It actually tickles me pink when Western countries like America, Canada, France or Britain interfere in the affairs of foreign nations. Why?
1. The West is, quite simply, superior to the east in everything (those who are angered by my thoughts should ask themselves why they do not move to the precise place that they find BEST).
2. The East has such a pitiful track record of doing anything other than chaos, that we must continually ask ourselves the question whether they truly have a right anymore to the land they have been befouling.
3. The ability to interfere successfully entails a sign of political health at home. Only the absolute fool will go to war in a condition of instability.
4. It is the mandate of every country to expand its sphere of influence. The doctrine of "live and let live" effects nothing and helps no one. We owe everything; from technology to medicine, from scientific exploits to mail delivery systems (perfected by the Persian Empire), from the spread of sophisticated language to architecture...we owe all of this to EMPIRES.
5. Argue my points all you wish. NO ONE can deny that countries like Syria or Haiti would be infinitely more peaceful and developed if the West stopped latching onto a useless post-colonial conscience and had the balls to formally and materially assimilate these regions into itself. Proper colonialism would be effected: ie. white people would settle the shit out of those places until insurgents can no longer hide.
Popular consciousness would consider these tenets to be KKK-esque, bigoted, racist etc...
Yet popular consciousness seems to be willfully blinded to the fact that ALL of these tenets are being implemented, in one way or another, by EASTERN countries (China, Iran, previously Iraq etc....) albeit very poorly and without method. China quietly took command of Taiwan decades ago and the UN has scarcely uttered a peep about it. Iraq formerly effected genocidal campaigns against the ethnicities within its Northern fringes under Sadam....we are still shedding tears over the fact that America displaced him. Popular consciousness LOVES the East, but HATES it when the West does the very things that the East LOVES (albeit more peaceably and efficiently). This is a blatant contradiction.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Bibliolatry is a strawman
Those with deficient views of scripture often accuse those with a high view of scripture of bibliolatry or worship of the bible rather than God. What childish feculence!! In point of fact none of those who stand accused by these lip-smacking liberals have an appreciation for scripture that even REMOTELY comes close to the appreciation and adoration of God's decrees as found in Psalm 119, and yet the man of God who wrote these words is not judged. Even granting the foolhardy notion that the law of God or his decrees are something perfectly distinct from scripture, the liberal still must admit that God's decrees and laws are not God Himself but things which issue from his being. Why have they not turned their wrath against the Psalter and its supposed idolatry? Why do they strain out the gnat of the modern fundamentalist and swallow whole caravans of camels as found in sacred history? I'll tell you why: because they are thoughtless and stupid.
The Newpies on Paul never get it.
"Circumcision has value if you observe the law." -Paul
Yet the NPP swine are adamant that the Gospel shrugs off these "covenant boundaries" and strips them of all value. Nonsense. The Gospel never shrugs off the law, not even its so-called "peripheries" (let any brigand call circumcision a boundary with a straight face and I'll call him a stinker). The Gospel upholds the whole law and asserts its comprehensive value by presenting us with a God-man who vicariously fulfills all of it. As for us, apart from this God-man and in ourselves; we stand just as much judged by the law of circumcision as we do the law of love....the gospel has not "changed" the meaning of the law, discarding certain commands and instating others, spiritualizing a few here and casting off a few there. In point of fact circumcision would be of IMMENSE value if we kept it along with the rest of the law, which is the interpenetrative point of every command. We may even take circumcision as a sort of sign of induction; not as it separates Jew from Gentile but as it commends the whole man to God and his righteous obedience. "If we keep these commands, they will be unto us our righteousness" as Moses puts it in Deuteronomy. This is not a sociological factum but a spiritual one; both Jew and Gentile are equally commanded unto circumcision, for God summons the world unto himself by means of Abraham (and cf. Is. 56:4).
Is this to fall into the Judaizing error? Not at all. Rather we free ourselves in Christ of EVERY command; we are no longer obligated by God unto anything for anything. We are not slaves. This is not some peculiar anti-nomianism but a precise acknowledgment that everything God has ever demanded of us he has already fulfilled in us by a man other than us. Let no one accuse us of anti-nomianism. Anti-nomians forget that the law in fact must be fulfilled, that it is holy. We disavow this forgetfulness and insist upon Christ.
Yet the NPP swine are adamant that the Gospel shrugs off these "covenant boundaries" and strips them of all value. Nonsense. The Gospel never shrugs off the law, not even its so-called "peripheries" (let any brigand call circumcision a boundary with a straight face and I'll call him a stinker). The Gospel upholds the whole law and asserts its comprehensive value by presenting us with a God-man who vicariously fulfills all of it. As for us, apart from this God-man and in ourselves; we stand just as much judged by the law of circumcision as we do the law of love....the gospel has not "changed" the meaning of the law, discarding certain commands and instating others, spiritualizing a few here and casting off a few there. In point of fact circumcision would be of IMMENSE value if we kept it along with the rest of the law, which is the interpenetrative point of every command. We may even take circumcision as a sort of sign of induction; not as it separates Jew from Gentile but as it commends the whole man to God and his righteous obedience. "If we keep these commands, they will be unto us our righteousness" as Moses puts it in Deuteronomy. This is not a sociological factum but a spiritual one; both Jew and Gentile are equally commanded unto circumcision, for God summons the world unto himself by means of Abraham (and cf. Is. 56:4).
Is this to fall into the Judaizing error? Not at all. Rather we free ourselves in Christ of EVERY command; we are no longer obligated by God unto anything for anything. We are not slaves. This is not some peculiar anti-nomianism but a precise acknowledgment that everything God has ever demanded of us he has already fulfilled in us by a man other than us. Let no one accuse us of anti-nomianism. Anti-nomians forget that the law in fact must be fulfilled, that it is holy. We disavow this forgetfulness and insist upon Christ.
Homosexuality is a choice
"Genet's early states of sexual agitation- those he experienced before entering the reformatory- must be regarded as rehearsals, experiences and experiments, not as manifestations of a bent. Can any man maintain that he never dreamed, in childhood, of caressing a playmate? And what of it! And even if there were an actual exchange of caresses, would that be a reason to speak of homosexuality? It is only afterward that these tentative efforts take on meaning. When the individual definitely takes one path rather than another, "the retrospective illusion" then detects in them the premonitory signs of disorder or decides to regard them only as inconsequential deviations. Inversely, our inventions are mainly decisions and clarifications. What we think we discover in a moment of special insight is what we have been inventing for years, bit by bit, absent-mindedly as it were, without being completely involved."
-Sartre (Saint Genet, p.78)
For Sartre, homosexuality is merely one among billions of ways in which an individual consciousness (what he would call a being-for-itself) manifests its relations with the world. But as a manifestation of this consciousness, it is strictly a manifestation of freedom. Sartre insists (rightly, I believe) that there is no being which is capable of acting on consciousness, since consciousness has no outside to be acted upon. It can be limited only by itself. Thus the homosexual in his very homosexuality is a choice, and nothing but a choice. This was not thrust upon him by some pre-determined nature or βιος, neither by parents nor society.....nor did education force him into it, nor the circumstances of his life (for Sartre, the circumstance, even if it be as great and as vast as a world war, is authored by the individual). The homosexual is RESPONSIBLE for his homosexuality.
This will enable Sartre to say quite simply: "A person is not born homosexual or normal." (ibid.)
It is interesting that we learn of this from a sodding godless atheist, but the church will not speak for fear of having its toes stepped on! Even those of the fundamentalist right will usually concede that there is a sort of pre-embryonic sin nature that will determine the future acts of the homosexual. Mind that Sartre doesn't stand up on the day of Christ and condemn this generation of post-Christendom Christians for saying what their own cowardly minds and souls refuse to say, though their own scriptures insist that they say it! The homosexual is responsible. His refusal to admit this only proves that he is utterly ashamed of himself, like the child who under question will say that his older sibling made him do it.
In the vast literature of Sartre, the homosexual usually becomes the object of comedy and satire. Not, mind you, because Sartre believes that homosexuality is wrong. "Where's the crime? Where's the enormity? Human relations are possible between homosexuals just as between a man and a woman. It's surely better to get into bed with a boy friend than to go travelling in Nazi Germany when France has been defeated and strangled." (ibid., p. 225) Sartre rather pours his disdain on the homosexual because, "...acknowledging all the facts which are imputed to him, he refuses to draw from them the conclusion which they impose." (Being and Nothingness, p.107) The homosexual becomes, in the paragon and man-loving exemplar Marcel Jouhandeau, a "phony soul." He will acknowledge each of his acts but insist that Another is doing them.
I have maintained in the case of Africa and our local Indians that ethnic collectivities can never recover the dignity they so ardently desire for themselves so long as they place the weight of their history's failures into the arms of a foreign oppressor. To be sure, this post-colonial method of masking a failure is VERY impressive and catching, but it is for all that a mask...and qua mask quite pathetic for the considerations of sincere philosophy. The same problem lies with the homosexual. If he is not willing to be the author of his own deeds, nay, his own nature, then he has already admitted to the world that he is sub-human.
-Sartre (Saint Genet, p.78)
For Sartre, homosexuality is merely one among billions of ways in which an individual consciousness (what he would call a being-for-itself) manifests its relations with the world. But as a manifestation of this consciousness, it is strictly a manifestation of freedom. Sartre insists (rightly, I believe) that there is no being which is capable of acting on consciousness, since consciousness has no outside to be acted upon. It can be limited only by itself. Thus the homosexual in his very homosexuality is a choice, and nothing but a choice. This was not thrust upon him by some pre-determined nature or βιος, neither by parents nor society.....nor did education force him into it, nor the circumstances of his life (for Sartre, the circumstance, even if it be as great and as vast as a world war, is authored by the individual). The homosexual is RESPONSIBLE for his homosexuality.
This will enable Sartre to say quite simply: "A person is not born homosexual or normal." (ibid.)
It is interesting that we learn of this from a sodding godless atheist, but the church will not speak for fear of having its toes stepped on! Even those of the fundamentalist right will usually concede that there is a sort of pre-embryonic sin nature that will determine the future acts of the homosexual. Mind that Sartre doesn't stand up on the day of Christ and condemn this generation of post-Christendom Christians for saying what their own cowardly minds and souls refuse to say, though their own scriptures insist that they say it! The homosexual is responsible. His refusal to admit this only proves that he is utterly ashamed of himself, like the child who under question will say that his older sibling made him do it.
In the vast literature of Sartre, the homosexual usually becomes the object of comedy and satire. Not, mind you, because Sartre believes that homosexuality is wrong. "Where's the crime? Where's the enormity? Human relations are possible between homosexuals just as between a man and a woman. It's surely better to get into bed with a boy friend than to go travelling in Nazi Germany when France has been defeated and strangled." (ibid., p. 225) Sartre rather pours his disdain on the homosexual because, "...acknowledging all the facts which are imputed to him, he refuses to draw from them the conclusion which they impose." (Being and Nothingness, p.107) The homosexual becomes, in the paragon and man-loving exemplar Marcel Jouhandeau, a "phony soul." He will acknowledge each of his acts but insist that Another is doing them.
