So I was shaving my face this morning with Occam500 triple-blade, and I realized that I'm mighty fed up with all of these endless theories centering around JDEP. I'm gonna do something innovative, rash, and daring: I'm going to read the Torah with the assumption that it is speaking about events which actually happened in history. I'm going to assume that Moses had a hand in writing most of Deuteronomy, parts of Leviticus, Exodus and numbers. I'm going to assume that there really was an Exodus out of Egypt with next to 1 million people coming up out of Goshen, and I'm going to assume that there was a cosmic flood.
Why all these bizarre assumptions? Because I think that humans today are a bunch of idiots....half of these scholars can hardly tie their shoes in the morning much less appropriately handle antiquated documents..much less tell us a thing or two about scripture. To be sure, I am an idiot myself. But for that matter I'm not going to start publishing papers on Bible and Interpretation or pop up on CNN in the evening or write a commentary for Anchor Bible. In the words of Micah from Paranormal Activity: "I'm does with this shit."
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Some naive observations about James.
I'm not a James scholar. I'm a sinner, a wicked, feckless, depraved, evil person. I do not have wisdom from God. There's my prolegomena to this discussion.
I'm wondering why no one really reads the infamous justification passage in James in consequence, or possibly with the consequences of the passage directly behind it? In 2:1-13, specifically verses eight through thirteen, James gives us one of the most brilliant expositions of the nature of God's Law. First, and this is what the modern quasi-Pelagians love to fixate on, the Law of God is in effect for the Christian community. It is the royal law of liberty whose summative and binding principle is the flawless love of ones neighbor (2:8). Those who do not keep this principle in the Christian community are evildoers (2:9). But the very next statement is of particular interest for us here: For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it (2:10). Did you hear that? Stumbling at just one point does not mean for James (and in this case God) stumbling at just one point.....the nature of the law and its concrete demand is that one mere, trifling stumble means the whole of it is broken. The whole of it. Or in the words of James,' For he who said "Do not commit adultery" also said," Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.' Hear that? It is a strong either/or. It is God's All or Nothing. Insomuch as you stumble at any point of the Liberating Law which is certainly in effect and binding on all Christians, you have become a worthless lawbreaker in the eyes of God. He will not praise you because on Tuesday you had emotion A which prompted you to perform charity B to homeless person C. Why not? Because the day before you slandered, and the day before that you failed to obey your parents in every matter, and the day before that you failed to make the most of every opportunity afforded to you by the gracious God. These other points of stumbling have rendered your service of charity on Tuesday entirely worthless before God (guilty of breaking all of it).
Taking these words seriously, read through the passage on justification. Do you honestly believe that James is now suddenly reversing all of his thoughts, contradicting everything he just said? Do you now believe God has changed his mind and said," Hmf, I know I just said that I would judge the Christian's actions and speech based on my Law, and I know that I expressly declared that if he stumbles at any point of my commandments I will hold him as being a complete lawbreaker.....but man, that one deed he did really completes his faith. It really pleases me. I'm going to call this fella righteous by what he has done (cf. Jas 2:24)." No!
If our actions receive judgment from God's law, they are always lawless. We do not have any righteous deeds to complete our faith because all of them are worthless on account of our other stumblings. We have broken the whole law on account of a few trifles. James affirms this by saying in the following passage: "We all stumble in many ways." I take this to mean that for James, we..the Christians, are concrete law-breakers, TOTAL lawbreakers, and that none of our deeds nor our faith (2:19), which is really a satanic faith since it produces no act of law-fulfillment, can justify us. We cannot be justified by our deeds nor our faith. And the horrific thing is that we must be justified by our deeds and by our faith. WE MUST.
I think that what James is doing here (with 2:1-13 ever before us) is presenting the true condition of the Christian: As one who simultaneously MUST complete the whole of God's law (faith, speech and action) WITHOUT a single spot of sin, and CANNOT render the faith, speech and action that would ONLY EVER justify him.
Righteous deeds are the life force that sustain faith (2:26). They give life to faith like the spirit of man gives life to his body. And yet if the law of God be true (and it certainly is cf. Rom.2:20), if it be the litmus test of our justice as Christians before God (and it is cf. Rom. 2:13), and if it judges ALL of our righteous deeds as worthless on account of the other points of the law in which we have stumbled (which we have in many ways cf. Jas.3:2) then the situation of the Christian before God, today, is that HE HAS NO DEEDS WHICH GIVE LIFE TO HIS FAITH. And he will never have deeds that perform this work of justifying faith so long as he continues to stumble.
