My Grand Apologetics Project Part 3b

See these previous posts:


http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-grand-apologetics-project-part-1.html?m=1

http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-grand-apologetics-project-part-2.html?m=1

http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-grand-apologetics-project-part-2-cont.html?m=1

http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-grand-apologetics-project-part-3-a.html

b. Play & Eternity

Note that this partially a repost of this:

http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-theology-of-play.html

Just as our experience of the humorous involves the momentary creation of a new reality, so our experience of play also involves the construction of a world different from the one we normally experience. All play is in part play-acting. The activity of imagining as a child opens us up to the possibility of world-building. When we formalize this process of world-building and institute a kind of language through rules and order that can then be transmitted to just about anyone who is properly instructed, we get true games and sports. 

Just as there is 'something it is like' to laugh and engage in humor, there is 'something it is like' to play. The mechanics of play can differ widely, as can the setting, but the experience of play is remarkably consistent. Given our earlier discussion of humor, the first thing that should be obvious to anyone is that play, like humor, creates a world where joy is of supreme import. We experience the world as a joyful place, in play. But play  is more easily corrupted into something where joy ceases to be the end of  the experience. It is quite easy to make a game or a sport all about winning and losing, about competition. But in point of fact we acknowledge this to be a corruption of the true center of the experience, even if we don't always live it out. Joy of the game itself is supposed to be the center even of professional sports, and once that is taken out of the equation, we take it to be a failure to live into the experience that sports is a part of, the experience of play.

But the ease with which play becomes about competition, makes me hesitant to say that joy is inherent in the experience of play in the way I think it is inherent in the experience of humor. Here I want to stay close to the broadest possible description of the phenomenologies I am engaging. So while I would say it is true that joy is almost always a part of the experience of play, it is not the center of the counter-world created. 

I think one of the broad truths about play is that it brackets off time. When we play, we step out of our normal experience of time. Think about football for example. It isn't 3:00 PM on Sunday. Not for those playing, and not for those watching. Instead it is 4th down, 1 yard to go, 2:39 on the clock in the fourth quarter. It isn't true that time simply flies when you are having fun. On the contrary, a single moment, a single throw of the ball, can be an eternity. No, in play we step outside of time. Eternity is willed and known intimately. Play brackets off time.

And just as it brackets time so it brackets the seriousness of the world. Whatever pain or tragedy a person is going through, it melts away the moment that joystick, ball, or crossword puzzle is picked up. This is why plays and musical groups' activities can go on even as the city around them crumbles due to an invasion. It is how Christmas could be celebrated by warring parties in WWII. Of course when we watch a football game, on one level we know that who wins this game is of miniscule import compared to, say, what is going on in congress at the moment. But within the experience of play that level of 'knowing' is subverted under another level where we experience the outcome of the game as the most important thing in the world. The experience of play is 'subversive' in the strictest sense of that term. It subverts our normal way of knowing, believing and valuing and helps us experience life in a topsy-turvy way.

Play and humor thus have this in common: they turn the world upside down. In humor, the homeless man can become king of the world, and the king of the world can become the butt of his joke. In play, the insignificant game becomes of supreme import, and what is truly 'important' is bracketed off as insignificant. In humor, the seriousness of the world is overtaken by joy. In play, the reality of time and the reality of our normal way of valuing things is overtaken by the immediate action of playing itself. Again, one may at this point believe that all of these amount to illusions. I only suggest that this is what it is LIKE to engage in these activities. They will become important when they are ultimately combined with the experiences spoken of earlier: the experience of living truly and the experience of being a fully developed self, and the insight that proceeded from them (see Part 2). Until I make that combining move, all I am doing is talking about premises. If you can't accept those premises, we part ways. But our disagreement at this point would be phenomenological and epistemological, not metaphysical. 

No Small Jobs

Matthew 13:31-32

Colossians 3:23

Think about all the ways in which people's work becomes a life-and-death situation. We all know of the gravity of emergency workers' decisions and labors, but in truth many of us have hugely important decisions to make every day. 

Engineers and architects design things that, if made incorrectly, can have life-or-death consequences. Construction workers can make mistakes that cost lives, a good friend of mine died on a job like this. Anyone who acts in any counseling capacity for anyone knows that bad advice can be supremely costly. Parents make decisions that will affect lives for years to come. Deciding to be safe and courteous on the road is no small moral choice. 

Our lives are in each others' hands. We need to start acting like they are. There are no small decisions, little moves have big consequences. So let us live lives and do work as if we are living and working for God. Such a life is one that recognizes the cosmic consequences of ones decisions. This will also help us live out the worldly significance of those same decisions.

Quotables

"Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do, and more in light of what they suffer." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One-Post Wednesday: Homily On John 1

Every Wednesday I will be posting only one item on my blog: my week homily. Here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxZSNy3NzLk

Off-Topic: Random Thoughts On Super Powers

It should be pretty clear by now that I'm a big comic book fan. I'm often asked: "if you could have any super-power, what would it be?"

Top of my list is probability manipulation. This seems like a very practical power, especially if it is of the right variety, specifically "incredible luck". You could get rich easily by playing the lottery. You'd always be in the right place at the right time. Basically, in any situation where a number of possibilities exist, the best possible outcome is the one that attains. Someone tries to shoot me, the gun jams. I need to get away from danger, and a person decides to give me their new jag.

Enhanced probability has a similar effect. You see all possibilities and know which to choose to attain a desire effect. This power also affords a great opportunity for heroics, but without the egoistic danger inherent in the superhero enterprise. One can save people only by moving a rock two feet to the right or something. No one would ever know what you did, and so this reduces the corruptive influence such power might have.

