The Aesthetical Jesus - Part IV

Great Debates
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Chapter 12 begins with a very interesting exchange between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. I do realize that there is some sympathy on the board for Judas, but whether he was good or evil is really not a part of what we learn. What we learn is that Jesus, qua the human emodiment of God, will not be here permanently. A woman is pooring expensive perfume on His feet and wiping them with her hair:

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. " It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."

John 12:4-8

Whatever the deal with Judas, we learn that Jesus had an aesthetic choice. Not a moral choice, but an aesthetic one. Which is worth more? Feeding the poor? Or tending to His burial? He tells us plainly that tending to his burial was of greater value than feeding the poor. He knows that the poor are doomed to poverty, and that they are all over the earth. He knows that Judas would pocket a goodly amount of the proceeds anyway, and that there would still be people struggling with poverty — from wandering Jews to Roman slaves and freedmen even if the perfume were sold and the money distributed. Issues of fairness would have arisen, as those who were too late in line when the money ran out would protest that the whole thing was unfair.

He knows also that the poor, the outcast, and those treated the worst on earth will be with Him in Heaven. (We’ll cover this in more detail in a later post.) And so, the thing that is more valuable is God on Earth, Who will sacrifice Himself for the forgiveness of sin.

People often ask, “What does this mean, that he sacrifices Himself?” And often they continue, “It’s no sacrifice anyway, since He knows He’s God and that He will be resurrected.” People ask these questions as though there were no human side to Jesus. As though His divinity would assuage whatever suffering he would have to endure. But while it is true that He could have summoned angels from heaven to protect Him, he chose not to. He chose to suffer and die like a man. He did this because we — we real people — suffer and die.

“But why was this death business necessary anyway?” one might ask. “If He wanted to forgive sin, He needed merely to wave His hand and say something to the effect that ‘All is forgiven’.” Which, incidentally, He did with every sinner Whom He encountered.

His death was the death of sin, using the terms as we have defined them. In other words, his vacancy from reality was the vacancy from reality of the opposition to goodness. Once He was dead, sin would be dead, because He will have taken upon His own shoulders the sins of the whole world (which we well cover later in greater detail.)

His death is necessary. He MUST die so that sin will die. His death introduced a sort of entropy to sin. Without His death, sin could have ovecome goodness, and God would have died in reality — as opposed to vacant from it. Without goodness, there is no God (as we discussed at length in an earlier thread.) And so His death ensured that sin would die too. It is similar in some ways to a man who falls on a grenade so that he can save other men. In the same manner, Jesus is falling on the grenade of God’s aesthetic judgment. It is a way for God to cleanse Himself. It is, in fact, the only way.

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.

Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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 man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!

John 12:20-27

Jesus says plainly here that He has a choice. He can call upon His Father to save Him from the torture and death that is to follow, but He says no way. It was the very reason He was here. He likens his choice to a kernel of wheat which, when dead, will produce many seeds. It is His desire (and His Father’s plan) that many agents who faciliate and convey goodness would result from His death.

He holds Himself up as the One we should serve, and tells us that God will honor us for serving him. (In case you are lost at this point, be sure that you are rightly discerning the physical fom the spirirual. It is only His body that will die. He has Himself made that dichotomy abundantly clear.)

The crowd spoke up, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ will remain forever, so how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?”

Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light.”

John 12:34-(36)

This is ominous. He is saying that His leaving the world will leave it in darkness, because He is the light. He wants believers, so they can carry the light forward. It’s as though He were a fire dying out, and He wants everyone to dip their torches in His flame before it is extinguished.

This means that Jesus is literally leaving this aspect of existence — the temporal world, where His body imprisons His spirit. He will return to the real world of being only spirit. And He wants to make sure that others become “sons of light”, just as He is the Son of God. We discussed this at some length in the metaphysics thread. Recall that life and reality are synonyms. It is when He takes up His life again (at His resurrection) that sin will be defeated because despites its aesthetically empty nature, He will fill it will aesthetic purpose and volition.

Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.

John 12:42-43

This is another critical passage. And it speask to aesthetics: valuing the praise of men more than the praise of God.

Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

John 12:44-46

This is now His third indirect claim at being God. The first was the “I am” thing. The second was the “Father and I are one” thing. And now this: “When he looks at me, he sees who sent me.” Since it is God Who sent Him (as He has repeatedly claimed), then seeing Him is seeing God.

And finally

“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”

John 12:47-50

Once again, He tells us that He does not judge us (though we know from prior discussions that He has the authority to do so). In fact, judgment was not His mission — His mission was salvation. If there is any condemnation, it will be of our own choosing; namely, whether we value His words. Which words, incidentally, come from God through Him.