I have maintained in the case of Africa and our local Indians that ethnic collectivities can never recover the dignity they so ardently desire for themselves so long as they place the weight of their history's failures into the arms of a foreign oppressor. To be sure, this post-colonial method of masking a failure is VERY impressive and catching, but it is for all that a mask...and qua mask quite pathetic for the considerations of sincere philosophy. The same problem lies with the homosexual. If he is not willing to be the author of his own deeds, nay, his own nature, then he has already admitted to the world that he is sub-human.
Friday, August 23, 2013
God anoints unto violence.
"Jehu son of Nimshi...whom the LORD had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab." -2 Chronicles 22:7
This important factum is elucidated in 2 Kings 9, where the LORD says to Jehu: "I anoint you king over the LORD's people Israel. You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets etc.."
Jehu's anointing is special; it is not only a general mandate towards kingship but a particular mandate towards revenge. Vengeance is indeed the LORD's, and it pleases him at times to use humans in meting it out, without their having any proper claim to it. Nor can it be said that this use is always omnibenevolence working good through evil. Let no one say that the sacred act of anointing someone unto a task is profane. The anointing confers holiness and purity on the individual; they and their task are SET APART by God for His own RIGHT ENDS. This means, quite simply, that humans might kill and destroy in utter holiness.
Pacifists must be reminded of this. They must also be continually reminded of the passages in the Gospel of John which identify- without mediacy- Jesus with YHWH (12:42 in particular).
It is the historical Jesus who anoints people for purposes of killing.
This important factum is elucidated in 2 Kings 9, where the LORD says to Jehu: "I anoint you king over the LORD's people Israel. You are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets etc.."
Jehu's anointing is special; it is not only a general mandate towards kingship but a particular mandate towards revenge. Vengeance is indeed the LORD's, and it pleases him at times to use humans in meting it out, without their having any proper claim to it. Nor can it be said that this use is always omnibenevolence working good through evil. Let no one say that the sacred act of anointing someone unto a task is profane. The anointing confers holiness and purity on the individual; they and their task are SET APART by God for His own RIGHT ENDS. This means, quite simply, that humans might kill and destroy in utter holiness.
Pacifists must be reminded of this. They must also be continually reminded of the passages in the Gospel of John which identify- without mediacy- Jesus with YHWH (12:42 in particular).
It is the historical Jesus who anoints people for purposes of killing.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Elisha the Lord.
That's what the men of Jericho call him (according to the Septuagint): "ο κυριος" (2 Kgs. 2:19).
The widow at Zarephath refers to herself and her dead husband before Elisha as δουλος σου (your servant), as does the commander of the armies of Aram (5:15), as do the whole host of Yahwistic prophets (6:3). The King of Israel calls him πατερ or father, and so on and so forth.
Even if all of these phrases are mere formalities, we must bear in mind that formalities are significations, and as significations they refer to a reality, in this case a political one. The monarch of Israel and all of the holy ones who wander his environs are effaced before the power of Elisha and must pay him heed. Fascinating and intriguing!!
These theological data are already bursting with Christological import. It is the prophet of YAHWEH who properly leads Israel.
The widow at Zarephath refers to herself and her dead husband before Elisha as δουλος σου (your servant), as does the commander of the armies of Aram (5:15), as do the whole host of Yahwistic prophets (6:3). The King of Israel calls him πατερ or father, and so on and so forth.
Even if all of these phrases are mere formalities, we must bear in mind that formalities are significations, and as significations they refer to a reality, in this case a political one. The monarch of Israel and all of the holy ones who wander his environs are effaced before the power of Elisha and must pay him heed. Fascinating and intriguing!!
These theological data are already bursting with Christological import. It is the prophet of YAHWEH who properly leads Israel.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
To exist in a world of human relations is the nearest thing to treading barefoot on broken glass. I am responsible for my perpetual quality-judgments of ALL who dwell in my world, and others are responsible for their repeated judgments of me. We create death and misery for each other, and the church of God is by no means exempt. It is in fact in the church that Paul turned against Peter, that Barnabas turned against Paul, that the disciples turned against Jesus and one another (Lk. 9:46). It is in the church that weeds are sewn in by the devil (which may be taken in the hamartiological sense of sin and discord among brethren and the more literal sense of false brothers infiltrating and destroying), that the family unit breaks down and we learn to "hate father and mother," that a sword of betrayal comes between relations most dear. It is in the church that confessing Christians are judged in the flesh by their elders to the point of death; which can hardly be taken as an example of family discipline. It is in the church that Jesus comes to fight against us with the sword of his mouth and strikes sinners among us dead (Rev. 2:23). So we see the Divine Hand come to place its seal upon this discord and violence, overturning our humanism and love at every turn and plunging us again and again into anguish before our deeds.
"Wretched man that I am!! Who will rescue me from this body of death?!!"
I do not believe in love anymore. I have never seen it. Ever. I have never felt that a Christian truly loves me as himself; therefore he does not love at all. "A half heart is no heart" in the words of Spurgeon. Then again, I am speaking in so many fine words already. There is a Christian love, for the Word of God not only commands it; it acknowledges its existence, recognizes it in action, and promises more to come. Yet I am thrust by mine very own eyes to discard all that is seen as temporary and foolish and evil, to testify in faith to the fact that this love is hoped for above all else rather than FELT or EXPERIENCED.
"Wretched man that I am!! Who will rescue me from this body of death?!!"
I do not believe in love anymore. I have never seen it. Ever. I have never felt that a Christian truly loves me as himself; therefore he does not love at all. "A half heart is no heart" in the words of Spurgeon. Then again, I am speaking in so many fine words already. There is a Christian love, for the Word of God not only commands it; it acknowledges its existence, recognizes it in action, and promises more to come. Yet I am thrust by mine very own eyes to discard all that is seen as temporary and foolish and evil, to testify in faith to the fact that this love is hoped for above all else rather than FELT or EXPERIENCED.
Monday, August 12, 2013
It matters little how second-temple Jews viewed the law.
Whether rightly or wrongly, whether as a gift of grace or as a taskmaster, second-temple Jews and their theologies form a part of the collective known as ISRAEL, which sought after a law of its own righteousness and used the commandments of God as a means for boasting (Rom. 9:32).
Actually, what matters is not how historic Jews viewed the law in relation to salvation but how GOD viewed the law in relation to salvation. And here is how God in the flesh, also a historical jew, viewed it:
ει δε θέλεις εις την ζωην εισελθειν, τήρησον τας εντολάς· (Mt. 19:17)
If you desire to enter into life, keep the commandments.
There is Jesus' soteriology of law. You are not first graciously given life by god in order that you might keep the commandments as a sort of grateful response. The commandments appear first to someone without life (ie. life eternal, so 19:16), and he then must keep them in order to enter it.
Actually, what matters is not how historic Jews viewed the law in relation to salvation but how GOD viewed the law in relation to salvation. And here is how God in the flesh, also a historical jew, viewed it:
ει δε θέλεις εις την ζωην εισελθειν, τήρησον τας εντολάς· (Mt. 19:17)
If you desire to enter into life, keep the commandments.
There is Jesus' soteriology of law. You are not first graciously given life by god in order that you might keep the commandments as a sort of grateful response. The commandments appear first to someone without life (ie. life eternal, so 19:16), and he then must keep them in order to enter it.
The role of works at the Final Judgment made simple:
Zip. Nada. Nothing. Not ever.
According to Mt. 7:21, the determining factor on the final day (or the purpose of the judgment therein) is entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. The criterion of use by the LORD is whether or not a person has done the will of the father.
Since no one, to date, has done the will of the Father, it is necessary to trust on the bare fact of Christ's death and resurrection (that Christ has done the will of the Father FOR US and FOR OUR SALVATION). Or rather, it is necessary for the Christian to expect GRACE and MERCY on the final day (Jd. 21, 1 Peter 1:13). But if grace is to be given on the final day, it cannot be given on the basis of works, for then it would be a payment. And if mercy is to be delegated unto us, it would be foolish and meaningless to speak of JUST REWARDS. Mercy is given to the wicked, not the righteous. The righteous have need neither of mercy nor grace.
It is confounding and disastrous to place a role for works in the final judgment. To do so strikes at the very core of God's gospel and swallows it up in the law. For who will not immediately turn his attention towards the final day, forget the promise of the resurrection, and start working double time to earn a place in the heavens if this is precisely the way that God will deal with us? In short, the gospel will be lost forever in all of our glorious deeds.
Christians may be perfectly confident on the final day, perfectly confident, because they have for their very own badges the complete and total fulfillment of the law effected in Jesus Christ once for all. They need look nowhere else, indeed they would be knaves to do so. For what right-thinking man, after gazing on the blood of the lamb which bespeaks perfect righteousness, would turn aside and start trying to fulfill the law on his own? And who would trade in the very righteousness of God for his own paltry deeds?
According to Mt. 7:21, the determining factor on the final day (or the purpose of the judgment therein) is entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. The criterion of use by the LORD is whether or not a person has done the will of the father.
Since no one, to date, has done the will of the Father, it is necessary to trust on the bare fact of Christ's death and resurrection (that Christ has done the will of the Father FOR US and FOR OUR SALVATION). Or rather, it is necessary for the Christian to expect GRACE and MERCY on the final day (Jd. 21, 1 Peter 1:13). But if grace is to be given on the final day, it cannot be given on the basis of works, for then it would be a payment. And if mercy is to be delegated unto us, it would be foolish and meaningless to speak of JUST REWARDS. Mercy is given to the wicked, not the righteous. The righteous have need neither of mercy nor grace.
It is confounding and disastrous to place a role for works in the final judgment. To do so strikes at the very core of God's gospel and swallows it up in the law. For who will not immediately turn his attention towards the final day, forget the promise of the resurrection, and start working double time to earn a place in the heavens if this is precisely the way that God will deal with us? In short, the gospel will be lost forever in all of our glorious deeds.
Christians may be perfectly confident on the final day, perfectly confident, because they have for their very own badges the complete and total fulfillment of the law effected in Jesus Christ once for all. They need look nowhere else, indeed they would be knaves to do so. For what right-thinking man, after gazing on the blood of the lamb which bespeaks perfect righteousness, would turn aside and start trying to fulfill the law on his own? And who would trade in the very righteousness of God for his own paltry deeds?
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Is James the word of God?
