Predisposed to Rule

crown A question often asked about the Adam and Eve story is: Why did they fall? And why so quickly? If all was perfect and wonderful, why did they fall at all?

The answer usually given revolves around free will. God wanted them to truly love Him, and they couldn’t do that without free will. Okay, fine, they did have free will. But that doesn’t answer the question of why they chose to fall.

Free will is like gravity. Gravity is a powerful force in the universe, and it effects everything. But, when compared to other forces, gravity is relatively weak. Free will is like that – it is a force in your life, but it is weak compared to other forces in your life.

For example, take two men: one is an alcoholic who hasn’t had a drink in three days; the other has only tasted alcohol once and it nearly made him puke – he hates it. Lock both men in a room containing only a full bottle of whiskey. Both men have free will – they can both choose to drink or not to drink, but we all know which man will drink. One man is predisposed to drink while the other is not. The force predisposing the man to drink is stronger than his free will. That doesn’t mean he can’t choose not to drink; it just means he probably will choose to drink. That’s an imperfect example of course, but it helps us to understand why Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

What was the Tree of Knowledge? Read 1 Kings 3:6-9:

“And Solomon said: ‘You have shown great mercy to Your servant David my father, because he walked before You in truth, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with You; You have continued this great kindness for him, and You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king instead of my father David, but I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?'”

Also read 2 Samuel 14:17; Deuteronomy 1:39; Hebrews 5:12-14. All these passages show us that a knowledge of good and evil (the ability to discern and judge between good and evil) is a sign of maturity and kingly rule.

Just as the alcoholic is predisposed to choose to drink, Adam and Eve were predisposed to choose to rule. It was not a bad thing for them to want to do this, God created them that way (Genesis 1:26). But, to rule requires wisdom – an ability to discern good from evil. Adam and Eve, at the beginning, were like little children and not ready to to rule fully (Deut. 1:39). God did start them on the path of rule in the confines of the garden, but they had to mature to a point where they could rule outside of the garden.

Enter the serpent. Who was this serpent? I believe it was simply Satan in his naturally created form. Not all angels look alike, it would seem, and not all angels resemble men. The Cherubim and Seraphim are mighty dragon-like angels (Seraphim means “fiery serpent” in Hebrew). Satan himself is called a dragon in the book of Revelation. And why was the serpent there? Well perhaps the serpent, not yet fallen himself, was sent to Adam and Eve to be a tutor, a teacher, to show them how to rule. This would mean that Adam, Eve, and Satan all fell into sin at the same time. There’s no biblical reason to believe that Satan and the angels existed for millions of years before the creation (if there was such a thing as “years” before the creation), and that at some point in that “before-time” Satan fell.

God told Adam and Eve to increase and multiply and to fill the whole earth. Perhaps they needed a tutor who was a crafty beast from the field/wilderness (outside of the garden) to teach them what the rest of the world was like. We don’t know how long the serpent spoke to Eve, but at some point in the conversation, I believe, Satan realized what God had planned for mankind (to rule) and he became jealous.

Satan did not fall because he wanted to be like God, he fell because he wanted to be like Adam. Adam fell because he wanted to be like God too quickly.

Notice that the worst of the punishments fell on the serpent (Gen. 3:14-19), which means that he was the most responsible for the fall. It also means that he was not in the same category as Adam and Eve. God promised salvation to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15b), but not to the serpent.

The serpent understood that to cause Adam and Eve to fall he would need to tempt them to enter into their rule prematurely. The Tree of Knowledge was off limits to Adam and Eve, but not permanently. They would, over time, mature into the ability to eat of it. But the serpent knew that they were predisposed to rule and that that force could be used to overcome their free will to simply obey God. And he was right.

Jesus was also tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1-11) – and in the same way as Adam and Eve, although no longer in the safety of the garden but in the wilderness itself.

