Subscribe to this feed.
Water, Tao, and Jesus
78. Nothing in the world is softer than water…
Nothing in the world is softer than water,
Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong.
This is because nothing can alter it.
That the soft overcomes the hard
And the gentle overcomes the aggressive
Is something that everybody knows
But none can do themselves.
Therefore the sages say:The one who accepts the dirt of the stateTruth seems contradictory.
Becomes its master.
The one who accepts its calamity
Becomes king of the world.
[Tao Te Ching #78, trans. Charles Muller, Tōyō Gakuen University]
Blogfriend Dan of tdaxp once posited, “The watery substance of our world is not ice, because it is everywhere reconstructing,” in his reintroduction of a post called “Globalization is Water: The Magic Cloud.” In many ways, the magic cloud is used as a metaphor for describing the coherent yet dynamic operation of the world. We cannot easily simplify complexity without recourse to magic clouds. I.e., trying to model all parts of a dynamic system may become so complex and tangled, we are better off merely acknowledging our inability to describe a dynamic system fully while also having a kind of faith that, nonetheless, whatever subprocesses exist do exist.
Dan used the example of software development to explain how these magic clouds may appear:
Every aspect of modern software development hides complexity from the user, putting up “magic clouds” and pretending that is how things work.End-users of software do not need to see the inner workings of programs but only the final results. This is quite necessary, one might suppose, because too much complexity would not only distract the end-user, but the end-user really has no need to understand every computation of an operating program in order to benefit from using that program. Unfortunately, an end-user may take the program for granted without realizing all the hard work put into creating the program; he only sees the simplified end product. Similarly, end-users of music tracks might gladly trade tracks via the Internet without realizing the hard work put into creating and distributing those tracks by artists and producers of music cd’s, thus limiting the profitability for artists and producers.
This simplification of models is good, because models are supposed to be simplifications of reality.
Another blogfriend, Mark Safranski of ZenPundit, has stressed the importance of simplification of complexity, and most recently has taken a look at the way metaphors may aid in the process of brainstorming by enabling “the breakthrough process.”
[W]hatever the truth about how metaphors work, they are deeply involved in the breakthrough process in the sciences, capturing the phenomena as a mental model long before it can be experimentally proven true or the math worked out. That is to say, metaphors are most appropriate when coming to grips with a thing that is new and not yet well understood. They lend themselves well to simplifying complex systems down to a comprehensible essence.By using horizontal thinking to see ‘connections’ between things — across diverse domains — those who use metaphors may facilitate the building of simplified models encompassing broad collections of normally distinct particulars; essences are ‘weaved’ together to build a model system for those particulars or at least to provoke insights into the particulars being considered together. Having isolated one shared essence, we may begin to wonder if other similarities exist between two disparate things. To the degree that these similar essences overlap, some types of relationships with other things — i.e., with particulars outside those being considered in the metaphor — may also overlap.
In November of last year, I wrote a post called “The Structure of Content,” in which I took a closer look at poetry (a metaphor-rich domain!) while contemplating the subject of magic clouds:
In the tdaxp thread, Dan gives an example of a process which, when drawn to include all the actual potential sub-processes or stages, becomes so complex and confusing — mostly because many of those stages are themselves not clearly defined — the group might as well be drawn as a “magic cloud”: we know that something definite is happening, but we can not quite define all the stages and processes. This is very similar to the way [The Oxford Companion to Philosophy] defines poetry and also suggests why so many arguments about poetry happen when poets come together to critique each others’ works. This may also suggest why a poem can be so loved even while the reader or auditor is unable to pinpoint all the reasons he loves the poem, or is unable to describe exactly how the poem “fits” together: it’s a kind of magic.Now I want to postulate a signal characteristic of great poetry: All the gaps are filled. In truth, the best poetry leaves much ‘space’ for the reader, but the reader is capable of filling in the gaps. Whatever written lines make up the poem actually promote such filling of gaps. Yes, great poetry is like a magic cloud, in that the complexity of the word-choices, metaphors, images, line construction, and so forth seems to cohere in ways that cannot be explained in any combination of words, in any order, other than the poem itself; but the reader gains some sense of the inner workings or at least an awareness that more exists than the surface material. In another old post, “Verse Turns”, I used a poem written by Jack Gilbert to show how the turns from line to line are like the unfolding of an argument: The surface end-product — the poem in toto, by the end of it — might be said to be a magic cloud much like the program a computer user utilizes, but in the best poetry, a bit more of the subprocessing is revealed than computer programs reveal to end-users, simply because all the arguments are displayed openly.