Yes. Provided that we understand it as a praeparatio evangelium, as pure speech about Christ, as that which turns us away from the royal law which brings freedom to Christ who fulfills the law that we might be free. If we understand by the phrase "όρατε ότι εχ εργων δικαιουται ανθρωπος και ουκ εκ πιστεως μόνον" that deeds which fulfill the royal law of love JUSTIFY a man, that Christ in doing precisely that has won a way for us to be justified, inasmuch as HIS DEEDS become OUR DEEDS (1 Cor. 1:30), then James is in perfect accord with the rule of faith. If, on the other hand, I am wrong in my reading...that the meaning of the above verse is that man will be justified by various concrete deeds which he will effect in this temporal sphere out of obedience to God's law (such as giving money to the poor, tithing to the local parish, praying for his enemies etc...) then James really is "an epistle of straw," worthy of the condemnation spoken of in Galatians 1:8, placed in the canon by a childish misunderstanding of the early church and maintained there by successive ages for fear of subtracting from the word of god. As of yet I see no need to go that route, yet I am baffled by the mindlessness of neo-evangelicals who attempt to synthesize both James and Paul by a sort of semi-pelagianism, which would see our final justification as merited by a cooperation between Christ's grace and our good deeds. These buffoons (Ben Witherington III, N.T. Wright etc...) are worthy of nothing but contempt for their willful abandonment of grace.
It is possible also to see in this epistle an "authorial intent" of judaizing but an inspiration in spite of this intent. The gospel is never bound to the psychological desires or motives of those who proclaim it. They may intend their words for evil whilst God is superordinately using them for good.
It is possible also to see in this epistle an "authorial intent" of judaizing but an inspiration in spite of this intent. The gospel is never bound to the psychological desires or motives of those who proclaim it. They may intend their words for evil whilst God is superordinately using them for good.
Stick that in your eschatological pipe and smoke it!
"No one knows what is coming- who can tell him what will happen after him?" -Ecc. 10:14
Even the most subtile eschatologian, who may limit himself to saying such floosy things as, "Scriptures become the word of God eschatologically" or "the Kingdom of God is now but not yet" or nearly the whole of the absolutely worthless gibberish of Jurgen Moltmann's "theology of hope"...cannot escape from this sharp judgment of scripture. Before the future we are trembling leaves, and it would be better for us to remain taciturn as such.
Even the most subtile eschatologian, who may limit himself to saying such floosy things as, "Scriptures become the word of God eschatologically" or "the Kingdom of God is now but not yet" or nearly the whole of the absolutely worthless gibberish of Jurgen Moltmann's "theology of hope"...cannot escape from this sharp judgment of scripture. Before the future we are trembling leaves, and it would be better for us to remain taciturn as such.
The Fear of the Lord.
"Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." -Ecc. 12:13-14
It has often been supposed that Solomon here renders an entirely new light on his previous treatise, like a resolved chord does to the entire melody of a song, or Amneris' prayer for peace at the end of Aida does to the whole of Verdi's tragedy. Peter Enns, like a good delusional Mennonite, suggests that this verse is in fact an editorial gloss provided to cast the reader out of the sinkhole of Qohelet's thinking. To him we may well quote Luther, who responded to the detractors of Ecclesiastes by saying:
"Does the Holy Spirit like to indulge in loquacious and foolish babble?"
This is apparently what most of the church thinks when it comes to Ecclesiastes, and it will do nearly everything to thrust this book into the attic of scriptural inquiry.
I have a practical rule which I apply faithfully to my canonical doubts: those pieces of scripture which are most ferociously hated and discarded the most frequently by the largest groups of religious individuals are most likely the Word of God. They must be doubted and questioned the least, for there is scarcely a word of prophecy that hasn't sent Israel and the church a-reeling into fanatical contempt for it.
The fear of the Lord, his commandments, and the duty binding on man does not provide man with an escape out of his meaningless condition. It is rather the commandment itself, which provides a duty for man, in which fear is enjoined, that creates a global situation of meaninglessness.
Paul sums up this argument quite well when he says: "When the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died" and "the law was added so that the transgression might increase" and "the power of sin is the law." Ecclesiastes already suggests that the source of meaninglessness for the "wise" man is that he, like the fool, must DIE (2:16). In fact death throws all of our deeds and our accomplishments into disarray and vacuousness (9:6).
It has often been supposed that Solomon here renders an entirely new light on his previous treatise, like a resolved chord does to the entire melody of a song, or Amneris' prayer for peace at the end of Aida does to the whole of Verdi's tragedy. Peter Enns, like a good delusional Mennonite, suggests that this verse is in fact an editorial gloss provided to cast the reader out of the sinkhole of Qohelet's thinking. To him we may well quote Luther, who responded to the detractors of Ecclesiastes by saying:
"Does the Holy Spirit like to indulge in loquacious and foolish babble?"
This is apparently what most of the church thinks when it comes to Ecclesiastes, and it will do nearly everything to thrust this book into the attic of scriptural inquiry.
I have a practical rule which I apply faithfully to my canonical doubts: those pieces of scripture which are most ferociously hated and discarded the most frequently by the largest groups of religious individuals are most likely the Word of God. They must be doubted and questioned the least, for there is scarcely a word of prophecy that hasn't sent Israel and the church a-reeling into fanatical contempt for it.
The fear of the Lord, his commandments, and the duty binding on man does not provide man with an escape out of his meaningless condition. It is rather the commandment itself, which provides a duty for man, in which fear is enjoined, that creates a global situation of meaninglessness.
Paul sums up this argument quite well when he says: "When the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died" and "the law was added so that the transgression might increase" and "the power of sin is the law." Ecclesiastes already suggests that the source of meaninglessness for the "wise" man is that he, like the fool, must DIE (2:16). In fact death throws all of our deeds and our accomplishments into disarray and vacuousness (9:6).
Saturday, August 10, 2013
An Observation
The myth of historical female oppression was invented by woman in order to find some objective grounds for hating man. The order commonly assumed (woman discovers that she is subjugated by man, woman decides to hate man) must be reversed if we are to gain true insight into the problem: it is woman who created a situation of oppression in order to subjugate man. This situation itself is a work of bad faith, for even in those moments where women succeed in half-believing their myth, they are required by a twofold leap to attach an gratuitous ethical value to this history (what man did was evil) and a practical application (we are justified in responding in kind). The latter, to those precious few among the female intellect who possess clarity, is particularly troubling, for it bears within itself the seeds of the whole destruction of woman's machination. If certain historical situations justify contempt and vitriol for the male sex, is there not then the possibility that certain historical situations could justify contempt and vitriol for the female sex? And what if the myth, taken from the point of view of its assumption in bad faith, is precisely one of those situations?
Naturally there will always be cases in history where the man got the upper hand over woman and used his victory to torment her. It is odd, however, that these cases (really, however many) have morphed into a universal rule. Be wary of universal rules applied to history in the realms of thought which we may call controversial.
Naturally there will always be cases in history where the man got the upper hand over woman and used his victory to torment her. It is odd, however, that these cases (really, however many) have morphed into a universal rule. Be wary of universal rules applied to history in the realms of thought which we may call controversial.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Who teaches THIS?
"For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they [Israel] did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith." -Hebrews 4:2
In an important, eternal, bounteous sense, Israel HAD the gospel. Not merely an abstract message of an abstract God and an abstract kingdom. Israel had the GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST. This is the significance of the following passages of scripture:
"Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing MY (εμήν) day; he saw it and was glad." -John. 8:56
"Isaiah...saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him." John 12:41
"[Israel] drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." -1 Cor.10:4
Israel had Christ, for the gospel is bound up in Christ and cannot be preached without Him as the center and the foundation of the proclamation.
Scholarship has renounced this way. Accordingly, scholarship must be renounced.
In an important, eternal, bounteous sense, Israel HAD the gospel. Not merely an abstract message of an abstract God and an abstract kingdom. Israel had the GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST. This is the significance of the following passages of scripture:
"Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing MY (εμήν) day; he saw it and was glad." -John. 8:56
"Isaiah...saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him." John 12:41
"[Israel] drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ." -1 Cor.10:4
Israel had Christ, for the gospel is bound up in Christ and cannot be preached without Him as the center and the foundation of the proclamation.
Scholarship has renounced this way. Accordingly, scholarship must be renounced.
Das Problem: Thomas Schreiner
"My goal is to read the message of the OT in its historical context. At the same time, I try to read the OT as the NT authors read it. The historical voice of the biblical writer is attended to and respected, but at the same time the canonical voice of the divine author is also heeded. I don’t limit myself to what Leviticus means within the ambit of the Pentateuch but also ask what it means in light of the revelation that has come in Jesus Christ. In other words, how does the coming of Jesus reshape and reconfigure our reading of Leviticus? Such an attempt does not nullify the historical meaning of the book. In fact, I spend most of my time on the former, while also considering the contribution the book makes now that the Christ has come." -http://blog.bakeracademic.com/thomas-schreiner-why-i-wrote-the-king-in-his-beauty/ (emphasis added)
Yet another "evangelical" scholar who demonstrates his disinterest and embarrassment in the Christian confession that Jesus is God. Let me put this clearly, even though it should not have to be argued: if Jesus is God, then He is God. This means that He pre-exists the New Testament. He is the God of the Old Testament, for the God of the Old Testament is the One true God. Therefore, when we read the Old Testament and unfold its truths, we read about Jesus Christ and unfold the truth about Jesus Christ. This is child's play; this is milk rather than meat. It takes all of two seconds to realize the fucking connection, yet to this date be damned if a confessing Christian scholar will own up to the weightiness of this point!! I am petrified at the order of Schreiner's concerns, as if the Gospel and its implications are of less significance than "the historical meaning" of the OT, to which he devotes all of his time.
Yet another "evangelical" scholar who demonstrates his disinterest and embarrassment in the Christian confession that Jesus is God. Let me put this clearly, even though it should not have to be argued: if Jesus is God, then He is God. This means that He pre-exists the New Testament. He is the God of the Old Testament, for the God of the Old Testament is the One true God. Therefore, when we read the Old Testament and unfold its truths, we read about Jesus Christ and unfold the truth about Jesus Christ. This is child's play; this is milk rather than meat. It takes all of two seconds to realize the fucking connection, yet to this date be damned if a confessing Christian scholar will own up to the weightiness of this point!! I am petrified at the order of Schreiner's concerns, as if the Gospel and its implications are of less significance than "the historical meaning" of the OT, to which he devotes all of his time.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Have you seen a Christian scholar of Paul ever teach THIS?
"May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever." -Rom. 11:9-10
Paul cites this as an imprecation against the nation of Israel for its rejection of the gospel. "May their backs be bent forever...." holy cow. The oaths and imprecations of the Psalms are curses that God has sanctioned, and be they taken in the Christological or the Davidic (the lesser) sense, they are BINDING. God heard the prayers of David, how much more those of Christ?!!!
The modern scholar of Paul, preoccupied in making romans a palatably jewish document, a narrative of Israel's supposed right to boast before God, has to trip neatly by nearly the whole freaking book to arrive at his favorite verse: "And so all Israel will be saved." This is to him or her the only factum of weight. I am not so sure. Romans pledges this irrevocable promise on the basis of FAITH IN CHRIST (ie. Israel's acceptance of the gospel; Rom. 11:23!!!!!!!). So long as this is not the case with Israel, it is damned and lost, and finally not the true Israel. Oh that Christians would cease their unbelieving dialogues with modern jews, stop trying to twist this text into some sort of post-holocaust apology letter, and finally read the whole thing as it stands.