That concludes our study of John 12.

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Actually, yeah I’d appreciate it if you’d do so, thanks.

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Liberal, I don’t have time tonight to reply to your post (I was out with a friend and it’s very late here). But I’ll try to do so tomorrow evening. FWIW, when you say I’m “itching” to discuss epistemology, that’s not quite right. I think it’s a subject you should be wanting to discuss. I’ll explain why in my next post.

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From this post:

Religion politician: a person who seeks to manipulate people for the purpose of enriching himself, often claiming to have some sort of authority, citing scriptures and revelations from God, or instilling fear of eternal punishment — all as a tactical means of fulfilling his strategy.

===============

PBear, that’ll be fine.

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Actually, Hunter Hawk, I think you might have been looking for this: “You can, however, make ethical judgments. And here, scripture can be helpful. “Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” Matthew 7:20. In other words, what is it they are producing? Bigger homes and churches for themselves? Or bigger homeless shelters and more food for the poor?” from this post.

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I’m essentially asking that you be much more explicit about the process by which you make those judgments, and the criteria that you base those decisions on.

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Well, read Part II then.

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We’ve covered a portion of John 13, with Jesus washing the feet of His disciples. I believe it was in the metaphysics thread, where the lesson was that He had set the example (of humbing Himself) and that we should do the same. So we won’t rehash that.

But we will start with the actual beginning of that scenario:

[Jesus] got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean.

John (4)-(10)

Speaking of zeitgeist (which we talked about earlier in terms of fallaciously applying today’s zeitgeist to people who lived millenia ago), it is important to understand something about the culture of the time regarding feet. Feet were considered to be unclean, both literally and religiously. They walked around in dust and dirt and some grass, often barefoot or with sandals. To wash the feet of another man back then was something like the equivalent today of washing out the anus of another man. It was an act that was considered even beneath a slave. And so Jesus was humbling Himself before those who worshipped Him.

Then when Simon Peter protested (as he was so often wont to do) and declared that Jesus would never wash his feet, Jesus corrected him, saying that when a man is clean all over, his only hygiene problem is dirty feet.

Later, the “do as I’ve done” thing happened. But here, I think there is a greater metaphor. My interpretation is that Jesus was saying that there is enough goodness in the world to overcome sin (or “evil”, which we may consider to be a synonym.) Most people do aesthetically value goodness. They will help a neighbor. Or comfort a friend. Or give a spouse a word of affirmation. Jesus was saying that evil is only a small part of man’s world; that he obstructed goodness only rarely. And so therefore, we are mostly clean — in a spiritual sense. We all just have a little something about us (some more than others) that values the obstruction of goodnes from time to time.

Sometimes it is our fault, and sometimes it isn’t. We can’t blame a man who has fallen off a ladder, and whose whole personality has changed from kind and gentle to cantankerous and hateful just because he landed on his head. But if we are all puffy about it, bragging about how we have all the answers, then we are to blame because we claim we know so much, when in fact, we know very little about the spiritual world. We know nothing of its “laws”, if it has any. Jesus had already said that loving God and loving one another would fulfill all the prophets and commandments. It’s invisible, and its presence is almost subjective in nature (which is something we should have discussed at much greater length in the metaphsysics thread).

Speaking of which:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:34-35

It can be argued from now till sunrise whether this implies that Jesus intended to *replace *the commandments given until then, or simply tack on a new one. I’ve heard people tie it to “Love your neighbor as yourself”, which is one of the ten commandments. (In one formulation of them.)

But the problem, as I see it, is that if the commandment the Beloved informed us of were tied to the commandment from ages ago, then the commandment Jesus gave would not be “new”. And yet, He distinctly called it “new”. There is also, believe it or not, argument over “command” versus “commandment”. I’m certainly not going to go there, but my interpretation is that loving one another will fulfill God’s plan and purpose, which (as we learned a long time ago) is to grow: He wants there to be more goodness — more facilitation and conveyance of that which edifies and uplifts. Even eventually for there to be an infinite amount.

That concludes our study of John 13

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By the way, regarding John 13 and the previous post, there is a subtle but important difference in “love your neighbor as yourself” and “love one another as I have loved you.” The latter is a far greater and more onerous command. It is a command to love perfectly, not just the way you love yourself.

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Liberal, I’ve said several times that what’s missing here is an exploration of epistemology as ordinarily defined, meaning in the context of religion, whether a particular set of beliefs is justified. A couple days ago, you invited me to explain why I think this is important, reserving of course the right not to be persuaded by the argument.

