medieval man

A reading from Owen Barfield's, Saving the Appearances (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Javanovich, 1957):

"Let us try to place ourselves inside the skin of a medieval 'man in the street', and imagine ourselves looking out at the world through his eyes and thinking about it - not speculating, but thinking ordinary habitual thoughts - with his mind. We are not concerned with what he believed as an obligation of faith or a point of doctrine remote from experience. We are concerned with the sort of thing he took for granted."

"To begin with, we will look at the sky. We do not see it as empty space, for we know very well that a vacuum is something that nature does not allow, any more than she allows bodies to fall upwards. If it is daytime, we see the air filled with light proceeding from a living sun, rather as our own flesh is filled with blood proceeding from a living heart. If it is night-time, we do not merely see a plain, homogeneous vault pricked with separate points of light, but a regional, qualitative sky, from which first of all the different sections of the great zodiacal belt, and secondly the planets and the moon (each of which is embedded in its own revolving crystal sphere) are raying down their complex influences on the earth, its metals, its plants, its animals and its men and women, including ourselves. We take it for granted that those invisible spheres are giving forth an inaudible music - the spheres, not the individual stars... As to the planets themselves, without being specially interested in astrology, we know very well that growing things are specially beholden to the moon, that gold and silver draw their virtue from sun and moon respectively, copper from Venus, iron from Mars, lead from Saturn. And that our own health and temperament are joined by invisible threads to these heavenly bodies we are looking at. We probably do not spend any time thinking about these extra-sensory links between ourselves and the phenomena. We merely take them for granted."

"We turn our eyes to the sea - and at once we are aware that we are looking at one of the four elements, of which all things on earth are composed, including our own bodies. We take it for granted that these elements have invisible constituents, for, as to that part of them which is incorporated in our own bodies, we experience them inwardly as the four 'humours' which go to make up our temperament... Earth, Water, Air, and Fire are part of ourselves, and we of them. And through them also the stars are linked with our inner being, for each constellated Sign of the Zodiac is specially related to one of the four elements, and each element therefore to three Signs."

"A stone falls to the ground - we see it seeking the centre of the earth, moved by something much more like desire than what we today call gravity..."

"Whatever their religious or philosophical beliefs, men of the same community in the same period share a certain background-picture of the world and their relation to it. In our own age - whether we believe our consciousness to be a soul ensconced in a body, like a ghost in a machine, or some inextricable psychosomatic mixture - when we think causally, we think of that consciousness as situated in some point in space, which has no special relation to the universe as a whole, and is certainly nowhere near its centre. Even those who achieve the intellectual contortionism of denying that there is such a thing as consciousness, feel that this denial comes from inside their own skins. Whatever it is that we ought to call our 'selves', our own bones carry it about like porters. This was not the background picture before the scientific revolution. The background picture then was of man as a microcosm within the macrocosm. It is clear that he did not feel himself isolated by his skin from the world outside him to quite the same extent as we do. He was integrated or mortised into it, each different part of him being united to a different part of it by some invisible thread. In his relation to his environment, the man of the middle ages was rather less like an island, rather more like an embryo, than we are."

community as mission

Community as mission:
“who the community is and how it loves points to God and is an invitation to join the community in praising God. The church by its life together shows others the nature of the reign of God. The church is a preview of life under the rule of God in the age to come, a forerunner of the new Jerusalem, a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, a sign of the reign of God.” Guder, 128


Christian faith is not an individual matter; everything is to be done with and for one another. Within the community of those who live “in Christ” by the power of the Holy Spirit, persons are to be “members one of another” (Rom. 12:5), “build up each other” (1 Thess. 5:11), “love one another with mutual affection” (Rom. 12:10), “able to instruct one another” (Rom. 15:14), “become slaves to one another” (Gal. 5:13), and “live in harmony with one another” (Rom. 12:16) . . . Life in the “new age” – walking in the Spirit – is not spiritual in an otherworldly or interior sense, but relates to concrete behavior within everyday life. The social practice of Christian togetherness is how love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, ad self-control are lived out as believers “bear one another’s burdens, and in this way . . . . fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).” Guder, 148.