Paul cites this as an imprecation against the nation of Israel for its rejection of the gospel. "May their backs be bent forever...." holy cow. The oaths and imprecations of the Psalms are curses that God has sanctioned, and be they taken in the Christological or the Davidic (the lesser) sense, they are BINDING. God heard the prayers of David, how much more those of Christ?!!!
The modern scholar of Paul, preoccupied in making romans a palatably jewish document, a narrative of Israel's supposed right to boast before God, has to trip neatly by nearly the whole freaking book to arrive at his favorite verse: "And so all Israel will be saved." This is to him or her the only factum of weight. I am not so sure. Romans pledges this irrevocable promise on the basis of FAITH IN CHRIST (ie. Israel's acceptance of the gospel; Rom. 11:23!!!!!!!). So long as this is not the case with Israel, it is damned and lost, and finally not the true Israel. Oh that Christians would cease their unbelieving dialogues with modern jews, stop trying to twist this text into some sort of post-holocaust apology letter, and finally read the whole thing as it stands.
Are women made in the image of God?
"ανηρ μεν γαρ ουκ οϕείλει κατακαλυπτέσθαι την κεϕαλην εικων και δοξα θεου ύπάρχων· ή γυνη δε δoξα ανδρός εστιν" (1 Cor. 11:7)
This is no more nor less scripture than Galatians 3:28 or Genesis 1:27, and it takes on a provisional acuteness on account of its being vehemently rejected and scoffed at by this wicked and perverse age. Nevertheless, it remains no more nor less true than the rest of the words that God, who is truth, speaks. In it we learn that the honorable dignity of bearing the εικων θεου belongs properly to man, not woman. If it belonged to woman, Paul's argument that man ought not to cover his head would fall utterly to the ground. Conceive of this passage in any other way and it loses all rhetorical significance. An egalitarian gloss would look like this: "A man ought not to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God, but women are equally the image and glory of God yet they must cover their head. The because in the first clause is meaningless." One can see how foolish and absurd these snakes are when they handle the scripture.
I find no evidence which would suggest that women have the imago dei, and this scripture stands solidly against the idea. The best argument one may proffer is an appeal to Genesis 1:27 which states:
"God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
Yet this verse does not anywhere say that women were created in the image of God. It only says that man was. The egalitarian has to devise a retroactive conclusion based on the fact that the last clause is placed in parallel with the others (leading her to suggest that male and female are both the "man" in question). There is no justification for this. A verse placed in parallel with another by no means signifies that the meanings of both collapse into each other. This is a very puerile notion indeed! Scripture abounds in synthetic parallelisms, where the final line adds to the contents of the first. This is quite naturally the case here, and the reading flows smoothest when it is taken in this way.
This is no more nor less scripture than Galatians 3:28 or Genesis 1:27, and it takes on a provisional acuteness on account of its being vehemently rejected and scoffed at by this wicked and perverse age. Nevertheless, it remains no more nor less true than the rest of the words that God, who is truth, speaks. In it we learn that the honorable dignity of bearing the εικων θεου belongs properly to man, not woman. If it belonged to woman, Paul's argument that man ought not to cover his head would fall utterly to the ground. Conceive of this passage in any other way and it loses all rhetorical significance. An egalitarian gloss would look like this: "A man ought not to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God, but women are equally the image and glory of God yet they must cover their head. The because in the first clause is meaningless." One can see how foolish and absurd these snakes are when they handle the scripture.
I find no evidence which would suggest that women have the imago dei, and this scripture stands solidly against the idea. The best argument one may proffer is an appeal to Genesis 1:27 which states:
"God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
Yet this verse does not anywhere say that women were created in the image of God. It only says that man was. The egalitarian has to devise a retroactive conclusion based on the fact that the last clause is placed in parallel with the others (leading her to suggest that male and female are both the "man" in question). There is no justification for this. A verse placed in parallel with another by no means signifies that the meanings of both collapse into each other. This is a very puerile notion indeed! Scripture abounds in synthetic parallelisms, where the final line adds to the contents of the first. This is quite naturally the case here, and the reading flows smoothest when it is taken in this way.
What we learn from Balaam.
This man of wickedness spoke the very words of the living God under a legitimate call and command. Woe betide King Balak of Moab should he refuse to listen!!
The canon of scripture is closed. I do not believe it possible for new "words of God" to be spoken because it seems to be the case that God wills to be silent. That being said, there is such a thing as wisdom and truth, to which God in his grace appoints certain men to have a share in. They can even be godless men; atheists, libertines, Adolf Hitlers, jews, pagans, homosexuals etc... God has given them wisdom to speak. It would be an error to make of this a principle; such would be the turning of godlessness into a call or an office. Yet woe betide those who are proffered wisdom from such as these and spurn it.
The canon of scripture is closed. I do not believe it possible for new "words of God" to be spoken because it seems to be the case that God wills to be silent. That being said, there is such a thing as wisdom and truth, to which God in his grace appoints certain men to have a share in. They can even be godless men; atheists, libertines, Adolf Hitlers, jews, pagans, homosexuals etc... God has given them wisdom to speak. It would be an error to make of this a principle; such would be the turning of godlessness into a call or an office. Yet woe betide those who are proffered wisdom from such as these and spurn it.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
The Fallacy Latent in "Believer's Baptism"
"In recent times, the way of being Christian that emerges from Anabaptism has been called the "believer's church." This term emphasizes the voluntary character of the church: people choose to join as believing adults rather than being born into a church community. Adult versus infant baptism signifies the two differing ecclesiologies- understandings of the church- with their contrasting kinds of entrée." -J. Denny Weaver (Becoming Anabaptist, p.163)
It is not for Anabaptists, or any man for that matter, to erect a dogma which suggests that voluntarism, reason, faith, or the understanding are qualities inextricably bound to the adult and irrevocably missing in the infant. One cannot say this, far less can one determine to exclude infants and little children from baptism on account of it. Faith in Christ (however one may define it; be it a work of the understanding or intellect, involving reason or absurdity etc...) is not a prevenient disposition that exists as a presupposition of adult humanity. When Anabaptists insist that humans by the mere fact of maturing become better equipped to decide on the nature of the Gospel, they fall into a clear Pelagianism (which teaches that there are qualities in men, untarnished by original sin, which may aid them in their justification before God). It is no coincidence here that the early Pelagians denied baptism to infants (cf. Augustine Contra Julian I).
Faith, and all that accrues to it in the justification of man before God (by which I mean reason or motivations of the will), is a GIFT FROM GOD. A free gift. It comes from God's free grace to the individual, and absolutely NO ONE has the right to question God's dispensation of this grace (Rom.9:20). It is nothing short of spiritual arrogance to deny the merits of God's Gospel to infants or say that God is capable of giving the gift of faith to adults but is incapable to do so for infants. Jesus rather says, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, for the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." As I have said elsewhere, it is not adulthood with all of its reason and maturity that provides the best parable of faith but little children. They are the signs of Godly Trust in this godless world.
Infant baptism does not stem from some banal and useless thing called "church tradition" but from the authority of scripture and the proclamation of the gospel. It is in scripture that we learn to say:
Εκ στόματος νηπιων και θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αινον (Mt. 21:16)
In direct connection to the public confession of Jesus as Messiah by little children, Jesus includes infants (νηπιων) under the ordinances of God's praise. I leave it to Anabaptists with all of their devious sophistry to explain how infants can praise God without faith.
Naturally these criticisms can only apply to the Anabaptist who wishes to hold, for good or ill, to the scripture principle. I do not know of many in their circle of dark deeds today who wish to have anything to do with the authority of the bible. Inasmuch as believer's baptism figures in post-modern Anabaptism, it figures as a product of contemplative tradition rather than the authority of the Sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth, who vows the destruction of the cosmos before the perishing of scripture.
It is not for Anabaptists, or any man for that matter, to erect a dogma which suggests that voluntarism, reason, faith, or the understanding are qualities inextricably bound to the adult and irrevocably missing in the infant. One cannot say this, far less can one determine to exclude infants and little children from baptism on account of it. Faith in Christ (however one may define it; be it a work of the understanding or intellect, involving reason or absurdity etc...) is not a prevenient disposition that exists as a presupposition of adult humanity. When Anabaptists insist that humans by the mere fact of maturing become better equipped to decide on the nature of the Gospel, they fall into a clear Pelagianism (which teaches that there are qualities in men, untarnished by original sin, which may aid them in their justification before God). It is no coincidence here that the early Pelagians denied baptism to infants (cf. Augustine Contra Julian I).
Faith, and all that accrues to it in the justification of man before God (by which I mean reason or motivations of the will), is a GIFT FROM GOD. A free gift. It comes from God's free grace to the individual, and absolutely NO ONE has the right to question God's dispensation of this grace (Rom.9:20). It is nothing short of spiritual arrogance to deny the merits of God's Gospel to infants or say that God is capable of giving the gift of faith to adults but is incapable to do so for infants. Jesus rather says, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, for the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these." As I have said elsewhere, it is not adulthood with all of its reason and maturity that provides the best parable of faith but little children. They are the signs of Godly Trust in this godless world.
Infant baptism does not stem from some banal and useless thing called "church tradition" but from the authority of scripture and the proclamation of the gospel. It is in scripture that we learn to say:
Εκ στόματος νηπιων και θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αινον (Mt. 21:16)
In direct connection to the public confession of Jesus as Messiah by little children, Jesus includes infants (νηπιων) under the ordinances of God's praise. I leave it to Anabaptists with all of their devious sophistry to explain how infants can praise God without faith.
Naturally these criticisms can only apply to the Anabaptist who wishes to hold, for good or ill, to the scripture principle. I do not know of many in their circle of dark deeds today who wish to have anything to do with the authority of the bible. Inasmuch as believer's baptism figures in post-modern Anabaptism, it figures as a product of contemplative tradition rather than the authority of the Sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth, who vows the destruction of the cosmos before the perishing of scripture.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
More Dilettante Theology from Robert Cargill
"Christianity is not first about doctrine or dogma, it is about service (specifically, social justice). Until we get the service part down, our doctrine is worthless." via: http://robertcargill.com/
I could hardly choke this one down. Precisely the opposite holds true for Christianity. Actually, what is first in the order of Christianity is neither service (what man does) or doctrine/dogma (what the serving man believes about God). It isn't about us. The foundation and linchpin of Christianity is the name Jesus Christ....period.
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve...." -1 Cor.15:3-5
This is one of the earliest definitions of the Christian faith that we have, so I consider it a good measuring stick. Notice how it has absolutely nothing to do with men? Well ok, maybe the part which speaks about the forgiveness of sins and Christ's appearing to the Twelve and such. But the first presupposes that we are wicked and culpable before God, and the second only allots a passive role to anthropology: beings to whom Christ chooses to appear. No dogma, no doctrine, no service....just Jesus Christ, the one who died for our sins and rose again.
