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Month of Sundays: Eternity
“We do not know where you are going, Master,” said Thomas; “so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one ever comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:5-6)
Mohammed’s father had tried everything to bring his son back to Islam.
Mohammed, a young Nigerian, had become a Christian after seeing Jesus in a dream. But his father was not happy with this decision. He tried to use positive means: obtain for his son wives, cattle, and other forms of wealth. He also turned to the negative side: he tried to poison his son, but Mohammed recovered from that. Then he sent his son into the wilderness to be killed by criminals, but Mohammed survived that too.
Nothing his father did could dissuade his son from following Christ. In frustration, his father asked Mohammed, “Tell me one thing that Jesus can give you that I can’t.”
“Baba (Father,) can you give me eternal life?” Mohammed asked.
“No…I can’t,” was his father’s reply.
We want to give our children the best: the best education, the best stuff, the best experiences, the best of everything. But we cannot give them what matters the most: eternal life. That can only come from Jesus Christ, and the most important thing we can do is to point our children—and others—to him.
When Jesus appeared to Mohammed, he restated his own words shown at the top of the page. He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. And he is worth everything that we must pass through so we can have eternity with him.
Every one who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or land, on account of my Name, will receive many times as much, and will ‘gain Immortal Life.’ (Matthew 19:29)
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What "Liberal on Liberal" Crime Looks Like
As if things at NPR weren’t hard enough, we have this going on:
A Maine man has been jailed on federal charges that he threatened to kill or harm two of the hosts of “All Things Considered,” the popular National Public Radio news program, The Smoking Gun has learned.
The defendant in custody, John Crosby, was arrested in late-January by FBI agents and named last month in a three-count felony indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Portland. The case against Crosby, 38, has not been publicized by the Department of Justice, nor has it been reported by NPR.
First: I think this kind of thing is not correct. If your objective is to “get NPR,” the best way is to let them keep talking and doing rather than silencing them, as the current string of scandals indicates.
But let’s unpack this:
- This comes from New England. Now I know that Maine in many ways is atypical of New England; I worked for an “old Mainer” for many years, and know this well. Besides, what can you say for a state which has two Republican senators? But it’s still in a region that, until last November’s electoral tsunami, had no Republican representatives in the House and where most states have same sex civil marriage.
- The defendant “has been held without bail since his January 26 arrest inside a library at the University of Southern Maine.” What other kind of criminal would you hold in a library? However, conservatives should be forewarned: since liberals think that conservatives never read, they are probably planning to use libraries as places of incarceration for those on the right, too. That is, until one of their judges rules that putting a conservative in the library is cruel and unusual punishment…
- The defendant drove a Volvo and was using it to help him transport his weapons.
- He sent some of his threatening emails to NPR from a Starbucks. The rest came from the University of Southern Maine.
Wonder if they shove a latté through the slot at mealtimes…
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"Modern" Palestine, Part II
A few years back I featured some maps of what was then referred to as “Modern Palestine” but was in reality the region under the Ottoman Empire.
Below is another map from another Bible from the same era, showing both Galilee and Judea.
(You can see a higher resolution image by clicking on the map.)
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Cloud: Free to Fly (Holy Trinity Brompton)
Free To Fly (Dovetail DOVE 16) 1975
Their first album is a lovely group of songs, most of which are drawn from the Scriptures. The cover suggests the album’s content: soaring and ethereal. But it’s also well executed, with superb musicianship. Free to Fly is one of the best treasures from 1970’s British Jesus Music.
Cloud was what we would call now the “praise band” for Holy Trinity Brompton Church of Nicky Gumbel (and now Shaneen Clarke) fame. We also have their album The Resting Place as well.
The songs (for individual download:)
- Living Stones
- Love One Another
- I Feel I Want To Fly
- I Will Lift Up My Eyes
- The Sun Will Surely Rise
- The Lord By Wisdom
- Come Bless The Lord
- May The Lord Bless You From Zion
- Praise The Lord/I Know That The Lord Is Great
- I Know That The Lord Is Great
- Give Thanks Unto The Lord/Sing Unto the Lord
- I Give Thanks O Lord With My Whole Heart
- Search Me
- Sing To The Lord A New Song
- Let Everybody That Hath Breath Praise The Lord
For more albums click here
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Month of Sundays: Defeat
But, when the full time came, God sent his Son–born a woman’s child, born subject to Law– To ransom those who were subject to Law, so that we might take our position as sons. (Galatians 4:4-5)
In 387 B.C. the Gauls came down from the north and defeated the Romans at the Battle of the Allia. That cleared the way for them to take over Rome itself. After negotiations, a “one thousand pounds’ weight of gold was agreed on as the ransom of a people” of Rome. But some of the Gauls brought false weights to try to up the definition of 1000 pounds. When a Roman tribune objected, “his sword was thrown in addition to the weight by the insolent Gaul, and an expression was heard intolerable to the Romans, ‘Woe to the vanquished!’” (Both quotes are from the Roman historian Livy.)
The Romans came back from this humiliation. They learned a few things about war from their Celtic opponents, good fighters from the Battle of the Allia to Bull Run. The Romans’ return was effective; by the time Our Lord came into the world, all of Gaul was under Roman rule, as were most of the lands around the Mediterranean.
Part of the “full time” described in the passage above was the rise of Rome. Rome imposed on its subjects a common language (two, really, Latin and Greek, the language of the New Testament.) It made travel and commerce safe over a wide area. It made both the easy dissemination of the gospel and the growth of the church possible in the years following the Resurrection.