Jesus came to rule (Isaiah 9:6-7), and Satan offered Him a short cut. Jesus truly was tempted to give in to Satan. He desired what Satan was offering. Jesus was, too, predisposed to rule. But, being the first mature man, He did not give in and chose to obey God first. Jesus, being the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-49), obeyed God and made the way for all of us to be restored to our true purpose: to rule.

Adam and Eve’s great mistake then was not a desire to know good and evil, or a desire to be like God (those are good things), but rather, their great mistake was not trusting God and not obeying Him. Our predispositions may be stronger than our will, but our obedience to God must be stronger than all.

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” ~John 14:15

Christianity V. Mythology

skeletons If you read about or listen to the history of an organization, institution, nation, or religion, and it’s all great and glorious, without anything negative, and its failures are erased from memory, it is mythology.

“All secular societies have a skeleton in their closet. Even family genealogies usually omit the unpleasant ancestors and tell fairy tales in their stead.

“Christianity, on the other hand, took the unpleasantness for granted: in place of a pedigree from a mythical ancestor it put original sin inherited from Adam. And resolutely, it began in the midst of time, not in a mythical fog. Against all deathless myths and hopeless cycles the price of a living future is to admit death in our lives and overcome it. This is the supreme gift of Christianity; it showed that the fear of death need not force man into the narrow cycle of any given community. In place of pagan dividedness it created a universal pedigree for man that transcends all partial ends and beginnings, and measures history from the end of time.”*

* Excerpt from The Christian Future by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, pg. 65

Some Atheist Brief Book Reviews

All God Worshippers Are Mad

A short and stupid book. I give it one star out of five because it was only $1.99 on Kindle. I can’t decide if the book was written for 12 year olds, or if it was written by a 12 year old. For example… His first argument against God is basically summed up as: “In order for God to create the space/time universe, God’s existence can’t depend on space/time. My human brain can’t comprehend that. Therefore there is no God. Booyah!”

Why I Believed

He’s got a couple of decent Dostoevsky-type arguments against faith/God, but most of what he says follows a “I just don’t want to believe anymore” kind of thinking. Christianity is a faith which requires engagement. If you choose not to engage it you will grow cold towards it.

Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes

I’ll come back to this book for the language sections. Everett is a talented linguist. He had no business being a missionary though. I don’t think he ever fully understood what Christianity is. His descriptions of the faith show he never moved beyond a Sunday-school understanding of it.

God Needs to Go

It’s hard to get into one of these books when it starts out with a straw-man argument; which this book does. In fact, this book is one straw-man after another — falsely representing Christianity and then attacking that false representation.

He makes a couple good points against prayer (or, what I would call the misuse of prayer).

Atheists often argue that morality is based on the evolved sense of the common good. While that might be true for economy, it is not true for morality. Morality is not the same across the world. A westerner being accepting of a transgender person is doing so because he believes it is loving to do so. That belief of loving acceptance stems directly from Christian morality. A Buddhist in Thailand who is accepting of a transgender person is not doing so out of love; his acceptance and noninterference is based on karmic justice. A Buddhist would be less inclined to help the poor for that very same reason, whereas a westerner would be more inclined to help the poor based on Christian morality.

The author states: “Except for certain religiously based societies, many of the secular nations display a sense of right and wrong that has allowed them advance in a positive way.” (page 23) “Certain religiously based societies” — every society is a religiously based society, including the ‘post-Christian’ west. A society’s morality is tied to its predominant religion. This is not hard to see. Western morality is based on Christianity, absolutely. If you don’t see that, you just need to do some travelling. A Buddhist nation’s morality is based on Buddhism. The same is true for Hindu and Muslim nations. If a person born and raised in a Buddhist nation becomes an atheist, his morality will still be based on Buddhism. (Although, Buddhism as a religion lacks the conditions to create atheists — which is a whole other interesting topic. Western atheism would not exist if it weren’t for Christianity.)

Then there are the usual arguments about slavery and God’s wrath and so forth. If you want to understand those issues in the Bible you have to understand two very important things: covenant and holiness. If you don’t get those two things, you won’t get the Bible.

