spectators in a galactic coliseum viewing a play-fight of some battle that happened a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I see people nod and raise their hands and shout, "Amen!"--selfish people who are more concerned with catching up with friends than being equipped with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, ignorant people whose belt of truth is conveniently missing and don't know any better, defenseless people whose shield of faith and sword of the Spirit are more fitted for a toy soldier--giving lip service to the god of church or the god of chapel; because those gods can't see the state of our decaying and decrepit hearts, they are far easier to please than Yahweh is.
How do I feel so alone in my desire to take the fight to the Enemy? Has our army fallen asleep?
I can honestly say that I sincerely hope that one day, I will stand on the field of Megiddo along with all His saints and take part in the bloodbath as the skies turn black and the stained fields burn red. I hope that His armies won't be exclusive to the angels, but that, though vengeance is the Lord's, He will share it with His saints. I hope that I will be able to charge the ranks and ramparts of the armies of the Evil One, and that I will take my share of demon blood. I hope that, before they are tossed into the Lake of Fire, He will allow me the chance to fight alongside Him in giving the death-dealers and the damned the death and destruction they so desire.
DO YOU NOT GET IT?! DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!
I do not fear defeat or the fate of the armies of Light; I know we shall prevail.
THIS PRESENT DARKNESS SEEKS YOUR VERY LIVES!
I fear that you sleeping saints will be caught unawares by the schemes of the Evil One and crushed in the onslaught.
WAKE UP, YOU SLEEPERS! OPEN YOUR EYES!
I fear you will become a casualty.
PLEASE. OPEN YOUR EYES.
"Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield and he in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples under me."
- Psalm 144:1-2 ESV
"Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed... When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
- 1 Corinthians 15:34, 51, 54-57 ESV
"Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things."
- Romans 2:1 ESV
Sometimes I wish I could carry around a sword everywhere I went, if only for reminding myself that we are indeed at war.
Inebriated by too much sleep?
How have we fallen into so deep a slumber?
How are we so deceived?
It's as if we starve to death at the wedding feast.
DO YOU NOT GET IT?! DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!
THIS PRESENT DARKNESS SEEKS YOUR VERY LIVES!
WAKE UP, YOU SLEEPERS! OPEN YOUR EYES!"
excerpt from "Opiate"
- Looking for Atlantis
*cue Killswitch Engage*
As I sat in church Sunday morning and listened to an excellent sermon on spiritual warfare, I wondered if I'm alone in my desire to really eff up a demon, Iliad style.
We often sing of battle and the war in heaven and the victory we have in Jesus Christ, and so it boggles my mind how so many of us think we can just watch from a distance as spectators in a galactic coliseum viewing a play-fight of some battle that happened a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I see people nod and raise their hands and shout, "Amen!"--selfish people who are more concerned with catching up with friends than being equipped with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, ignorant people whose belt of truth is conveniently missing and don't know any better, defenseless people whose shield of faith and sword of the Spirit are more fitted for a toy soldier--giving lip service to the god of church or the god of chapel; because those gods can't see the state of our decaying and decrepit hearts, they are far easier to please than Yahweh is.
How do I feel so alone in my desire to take the fight to the Enemy? Has our army fallen asleep?
I can honestly say that I sincerely hope that one day, I will stand on the field of Megiddo along with all His saints and take part in the bloodbath as the skies turn black and the stained fields burn red. I hope that His armies won't be exclusive to the angels, but that, though vengeance is the Lord's, He will share it with His saints. I hope that I will be able to charge the ranks and ramparts of the armies of the Evil One, and that I will take my share of demon blood. I hope that, before they are tossed into the Lake of Fire, He will allow me the chance to fight alongside Him in giving the death-dealers and the damned the death and destruction they so desire.
DO YOU NOT GET IT?! DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!
I do not fear defeat or the fate of the armies of Light; I know we shall prevail.
THIS PRESENT DARKNESS SEEKS YOUR VERY LIVES!
I fear that you sleeping saints will be caught unawares by the schemes of the Evil One and crushed in the onslaught.
WAKE UP, YOU SLEEPERS! OPEN YOUR EYES!
I fear you will become a casualty.
PLEASE. OPEN YOUR EYES.
"Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield and he in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples under me."
- Psalm 144:1-2 ESV
"Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed... When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
- 1 Corinthians 15:34, 51, 54-57 ESV
"Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things."
- Romans 2:1 ESV
Sometimes I wish I could carry around a sword everywhere I went, if only for reminding myself that we are indeed at war.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
The Irony of Drowning. A Picture in Words.
Here's the first post. Yippee!
This has been something I've been thinking about over the past semester. I hope the thinking has been fruitful. :)
"I was swimming through the waves
For what must have been days, but could find no relief.
