For the Pursuit of Wisdom

The Hebrew Insights

“The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.”

The Hebrews answered these questions of goodness and human happiness better than anyone else. Moses, the Psalmists, the Prophets, Jesus, and the apostles (especially Paul) brought wisdom to bear on this topic that has never been surpassed; and it has been equaled by very few Christians since.
Like the Greeks, Romans, and Chinese, the Hebrews held that being connected to a larger context and properly interrelated within was the key to goodness, and thus happiness. The possibility of actually getting a community of people who lived in this way was the great Hebrew contribution. The problem that the other civilizations had was that at best they only possessed the resources of the human and angelic mind, and a natural knowledge of God. The willingness that people have to do evil, even when they know it was wrong (i.e., sin), constantly defeated their efforts at a good society.
The Hebrews demonstrated that God’s initiation— beyond human contemplation, or even angelic intervention— was necessary and sufficient to create a good person and community. They realized this because, in their case, God had done precisely that: He had rescued Israel from Egypt, spoken the Law at Sinai, inspired the Psalmists, and spoken through the prophets. Above all, He had entered human history as Jesus, trained the apostles, and sent their example and message out into the world. The speaking of God to human beings and the demonstration of true human/ divine goodness in the teachings, life, (and especially) death and resurrection of Christ, is sufficient to make the world good.
On an individual or corporate level, then, it is through listening to God—hearing Him, and obeying His voice— that the inner transformation can take place to bring about happiness
Why hasn’t this happened yet, then on a global scale? To this point in history, there have not been sufficient numbers of people who actually trust God, and are willing to listen to Him. Humanity has, although with several shining exceptions, mostly ignored God’s interventions into history and chosen to go their own way. This is especially true today—the chaos and darkness that we see in the Modern world is largely a result of people ignoring the speaking of God. But God will not be defeated in His plan to create a massive, good, and happy community, and he has at least one more thing up His sleeve.
To be sure, it is likely that He will bring about at least one more movement like Early Christianity, Monasticism, or Protestantism. But in the end it is the visible re-entry of God into human history, in the Person of Jesus Christ and His followers which will be required to finally overcome evil with good on the global level. A description of His return, and the nature of His government of the earth, may help us obtain a vision of what is to be done in our time.

June 17th, 2009 | Nathan | 0 comments | Continued

The Romans

The field of Roman ethics is too vast to even summarize in a post. However, some of the major themes will be developed here to prepare for later posts.
The Roman Republic is one of the most beautiful periods in human history. Its sheer length (over 500 years) coupled with the many great men who served within it make it an important time for any student of politics to consider. The Romans were a frugal, disciplined, religious, and patriotic people who provided the context to what would come to be known as Western Civilization. The Roman Empire was less admirable than the Republic, but it was still a gloriously powerful institution based on positive law and military might.
For our purposes, it is the ethical teachings of the Stoics which are most important to be examined. Zeno and Cleanthes were the greatest of the early Stoics, but little is left of their writings. The best text here to read is the “Hymn to Zeus” by Cleanthes. It is a good summary of Stoic theology.
As Aquinas noted, the popular conception of the Stoics as being without feeling is incorrect. Epictetus and Seneca did not believe that feeling itself was bad, but rather that unordered and excessive feeling was bad. They were a courageous group of people able to face incredible adversities with equanimity. The other teaching that they sometimes are criticized for is the notion that suicide is sometimes morally admirable. Rest assured that probably every suicide of the last 200 years was morally wrong and would have been considered so by the Stoics. But the suicide of Seneca was in itself an astonishing thing. In his case, he did not want to die, but was ordered by the emperor to do so. He respected the emperor’s authority, and was not afraid of death—so he acted accordingly.
The essence of Stoicism is finding happiness through being resigned to the will of God. They taught that many of the good and bad things that people experience are not under our control, and so we should not worry about them. Instead, we should focus on the good that we can do and become through our own choices, and seek to be content about the rest. In this context they spoke about living according to nature. A man once asked Seneca why he shaved if he believed that man’s happiness did not lie in one’s appearance. Seneca replied, “Man is a well-groomed animal, and it is appropriate to do so if I am able.”
If one had to categorize philosophically the apostles Paul and John, it would have to be as Stoics. Indeed, Paul’s ministry must have looked rather familiar to the Stoics of his day. At the time there was a special philosophical calling to be a Cynic philosopher, which basically was the Roman version of a prophet. A cynic was clothed poorly, slept outside, and traveled from city to city preaching righteousness. They were frequently beaten and driven away, but put their trust in God and carried on. In fact, when the monks first headed for the desert in the fourth century, they were often called philosophers. They were leading a life of asceticism and holiness that reminded men of Socrates and the Stoics.
Seneca’s best works are his Essays and Letters, and the works of Epictetus to read are the Handbook (Enchiridion) and Discourses. I hope to be able to describe Stoic teaching more in depth at a later time.

