The Journey
No living human can show you the gate. I can only tell you there is one. But we can paint the border in bold colors.
You can try to fake it. You can emulate all the subtle behavior clues, study and internalize the logic academically, but at some point you must inevitably betray yourself. For the Christian part of this, we recognize people fail, including the person in the mirror. For the Mystical part of this, faking it only goes so far, and failure itself — how you fail — gives you away. You cannot counterfeit transparency. People who have embraced mysticism fully can always be frighteningly transparent, even when they can’t pretend the thing at issue will improve. They might evince a moral orientation contrary to Scripture, but they will accept and admit that, too.
Transparency remains today as the signal point of departure.
Transparency is a commitment to truth. For Christians, Truth is a Person — God. There is no such thing as objective truth standing as a separate entity outside God. Something participates in truth only so far as it reflects God’s revelation.
The gate is totally beyond control, and beggars description. You cannot find the gate if you look for it. Academic curiosity won’t show it to you, regardless of intensity. Fascination and obsession are insufficient. The gate is a pre-existing commitment to enter. You can’t simply decide on a cognitive basis you want it, because whatever you want will not be it. You will experience it as a sense of intensely personal calling.
Given that, you may be so very far removed from the gate you’ll need some guidance. If you experience a powerful sense of pull, there are actions you can take which will help to clarify. Christians would hardly be surprised by the suggestion you get alone, either by hiding away (“prayer closet”) or climbing the mountains of isolation. My personal preference is for the latter, typically by taking long walks in rural settings. Unlike other brands of mysticism, I recommend talking out loud, specifically to God.
However, the worst thing you can do is script the wording, because then it becomes mere ritual. Ritual is a hindrance until you have the thing ritual symbolizes. Ritual follows truth, arising from it; ritual cannot create truth in you. Too many rituals after the First Century arise from someone’s personal experience, which may not coincide with yours. If you don’t find it promoted directly in the Bible narrative, don’t use it, because it will be one more roadblock you have to tear down. Genuine Christian Mysticism can be a shared experience, but cannot possibly be homogenized or commoditized; it is utterly unique with each individual.
The point is this: If you cannot find this thing already inside you, you cannot have it at all. Thus, much of the initial experience is immersion in introspection.
I do not for a second believe this is for everyone, or that all humans are fully capable of mysticism. There may be a thousand reasons why this or that person will never get there, but we know the vast majority of humanity won’t. Nobody can tell you this is due to the nature of the thing, only that it works out that way. Frankly, any attempt to discuss “the nature of mysticism” is itself a purely cognitive exercise, and not a part of mysticism.
Thus, even in cultures where mysticism is taken for granted, a true mystic will stand out as atypical. Again, the primary mark to which we can give a name is transparency. There is nothing secret about mysticism. People who are genuine mystics will never hide any part of it from you, nor any part of themselves, so long as there is the slightest hope you actually want it. While a great many Eastern mystics withdraw so you have to struggle to get to them, as a symbol of struggling to get to mysticism, they won’t deny the seeker so as to hoard it all to themselves. It is your own lack of the calling and drawing which will keep you out of it.
As noted previously, once you come through the gate, you can’t go back. It’s a one way gate, even as surely as it is your gate alone. Once this form of enlightenment has you, the change is permanent. You can try all you want to stop, and you may be able to stay in place. I’ve encountered a few folks who never seem to progress beyond bare entrance. But you cannot ever go back. Your own sanity demands you keep exploring, pressing in to discover the Land. You won’t lose sight of all you knew before, but it will surely appear in a different light. In the long run, nothing — no particle — of your life will ever be the same.
