Posted on 01/06/2015 5:13:00 AM PST by metmom
The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kindgom of heaven. - Matt. 5:3
Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply "things." They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.
Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and "things" were allowed to enter. Within the human heart "things" have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.
This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets "things" with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns "my" and "mine" look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.
Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it."
Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it "life" and "self," or as we would say, the selflife. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words "gain" and "profit" suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is in the end to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ's sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: it is by the Cross. "Let him take up his cross and follow me."
The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the "poor in spirit." They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem; that is what the word "poor" as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Let me exhort you to take this seriously. It is not to be understood as mere Bible teaching to be stored away in the mind along with an inert mass of other doctrines. It is a marker on the road to greener pastures, a path chiseled against the steep sides of the mount of God. We dare not try to by-pass it if we would follow on in this holy pursuit. We must ascend a step at a time. If we refuse one step we bring our progress to an end.
As is frequently true, this New Testament principle of spiritual life finds its best illustration in the Old Testament. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude.
Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his father's heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.
"Take now thy son," said God to Abraham, "thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." The sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his God, but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until a Greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul. If only the man himself might have been allowed to die. That would have been easier a thousand times, for he was old now, and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with God. Besides, it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself the promises of God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees.
How should he slay the lad! Even if he could get the consent of his wounded and protesting heart, how could he reconcile the act with the promise, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called"? This was Abraham's trial by fire, and he did not fail in the crucible. While the stars still shone like sharp white points above the tent where the sleeping Isaac lay, and long before the gray dawn had begun to lighten the east, the old saint had made up his mind. He would offer his son as God had directed him to do, and then trust God to raise him from the dead. This, says the writer to the Hebrews, was the solution his aching heart found sometime in the dark night, and he rose "early in the morning" to carry out the plan. It is beautiful to see that, while he erred as to God's method, he had correctly sensed the secret of His great heart. And the solution accords well with the New Testament Scripture, "Whosoever will lose for my sake shall find."
God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, "It's all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou bast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me."
Then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him, "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou bast done this thing, and bast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is `upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou bast obeyed my voice.
The old man of God lifted his head to respond to the Voice, and stood there on the mount strong and pure and grand, a man marked out by the Lord for special treatment, a friend and favorite of the Most High. Now he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing. He had concentrated his all in the person of his dear son, and God had taken it from him. God could have begun out on the margin of Abraham's life and worked inward to the center; He chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation. In dealing thus He practiced an economy of means and time. It hurt cruelly, but it was effective.
I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man rich? Everything he had owned before was his still to enjoy: sheep, camels, herds, and goods of every sort. He had also his wife and his friends, and best of all he had his son Isaac safe by his side. He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation. The books on systematic theology overlook this, but the wise will understand.
After that bitter and blessed experience I think the words "my" and "mine" never had again the same meaning for Abraham. The sense of possession which they connote was gone from his heart. Things had been cast out forever. They had now become external to the man. His inner heart was free from them. The world said, "Abraham is rich," but the aged patriarch only smiled. He could not explain it to them, but he knew that he owned nothing, that his real treasures were inward and eternal.
There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is so natural it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic.
We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.
Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to Him. They should be recognized for what they are, God's loan to us, and should never be considered in any sense our own. We have no more right to claim credit for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles. "For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what bast thou that thou didst not receive?"
The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough within him he will want to do something about the matter. Now, what should he do?
First of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.
Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice. Let him come to God in full determination to be heard. Let him insist that God accept his all, that He take E things out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific, to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with God.
Let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live through Abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.
If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham's testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.
Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but 1 do come. Please root from my heart all those things which 1 have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter avid dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
I don't recall making any assumptions, could you clarify or elaborate?
Why? Does it help you to support your self-righteous 'agnosticism'?
I have re-read my comments and don't see any thing that is "self righteous". Could you clarify or elaborate?
First, the very term 'infinity' has many different uses.
The dictionary gives 7, most of them concern a quantity without end.
Last, you again expose the agenda of your most recent little foray at FR by using the term 'infinities' in a temporal sense.
Absolutely not! I used it in the spacial sense. A temporal infinity is correctly called an eternity.
I have been told that all Christians agree that "god" is 1) Omnipotent- all powerful
2) Eternal his duration has no beginning or end.
3) Infinite his length, breadth, and thickness, has no limit.
