In the time that the computer was at the shop – again – Rooson and Roeker apparently have squared off (see “comments” on the last blog): the former claiming one right way to God, with many false prophets (as the Bible tells us); the latter, that we don’t know, or as Roker’s dad put it to the Jehovah Witness, “I don’t know and neither do you.” This is a tough one for me, who is trying to be Christian but cannot accept that this is the only way. We have been through this before – how much is the Bible symbol, metaphor or allegory, and how much is it “as we understand it,” meant to mean simply what it says?
As with all holy texts or stories, there are, and are meant to be, multiple levels of understanding, for how else could they be holy? How else could they take us from this profane world to one beyond our usual understanding? However, does one level of understanding negate the other? In other words, if, say, the Bible says the world (and universe) was created in six days, should we take this as astronomical fact, or only as a vehicle to show that God created all, and in a particular order, which roughly follows the modern evolutionary model? Does one level of understanding override a simple, superficial level of understanding?
Or, from another perspective, do these holy stories, on the superficial level, only represent the face of the culture for which they were intended? Or, more, is the atheistic or agnostic view more compatible – that all are the works of ignorance, primitive attempts to explain creation and meaning that have no real validity at any level?
Personal insight has taught me to negate the last possibility, but the interrelation of Truth and Text is no simple matter. For instance, the oft-quoted (and oft-hated) laws given to the Jews in Leviticus sanction eating shell-fish, demand that certain foods are cooked in different pots, and on and on. Jesus defied these laws, but also claimed, “I have not come to refute the law, but to make it whole” (my memory of the quote. I think I have retained the meaning.) By which he meant, to make the spirit of the law live, to grow past the particulars once given to a primitive people, to arrive at the greater meaning – about which we have argued for centuries, and still do. In the case above, we can say the laws were not meant as clearly written for all time, but were intended to help us grow into something far greater down the line.
I have another example, more subtle and complex, that came to me during a sermon by a visiting priest. The day’s Gospel was the very controversial one where Jesus told people to turn the other cheek, to return love and peace for hate and war from one’s enemies. Said the priest of this, “We know that if we became total pacifists that we would be destroyed. Some experts have said that what was MEANT by the Gospel was that this was an example of God’s love – that he forgave the sin (the slap in the face from us humans) to return with forgiveness and peace – an act of perfect love that humans could not continuously perform. Thus, it was a reflection of what the perfect being would do (and God, of course, cannot be mortally injured by human acts). The priest went on: “But we can also take it to mean that we must try to come to this perfection, by gradually enlarging our inner circle until, if all goes right, we come to love the whole world as God does.”
A good middle way, but ultimately not achievable in this world. Rather, the Gospel describes God and what direction we should go towards, not what we must do now. Still, think of great holy people in our own time. Would we expect the Dali Lama kicking some kid for trying to steal his incense? Mahatma Gandhi punching out some dude trying to make off with his spinning wheel? Mother Teresa cold-cocking someone for cracking a dirty joke in her hospital? Pope Francis slipping a good looking babe a roofy? No. These people remain examples of what humans could be if they were more concerned with other’s well-being than their own. And still the world goes on, even for them – Gandhi himself was assassinated.
All meaning, in the end, that I don’t believe we can understand a particular holy text without first studying and deeply understanding the whole. It is not that one phrase is absolutely true, or is wrong, but rather, that it depends on how it fits into the whole. We should not interpret the trunk or leg of an elephant to be the whole elephant. All MUST be placed in context. And in the end, we must study and study more, for the whole means exactly that – and the whole, for most of us, will never fully be grasped.
We act, then, like the man struggling with pacifism, to do the best we can at the time. However, it seems that literalism of holy texts should not be thrown about loosely by those who have not first learned the full extent of the Law. Nor should such texts be thrown away or mocked by those who are also lacking in fuller knowledge of that whole. FK
As with all holy texts or stories, there are, and are meant to be, multiple levels of understanding, for how else could they be holy? How else could they take us from this profane world to one beyond our usual understanding? However, does one level of understanding negate the other? In other words, if, say, the Bible says the world (and universe) was created in six days, should we take this as astronomical fact, or only as a vehicle to show that God created all, and in a particular order, which roughly follows the modern evolutionary model? Does one level of understanding override a simple, superficial level of understanding?
Or, from another perspective, do these holy stories, on the superficial level, only represent the face of the culture for which they were intended? Or, more, is the atheistic or agnostic view more compatible – that all are the works of ignorance, primitive attempts to explain creation and meaning that have no real validity at any level?
Personal insight has taught me to negate the last possibility, but the interrelation of Truth and Text is no simple matter. For instance, the oft-quoted (and oft-hated) laws given to the Jews in Leviticus sanction eating shell-fish, demand that certain foods are cooked in different pots, and on and on. Jesus defied these laws, but also claimed, “I have not come to refute the law, but to make it whole” (my memory of the quote. I think I have retained the meaning.) By which he meant, to make the spirit of the law live, to grow past the particulars once given to a primitive people, to arrive at the greater meaning – about which we have argued for centuries, and still do. In the case above, we can say the laws were not meant as clearly written for all time, but were intended to help us grow into something far greater down the line.
I have another example, more subtle and complex, that came to me during a sermon by a visiting priest. The day’s Gospel was the very controversial one where Jesus told people to turn the other cheek, to return love and peace for hate and war from one’s enemies. Said the priest of this, “We know that if we became total pacifists that we would be destroyed. Some experts have said that what was MEANT by the Gospel was that this was an example of God’s love – that he forgave the sin (the slap in the face from us humans) to return with forgiveness and peace – an act of perfect love that humans could not continuously perform. Thus, it was a reflection of what the perfect being would do (and God, of course, cannot be mortally injured by human acts). The priest went on: “But we can also take it to mean that we must try to come to this perfection, by gradually enlarging our inner circle until, if all goes right, we come to love the whole world as God does.”
A good middle way, but ultimately not achievable in this world. Rather, the Gospel describes God and what direction we should go towards, not what we must do now. Still, think of great holy people in our own time. Would we expect the Dali Lama kicking some kid for trying to steal his incense? Mahatma Gandhi punching out some dude trying to make off with his spinning wheel? Mother Teresa cold-cocking someone for cracking a dirty joke in her hospital? Pope Francis slipping a good looking babe a roofy? No. These people remain examples of what humans could be if they were more concerned with other’s well-being than their own. And still the world goes on, even for them – Gandhi himself was assassinated.
All meaning, in the end, that I don’t believe we can understand a particular holy text without first studying and deeply understanding the whole. It is not that one phrase is absolutely true, or is wrong, but rather, that it depends on how it fits into the whole. We should not interpret the trunk or leg of an elephant to be the whole elephant. All MUST be placed in context. And in the end, we must study and study more, for the whole means exactly that – and the whole, for most of us, will never fully be grasped.
We act, then, like the man struggling with pacifism, to do the best we can at the time. However, it seems that literalism of holy texts should not be thrown about loosely by those who have not first learned the full extent of the Law. Nor should such texts be thrown away or mocked by those who are also lacking in fuller knowledge of that whole. FK
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