June 10th, 2009 | Nathan | 0 comments | Continued

The Greeks

“No evil can befall a good man, either here or hereafter.” Socrates
“The first and greatest victory is over self.” Plato
“Dear is Plato, dearer still is truth.” Aristotle
“Live according to nature and you will never be poor.” Epicurus
(from the walls of the USC Philosophy library)

The answers to the question “How can human life be made happy?” that the Greeks discovered prepared Greece and Rome to become the Western Church. There is much to be said about the Greeks’ ethical vision. It was intimately directed by angelic forces (both good and evil), but never came into its’ own as an effective way for public happiness.
The main contribution of the Greeks was the discovery of the mind, human law, and human knowledge. In the early centuries it was the statesmen and poets that brought moral leadership to Athens, Sparta, and some of the other small city-states, but the most important tradition that developed was that of Western philosophy. This project was a matter of using human knowledge and asceticism to direct the mind and body so as to make one happy. The highest of the Greek systematic thought comes in Plato and Aristotle, and it is The Republic and Nicomachean Ethics which give us the most complete account of these ancient ethics. A good early example of Greek ethical thought is The Golden Verses of Pythagoras which was a lengthy poem written to describe the moral life as developed in Pythagoras’ own soul and teaching.
The greatest and best of the Greeks, Socrates, is the person to look at in order to get a glimpse of the heights to which the life of the mind can bring us. The answer to the question he gave in his life was that loving, and living by, ultimate truth is the way to happiness. Sometimes he expressed this in terms of the Good, what he considered to be the most profound universal, having a purely nonphysical existence. He was put to death by the Athenian government for his attempt to impart his example to some of the young men in the city. The death story (Crito, Phaedo) is the most important one for subsequent Western history, next to that of Christ. This event had a profound effect on Roman thought, as we shall see.
The limitations of Socrates’ view were precisely what made Greek civilization fail. He believed that if someone really knew what was good, he or she would do it. This was actually true in his own case, due to the forcefulness of his intention to be good. But for most of humanity, it is not the case, of course. Interestingly, this was also what led him to believe that all of the gods were good. There was no room in his view for demonic malice, or human sin, and thus evil on the public level could not be dealt with in any effective way. Though Plato and Aristotle made many improvements on his ethics, it was not until the apostle Paul that this problem was solved in the Western world. The Romans had to invade Greece to keep the city-states from destroying one another and those around them.
But several things had been gained, and they also should not be slighted. The idea of the mind, of the good, of human knowledge, of law, and of the philosophical way of life proved very important for the development of Christianity.
I have omitted Epicurus and the early Stoics, since most of their historical influence came within Roman history (Lucretius, Epictetus, and Seneca).

June 5th, 2009 | Nathan | 0 comments | Continued

The Chinese Discoveries

“The Tao is infinite, eternal.”
—Lao Tze
“Suppose everybody in the world loves universally, loving others as one’s self.”
—Mo Ti
With this problem in mind: “how can life be made happy?” it is possible to examine what the great civilizations discovered in response to it. The discoveries that the Chinese made were defeated after several centuries, but they are so profound that we should not ignore them. Their thoughts will also serve as a good backdrop for the Western and Near Eastern attempts.