The perfect dialectic of James can be stated thus: It is by faith and deeds alone that man must be justified. Man cannot be justified by faith and deeds because God's holy and binding law shows that he has neither.
If this does not open up a vast and beautiful doorway to the work of Christ on the cross, His resurrection and the procession of his Spirit for ALL talk of justification (both Jamesian and Pauline), I know not what would.
The only consequence of reading James' talk on justification is that the truly saved man is a "believer in our glorious Lord Jesus Messiah" (2:1). He is saved because the righteous deeds of Christ are HIS. He is justified by what he does because what he has done and what he does is what Christ has done and does (1 Cor.1:29-31). Christ says to this man," This is my body given for you...this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." And the man takes and eats, and in the face of this righteousness can only ever say Amen, Maranatha!
The consequence of taking James seriously can be put in the form of a conversation.
Joe: "How are you saved by God?"
Darcy: "By faith and good deeds working together. But mainly by doing good deeds."
Joe: "Really? You have to do good works to be saved?"
Darcy: "Absolutely. And they have to be truly good. They have to be backed by a complete fulfillment of everything which is commanded to be good, without stumbling on any point."
Joe: "How then can anyone be saved?"
Darcy: "With man this is always impossible. But not with God. He sent His Son onto this earth, who poured out His life as a fragrant offering to God on our behalf. And through this righteous act, faith was discharged to us from the hand of the Father, and this righteous act became ours. I am saved by faith and good deeds because Christ's faith and Christ's deeds are truly and forever MINE."
I'm wondering why no one really reads the infamous justification passage in James in consequence, or possibly with the consequences of the passage directly behind it? In 2:1-13, specifically verses eight through thirteen, James gives us one of the most brilliant expositions of the nature of God's Law. First, and this is what the modern quasi-Pelagians love to fixate on, the Law of God is in effect for the Christian community. It is the royal law of liberty whose summative and binding principle is the flawless love of ones neighbor (2:8). Those who do not keep this principle in the Christian community are evildoers (2:9). But the very next statement is of particular interest for us here: For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it (2:10). Did you hear that? Stumbling at just one point does not mean for James (and in this case God) stumbling at just one point.....the nature of the law and its concrete demand is that one mere, trifling stumble means the whole of it is broken. The whole of it. Or in the words of James,' For he who said "Do not commit adultery" also said," Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.' Hear that? It is a strong either/or. It is God's All or Nothing. Insomuch as you stumble at any point of the Liberating Law which is certainly in effect and binding on all Christians, you have become a worthless lawbreaker in the eyes of God. He will not praise you because on Tuesday you had emotion A which prompted you to perform charity B to homeless person C. Why not? Because the day before you slandered, and the day before that you failed to obey your parents in every matter, and the day before that you failed to make the most of every opportunity afforded to you by the gracious God. These other points of stumbling have rendered your service of charity on Tuesday entirely worthless before God (guilty of breaking all of it).
Taking these words seriously, read through the passage on justification. Do you honestly believe that James is now suddenly reversing all of his thoughts, contradicting everything he just said? Do you now believe God has changed his mind and said," Hmf, I know I just said that I would judge the Christian's actions and speech based on my Law, and I know that I expressly declared that if he stumbles at any point of my commandments I will hold him as being a complete lawbreaker.....but man, that one deed he did really completes his faith. It really pleases me. I'm going to call this fella righteous by what he has done (cf. Jas 2:24)." No!
If our actions receive judgment from God's law, they are always lawless. We do not have any righteous deeds to complete our faith because all of them are worthless on account of our other stumblings. We have broken the whole law on account of a few trifles. James affirms this by saying in the following passage: "We all stumble in many ways." I take this to mean that for James, we..the Christians, are concrete law-breakers, TOTAL lawbreakers, and that none of our deeds nor our faith (2:19), which is really a satanic faith since it produces no act of law-fulfillment, can justify us. We cannot be justified by our deeds nor our faith. And the horrific thing is that we must be justified by our deeds and by our faith. WE MUST.
I think that what James is doing here (with 2:1-13 ever before us) is presenting the true condition of the Christian: As one who simultaneously MUST complete the whole of God's law (faith, speech and action) WITHOUT a single spot of sin, and CANNOT render the faith, speech and action that would ONLY EVER justify him.
