The Aesthetical Jesus - Part IV

Great Debates
181

For example, you concluded that the Pharisees were religion politicians. What processes and evidence did you use to come to that conclusion?

Imagine that you had to explain to a visiting Martian why you came to that conclusion–what evidence, criteria, and assumptions would you need to describe in order to justify your assessment? What’s your confidence level that the assessment is appropriate?

It’s easy to say “by their works shall ye know them”. But that extra level of analysis to describe the heuristics you use is where things start to get more interesting.

182

Okay, I think I understand you better now. Let me stress that I only *think *I understand you better. If I fail to answer your question adequately, then please be patient if further clarification is requested. The term “heuristics”, for example, is subject to equivocation. You might mean a set of rules by which I make a determination. Or you might mean techniques based on experience by which I solve problems. (Though what problem you think I’m attempting to solve is a mystery to me.) And a number of other things. And so, here is how I’m going to interpret your question. If my interpretation is incorrect, please correct it. We can work together until I understand you, just as I hope we will all work together so that everyone can understand me — which is, after all, the whole point of the series.

I am interpreting you to be asking me by what criteria do I establish that the Pharisees in particular are religion politicians as I have defined them. It is that question that I will answer, and if it is a strawman, please inform me and try again.

They are, it seems to me, religion politicans by definition. They are at the top of the social pecking order in the Judean society of the time. Even though the Sadduccees concerned themselves with Temple rituals, they were more or less subordinate to the Pharisees. In fact, every sole in Judea, including Herod, was more or less subordinate to the Pharisees.

They were men of great power and privilege. And with great power and privilege comes great wealth. They wore garments with gold threads and tassels. Their garments were as white as whitewashed tombs, Jesus tells us. Needless to say, they did not do their own laundry.

But not only were they high and mighty culturally and religiously, but they were Rome’s contacts and agents for keeping the peace in Judea. So long as things were peaceful, Rome would leave the Jews alone to worship their God. But when shit hit the fan, Rome sent soldiers to kill, pillage, and destroy. Although Herod was the official Roman regent for Judea, the Pharisees called the shots when it came to deciding who was to blame for insurrection. It is they who would put men up for trial — in their own Sanhedrin, in Herod’s court, or even in the presence of a Roman governor (like Pontias Pilate, for example.)

They used their position as leaders of the faithful to gain personal wealth and power, rather than to help the people at large. They viewed all others as sinners, and as such, morally inferior to them. They were no different than the religion politicians of today. In fact, the definition of religion politician was formulated with Pharisaic abuse and hypocrisy in mind.

I hope that answers your question, Hunter Hawk, and though I am willing to respond to some newly clarified version of your question, I must tell you that I feel compelled to move on. Things have bogged down considerably as we have paused to examine theories of epistemology, when all that applies in this thread is revelation and interpretation.

I am justified in calling the Pharisees religion politicians because they fit the definition of religion politician, at least as far as Jesus is concerned. Recall His dressing down of them in Matthew 23. Vipers. Snakes. Sons of Hell. Hypocrites. I believe further that I am justified in saying that Jesus would agree, based on His encounters with them, that they fit the definition as well.

As I said, I hope that answers your question. You’ve asked it now several times in several ways. I’m afrad that, at some point, it may become clear that I do not understand you at all. And if that becomes the case, we will simply have to abandon the effort. You can claim a victory from it if you wish, or a regretfulness that we could not connect, or whatever it is that you value about your discussions with me.

183

Liberal, I’m going to wrap up. It’s your thread, so you get the last word on this little topic. Just, please, don’t ask any questions. Frankly, I’m writing mainly for the benefit of lurkers, as it’s clear you and I aren’t going to see eye-to-eye.

IMHO, what you’re not getting is that epistemology, especially in the context of religion, is about justification. Almost trivially, the Gospel According to Liberal doesn’t stand on the same footing as whether John is smoking. What’s missing from your witness is a justification for your beliefs. Instead, as you’ve repeated often, this is just your interpretation of John (overlaid with a set of idiosyncratic definitions). By any reasonable definition, that doesn’t even count as justification for believing it yourself. It certainly doesn’t count as justification for anyone else.

The problem with self-referential justification is that it’s indistinguishable from a placebo. Indeed, that’s how I interpret your epiphany. (“Everything about how I looked at [t]he world changed in that moment. The people in the microbus. I loved them all, in ways that brought enormous joy. I looked out the window at the scenery of the foothills, and marveled at their beauty.”) All based on seeing a bare assertion of eternal existence in John 8:58. I mean, I can see getting there in a haze of pot. But, in the cold light of day, reason should have told you the epiphany was an illusion.

All that said, it’s your witness and you may believe whatever you like. Whether the objection regarding epistemology is relevant to the debate we’ll see when the time comes. You said above, “If there is a person who does not see things the way I do (like the blind man who did not perceive John smoking) then he or she is free to express his or her disagreement in the debate.” That’s good enough for me.