I could hardly choke this one down. Precisely the opposite holds true for Christianity. Actually, what is first in the order of Christianity is neither service (what man does) or doctrine/dogma (what the serving man believes about God). It isn't about us. The foundation and linchpin of Christianity is the name Jesus Christ....period.
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve...." -1 Cor.15:3-5
This is one of the earliest definitions of the Christian faith that we have, so I consider it a good measuring stick. Notice how it has absolutely nothing to do with men? Well ok, maybe the part which speaks about the forgiveness of sins and Christ's appearing to the Twelve and such. But the first presupposes that we are wicked and culpable before God, and the second only allots a passive role to anthropology: beings to whom Christ chooses to appear. No dogma, no doctrine, no service....just Jesus Christ, the one who died for our sins and rose again.
Top ten ways to purge your mind of anabaptist dreck.
1. Read the Bible.
2. Take the Bible seriously.
3. Watch Braveheart.
4. Read St. Augustine.
5. Read Martin Luther.
6. Observe the choosiness of Anabaptists in action.
7. Read their greatest theological text: "The Politics of Jesus" and be appalled at its mindlessness.
8. Commit to allowing Jesus to exist and speak beyond two pages from the Gospel of Matthew.
9. Appreciate grace.
10. Spend time with Christians.
2. Take the Bible seriously.
3. Watch Braveheart.
4. Read St. Augustine.
5. Read Martin Luther.
6. Observe the choosiness of Anabaptists in action.
7. Read their greatest theological text: "The Politics of Jesus" and be appalled at its mindlessness.
8. Commit to allowing Jesus to exist and speak beyond two pages from the Gospel of Matthew.
9. Appreciate grace.
10. Spend time with Christians.
A good reminder from Jeremiah.
"Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations..." -Jer. 36:2
The prophetic Word that we have in the Old Testament is not constrained by "Israel's Story." It can even be said, in a sense, that it has nothing to do with "Israel's Story" at all. This is first and foremost because God's Word is not concerned with storytelling but with commanding, rebuking, promising, examining, and foretelling (the order here is utterly arbitrary). If stories figure at all in the prophetic scripts, they serve the wider and infinitely greater purpose of God's majestic Lordship. Secondly, one cannot speak of "Israel's Story" without committing a woeful anachronism, for a wide array of the prophetic literature concerns two distinct nations: Israel and Judah. If we are to develop a science of the Old Testament and call it OT theology, there is no room for the excrescences of imprecise phrases and misleading terms. Thirdly, the prophetic Word concerns other nations; not simply as they figure or relate to "Israel's Story" but as they relate to the purposes of the LORD of Heaven and Earth, which are not ALWAYS wrapped up in Israel's concerns. The continuous merger between Israel and YHWH which figures in much OT scholarship is disconcerting and childish. Is it any coincidence that the writers from this school, that those who construct for themselves a God immanent in the mundane processes of Israel; is it any coincidence that the same are elsewhere in sympathetic dialogue with the Roman Catholic church, no longer finding anything to protest in Rome and its ecclesiology?
The prophetic Word that we have in the Old Testament is not constrained by "Israel's Story." It can even be said, in a sense, that it has nothing to do with "Israel's Story" at all. This is first and foremost because God's Word is not concerned with storytelling but with commanding, rebuking, promising, examining, and foretelling (the order here is utterly arbitrary). If stories figure at all in the prophetic scripts, they serve the wider and infinitely greater purpose of God's majestic Lordship. Secondly, one cannot speak of "Israel's Story" without committing a woeful anachronism, for a wide array of the prophetic literature concerns two distinct nations: Israel and Judah. If we are to develop a science of the Old Testament and call it OT theology, there is no room for the excrescences of imprecise phrases and misleading terms. Thirdly, the prophetic Word concerns other nations; not simply as they figure or relate to "Israel's Story" but as they relate to the purposes of the LORD of Heaven and Earth, which are not ALWAYS wrapped up in Israel's concerns. The continuous merger between Israel and YHWH which figures in much OT scholarship is disconcerting and childish. Is it any coincidence that the writers from this school, that those who construct for themselves a God immanent in the mundane processes of Israel; is it any coincidence that the same are elsewhere in sympathetic dialogue with the Roman Catholic church, no longer finding anything to protest in Rome and its ecclesiology?
Sunday, July 21, 2013
When I have a Baby
I will hold it over a cliff by the leg and decide its right to live based on how it reacts to the coffee I give it.
Bonhoeffer
It is a point of no small amusement for me that modern Christians (men-worshipers) consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer to be a martyr. Martyr is one of the titular ascriptions given to this pious man by his popular biographer Eric Metaxas. I recently heard the word used gushingly in respect to the B-man by the former president of Trinity Western University. I hear it everywhere. It's utter bollocks. To be a martyr, you have to willingly go to your death for the sake of keeping to the testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You have to be willing to die rather than renounce the gospel. This is the formal and material criterion set by the earliest records of the concept of martyrdom, such as the account of Polycarp, which insists on το κατά το ευαγγέλιον μαρτύριον (martyrdoms which are in strict accordance with the gospel) or according to the will of God (1.1; 2.1). Christians who voluntarily provoked the authorities or gave themselves up for vainglorious ends were summarily dismissed as fiends (4).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not go to the gallows for Jesus Christ but for Germany. Nor did the Nazis punish him on account of his faith but on account of his sedition. Dietrich even admitted that he and his fellow conspirators, by their sedition, incurred the wrath and the judgment of God (for the relevant saying, see Elizabeth Raum's work, p.111). In other words, it was out of disobedience to Jesus Christ that Bonhoeffer went to his death. Oh jeez. Yet another ethicist and pelagian showing us his true weakling colours.
If we can term someone who willfully disobeys God for the sake of an lateral political grudge a martyr, the word is henceforth stripped of any value or truth whatsoever. Bonhoeffer witnessed to one thing, and one thing only: bad faith laced with copious amounts of self-delusion. To him I say: Go on up you baldhead!!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not go to the gallows for Jesus Christ but for Germany. Nor did the Nazis punish him on account of his faith but on account of his sedition. Dietrich even admitted that he and his fellow conspirators, by their sedition, incurred the wrath and the judgment of God (for the relevant saying, see Elizabeth Raum's work, p.111). In other words, it was out of disobedience to Jesus Christ that Bonhoeffer went to his death. Oh jeez. Yet another ethicist and pelagian showing us his true weakling colours.
If we can term someone who willfully disobeys God for the sake of an lateral political grudge a martyr, the word is henceforth stripped of any value or truth whatsoever. Bonhoeffer witnessed to one thing, and one thing only: bad faith laced with copious amounts of self-delusion. To him I say: Go on up you baldhead!!
Saturday, July 13, 2013
What we learn about conquest from Deuteronomy
"[The Rephaites] were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. The LORD destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place. The LORD had done the same for the descendants of Esau, who lived in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them. They drove them out and have lived in their place to this day." -Deut.2:21-22
First of all, this little passage places a delicious and strong lie on the modern and post-modern devils who love to speak of biblical theologies of conquest as "nationalistic self-legitimations" and " national stories which justify colonial oppression." Pathetic. Both the Ammonites and the Edomites were mortal enemies of Israel, as is amply testified by biblical literature and archaeological findings. If biblical theologies of conquest had anything to do with nationalism and self-legitimation, they would not go out of their way to speak of the LORD (Israel's so-called patron deity!!) assisting and helping ENEMIES in their territorial warfare. Nationalism falls to the ground as an appropriate model for understanding what is at work here.
Furthermore, this scripture tells us that you do not have to be a nation at peace with YHWH for Him to do battle for you. The modern Christian scholar, who wishes to have it known that he is a jew-everything and will adopt meaningless Jewish phrases like "Torah" (as if Rabbinic terminology is somehow appropriate and non-anachronistic for dealing with literature written centuries before there was such a thing as a sodding Rabbi) has yet to be "instructed" on this count. Deuteronomy is the eternal Word of God, given by the lips of Jesus the eternal Lord. We find in it boundless instruction. And in this particular word of God, we learn that it is the Way of YHWH to assist godless nations in conquest. He does this for His own purposes and ends. As such we cannot absolutely condemn conquest today when it occurs, for who are we- mere men- to determine whether the hand of our God might not be behind it?
First of all, this little passage places a delicious and strong lie on the modern and post-modern devils who love to speak of biblical theologies of conquest as "nationalistic self-legitimations" and " national stories which justify colonial oppression." Pathetic. Both the Ammonites and the Edomites were mortal enemies of Israel, as is amply testified by biblical literature and archaeological findings. If biblical theologies of conquest had anything to do with nationalism and self-legitimation, they would not go out of their way to speak of the LORD (Israel's so-called patron deity!!) assisting and helping ENEMIES in their territorial warfare. Nationalism falls to the ground as an appropriate model for understanding what is at work here.
Furthermore, this scripture tells us that you do not have to be a nation at peace with YHWH for Him to do battle for you. The modern Christian scholar, who wishes to have it known that he is a jew-everything and will adopt meaningless Jewish phrases like "Torah" (as if Rabbinic terminology is somehow appropriate and non-anachronistic for dealing with literature written centuries before there was such a thing as a sodding Rabbi) has yet to be "instructed" on this count. Deuteronomy is the eternal Word of God, given by the lips of Jesus the eternal Lord. We find in it boundless instruction. And in this particular word of God, we learn that it is the Way of YHWH to assist godless nations in conquest. He does this for His own purposes and ends. As such we cannot absolutely condemn conquest today when it occurs, for who are we- mere men- to determine whether the hand of our God might not be behind it?
The Fourth Crusade
"You vowed to liberate the Holy Land... [but] you rashly turned away from the purity of your vow when you took up arms not against Saracens but Christians... The Greek Church has seen in the Latins nothing other than an example of affliction and the works of Hell so that now it rightly detests them more than dogs." -Pope Innocent III (qtd in The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, xv).
The centuries in which the crusades unfolded are far too complex, topsy-turvy and amorphous to draw fingers out for pointing. Who to blame? Why? For which? And for what? Were not the Middle Ages as sprawling in their cultural and religious interpenetrations as any other day?
I disavow the modern and very folksy belief that the Crusades were a product of unadulterated evil. Land disputes are an epiphenomenon of being human in relation to other humans, and the desire to conquer is hardly more than venial. Why shouldn't I in the society of fellows much like me desire to take via blood spilling and warfare that which I see others of a different blood occupying? Does anyone bear an analytical a priori connection to the land they stand on? Nonsense!!! At best we can attempt some sort of historical relation between this piece of land and that group of inhabitants. But the contingencies abound in all historical premises. For instance, no group of sots "has always been there," thus there is no eternal synthesis which would confer on them the right to stay. Even Israel, avowed a very precise terrestrial allotment by the hands of the Creator himself, cannot venture such boasts. When it has, the Creator has rightly demonstrated to them their own contingency of ownership by rightly placing it in the hands of others. Beyond the Word of the Lord we may speak of far less connections. There is no Divine guarantee that anyone belongs anywhere. And since this is so; since the scriptures also venture not so much as a tittle of contemning towards militaristic conquest.....I strongly suggest that it is a matter of secular adiaphora whether a country or group of men should take up arms and forcefully acquire another country. It is all meaningless.