Righteous deeds are the life force that sustain faith (2:26). They give life to faith like the spirit of man gives life to his body. And yet if the law of God be true (and it certainly is cf. Rom.2:20), if it be the litmus test of our justice as Christians before God (and it is cf. Rom. 2:13), and if it judges ALL of our righteous deeds as worthless on account of the other points of the law in which we have stumbled (which we have in many ways cf. Jas.3:2) then the situation of the Christian before God, today, is that HE HAS NO DEEDS WHICH GIVE LIFE TO HIS FAITH. And he will never have deeds that perform this work of justifying faith so long as he continues to stumble.
The perfect dialectic of James can be stated thus: It is by faith and deeds alone that man must be justified. Man cannot be justified by faith and deeds because God's holy and binding law shows that he has neither.
If this does not open up a vast and beautiful doorway to the work of Christ on the cross, His resurrection and the procession of his Spirit for ALL talk of justification (both Jamesian and Pauline), I know not what would.
The only consequence of reading James' talk on justification is that the truly saved man is a "believer in our glorious Lord Jesus Messiah" (2:1). He is saved because the righteous deeds of Christ are HIS. He is justified by what he does because what he has done and what he does is what Christ has done and does (1 Cor.1:29-31). Christ says to this man," This is my body given for you...this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." And the man takes and eats, and in the face of this righteousness can only ever say Amen, Maranatha!
The consequence of taking James seriously can be put in the form of a conversation.
Joe: "How are you saved by God?"
Darcy: "By faith and good deeds working together. But mainly by doing good deeds."
Joe: "Really? You have to do good works to be saved?"
Darcy: "Absolutely. And they have to be truly good. They have to be backed by a complete fulfillment of everything which is commanded to be good, without stumbling on any point."
Joe: "How then can anyone be saved?"
Darcy: "With man this is always impossible. But not with God. He sent His Son onto this earth, who poured out His life as a fragrant offering to God on our behalf. And through this righteous act, faith was discharged to us from the hand of the Father, and this righteous act became ours. I am saved by faith and good deeds because Christ's faith and Christ's deeds are truly and forever MINE."
Halloween is almost here, and what's Jim West up to?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hAoZaxU0kUNo good apparently. Keep your kids out of the fields for a few days.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Background Commentary? Yeah Right.
Sitting before me is the hefty IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by the respected Bible scholar Craig Keener. I took it out from the library yesterday, and was fairly excited about reading some of it. If it's anything like the Old Testament volume by Walton & co. then I'm in! So where do I flip to? Romans chapter nine. Is it possible to give some solid background info on this controversial passage? Can we get a glimpse into Paul's theological worldview without immediately jumping into the calvinist/arminian debate of the last few centuries? The mic is yours Craig:
"Most Jewish people believed that their people as a whole had been chosen for salvation; they viewed predestination in corporate, ethnic terms." False. The first volume of the Justification and Variegated Nomism series has sent that sweeping generalisation into the depths of Sheol. Nevertheless, Keener wrote this volume before JVN's (elementary) investigations into Second Temple Judaism and its various ideological threads. Besides, this still kind of qualifies as background knowledge, even if it's bad background knowledge. Moving on...
"God can sovereignly choose to elect whom he wills, and that need not be on the basis of descent from Abraham. God's sovereignty means that he is free to choose on another basis than his covenant with ethnic Israel (3:1-8); he can choose on the basis of (foreknown) faith in Christ (4:11-13; 8:29-30)." p.433.
Tricky move there Keener. Very shrewd. But the text doesn't say that. The text says," It does not, therefore, depend on mans desire or effort, but on God's mercy." That is the statement which holds together the rest of the passage. Or is faith in Christ something entirely different than the desire or effort to come to God? Keener answers this a page over: "...trusting God, who transforms the heart. Although the term "faith" is rare in translations of the Old Testament...Paul believes that the idea permeates the Old Testament, where God's people must respond to his grace from their hearts." p.434. Oopsies. That sounds alot like desire.
I find it interesting that Keener uses the name of "Background Commentary", not only to not exegete Romans 9, nor to give us any sound background knowledge of why God does not consider desire or effort, good or bad in his electing purposes, but also to give us an aside into his own arminian soteriology. Comb through the text of Romans 9 yourself and tell me where it says that God elects people based on an advanced knowledge of whether or not they will put their faith in Christ. Find anything? Didn't think so.
I get a kick out of reading all these modern sophists who blabber on and on about "fresh perspectives on Paul" that avoid the pitfalls of "anachronistic" readings of his Romans such as those performed through the lens of a calvinist/armian polemic.....before proceeding to give us a very basic arminian or calvinistic exposition.