184

I don’t mean to interrupt your thread, because I know you said you don’t want to debate in these threads, but I’d like to correct a point here. The Pharisees had very little power in Judea at the time, and the Herodians, for the most part, were hostile to the Pharisees…there was an incident, recorded in Josephus, that records that when Herod came to power, 6000 Pharisees refused to swear an oath of allegiance to him. There was also an uprising against Herod the Great led by two Pharisees, named Judas, son of Sepphoraeus and Matthias, son of Margalus, after he had put a golden eagle at the Temple gate, that ended in them being burnt alive.

The Pharisees also didn’t, at this point in time, represent a social elite. In fact, the Pharisees were generally in contempt of Rome and of the Hellenized Jewish elites, and their support was strongest in the countryside and among the lower classes, because of their reputation for piety and wisdom, as well as a nationalistic attitude. In general, they were the group least likely to be contemptuous of the average Judean, and it’s likely that most of the vitriol against the Pharisees in the gospels is because Jesus and the Pharisees both appealed to the same groups of people, and were in competition for disciples. The Sadducees, in contrast, get off relatively easily in the gospels, because they held the Judean lower class and itinerant teachers and prophets like Jesus in contempt, and wouldn’t have bothered arguing with him.

185

Okay. I’ll honor your wish. No questions.

I gave you the justification in quite some detail, explaining that I am using a foundationalist model of epistemology based on basic knowledge derived from internal inspiration (basic knowledge) provided by the writings I’ve been quoting.

Except that reason has told me the opposite. Reason has confirmed every bit of knowledge that my epiphany placed in my head. That’s why I’ve chosen to reveal my belief system using a deductive system.

Just because there is a single event that triggered everything else, that’s no reason to discount what I believe anymore than discounting that a person likes dark chocolate over milk chocolate because he tried dark chocolate once and has prefered it ever since.

Great! See you there.

186

There is, naturally, some controversy among historians about the points you make. First, the number 6,000 is believed to be an exaggeration, and is more like 600. Second, the Pharisees enjoyed a very favorable relation with Herod, currying so much favor with Herod’s court that, when they refused to take an oath to Herod, they were excused. (This was in 20 BC, and specifically involved two Pharisaic leaders: Pollio and Sameas.)

Josephus, according to Steve Mason, was in general hostile toward the Pharisees, and might have exaggerated some of their travails. The fact is that the Herodian family was so fond of the Pharisess that when, in about 5 BC, they were commanded to take an oath to both Herod and Augustus, they again refused, and the wife of Herod’s brother, Pheroas, paid their fine. There are Jewish scholars, like Samuel Rocca (warning PDF, Curriculum Vitae) and Douglas de Lacey (both with PhDs who have worked and written extensively on the Pharisees), who concur that the Pharisees were especially powerful in Jerusalem, which is where Jesus encountered them during the Passover.

Finally, according to Rocca, the two who tore down the Eagle, Judas and Matthias, might not have been Pharisees at all, and if they were, they were a fringe faction. (Herod’s Judaea, Samuel Rocca, p. 254). Josephus reports that when a delegation of Pharisees went to Rome in order to ask Augustus to take rulership of Judea away from Achelaus (a delegation of 50 from Syria, who had the permission of the governor of Syria to go), they were well received by the Romans, as well as the 8,000 Jews living in Rome at the time. (Josephus, AJ XVII, pp. 299-314.)

Regarding Josephus, according to de Lacey, his view of the Pharisees was negative to the extent that he might have exaggerated much of their alleged plight and suffering. He writes:

His [Josephus’s] presentation of the Pharisees is always subservient to his purposes in writing, which is predominantly an explanation of how God could have allowed the downfall of his own chosen people. His discussion of the religious views of the Jewish sects therefore focuses on fate (or divine providence), predestination and freewill. In this context Josephus’ Pharisees appear to occupy a mediating position between the rigid predestinarianism of the Essenes and the human freedom attributed to the Sadducees. He regards them as an attractive and powerful faction, with an ascetic lifestyle, popular among the people and concerned to present themselves as rigorists for the Law of God. They have a body of interpretations and traditions which are not themselves part of the Torah, and religious practises are performed according to their interpretation (see especially Ant. 18.12–17). But their major role in his writings is a political one. Because of their power among the people, he claims, they effectively controlled the state at least from the time of Alexandra Salome (76–67 BCE), and they opposed Herod whose downfall they were able to foretell through prophetic gift. However, it is noteworthy that they hardly occur in his narratives between the time of Alexandra and that of Herod; and none of the actual achievements of the Pharisaic party which he records substantiate these claims to power. Hence many scholars see Josephus’ claims as exaggerated, if not mere propaganda.