It may be helpful to learn that the mystical experience, the onset of the mystical state, is attainable through the analysis of familiar, obvious and known things, and things we take for granted. How is this possible? First, let’s provide a basis. It was Alfred North Whitehead who said, “Familiar things happen and mankind does not bother about them.” Hegel gave us this: “Because it’s familiar, a thing remains unknown.” Gibran said, “The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it.” Huxley: “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” To show how very solid this foundation is, we can also hear from Gustav Ichheiser: “Nothing evades our attention as persistently as that which is taken for granted.” There are other prominent names who also contributed to the idea of analyzing things we know. From all this, a most solid basis, we can begin to wonder how one goes about reaching for the mystical state which today, we must add, is also know as ultimate reality. From the time we were very small children and on into adulthood, we learned man things. Some were learned solidly and became known to us intuitively. Other things however, we quickly, all too quickly, took for granted and subsequently have ignored. What, for instance, did we take for granted? Well, our thinking! We take our thinking for granted and find no reason to analyze it further. Historian James Harvey Robinson said, “We don’t think enough about thinking.” Goethe wrote, “My boy I’ll say that I’ve been clever, I think but think of thinking never.” Since we never learned about our thinking intuitively, it is time to do begin doing just that. The key here is the fact that we learned things superficially and not intutively. In order to gain full knowledge of our thinking and our selves, we must go back and analyze when we are thinking, what thoughts are, and what thoughts have in common with one another. It is here when the mystical experience will, in time, be attained. What evidence do we have that by going back insight will be triggered? Benjamin Franklin, for example, saw lightning in the sky just as countless numbers of people did before him. He however began to wonder about lighting which was something that was already known to him. At some point he realized that lighting may be something that can be harnessed. As a result, electricity was born. This was an insight born out of analysis of a thing already known. In the same way we too can gain insight. It will be a sudden flash of light within the mind. It will be an insight unlike anything ever experienced. It will be the so-called mystical experience.
Emmanuel J. Karavousanos
Author and speaker
EKaravousa@aol.com
There is something in what you write here, but it’s not exactly how I arrived, nor where I have arrived. At least, the way you describe it does not sound very familiar. I did not get where I am by analysis of things, so I suggest your approach is not universal. Indeed, your approach breeds a very Westernized, materialistic form of intuition. I prefer the Ancient Near Eastern approach (which is not the same as Eastern itself), in which focus on analysis and on things is misleading.
The analysis of things we already know, i.e., the fact that we think, the fact that we are conscious, the fact our conscience awakens us, the fact that we have things we become attached to, things that entice us, things that tempt us, things that we come to crave and things that become “hangpups” (my path) are things we already know. We all know what thoughts are, what temptations are, what cravings are, etc. It is these things that Jesus (temptations), Buddha (attachments), Hindu mystics (cravings) began to analyze and triggered the so-called holy spirit in Jesus’s case, enlightenment in the Buddha’s and with Hindu mystics. Others, perhaps, gain that gift by some means that, if studied, would reveal there is some connection with the analysis of familiar, obvious and known things, and things we take for granted. Ed Hurst did not say just what it was that triggered mystical insight in him if that is what he suggests happened, (and which I accept). It will be most interesting to learn what it was, Ed, that triggered that higher state of mind in you. It took years for me to figure out “the analysis of the obvious” as a path. Perhaps we can help others reach that state in one way or another. What a blessing it would be for our world!
Emmanuel J. Karavousanos
Author and speaker
EKaravousa@aol.com
Ed Hurst did not say just what it was that triggered mystical insight in him if that is what he suggests happened, (and which I accept). It will be most interesting to learn what it was, Ed, that triggered that higher state of mind in you. It took years for me to figure out “the analysis of the obvious” as a path. Perhaps we can help others reach that state in one way or another. What a blessing it would be for our world!
Emmanuel J. Karavousanos
Author and speaker
EKaravousa@aol.com
My starting point is traditional Protestant Christianity. My experience of conversion taught me to be a Calvinist, in that I could not have wanted it. God’s grace came to me wholly as a gift. But it also came as a mandate to serve. Paul’s Damascus Road experience is very familiar ground to me. Through my years attempting to make things work the way everyone in that religious setting said it should be, I found divine favor was not in it for me. So I ended up devoting my physical energies to a lot of other things, while my spirit grew in directions which took me slowly away from the world of my spiritual birth. At the same time, I went deeper into an understanding and commitment to the same God. At some point, that system of religion spat me out.