Look, I'm not asking you scholars to go all calvinist on me in your reading of Romans 9. But if you are going to claim "background" insight into this text, will you please make the effort to say something that hasn't already been said by arminian exegetes for the last 300 years? And can you please try to make it remotely ST Judaistic? Please?
"Most Jewish people believed that their people as a whole had been chosen for salvation; they viewed predestination in corporate, ethnic terms." False. The first volume of the Justification and Variegated Nomism series has sent that sweeping generalisation into the depths of Sheol. Nevertheless, Keener wrote this volume before JVN's (elementary) investigations into Second Temple Judaism and its various ideological threads. Besides, this still kind of qualifies as background knowledge, even if it's bad background knowledge. Moving on...
"God can sovereignly choose to elect whom he wills, and that need not be on the basis of descent from Abraham. God's sovereignty means that he is free to choose on another basis than his covenant with ethnic Israel (3:1-8); he can choose on the basis of (foreknown) faith in Christ (4:11-13; 8:29-30)." p.433.
Tricky move there Keener. Very shrewd. But the text doesn't say that. The text says," It does not, therefore, depend on mans desire or effort, but on God's mercy." That is the statement which holds together the rest of the passage. Or is faith in Christ something entirely different than the desire or effort to come to God? Keener answers this a page over: "...trusting God, who transforms the heart. Although the term "faith" is rare in translations of the Old Testament...Paul believes that the idea permeates the Old Testament, where God's people must respond to his grace from their hearts." p.434. Oopsies. That sounds alot like desire.
I find it interesting that Keener uses the name of "Background Commentary", not only to not exegete Romans 9, nor to give us any sound background knowledge of why God does not consider desire or effort, good or bad in his electing purposes, but also to give us an aside into his own arminian soteriology. Comb through the text of Romans 9 yourself and tell me where it says that God elects people based on an advanced knowledge of whether or not they will put their faith in Christ. Find anything? Didn't think so.
I get a kick out of reading all these modern sophists who blabber on and on about "fresh perspectives on Paul" that avoid the pitfalls of "anachronistic" readings of his Romans such as those performed through the lens of a calvinist/armian polemic.....before proceeding to give us a very basic arminian or calvinistic exposition.
Look, I'm not asking you scholars to go all calvinist on me in your reading of Romans 9. But if you are going to claim "background" insight into this text, will you please make the effort to say something that hasn't already been said by arminian exegetes for the last 300 years? And can you please try to make it remotely ST Judaistic? Please?
Friday, October 15, 2010
Alister McGrath gets bitten by a feminist zombie.
'"God reveals himself. He reveals himself through himself. He reveals himself." With these words (which I have found to be impossible to translate into inclusive language), Barth sets up the revelational framework which leads to the formation of the doctrine of the Trinity.'
-Alister McGrath. Christian Theology (260).
No need to apologize Mr. Mcgrath. Karl Barth didn't feel the need to apologize, and his books will be floating around alot longer than any of the garbage feminist theology being published today. Or should I speak of Barth in inclusive language to be fair to all of you insecure, wretched women? When Barth spoke of Barthself to the ladies, Barth referred to the Barth-head as if Barth were a neuter. Does that make you feel better? I mean, you obviously have no qualms giving God a gender change, so what is a little human being?
No you evil demon women...I'm not going to neuter God to make you happy.
I'm not going to apologize for speaking about God in a way scripture feels perfectly vindicated in speaking. I'll let Jesus answer this one for me:
When you pray, say: 'Father....' Lk 11:2.
Get over it. God is masculine. God is a He. Not a she. A He. God is our Father. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son. I recognize that these words are mere trifles for our feminist-zombified culture, but to be perfectly frank...I don't give a shit.
Did you hear that feminists? I don't.....give....a.......shit.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
A history of theology in the context of lawn-mowing.
So I was cutting the grass this evening and pondering what various theologians would say if they were faced with the task of snipping the glumes. Here is the product of my discoveries:
Benny Hinn: I speak to this lawn now and I claim the promises and I tell it to be mowed! (With credit to Acidri for developing the concept of Word-Faith lawn-mowing)
Ben Witherington III: I know that God has justified me by grace and all that, but He actually expects me now to mow this lawn and to do a good job, or I'll pay for it on judgment day.
John Agricola: Christ is the end of the law, so I'll skip this job and do something fun!