It’s an issue of overarching significance, but I’ll begin with an example. In Post #132, you described your epiphany when translating John 8:58, concluding with the exclamation, “My God, He’s God!” Except, well, no. All you had discovered was that John claimed Jesus claimed to be God. (I agree “I am” was intended as such a claim.) To conclude the claim is true, we would have to establish that John was reporting Jesus’ words correctly and that Jesus was correct when he made the claim. Note that he could have believed the claim without it’s being true. This is an epistemological inquiry and one you have pointedly declined to make. IMHO, it negates the value of the inference as a premise, if as seems likely it’s one you intend to use in the proof.

This problem permeates your witness and is exacerbated by the fact that you keep writing as if the Beloved actually wrote John. As you know, though, the general consensus of modern Bible scholars is that he did not. See, e.g., Wiki. Thus, what can only be justified as a rhetorical devise glosses over a crucial issue. If the Beloved didn’t write the Johannine gospel, we have no reason to believe it’s a historical account. Moreover, we have no reason to believe it accurately describes God or Jesus. So, every time you interpret a passage in John and assert “Jesus means … “ you’re making an assertion for which you have laid no epistemological foundation.

Instead, as you have explained many times, this is your personal witness, based on the words alone. Moreover, it’s your personal witness based on having redefined many of the key words (love, sin, etc.) idiosyncratically and overlaying those definitions on John, thus creating what I call the Gospel According to Liberal. You realize, I assume, that this exercise is not persuasive. That is, you may believe whatever you like, but if you want anyone else to come along, you have to fill the epistemological gap of explaining why the beliefs are justified. Moreover, I don’t get why you believe your own beliefs. It seems like an ad hoc aesthetic judgment (aesthetic as ordinarily defined) that they “sound right” to you. But why?

The significance of all this for the proof is as follows. Ordinarily, if a proof based on sound premises leads to unexpected conclusions, we check first whether the logic steps were sound. If so, we reexamine the premises. If those are sound, we generally accept the unexpected conclusions. Here, you’ve set yourself up for failure. I assume you’ll pass the first test. Or, if there are any logic errors, they can be fixed and the proof goes through. Except, there’s almost no way for you to pass the second test. By ignoring epistemology, you’ve made it easy for us to point to premises and definitions (as interpretations of John) which were not adequately justified, so the proof collapses. Three months of work down the drain.

Incidentally, if I’m anticipating correctly where this is going - and you’ve given at least half-a-dozen sneak peaks of what you intend to prove - my counterarguments (assuming I participate in Part V, which I haven’t yet decided) will be primarily inductive (rather than deductive) and/or based on other Scriptures. You’re going to need a sound proof to stand up to such objections.

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Lib, these strike me as fairly weak rationalizations… the same basic arguments could be used today by anybody to justify not helping the poor. And, granted that sacrificing Himself for the forgiveness of sin is more valuable that giving a year’s wages to the poor, how the heck is having perfumed feet critical to His sacrifice?

I’ve read the above several times, and I’m still not grasping it. I don’t get how His death = the removal (or prevention) of opposition to goodness in the realm of the essential, eternal, and necessary. Or how His death is a form of “cleansing”, or why a cleansing is needed.

I also don’t understand what you mean when you discuss God/Jesus being vacant from reality; that seems almost like a contradiction in terms.

How is just another dead body the (harbinger? catalyst? lynch-pin?) of entropy of sin, the self-cleansing of God, etc.?
Also, way back in post #133, there was this quote:

I interpreted that quote as evidence that Jesus had tried to familiarize His disciples with concepts of atemporality (unless the disciples thought that God was in the habit of pre-emptive strikes; passing judgement on, and smiting, unborn people for their-not-yet-committed sins).

I researched the quote online to check my interpretation, but only found vague references to unnamed Rabbis who thought sin before birth was a theoretical possibility, and equally vague references to a “common belief” that held that it was possible to sin in the womb (WTF?).

I know this thread is keeping you busy, to say the least, but would you happen to have any readily-at-hand references that I could go to for more detail?

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PBear

I’m quoting only two paragraphs of your post, not because I did not read them all. I did. Twice over. Your references, too. It’s only because I believe these two paragraphs form the crux of your objections and observations. It certainly is not the case that the rest of your post should be ignored, and I would encourage anyone reading this post to read first yours in its entirety along with its links.

As your links show so vividly, religious epistemology is controversial. There are arguments for and against almost every approach. That is the nature of philosophy. Always has been. Always will be. It is, in fact, the nature of epistemology in general. But we should make it plain here, as I’m sure you are aware, that historically, religious epistemology has dealt with issues of God’s existence, and what can be known of and from God. But we are not really dealing with that here. God’s existence will be given (as covered much earlier.)