I cannot condemn the Crusaders for their political motives. Much less can I condemn "Christendom" for giving us the Crusades. Which Christendom damnit? The Greeks (solemnly recognized as a polis of Christians by the Latins)? But they were the victims of the Fourth! Shall we make them qua Christians apologize for that which raped, pillaged and destroyed them? What utter nonsense! One might as well ask Jews to offer apologies for the Holocaust! Shall we then condemn the Latins? But the Pope, representing all of the Latin Church, was fiercely angry with the Fourth Crusade!! Do we condemn the church that condemned the Crusade? Again, that makes no sense. Nor can we erect Muslims as the victims in this aeon-esque game. The land they contended to keep was no more their land than the Christians, and their hands were just as full of blood in gaining it. One must also point out how many awful things they did in penetrating the Iberian peninsula via Africa and pushing as far as Vienna via Asia Minor. If these muhammedan brutes were the victims, why does their activity parallel on all counts that of the imperial West?
The Crusades: I can blame no one and as of yet can extol no one. It was all a chasing after the wind.
The centuries in which the crusades unfolded are far too complex, topsy-turvy and amorphous to draw fingers out for pointing. Who to blame? Why? For which? And for what? Were not the Middle Ages as sprawling in their cultural and religious interpenetrations as any other day?
I disavow the modern and very folksy belief that the Crusades were a product of unadulterated evil. Land disputes are an epiphenomenon of being human in relation to other humans, and the desire to conquer is hardly more than venial. Why shouldn't I in the society of fellows much like me desire to take via blood spilling and warfare that which I see others of a different blood occupying? Does anyone bear an analytical a priori connection to the land they stand on? Nonsense!!! At best we can attempt some sort of historical relation between this piece of land and that group of inhabitants. But the contingencies abound in all historical premises. For instance, no group of sots "has always been there," thus there is no eternal synthesis which would confer on them the right to stay. Even Israel, avowed a very precise terrestrial allotment by the hands of the Creator himself, cannot venture such boasts. When it has, the Creator has rightly demonstrated to them their own contingency of ownership by rightly placing it in the hands of others. Beyond the Word of the Lord we may speak of far less connections. There is no Divine guarantee that anyone belongs anywhere. And since this is so; since the scriptures also venture not so much as a tittle of contemning towards militaristic conquest.....I strongly suggest that it is a matter of secular adiaphora whether a country or group of men should take up arms and forcefully acquire another country. It is all meaningless.
I cannot condemn the Crusaders for their political motives. Much less can I condemn "Christendom" for giving us the Crusades. Which Christendom damnit? The Greeks (solemnly recognized as a polis of Christians by the Latins)? But they were the victims of the Fourth! Shall we make them qua Christians apologize for that which raped, pillaged and destroyed them? What utter nonsense! One might as well ask Jews to offer apologies for the Holocaust! Shall we then condemn the Latins? But the Pope, representing all of the Latin Church, was fiercely angry with the Fourth Crusade!! Do we condemn the church that condemned the Crusade? Again, that makes no sense. Nor can we erect Muslims as the victims in this aeon-esque game. The land they contended to keep was no more their land than the Christians, and their hands were just as full of blood in gaining it. One must also point out how many awful things they did in penetrating the Iberian peninsula via Africa and pushing as far as Vienna via Asia Minor. If these muhammedan brutes were the victims, why does their activity parallel on all counts that of the imperial West?
The Crusades: I can blame no one and as of yet can extol no one. It was all a chasing after the wind.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Brian Mclaren is a Fucking Idiot.
"Standard, normative, historic, so-called orthodox Christian theology has been a theology of empire, a theology of colonialism, a theology that powerful people used as a tool to achieve and defend land theft, exploitation, domination, superiority, and privilege."
And, in true Mclarenesque form, an appended, smooth, mysterious evasion:
"Of course, [this] may be a false accusation. But it may not."
Via: http://sojo.net/blogs/2010/09/15/post-colonial-theology
At this point we know what side you are leaning towards Satan, please just grow even a modest pair of testicles and blaspheme openly.
Post-colonialist readings of history are a joke and a disaster. There is simply NO WAY you can even remotely understand the dogmatic formulations of the Incarnation of Christ, his hypostatic union, the communicatio idiomatum, the Trinity, the filioque, the doctrines of grace etc.. etc.. as "theologies of empire" or "colonialism." I would be darn tootin intrigued to hear someone seriously relate the doctrine that Christ's mind is both human and divine to land theft, or the eternal truth that the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and the Son as a device for exploiting black people. Seriously, who are these buffoons and whence did they acquire the power and privilege to exist without political persecution? I hope they are soon put to death.
Justin Martyr was scribbling his thoughts on the divinity of Christ and the authenticity of the gospel over against the Jews as Christians were getting bludgeoned by the empire. Athanasius was exiled and held in contempt by the world for his ideas, and Augustine had to work his ass off not to start an anti-Christian riot in Rome after Aleric stepped in and went apeshit.
Arise, Oh Lord, defend the honor of your word against these snakes.
And, in true Mclarenesque form, an appended, smooth, mysterious evasion:
"Of course, [this] may be a false accusation. But it may not."
Via: http://sojo.net/blogs/2010/09/15/post-colonial-theology
At this point we know what side you are leaning towards Satan, please just grow even a modest pair of testicles and blaspheme openly.
Post-colonialist readings of history are a joke and a disaster. There is simply NO WAY you can even remotely understand the dogmatic formulations of the Incarnation of Christ, his hypostatic union, the communicatio idiomatum, the Trinity, the filioque, the doctrines of grace etc.. etc.. as "theologies of empire" or "colonialism." I would be darn tootin intrigued to hear someone seriously relate the doctrine that Christ's mind is both human and divine to land theft, or the eternal truth that the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and the Son as a device for exploiting black people. Seriously, who are these buffoons and whence did they acquire the power and privilege to exist without political persecution? I hope they are soon put to death.
Justin Martyr was scribbling his thoughts on the divinity of Christ and the authenticity of the gospel over against the Jews as Christians were getting bludgeoned by the empire. Athanasius was exiled and held in contempt by the world for his ideas, and Augustine had to work his ass off not to start an anti-Christian riot in Rome after Aleric stepped in and went apeshit.
Arise, Oh Lord, defend the honor of your word against these snakes.
Psalm 18 got this, so why hasn't a single theologian these days ever stood up and said it?
"ο θεος μου αμωμος η οδος αυτου τα λογια κυριου πεπυρωμενα υπερασπιστης εστιν παντων των ελπιζοντων επ' αυτον" -Ps. 18:30
God can do no wrong, his word is flawless, and absolutely everyone who comes to him for refuge will find an unfailing and infinitely great Shield. In place of this scriptural truth we have a perfidious theology farting about which goes something like:
1. God is learning as She goes (I can understand the connection between femininity and imperfection, but seriously).
2. We as a church must apologize for the atrocious and horrific things god authorized, specifically in the Old Testament but also in the Haustefeln of the New.
3. The Bible is rife with errors on every page, except those pages as testify to what our itching post-modern ears wish to hear.
4. God is only a shield to good, obedient people.
I shake my head at the world.
God can do no wrong, his word is flawless, and absolutely everyone who comes to him for refuge will find an unfailing and infinitely great Shield. In place of this scriptural truth we have a perfidious theology farting about which goes something like:
1. God is learning as She goes (I can understand the connection between femininity and imperfection, but seriously).
2. We as a church must apologize for the atrocious and horrific things god authorized, specifically in the Old Testament but also in the Haustefeln of the New.
3. The Bible is rife with errors on every page, except those pages as testify to what our itching post-modern ears wish to hear.
4. God is only a shield to good, obedient people.
I shake my head at the world.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Hatred as a gift from God.
"There is a time to love and a time to hate." -Ecc. 3:8a
If this is indeed scripture, what Paul calls "ιερά γράμματα... τα δυνάμενά σε σοϕίσαι εις σωτηριαν δια πιστεως της εν Χριστω Ιησου" (2 Timothy 3:15), that which also completes the man of God in all righteousness (v.16); if this is scripture- and believe me reader, it is- then Christians are confronted with the sheer, Christological wisdom of hatred. It is wise, when the time calls, to hate. This is what our Lord wants of us.
Naturally Anabaptists will balk at the Old Testament, which usually only gets a hearing when it is in full accord with their dream-like, imaginary world of Jesuanic ethics. To them I quote the saying of Jesus found in Luke:
"If anyone comes to me and does not μισει (hate, despise) his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters....he cannot be my disciple." (Lk. 14:26)
Naturally the Mennonite is not faithful to this saying of Jesus; she only ever hates that which is praiseworthy and loves that which is full of blame. Yet she serves as a paragon for the universal situation of Law and that which it places us under: disobedience. If a person loves another, we should not be quick to praise them as pious exemplars of the meaning of Christianity. It so happens that the love we show our fellowmen is very often worthless in the eyes of God.
If this is indeed scripture, what Paul calls "ιερά γράμματα... τα δυνάμενά σε σοϕίσαι εις σωτηριαν δια πιστεως της εν Χριστω Ιησου" (2 Timothy 3:15), that which also completes the man of God in all righteousness (v.16); if this is scripture- and believe me reader, it is- then Christians are confronted with the sheer, Christological wisdom of hatred. It is wise, when the time calls, to hate. This is what our Lord wants of us.
Naturally Anabaptists will balk at the Old Testament, which usually only gets a hearing when it is in full accord with their dream-like, imaginary world of Jesuanic ethics. To them I quote the saying of Jesus found in Luke:
"If anyone comes to me and does not μισει (hate, despise) his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters....he cannot be my disciple." (Lk. 14:26)
Naturally the Mennonite is not faithful to this saying of Jesus; she only ever hates that which is praiseworthy and loves that which is full of blame. Yet she serves as a paragon for the universal situation of Law and that which it places us under: disobedience. If a person loves another, we should not be quick to praise them as pious exemplars of the meaning of Christianity. It so happens that the love we show our fellowmen is very often worthless in the eyes of God.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
The Global South in a Nutshell.
Extorting billions of dollars from the West via methods of pity and entitlement, and then training up "voices of the poor" to give "intellectual perspectives" on white corruption and Western evil. Useless third worlders....
The greatest argument for colonial domination is post-colonialism. As a representation of vast hordes of parasitic consciousnesses, it manifests a whole archipelago of nations who refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and waste the good graces proffered to them on savagery and indolence.
The greatest and last gift the West can offer to these thankless sots is total and utter neglect. No more apologies, no more foreign aid, no more partial treatment, no forgiveness on unpaid debts, and no trading relationships unless said countries agree to the terms that every other honest country has to submit to for the sake of such a thing as trade.