While the alienation built, so did my understanding of ANE Mysticism, particularly Hebrew Mysticism. The part where you are quite correct is that I grew to understand first intellectually that ANE Mysticism was a rejection of Aristotelian epistemology. Not in whole, but as a failure to reach beyond what can be observed and what can be reasoned. The Realm of the Spirit cannot be properly addressed from reason, in that sense. It carries its own logic, symbolism and parable. Again, you are correct in that what we know already — the physical world — becomes a path for what we cannot know intellectually. But it is not by thinking of them, but using them merely as the parable for the Spirit Realm, the place with words. It was the rejection of thinking and reasoning which opened my spiritual eyes.
Then, some time after working my way through intuition, at some point all the truths I knew intellectually suddenly had meaning. Not simply an improved intellectual frame of reference, but a bringing of unspeakable truth back down to the world of things and reasoning. Mysticism is for me merely a path, a recognition ultimate truth cannot be approached via the intellect, but spirit born. While the triggers in the mind for mysticism do exist without the birth of the spirit, for which cause I admit mysticism without Christ is certainly possible, for me it is the Spirit in my spirit which awakened that capacity. I gained mysticism as a gift from God, after I rejected Aristotelian/Enlightenment assumptions.
Further, I would soundly reject equivalence between Christ and the others you name. There are parallels one can see intellectually, even mystically. But Jesus is the one and only Son of God. Without Christ, I assert your spirit remains dead. Mystical one may be, but without Christ’s personal invasion into the being, all souls still end up in Hell.
I am sorry, Ed, that you suggest without Jesus, all souls end up in hell. I would think that those people who supported Jesus, Christianity and Christendom while carrying out inquisitions and burning people at the stake would be the souls who would wind up in hell, not the other way around. There are so many non-Christians who are far better human beings that many Christians, so I just can’t understand how you think.
Not everything done in the name of Christ is His work. I wonder why you would make such a shallow assessment. Mysticism should help us understand things on a far broader basis. “Far better humans” will always remain a subjective assessment, too. Yours and mine will differ, but I have no trouble associating more with non-Christians than most of my former associates in the organized churches. They, too, assert they do Christ’s work, but I argue they don’t know Him very well. I condemn many of their works because it comes dangerously close at times to a new Inquisition. This one comes decorated with a pretty flag, which I sometimes call “god-on-a-stick.” I don’t hate them for this major flaw, nor do I hate those who pledge allegiance to that flag. The reality seen from the Other Realm is far, far more complex.
Some of those people who do those things I hate will still go to Heaven, because Jesus has granted them a living spirit. He chooses whom He wishes, and sometimes He manages to get their attention, and changes their conduct, too. Mysticism helps me see there is vast gulf between what is and what ought to be, but that was true from sometime shortly after the Seventh Day of Creation (which, BTW, is almost entirely symbolic, since the narrative arises out of ANE Mystical culture). We call it “The Fall.” We speak of it in symbols because absolute truth defies mere human language.
If one’s citizenship in Heaven was a simple matter of good character and good conduct, we would have little use for mysticism. I can’t demand anything of you, but if you read more of my work, you could perhaps understand my thinking. However, as your friendly host, I’ll be glad to keep answering your queries here, or by email, or however you wish. I am retired and have plenty of time, and plenty of inclination.
I conclude people without Jesus go to Hell because that is what is revealed by the God who makes my life worth living. I did not choose Him — could not have chosen Him, was utterly unable to want Him. What I believe about such things is branded in my soul; it is not opinion or logic. Faith (a fancy word meaning trust and commitment, as to a liege Lord from a vassal) is inherently non-rational. We could say it makes no sense at all, but that’s what mysticism is for. It supplies sensibility in decision where intellect utterly fails.
Your ideas, Ed, may have worked back when the world was viewed as flat. Today, knowing we live on a planet, our perception of the universe has changed. There was a time when we all faced the heavens when looking up. Today, to the people in China is 180 degrees away from us. They are upside down from where we are. Ed, the universe was not created. It always was and it always will be. If you had a mystical experience, you would see that quite clearly. In the higher state of mind, the mystical experience is ultimate reality — which is what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven. God, the mind and the universe become one. That is what has come to be called, Oneness. God is really a most blessed state of mind and nothing more. Again, just be be sure I got this across to you: the universe was not created. It always was and it always will be. I admit is is not easy for one in the ordinary state of consciousness to accept that. A universe just can’t be created.