You are clearly a reliabalist (or at least, your posts come across to me that way.) And so there is nothing that I can do to satisfy you because I don’t have the sort of evidence you are looking for. I do not have a source that both you and I would agree reliably conveys the words of Jesus. In fact, I do not have a source that both you and I would agree proves even the existence of Jesus, other than Talmudic and extremely controversial Greek texts, scripture, and equally controversial archeological discoveries. (Plus a column by Cecil.)

Now, I have no problem with you, and this objection that you raise is not a distraction. It is quite on point, and I wish you had raised it much eariler. You seem to be making an argument (especially based on your sources) that the question is one of deontological versus non-deontological epistemology. For those who might be unfamiliar with the terms, here is an abstraction of them:

Deontological Justification: A person is justified in believing X if and only if that person believes X, while the person has no obligation to believe X.

Non-Deontological Justification: A person is justified in believing X if and only if that person believes that belief in X is properly probabilified.

These are two classical views of epistemological justifcation. And there are arguments for and against both sides. Philosophers to this day are still arguing back and forth over which model is right. There are also evidentialists who argue with reliabalists. The evidentialist will accept personal experience as justification for belief (as PBear has done with me, by the way — it’s not that she’s saying my personal witness is invalid, but simply that I cannot justifiably take it from John.) The reliabalist will also take personal experience as justification, but only if the source is reliable. And according to PBear, the Gospel of John is unreliable as it relates to what Jesus said and did.

That’s fair enough, and I agree with her.

(If at any point I misrepresent your argument, PBear, please correct me.)

However, the question, from MY perspective is not whether John is a reliable source of knowledge, or even whether John’s witness is properly probabilified. I readily will concede (and have conceded repeatedly) that it is neither. But at the risk of repeating myself repeating myself repeating myself, it is my interpretation of John that I am using as my epistemological basis. My beliefs are justifed, not because of anything whatsoever to do with John, but only with my personal testimony which happens to be drawn from John (and a few other sources.)

Today, most philosophers (like Plantinga and others) are less concerned about DJ (Deontological Justification) and NDJ (Non-Deontological justification) than they are with internal versus external justification. Simply because of the nature of the thing, internalists tend to be evidentialists and externalists tend to be reliabilists. Let’s just look at why:

Evidentialism is rooted in two basic postulates: (1) Justification for believing X depends on evidence regarding X; and (2) Evidence consists of your mental state. And there are, within evidentialist circles those that hold to mental internalism and those that hold to accessibility internalism. It is obvious on the surface that the second postulate of evidentialism implies mental internalism, but it is not all that difficult to interpret it in a way that implies accessibility internalism. The difficulty, really, arisis in how to interpret the conjuction of (1) and (2), specifically whether justification is recognizable therein.

That’s where accessibility internalists introduce two concepts: (1) Luminosity, and (2) Necessity. (In other words, they modalize the argument.) With luminosity, they argue that you can always recognize what mental state you are in by virtue of introspection; that is, that you are cognatively luminous. With necessity, they argue that you can rely on a prior insight in order always to reflect on whether your mental states are evidence of X.

But if justification is the issue, then it is important to look at how the structure of knowledge follows from the structure of justification. I’m down with that, but then we get into foundationalism versus coherentism. (And in the latter case, we have offshoots such as dependence coherentism.)

Looking at foundationalism, keep in mind a structure. The foundation of the structure is called “basic belief”. Any and all beliefs following from the basic beliefs are called unimaginatively “non-basic beliefs”. The question then arises as to how a foundationalist justifies his basic beliefs, and then a further question arises as to how a foundationalist justifies his non-basic beliefs. The most common approach to foundationalism is doxastic in nature. We can synthesize its main postulate like this:

Doxastic Basicality: A person is justified in believing X if and only if that belief does not rely on any other belief the person holds.

For example. Suppose you notice that John is smoking a cigarette. Then you are justified in believing that you perceive that John is smoking a cigarette because there is no other belief you must hold in order to believe that you perceive that John is smoking a cigarette. And so, for your belief that you perceive that John is smoking a cigarette to be basic, then there must be some justification for your belief besides some other belief that you hold. You cannot, for example, believe that you are perceiving that John is smoking a cigarette just because you believe John is a smoker.

(I realize this is getting thick, but bear with me. PBear raised the issue rightly, and it’s right to put it to bed. Or at the very least, to reach an understanding about what our epistemological model is.)

It is important to note that justification of the belief that John is perceived to be smoking a cigarette has nothing to do with either John or the cigarette. The justification comes from your observation and interpretation of reality. That’s why we call this approach “doxastic”, because it relies on how your belief system is structured.

