If you are born in any English-speaking country, you have a Western bias; you are part of Western Civilization. To be Western in any degree includes being Aristotelian. Indeed, it’s true to varying degrees in almost all of Europe and anywhere Western influences have taken hold.
I have nothing to hide, but I fully admit it may seem obscured to those with a Western bias. If anyone has been reading the discussion between Pinko and me on previous post, you can see a vast gulf between us. I’m not picking on Pinko; the same mindset is so ubiquitous that we are often surprised when we don’t run into it.
There was a time in previous generations when Western studies was part of your high school curriculum. You would be taught what it means to be Western and be proud of it. You would study the history and literature of how Western thought was developed. You would know it was founded on Greco-Roman Civilization, filtered through the invading German hordes that took over Europe and brought Rome down into the dust of history. You would understand that America in particular is dominated by Anglo-Saxon culture, the particular branch of the German hordes that gained the upper hand in the British Isles.
This was the soil from which so very many modern Christian churches have sprouted. They come into existence and build their entire theology and practice from this vast ground of assumptions about reality. It’s hard enough when you deal with someone who buys into that ground of assumptions and knows about that soil, but in these times it is frankly unpopular (politically forbidden in some places) to study such things, much less acknowledge that it is not some universal background that has always been there throughout human history.
Think about that: We face a vast horde of folks who assume God is an Anglo-Saxon deity, and that He built the West to be His final revelation. Jesus the Hebrew Mystic is not just buried and forgotten, but vehemently denied. Instead, the mythology and morality of pagans is substituted for the gospel. When Jesus walked the earth, virtually everyone He encountered was fundamentally some kind of Ancient Near Eastern mystic. While the Jewish leadership had consciously moved away from it, they were still sometimes aware of the difference. Today you can find Jewish scholars who openly admit they were Hellenized; that is, they admit to buying into Aristotelian epistemology and can discuss academically how it was applied to their Scriptures to bring forth an entirely different concept of God and Law. When Nicodemas came to Jesus by night, he wasn’t ignorant of the difference, just a bit scornful at Jesus pulling the ground of discussion back into the mode of Hebrew Mysticism.
If you are Western, you may not know it. If you do know it, you probably think it’s God’s final revelation, that somehow we have finally understood what God intended, while every prophet and scholar of the Bible up until around 300BC was somehow a barbaric fool. What you probably refuse to understand is that your rejection of all of that includes rejection of Jesus. Jesus bore a fundamentally Hebrew mystical view and that’s the ground from which He taught.
If you aren’t a Hebrew Mystic, you can’t follow Christ; you aren’t a Christian.
*Sigh*
Ok, I’ll bite.
What then is an “Aristotelian”? Please give me your best worded definition. I’ll be totally honest and tell you if it applies to me. As an added bonus, then all your other readers will finally know what the hell you mean by that.
Also, as for your assertion: “If you aren’t a Hebrew Mystic, you can’t follow Christ; you aren’t a Christian”…Chapter(s) and verse(s) please? Or is this just more Ed-Speak..
Because I’m pretty sure that 99% of Christ’s followers over the centuries were not ‘Hebrews’ (re-read the entire New testament for confirmation, if necessary).
Good morning, Pinko. How’s the weather there in Tampa? To celebrate my birthday, I’ll try to offer a short course.
“Aristotelian,” as in “Aristotelian logic” — One who adheres to the epistemology and forms of logic taught by Aristotle. His influence is pervasive in Western Civilization. It’s also referred to as “traditional logic” and Wikipedia does an okay job on the term. The article there restricts the term with some precision, while the academic community broadly applies the term “Aristotelian” to all classical Western logic. It is analytical and deductive in nature, with a heavy preference for precise descriptive language. This, as opposed to the common logical style of the Ancient Near East (of which Israel/Hebrew people were a part). Hebrew logic is symbolic and the language is indicative. Precision of terms is only useful for reasoning about the physical and observable world, and entirely useless in addressing moral and spiritual matters. It’s part of what Jesus was doing with His insistence on parables. The ultimate truth is ineffable — it cannot be told in common terms and cannot be described, only characterized. Ancient Hebrew language and culture is inherently symbolic and parabolic (of parables). There’s an awful lot more to it, but it requires a willingness to read widely in Comparative Civilization studies and something still called “Antiquities” (the study of ancient cultures and literature). This blog and my books are loaded with such material.
Hebrew Mystic — A reference to having begun to understand and adopt the particular intellectual assumptions of the Hebrew people, notably as expressed in their writings. This also includes the idea of Hebrew intellectual culture prior to Alexander the Great’s invasion of the Levant (circa 300 BC). He was the greatest evangelist of Hellenism (see numerous articles on the Net). Ask anybody with training in the Classics and they’ll explain that Hellenism was a radical departure of the mystical approached used by virtually every other civilization in human history. The Jewish scholars were suckered into embracing Hellenism and this was largely the underlying source of conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. They were all literal and analytical about Scripture when it had been written in Hebrew mystical style. It seems to be the best kept secret in Western Christianity, except among those who actually study the history and culture of the Hebrew people and their neighbors. There is still tons of academic material available, much of it freely on the Net. I’ve got lots of references in my stuff showing how Judaism is only superficially connected to Old Testament religion. To anyone who bothers to read, it is painfully obvious that the Talmud contradicts Moses. I admit the term is ambiguous because you could easily be a Hebrew person of today who embraces mystic Judaism, but it’s not at all the same as ancient Hebrew mysticism.