In the first millennium before Christ, there was a Chinese philosopher named Lao Tze who wrote a significant work called the Tao Te Ching. Anyone interested in having a happy life at the beginning of the 21^st century cannot afford to do without this book. It is the highest expression of the theology made publicly available in the Eastern world. In this work Lao Tze develops his idea that all of human life takes place within a spiritual environment called the Tao (“Way”). According to him, human happiness on the individual and corporate level comes from living in harmony with the Tao, and having the Tao fill and rule over human affairs. An unhappy person is one who lives in conflict with the Tao, and an unhappy nation is one in which the rulers do not understand or practice the Tao. The descriptions he gives of the Way are very similar to the descriptions of the LORD and His kingdom in the Hebrew Scriptures. This text and a few others became the basis of Taoism, a sizable philosophical and ascetic sect.

There is some hinting about an afterlife in the Tao Te Ching, but only so much as one would expect in, say, the Old Testament. Like most of the ancient writers, Lao Tze was not primarily concerned with individual immortality. In the end it was the metaphysics of Buddhism which defeated the Taoist movement on the public level in the East.

In the fifth century of this era there was a philosopher in China named Mo Ti (also written Mo-Tze or Mo Di) who taught universal love. His idea was that the happiness of human life depended on living in limitless love for all people. This idea works well with Lao Tze’s teaching about the Way, and could have served to make the Eastern world a beacon of human civilization in the highest sense. Unfortunately the teachings of Mo Ti were defeated by Confucianism several centuries later. But even today, one could make a happy life using the writings of these men and an appropriate asceticism. They also prepare one to read the Western texts with new eyes, and this is especially true regarding the Old and New Testaments.

June 3rd, 2009 | Nathan | 2 comments | Continued

A New Direction

As human beings are free, morally responsible creatures, our greatest need is to become good—both for the sake of life in this world and for the sake of that which is to come. My posts up to this point have dealt with the need we have to be good in light of our eternal future. To be sure, this is important, and can open up a way for us to consider becoming good here and now. But most of us do not live with eternity in mind, and those who do often cannot build the bridge from eternity to our lives today. I will be taking some time to describe what a good person is, and why it is desirable in this life to become good. There will be many particular things to be examined along the way. Seeing what a good person is, and some of the necessary steps to become so, may help some in their own journey toward the Eternal City of God.

The first thing that needs to be explained is the motives of the great classical and biblical writers. These are not obvious anymore, because of our intellectual and religious history. The ancients were concerned with how human life can be happy. Many of them, in fact, were only concerned with how it could be made bearable. To see why this is so one must examine what was going on at that time.

As of 4000 years ago, human beings had become more numerous, and agriculture had been perfected enough to sustain a sizable non-farming population. Cities began to be founded, and to grow. The way human beings related to one another thus became more complex. Political power appeared for the first time, most importantly in the Near East, Egypt, and China. In each of these civilizations, a ruling class emerged, and necessarily did not have to concern themselves with food and clothing alone. Culture became the occupation of many individuals across the globe.

There were wars, famines, natural disasters, and political blunders which caused the ruling classes to consider how the decisions they were making would affect their own happiness, and that of those who were ruled. In each of these civilizations, a public understanding of God was achieved.

The most important successes at this time took place in Greece, Rome, China, and the Near East.

June 2nd, 2009 | Nathan | 0 comments | Continued

Duties

Having discussed natural values, the next thing to investigate is our duties. These are misunderstood today mainly because they are not physical entities. They go beyond God’s law–or political law—and touch every aspect of our lives. Every major civilization has been aware of the existence of duties—including ours until very recently.

Duties are simply things that we ought to do– or ought not do– based on our personal situation in life. Two different people may and often do have different duties. The health of and strength of our soul ultimately depends upon us doing our duties, and when we do our duties, God draws near to us.

It is important to realize that our duties exist whether or not we are religious. A husband has specific duties to his wife, and a wife has specific, though different duties to her husband. Every relationship, no mater how trivial, has duties associated with it, and our ultimate duty is to worship and serve God.