Notice that your belief that you perceive John is smoking a cigarette is not justified just because you saw him smoking; rather, your belief is justifed because since he is indeed smoking, what you believe cannot possibly be false. This is called an “epistemic privilege”. You know what you know because what you know is indisputable.

But again, because it is your senses and your cognition that *recognize *the act of smoking, your belief is not actually about John smoking, but about your internal perception of what you have observed. It is entirely possible for your perception to be contradicted by, say, a blind man at a distance who has no reason to believe John is smoking, and therefore bases his own belief either on his own perception or on your testimony. That is, the blind man either believes his own senses, that he does not perceive John smoking or else he believes your testimony, if and only if he holds your testimony to be reliable. The question then becomes a question of reliabalism — namely, does the blind man trust your perceptions. The blind man cannot see John smoking, and he’s too far away to smell it, so he must rely on what you tell him in formulating his own belief.

What we learn from this is that it is impossible for basic beliefs to be about anything external. They must derive only from your own internal mental state. You can have a basic belief, for example, that you are hungry. And no one, not even a blind man standing by, can rightly dispute you. So epistemic privilege does not bear out unless one of you is right and the other wrong. Your observation and the observation of the blind man are different, and so tying any sort of justification to your belief about John smoking is problematic.

There is, however, another approach. While your basic belief that John is smoking cannot be substantiated by some other belief, it CAN be substantiated by the experience you have of seeing him smoke. If we call your belief B, and your experience E, then we can say that B is justifed by E, because E is not a belief of yours. The previous approach we discussed is called “privilege foundationalism”, and the new approach is called “experiential foundationalism”.

With experiential foundationalism, we may freely externalize our beliefs. Thus, instead of believing merely that we perceive John to be smoking, we may believe that John is actually smoking a cigarette. This belief is about John smoking, and is not a belief about your perception. We call this foundational structure “epistemic basicality”, and we can abstract it as this:

Epistemic Basicality: A person may believe that X is basic if and only if the person’s justification for believing X does not depend on any further proposition, Y.

Epistemic Basicality makes basic belief more difficult than Doxastic Basicality because of what is called the “J Question”. The J Question is simply this: on what basis is a perceptual experience justification of a belief? And so, we return to Doxastic Basicality, whereupon we examine the structure that we talked about earlier. On what basis is a non-basic belief justified? Foundationalists hold that a non-basic belief must be either deduced or induced from a basic belief. The fomer is often far more difficult than the latter, and so foundationalism allows for the development of a belief system in which a belief in X’ does not necessarily follow logically from X, but rather merely that X makes X’ highly likely.

We can look at Peano’s Induction Axiom in arithmetic as one example of this. He says that for every number X, there is a successor to X (SX), such that X+1 = SX. (Note that Peano never defines “successor”. Some terms must be left undefined in order to avoid circularity. Some of our own terms will be left undefined in the same manner and for the same reason.) There is only intuition here. It is entirely internalized. And the fact that every X has a successor is merely highly likely. Nevertheless, we take it as axiomatic.

Now, as I’ve stressed many times already, and to answer PBear’s question specifically — and by the way, by using a foundationalist approach, I am blessedly sparing you from an explanation of coherentism which, if ever there were a term misapplied, this is it. Coherentism is, to me, completely incoherent. I mean, I understand what it is saying, but what it is saying doesn’t make any sense — it is my perception of the words I’m quoting that serves as my epistemological foundation. My beliefs are doxastic in nature and are basic beliefs because they do not depend on any other beliefs I hold.

I am therefore justified in my beliefs because they are basic in the sense discussed herein. They were inspired by the words, but they originated in my own cognition. That’s why it doesn’t matter who authored the words or whether any of the events mentioned actually happened or not.

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.

A sound proof is always needed to stand up to objections of any kind.

And incidentally, while I’m here, let me touch on a topic you brought up that I did not quote, having to do with my redefining terms used by John. And even having to do with the words not even being written by the Beloved. For the sake of argument, let us say that the words were written by The X Committee. Then what I am writing about are my perceptions of what TXC has written.

It doesn’t matter what TXC intended to say, just as it doesn’t matter whether John is really smoking a cigarette, so long as you perceive that he is. If I perceive that TXC said such and such (after, by the way, a translation from one language to another), then that perception is basic knowledge. And I am allowed, under the principles of foundationalist epistemology to deduce (or even induce) further knowledge from that basic knowledge.