On the other hand there have been three theories postulated about the universe. It is either expanding, contracting or static. No matter which one you believe the length, breadth, and thickness can be measured.
When I used the term separate I was referring to god's personhood. I did not want it to be confused with the Sabellius belief of modalism. I may not be certain of god's existence, but I am familiar with the way he has been described over the years by any number of groups.
Using your term:God manifests as three different individualities,.
that would present you with 3 different infinities.
All I have done is ask if the existence of god can be proven. I did not ask in a self righteous way or in an antagonistic way. If you think I did than perhaps it says more about you than me.
I have always viewed infinite and eternal as two spate terms. Infinite and finite are direct opposites. they are both mathematical terms. finite is capable of being counted a specific quantity. Infinite is a limitless quantity.
Eternal's opposite would be either transitory or mutable.
Thank you for sharing your insight.
This looks interesting. I will have to look into purchasing it.
ya know what, never mind. I have concluded that the game is what you are about, not a proof to satisfy your behavior mechanism, your soul. Perhaps you can get someone else to indulge you, I do not have sufficient respect for you at this juncture to spend any more time even reading your drek.
I do have two questions though:1) If Aristotle is correct and the universe is eternal, doesn't that obviate the need for a god?2) what is "ekpyrotic,"? I believe I have a pretty good vocabulary, but I am unfamiliar with that term.
Thank you for your interesting insight and the book suggestion.
If you read the book, please let us know what you think!
For more on the ekpyrotic physical cosmology, click here.
Concerning time v. eternity and related issues, I offer that space, time, autonomy and physical causation are part of the creation and not properties of - or limitations on - the Creator of them.
I leave it to my dearest sister in Christ, betty boop, to clarify the issue concerning Aristotle and the beginning or first cause.
This is fascinating, thank you. I will read it more completely and reply as time permits.
Indeed Thales Miletus, that is my general understanding as well.
Looking deeper into the problem, however, it seems that the discernment of "quantity" is here the proposed mode and purpose of human investigation. Also I note that you do not define "Eternity" in positive terms, but only in terms of that which it is not — that is, something which is either transitory or mutable.
Regarding the latter, the negative case logically entails the existence of something which is not transitory or mutable (i.e., subject to change in space and time). What sort of being could this possibly be, if not God himself? If that is the case, then why don't you just cut to the chase and name this being God?
I think you are right to say that "infinite" and "finite" are mathematical terms:
In a famous essay, [Eugene] Wigner (1967) argued that the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something "bordering on the mysterious", and that there is no rational explanation for it.... [H]ere the utility of mathematics for describing the physical world is a natural consequence of the fact that the latter is a mathematical structure, and we are simply uncovering this bit by bit.Question: From whence cometh this "mathematical structure?" It seems very clear to me that it cannot possibly be a spontaneous natural development mindlessly bootstrapping itself by evolutionary processes arising within the world of space and time. Were that so, I daresay the world would be totally unintelligible to the human mind.
The "habit" of mathematics is to quantize things, so to bring seemingly disparate "quantities" into meaningful relation. But mathematics itself is not quantifiable. Nor is it dependent in any way on the direct observation of anything; rather it is prior to all observation.
Moreover, it seems very clear to me that there is much in historical human existential experience (personal and cultural) that does NOT reduce to the direct observational methods of the classical scientific method. And therefore is utterly beyond the reach or range of the "quantifiable."
I'll leave it there for now, dear Thales. Just some thoughts, FWTW. Thank you so much for writing!
Correctly? By whose definition?
It seems pretty clear to me by now that there is no such thing as a "temporal infinity." This is a mangling of terms that conflates two different orders of magnitude.
FWIW.
You delegated to me the clarification of the "issue concerning Aristotle and the beginning or first cause." I'll try to do my best in that regard.
The short answer to Thales Miletus' question is: NO. Not at all.
The issue of God is not just about the inception of the universe; rather the real question directly goes straight to the persistent order of the Universe. Such that, even if the universe is acknowledged as "eternal," no account is given of how it transpires to eternally "hold together" as a (putatively) unified cosmic system. in the immanent world. Which is to suggest that God is necessary, not only with regard to the beginning of the universe, but also with regard to its subsequent organic, developmental organization as consistently revealed in time and space.