Because duties are realities stemming from the nature of the soul and body, most of them exist whether or not one is a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and so forth. Paul described the unbelieving Romans as “God’s rebel subjects.” One of the main purposes of being religious is to help one to know and do one’s duties. And sometimes a religious person has additional duties (e.g. “love the brethren”) that a nonreligious person does not.

The ultimate basis of the existence of duties is the relationships between the members of the Trinity, but one does not have to know the Trinity to know many of one’s duties. Plato and Aristotle knew nothing of Christ, but they knew that certain constraints were on every human life. And whether or not one is God’s friend, one’s duties remain, and to fail to do one’s duties is to incur the wrath of God: at the Last Judgment, and in the slow (or sometimes quick) disintegration of one’s soul even in this life. By contrast, to do one’s duties is to step into the flow of God’s life forever. One of the greatest services the church can offer the world is to teach others—Christian or not—about their duties.

There is also an order to one’s duties: some are more fundamental and important than others. We must hold to their priorities. Jesus said: “Woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and cumin but neglect justice and the love of God. These out you have practiced, and not left the others go undone.” If we neglect our basic duties to do a comparatively trivial one, our soul loses its correct orientation and becomes alienated from God.

Unless I get sidetracked, I will try to write more about our specific duties. Our first duty is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with your entire mind, and with all your strength” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Indeed, all of our duties are summed up in these commands. But because life is complex, we must learn the specifics of these duties in the various relationships and work that we must do.

Our duty to God: To love, worship, and obey the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

To keep His Law; and to accept His Gospel, as we hear it.

Specifically:

Our duty to our parents: to honor them, and, as a child, to obey them.

To our children: To be gentle to them, to teach them all good things (when they are still young), and to love and support them unconditionally.

A husband to wife: to love her and to be tender with her, and to be faithful in heart and body to her.

A wife to a husband: To reverence and obey her husband, and to be faithful also in heart and body.

To our friends: to be loyal and beneficial

To all people: to be polite and kind, and to keep our word, to hold others responsible for their actions, to be punctual.

To our work: to work hard and to be honest

To our leaders: to be subject to them as appropriate

To the truth: To be reasonable

To our country: to love and defend her, and to keep her laws (In a democracy: to vote and respectfully assist in the political process)

To our countrymen: To have a special friendship and generosity to fellow citizens

To the poor: To help them appropriately, to maintain fairness for them, to help meet their needs as we can.

To a foreigner: to assist him and respect him as a fellow human being

An athlete: to train hard, to love one’s sport, to be a good winner, and to be a good loser.

To knowledge: to act according to one’s knowledge, and to lead and teach to the appropriate extent.

To oneself: to maintain health, strength, and discipline; to take care of one’s needs and duties, to be well-groomed; to educate oneself as appropriate, to rest, to be a good person.

To wealth: generosity and frugality

The special duties of Christians: To love those who follow Christ with a special love, to keep our oaths made to Christ, and to obey the Scriptures.

There are also special duties for each person’s place in life, which I will not annunciate here: duties of a politician, an artist, a pastor or a deacon, a businessman, a scientist a teacher, a professor, an employee, a writer, a professional athlete, a monk or a nun; indeed, every station in society has special duties associated with it.

There are duties of nation to nation, city to city, and state to state. Within a nation, there are duties toward criminals and other subgroups.

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of duties, though I think it encompasses most of our major ones. Knowledge of one’s duties gives one great inner freedom, because duties simply are a basic part of reality, and when one is focused on them one has a place to stand to not be governed by his or her feelings.

The great tragedy of life at the beginning of the twenty-first century is that very few people know their duties, and even fewer do them. This is a result of our political, religious, and intellectual history in the twentieth century. Unless this changes, we will cease to live at the level of civilization we have enjoyed for the last 250 years, since our duties maintain the fabric of our society: that is, our domestic and international relationships, prosperity, and divine blessing. May the Lord help us each to know and do our duties, and thus to enjoy His blessing!

October 6th, 2008 | Nathan | 2 comments | Continued

Culture

“…Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy– think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

In the last fifty years there has been a resurgence of interest in education among Christians. This is clearly a good thing; but we must be careful to remember that there is more to the life of the mind than merely what is received during one’s youth. And there is more than merely being a “lifelong learner.”