Pharisees, Douglas R. de Lacey, copyright 1995

And so, as with much history, there is controversy. But in our context, we are talking about the Pharisees who confronted Jesus in Jerusalem. There is little doubt that they enjoyed great power and influence, both with the court of Herod and with Rome. For our purposes, we will use references to the Pharisees from the book of John. But in any case, they matter little, as they will have little if anything to do with part V, other than Jesus’s reactions to them.

But I do want to thank you for your contribution, the spirit of which I take to be an attempt to correct the record, rather than to engage in debate. For that reason, I believe your post is not inappropriate despite its controversy.

187

Okay, back to our epistemological studies.

John 14 is, for me, the second most meaningful chapter, and it has probably the Bible’s most controversial verse. We’ll treat it separately when we get there, and it’s coming up pretty quickly.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

John 14:1-5

Jesus is comforting His disciples, as by now it has dawned on them that He honestly intends to leave them. He asks that they trust in God and in Him also. The reason He is going is to prepare a place for them (and all His followers — recall how He defined His disciples.) And quite naturally, if He is bothering to prepare a place for them, then He will surely come back to get them.

Then, He tells them that they know where He is going, and that they know the way. But Thomas, a bit slow on the uptake, asks how they can know the way when they don’t even know exactly where He’s going.

The controversial verse is next, but before we get to it, let’s talk a bit about the metaphysical aspects of His announcement. Obviously, it is a metaphor. His Father is spirit, and so there is no “house” in the ordinary sense. It is, instead, a spiritual home. Not so much a place as a connection. It is the union of our spirit with His.

If we may use size as a metaphor, some of us will bring Him very large spirits, full of goodness, increasing His size and scope; while others of us will bring Him very small spirits, increasing His growth but not so much. What happens with us, as we learned previously, is that we are cleansed before we join with Him, so the He can remain perfect. Some of us need more cleansing than others. To cleanse spiritually means to cut off any null aesthetic. Only aesthetics that value goodness above all else will join with God.

And this brings us to this:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

John 14:6-7

It’s two verses, of course, but it’s the first one (which is the “no one comes” thing) that causes all the ruckus. Let us set that controversy aside for the moment so that we can examine the nature of the sweeping and amazing claims Jesus has made here.

He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life.

We have defined two of these terms. He is the means by which we attain aesthetically valuable revelation. And He is the reality: essential, eternal, and necessary. But we have not defined “way”, so let us do so now.

Definition:

Way: the route by which something is conveyed.

And so He claims to be the route by which His disciples will reach the destination He is preparing for them.

Not only that, He claims that He is the ONLY way; i.e., there is no other route to the Father (God) other than Him. And in fact, He claims, if you have seen Him, then you have seen the Father. Now, here is where it is extremely important to differentiate between the physical world and the spiritual world.

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was merely a physical man, and that He was going to a physical home to prepare a physical place for His physical disciples to come. In that case, if He were the way, then that would mean that no other physical man could lead you to His home.

But of course, we know that Jesus is teaching us spiritual things, not physical things. And we know that He is talking about spiritual things. He and His Father and all who believe in Him are one, as we have learned previously. But we have also learned that He is timeless, and has ministered to people in the past and present. There is no reason to exclude the possibility that He has ministered to people in the future — even people not yet born, and people who will die.

Because we are talking about spirit, there will be no discernable difference between Jesus Christ and Gandhi and others who have taught love as the facilitation of goodness. To believe in Him is to believe in love, because He is love. (A copula, which we discussed previously.)

It is not the case that you must seek out a particular man who is the gatekeeper. It is simply the case that God’s perfect spirit MUST of necessity accept only the portions of our spirits that have value. It is also important to realize that these spirits that inhabit us are Him. They are His breath. We are either growing or destroying them.

There are many paths in the garden that lead to the central fountain, but all the paths are of the same identity. They may all be labeled differently. Here is the Christian path. Here is the Muslim path. Here is the Jewish path. Here is the Pagan path. Here is the Agnostic path. And here is the Atheist path.

It is easy to understand why people are atheists sometimes (especially when you have been one yourself.) They do not yet know Jesus because all they have known are caricatures of Him. Jesus the law keeper who is just itching to throw them into hell. Or Jesus the timid shepherd who gives everyone a trophy just for trying. Of Jesus the team captain who roots for our side. Or Jesus the man who lived two thousand years ago and is dead.

He is, in fact, none of these. He is simply love, of the agape kind; that is, love that edifies, that builds up, that uplifts, that enlightens. He is to be found, not in some place that we travel to, but everywhere where there is love. No one comes to the Father except through Him, not because Jesus the man is a greater prophet than Moses the man or Mohammad the man or just plain atheist-Bob the man. No one comes to the Father except through Him because He is love and so is the Father.

I expect there to be questions and comments about this verse, and so I will pause here for a day or so. If we don’t get off on tangents about the writings of Josephus and nuances of epistemology, we can move on. That is not to denegrate the contributions of anyone, but merely to stress once again that the sooner we finish, the sooner we can get started.