Were this not so, we couldn't even speak of universal first principles or of the existence of physical or natural laws. Science would be totally out of business under such conditions. Mathematics would be obviated, having no point of contact with reality, and thus nothing meaningful to do....
But to get back to Thales Miletus' characterization of Aristotle as a fan of the Eternal Universe Model, which purportedly gets rid of the "God problem."
For openers, no one in the Greek world of Aristotle's time was dealing with "the time problem" in the same terms as conceived by us "moderns." The genius of the great Greeks was the explication of universal (that is to say, timeless) principles as they impinge on the natural world, starting with Thales. "Time" as subject matter of inquiry in and for itself was simply not on the agenda of Greek thought at the time.... They were seeking the explanation of the persistence of phenomena which could only be classified in time as in some way inherently carrying the quality of timelessness, which alone carries their own persistence in time and space.
Which is to say that the great Greeks — with the possible exception of Zeno — did not engage the Time Problem at all.
Aristotle very likely believed, as did his master teacher Plato (and collaborator of some 27 years in one way shape or form), that the Cosmos is "eternal." That is to say, not limited in time. But I daresay neither of these men thus concluded that the requirement of a creator, of a first principle, was thereby obviated.
Whatever "dispute" there may have been between Plato and Aristotle (pace Ayn Rand), it wasn't a dispute about the divine origin of the Cosmos. Both regarded the cosmos (universe) as "eternal." But even an "eternal cosmos" demands some "divine rule" as it relates to explain the persistence and coherence in time of temporal creatures that arise within it.
Anyhoot, I think that any perceived difference between a Plato and an Aristotle can be explained as a "shift of attention" from one paradigm to another.
For Plato, the creator and sustainer of all that is arises in the Beyond of human observation and direct experience. The Platonic Idea spawns the Forms of being from outside the sphere in which these Forms are manifest in creaturely life. That is to say, the Form of all existents itself exists apart from the field of creaturely manifestation.
Aristotle's great insight was that the Form of creatures can be perceived in the (immanent) creatures themselves. This was a shift of attention away from Plato's understanding of "Form" as emanating from a transcendent Source. And with this shift of attention, Aristotle has well earned his reputation as the Father of the Natural Sciences.
But then maybe all Aristotle was saying is that, finally, immanence and transcendence are but two sides of the same coin. They are "complementarities" in the sense that you need understanding of both to explain the total situation that each endeavors to describe separately, each from its own "perspective."
Thank you ever so much for writing, dearest sister in Christ! And for your very kind words!
/BB/- Correctly? By whose definition?
It seems pretty clear to me by now that there is no such thing as a "temporal infinity." This is a mangling of terms that conflates two different orders of magnitude.
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AH!... I get it.. we're talkin' a temporal dyslexic... here....
Hmmmmm.. maybe intellectual dyslexic.. or spacial dyslexic..
I personally know of some Godly Dyslexics..
I'm a female dyslexic.. cannot figure them people out.... to save my life..
Nobodys perfect........ I love them anyway..
Bonus:- https://www.dropbox.com/s/0akcv923qx22flf/DOF.avi?dl=0
I for one do not understand how it is possible logically to speak of a biological function without reference to a final cause.
By final cause, Aristotle meant purpose, goal, or limit. Aristotle says that the final cause is the cause for the sake of which all the other causes exist — the formal, material, and efficient causes. The natural sciences seem to recognize only two of Aristotle's causes, the material and the efficient. Formal cause is basically reduced to initial conditions. There is NO final cause. So what you end up with is defining a biological system in terms of "matter in its motions." Which to me is a monstrous reduction....
Clearly, biological systems are more than matter in motion. If that were all they were, then how to explain their uncanny ability to maintain their distance from thermodynamic equilibrium for extended periods of time?
First cause is not about "initial conditions." It is about origins — not the same thing as "initial conditions." Aristotle calls the first cause the "uncaused cause" of the cosmos, the "unmoved mover" of all that exists. Because it is uncaused, it arises from "beyond" the world of natural objects (which are all subject to the laws of causation).
Final cause, again, is about purpose, or goal to be reached. In the above case, the goal is maintaining distance from equilibrium. Biological functions are targeted to the fulfillment of specific organismic goals; e.g., metabolism, cellular repair, and so forth. Clearly, these are final causes within Aristotle's meaning of the term.