All the gaps are filled: Though not a software developer, I imagine this statement will hold for their products as well. Have you ever used a program that always locked up when you tried to do something specific? Probably, the coding had a gap, or a gap existed in the processing of commands. Various updates and patches are made to fill ‘gaps’ in everything from game programs to web browsers — gaps which can be utilized by malicious hackers. Naturally, this line of thinking also reminds me of a post at Coming Anarchy, “Forget the Gap, try the Middle Ages” in which Chirol pointed toward the ‘ungoverned spaces’ in which and from which smugglers, gangs, etc. operate. And so, I’m brought around to considering Thomas Barnett’s PNM theory and globalization’s gaps — but with the idea, also, borrowed from Dan of tdaxp, that globalization is water.
Water and Tao
Nothing in the world is softer than water,Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong.
This is because nothing can alter it.
Well, we might disagree with the first line, but the metaphor is good. These three lines suggest three different things:
- Put your hand in a tub of water, and the water parts for your hand. Water is ‘soft’ in this way, like a soft pillow that shapes itself around the contours of your head. Swimming in a pool of water promotes a feeling of such softness, because the water’s pressure upon the body is gentle.
- But everyone has seen how water can carve a plain, how boulders are worn down by rain and river currents, and how stones are made smooth.
- One may suppose that the water’s softness protects the water while land and hard substances are carved away by that water. It does not alter as the landscape is altered; instead, it flows around objects and resumes its shape. (Resilience!)
The Tao Te Ching provides many examples of this notion of softness overcoming hardness; e.g.,
#76Water is often used within the Tao Te Ching to describe the Way, since the Tao is everywhere, without form, unchanging, but also like a great river: The Way is like a great flooding river. How can it be directed to the left or right? [#34] . In fact, as the softest thing in the world, the Tao can go anywhere, be anywhere:
When people are born they are gentle and soft.
At death they are hard and stiff.
When plants are alive they are soft and delicate.
When they die, they wither and dry up.
Therefore the hard and stiff are followers of death.
The gentle and soft are the followers of life.
Thus, if you are aggressive and stiff, you won’t win.
When a tree is hard enough, it is cut. Therefore
The hard and big are lesser,
The gentle and soft are greater.
#43For filling gaps, water is very useful, since it naturally flows into spaces, around corners, and the like. A magic cloud does the same thing; a system described as a magic cloud has no gaps, even if it has no definite form that we can discern —
The softest thing in the world
Will overcome the hardest.
Non-being can enter where there is no space.
Therefore I know the benefit of unattached action.
The wordless teaching and unattached action
Are rarely seen.
#21The Tao Te Ching actually gives a description of the way that this water can bring about peaceful globalization, in its own peculiar Way:
The form of great virtue is something that only the Way can follow.
The Way as a “thing” is only vague and obscure.
How obscure! How vague! In it there is form.
How vague! How obscure! In it are things.
How deep! How dark! In it there is an essence.
The essence is so real—therein is belief.
From the present to antiquity, its name has never left it, so we can examine all origins.
How do I know the form of all origins?
By this.
#4I.e., when there are imbalances, there will be gaps; when there is no remainder to go around and fill every space, there will be gaps. A net(work) seeks to encompass all, but something slips through it, because a net is not like water even if it might be used — by some — to snare the things living within the water…A net has gaps.
The Way is so vast that when you use it, something is always left.
How deep it is!
It seems to be the ancestor of the myriad things.
It blunts sharpness
Untangles knots
Softens the glare
Unifies with the mundane.
It is so full!
It seems to have remainder.
It is the child of I-don’t-know-who.
And prior to the primeval Lord-on-high.