What I am referring to is culture, especially what is called “high culture.” I will not attempt a full definition of culture in this article (which would be a substantial task), but rather discuss it’s role in corporate and individual human life.

A cultured person is one who has a mind that has been “cultivated”– over many years– by what is good, and true and beautiful. A cultured individual moves easily in the realms of knowledge and art, and has a “taste” that has been developed through extended moral effort (i.e. “Learning to appreciate” things). The culture of a society consists of the mode of intellectual cultivation held in common by a substantial group of people.

Culture is “high” when the length of time required to participate in it is great, and when higher moral capacities must be invoked in order to receive it. Thus Baroque music is higher than the popular music of the 1940’s America, though both are examples of good culture.

There have been several high cultures in history– most great civilizations have had one (and indeed, culture is inseparable from civilization). The Babylonians, the Persians, the Hebrews, the Indians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Greeks and Romans, are the best early examples of this. The last two millennia in the Western world has seen various forms of Christian culture, culminating (unfortunately) in the materialist culture of the early 20^th century. In a limited way other civilizations could be included in the mix– perhaps the ancient Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas, as well as some of the Barbarian tribes of Northern Europe early in the Christian Era. These had some limited arts, astronomy, and perhaps some mathematics.

Next to the rare, ecstatic enjoyment of God, culture and the aesthetic instances of it are the sources of the deepest and highest pleasures available to human beings. They are deepest because they touch on our very hearts and souls, and highest because they lift our minds to a level of greatness that they do not otherwise reach.

Culture is not a “nice” but unnecessary part of human life. It is an important part of human happiness, individually and corporately which is based upon the spiritual and intellectual nature of a human being. It is a training ground for the moral capacities needed for national life, and one of the essential rewards of being a good person. It is also the public arena of good and evil.

The greatest ancient cultures were the Hebrew and classical Greek and Roman cultures. The Greeks and Romans attained an unprecedented level of civilization, with some of the deepest insights into goodness, truth, and beauty that exist. Under strictly human and angelic capacities, they did the best. The Hebrews in fact had a less extensive culture, but the principles upon which their culture was based were matters of supernatural revelation, and thus exercised more power over human life.

But it is the Christian culture which succeeded the classical world which was highest overall. Armed with the moral and spiritual insights of the Old and New Testaments, “classical” civilization was reinterpreted and expanded for many centuries. The great philosophy of the Middle Ages, the art of the Renaissance, and the political advancements of the 18^th century are some of the greatest instances of this high culture.

Because culture is so important for our lives, it is one of the main things that God is interested in on the earth. It is also something that Jesus draws us into as we follow him. In itself it is intrinsically valuable, and part of what makes human beings so precious.

There are various ways of participating in culture. They are all good, but have different degrees of pleasure and effort associated with them. The first is simple exposure to culture: reading a dialog of Plato or going to a museum or musical performance for example. Next is reception and study of culture: learning to play a classical piece on the piano, studying art history, or learning physics or chemistry. This second step requires discipline and begins to work a substantial change on our minds and hearts. The third and greatest involvement is contribution: sculpting a man or woman under Renaissance principles, writing a piece for the piano, or (as interests me) developing new theorems and theories in mathematics.

We are now in a situation under which we can appreciate the role of the university in Modern society. It is the center of high culture. Those who train there and “research” there make their contribution to human culture itself, or perhaps to a more adequate understanding of it. Theology, philosophy, history, literature, art, science, mathematics– these are the disciplines under which goodness, truth, and beauty have come to the Western world. And perhaps there is no more effective way.

Because of what we have said about the order of cultural value, we can see that teaching in a cultural area is not as important or enjoyable as deeply penetrating a single discipline, and making a unique contribution to it. To recover a “Christian culture” young Christians with high ideals must go into the core fields, and learn from Jesus there how to take their stand for goodness, truth, and beauty.

But as has been said, this is not merely a service to the world, it is a source of great happiness, and an important means of preparing or own souls for eternity. Much of what is in our spirits is a matter of what we love and what we do not love. If Christians seriously pursue this they will, as in other ages, find the help of God and renew our actual Western culture, which deeply needs the life of God.