By mysticism I accept the universe was created. You and I cannot conceive of it, but that has no bearing on the matter. Flat earth? You mistake symbolic language for literal description. There is no proof Ancient Hebrew people believed the earth was flat; most likely they didn’t really care. Nothing in this fallen world matters except as it points to God Almighty. He portrayed Himself as a Person; I accept that. Revelation is built into my very soul, so your arguments against it will come to naught, as I expect of my arguments to you. I am not trying to convert you, simply answering your questions and comments as I am commanded by that Person. How it affects you is His business.
What you present as mystical oneness is for me a corruption of oneness in Him. Again, mysticism does not demand a particular answer to anything at all, but is a way of evaluating things. There are no built-in conclusions. Suggesting my mysticism isn’t the real deal because I didn’t end where you did simply exposes your bias. I have my own.
I find it difficult to believe that there are still people out there that think the universe was created. The universe is always changing and here, in our conversation, for practical purposes, the change that continuously is taking place in the universe is a form of eternal creation. It would be an insult to God to say He (if he is a male) has forever sat around doing nothing and at one point in eternal time decided to make a universe. And what about time? Time is a human construct. In ultimate reality there is no such thing as time. Time and all measures are man-made. We have a finite view of the world and everything in it, and most people believe everything has a beginning and an end. That is true! Everything has a beginning and an end — except the universe! The universe has no beginning and will have no end. It simply and eternally changes. When we are born we do not realize very much. As time passes and we begin to age, we see everything has a beginning and an end — including people. Only the universe has no beginning and no end. When anyone talks about God, they must realize at some point that they are really talking about … the universe!
I suppose that depends on what you mean by “the universe.” God is not the same as His Creation. He has firmly portrayed Himself as a Person who made all things. I certainly agree time is not an issue with God, but it’s not created by humans, but as a prison for fallen humans. Further, God created the universe in an aged condition because it would otherwise make no sense to those of us whom He designed to commune with Him. I suppose there may be something out there beyond the universe I experience directly, but what we can see and touch will all disappear when Jesus comes back to close this time frame. This was promised in no uncertain terms. While I do not take every line of Scripture literally, there are a few sections where the author obviously meant it so.
The Book is from God. All humanity will be held accountable to it. That your mind cannot accept that changes nothing. That mind does accept it makes a difference only to me. By making a difference to me, God is able to use my commitment to change a few others, to make a difference for them. You are wrong, Sir, and I could wish you would see the truth of Christ and His Word, but I have no means aside from simply asserting the Truth of God. Define those words as you wish, but I seriously doubt you miss what I mean by them. Meanwhile, nothing in you will change if He does not move in you.
Some people believe Jesus has not come yet and is to come some time in the future. Some believe he already came and is going to come again. And my best guess is they’re both wrong. We try to use logic and reason with what God is and what he has done, but could it be that is all one great big fable? My guess is the creation of God and the many religions are the saddest part of humanity. If we simply saw what is obvious, we would accept it and move on.
Saying The “Book is from God” and all humanity will be accountable to it is one man’s opinion based on writings of ther men thousands of years ago. Accepting some of what was written in scripture as infallible and other parts as fallible is something I fail to understand. Why would God condemn everyone to hell except a very, very few who believe as you do? Sounds like a pretty evil God to me! And here I thought he was a forgiving God.
What is obvious is to man’s eyes is often a lie, if all we have are the capabilities of human reason. I would suggest you remain a prisoner of Aristotle and the Enlightenment. We are hardly wiser than those who wrote those potions of the Book long ago. Aristotle rejected their witness, and he surely knew of it.
And again, I call it a shallow assessment if you confuse what I said about symbolism versus literalism as a matter of fallible versus infallible. The latter is asking all the wrong questions. We are accountable because God says so, not because we can find a rational understanding regarding the source of the writings. If you find it a fable, you stand in contempt of God.
As for Heaven and Hell, those are matters God has reserved to His own whims. It doesn’t have to make sense to us; it makes sense to Him. People need not believe as I do, and most going to Heaven do not, I’ll venture to guess. It’s not about whether you believe, or what you believe, so as to gain entrance to Heaven. It’s about having your spirit brought to life, and stumbling from your past darkness into a very confusing light. Belief follows revelation awakening in your soul. You want to judge the God of Creation? Feel free. I’m sure He’s amused by your petty human standards.