Jesus Foretells the Ending of Networks
In his intriguing look at ‘Jesusism-Paulism’, Dan of tdaxp suggested how early Christianity was a threat to the hierarchical Roman society. In Part Two of that series, Dan wrote:[T]he Christians believed that women, children, and slaves were just as important to God — had just as much virtue — as free men.Dan also suggested that in the Christian view, a new hierarchy would supplant the Roman hierarchy:There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.To the Romans, this was a nightmare. Christianity was a giant moral isolation attack against the Roman elite, making their women, children, and slaves see themselves as Christians first, dependents second.
Paul (Galatians 3:28)
They also lumped the State into a “Mystical Body of Christ” with all other things, flattening the world and making the State only a subset of Christ’s mystical body.Whatever we make of such a claim, we can see that throughout the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church certainly formed a mundane hierarchy which subsumed all other aspects of living: in effect, the Church became Rome.
Interestingly, however, Dan called Christianity a “4GW religion” (4th generation warfare religion) and “a netfaith — Christianity empowers individuals and weakens other bonds.” Following his description of the threat posed to the Roman hierarchical system, Dan proposed that Christianity would operate, vis-a-vis the Roman rule, like the water described at the beginning of the last section of this post:
This is why Christianity had to wait until the Empire was weak to become the State Religion. Christianity would never oppose the state — that much is clear from its strategy of co-option. But Christianity could only become an energizing force for the State if the State recognized the instrinsic value of every human life.The type of ‘turn the other cheek’ meekness, or approach, utilized by early Christians is very like the softness of water; and like water wearing down the boulders in the riverbed, early Christianity would wear down the rigid Roman society, given enough time — at least, that would be the hope. This would be achieved not because Christianity was a netfaith, as Dan has claimed, but because the equality of all under God made the Christians like water. Just as water can move around rigid boundaries, the body of Christians could move around rigid Roman social structures.
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”Even the traditional family structure would dissolve. The practical result of this equality under God might appear to be a network in which the individuals are joined by a common faith; but in truth each individual had a connection to God on an individual basis: a common view. Natural heredity would count for little; as John put it:
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
[Mark 3:31-35, NIV]
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.Or, more fully detailed by Paul:
[John 1:12-13, NIV]
For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs — heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.The King James version has “Spirit of adoption” rather than “Spirit of sonship.”
[Romans 8:13-17, NIV]
In each of these cases, the choice is given to each individual to choose how to live, and no one may gain sonship by another but only by the Christ; i.e., connection via fellowship — although the predominant expression of shared sonship in modern times, and the predominant interpretation of being equal in God’s eyes — is not the form of social structure being promoted. Or, rather, fellowship and brotherhood come only as an after-effect of individual person-to-God salvation, when the individual has chosen to do God’s will.
Jesus himself offered up a koan to inspire understanding of this social structure, as reported by Mark:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”We must note that the character of the teacher of the law was well-known by Jesus — who had often spoken against such teachers of law; e.g., Mark 12:38-40 and Luke 11:52 — and this may account for his manner of answering; the man is at least somewhat thinking of burnt offerings and sacrifices before and after questioning Jesus, and these are outward displays unlike the spirit of love — thus, public displays. But when the man agrees with Jesus, Jesus says he is “not far from the kingdom of God.” Mark believed that the man answered wisely — the King James version has ‘discreetly’ — but Jesus’ pronouncement is ironic. To love God with all thy heart, soul, understanding, and strength…would leave none left for loving one’s neighbor or one’s self. Again we see that individual devotion to God usurps devotion to one’s self and one’s neighbor; then, to love one’s neighbor as one’s self means to love neither, except perhaps as a reflection of one’s love for the creator of self and neighbor.
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “you are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
[Mark 12:28-34, NIV]
In several places within the New Testament, Jesus enjoins his followers to leave their families, and sometimes all wealth and property, in order to follow him; e.g., Matthew 19:29. Most pointedly, in Luke:
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters — yes, even his own life — he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”Established family ties, ties to wealth and property, etc., are rigid structures — at least too rigid for going where Jesus would take them. Having the essence of water would require the ability to go anywhere, fill any gaps. Where there were ears to hear, his disciples would need to go, and not be tied down by these things. But also, other individuals would need the freedom to follow God’s will and not be burdened by the need to reciprocate; so,
[Luke 14:25-27, NIV]
“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:Failing to respond to the provocation of the crowd, John was demonized; but so was Jesus, who did not respond as the crowd thought he should. Being bound to an enemy would be just as bad as being bound to family and the marketplace; hence, the command to “love one’s enemy” and turn the other cheek, which would put the enemy on the same level as self and neighbor: i.e., subordinate to the will of God. In truth, it is a denunciation of network, the nullification of network. A collection of people who could each operate with a unique but related vision — related by God — but operate individually without needing provocation or heeding warnings from the crowd, would be like water: flowing wherever there are gaps.” ‘We played the flute for you,“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners” ‘.”