Robert Rosen believed that biology cannot but fail to "hit the wall" if it continues to refuse to engage all four causes in its explanations of biological organisms; that the Newtonian reduction of causation to just material and efficient causes applied to biological systems, is truly a poison pill — if what we are looking for is comprehensive understanding of biological nature.
Thank you so much for writing, dearest sister in Christ, and for your kind words of support!
It is not just an ability, it is a will ... living things have a will that inanimate things do not possess. This will is somehow connected to but not solely attached to the spacetime coordinate system of daily living in which thermodynamic events occur. The denial of this reality is what hallamrks God deniers, as they seek to establish a hard and fast rule that there is no thing beyond this realm in which they can measure thermodynamic events.
Upon death of an organism, the individual 'ism' appears to leave the spacetime coordinates of its physical manifest. But the cells or organs of that 'organ ism' have yet to fall fully under imperious thermodynamic equilibrium. The coordinate system of thermo equi is a spacetime phenomenon in which the Physics and Chemistry of physical life occurs (euphemistically known as three dimensions of space and one of time).
The leaving that the organism does is not solely a spacetime phenomenon as we describe spacetime. It occurs via a coordinate system which is connected to/interacting with but not the same as that of the Physics and Chemistry of thermodynamic equilibrium.
The indirect evidence of this reality may be found in near death experiences, which are real. The data which is acquired during such an event, when shared upon return to this coordinate system, evidences a reality which is much greater than our perceptions coordinates.
As a Christian, I am absolutely convinced that the miracles Christ performed/performs are accomplished via interaction between another coordinate system and that of our physical bodies. That a man has a will can be easily illustrated with one scene: a man chooses to starve himself to death even with abundant food offered and available to him. Making that choice is evidence of his will. Were he merely a physio-chemical thing, consumption (staving off theromodynamic equilibrium) could not be thwarted by his choice.
How do you quantify it?... measure it?... even remark on it's quality..
When you die the will goes somewhere.. where?..
I suspect “the Will” is not so simple.... but a complex “mechanism” <-metaphorically..
Not a machine, but a mechanism... <— whatever THAT is..
Sorry to take so long to reply. Our dog had surgery on Friday and he whimpered all night. So of course I stayed up with him until he could get some rest. And that pushed every Friday chore/errand to Saturday and so on.
Any hoot, you mentioned Wigner's essay, so I thought to provide a link for those who might be interested in reading it: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.
Cumrun Vafa, Harvard Physicist, and others have experienced the same phenomenon which is described here: Unreasonable Effectiveness.
Indeed one of my favorite examples is that Einstein was able to pull Riemannian Geometry off-the-shelf to describe General Relativity. Surely Bernhard Reimann had no concept of the warped space/time structure of the universe when he fleshed out that math.
To me, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics is like God's copyright notice on the cosmos. Pi exists and the mathematician comes along and discovers it.
When people speak of "eternity" I suspect they mean beyond space/time - i.e. counting is irrelevant.
But when we speak of God the Creator of space, time, energy, causality, autonomy etc. - the term "timeless" is more appropriate since such created things are not properties of - or restrictions on - the Creator of them.
Aristotle's great insight was that the Form of creatures can be perceived in the (immanent) creatures themselves. This was a shift of attention away from Plato's understanding of "Form" as emanating from a transcendent Source. And with this shift of attention, Aristotle has well earned his reputation as the Father of the Natural Sciences.
But then maybe all Aristotle was saying is that, finally, immanence and transcendence are but two sides of the same coin. They are "complementarities" in the sense that you need understanding of both to explain the total situation that each endeavors to describe separately, each from its own "perspective."
When they created polio virus in a laboratory back in 2002, starting with the information content off the internet and mail order materials, it should have raised a red flag.
It also seems apparent to me in the biological systems functioning (with maintenance and repair) to the survival of the higher organism. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
As Rosen pointed out in Life Itself the information model is circular in biological systems.
Thank you so very much for all of your wonderful essays, dearest sister in Christ!
I've shared this link before, but some here might be interested in a view by P.S. Wesson (one of my favorite geometric physicists) - namely that death may simply be a phase change:
I often ponder about what time really is. I tend to believe that things from smallest atomic/whatever particles to the most expansive universe, observed and not observed, are created order from/by a force which because of my puny part of the totality of universal existence . “Time’ for me is merely a brains ordering of experiences or pulses of existence.
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