Martin Luther: No matter how cheerfully and skillfully I mow this lawn, it is still a damnable and unworthy work!
John Calvin: I will mow this lawn, but I can never really be sure that I was the man for the job.
Menno Simons: Whose the freak that let this sward grow so long? Excommunication time.
Irenaeus: The whole process; trimming, bagging, dumping, weed-wacking...the whole of it will recapitulate the general situation of all lawn-mowers out there.
Ben Myers: Isn't Karl Barth just fantastic?!!!
Jim West: Take care of it yourself Doris! I'm malgabbing on my blog!
Thomas Aquinas: Aut viam inveniam aut faciam! Causa latet, vis est notissima.
Reginald of Piperno: You're right Thomas. All of your work thus far really has been straw.
Marcion: The previous lawn-mower was an evil s.o.b. Fortunately we can now justify a replacement.
Velentinus: From the mystery of the Ogdoad and Duodecad comes an aeon who can rescue us from the material evil of this chore!
Gerhard Von Rad: There is both 'eine Wiese mähen' and 'Heil-eine Wiese mähen'!
Rudolf Bultmann: This grass made such a profound impression on the neighborhood. I admit that it was ripped up and burned, but what really matters is that it lives on in the witness of those who first beheld it.
Karl Barth: Nelly, there is no talk of must here. You may mow the lawn.
Renate Kobler: Hold on, aren't you forgetting Charlotte Kirschbaum? She submitted to this patriarchal swinery as well.
Suzanne Selinger: To be honest, the only realistic response I can make to the subject of any woman having to do this sheit is anger.
Tom Wright: Forget the way it's been done for the past 2,000 years. What we really need is a fresh perspective on lawn care. All of us can take part in putting the world to rights if we keep the grass trimmed my way. Not Luther's way. MY WAY.
Pelagius: I'm sure thankful all those fella's from the New Perspective on Paul are here to help me. Even though I don't need their help. Really. I don't.
Kierkegaard: Through the crisis of my subjective existential sweating I can perceive the objectivity of my work!
Danish peasant: Your mow-job objectively sucks!
Kierkegaard: Leap of faith bro. Blind. Leap. Of. Faith.
Richard Foster: If I center myself appropriately, even cutting the grass can become a sacrament!
Hans Kung: Infallible Lawn-mowing? A Critique.
Schleiermacher: When I smell the grass and hear the humming of the motor and see the beauty of the shrubberies, my feeling of absolute despondence transforms into an experience of inner connection to the nexus of yardwork that unites us all.
Melchior Hoffman: I'd like to. Really, I would. But I'm in prison on charges of blasphemy and sedition.
Arius: Lawn-trimmers simply cannot be the Master of the house. They are lesser beings.
Emil Brunner: I'm really starting to think there's a point of contact here somewhere.
Karl Barth: Nein! From Italy with love (p.s. enjoy the chores suckaaa!)
Pope Leo: Exsurge Lawne Mowere!
Yoder: Don't get the idea that this job has no ramifications for the rest of the world!
John Piper: Even this pathetically menial, wretched, jejune, banal, fetid task can become a discipline of joy!
Scofield: Sure I'll mow the lawn......in a million years! AHAHAHAHA.
Jack Van Impe: Screw that, its gonna be today!!! Its gonna be today!!!!
Immanuel Kant: I will not replace that divet unless I can also will that my maxim become a universal law of divet-replacement.
Sartre: The Being-For-Itself has been confronted by the hell of the existence of another being-for-itself (ahem....Simone) which has given the Look that signifies its concrete demand that the lawn be mowed. The Being-For-Itself is confronted by the facticity of its being, plunged into the nausea of the knowledge of its powerlessness to say whether or not it shall will to obey this demand in the future.
Heidegger: Being-in-the-midst-of-the-world blows chunks. Where's a good Jew when you need one?!
Richard Dawkins: Unless I have scientific proof that there is someone behind this job, I won't do it. I'll even write whole books against doing it.
Christopher Hitchins: All lawn-mowers are noisy and violent. Therefore God does not exist.
Sam Harris: [Insert random, mind-numbing pseudo-intellectual balbutiations]
Edit: With thanks to Kim Fabricius for alerting me as to what Bill Clinton has to say: That was one fine mow-job.
Benny Hinn: I speak to this lawn now and I claim the promises and I tell it to be mowed! (With credit to Acidri for developing the concept of Word-Faith lawn-mowing)
Ben Witherington III: I know that God has justified me by grace and all that, but He actually expects me now to mow this lawn and to do a good job, or I'll pay for it on judgment day.