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’
[Matthew 11:16-19, NIV]
Perhaps nowhere else is Jesus’ anti-network stance as pronounced as in Luke 12:49-53:
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
In Part Two, I’ll take a look at democracy, capitalism, security, and other worldly issues related to filling in the gaps.
- Filling the Gap
- Part One: Water, Tao, and Jesus
- Part Two: Some Words on Determining Social ‘Network’
Update: added link to Part Two
Comments
Curtis,
Your claim that Luke 12:49-53 "is a denunciation of network, the nullification of network" is odd for a couple of reasons. First, withinin the translation you cite
"From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three."
A literal reading of this passage implies network contestment! How is this non-network?
Second and more broadly, by using Luke you seem to imply that you are interpreting Christianity as a Jesusist-Paulist text. Luke also wrote Acts of the Apostles and was a personal friend to Paul. Thus, one can easily respond with citations such as 1 Corinthians 7:10,17, which describes network embedding:
Third and more essentially, note that you are speaking of networking as a strategy, as opposed to a reality. (I only bring this up in that belief that you may want to stretch an antisocial interpretation of Jesus into a belief that Jesus denied the existence of networks).
Posted by: dan tdaxp![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.phaticcommunion.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 8, 2006 3:41 PM
But you know that Jesus usually spoke in parables and metaphors, right?
I wonder if the further we stray from Jesus' words, the more likely we are to get corruption of the message...at least, of the message he gave. But then, claiming association (connection) for Luke with Paul as if they were identicals! Remember Romans 7:1-6 and I Corinthians 7 --
1-2 It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
6-7 I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another that.
8-9 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
32-34 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs -- how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world -- how he can please his wife -- and his interests are divided.
-- Paul was clear on this point. We might argue that a) his concession came from an understanding that the physical aspects naturally push us toward connection, b) we should resist such connection if we can, because each individual should be related to God first, but that c) it is better to give in to the physical connection than to remain perpetually in turmoil because of the conflict between lust of the flesh and love of the Spirit. In the same way, I think Jesus' including both commandments in the citation -- to love they neighbor as thy self -- was something of a concession, because not everyone would be able to give all strength and understanding to love of God.
Yes, I agree. I think that Paul recognized the difference and so via concession attempted to address the reality of the situation.
BTW, I don't think Jesus was preaching antisocial behavior, but a kind of behavior that did not rely on the network of people as guide. His many condemnations of the 'teachers of the law' describe how those teachers would strut around in robes, making public displays, and so forth; Matthew 11:16-19, cited above, talks about such displays and the public's demand for authority to shape an individual's actions; etc. Fellowship and brothership might arise as a consequence of one-on-one relationship with God; but a relationship of brother to brother or person to person, if it came first and was most important, would not lead to a relationship with God.
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.phaticcommunion.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 8, 2006 9:39 PM
As the standard parable interpretation of the passage does not see de-networking, I was puzzled how you found such a moral. Thus I demonstrated it is not there in a literal reading, not there in the standard reading -- just not there at all.
Thus the question: what text are you working from? Imagine an argument over the Constitution, where a debator does not say which amendments and articles he considers "real" and which he considers "corrupted"! So what tet are you working from?
An odd interpretation.Jesus' theology is not concessionary elsewhere (Mark 9:43-47):
It's even odder if you consider Paul to be canonical (Romans 13:8-10)
Or is Paul not cannonical?
Of course not. Christianity was an insurgent movement -- it could hardly rely on social cognition! Christianity built an internal locus of control in its believers, allowing them to be guided by faith and hope in spite of a system hostile to them. Yet unlike Judaism and other botique religions of the time, Christianity did not allow its believers to stop there, but rather insisted on treating others with loving kindness.
