Monthly Archives: May 2011

Faith for the New Civilization

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Jesus said that his disciples were to be a city on a hill. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5.14). In Paul’s epistles, as seven of their names attest, we see this is taking place in a way that is almost literal. For example, consider what Paul writes to the Church at Rome:

I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

The new civilization of Jesus (civil-ization = “city” society) requires a faith that shines like the sun for all to see…

But it also requires a cosmopolitan tolerance. A city is multi-ethnic and the faith must be practiced in a way that is conducive to a peace that shines bright without shadow. Thus, Paul also says to the Romans:

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

The faith of the Church can only be proclaimed in one voice if the faith of the members knows limits set by love.

Watch out for the heresy ladies and schism grrls

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I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

via Passage: Romans 16 (ESV Bible Online).

From Proverbs 2:

My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil,
men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.

So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words,
who forsakes the companion of her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God;
for her house sinks down to death,
and her paths to the departed;
none who go to her come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life.

From Proverbs 5:

My son, be attentive to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
that you may keep discretion,
and your lips may guard knowledge.
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil,
but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.

From Proverbs 6:

My son, keep your father’s commandment,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching.
Bind them on your heart always;
tie them around your neck.
When you walk, they will lead you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
and when you awake, they will talk with you.
For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
to preserve you from the evil woman,
from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

From Proverbs 7:

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and call insight your intimate friend,
to keep you from the forbidden woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words.

Faith counted as a gift, not wages

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Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. What then shall we say? Do we find Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.

I was struck today by how precisely Paul’s argument is structured in Romans 4.3-5:

  • “Abraham believed God, and [a] it was [b] counted to him [c] as righteousness.”
  • Now to the one who works, [a] his wages are [b] not counted  [c] as a gift but as his due.
  • And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, [a] his faith is [b] counted [c] as righteousness

This mystifies me because Paul should [?!] have paralleled faith against works, not faith against the wages one earns, or fails to earn, by works.

I suppose I had better crack open a commentary now…

But also note that this argument depends on a common acknowledgment that righteousness must be a gift. Paul is working “backwards” from the acknowledged fact that righteousness must be a gift to an inference that therefore it must come through faith and not through works.

If Paul’s opponents deny that righteousness is a gift then he has nothing to say to them in these verses.

 

The Augsburg Confession on Justifying Faith

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Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4.

And then here is further defense against Roman Catholics:

But since we receive remission of sins and the Holy Ghost by faith alone, faith alone justifies, because those reconciled are accounted righteous and children of God, not on account of their own purity, but through mercy for Christ’s sake, provided only they by faith apprehend this mercy. Accordingly, Scripture testifies that by faith we are accounted righteous, Rom. 3:26. We, therefore, will add testimonies which clearly declare that faith is that very righteousness by which we are accounted righteous before God, namely, not because it is a work that is in itself worthy, but because it receives the promise by which God has promised that for Christ’s sake He wishes to be propitious to those believing in Him, or because He knows that Christ of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, 1 Cor. 1:30.

What I like about these statements is that they respect the wording in Romans 4.4-5.

A slightly different argument between Galatians and Romans

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To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

So writes Paul in Galatians, chapter 3. But he is arguing against circumcision which did not come 430 years later. It was given to Abraham. So in Romans 4, Paul doesn’t spend as much time contrasting Abraham to Moses as he does contrasting Abra[ha]m in Genesis 15 to Abraham in Genesis 17:

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is those of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

In that last sentence, Paul jumps the 430 years. But the rest of it is all about the shift that occurred within the time frame of Abraham’s own life.

The way slogans seduce us: Angel, Absurdism, and Faith (not the girl)

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YouTube – Joss Whedon: Atheist & Absurdist.

I love Joss but I have extreme skepticism about what he claims he has suffered for his atheism. I also hate the hearing the word “faith” used for an opinion on God’s existence. Whether or not God is trustworthy is a matter of faith. Whether or not he exists has nothing to do with faith (and Hebrews doesn’t say otherwise).

But I’m posting this because I remember actually liking Angel’s slogan: “If what we do doesn’t matter; then all that matters is what we do.” And I feel really stupid for not seeing the irrationality of it immediately. Sometimes I think paradoxes give off the glint of hidden wisdom when they are just plain nonsense.

Angel’s conclusion at the end of Season 2 (or near the end) was that (to repeat) “If what we do doesn’t matter then all that matters is what we do.”