You don’t have to be a Hebrew to follow Jesus; that’s a term commonly used to describe a particular people, their language and their culture. Rather, I used the standard Hebrew form of expression (biblical), somewhat hyperbolic, that if you don’t at least try to understand the intellectual background of Jesus the man, you cannot pretend to understand His teachings.
I suppose you could not possibly comprehend, Pinko, that the whole history of Christianity after the days of the Last Apostle (Jesus’ cousin, John) is a story of how the Judaizers won. That is, while they prowled the New Testament churches trying to drag people back under the Talmudic law, that much they generally failed. Instead, they succeeded in enslaving Christianity by subverting it. Being quite spiteful against the Ancient Near Eastern mystical outlook, this was the one thing the Judaizers must destroy in Christian religion. Otherwise it becomes obvious what wicked deceivers the Judaizers were, claiming the authority of Moses while perverting the very meaning of his words. So they infiltrated churches and seduced early Christian scholars as they were themselves seduced by Hellenism (the techniques of Mossad are ancient). So it still requires that you understand the basic meaning of that fancy word “epistemology.” Again, it’s all over this blog; try the search function. I’ve been writing here for 5+ years, posting almost daily. A significant portion of it addresses these issues. You are jumping in on the tail of a very long conversation. Several hundred subscribers seem to have no trouble with it, given that even Western scholars have known about the differences between West and (Near) East for several centuries.
In other words, using generally accepted academic terms: Christianity is fundamentally an Eastern religion. The Bible is an Eastern document written in Eastern mystical style by Eastern mystical people. It takes a special kind of arrogance to force a Western understanding on it. That arrogance is typical of people who are born speaking English. (Do you know how many American Christians insist a certain English edition of the Bible corrects the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, that the prophets and apostles were wrong?) Western Christianity as a whole — the full range of Christian religion and organizations arising from at least as early as 300 AD — are inherently foreign to the culture of the Bible, and particularly the intellectual outlook of the Bible. Chapter and verse? That’s a favorite trick of the Pharisees, demanding that some precise literal statement prove something that is otherwise patently obvious to people ruled by the Holy Spirit. If you don’t have the context of the Spirit Realm, chapter and verse means nothing. If you do have that connection, you don’t need chapter and verse.
You can hang around and ask questions, but it gets tiresome because of your petulant demands that I stop everything and pay attention to you and start all over from the beginning. If you aren’t willing to do some reading on your own time, you cannot possibly understand what’s going on here. And that’s okay with me; I’ve already said you have my permission to hold and express a bad opinion of me. I’m making sure your comments appear here unedited. I have no worry that readers, random or regular, will take your side of things against me. It causes me no pain whatsoever. Nothing can shake my faith and my walk with Christ. If you want to walk differently, that’s fine. But don’t expect me to argue and explain in detail every little Pharisaical argument you raise.
You really do get it Ed. And I do too. I was born, christened, baptized and confirmed Eastern Byzantine Catholic. Whan I was in my 20’s, I opened my first non- Catholic bible. Through the help of the Holy Spirit, I learned things that contradicted everything I had learned. Nothing of this world seemed related to what I was learning from the Bible. I then followed paths that I thought would help me with this confusion over our world and its disassociation with Father’s teachings. With your help, I am finally starting to get the why’s of what I was confused about. Now I see it has been my incorrect perception (deception?) That is what has disabled me from realizing this world’s perception is so wrong and out of sinc with what His Word is actually saying. So for that, dear man, I thank you. In C S Lewis’ last book in the Narnia series, those who could not see with spiritual eyes were left behind without even realizing a beautiful opportunity was presenting itself to bring them into the true reality of being with Our Lord. They closed their hearts and eyes to the loving and wonderful invitation to see the Truth.
Tampa? I’m nowhere near that hellish place. Odd that you launch your response with that though, no? And a “pharisee”? Laughable! You are certainly not a prophet..
Again, you ignored my questions, Ed. And I could have read the wiki definition of “Aristotelian” myself…I asked for yours. Never mind though. Honestly, most of your last post was preaching to the choir. But the rest was just nonsense.
As much as you attack the “Judaizers” religion, you seem completely unaware of the fact that you preach their doctrine. You, being steeped in ‘Western Christianity,’ have unconsciously absorbed, swallowed hook, line and sinker, all of it. You deny? Tell me one thing you teach that contradicts the party line of ‘christianity’. One thing. For the record, I’m quite familiar with what the “church” teaches, Ed. But I haven’t set foot in a church in decades. And won’t again, God willing.
Believe it or not, I’m probably closer to your understanding than most of your readers are. But I must reject all that is taught in Babylon. I’ve “come out of her”. You, my friend, are malingering.
Your IP address is in Tampa, so it was a reasonable guess. At any rate, I’m pretty comfortable with my answers. You’ve expended all the time I’m willing to give to this. Your inflated sense of entitlement is here for all the world to see. I have no idea why you felt this was worth your time; I certainly don’t take myself that seriously. Whatever it is you are seeking, I hope you find it, but it’s obviously not here. Keep looking, but stop being such a bitter, hateful pest. All that does is convince folks you don’t know Christ.