We are all born condemned to Hell. The taint of sin arose from some event so far back in the mists of human history, we have a very hard time grasping it. So God moved His prophets to explain it in terms of their own culture, also very ancient, but the culture He Himself designed and shaped, so He could create the proper setting for men to respond to His initial task of revelation. We are obliged to view those writings in the context of that culture if we have any hope obeying Him. But those people were all fallen, too, and eventually contrived ways to depart from the revealed understanding, preferring human wisdom instead. By the time Jesus came along, His nation had become suckers for the Hellenist rationalism, and no longer capable of understanding the Ancient Near Eastern way of reading that revelation. Every time He debated with the leaders of His nation, it was always because they lacked the ancient mystical viewpoint.
There is no proof, no evidence, of anything He said, or that I echo today, which would be sufficient to convince any human on mere intellectual terms. He Himself said it was obvious the leaders of the Jews rejected Him because His Father had not moved in them to receive the truth. That truth was entirely beyond, above human reason. He asserted His divinity with little explanation most of the time. He refused to argue when condemned falsely, and died with sins of His own as the only sacrifice God could accept for sin. For reasons God alone knows, He rescued me, plucked from the stream of damnation justly carrying all humanity to Hell. He permitted me to see the truth of His Son. He has done the same for a great many others. That they would also reject many of my words is not my problem.
I was born utterly in sin, fully deserving the worst He might do to me. But He forgave me and was altogether patient in bringing me this far. Perhaps He will use my feeble words to help others, but if He does not, that is also not my problem. I am under His compulsion to write. Nothing I say can prove that. By no means can any of what I write be supported by rational proofs; that is the whole point of proclaiming myself a Christian Mystic. Mysticism is a way of reaching a conclusion which does not depend entirely on human reason. I didn’t dream this all up for myself; it came to me from above. By embracing mysticism, I open the door for His Spirit to work in my spirit, and perhaps it will serve to train my human mind to obey His commands. I participate in His revelation. I cannot clinically describe any of it, only indicate it with the poor talent I have with words.
My God is ineffable, inscrutable, ever beyond me, yet living inside me. The man Jesus who walked the earth some 2000 years ago was His very true Son, and I don’t have to fully understand that on human terms, only act upon it. All I have to worry about is responding to the world around me according to those eternal convictions He planted in me. Feel free to laugh or ridicule. I am utterly shameless in this mission.
Ed, I detect a bit of anger in you. I think this is a most healthy and helpful dialogue that is taking place on this blog. I am ever grateful that we have the American Constitution which gives us this wonderful choice to hold a conversation. What blessings we have! The only thing I resent is your idea that I am laughing or ridiculing. I am not! I may be trying to make a point, but only you can decide if there is any merit to what I have been proposing. I certainly respect your right to have faith in what you have come to believe, but I recall a very wise old man and dear friend who said to me, “Faith is tied very closely to hope and doubt.” I know of so man saints and martyrs who died with their faith. Indeed, some Christians killed others because of their deep faith. Your faith seems a rich, healthy faith and may or may not be filled with hope or doubt. You are obviously a very bright man and familiar with so much, you reach to the ancient Greeks. Indeed, the Greeks gave us a great deal, but they did stumble somewhat in giving us logic and reason, failing to also transmit the importance of insight. Yet, there was one man who stood above the rest. It was Socrates who knew the meaning of insight. He uttered, “Know thy self.”
Ed, I reject your idea that you were born “utterly in sin, fully deserving the worst” of what He might do to you. If you look at your words carefully, you might agree that, if you allow it to fester, it could be a neurosis. Jesus wanted us to see our hang-ups. He wanted us to be wiser. He wanted us to care about others. These are some of the things he tried to transmit.
Each generation anew asks, “When is Jesus coming again.” Planet earth needs a messiah, but I for one doubt if he is ever going to arrive. I have neither faith or hope or doubt. I do live in the so-called present and accept what is. I also accept that crazy things can happen; after all, I do have history to refer to. Thank you, Ed, for this most wonderful dialogue. It is healthy and I appreciate it and love it.