If what we do doesn’t matter, then anything might matter except what we do. You can’t draw the contradiction of a premise from that premise as if it followed as a conclusion from it.

Now that I’ve gotten that issue out of the way (in my own mind, at least), let me say why I think Whedon’s view appeals to people, especially to Christians.

Being able to evaluate and value one’s decisions and commitments without having knowledge of the eternal plan for them is a requirement for the human condition. It is set forth most starkly in the Bible in the book called Ecclesiastes.

So, I think the appeal is precisely because Joss’ view is a close replica of the truth.

But I don’t think it works if there is no plan at all. (And claiming there is no plan seems to actually assert endless knowledge rather than humbly deny it. But that argument would be endless, so I’ll let it go.) It is one thing to make decisions and do your best without understanding why your circumstances exist or how you fit into a larger picture. But it is another to say that there is no picture.

To really act as Angel does actually requires faith. And that, in my opinion, is why Whedon had to include a miracle in his story. Viewers would have felt like there was no point without it.

The Law is …. of faith? (from Psalm 119)

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Waw:

Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord,
your salvation according to your promise;
then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me,
for I trust in your word.
And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth,
for my hope is in your rules.
I will keep your law continually,
forever and ever,
and I shall walk in a wide place,
for I have sought your precepts.
I will also speak of your testimonies before kings
and shall not be put to shame,
for I find my delight in your commandments,
which I love.
I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love,
and I will meditate on your statutes.

Zayin:

Remember your word to your servant,
in which you have made me hope.
This is my comfort in my affliction,
that your promise gives me life.
The insolent utterly deride me,
but I do not turn away from your law.
When I think of your rules from of old,
I take comfort, O Lord.
Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,
who forsake your law.
Your statutes have been my songs
in the house of my sojourning.
I remember your name in the night, O Lord,
and keep your law.
This blessing has fallen to me,
that I have kept your precepts.

See also:

The Protestant Love Ethic

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While in pagan mythologies Wisdom and Love are two very different and often-conflicting goddesses, in the Bible, Sophia is both. The evidence is not only in Canticles but in Proverbs. Proverbs is the love book.

Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.

Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers all offenses.

[“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” — 1 Peter 4.8]

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is
than a fattened ox and hatred with it.

Whoever covers an offense seeks love,
but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.

[“…does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. — 1 Corinthians 13.6]

A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for adversity.

[Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. — 1 Corinthians 13.7]

As a book about love, Proverbs stresses peace with and help to others.

Hatred stirs up strife,
but love covers all offenses. [again]

Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense,
but a man of understanding remains silent.
Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets,
but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.

The beginning of strife is like letting out water,
so quit before the quarrel breaks out.

It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife,
but every fool will be quarreling.

And more conventional “charity” is also covered. Helping the poor is an important concern in Proverbs:

Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner,
but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.

Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker,
but he who is generous to the needy honors him.

Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker;
he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD,
and he will repay him for his deed.

Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor
will himself call out and not be answered.

Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed,
for he shares his bread with the poor.

And yet along with all these imperatives to love and share and promote peace, we find the basics of the market ethics laid out. In fact, in the second section of Proverbs, it is laid out right at the beginning. Proverbs 10.1-5:

The proverbs of Solomon.

A wise son makes a glad father,
but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.
Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit,
but righteousness delivers from death.
The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
He who gathers in summer is a prudent son,
but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.

Notice the argument of these first five verses that set up everything that follows:

  1. You can be wise or foolish
  2. You can try to steal, plunder, or cheat but God will not allow you to prosper.
  3. The way of prosperity is faithful work. That is the wise way to go. Don’t be a shameful/foolish son.

In the second of the awesome Keynes v. Hayek rap-videos, “Hayek” pleads:

We need stable rules and real market prices
So prosperity emerges and cuts short the crisis
Give us a chance so we can discover
The most valuable ways serve one another

I know that Hayek’s claim that the market is a means of serving others will meet with mockery and derision by some. But “Hayek” is obviously right and wise. Solomon would agree. Right along with loving your wife and refusing the ways of violence and theft and deceit (“force and fraud” as the Libertarians would put it) is the command to work hard, to save money, and to try with all diligence to become rich if possible.

A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.

One gives freely, yet grows all the richer;
another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.

Whoever loves pleasure will be a poor man;
he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.

The reward for humility and fear of the LORD
is riches and honor and life.

Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty;
open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.

What shows that we live in a foolish age is that we don’t see how all these imperatives to love entail and demand imperatives to work hard and save in order to build wealth. But it is the most obvious thing in the world:

How do you love your neighbor?