Faith in Jesus Christ Jesus and hope for the future may be the engine's fuel, but love is the destination.
See above.
Christianity is designed to change the orientation. It purposefully builds an internal locus of control
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | August 9, 2006 9:00 AM
Precisely. (Although, I wonder if we mean the same thing by it.)
As for your first two points in your latest comment, perhaps you should combine them. standard parable interpretation ... just not there at all w/ the question of which text you are working from (and, which others -- who have set the standard interpretation -- are working from).
But as for literal interpretation, how does the following confuse you:
"Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division."
For me, it's easy to see that the list following the word 'division' is a common turn of rhetoric; they are examples, but not exclusive examples, of what he meant by 'division.' The family, representing the most basic and strongest form of union/association (even unto today!) would not stand up when such division occurred.
Posting up one quotation which is not 'concessionary' does not prove that Jesus was never concessionary, btw. But actually perhaps the word is not the right word and you were looking for a more literal [straight-line/absolutely literal] term? I did say, "something of a concession" to express my tentative use of the word, not realizing you were a literalist these days.
Jesus says elsewhere that "The kingdom of heaven is within you." (in some interpretations, 'among you.') and there really is a point of questioning his concept of heaven and God and whether he believed these were within us...so I have alternatively wondered if the two commandments were two approaches toward the same commandment. He's asked about "The greatest commandment," after all, and gives two to answer the question about the one; plus, elsewhere in the Bible "God is love" is stated. But if to love one another is to love God, and if every neighbor (including enemies!) is loved equally -- 'as oneself' -- this hardly proves that his message was a network-centric message; in this, he makes no distinction of hierarchy of love, except that God should be loved with "all" of our being.
Please, we can go back and forth hurling verses, but this will be a pointless exercise if we consistently refuse to address the verses we each offer. You have leveled blanket evaluations at many I have offered, without really addressing them or offering alternative interpretations, or else you have ignored them entirely, like the parts of I Corinthians you totally ignored when posting up Paul's words on marriage.
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.phaticcommunion.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 9, 2006 9:40 AM
BTW, as a further example of combining Paul's and Jesus' statements:
Paul gives one commandment that sums up all; Jesus gives two that are most important. As a point of curiosity, Paul's summation would seem to include 'the most important one' given by Jesus. Perhaps Paul had forgotten Jesus' thoughts about these commandments? Or perhaps he knew what Jesus meant when Jesus said that loving God with all strength, understanding, soul, etc. could be achieved without violating Jesus' #2 commandment.
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.phaticcommunion.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 9, 2006 9:50 AM
It doesn't. Yet why do you believe "atomization" was meant when "division" was used? Competitve cooperation is a very human trait, and was even exploited by Jesus.
Of course not, but arbitrarily interpreting one passage as contemporary with no contextual proof is hardly convincing, either.
(The above two sectons show places where you have "read into" the text without support. That's not a valid method of textual criticism.)
A double non-sequitur. First you imply that Heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven are identical concepts, then you imply that a recognition of the omnipresence of God is somehow non-standard.
Agreed. Mark 12:29-32, Romans 13:9, 1 Corinthians 13:13, and perhaps Colassians 1:5, 1 Thessalonians 1:13, and 1 Thessalonians 5:8 appear to be ontologically coterminous -- different formulas for saying the same thing.
(Or perhaps you disagree. Your last comment seems to move away from this.)
That doesn't follow. It's like saying "The aim of this military operation is the leveling of that city, so we know that the attackers cannot use radio." You're confusing method and goal.
True -- or for that matter, answer the question of whether Paul is canonical or not. ;-) You haven't even defined the text you are working from yet, which is odd.
They weren't ignored, they weren't relevant. Paul cleaves an ideal world from the world where action takes place.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | August 10, 2006 8:51 AM
Why do you believe the word was being used otherwise?
Will you agree that our addressing texts from the Bible is different, qualitatively, than our answering spurious and loaded questions created by each other, and that refusal to address verses of the Bible is different than failing to bite the rhetorical hook of vague generalizations? We are, after all, addressing the texts, right, rather than trying to 'win' the argument via an ad hominem approach; so whether I believe Paul is 'canonical' or not is irrelevant.