Many an intellect from Africa and Asia has dared to call the Northern lands, even WHITE PEOPLE, all sorts of demeaning things in the name of some purported larger project of `racial equality`. Fucking douchenards. In response they get a pat on the back and a free plane ride to speak in our universities, where we all poo poo, smile and nod, kowtow and mentally flagellate our own cultural backgrounds. What can this be but a bewitchment from a very uncivilised, very dull and dim network of savages? They should be flogged.
The greatest argument for colonial domination is post-colonialism. As a representation of vast hordes of parasitic consciousnesses, it manifests a whole archipelago of nations who refuse to take responsibility for themselves, and waste the good graces proffered to them on savagery and indolence.
The greatest and last gift the West can offer to these thankless sots is total and utter neglect. No more apologies, no more foreign aid, no more partial treatment, no forgiveness on unpaid debts, and no trading relationships unless said countries agree to the terms that every other honest country has to submit to for the sake of such a thing as trade.
Many an intellect from Africa and Asia has dared to call the Northern lands, even WHITE PEOPLE, all sorts of demeaning things in the name of some purported larger project of `racial equality`. Fucking douchenards. In response they get a pat on the back and a free plane ride to speak in our universities, where we all poo poo, smile and nod, kowtow and mentally flagellate our own cultural backgrounds. What can this be but a bewitchment from a very uncivilised, very dull and dim network of savages? They should be flogged.
Monday, June 24, 2013
A prayer that Post-Christendom crows cannot utter.
"...for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." 1 Tim. 2:2
Why does Paul say this? Because it "pleases God our Savior, who wants ALL MEN to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (v.3-4).
How often this second verse and its necessary connection to the first has been overlooked!! Paul is basically saying this: Pray for leaders; God wants them to be saved, and if they are saved they will be sure to use their authority to bring peace to the Christians. Why else would Paul go to the trouble of attaching to his prayer exhortation a theological description of God's salvific purposes? The movement of thought is very plain.
Why does Paul say this? Because it "pleases God our Savior, who wants ALL MEN to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (v.3-4).
How often this second verse and its necessary connection to the first has been overlooked!! Paul is basically saying this: Pray for leaders; God wants them to be saved, and if they are saved they will be sure to use their authority to bring peace to the Christians. Why else would Paul go to the trouble of attaching to his prayer exhortation a theological description of God's salvific purposes? The movement of thought is very plain.
Constraining Jesus by his Jewishness is very foolish indeed.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through Him..." -John 1:1-3a
It belongs to the person of Jesus, his essential person, to be the Eternal God. Jesus is no less Jesus throughout all of the countless eras existing before there was so much as a human conception of Israel.
amhn amhn legw umin prin abraam genesqai egw eimi
Before Abraham even comes into being, Jesus IS. Making Jewishness THE deciding factor of Jesus' being (and believe me, this seems to be every scholar's wet dream today) is nothing short of atheistic blindness. One might as well say that because Jesus walked the earth with corruptible flesh; his pre-existence must be defined according to the laws of corruptible flesh.
Jewishness is a mere cultural contingency. Culture cannot even be a static quality of humanity, for there is no situation wherein a human is not utterly free to renounce this or that culture in favor of another one. Thus we do not arrive at the irreducible person when we have gained a glimpse at his culture. This is an accidental quality, deserving of proper description and consideration but nonetheless accidental. In the case of Jesus, we can even lay aside these historical principles and simply bow before the fact that Jesus is not FIRST man, but very God of very God. The blind world and the blind christian intelligentsia can stick that in its pipe and smoke it.
It belongs to the person of Jesus, his essential person, to be the Eternal God. Jesus is no less Jesus throughout all of the countless eras existing before there was so much as a human conception of Israel.
amhn amhn legw umin prin abraam genesqai egw eimi
Before Abraham even comes into being, Jesus IS. Making Jewishness THE deciding factor of Jesus' being (and believe me, this seems to be every scholar's wet dream today) is nothing short of atheistic blindness. One might as well say that because Jesus walked the earth with corruptible flesh; his pre-existence must be defined according to the laws of corruptible flesh.
Jewishness is a mere cultural contingency. Culture cannot even be a static quality of humanity, for there is no situation wherein a human is not utterly free to renounce this or that culture in favor of another one. Thus we do not arrive at the irreducible person when we have gained a glimpse at his culture. This is an accidental quality, deserving of proper description and consideration but nonetheless accidental. In the case of Jesus, we can even lay aside these historical principles and simply bow before the fact that Jesus is not FIRST man, but very God of very God. The blind world and the blind christian intelligentsia can stick that in its pipe and smoke it.
It still baffles me that Constantine is hated on by Christians.
For what? Potentially creating a theocracy or a Christendom (although these two endeavors remain to be historically proven)? Why don't these slimeballs direct their wrath against, well, nearly every Old Testament King or political leader? Ah but yes, these were anointed by God for their tasks. Then the Word of God stands against your political theologies you fucking idiots.
That anyone by the name of Christian could reasonably lament the legalisation of Christianity, and the influence of the Christian gospel in the political sphere solidly BAFFLES me. I wish for these asswipes nothing better than a speedy deportation to a land and a situation where no such graces are offered, that they may have neither my prayers nor my concern as they are trampled and gnawed into pieces by the polis of their much-loved heathendom.
That anyone by the name of Christian could reasonably lament the legalisation of Christianity, and the influence of the Christian gospel in the political sphere solidly BAFFLES me. I wish for these asswipes nothing better than a speedy deportation to a land and a situation where no such graces are offered, that they may have neither my prayers nor my concern as they are trampled and gnawed into pieces by the polis of their much-loved heathendom.
Wittgenstein contradicts himself.
"Die Welt ist die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen, nicht der Dinge." (Tractatus 1.1)
So Wittgenstein insists that the world, rather than being a totality of things (der Dinge) is a totality of facts (der Tatsachen).
Very well then. So what exactly ARE facts, Mr. Wittgenstein? Ah, I see that you have defined them not a few lines later:
"Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten." (2)
So facts and the case (der Fall) are synonyms, and both can be defined as states of affairs. And what, finally, is a state of affairs?
"Der Sachverhalt ist eine Verbindung von Gegenständen. (Sachen, Dingen.)" (2.01)
States of affairs are combinations of Dingen; things. Ding Ding!! We have an answer!!! Facts are nothing other than states of affairs, which are nothing other than things!! Taking Mr. Wittgenstein at his own word, we may express his primordial proposition thus:
"The world is the totality of things, not of things."
Well done sir. In building a whole philosophy on the importance of expressing language meaningfully and sensibly, you have made a buffoon of yourself on the first page.
So Wittgenstein insists that the world, rather than being a totality of things (der Dinge) is a totality of facts (der Tatsachen).
Very well then. So what exactly ARE facts, Mr. Wittgenstein? Ah, I see that you have defined them not a few lines later:
"Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten." (2)
So facts and the case (der Fall) are synonyms, and both can be defined as states of affairs. And what, finally, is a state of affairs?
"Der Sachverhalt ist eine Verbindung von Gegenständen. (Sachen, Dingen.)" (2.01)
States of affairs are combinations of Dingen; things. Ding Ding!! We have an answer!!! Facts are nothing other than states of affairs, which are nothing other than things!! Taking Mr. Wittgenstein at his own word, we may express his primordial proposition thus:
"The world is the totality of things, not of things."
Well done sir. In building a whole philosophy on the importance of expressing language meaningfully and sensibly, you have made a buffoon of yourself on the first page.
Wittgenstein, I smack my head at you!
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." -Tractatus Illogico-Pseudo-Philosophicus 5.6
Idealistic nonsense. Language is but one concrete category of concepts, which in turn are but vessels or tools of consciousness as it stands to attention to meet the world. It is perfectly conceivable to imagine a richly contoured world (as richly contoured as our own) with very minute sets of language and very minute inventories of logic. This we would call the world of mystery. Moments of such a world meet us scattered and uncollected throughout our regular day. How often do you attempt to gather the words or the concepts to describe what has revealed itself to you but are unable? Is the revelation, for all that, limited to your paltry set of words? How foolish! We understand that the word mystery collapses into the revelation of the world itself; it crumbles before the thing. As a mere example, take the unveiling of a stunning vista of mountains while a hiker rounds the corner of a forested gendarme. Not even Wordsworth, were he this hiker, would be able to do proper justice to what stands before him, though he would assuredly try. But this very readily bespeaks a transcendence of the world over language. It meets our language and then dashes it to pieces.
The pernicious behavior of Wittgenstein transcends anything language could capture.
Idealistic nonsense. Language is but one concrete category of concepts, which in turn are but vessels or tools of consciousness as it stands to attention to meet the world. It is perfectly conceivable to imagine a richly contoured world (as richly contoured as our own) with very minute sets of language and very minute inventories of logic. This we would call the world of mystery. Moments of such a world meet us scattered and uncollected throughout our regular day. How often do you attempt to gather the words or the concepts to describe what has revealed itself to you but are unable? Is the revelation, for all that, limited to your paltry set of words? How foolish! We understand that the word mystery collapses into the revelation of the world itself; it crumbles before the thing. As a mere example, take the unveiling of a stunning vista of mountains while a hiker rounds the corner of a forested gendarme. Not even Wordsworth, were he this hiker, would be able to do proper justice to what stands before him, though he would assuredly try. But this very readily bespeaks a transcendence of the world over language. It meets our language and then dashes it to pieces.
The pernicious behavior of Wittgenstein transcends anything language could capture.
Monday, June 17, 2013
The Gnostics were right on one count.
"ή σαρξ ουκ ωϕελει ουδέν·" -Jesus (Jn.6:63b)
The flesh really does avail nothing.
To be sure, a psychoanalyst might have a day in paradise showing all of the divers ways in which Gnostics really did think that the flesh profited something. Irenaeus records in his first book Against Heresies not a few examples of Gnostic sects laying down all sorts of rules by which one may go to town and back with his body. Obviously the point of these libertinisms was to demonstrate a complete freedom from the flesh; to show that all of its lusts and activities were equally vain and could no longer touch on the future of the soul. The point, however, is not always the thought. I bet you the Gnostic church had a lot of horny individuals who would have taken up this doctrine and said, "Helllss Yes!!!!" It is these who loved their bodies after all.
Anyways, inasmuch as Gnostics formally recognized the incomparable truth of what Jesus said here, they were a step ahead of the church, which has always clung ferociously to a sort of natural bodily goodness, seeing in sinful flesh a likeness of the Divine.
The flesh really does avail nothing.
To be sure, a psychoanalyst might have a day in paradise showing all of the divers ways in which Gnostics really did think that the flesh profited something. Irenaeus records in his first book Against Heresies not a few examples of Gnostic sects laying down all sorts of rules by which one may go to town and back with his body. Obviously the point of these libertinisms was to demonstrate a complete freedom from the flesh; to show that all of its lusts and activities were equally vain and could no longer touch on the future of the soul. The point, however, is not always the thought. I bet you the Gnostic church had a lot of horny individuals who would have taken up this doctrine and said, "Helllss Yes!!!!" It is these who loved their bodies after all.