You help them out in their time of need.

How else?

Many ways.

And what don‘t you do?

You don’t rob or kill them.

Duh.

But a major point of Proverbs is that decisions to do right and refrain from wrong demand other decisions so that you can become a person who can do right. In this case, if you don’t want to take from others, you need to endeavor to provide for yourself. If it is more blessed to give than receive then it is more blessed to produce than to consume. And if you can’t support yourself, how can you ever help others? You will be too busy begging them to help you, and resisting the urge to steal from them. As the Apostle Paul summarized:  “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Ephesians 4.28).

Supporting oneself is fundamentally an act of loving one’s neighbor. Not everyone is able to do it, but everyone should want to do so. Because everyone is supposed to love.

In other words, if “capitalism” means a free market (rather than a crony kleptocracy), then to oppose capitalism is to oppose love and promote hatred.

Capitalism is the Marxist term for Christian society.

Related:

A lesson from Tolkien’s life: You do not want God’s job

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J. R. R. TolkienIn order to fully understand what I’m about to write, you will need to see the book for more details. More than simply the facts of John Ronald Reuel’s life (and deaths), I found some material about artistic accomplishment and loss in childhood that applies quite specifically to Tolkien.

Let me make the point by outlining a possible time travel story (one of the literary ambitions of Tolkien, by the way, that never materialized: he was to do time travel while Lewis was to do space travel).

Say you are, against your will for reasons you don’t understand, thrown back in time and space to South Africa in 1896 with some brief medical training and supplies. There you meet a man named Arthur, who–you were told–is likely to get rheumatic fever.  You stay with him and manage to prevent this from happening.

Then you are whirled forward a few years in time and a few thousand miles in space to an English home. Arthur is there and tells you he decided to return to make his fortune in England since his wife so prefers it. Their two boys also love the English countryside (perhaps the older one does so especially in contrast to early, vague memories of the South African wilderness). They are a faithful Anglican family, attending a rather middle-church parish. You recognize your next and final assignment in the wife, Mabel. You explain what insulin can do for diabetes and leave her with the training, equipment, and supplies she needs to remain healthy for years (extracting a promise never to reveal her anachonistic technology).

And then you return home and find you cannot recognize the scifi section of your local bookstore. It is all spaceships and ray guns.

The Lord of the Rings was never written.

Now there are jillions of things wrong with this scenario. We could assume the rules of LOST and say that time always tries to spring back into its original shape so that, once you prevent a death, another death comes about soon after, so that Arthur and Mabel still die early.  If Arthur had decided to stay in South Africa (as he seemed to want to do, despite Mabel’s misgivings) then the whole family would have been present for the Boer War. No one knows what might have happened then.

Also, maybe some other great author would have invented fantasy.

On the other hand, I might be under-stating the impact. Perhaps C. S. Lewis would never have been converted. Then there would be no apologetics and no children’s fantasy either.

But getting back to the impact on fantasy literature: frankly, I don’t think we would have Star Wars, Dune, or Harry Potter or many other works. No Ranger’s Apprentice series not least because the term “Ranger” would be restricted to cowboys rather than medieval war scouts.

It is pretty clear that noteworthy, creative people are disproportionately likely to have suffered the loss of one or both parents in childhood. While he could have wandered in many ways (and almost did many times), Tolkien was following a rather well-trod path going from bereavement to fame as an author. (The loss he suffered in the slaughters of World War I probably also count in this regard.)

I argue for all this in the book, I won’t say more here.

But I will ask you this. What if we replay the scenario except you recognize who Arthur is and realize that when you go back, if you save him, it will be a world with a much happier Tolkien and no trilogy.

Do you save him?

You don’t want God’s job.

Biblical parenting?

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Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. And suddenly the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out. And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed.

When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother’s womb.” And Moses cried to the LORD, “O God, please heal her—please.” But the LORD said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.” So Miriam was shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again. After that the people set out from Hazeroth, and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

via Passage: Numbers 12 (ESV Bible Online).

So is this some kind of example of “law” that we must look to “the Gospel” in order to be rescued from it? But how can it be “law” for God to acknowledge Miriam as a daughter and wait for her to be reconciled to Himself and the rest of her family (including Moses’ “foreign” wife)?

And in any case, Paul uses exactly the same ideas.

As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

via Passage: 2 Thessalonians3.13-15 (ESV Bible Online).