John Agricola: Christ is the end of the law, so I'll skip this job and do something fun!
Martin Luther: No matter how cheerfully and skillfully I mow this lawn, it is still a damnable and unworthy work!
John Calvin: I will mow this lawn, but I can never really be sure that I was the man for the job.
Menno Simons: Whose the freak that let this sward grow so long? Excommunication time.
Irenaeus: The whole process; trimming, bagging, dumping, weed-wacking...the whole of it will recapitulate the general situation of all lawn-mowers out there.
Ben Myers: Isn't Karl Barth just fantastic?!!!
Jim West: Take care of it yourself Doris! I'm malgabbing on my blog!
Thomas Aquinas: Aut viam inveniam aut faciam! Causa latet, vis est notissima.
Reginald of Piperno: You're right Thomas. All of your work thus far really has been straw.
Marcion: The previous lawn-mower was an evil s.o.b. Fortunately we can now justify a replacement.
Velentinus: From the mystery of the Ogdoad and Duodecad comes an aeon who can rescue us from the material evil of this chore!
Gerhard Von Rad: There is both 'eine Wiese mähen' and 'Heil-eine Wiese mähen'!
Rudolf Bultmann: This grass made such a profound impression on the neighborhood. I admit that it was ripped up and burned, but what really matters is that it lives on in the witness of those who first beheld it.
Karl Barth: Nelly, there is no talk of must here. You may mow the lawn.
Renate Kobler: Hold on, aren't you forgetting Charlotte Kirschbaum? She submitted to this patriarchal swinery as well.
Suzanne Selinger: To be honest, the only realistic response I can make to the subject of any woman having to do this sheit is anger.
Tom Wright: Forget the way it's been done for the past 2,000 years. What we really need is a fresh perspective on lawn care. All of us can take part in putting the world to rights if we keep the grass trimmed my way. Not Luther's way. MY WAY.
Pelagius: I'm sure thankful all those fella's from the New Perspective on Paul are here to help me. Even though I don't need their help. Really. I don't.
Kierkegaard: Through the crisis of my subjective existential sweating I can perceive the objectivity of my work!
Danish peasant: Your mow-job objectively sucks!
Kierkegaard: Leap of faith bro. Blind. Leap. Of. Faith.
Richard Foster: If I center myself appropriately, even cutting the grass can become a sacrament!
Hans Kung: Infallible Lawn-mowing? A Critique.
Schleiermacher: When I smell the grass and hear the humming of the motor and see the beauty of the shrubberies, my feeling of absolute despondence transforms into an experience of inner connection to the nexus of yardwork that unites us all.
Melchior Hoffman: I'd like to. Really, I would. But I'm in prison on charges of blasphemy and sedition.
Arius: Lawn-trimmers simply cannot be the Master of the house. They are lesser beings.
Emil Brunner: I'm really starting to think there's a point of contact here somewhere.
Karl Barth: Nein! From Italy with love (p.s. enjoy the chores suckaaa!)
Pope Leo: Exsurge Lawne Mowere!
Yoder: Don't get the idea that this job has no ramifications for the rest of the world!
John Piper: Even this pathetically menial, wretched, jejune, banal, fetid task can become a discipline of joy!
Scofield: Sure I'll mow the lawn......in a million years! AHAHAHAHA.
Jack Van Impe: Screw that, its gonna be today!!! Its gonna be today!!!!
Immanuel Kant: I will not replace that divet unless I can also will that my maxim become a universal law of divet-replacement.
Sartre: The Being-For-Itself has been confronted by the hell of the existence of another being-for-itself (ahem....Simone) which has given the Look that signifies its concrete demand that the lawn be mowed. The Being-For-Itself is confronted by the facticity of its being, plunged into the nausea of the knowledge of its powerlessness to say whether or not it shall will to obey this demand in the future.
Heidegger: Being-in-the-midst-of-the-world blows chunks. Where's a good Jew when you need one?!
Richard Dawkins: Unless I have scientific proof that there is someone behind this job, I won't do it. I'll even write whole books against doing it.
Christopher Hitchins: All lawn-mowers are noisy and violent. Therefore God does not exist.
Sam Harris: [Insert random, mind-numbing pseudo-intellectual balbutiations]
Edit: With thanks to Kim Fabricius for alerting me as to what Bill Clinton has to say: That was one fine mow-job.
An excellant addition, Mr. Fabricius.
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