Too often, 'canonical' can represent a subjective evaluation or a biased social construct.
But if analysis of each other is really the point of this conversation:
When you use terms like 'standard parable interpretation' and 'canonical,' and stress Luke's connection with Paul in your argument, you reveal your deep desire (or so it seems) to believe in networks, social connectivity, etc. I believe your attempt to defend the concepts probably comes from a desire to establish hierarchy, rulership (conveniently hidden behind terms like 'rule sets') and the like. Temporal authority seems to be important to your worldview -- as expressed at tdaxp as well as here; for example, power levels are given because that makes analysis neat and easy, especially when such a hierarchy also fits neatly into your general world view. I have in fact begun to wonder if you believe that nothing has identity on its own but only when it is in 'network' with other things.
[BTW, your use of the subject of love to support an argument for Jesus' support of networking seems a bit odd, because quite obviously (to me) any feeling of love is an internal processes confined to the person who feels love, and it does not represent a "connection." In terms of the Revised OODA, the state of 'feeling love' or of 'loving' is within the Abstract loop, a Mental Construct.]
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.phaticcommunion.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 10, 2006 11:28 PM
This sums up my frustration with your style. You assume something that is not there, and then demand to know why others don't make the same assumption. "Division" is used, and what follows are examples of both division into smaller groups and dyadic conflicts. Assuming "division" means "atomization" means taking one symbolically and the other literally. Why make this jump?
It's not irrelevant, it's central. I'm not making a comment to the man -- and asking a comment of the subject.
If Paul is canonical, then Paul's commentary on any other part of the Bible is authoritative. If Paul is not, then Paul is merely a commentary while the other parts of the Bible are coherent. If only the Gospels are canonical, only those four books have authority. If we're using a purely secular approach, then every book has to stand on its own, and the best we can do is some conjectural "Q" gospel.
What? You falsely accuse me of an ad hominem approach when I am attempting to discover the text you are working from, and then make precisely ad hominem comments about me? You say "We are, after all, addressing the texts, right, rather than trying to ‘win’ the argument via an ad hominem approach" then do exactly that!
Love resides in Orientation -- and so implicitly guides & controls Action or at feeds forward into Decision. Saying "such-and-such is in Orientation, therefore doesn't effect networking" is like saying "your computer's TCP/IP protocol is on software, and so doesn't effect its internet connection": bizarre.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | August 11, 2006 7:58 AM
I think from these days forward, much of what I write may seem bizarre to you. I would say this is because each of us is individual, not really 'connected', having his own set of Mental Constructs resulting from a personal set of Observations. How bizarreness occurs via the 'networking' process is something you'll have to explain.
Things like this are bizarre to see:
It is bizarre, because I said immediately before those ad hominem comments, "But if analysis of each other is really the point of this conversation:" -- note the colon.
That was my attempt to speak in your language. (So to speak!)
See. That is asking not 'what Paul has said, meant' but rather, 'Do you [Curtis] judge Paul's comments to be authoritative or merely a commentary among other commentaries?' It isn't an understanding of the text you want, but my evaluation of the quality of that text. Whether we agree or disagree about the meaning of the text, you want to know if I see that meaning as canonical in context to Christianity or as merely one more commentary within the field or domain of Christianity. Again, this appears to betray your network-centric point of view, since it would seem that the meaning of Paul's commentary is much less important than the place in some hierarchy of authority that Paul's commentary 'should' fill.
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.phaticcommunion.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 11, 2006 12:20 PM
Like saying "two copies of Windows XP can never be really connected, because each has its own set of hardware abstracton layers resulting from a personal installation.."
You're above rhetorical tricks like this.
No, I want (and you keep refusing to give) your evaluation of the nature -the kind - of the text. It's like saying "Here is a Constitution for Xland, some speeches, and some op-ed pieces. Now, how would this countries constitutional court answer some question." That task would be foolish, because one doesn't know which is which. If a text from that says "Xland is a now a kleptocracy," without knowing if that text ispart of the Constitution, an angry speech by a Senator, or an op-ed, one can hardly go forward.