To get a handle on how this power works, here is a list of characters who have the power:

Gladstone Gander from DUCK TALES (a favorite)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladstone_Gander#Gladstone_Gander

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P01vGvtk424

Jake from the TV Show Touch (love this show)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_(2012_TV_series)

Longshot of the Marvel Universe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longshot#Powers.2C_abilities_and_equipment

Scarlet Witch from Marvel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_Witch#Powers_and_abilities

Chance Harper from the show STRANGE LUCK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Luck

Other powers I'd like to have in descending order: 

Time/Space Travel (I just want a TARDIS)

Super Telekinesis

Flight

Invulnerability

Super Strength

Time/Space Travel (I just want a TARDIS)

Teleportation

Revelation 13:8

I consider this verse one of the most important in scripture. It follows the introduction of the terrible first beast of the Apocalypse. In the middle of this satanic 'bringing forth' we are reminded of the true hero of the story, the many-eyed, many-horned near-dead Lamb. The image of vulnerability that contains within it the true power of God, to contrast with the false god that the demonic beast represents. The beast is power, control, money, fame, all that most people instinctively see as divine. The Lamb s vulnerability and sacrifice, lowliness and weakness, all that people usually run from. Yet under the surface the Lamb is Truly God, and the beast is a demon pretending to be a god.

John reminds us of this theme by calling Jesus THE LAMB SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. Or does he?

You see there is another major translation issue here. John's Greek is choppy and sloppy. Most Biblical scholars agree that Greek is not John the Revelator's first language and he is no scholar of the language. Contrast this with the Gospel of John, which has a sublime and simple Greek, the mark of a scholar or native speaker. For this reason, few scholars still believe one man wrote both books.

Reading Revelation in the original Greek is supposed to be like reading a series of emails from a person whose English is broken. So while the original Greek of Revelation 13 reads something like this:
Revelation 13:8- all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. 

Some translators render it thusly:

Revelation 13:8- all whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, the book of the Lamb who was slain.

In the second instance this is a simple predestinarian message, one in keeping with much of the New Testament. Translators simply think this MUST be what John the Revelator is trying to say. For a straightforward translation brings up issues found nowhere else in scripture, and directly contradicts Hebrews 9:26.

But in truth, I think Johns point here is in keeping with other important themes found in the Book of Revelation, speaks to his overall project there, and in fact helps make sense of numerous passages throughout the Johannine Tradition. The implications of the idea that Jesus is the "Lamb Slain from the foundation of the world" are huge. I think this passage as originally written is of cosmic significance. It has the power to change the way we think about God, Jesus, our lives, the Book of a revelation as a whole...EVERYTHING!!! 

So again, a very technical issue of translation, with mind-boggling consequences.

"Faith In Jesus Christ"

See this previous post: http://ljtsg.blogspot.com/2012/12/on-biblical-translations.html?m=1

I've written before about Biblical translation issues. In the post listed above I touched briefly on one issue related to a phrase Paul uses: "faith in Jesus Christ". Paul uses this phrase several time (Romans 3:22 & 3:26, Galatians 2:16, 2:20, 3:22, Philippians 3:9). The Greek version of this phrase reads thusly: PISTIS IESOU CHRISTOU. Rendered literally it reads: "faith of Jesus Christ". It is known as a genitive construction, and genitive constructions are ambiguous.

Think about this one: "the love of God". Now am I talking about God's love FOR me? Or my love FOR God? Or am I talking about having love like God has for others. See, you don't know because you have no context. The same is true of "faith of Jesus Christ". It isn't clear right off the bat if one is talking about the faith Jesus HAD, or whether one is talking about Christian faith, or what. The thing is, in The Bible, it is taken in the latter sense. Hence the rendering "faith IN Jesus Christ". Almost all translations render it this way, though many will notate it and mark the ambiguity.

But there are strong reasons to think this rendering is incorrect, and that theological bias guides the tendency. Let's take one example, perhaps the most paradigmic:

Romans 3:21-22a: But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. 

This is the normal rendering. On it's face it is strangely redundant. It seems that the sentence should end with "Christ". What's more, it makes it seem like the prophetic tradition is fulfilled in our believing. But this makes no sense. Surely messianic prophecy is about the messiah, and not those who believe in him. 

Check out the same passage, with the alternative rendering: 

Romans 3:21-22a: But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness of God through [the faith of Jesus Christ]  to all who believe. 

Now doesn't this make more sense? Now it is the faithfulness, the obedience of Christ that fulfills the Law and Prophets. Further, it is Jesus' faith that is the righteousness of God. And the redundancy is gone. Our faith is what lets us see the righteousness of God in Christ's actions and belief. 

So I think it is clear that this is how the text should be rendered in this case. You may disagree, but TO ME it seems pretty clear.

If you go to the other places this phrase shows up, and undertake the same exercise, you'll find consistently that this rendering of PISTIS IESOU CHRISTOU either makes the passage clearer or is as good as the traditional rendering.

The thing is, the theological consequences of this shift are cosmic in scope. In the first place, it is our faith in Christ that saves us. In the second, it is what CHRIST believed and did that has the saving power. Our salvation either come simply from His actions or from our ability to mimic them (depending on your overall view of Paul's theology). Either way, it radically changes ones doctrine of atonement. 

This is a controversial position, and I always counsel investigating all the literature on this matter. You must work out your own salvation "with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12). But I think when you do, you will find at least that both approaches are equally valid, and that should give most any Christian pause. If the Bible is THE or ONE OF THE foundations of Gods revelation to us, then certainly issues of translation from the original language of that revelation are of supreme import. The full implications of that process may shock or confuse us, but any such knowledge can only deepen our understanding of the nature of God.

Soon I plan to touch on another issue of massive import that revolves over but one passage of scripture: Revelation 13:8