No anger. Perhaps I could paint a Cheshire Cat’s grin, but I can’t seem to get it to show in text. I do not participate in the frantic search of clues to the return of Jesus. I simply assert the Apostles made clear it would come some day. For me, it will not be a moment too soon, but the Father didn’t even tell His Son when it would be. I know of a certainty it has nothing to do with calendars or clocks, but when the time is ripe.
It is no neurosis to confess what God has said. Every day I see the in myself the lusts of sin still trying to hold me. Every day I fall short of His glorious ideal for me. Every day He renews the Covenant of the Blood of Jesus and forgives me again. Sin festers on its own. The first public message of Jesus was an echo of John the Baptist: “Repent of your sins, for the Realm of the Spirit is nigh!” So it was not about mere hang-ups, but a very real failure to embrace the revelation of God. That business of the Cross was a choice Jesus made before He was even born, and it was very much a matter of human sin. Otherwise, He died for no purpose at all.
With all due respect, Ed, I simply cannot believe Bibles that were written by men. When I read the Hebrew Testament (which we Christians decided to call the Old Testament)and see what, for example, Leviticus tells us, it knocks me for a loop. I won’t go into it, but I get the feeling that you are well read and may know what’s in the “holy” book. When God orders people slain, I’m not sure I go along with him. God’s son, Jesus was a little more cautious, but did he did get angry and upset. After all, he was also human. Sure I’m being somewhat cynical, but if we can’t talk about all this, we may as well pack it in. You believe we are going to heaven or hell. Frankly, I think we are going right back to the place we were before we were born. We are going back to nothingness. If you’ve been under general anesthesia, you know what death is like. Humans, I believe, are maturing in mind and more and more of us are seeing that there is no heaven and there is no hell. All that was thought up by men who tried to explain the world, failing to see the obvious. Many believed the stories and legends. It may be true that this was no a bad idea given the need to provide some way to control ourselves from immorality, crime, sin, etc. Darwin and so many other great minds gave us answers to questions that are now accepted as fact. It’s strange how one individual can believe in heaven and hell, and another dispatches the whole idea. If a person is a decent human being and does not believe, why would God damn him to eternal punishment! I for one am already in heaven simply because I love life and am blessed in so many, many ways. A man like yourself comes along and tells me I may be damned to hell for all eternity and what happens? Well, if I believe it, there is something wrong with me. If I am able to dismiss it as a neat fairly tale, I’m a long better off and have no hang-up about it. You, however, believing it, may be in hotter water than I’ll ever be. Again, thanks for the great communications we’ve had.
Welcome any time. God bless you, Sir.
Ed, you’re not giving up on me, are you? We are in this beautiful Christmas season which celebrates the birth of Jesus. Today, curiously, not much is said about Jesus. It’s more about Santa. I’m not sure this is good or bad or meaningless. What do you think?
I never give up, but I saw nothing to which further response would provide something I hadn’t already said.
I wrote an article about this very question. Jesus could not have been born this time of year. I find sufficient evidence to believe the date had something to do with Constantine’s pernicious influence over the church. So I don’t bristle at the commercialism, but do like to remind those who have time to listen that ancient Hebrews didn’t celebrate birthdays much, but many pagan religions make much of them. It’s not a crusade convince folks to lighten up about Christmas, but I don’t always let it pass silently. So I would say the cultural drift around Christmas is meaningless, in that sense.
So you might guess I have no great reverence for tradition, and certainly not for what passes as Church History traditions. I’m not hostile to Catholics or the Orthodox branches, just not interested. Protestants tolerate me to varying degrees, and that tiny handful of folks who pay attention to what I teach can belong to any church they like, because the question is who will tolerate those who agree with me. Around here, I’ve not found an organized church which can put up with me, so I leave them in peace.
But returning to the original question, I do like to celebrate Advent, though I do so with an entirely different emphasis. I’ve been writing a series of mediations for the 25 days of Advent on yet another blog.