And there are the attacks on biblical prophesy. Jesus said certain things about His return that supposedly didn’t happen. Well, there are plenty of books on eschatology to explain that. But if you’re not willing to study it out, then there’s nothing more to say. Reading Psalm 110 and Daniel 7:13-14 will get you well on your way to understanding what Jesus said when prophesying about Himself.

Bastardized Christianity

there-are-no-illegitimate-children-only-illegitimate-parents-quote-1

A new worldview which exists in the west these days is something called New Atheism. The main proponents are Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, and others like them.

New Atheists tend to believe that their worldview was created in a vacuum — that, in and of itself, it formed from nothingness and exists as a stand-alone philosophy on life.

Atheism is nothing new. Simple atheism has been around probably as long as simple religion has been around. But New Atheism is something different. It is a completely reactionary phenomenon.

New Atheism is a reaction to Christianity; it can not exist without Christianity; it carries with it many of the attributes of Christianity.

We can look at three attributes of New Atheism…

Morality — New Atheists are very moral. They want fairness and equality. They care about the under-dog.
Hope for a better future — New Atheists believe that, through natural evolution and social programs, life can and will get better for humanity.
Evangelism — New Atheists believe that all must adopt their worldview in order to “save mankind.”

These three attributes can only be found previously in Christianity (and before that, Judaism). In no other religion will you find the moral concern for people that you find in Christianity. In no other religion will you find the concept of life getting better on a linear timeline. No other religion evangelizes.*

There is a belief that the world drastically changed in the 18th century. To some extent that may be true. But to the New Atheist, the 18th century is when humanity’s eyes were finally opened to the truth. The darkness of the past was swept away by the shining lights of science and reason. For the Christian, the darkness of the world was swept away two thousand years ago with the advent of Jesus Christ.

In the days of Jesus, when a new king came to power, heralds (called euaggelistēs in Greek, or evangelist in English) would proclaim this good news (or euaggelion in Greek) to all the people.** It was good news if you previously supported this king. It might not have been good news if you opposed him. But, if you had opposed him, you were give a chance to turn away (repent) from your previous allegiances and commit your loyalty to the new king.

New Atheists believe that the event of the euaggelion occurred in the 18th century, and are very frustrated at the fact that not everyone has pledged their allegiance to the new prevailing order.

With the euaggelion comes a hope for a better future. In Christianity, the belief is that, because Jesus is now king, the world will be restored to a state of purity with freedom, love, and eternal life.

The New Atheists also believe that humanity is progressing to a better existence, and that this will be brought about by our continued evolution, both in the natural sense and the social sense. The problem with this is that there is no reason to believe that humans will evolve into anything better than what we are currently. Suppose some natural disaster happens, limiting the food supply, drastically changing the environment, and only the physically strongest and those who have no problem with killing survive? What would humanity evolve into then? Back to apes?

Most of the world’s religions in the past, and the present, view time as cyclical. Life just keeps on going with no change, around and around forever. Only in Judaism and Christianity will you find a hope for a better future coming to pass on a linear timeline. This idea is now found in New Atheism.

Westerners love Buddhism. They love the peace and the meditation practices and whatnot. But all you have to do is spend some time living in a Buddhist country and you’ll see what it really is. Buddhists suppress emotion, they don’t control it, they suppress it — and as a result, there can be some unexplained, unpredictable violent outbursts. Buddhists do not help the poor. The poor are poor because of karma. They deserve it. To try to relieve them from poverty is to go against karmic fate. This is the morality of Buddhism. Only in Christianity and Judaism will you find a moral duty to help the poor, the under-dog, and the suffering.

New Atheists hold to the very same moral structure that Christians do, they just don’t know where they got it from.

As we can see above, New Atheism is defined by Christianity. All of its main attributes come from Christianity. New Atheism would not have arisen in a Buddhist culture. It is entirely a reaction to Christianity.