188

Just posting to acknowledge Post #183. There’s nothing I would say by way of reply that I haven’t already said. As for the debate, we’ll see.

189

Thanks, PBear.

I should also define spiritual cleansing, since it plays such a role in our union with God.

Definition:

Spiritual cleansing: removal of all null aesthetics.

190

Continuing with John 14:

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered: "Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

John 14:8-14

This passage is chock full of information. Jesus drives home the point that He and His Father are identical. If you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father. There is no equivocation about that. His is in the Father, and the Father is in Him. There is a One-ness about the two of Them that really has no physical analogy. At least that I can think of. Maybe we could say that one of Them is a photon and the Other is a wave, and that together, They are light. Something like that. But spiritually, they are atomic in nature, meaning that They are a unit.

And then there is the ever recognizable, “I tell you the truth”, which is a clause that begins many of His declarations. The Greek translates literally as “truly truly”, and the old King James used to translate it as “verily verily”. But He stresses constantly, and has done so all along, that He is telling the truth. And He uses it as a tool for reasoning with His detractors. “I am telling the truth,” He tells them, “and so, if I am telling the truth, why do you not believe me?”

But it isn’t just that He claims always to tell the truth. He claims that the words He speaks are words given to Him by the Father. He has said that He does not speak on His own, but speaks only what the Father tells Him to speak. (Recall John 8.) Thus, His words carry the full weight of God’s own words. It is important to note that this is not the nature of a prophet. A prophet receives God’s word, and then imparts that word to the people. Jesus makes a very different claim from that. For Jesus, it is as though He were God’s own mouth. He doesn’t just receive something from God; rather, when His mouth moves, it is God speaking.

Speaking of truth, remember our definition: something revealed that is of great aesthetic value. So when Jesus is telling the truth, He is revealing to us things that are of great aesthetic value. And the thing of greatest aesthetic value is goodness. Jesus, therefore, merely by speaking is doing God’s work — i.e., He is edifying those who listen. He is conveying goodness.

And then He makes an extraordinary claim (a thing He seems to do with some regularity). He says that anyone who has faith in Him will do even greater works than He, because He is leaving, and is leaving the work to us. He fed thousands, but we must feed millions. He healed dozens, but we must heal thousands. He knows everything, and so must we. Our scientific quests are actually in keeping with His declaration. The more we learn, the more we are like Him. The more we use our knowledge for good, the closer we are to Him. But there are obstacles. Like politics, for example. We already know how to feed every person on the planet, but picayune politicians obstruct the attempt. Those with plenty sell the food, or hold onto it until it rots. Those without, starve to death. What good is all our science and all our technology if one child dies of starvation?

These obstructions are (as per our definition) sin. It is no sin for a man to love another man. In fact, it is possible that they uplift one another; that is, they edify one another, and therefore are doing good. It is the powerful and the mighty who stand in the way of hungry people getting food — it is these tyrants who are committing sin. They are opposing the facilitation and conveyance of goodness.

Finally, Jesus declares that the faithful may ask anything in His name, and He will do it. But what does it mean to ask in His name? And for that matter, what is faith? We will formally define faith, but we will discuss the context of asking in His (or anyone else’s name). I’ve listened to lots of mainstream Christian prayers, from blessings over dinner to prayers in church, and they almost always end with the words, “In Jesus’ name we pray.” But that’s a lie. Or at least, it isn’t right. Whatever is “in His name” must be in His name in the same way that He is in the Father. In order to ask for something in His name, we must be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father. It is not enough just to mouth words. The words we speak must come from God Himself, just like the words Jesus has spoken.

And now our definition:

Faith: belief based upon experience (belief has already been defined).

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

John 14:15-21

Okay, so here is where we are introduced to the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that He will ask the Father, and that the Father will send us Someone to counsel us. And that Someone will be none other than the Spirit of Truth. By our definitions, Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit (or Spirit of Truth) will reveal things to us that are aesthetically valuable. In other words, He will convey goodness to us.

Once again, He draws a dichotomy between the physical world and the spiritual world, which, by now, we should be familiar with. By now, we should be reading everything He says as applying spiritually, unless He specifies otherwise, as for example in this passage, when He declares that “the world” will not know the Spirit of Truth, much in the same way that the Pharisees in John 8 could not understand His words because they were children of the father of lies. “The world”, when Jesus speaks of it this way, is the set of nonbelievers. They do not hear because they have no ears — no *spiritual *ears. They don’t even want them. They have no need for them, because they are in pursuit of something else. They value something else more than they value His words.

That state of valuing something else more than Him is a state of null aesthetic. It is empty. There is no there there. There is nothing real. They have pinned all their hopes and aspirations on worldly things (as opposed to spiritual things), and just as the world will die, so will they. Jesus Himself explains:

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

"All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

"You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

“Come now; let us leave.”