February 19th, 2008 | Nathan | 2 comments | Continued

Discipleship

“The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” John 1:9

“All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The Great Commission

The New Testament picture of a believer in Christ is that of a disciple. Though others have written at length on this topic, it is so important that to neglect to give it a place on my blog would be a disservice to my readers.

As we have said several times on this blog, human beings have a deep need for knowledge, especially knowledge of ultimate reality and the means to human happiness. There is so much important stuff for us to know that it is impossible to figure it all out on one’s own– even if one devotes his or her entire life to it.

The idea of a disciple is one which comes down to us through both sacred and secular history. The great philosophers of ancient Greece, Rome, and China all had a little band of followers into whom they poured their knowledge and character. The same could be said of some of the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. Jesus, as the greatest philosopher and prophet, does not deviate from this model. In his earthly life, he too had twelve intimate associates and several hundred serious students. To be a disciple of Jesus during his earthly ministry had a meaning that would have been clear to anyone who lived in the ancient world. This model of discipleship, however, is not unique to the classical world, East and West. It continued through the Middle Ages, and well into the Modern period.

One could of course still be a disciple of Plato or Lao-Tse today, in the sense that one could make the teacher’s writings, sayings, and example the basis upon which one lives his or her life. This is in fact done more frequently than one might imagine. In the same way, one could be a student of Jesus: using His life and teachings in the four gospels as a pattern for life. Since Jesus is the greatest of the ancient teachers, this would be a particularly intelligent thing to do. This is in fact the starting point for anyone who wants to be disciple of Christ today.

But there is more to Christian discipleship than this. As has been said already, the Son of God has a Divine nature as well as a human nature. He is present throughout the entire Universe, and he lives at every place and time. He is the expression of the nature of God, and the One who knows everything. A person has the option to become His disciple, to learn from Him how the world works and how to live one’s life.

The most important biblical example of this is the Apostle Paul. More than any other human being, he learned how to live his life from Christ, although he, presumably, did not know Jesus while He lived in Palestine. Paul is in fact a good model for us as to how discipleship should progress– although he had a unique calling which few of us could endure. In some important respects, each of the great Western and Eastern teachers were disciples of Christ. Studying their writings and lives will, I think, reveal that they learned much of what they knew from the Word of God teaching them. The Father teaches us of course, but so do the Word and the Spirit, as the opening quotes suggest.

This vision of things can allow us to see the place that reading the great teachers (mostly Western, although there are a few good ones from the East) has in discipleship to Christ. Although we learn from Him first and foremost, one of the ways that he teaches us is through those who have already begun to learn from Him. Ideally these would be people we know personally, but to some extent we can receive from those now dead men and women who left their writings and their example in the record of history.

As an aside, near the very top of the list are the Stoic philosophers. Although they were not Christian by any means, they distilled much of the wisdom that the classical world had discovered and made it available to ordinary human beings. While this is not the place to establish it, the apostles Paul and John both learned a significant portion of what they knew from the Stoics. The early monasticism made use of the example of the Stoics as well: I have heard that when the hermits first took to the desert they were sometimes called philosophers. We can confidently assert that a great help to Christian discipleship is available through the life and writings of men such as Zeno, Cleanthes, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius.

But this takes us a little afield from the present topic, and I plan to write a post on the Stoics sometimes soon. What should be clear is that part of how we learn from Christ is through our teachers who are strictly human. The great Christians of history clearly belong to this crew, but those Christians we know who are farther along give us something special as well. Christ teaches about our teachers, and then we can learn from them properly.

What remains to be discussed are: the “material” that we are to learn from Christ, the means and progression of our learning, and God’s ultimate intention for discipleship.

February 15th, 2008 | Nathan | 0 comments | Continued

Law and Relations

“The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Psalm 19

“The law of the spirit of life has made me free from the law of sin and death.” St. Paul

Having discussed the nature of the soul’s relations a few weeks back, it is now possible to clarify the nature of law: natural, moral, and political. Because law itself is a kind of relation; and its purpose is to govern the common relations of life.