From the standpoint of mainline Christian theology, you would identity the received text as the Bible. From the standpoint of secular scholarship, you may identity each book as a constructed text. Honest discussion can continue from either presumption -- but how can honest discussion follow from refusing to identity acceptable methods or standards of evidence?
Read the text immediately above. If you fear that treating Paul as canonical is auuthoritarian (or whatever), fine: but say how you are receiving the text. If it makes you feel better to view each book as individually constructed, with the same nature of an unknown nature, fine. But say so.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | August 11, 2006 12:34 PM
Statements like these confuse me, since what I have done in this post is entirely unlike the example you have given. I have given specific verses w/ locations where they can be found in the Bible.
It is you who have tried to ignore my approach, I think. For instance, if you believe Paul is 'canonical,' then you must believe also that he was insane, since you would post an 'authoritative' passage from I Corinthians while calling many surrounding verses irrelevant. The reason they don't relate to the 'authoritative' passage would be either because Paul was insane (having written them together) or else be because you consider some parts of Paul's writing canonical and other parts not canonical -- some authoritative and some necessarily superfluous ... in order to maintain a quite subjective evaluation of the 'canon.'
It is you who would judge parts of the bible to be "part of the Constitution" and other parts "an angry speech by a Senator" or "an op-ed."
For instance, it seems you would in fact elevate Paul's summation of the Commandments -- “Love your neighbor as yourself.” -- above not only Jesus' careful separation of love of God and love of self/neighbors [Mark 12:28-34] but also above Jesus' direction to those who would follow him given in Luke 14:25-27, cited above in my post. And, having elevated Paul's summation of the Commandments above these given by Jesus, you can then find the 'meaning' you subjectively approve in Jesus' use of the word division.
I would say, pluck the timber out of your own eye before you presume to teach me what is in the Bible.
But to offer an olive branch, I will say that I am viewing all parts of the New Testament in context with the others. More specifically: I think it would be wise to evaluate the writings while also keeping in mind that the writers had different sets of Observations of Jesus and, per the Revised OODA, these varying sets of observations most likely led to different perspectives which have shaped their own writings. Thus, we can view all and perhaps come to an understanding of each writer's particular bias, or we can read all and come to some understanding of what they had in common (a common subject; i.e., Jesus.) I do not believe we are restricted to only one approach, which is why I have resisted your insistence on naming names or naming canons.
Posted by: Curtis Gale Weeks![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.phaticcommunion.com/nav-commenters.gif)
|
August 11, 2006 1:04 PM
Curtis,
I greatly enjoyed your original post, if not your argumentative recent comment. However, one remark of yours attributes to me a belief I do not hold and explicitly rejected. Could you clarify:
Your remark ignores what I wrote:
Agreed. Mark 12:29-32, Romans 13:9, 1 Corinthians 13:13, and perhaps Colassians 1:5, 1 Thessalonians 1:13, and 1 Thessalonians 5:8 appear to be ontologically coterminous — different formulas for saying the same thing.
How saying two things are ontologically coterminum means they are not ontologically coterminunus --- how saying two things are the same is equal to saying one is lower than another -- escapes reason. Or does it? Did you merely not read what I wrote?
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | August 11, 2006 7:31 PM
This is a very interesting post and discussion.
"To love God with all thy heart, soul, understanding, and strength…would leave none left for loving one’s neighbor or one’s self. Again we see that individual devotion to God usurps devotion to one’s self and one’s neighbor; then, to love one’s neighbor as one’s self means to love neither, except perhaps as a reflection of one’s love for the creator of self and neighbor."
"so I have alternatively wondered if the two commandments were two approaches toward the same commandment. He’s asked about “The greatest commandment,” after all, and gives two to answer the question about the one; plus, elsewhere in the Bible “God is love” is stated. But if to love one another is to love God, and if every neighbor (including enemies!) is loved equally — ‘as oneself’ — this hardly proves that his message was a network-centric message; in this, he makes no distinction of hierarchy of love, except that God should be loved with “all” of our being."
Do I not show my devotion to God by following his teachings of Jesus in everyday actions; rather then cermonial actions? How can one claim to be devoted to God, and not love one's neighbor? Faith vs good deeds, right? This has been my problem with christianity as philiosophy action system.
Posted by: purpleslog | August 26, 2006 8:10 PM