John 14:22-31

This passage is mostly reiteration. He will send the Holy Spirit, Who will teach us all things. Those who have faith in Him (as we defined faith) will know the Holy Spirit, and will learn from Him.

He says that the prince of this world, meaning His nemeses, is coming. He assures us that the prince has no jurisdiction over Him, but that He does what He does simply because it is what the Father commands. Soon, Jesus will be gone, and in His place will be the Spirit of Truth, or the Holy Spirit.

There is an interesting reference, by the way, that His Father is greater than He. On the surface, this seems to contradict all the one-ness talk about Him and His Father. But remember that Jesus has said that even WE would do greater things than He. It is nothing more than humility and deference, an acknowledgment that goodness is so valuable that were there a being more good than He, He would worship it (as we have defined worship).

This concludes our study of John 14

191

I’m curious about why there is only silence in this Part IV from the original players, like MrDibble and a few others. Other-wise has spoken out, but hasn’t responded to my response (which I guess should lead me to believe that he’s okay with it.) Among the thousands of lurkers, and the people who participated in Parts I through III, is there really nothing to say about my interpretations?

Not about the history of the book of John. Not about justifcation of the text. (Although PBear’s question about the justification of my belief was extremely interesting, and forced me to reference at least two books — and another that was online — to recall the epistemological structure of foundationalism and internalism.)

But what about the interpretations themselves? Should I conclude that everybody is fine with them? Or is it more like people have dropped out because my expositories are boring? Tell me something, even if it’s only that you’re still here.

Thanks,

Lib

192

I’ll bite. It’s probably because you’ve dragged this thread out to the point that it’s actually FOUR threads and have publicly stated that you aren’t interested in any form of debate. Also, your posts are way, way beyond TLDR and therefore nobody reads them. If all you wanted to do was to have a public blog stating what your beliefs are then you should have posted this to LF or MySpace or something. Using this forum as nothing but a place to shout ‘Here I am! Look at me!’ is a total waste of bandwidth. I’d be more than willing to bet that 99% of the viewers of this thread are here for no more than to point and laugh at you.

Yeah, I said it.

193

Hi Liberal.

I’ve read most of the posts in the four threads. Every thread starts with the disclaimer or warning: WITNESSING THREAD. But, other than in post #73 in the fourth thread, it doesn’t seem to me that you are witnessing.

The message is something like: “All that matters is whether you agree with my definitions and with the interpretations of what my sources mean.”

Why does it matter so much? Why should anyone else care?

If Aesthetics is the evaluation of worth or value, and a Free Moral Agent is an agent whose aesthetical decisions are uncoerced, and Goodness is the edification of one free moral agent by another, who also becomes edified, and Love is the means by which goodness is conveyed, and you are a Free Moral Agent and you are edifying yourself and others through these threads, then I have a few questions:

Is your witnessing about Love? Are you witnessing because you love: love yourself, love others on this board, love God?

I have been edified by your posts. Does that mean that you love me, even if I don’t accept your definitions and I don’t agree with your interpretations?

194

It is a possibility. But that would be, as of this moment, 3,785 of them. I therefore am willing to take you up on your bet, since the onus upon you to prove your hypothesis would be, in all practical terms, terribly difficult. Shall we say the usual amount?

195

Well, I’m mostly okay with it, except for this part:

I still don’t understand how something that is eternal, essential and necessary can cease. Nor why our sins absolutely had to be, um, “funneled” through Jesus in order to get rid of them.

And again, this may not be the right time to address my befuddlement; I don’t want to delay the debate and I have no doubts that you’ll address my concerns when appropriate.

If we understand your posts and and are willing to accept your interpretations for the sake of debate, then we pretty much have to be fine with them. You made it clear (in fact, you’ve been forced to do so repeatedly) that the purpose of this thread is not to debate your interpretations, or reject them and offer our own, but to simply to present and clarify your interpretations so that the participants can enter the debate with a grasp of your views and a common vocabulary.

If you’re looking for feedback on your expositories, I have a couple thoughts. I suspect that some of the confusion stems from you trying to put into words (and very precisely, at that), a meaning and understanding that came to you through revelation.

People can stare for hours at this before they see the Dalmatian, and some never see it at all. But once someone does see it, they always will: you literally can never un-see it. Several times in these threads it’s felt as if you were someone who “saw a Dalmatian” and was trying to explain what it looked like and how to see it ourselves. So when I read this:

and this

… seemingly referring to the same event in the same context, I can’t tell whether you simply misspoke, or if there is a larger context (obvious to you because you’ve “seen the Dalmatian”) that I’m failing to grasp.
Finally, I should point out that my relative lack of response or input in this thread has less to do with your exposition than with some, erm, “challenges” that have been occurring in other-wiseville over the last few weeks. I’m basically reading and posting during the lull when the bad guys pause to re-load.