Everything is governed by law in some way. This is part of what it means for the universe to be ruled by God. In his authority and wisdom he has established certain relationships between things and persons. Angels, men, animals, plants, and matter in general have there own particular relations; and in particular each has a relation to God.

Natural law then is the relations that material objects have among themselves. These relations are established by persons; God above all but to some extent by men and angels. A “miracle” consists of a higher law being invoked by a person for the sake of good or evil. I think that there are many persons involved in the government of galaxies and planets: each establishing his or her rule by law. Thus the angels are ruled by God; God and the angels rule man; and God, angels and man rule the physical and psychical universe. In normal conditions, the person (or Person) behind the natural law is present and acting through his or her command. This is true of the universe as a whole and also of specific physical acts like a ball hitting a baseball bat or an engine burning fuel.

It is the consistency and harmony of such physical relations that makes it possible for human beings and animals to act in the physical world. A bear can stick his paw in a stream and find a fish; a pilot can exploit the relation of speed, shape, and the atmosphere to fly great distances across the earth.

As was said earlier, it was originally God’s intention that mankind would be fully in charge of the animal kingdom. This mostly meant that we would establish and uphold proper relations between men and women, and among the animals and plants of the earth.

Moral and political law consists of the proper relations of persons living under God and with one another. A commandment is higher or lower depending on the importance of the relation that it rules. As everyone knows, the relations of human beings and angels amongst themselves and between them and God are very often not what they should be. God’s law and political law are attempts to rectify the situation by making available a proper relation: one that we often cannot see on our own, because of our ignorant and twisted condition.

The greatest men in history then are the Lawgivers: those who knew how things among people should be related and who made those possible relations available to individuals, group, and nations. This is why the law profession has such dignity and power; while the actual practice is often rife with corruption. This is what Moses, the prophets, Jesus and the apostles knew best. They knew how things should be related in order for human beings to be happy.

But the many great political law givers should be included in the list also: Hammurabi, Solon, Plato, the early Roman Senate, up to our great founding Fathers, and the subsequent lawgivers in our dear American history.

It is this understanding of law that led people in past generations to think of a good law as a discovery, and not an invention. There are possible relations between free beings (and including their possessions) which are good or evil. To find a good law is to know the mind of God and to get at the true nature of human life. A bad law consists of an improper relation being prescribed by someone in authority. Of course, depending on the severity of the evil it is proper to sometimes submit to, and to sometimes resist a bad law. If the person who made the law is genuinely in authority one should try to change his or her mind, and if this fails, be willing to submit to punishment for breaking the law, appealing to God “for the rectitude of [one's] intentions.” (But here I digress to the nature of authority; Perhaps that would be a good post at some point.)

Thus there is an easy way to characterize evil: it is breach of the Law– moral or political. “Sin is lawlessness,” St. John said. And it is precisely the disrespect of law which most threatens Modern life. This comes unfortunately from our religious, intellectual, and political histories. Man is a spiritual and social being; he must live in relation to others under good law or else be alienated and destroyed.

The special relation that law has to the soul should also be mentioned. As the human soul is made primarily of qualities and relations, good law restores proper order to the soul. This strengthens it and enlivens it. In fact, the soul thrives upon good law– and withers under bad.

The greatness of God’s Law as given in the Old Testament and through Jesus and the apostles consists of its power to bring human beings into proper relation to God and to each other. The greatness of American law (at least up until very recently…) is what makes knowledge of political law and love for it so basic to a proper secular education. As Lincoln saw long ago, if the laws are good and the people love and keep them, all goes well for a nation.

When thinking of what we can do to make our lives and the lives of those around us better, we can confidently assert that knowing, keeping, loving and doing God’s Law is one of the first and foremost things that we should consider.

From a practical standpoint one should mention that Law generally does not have its impact on the soul immediately; one must dwell in God’s Law through his or her thoughts for an extended period of time. Over weeks and months its sweetness and power will seep into our soul, in a way that we will certainly notice, and certainly enjoy.