Another misconception of New Atheism is the belief that Christianity, and all other religions, are an attempt to explain the natural world, and now that we have science to do that, there’s no reason for anyone to continue to hold on to religion. But no religious people throughout human history saw their religious beliefs in this way. In fact, not all religions, Buddhism for example, even believe in a creator.

So where did New Atheism come from? As I write above, it came from within Christianity itself. Who were the fathers? It was all those who, while still believing in God, figured that they could explain God with reason. They brought God, who is outside our universe, and pulled Him into our world, into a lab, and tried to study and define Him. They took reason itself off of the foundation of God, gave it its own foundation, and from there began to critique God. That was the birth on New Atheism.

It’s like a man, being born blind, taking the whole visible world, with all its colours, and limiting it to his own confining senses. If he doesn’t know he’s blind, he won’t know he’s doing anything wrong. Taking reason off of the foundation of God is like gouging our own eyes out, and then erasing our memories of anything we once saw.

I, as a Christian, of course cannot help but criticize New Atheism, but there are atheists who do so as well:

The Atheist Delusion by John Gray

The Closed Mind of Richard Dawkins by John Gray

Know Nothing: The True History of Atheism by Michael Robbins

* Muslims do not evangelize. The definition of the word implies “good news” and that’s not what Muslims proclaim. Muslims proselytize. Christians proselytize too, but only in conjunction with evangelism.

** The Greek words euaggelion and euaggelistēs both have the prefix eu (pronounced ‘you’) which means “joyful.” The second part of the word, aggelion (pronounced ‘ang-ghelion’) means messenger or message and is where the English word “angel” comes from.

Tribes, Kingdoms, and Empires (Part Two)

language

Tribes and Language

Our belief systems and capacity for knowledge are limited by our language. The smaller the vocabulary of a language, the less the adherents of that language are able to conceive of and develop new ideas. Like in the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the language of Newspeak was used to control the people, and this was done was by decreasing the vocabulary.

“‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word, which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take “good,” for instance. If you have a word like “good,” what need is there for a word like “bad”? “Ungood” will do just as well — better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of “good,” what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like “excellent” and “splendid” and all the rest of them? “Plusgood” covers the meaning or “doubleplusgood” if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words – in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?…'” (George Orwell, 1984, Book One, Chapter Five.)

I read an article recently about western psychiatrists working with post-Khmer Rouge Cambodians suffering from PTSD. The main frustration of the psychiatrists was that there were no words in the Cambodian (Khmer) vocabulary which properly defined the condition the patients were suffering from. The limitations of the Khmer language prevented the patients from fully understanding what they were experiencing.

Languages keep tribes divided. You can only know what your vocabulary allows for. This doesn’t just refer to your general spoken language – like English – it refers to your definition of certain English words and concepts in comparison to how other English speakers would define those same words and concepts. In order for tribes to combine into one, a common language, with common definitions, would have to be developed and adopted. A common language (words, beliefs, ideas) will create a common worship center as well, which is essential for a group of tribes to join.

Like at Babel, all the people spoke the same language, and as a result, they all worshipped the same and had the same philosophy of life. The division of languages not only caused confusion because they couldn’t understand each other’s words, it caused confusion also because they no longer believed the same way, thought the same way. This didn’t all happen at once of course, but over time the different languages created greater rifts between the tribes.

Once you’re limited to the vocabulary of a certain tribe, any new ideas coming from without the tribe will first have to be translated into your own tribal language. If there are no words to express the new ideas in your tribal language, you will either outright ignore the new ideas, or the new ideas will change to fit the language of your tribe. If the new ideas are changed to fit your language, they will also change to fit your current belief system. So, even if the new idea opposes your beliefs, once translated into your language, it will work to support your beliefs. The original intent of the idea will be lost.

Consider this example:

“‘Two African natives, S. and K., go to the wood to gather honey. S. found four big trees full of honey, whilst K. could find only one. K. went home bewailing his ill luck, while S. had been so fortunate. Meanwhile S. had returned to the wood to bring away the honey, was attacked by a lion and torn to pieces.