196

Sure. Invisible money is always nice. You do know that every time someone views this thread it adds to the view counter right? Which means that when someone pops in for nothing more than to find out if, after four threads you may have actually got to some sort of point it adds to the count. If you really think that there are a couple thousand people following this and slavering over your next little tidbit then you would, of course, be wrong. All that you’ve done is type out a multi-thread blog about what you believe in with no room for dissent. In a forum labeled Great Debates.

197

**Duhkecco **(great name, by the way! Very original.), I can appreciate and understand your questions and concerns. I’ll address them as thoroughly as I can.

It might not have been necessary to label the threads as witnessing, but I knew for a certainty, given the nature of the thing, that there would be at least some points of witnessing in the threads. Now, it seems that you and I interpret witnessing a little bit differently. The post you pointed out describes (or rather, attempts to describe) the nature of my conversion, and since you have pointed it out specifically, it can be said that both you and I agree that that sort of thing is indeed witnessing.

My ending goal was not a witness, but a debate, centered on whether the tenets of my faith, listed loosely as a proof tableau, would stand up to the scrutiny of ordinary logic and reason. But I’ve been around this board long enough to know what happens when a person opens a debate thread on theology. Let’s say that primarily ten people engage. Almost all of them have different ideas on what is meant by terms like “love” and “goodness” and even “God”. And so the debate heats up to the extent that within the first dozen posts, things are going all over the place.

Then, you start defining what you meant by what you said. And one or more of the participants balk. They will accuse you of “backtracking” or “weaseling”, saying that you are now redefining your terms. And they will not accept your definitions. Things become confrontational. Misunderstandings and mistrust ensue. People even become angry, and sometimes abandon the thread with something like this: “Well, if you’re going to debate dishonestly, then I have nothing more to say.”

My hope was to avoid all that. The simplest way to do it, in my mind, was to define my terms up front — before the debate even begins. That way, when the debate starts, all people are on the same page when it comes to the usage of words like “love” and “goodness” and “God”. They are not surprised to learn that I am using “love” to mean “the facilitation and conveyance of goodness”. They have no standing to cry about backtracking if they already know that “goodness” is being used to mean “that which edifies”.

Now in my case, the proof that I need to give is long. Very long. And it involves using the specialized vocabulary that I have introduced here. Regarding that, we dispensed with the notion in the very first thread that philosophy — or for that matter, science and other disciplines — may not borrow terms from the common vernacular and use them in different and specialized ways. (We cited, for example, how Kant used words like “synthetic” to mean something completely different from their ordinary meanings.) We did agree that using terms, borrowed from the vulgar language, to attach specialized meanings was okay. It has been done for centuries in many disciplines.

Since I knew that my proof would be long and technical in nature, calling upon any number of logical and philosophical concepts, I thought it might be a good idea to split things up into certain philosophical categories. And so, I thought that it would be good first to discuss aesthetics itself; then to discuss morality and ethics (since I intend to prove that Jesus brought an aesthetical message, rather than a moral or ethical one); then to discuss the metaphysical and ontological implications of my belief system — for example, what is reality? and what is the nature of existence? — because these matters will be part of my argument. And finally, before the debate begins, it is important that everyone know exactly what my source of knowledge is, so that, for example, no one is gobsmacked when I say that Jesus is God. There will be (or should be) no “Where do you get THAT from?” kind of stuff.

Now, it so happens that I titled this part “Epistemology”, because that’s what epistemology means in the ordinary sense of the word — i.e., the source and nature of knowledge and belief. Someone complained that I wasn’t really putting forth an epistemic discussion, but rather was providing a mere exegesis (my interpretations) of the writings. And there was lots of wasted time about who wrote what, and how Jesus might never have said these things, and all that kind of stuff. And so I finally paused the ongoing thread to lay out exactly my epistemological model, which is basically internalist foundationalism with a bit of reliablism mixed in. It was a very technical explanation that I felt was, at the same time, unnecessary but interesting.

And that brings us to your next question:

They should care because it leaves no room for equivocation (using words to mean different things) or misunderstanding once the debate is underway. If you’ve spent any time at all in Great Debates, then you’ve seen it over and over again — people talking past each other. Someone is going on and on about God and love or whatever, and someone else is using the same terms, but understanding them very differently. I have seen people actually finding themselves in agreement, but not even realizing it! They continue to argue as though only one of them is right.

I think people who care about a civil debate in which all parties understand what all other parties are saying should care a lot that the time has been taken to lay all that out. They will know (and it will be documented) how I interpret, for example, the passages from John 3, in Jesus’s discussion with Nicodemus about being born of water and of the spirit. I would say that the vast majority of Christians (in fact, it might be nearly all of them, given their creeds) interpret that passage to be talking about baptism when He talks about being born of water. My interpretation is so different as to be unrecognizable to the vast majority of believers. As I spelled out at the time, I take “born of water” to be mean physical birth, as when a woman’s water breaks and you are born. It’s baptism versus physical birth — a very, very different interpretation.