And when I started sinking down,
I thought for certain I would drown until I saw you in the ocean underneath.
All the the bright colored fish tell of a treasure in a dull shell:
'Such subtlety, so easily missed!'
You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect love,
And I'm a living example of 100% the opposite of this!"
Excerpt from "Tie Me Up! Untie Me!"
- mewithoutYou
I find the human condition very ironic at times. WE STRIVE SO HARD; we work and we toil, all for things that we think will make us happy. This is obviously the case in our secular, uber-post-modern, materialistic society, where our chief export isn't cars or food or oil or electronics or even a service of some kind, but our culture and our lifestyle. People all across the world hate us for flaunting our money around and using it mostly on pleasurable things, and at the same time want so badly to be able to take part in our post-modern Vanity Fair. After all, isn't this desire to be "happy" the major motivation behind our entire capitalist system, for which we are so prosperous, and for which most of the world hates our guts? The thought, "I work hard so I can get a good job and make lots of money so I can buy things to make me happy," and other thoughts like it are pretty dang commonplace in America, after all.
I think Sigmund Freud nailed how Americans so often think nicely when he said, "They strive after happiness; they want to become happy and to remain so. This endeavour has two sides, a positive and a negative aim. It aims on the one hand, at an absence of pain and unpleasure, and, on the other, at the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure. In its narrower sense the word 'happiness' only relates to the last." While Freud is incredibly depressing for me to read, and while he completely discounts religious activities with faulty reasoning, he is also a brilliant observer of human nature. As he smartly points out, we want so badly to have these good feelings for ourselves, and so we strive--and strive hard--to keep our "good" feelings.
It even happens to Christians too, doesn't it? We want so badly to DO THE RIGHT THINGS, to read our Bibles and pray a lot, and go to church and serve people, and not sin and to be the "best" Christians we can and strive as to win the prize, because that's supposed to make us happy, right?
We swim so hard, don't we?
But what happens when we get tired? What happens when we can barely tread water? What happens when we stop swimming and start sinking?
We drown.
But it's a funny thing, really, that when we start sinking and start submitting to the ocean, when we feel like we're losing control, when we feel like WE'RE DROWNING, we also figure out that it's OKAY to drown in the Ocean of Grace, and when we do, we find the treasure we had been swimming after all that time.
Ironic, isn't it?
This has been something I've been thinking about over the past semester. I hope the thinking has been fruitful. :)
"I was swimming through the waves
For what must have been days, but could find no relief.
And when I started sinking down,
I thought for certain I would drown until I saw you in the ocean underneath.
All the the bright colored fish tell of a treasure in a dull shell:
'Such subtlety, so easily missed!'
You, my hidden pearl of pure and perfect love,
And I'm a living example of 100% the opposite of this!"
Excerpt from "Tie Me Up! Untie Me!"
- mewithoutYou
I find the human condition very ironic at times. WE STRIVE SO HARD; we work and we toil, all for things that we think will make us happy. This is obviously the case in our secular, uber-post-modern, materialistic society, where our chief export isn't cars or food or oil or electronics or even a service of some kind, but our culture and our lifestyle. People all across the world hate us for flaunting our money around and using it mostly on pleasurable things, and at the same time want so badly to be able to take part in our post-modern Vanity Fair. After all, isn't this desire to be "happy" the major motivation behind our entire capitalist system, for which we are so prosperous, and for which most of the world hates our guts? The thought, "I work hard so I can get a good job and make lots of money so I can buy things to make me happy," and other thoughts like it are pretty dang commonplace in America, after all.
I think Sigmund Freud nailed how Americans so often think nicely when he said, "They strive after happiness; they want to become happy and to remain so. This endeavour has two sides, a positive and a negative aim. It aims on the one hand, at an absence of pain and unpleasure, and, on the other, at the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure. In its narrower sense the word 'happiness' only relates to the last." While Freud is incredibly depressing for me to read, and while he completely discounts religious activities with faulty reasoning, he is also a brilliant observer of human nature. As he smartly points out, we want so badly to have these good feelings for ourselves, and so we strive--and strive hard--to keep our "good" feelings.
It even happens to Christians too, doesn't it? We want so badly to DO THE RIGHT THINGS, to read our Bibles and pray a lot, and go to church and serve people, and not sin and to be the "best" Christians we can and strive as to win the prize, because that's supposed to make us happy, right?
We swim so hard, don't we?
But what happens when we get tired? What happens when we can barely tread water? What happens when we stop swimming and start sinking?
We drown.
But it's a funny thing, really, that when we start sinking and start submitting to the ocean, when we feel like we're losing control, when we feel like WE'RE DROWNING, we also figure out that it's OKAY to drown in the Ocean of Grace, and when we do, we find the treasure we had been swimming after all that time.
Ironic, isn't it?
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