It isn’t that I’ve ignored epistemology, PBear. We briefly touched on the fact that epistemology is concerned with the source and nature of knowledge. That knowledge can be doxastic in nature, on top of being deontic. But we did the same thing in all the other threads. There were no long treatments of the topic’s philosophical underpinnings (except possibly for Part I, but only to get it going in the right direction.)

I think we can give credit to our readership that they know at least the fundamentals of epistemology. And so all that is left for me to do is to reveal what my basic beliefs are, and where they come from. If you want to debate them, then I welcome you to do so. But if they are of no interest to you, then I would not expect to see you in the debate. I do know from PMs, posts, and e-mails that people are interested in the topic, though only a few are posting. As of this writing, there are nearly 3,500 views, but only a few participants. People are reading, and they are interested.

And so, I am going to plow ahead as I have been doing. Except not tonight. Responding to you (and in a moment to other-wise) is enough for one night. At least, that is what I believe.

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(Note: “a prior” above should be “a priori”.)

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Not just today, other-wise. It has always been a rationalization for not helping the poor. Jesus did not invent the concept of perpetual poverty, nor did He create it. He merely commented on it.

It has to do with the customs of the time. Bodies were carefully and lovingly prepared for burial. They were cleaned, and treated much like the bodies of dead soldiers whose bodies are being prepared to send home. The military doesn’t use perfume, but the essence of the procedure is the same: i.e., give due and proper respect to the dead.

Those are multiple questions. His death vacates sin (opposition to goodness) from reality by virtue of the fact that He took upon himself all the sins of the world. When He died, they (the sins) died too. A cleansing is needed because God must be perfect. There can be not even a speck of sin in what emerges from God’s invitation to man. As our spirits join His as one, they must be completely free from the stain of obstruction.

Simply recall the definition of reality. And recall that reality and life are synonyms (interchangeable words). Death, therefore, vacates reality.

Because it isn’t just another dead body. It is the dead body of God incarnate, which, by the way, was never in the tomb once it had been sealed. He arose from the dead, and ministered to people in the past. People like Abraham, for example.

No, I really don’t. I would just go straight to John. Jesus answered His disciples, and His answer is sufficient. Neither the man nor his parents sinned. The man was born blind so that God’s power could be displayed (in healing him).

175

FWIW, I don’t approach epistemology in a formal rigorous philisophical way. Rather, I approach it as an ordinary thinking person. Indeed, I mainly linked to the Stanford Encyclopedia article as support for the definition. Also, I figured it would appeal to you, since you do go in for formal philosophy.

As for me, I suppose I’m some sort of reliabalist, but of the historical criticism type, not a philosophical type. In history, no one looks for certainty, but the limits of source texts are an important consideration. Hence, for example, the importance of noticing that the Johannine community probably cribbed John 8:58 from Exodus for the express purpose of claiming Jesus is eternal, an important concept for them, obviously, since it’s the nub of the opening verse of their Gospel. This is how mainsteam Bible scholarship is done and my epistemological approach, both when I was a Christian and now (when I’m not). One implication of this approach is that the Gospels tell us more about the communities which compiled them than they do about Jesus and God.

Naturally, your approach to epistemology is going to be different from mine. I do have one problem with your development, though, as you mix elements of conventional epistemology, which is concerned with knowledge, and the epistemology of religion, which is concerned with belief. Perception is a more valid justification in the former context than the latter. So, when you say, “it is my perception of the words I’m quoting that serves as my epistemological foundation,” what you’re missing or leaving out is a warrant or grounding (to use the philosophical terms). I happen to believe your subjective warrant is the sense of epiphany you experienced when you translated John 8:58. The problem, in my humble opinion (as explained above), is that the sense of epiphany was unwarranted (so to speak). In any event, it’s not a warrant that carries any meaning for me.

One last thing. I have to object to your complaining about my not raising this issue earlier. I raised it relatively early (Posts #38 and #49) and you called it a derailment. I’ve raised it several times since and you called it irrelevent. I’m glad you’ve come around and, to your credit, you even invited me to explain why I think it’s important. But it can’t fairly be said I only recently raised the issue.

176

Let me rephrase. Several times you’ve used lovingly helping the poor, or anyone who is suffering or downtrodden, as an example of edification (with the caveats that no one can know what the helper truly values, and that all parties must experience edification).

But in this case, we actually can know what the helper values (which, BTW, is a lovely, ironic paradox: We can never know with certainty what other free moral agents value - only God can know that. Unless, of course, the other free moral agent is God, in which case we can know with certainty what He values) and so we can be assured that if the perfume was sold or traded for food, He would have used the proceeds to edify as many of the poor as possible, as much as possible.