Well, it looks like you and I are the only ones on this blog. I haven’t seen anyone writing to challenge either of us. So you, Ed, being an Adventist, expect Jesus to return. My mind is boggled by the idea that some suggest that he hasn’t come yet, but will come some time in the future. Some offer that he has come and is to come again. Still others think he didn’t come and will never come. This is where I become Socratic: I know one thing and that is that I know nothing. Why? Because everyone has what they may consider some kind of foundation or solid basis, but everyone seems to know that they can’t all be right. All this turns out to be based solely on blind faith. By definition faith is belief that is not based on proof. Hence, if people begin to believe in something baseless, they are lacking in intelligence. Often, they fall victim to ruthless “leaders.” A good example was the James Jones incident in Jonestown where some 1,000 people died.
I have had a few others post comments, but you are the first to express any real interest in my religious material. Most of the attention I get is for the computer-related stuff.
Faith does look weak from the outside. The greatest sadness I face within religious circles are the vast number of people who build faith on some inferior alternative to logic. Faith is indeed belief which cannot be proven. The Hellenist epistemology typically ascribed to Aristotle, but certainly in evidence before him, assumes a belief which cannot be proven is baseless. The ANE epistemology assumes the mystical approach is the other source.
Human nature is body, mind and spirit. Men are born with dead spirits. The highest faculty of such men is intellect, the rational logical mind. Should God choose, He can bring life to the human spirit, and there plants His own Holy Spirit. But all is not suddenly resolved. The mind is not prepared for input from that direction, which for so long had been dead. It takes a lot of time to teach the mind to accept input from that source. Mysticism prepares us to understand that faculty of Spirit-spirit communion. Most Christians reject mysticism as a suspicious flirtation with paganism. However, it is the proper means to knowing in the spirit, because logic cannot reach the level of truth for which there are no words.
I remain uncertain in the mind of my flesh, knowing I am surely getting some things wrong. I know that I do not know it all, but I also am entirely certain my mind can never rise to truth. My spirit knows the higher truth, but that is not the same kind of “knowing.” By long effort, prayer, contemplation, and other spiritual exercises, the mind learns to accept input, but it comes always in the form of imperatives. Never in forms of intellectual knowledge, the entire range of spiritual activity is confined to imperatives. Not specific actions, but commitments which result in actions which must match the context. My mind must learn to differentiate between emotions, mere wishful thinking, and all sorts of other stuff, and recognize the imperatives of the Spirit.
As you might surmise, I am acquainted with logic and knowledge of the Hellenistic epistemology. I teach computers, for goodness sakes, along with the Social Sciences, some limited civil engineering, etc. I understand the historian’s approach to the record of Scripture, and related materials outside the Bible. Rational reason rejects many claims. But my living spirit, hearing from God’s Spirit, demands I hold myself accountable for what I understand the Bible demands of me. This is what I teach as Christian Faith. That so very many people are suckers for the Jim Jones brand of unreason is a shame to the church, but not to me. I reject their witness. While Jim Jones is an extreme example, a byword (“he drinks the coolade”), the vast majority of those who share some portion of my faith get theirs from somewhere else than I do. They still insist faith must be reasonable. I insist faith is completely unreasonable, but it’s because genuine faith is above reason. Faith is an input into the decision process which overrules and overpowers reason. It makes demands without reference to logic of that sort, but by its own peculiar logic.
This permits me to sacrifice myself against all self interest. My sinful nature fights that sacrifice, so I don’t always achieve. But holiness God seeks is neither mere conduct nor success. He grants the power to success, but what he permits me to do is maintain the desire for His approval. That desire alone is what God seeks from me, and calls that holiness.
Ed, I find you to be ever so strong intellectually and well armed with much that is cultural, religious and spiritual. I certainly value this kind of mind. You are in this way, at least to me, “a breath of fresh air” in this dialogue we have had going. I do not view you as stubborn, yet remarkably you defend blind faith with incredible ardor. You use what is written in the Bible as a basis for your deep faith. It is a faith in the Bible’s words that I have seldom come across. We know the Bible was written by a number of different people, so this alone tells us of its fallibility. And when we read what some chapters say to us, it’s no wonder people move away in droves from religion, the Church and faith. I cannot for the life of me understand how you can possibly apply such blind faith. It seems so incogruous with your intellect. I have often met people who are intellects but have little wisdom. I have also met people with little schooling who are most wise. My mother who was born in Greece had a 3rd grade education, but she grew into a very wise woman. You seem, at least to me, a man who is honest with himself and therefore I find difficulty in accepting what you project yourself to be. The fact that you agree and write that “faith is completely unreasonable” yet still maintain it, makes me wonder about you even more given your recognition that your position is incongruous. This makes it easy for another to attack your credibility and even easier for them to ignore you. Clearly, you seem to be a fine human being. At the same time you are an example, at least to me, of a contradiction.