January 24th, 2008 | Nathan | 0 comments | Continued

The Stability of the Heart

“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” –Proverbs 4

Although we are all conscious of that part in us which chooses, the spirit, we may not be as certain as to its nature. It is non-physical, a “breath” that is received directly from God. And in any given choice, we are likely to find that the choice itself feels very free.

And clearly there is significant freedom of the will. This is simply a fact of common human experience. The biblical and classical traditions both affirm it as well. But there is also a sense in which the will is not entirely free.

I am not talking primarily about the influence of other parts of the person on the will. Of course the mind, body, soul, and social relationships can “drag” the will into doing things which, on its own, it might not have chosen. But even in the moments in which we act the most freely, the will is “set” in a certain mixture of something between spirit and thought and feeling. This is what is meant by character. It is the natural inclination of the will. Perhaps the best way to describe this is to say that the will itself has a substance distinct from its specific acts.

This fact is widely misunderstood. Our choices do not have only external effects, but rather they determine the “bent” or inclination of the will for future choices. It is also why we cannot ultimately change our life merely by will-power. In the background at any given time is what we might call our baseline character; and choice alone cannot completely restructure it.

And it is this fact that makes salvation and damnation possible, and necessary one way or another. When we reach maturity in our lives, the evil from around us has “sunk” into our will to such a degree that consistent love is not possible. There seem to be only a handful of exceptions to this in human history, and what makes them possible should be clear from what follows. This evil foundation of our spirit will continuously fester throughout our whole lives, if something is not done to change it.

Because we are faced with the problem of evil in our wills, our very cores, the most desperate human need is for something positive to be done to change it. There have been many attempts at this throughout history, with varying degrees of success. And it is here that the superiority of the Christian revelation is perhaps most clear.

It is tempting to say that it is only a lack of knowledge that makes this happen, and with certain qualifications and from a certain perspective that statement could be true. But what I am referring to is the dark presence which infects the will and makes it sick. This evil is a positive reality, not merely an absence of good.

Hell is the ultimate destination for a sick will. The evil in the will, if unchecked, will more or less completely set the spirit against God and His Kingdom. This may take many years. Damnation consists of the act of God that gives the will of an evil individual final, immovable character.

The two greatest attempts at changing the will have been through knowledge and spirit, the classical and the biblical traditions, respectively. The biblical tradition involves knowledge of course, and the classical tradition involves spirit, so we should think of the distinction as one of emphasis.

As a human being comes to know what is good and right and the nature of ultimate reality, he or she has a basis upon which to make good choices. This can bring powerful healing to the entire soul, although it is usually unable to root out the evil at the deepest level. This is why the classical attempts at redemption usually failed, especially for those who were far along in their personal corruption.

The way that God has made possible through his hosen people, and Jesus above all, is redemption by the Spirit. God’s will has a power which includes but is deeper than both thought and feeling. As the Spirit moves upon the human will, the evil is disrupted. This generally happens rather slowly, because the operation requires gentleness so that the human will is healed and brought back to life. God alone can initiate this process, usually through speaking to the soul directly or through his servants.

As the will heals it has more and more strength to offer itself to God, and to receive of His Spirit. As soon as the will first comes to life, it is able to receive what it needs from the Word of God, and the Spirit working with and through that Word.

Hence reading and meditating on Scripture are fundamental to redemption. As the word warms our heart, the callouses, bruises, and puss that penetrate it can be washed off and and the spirit can be restored to life. Disciplines for the spiritual life, such as fasting and solitude, open the mind so that the God’s speaking and Spirit can work on us at the level of our heart.

We all find ourself at some place in this process. If we are literally dead to God, our will not functioning at all within His life, we must do what we can to think about God and to hear his word, in the hope that He will enliven it by His grace or action. If we find that our will is alive (and there is significant difference in our experience once the will comes to life) we can and should take the steps to receive more grace. We must “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”

With those who have a redeemed will, a positive process occurs. Goodness and truth progressively seep into the deepest part of the will, making it less likely that we will do evil. The stability of the heart becomes an advantage, and at Judgment the good bent of the will is forever confirmed.

January 15th, 2008 | Nathan | 0 comments | Continued

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