But He didn’t. He let the woman pour all that expensive perfume over His feet. But then, so what? We’re granting his perfection and atemporal awareness, so it’s safe to assume that letting the woman pour perfume on His feet was, in terms of edification, a better value; more “bang for the buck”. Perhaps the woman, and those observing, were so affected by the ritual that they went out and edified 10 times the number of people, with 10 times the impact, than would have occurred by merely distributing bread… Jesus even suggests it was in accordance with a bigger plan (“It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial”).

Which is why I questioned what seemed to me to be rationalizations (including it was “the customs of the time”… from all appearances, Jesus didn’t have any problem bucking customs). They just didn’t seem to fit harmoniously in the picture you’re painting or make any reference your unique witness.

OK, I get that God must be perfect and/if we are to be perfect. What I don’t get is:

You mentioned that you would cover this in greater detail at a later date. If you’d prefer to hold off on your response until then, it’s fine by me.

Reality: that which is essential, eternal, and necessary. If you’re talking about the spiritual aspect of Jesus, how can that die and still be essential, eternal, and necessary? If you’re talking about Jesus’ body, it can’t vacate reality because it wasn’t real in the first place.

I don’t understand how a physical manifestation of God is any less unreal than my physical manifestation or your physical manifestation. I understand that in the case of Jesus, what was manifested was special, but I’m not connecting how His body matters.

Also, are you saying that His physical body was never in the tomb, but instead appeared in the past and interacted with people? I thought temporality was an intrinsic “limitation” of our physical bodies?

177

My bad, then. I took the impression that you were appealing to formal approaches to epistemology because of the link to Stanford. But all we had done here, until now, is the same thing you say; i.e., taking an ordinary thinking person’s view of epistemology. And to me, that view is that epistemology deals primarily with the source and nature of knowledge.

Well, that’s all well and good. (And I mean that sincerely.) But I really have stressed repeatedly just exactly what sort of approach I am taking. And never have I indicated any sort of historical approach. In fact, I have repeatedly stressed that the approach I am taking is an internalized approach (which we now have formally defined), based on the simple text and what it means to me; i.e., what basic beliefs I hold. But belief is as much a part of epistemology as knowledge is, since a part of knowledge, by tradition, is belief. (We will leave the Gettier problem for some other discussion or debate.)

The only instances when I have dealt with the scriptures as historical references is when they describe some cultural ritual or phenomenon, like the washing of the disciples’ feet or the power of the Sanhedrin. Other than that, my references have all been spiritual in nature, as my posts bear out. It is therefore a curiosity to me why you were expecting me at some point to morph into an historical account. A careful (or even cursory) review of the text I have quoted, will reveal that I have routinely skipped historical references (such as where He went, or in whose house He was speaking, or that kind of thing) unless it was somehow pertinent to the spiritual essence of His teaching.

Forgive me, but that’s not quite right. It is not right that “religious epistemology” is concerned with belief while epistemology as a whole is concerned with knowledge. Belief can be (and most often is) concerned with things besides religion. (Like belief that John is smoking a cigarette above.) Belief is merely the doxastic portion of epistemology, just as obligation (which we also covered in quite some detail above) is merely the deontic portion of epistemology. Certainly, epistemology can concern itself with religious belief, but that does not mean that they are mutually exclusive. It is merely the case that one is a subset of the other. It is much the same as the relation between a bovine and a cow.

Well, okay. And I respect your perspective, but let me give you mine. Let’s look at the bodies of the posts in question: numbers 38 and 49.

Number 38:

This was advertised as an epistimology thread, yet it seems that’s the one thing ya’ll ain’t discussing. Liberal, could you please lay out whatever you think is important on that topic, submit it to discussion and then proceed to Part V? Frankly, I’m more interested in the thesis than the preliminaries. The sooner we get there the better, as far as I’m concerned.

(It should be noted that you typed out an aside in very tiny print — I had to dig out my glasses — an aside to which you specifically requested that I not respond. I honored your request.)

As to the rest of you’re post, I took from it that you were in a hurry (and so indicated in my response) for me to lay out my foundationalist basics, which, as I indicated, I was going to do as quickly as I could. My only caveat was that I would take the time to respond to whatever comments or questions people might have.

Since then, I have quoted pertinet passages, I believe, in a more orderly way. Going chapter by chapter, and explaining how I interpret them. My interpretations, despite what you might say, are a valid basis for my foundational belief structure. Unless I wanted to keep these views internalized, I had no choice but to write out my interpretations, the whole of which you labeled an “exegesis”, as though that process ruined my epistemological approach. But keep in mind the etymology of the term “exegesis”. It is from the Greek “exēgeisthai”, meaning to explain or interpret. Since my interpretations are critical for establishing a foundational base, I am giving them.