Anyways, inasmuch as Gnostics formally recognized the incomparable truth of what Jesus said here, they were a step ahead of the church, which has always clung ferociously to a sort of natural bodily goodness, seeing in sinful flesh a likeness of the Divine.
Who cares about the role of women in the Bible?
Really, who cares? They are just as trifling as men. The object of scriptural investigations is to apprehend the nature and purpose of God. Attempting an anthropology of scripture and then calling it a day is like counting a bundle of dead leaves on the side of a trail and calling it a hike. For goodness sakes.
Paul wasn't really a Jew.
I can't think of any veritable Jew who would call the totality of his heritage σκυβαλα (shit, rubbish, dung, excrement, waste, slime) (Phil.3:8). Nor can I imagine any scholars doing him a favor by focusing on those aspects of his past that he himself considers worthless as if those very aspects were THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS. Once again, behold the sheer stupidity of the modern scholar!
Paul is not a Jew. He is no more a Jew than I am a Mennonite, though I come from that background and flit about a few vestiges of its cultural σκυβαλα.
Paul is not a Jew. He is no more a Jew than I am a Mennonite, though I come from that background and flit about a few vestiges of its cultural σκυβαλα.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Coming out from the Mennonite Church.
It is difficult. I realized a few years ago that something was horribly wrong with the denomination, nay, the culture that I have belonged to since my birth. Since that time I have come to see the movement of Menninism as a false religion; as false as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. You can scarcely find a witness in the whole heretical lot of them who will stand up and testify that "τη γαρ χαριτι εστε σεσωσμενοι δια πιστεως. και τουτο ουκ εχ υμων, θεου δωρον. ουκ εξ εργων, ινα μη τις καυχησηται." (Eph.2:8). NO ONE STANDS FOR THIS. Mennonites, as a corporate whole, truly believe that they are saved by their faithful and righteous obedience to Jesus. God help them. They are worse than the Judaizers, who at least limited their soteriological requirements to circumcision and feast days.
I am left adrift, without a family, without a denomination or a body of believers to call my home. Like David on the run, I know not where to turn. This is the season of doubt. To be sure, I will always love Mennonites in the midst of my hatred and contempt. Hatred and love are not so averse as one might think. I love the school that I attend (Canadian Mennonite University) and look forward to continuing my studies there. I also have grown inexorably attached to certain Mennonite intellectuals, most especially Gordon Zerbe but also Sheila Klassen-Wiebe. These strike me as people whom God dotes on. I don't know how to describe it. I love them so much.
I am left adrift, without a family, without a denomination or a body of believers to call my home. Like David on the run, I know not where to turn. This is the season of doubt. To be sure, I will always love Mennonites in the midst of my hatred and contempt. Hatred and love are not so averse as one might think. I love the school that I attend (Canadian Mennonite University) and look forward to continuing my studies there. I also have grown inexorably attached to certain Mennonite intellectuals, most especially Gordon Zerbe but also Sheila Klassen-Wiebe. These strike me as people whom God dotes on. I don't know how to describe it. I love them so much.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Salubrious thoughts from Genesis
"Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." -Gen.3:16
I have heard blithe egalitarians attempt to wax subtle on the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive words of God. This is a convenient sophistry, for it enables the egalitarian to look on this troubling verse and say, "Ah but here God is not telling us how things must be how they will be." Once this has been settled they go on surreptitiously adding to their wickedness by suggesting that what God describes ought not to be, and finally (good pelagians that they are!) that it doesn't have to be like this at all.
I have no doubt in my mind that the above verse is a curse. It is a curse of God. And when God curses, it is no small thing. It creates precisely the wanton reality that He has uttered; immutably. This is shown quite clearly by the inability of the Israelites to enter Canaan after God swore that they would not; mauger their genuine repentance, mauger their seeking after the blessing with tears. The Word of the LORD stands firm in the heavens. Would that egalitarians could comprehend this!
What is the significance of the Genesis curse? Simply that women will always attempt to get the upper hand over their husbands, and that husbands will respond in kind by subduing them. A war has entered into the cosmos between male and female, without hope of armistice, without hope of abjuration, without hope of end. To be male with respect to the female means to be in conflict with the female. And vice versa. Feminism all too readily proves this point with its parasitic machinations.
I have heard blithe egalitarians attempt to wax subtle on the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive words of God. This is a convenient sophistry, for it enables the egalitarian to look on this troubling verse and say, "Ah but here God is not telling us how things must be how they will be." Once this has been settled they go on surreptitiously adding to their wickedness by suggesting that what God describes ought not to be, and finally (good pelagians that they are!) that it doesn't have to be like this at all.
I have no doubt in my mind that the above verse is a curse. It is a curse of God. And when God curses, it is no small thing. It creates precisely the wanton reality that He has uttered; immutably. This is shown quite clearly by the inability of the Israelites to enter Canaan after God swore that they would not; mauger their genuine repentance, mauger their seeking after the blessing with tears. The Word of the LORD stands firm in the heavens. Would that egalitarians could comprehend this!
What is the significance of the Genesis curse? Simply that women will always attempt to get the upper hand over their husbands, and that husbands will respond in kind by subduing them. A war has entered into the cosmos between male and female, without hope of armistice, without hope of abjuration, without hope of end. To be male with respect to the female means to be in conflict with the female. And vice versa. Feminism all too readily proves this point with its parasitic machinations.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Dualism lives on in reasonable philosophy.
"Now the body, whatever may be its function, appears first as the known. We can not therefore refer knowledge back to it or discuss it before we have defined knowing, nor can we derive knowing in its fundamental structure from the body in any way or manner whatsoever." -Sartre (Being and Nothingness, p.297 ET).
Very true! There is a distinction between knowledge and body. And as knowledge is merely one mode of consciousness, there is ultimately a primacy of consciousness over body and thus a greater distinction between the two. But what is this simple, self-evident truth of reflection; what is this elementary thesis but a return to dualism? The human subject is not a monad in the sense of an indistinguishable interpenetration of soul and body. Every time we say or think the concept "body" we are already cutting a void between ourselves and IT. The void becomes veritable; an ontological fact. And since this void is possible and perpetually common (how often consciousness posits its body throughout the course of its existence need not be demonstrated), it can never be reasonably said that soul and body are inseparable. I just fucking separated mine. Maybe the fact that you can't means you are a philistine.
It is a shame that the church's cache of intellectuals have lately attached themselves to monism with a ferocious provincialism. It is a shame because monism is a treachery and a falsehood, or, in the words of Mr. Karl Barth: "A supreme betrayal of religion."
Very true! There is a distinction between knowledge and body. And as knowledge is merely one mode of consciousness, there is ultimately a primacy of consciousness over body and thus a greater distinction between the two. But what is this simple, self-evident truth of reflection; what is this elementary thesis but a return to dualism? The human subject is not a monad in the sense of an indistinguishable interpenetration of soul and body. Every time we say or think the concept "body" we are already cutting a void between ourselves and IT. The void becomes veritable; an ontological fact. And since this void is possible and perpetually common (how often consciousness posits its body throughout the course of its existence need not be demonstrated), it can never be reasonably said that soul and body are inseparable. I just fucking separated mine. Maybe the fact that you can't means you are a philistine.
It is a shame that the church's cache of intellectuals have lately attached themselves to monism with a ferocious provincialism. It is a shame because monism is a treachery and a falsehood, or, in the words of Mr. Karl Barth: "A supreme betrayal of religion."
Capitalistic materialism and a common misunderstanding with respect to it.
The strawman: in materialism we attempt to find meaning by purchasing as many glamorous goods and services as we can. This is a sham because the material will never satisfy. A meaningful life can be gleaned through pursuing love, self-sacrifice, community endeavors and other such gaseous baloney.
Critics of materialism (here roughly defined as a lifestyle or philosophy which endeavors to acquire THINGS) are wrong in assuming that we seek meaning in purchase and acquisition. They are dead wrong. Meaning is the plaything; the idol of the delusional. It exists as much as the ghost of Christmas past exists. It exists like a pair of sexually appealing lingerie for overweight women exists. In other words, it doesn't exist. Life is not meaningful. In capitalism, which is the art of individual ownership of divers means to production and distribution, and its subsidiary: materialism, which is the art of multiplying private property by means of these previous instruments....we have no desire to attain to a meaningful status. We have renounced meaning from the get-go. We acknowledge that life is a vapour, a chasing after the wind, and that there is no possible way to escape from chasing after the wind. Thus, we attend to chasing after the wind all the more readily, for such is life, and we endeavor to live the life that is ours with vigour and joy. All of the things which spiritualists and socialists call "meaningless" (as if the word carried within itself an ethical dimension or a prohibition) we sweep up into our purview and take hold of. This is scriptural wisdom, for the sacred and unerring scriptures say:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" -Ecc.9:10
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work." -Ecc.2:10
"Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work- this is a gift of God." -Ecc.5:19
What is the evil which may be mentioned in this regard? "God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them. This is...a grievous evil." Ecc. 6:2
This is also precisely what the church of pietism and the socialists esteem as one: shame over one's possessions. They think they are doing a service to God in such devious business; but they are really doing the very opposite.
In conclusion, we do not buy and acquire materials to find meaning. We are wiser than that. We buy and acquire because the very act is meaningless, the very materials are meaningless, and we enjoy them as such.
Critics of materialism (here roughly defined as a lifestyle or philosophy which endeavors to acquire THINGS) are wrong in assuming that we seek meaning in purchase and acquisition. They are dead wrong. Meaning is the plaything; the idol of the delusional. It exists as much as the ghost of Christmas past exists. It exists like a pair of sexually appealing lingerie for overweight women exists. In other words, it doesn't exist. Life is not meaningful. In capitalism, which is the art of individual ownership of divers means to production and distribution, and its subsidiary: materialism, which is the art of multiplying private property by means of these previous instruments....we have no desire to attain to a meaningful status. We have renounced meaning from the get-go. We acknowledge that life is a vapour, a chasing after the wind, and that there is no possible way to escape from chasing after the wind. Thus, we attend to chasing after the wind all the more readily, for such is life, and we endeavor to live the life that is ours with vigour and joy. All of the things which spiritualists and socialists call "meaningless" (as if the word carried within itself an ethical dimension or a prohibition) we sweep up into our purview and take hold of. This is scriptural wisdom, for the sacred and unerring scriptures say:
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" -Ecc.9:10
"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work." -Ecc.2:10
"Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work- this is a gift of God." -Ecc.5:19
What is the evil which may be mentioned in this regard? "God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them. This is...a grievous evil." Ecc. 6:2
This is also precisely what the church of pietism and the socialists esteem as one: shame over one's possessions. They think they are doing a service to God in such devious business; but they are really doing the very opposite.
In conclusion, we do not buy and acquire materials to find meaning. We are wiser than that. We buy and acquire because the very act is meaningless, the very materials are meaningless, and we enjoy them as such.
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