So, it is important that when my proof references that passage as its epistemic source (say, perhaps as a premise) that people understand where it came from, and aren’t suddenly surprised to see such a “strange” interpretation — at least, strange to them. This facilitates the debate because there is no wasted time going over why I interpret being born of water to be physical birth because I’ve already explained it to a fare-thee-well.

Okay.

My witness is that Jesus’s message was not about morality, but about aesthetics. It is, I know, heretical as far as the church is concerned, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about what the church may think. In other words, the traditional model is that Jesus came down to earth to fulfill the Old Testament laws and prophesies, and to replace them with new rules, like the commandment to love one another. And then, once one gets to the Pauline epistles (or gospels, if you insist), we find a whole slew of new rules. And what I am witnessing to is my own belief that Jesus’s purpose and message was nothing like that. His purpose and message were to replace law with evaluation; to replace moral judgment with aesthetical judgment; to replace the notion that God judges you with the notion that you make your own aesthetical choices.

Now, that’s what I’m witnessing about. The because part of it is that I believe it is an important witness. Under the traditional interpretations, for example, homosexuality is a sin. But under my interpretation, two women in love might very well edify one another, and thus actually do good. (I could digress into a conversation with my neighbor, a lesbian, but I’ll spare you from that. I’ll tell you only that she said she is a devout Christian, and that she knows she is living in sin with her life partner. And I told her sternly, “No! Don’t you ever let anybody tell you that love is sinful.” Her reaction was an expression of relief on her face, and a simple sincere “Thank you.”)

I believe it is important that the message get out that Jesus did not come to condemn people for their internal thoughts and external deeds, but to save them from death by revealing things of great value. That He does not judge us by our morality. That He values us greatly, and wishes to do good for us, no matter how “sinful” we have been. That he is not OUR team captain versus THEIR team captain. I may be naive or whatever adjective you would ascribe to me, but that’s the reason.

Yes, I think it does because I have been edified by your taking the time and trouble to respond. We both have come out of this better than before our encounter. Therefore, the facilitation of goodness has been achieved.

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It ceases only in time. It is similar in concept to relativity, in which the acceleration of an object can appear different to different observers depending upon their relative points of view. In other words, from our perspective as temporal beings, the spirit has died. But from the perspective of the spirit, only the body has died. Nevertheless, in this case, it was important that the spirit die as well — in reality; that is, from the point of view of the spirit. But spirit is of a different sort of nature than the physical world. Spirit is not made from atoms or particles or waves or strings or any other such things that are not stuff. Recall the quotation from Raymond Hall of Fermilab: “Stuff is made of atoms. Therefore, atoms can’t be made of stuff.” (I’ll cover this more throughout the post.)

Spirit is made only of spirit. It is one essential thing. This is why God can breathe His spirit into us, with the result that we house Him. He is not lesser just because He “broke off a piece” and gave it to us. Therefore, the spiritual death of Jesus qua God was the death of God on earth, but not the death of God in se. (That is what was meant by “the faint spark of goodness maintained by His Father”.) We can think of it as God giving us a pint of His spirit, but giving Jesus nearly all of it. But spirit is spirit, and a small amount is essentially no different from a large amount — quite obviously, since it is immeasurable.

What made the difference in the amount allocated was not a lessening or increasing of spirit itself, but merely an increase of spirit in the man (Jesus). By analogy, when a husband’s wife bears a child, his love for his child does not diminish his love for his wife. (Using love in the ordinary sense.) If anything, his love for his wife increases even as he loves his new son or daughter. (Assuming normal people, and not psychotic people.)

And so Jesus, being fully God, did indeed die in reality, not just in our imaginary world. But since the Father is greater than He (a reference we just now have covered), all that remained alive was the remnant of spirit that was God. And then, upon the resurrection of Jesus, which that remnant was sufficient to enact, the spirit regained its fullness.

From our perspective, we did not see (and could not have seen) this spiritual death, owing to our spirits being trapped in this illusion called the universe. Only those of us with great spiritual understanding, or to put it another way, only those of us who valued goodness above all else, could discern the death of spirit.

Now, the manner in which that which is eternal, necessary, and essential can cease is that one or more of its qualities be nullified. It’s no different in essence than the life of a man. He is expected to live some seventy or eighty years of so, but that expectation can be nullified by, say, a careening truck or a falling piano.

In the case of ENE, however, there is nothing that is *capable *of nullifying it, except in terms of growth. In other words, we house God’s spirit, but we may make aesthetic choices that destroy or nullify part or most of what He breathed into us. But because we are free moral agents, once He breathes His spirit into us, the identity of that spirit becomes our own, and not His.