I appreciate your kind words. I’m not sure what else I can offer to explain my commitment to the Bible’s message. My own brother doesn’t quite understand it either. His intellect is far stronger than mine. Yet we work together on many things, because what he does understand is my love for him. That’s something very hard to transmit in mere words, because the power for that love is above words. I suppose the only congruity I have to offer anyone is my ability to project the same sacrifice that took Jesus to the Cross. My projection is ever imperfect, but God watches over my service, and somehow it comes out alright. You have stuck around even as I stumble over my words, not always sure what I mean to convey.
I see no contradictions at all, though plenty of paradox. If all I needed to do was make sense, I would simply echo the works of some apologist far wiser than me, say, Josh McDowell. He it was who taught me winning the debate intellectually isn’t really the point. He has done so repeatedly in times past, compelling atheists and other kinds of believers to admit his arguments won. They had no answer. But it did not make them believers. His first two seminal books provide all the documentary evidence anyone needs to accept belief in Jesus (Evidence that Demands a Verdict) and belief in the Bible (More Evidence that Demands a Verdict) are reasonable. Some have found new arguments, and he continues writing to address them, and it goes back and forth.
I no longer bother with that. I answer questions put to me, but the reason I answer them, or write about such things at all, is that love. All the proof in the world pale in comparison to the unquenchable drive to pour myself out for others. This has been enhanced by mysticism, which I seem to recall has been the common thread which began this discussion, but it does nothing to change the fundamental nature of what was already inside me. You were counted from the first comment as a friend, and have proven yourself willing to accept that offer, regardless of the lack of overt negotiations of such a thing. I will continue to hold you as a friend, and I pray for you as often as I see another post, at the minimum. I do not pretend to make you a “notch on my Gospel Gun” because I left such things behind long ago. Sadly, that still characterizes most of what I see among the church folks who decided I was too radical for their tastes. And I still love them, too, and answer the questions they may bring.
You are in good company, Emmanuel, if you don’t quite understand what holds it all together inside me. But every time you come here, you will find that same warm embrace, provided you see past the weaknesses. Convincing you I am right is not the most important thing I can do, not by a long shot. My only real task is transparency. There is nothing else I can offer in virtual space. What I have to share is so compelling to me, I am willing to make myself a target for just about anything others may wish to pin on me. That’s okay, because as soon as things change just a little in this world, I will be forgotten, lost in the sea of humanity. The thread running through all my religious posts is: Don’t remember my name; remember Whom I serve and to what I am committed.
I thank you, Ed, for considering me a friend. I admire you for being so forthright and forthcoming. It is just so spiritually healthy to speak to one who is really an unknown and discover a keen sense of decency, something not so common in today’s world. Perhaps we may be saying the same thing when you apply all to God and I apply the same gifts to the potential that humans are born with. What is this potential? It is the gift of insight where one can suddenly realize what must be done. Morality is knowing right from wrong and you have that just as I do. You find God provides that gift while I believe each of us has our built-in conscience helping us to intuitively know what is right and what must be done. You show strength by your comment on the fact that your brother does not quite understand you. That admission is character! Yes, you are a man of character who has a great deal more in him than even you may believe. With or without God, you would do far better than so many people on the face of this planet. In my heart I seem to feel that you are better and stronger than you think you are. Grow, my friend, grow in spirit for you are a unique individual able to bend, but not break. You are right in suggesting that winning an argument is not important. Seeking truth — which is what you reach for — is important. You have self-esteem and I tend to think that you can elevate your self-esteem even further with more certainty … in your self! You need to be “pushed over the edge” so that you can suddenly see that … you can walk alone!