Number 49:

Glad to see you changed your mind. FWIW, I believe the correct term for what you’re doing now is exegesis, not epistemology.

My response to you was that it was both. I did not care, at that time, to get into all the technicalities of why my approach was indeed epistemological in nature. Now that I have explained the technical details to a fare-thee-well, I hope that issue is settled.

But let me say this about you, PBear. I greatly admire and respect your points of view, despite my disagreement with some (not all!) of them. I hope nothing I have said in particular will put you off. If you decide not to debate, then I hope that it will be because you are more interested in an historical debate. Or a debate about sources and who wrote what — that sort of thing, and not because I have put you off with some unkind word or thoughtless response. I assure you (and hope you will believe) that that was never my intention.

178

I had read part II. Essentially, what I’m asking for is that when you make your judgments, you show your work. Right now, it’s a black-box process, and you’re either unwilling or unable to describe the processes involved.

179

Great questions, other-wise! As usual, I must say. And let me admit at this time that, after writing out a long, extremely technical exposition on the justification of my beliefs, I was extremely tired, and gave you shorter answers than you deserved. I’m glad you’ve brought it all back up again. I have time now (and the mental stamina) to address them more thoroughly. Please accept my apology for failing to give you the attention you deserved. Of all the participants here, you have impressed me as one of the most sincere, in terms of understanding my point of view.

With that said, let’s address your questions and comments:

I’m with you so far. And in this, you have a correct understanding of my point of view.

Except that that is not the case, because as the scripture pointed out, it was Judas who handled the disciples’ purse. And it was stated that he often pilfered it. Jesus knew this (as I commented at the time), and it was a part of what formulated His decision. But even without the Judas factor, it is not the case that the poor are always edified by giving them money. Some will squander it and waste it. (See, for example, the 2005 documentary, Reversal of Fortune.) It also happens that the poor, upon receipt of money, are descended upon by everything from thieves and bandits to con men and men who make them promises in exchange for their money. Having been poor all their lives, they have an innocent ignorance of the stewardship of wealth, and are vulnerable to financial vultures. And finally, there is the problem of distribution. Even if Judas were to pilfer none of the money, how is it to be distributed fairly? Divide the amount by the population of Judea? Then, why exclude poor Samaritans? Establish a booth of some kind and hand out money to people standing in a line (or queue, I believe it is for our British friends)? And if that is done, what happens to the person who comes to the booth after the last sheckel has been handed out? He stands there and protests that the distribution was unfair! That he and his family have needs! What about us!

And so, knowing all of that, Jesus knew that the proper thing to do (other than the woman keeping the prefume for herself — after all, it was hers to do with as she pleased), was to allow Himself to be prepared for his burial, which at the place we are in scripture comes in short order. It is just a few days away.

As a matter of fact, you could say that the number of people edified numbers in the billions. And that doesn’t even include those to whom Jesus ministered upon His resurrection.

I don’t think He bucked customs arbitrarily. I mean, He attended weddings. He celebrated Passover. He taught at Temple. But what He bucked were the onerous burdens that the Pharisees put upon the ordinary people. He bucked laws that were arbitrary and silly in nature, like the law that He could not pick grains of wheat on the Sabbath. And so forth.

I did prefer to wait until we did a review, especially of John 1. But I can quote the relevant passage now, since you’re interested.

The next day John [the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

John 1:29

It clearly wasn’t just His body that died. His spirit died also, because it was tainted with the sin of every person living and dead, past, present, and future. The very nature of sin is that it obstructs goodness. Which leads us to…

His body matters culturally, but His spirit matters in reality. He was extinquished. Totally. He had the authority to take away the sins of the world, and that’s just what He did. He took our sins upon his shoulders (metaphorically speaking), and then what happened is exactly what one would expect to happen when a spirit is overridden by null aesthetics. He ceased to exist. In reality. God died. And then He was resurrected. Born again. Just as He had told Nicodemus. But with His rebirth, there was only goodness. The sin had passed away, but the faint spark of goodness maintained by His Father survived. And once sin was gone, God’s perfection was assured.

His physical body resurrected into a spiritual form. He was once again fully God. He could manipulate even the quantum world, so that He first appeared to the women at the tomb as a man they did not recognize. They thought He was a gardener. And then suddenly, He was gone. The resurrected Jesus transmorgrified at will, even to the extent of showing Thomas His wound, and having him place his hand on it. He then ascended into the light, until He could be seen no more. That is the rough sequence of events as I understand them.

180

I regret to say that I am completely lost. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you be more specific? What judgments am I making? What do you mean by “show your work”? What processes are you wanting to know about?