So, although we might nullify ourselves by our aesthetical judgments — that is, we might destroy the spirit that dwells in us — the spirit as a whole cannot be destroyed. God would have lived on, even if not a single person ever believed in Him. Even if we all were evil to the bone, and destroyed our whole world by de-edifying it (tearing it down), God would still be alive. But His purpose with us is to grow. He reasons that the only thing better than goodness is more goodness. His goal, clearly, must be infinite goodness. (Don’t confuse this with the notion that God is infinitely good. We are talking about the goodness of infinitely many free moral agents. Co-Gods, if you wish. That’s the basis of the “I am in Him, and He is in me, and I am in you” kind of stuff. We all are one, even though we have our own identities. (An identity is redundant if everything is indistinguishable.)

And so the spirit did cease, but not the entirety of the Spirit qua God. All that is necessary to conquer all opposition to goodness is a single conveyance of edification. The trick is in choosing the right one that will cascade into one whole that is fully good. God, of course, knew (knows, and will know) the right one.

It IS the right time. I have to honestly say that I am completely flummoxed as to why people seem to think that I want no argument at this time. I DO. I do want argument (or agreement, or challenge, or any comment) about my interpretations. I feel like I’ve said this a hundred times, and yet somehow, I must have muddled it up with my poor writing. But the fact of the matter is that it is EXACTLY my interpretations that I want people to challenge (if they wish).

As I’ve said so many times, the only things I DON"T want challenged are things like whether John is a good source of Jesus’s sayings. Or whether John even actually wrote the book. Or whether the words as used by John-or-Whoever mean the same as the way I mean them. Or the epistemological justification for my beliefs. (Which I actually have now given — to PBear.)

Well, but there’s an ironing out process first. Remember the first three threads? We all communicated with one another, and hammered out things like the definition of morality versus ethics. That kind of thing. That’s what I want to go on HERE.

There will eventually HAVE to be accepted, for he sake of argument, SOME interpretation or other. And I invited challenges of mine, so that we can hammer out mutual understandinds. Just like we did in the early threads. I hope that is expressed with sufficient clarity that you understand.

There is indeed a larger concept, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say that you can’t see or grasp it. If I can, then anyone can. The only question, really, is whether I can communicate to you what it is that I see.

In one of those contexts, He was talking to his disciples, who were telling Him that a crowd of Greeks wanted to see Him. And Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

The metaphor is for the sake of the disciples, who still are students of the Master, so to speak. The parenthetical caveat was to remind you that, at this moment, Jesus was speaking of physical things. (Wheat kernels.) And when He was speaking of one thing dying and spawning many other things, He was speaking of the fact that He, like the wheat kernel, would fall to the ground (or die). And that meant that He would suffer a physical death. Which is to be expected, since He was fully man. Thus, it was only His body that would die in fitting with the metaphor. (And that is all that His disciples could at that time comprehend.)

But on a higher level, a more important level, His spirit would die also. And that answers your question about why it had to happen in the way it did, or, as you put it “why our sins absolutely had to be, um, ‘funneled’ through Jesus in order to get rid of them”.

You can think of the sins He took upon Himself as parasites. And when the host dies, the parasites die too. The same is true on a spiritual level, as I was explaining to Duhkecco. We house God’s spirit, and the aesthetical choices we make can nullify it (specifically, that portion that we house). But whenever we make the aesthetic choice of goodness, that spirit within us grows. Because we are one with Him, He grows also.

You see, spirit is of the nature that it doesn’t matter whether there is a miniscule, microscopic, singularity sized bit of it, it is everywhere and always. It is eternal, esssential, and necessary.

That’s okay. Believe me, I understand. I’ve have projects and things come up too, and have had to just check out the boards briefly when I could. I’m just glad to know that you’re still in the game, as it were. Thanks for letting me know what was going on, and I wish you great success in overcoming your challenges.

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Well, as Tom has explained in one of the threads, there is discussion going on. There are not a lot of participants, but when did a rule come down that to qualify for Great Debates, a thread must have more than X different people post in it? By my count, 19 or 20 different people have posted in this thread alone. It is therefore not Blog-like. PBear, for example, brought up some of the most interesting discussions of all. And even though they weren’t to the point of the series, they were, in her mind (and mine), important points to raise. (She, in fact, posted 27 times as of this writing.)

So, you may be right about the lurkers. And you may be wrong. But you are definitely wrong that I have typed out “a multi-thread blog about what * believe in with no room for dissent”. That is simply an incorrect statement.

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Look. No offense, but to qualify for GREAT DEBATES, shouldn’t there be at least some debate? Especially after FOUR THREADS?

Again, you’re using this as your own private blog and it’s nothing but a bandwidth hog. You can’t even deny it as you’ve stated that there is no debate. So what’s the point?

“Here’s me…this is what I believe…oh, be the way, you’re not alllowed to disagree with anything I say.”

That’s the total gist of your four threads.