The relatives of the lion’s victim at once went to the soothsayer to discover who was responsible for his death. The soothsayer consults the oracle several times and declares that K., jealous of S’s rich harvest of honey, assumed the form of a lion in order to avenge himself. The accused denied his guilt strenuously and the chieftain ordered the matter to be settled by the ordeal of poison. Matters then followed their usual course — says the explorer’s account — the ordeal was unfavourable to the accused, he confessed and succumbed to torture… The accusation appears quite natural to the soothsayer who formulates it, the prince who orders the trial by ordeal, the crowd of bystanders and to K. himself who had been transformed into a lion, in fact to everybody except the European who happens to be present.’

It is clear to us that K. had not actually experienced turning into a lion and tearing S. to pieces, and so at first he denied having done so. But he is confronted with an overwhelming case against himself. The interpretative framework which he shares with his accusers does not include the conception of accidental death; if a man is devoured by a lion there must be some effective reason behind it, such as the envy of a rival. This makes him an obvious suspect and when the oracle, which he has always trusted, confirms the suspicion he can no longer resist the evidence of his guilt and he confesses having turned into a lion and having devoured S. This closes the circle of the argument and confirms the magical framework in which it was conducted, and it thus enhances the powers of this framework for assimilating the next case which will come under its purview.” (Taken from The Stability of Beliefs by Michael Polanyi.)

Within the confines of a tribe’s language, there will be its own justice system. No matter how nonsensical it may appear to the outsider, even the accused will agree with a verdict against him as he himself holds to the same belief system as his accusers. Tribes are bound within their own circular reasoning. New ideas are not able to penetrate this reasoning from without, nor are they able to take seed and grow from within. Only the presuppositional beliefs of the tribe will survive.

In order for new ideas to form within tribes, a systemic logic must be formed to support those ideas. New ideas, all alone, presented to the tribe on a one by one basis will not take root; they will not be understood. A new idea must be built on the framework of less radical pre-existing ideas, and those built on even less radical pre-existing ideas, and so on. This is the systematic step ladder on which the new ideas can climb.

True ideas must last, and false ideas must disappear. For this to happen, ideas cannot remain vague. They must be defined and then put to the test in practical reality. If the idea stands up to the test it will remain.

I can use “speaking in tongues” in Charismatic churches as an example. Most Charismatics have only a vague idea of what they’re doing when speaking in tongues. There is no agreed-upon definition of what tongues truly is within the Charismatic church. Some say there are two different kinds of tongues, others say three, some say one and what modern Charismatics do today is what the disciples did in Acts 2. Some say one does not have the Holy Spirit if they don’t speak in tongues, others would disagree with that, but would say that one is a less mature Christian without tongues.

Tongues is a tribal marker. It is a circular belief within Charismatic theology. In order to determine if it is a true idea or not, first it must be clearly defined within the entire Charismatic movement, then it must be practically applied to the personal lives of the members of the tribe. It will either disappear or its true purpose will be discovered. If it is a true idea and its purpose is clearly known, it can then be an idea which can pass on to other tribes as it is no longer merely a tribal marker. As long as tongues remains vague, its true nature will not be discovered, and it will remain a simple tribal marker easily rejected by non-Charismatic tribes.

The language of the Charismatic church prevents itself from discovering the true nature of tongues. In fact, tongues itself is an unintelligible “language”. Is there a vocabulary to tongues? Are there rules of grammar? If there were, the language could be translated. What can tongues say about itself? Do Charismatics speak in tongues because they have nothing to say?

One can choose his own tribe or one can be chosen for a tribe. To choose, one must increase his vocabulary to the point where he understands a wide range of ideas. He can then choose which ideas he thinks are best for his well being. With a limited vocabulary comes a limited mind, and limited options.

Tribes, Kingdoms, and Empires – Part One