Carl Jung and Universalizing Empirical Observations

i was poking around on your facebook and found your philosophical statements. long time, old friend, good to see the wheels are still churning. is it ok if i come at you on these? initial comments on this one:

"Christian civilization has proved hollow to a terrifying degree: it is all veneer, but the inner man has remained untouched, ant therefore unchanged. His soul is out of key with his external beliefs; in his soul the Christian has not kept pace with external developments. Yes, everything is to be found outside--in image and in word, in Church and Bible--but never inside. Inside reign the archaic gods, supreme as of old." ~ Carl Jung (1875-1961). Psychology and Alchemy, 1, 1944, tr. R.F.C. Hull, 1968

I think a statement like this is so closely true - and that is why i find it so insidious. It depends so much on poor Carl's perspective and particular worldview. no thinking Christian should disagree that his statements can be true and often are - however so many, myself included respond in puzzlement on how he can universalize his observations on the externialization (did i just made up a word?) of our faith to make it a completely true statement. because it is often true, and perhaps more noticeably true, doesn't make it essentially true. especially since by the same observational technique as Carl, I can come up with quite opposite conclusions. I appreciate the introspection, philosophical searching, and genuine desires of people outside of Christianity, and by God I concur with the disheartening number of "shallow, dogmatic" Christians, however, I have a great list of people i know personally and incidentally, who are the deepest, internally honest, peace-filled Christians I could ever think possible - and many of them to a degree I find negligible, although admittedly present and beautiful, outside of Christianity. and so i am offering an equally perspective-driven description as Carl that opposes him- but that is just it.

carl says, "all veneer, unchanged, everything, never" the arrogance! the hubris! Carl has seen enough of the data to make deified objective universalistic statements! he is very guilty of the same crime as ignorant and dogmatic Christians but from his empirically religious perspective! i think that his statement can be generally true - but that is what is so wrong about it - looking at a glass half empty that can also be half full, but then using universalistic statements that by their very nature cannot be possibly true to paint a very different picture of Christianity than the experiences of millions of its adherents! I think the end of the matter is the way you want to look at a billion-strong faith like Christianity - with all its variations, complexity, truisms, and falsehoods. if you choose to look at it from a completely negative light be honest about it and don't try to hide behind empirical observations - it isn't the data that leads one to these conclusions, it is a decided response to experiences. poor Carl Jung - a bastard-child of modern rationality, allowing his experience of individuals, however many they are, to decide for him how he will interpret a faith-system! oh, and if he says the primal savagery of a Christian's inner self represents an archaic version of the Judeo-Christian God, he really needs to compare it to the other gods that were present in antiquity and beyond. Adonai looks oppressive to modernists in 21st century liberal democracies, but stand him up in the time when the New Testament was written and beyond, you find an incredibly liberating and compassionate theology that had no equal.

the time traveler's wife

well, its been an awful long time since i've been on this blog, perceiving that it is treated much the same way i treat my friend's blogs - no attention amidst the actual making of life events, instead of writing about them. but here i have returned because reflection is necessary.

i want to comment on the much anticipated (by those in the know) release in 2009 of a movie entitled "the time traveler's wife." here's some info:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/01/01/first-look-rachel-mcadams-in-the-time-travelers-wife/

based on probably the best science-fiction novels i've ever read (and i read about 6 a month these days), both for a novel idea, an edgy and aggressive worldview-narration, with believable psychology, this novel has given me some welcome thoughts about my other life's interest: theology.

the novel is based on a guy who has a genetic disorder that causes him to "slip" in time, backwards and forwards, usually to momentous events in his life, past and future. it is a romantic love story, one of the best i've come across in a while. its characters are complex, believable, and multidimensional - like the people around me in real life. the thing of particular interest here is the fact that the character is drawn to both traumatic and triumphant events in his life.

now think about God. a being omnipresent, omniscient, well - all the omni's conceivable. now think of our evil. we ask "why does it bother him so? why is he so intently fixated on it? why the morbid theology of the son of God, atonement, original sin? why can't he forget without the need for all this other stuff? but because of all his powers, he is a time traveler too. he is at every moment in our lives, every event, every decision, at a whisk of his thought, at a whim - perhaps more than that - by default and automatically. he is "there". could that not be a nuanced meaning of the name he gave us? "asher ehyah, asher? "i will be-there, howsoever i will be-there" - that is my Name" so let's think about that from his perspective - what does that look like?

every sin! every one you did! he is there"! all knowing, all remembering, all present. it isn't just an event for him. he experiences it forever! he by very nature has to live with it. so when he says, "i will remember their sins no more" don't underestimate the feat achieved by an omni-God. it isn't a trick of the memory like it is for us, for a being that can't forget, has to in a sense rewrite time - something has to atone for a sin that happened in history. so Jesus' innocent sacrifice acts as a counter-balance, a mental block, a sponging of historical fact into himself. God punishes himself in Jesus forever, sins that have happened forever. and so it is finished - tetelestai - because the death of an eternal being is what it takes for an eternal being to forget about eternal sins. the being must die!amen. come Lord Jesus.