The Jews had their own comeback. Hauled into Babylon, their captors bullied them into singing their praise and worship music, then made fun of them: “It was there that those who had captured us demanded that we sing. Those who guarded us wanted us to entertain them. They said, ‘Sing a song from Zion for us!’” (Psalms 137:3) But the Babylonians had their day of reckoning, and the Persians allowed the Jews to return to the Promised Land.
Our Lord is a God of second chances. That’s the meaning of being “born again.” Those who are called according to his purpose will have a comeback.
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To Reach a Destination, You Have to Have a Course: My Reply to Ron Krumpos, and to Rob Bell Too
It seems that the Christian world is all atwitter (literally, and elsewhere) about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. Based on the information that’s available, he’s outed himself as a universalist, which frankly doesn’t sit well with me. In the meanwhile, it seemed that it was as good a time as any to post Antonia Tripolitis’ article Return to the Divine: Salvation in the Thought of Plotinus and Origen. Since Origen is Christianity’s most illustrious universalist (perhaps until the Modernist movement crowded the field in the last century plus) I felt that such a posting might be educational.
The first response I got back was from one Ron Krumpos, who made this comment, mostly a quote from a former President of India. There are a couple of positive things to be said about this.
The first is that it opens up a discussion of the whole relationship between Greek philosophy and Indian religion and mysticism. There was a good deal more interchange between the Roman Empire and India than most people are aware of, and before that Alexander the Great briefly unified the world from the Adriatic to the Indus. There’s a stronger connection between a philosopher like Plotinus and a devotee of Hindu spirituality like Krumpos than most people, content with an “East is East and West is West” mentality, care to admit. (Some of my previous thoughts on this subject can be found here.)
The second is that it has focused my attention on why spirituality such as this and a lot that has been going around in this country since the days of the lost chord has never resonated with me.
I did a little research on Mr. Krumpos. On his World Religions Parliament page, he tells us that he has no religion, but then he goes on to outline the people who have inspired him:
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Nobel physicist, who invited me to the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory. He introduced me to mysticism and the universality of the Universe.
Swami Nikhilananda, founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center in New York, who spent many hours privately teaching me that mystical awareness is beyond philosophy or religion.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, then V.P. of India and later President, who met with me in Lucknow and Delhi and taught that we can be active in this world without being of this world.
Also, a professor of philosophy in Kyoto, a Zen abbot and a Cistercian monk on Lantau, a Quaker missionary in Victoria, Hong Kong, a Therevada monk at Nakhon Pathom, a Hindu priest on Bali, a Vajrayana abbot in Kathmandu, a sadhu in Lucknow, a Sufi shaykh in Teheran, a professor of political science (and shaykh) in Cairo, a member of the Knesset, a professor of history and a Greek Orthodox monk in Jerusalem, a retired police inspector in Copenhagen, an Anglican bishop in Bath, and the chairman of an American global bank: true mystics who I have met and learned from.
He may not claim a religion, but religion has claimed him. And that’s more than I can claim for myself.
It will doubtless come as a shock to many readers of this blog (to say nothing of my friends and family,) but other than the fact that my relationship with God is at the core of my life, I don’t consider myself a religious person. I find myself sitting in church telling myself, “I’m the only person in this place who is here for the reason I am.” I find it hard to stomach when secularists tell us we must “believe in evolution” and yet insist be scientific at the same time. I don’t find the whole business of simply believing a satisfying business.
I come from a long line of people (on my father’s side at least) who, by and large, left little evidence that religion was a high priority. That made any spiritual quest something of an uphill battle. To inquiries along this line came the same question, verbalised or not: “What practical good is it?” The fact that they were financially successful shut off the promise of upward social mobility that large segments of American Protestantism have made part and parcel with being a Christian. Who needs a church to be (or show we are) successful when we’ve done it without one for so long?
But when you’re the recipient of direct divine revelation in Palm Beach—and I’ll stack that up against any of Mr. Krumpos’ mystical experiences—you have to do something. So a good deal of my journey with God has been geared towards answering that hard question of practicality. The following is an answer to that, and it’s appropriate that it comes from a heritage of involvement in transportation.
Since this is a journey, we have two key issues: a destination and a route to get there. No journey can end without a definite destination. Origen can be criticised for his universalism, but his whole cosmic view is simple: all souls were created at what I like to call “negative infinity,” they through free will make a journey away from God, they reconnect with their creator during the journey, and have God as their ultimate destination at what I call “positive infinity.” Origen was a product of a polytheistic world where having one God as the ultimate source and destination wasn’t a universally accepted given, and it still isn’t. So the destination was set.
Now we have the route. The whole concept of having many roads to God always struck me as a good way to get lost. It also made sense that, if you want a job done right, you would do it yourself. That’s exactly what Jesus Christ did: as God, he came to be one of us (a striking idea if you think about it for a while) so that he could both redeem and transform us. By doing both we are set on the path to God or, for those more nautically or aeronautically inclined, set on the course.
Now many think this is too restrictive. But because Jesus Christ is both human and divine, to say that he is the Way to God isn’t as narrow as some believe. As we found out in the Bahamas, if you want to avoid the reefs and shoals of life, you need a native guide, one who has been where you are going and will interact with you. As God, Jesus is the ultimate native guide, he was there at the start, he will be there at the end, he got past the obstacle of death, and he can lead us into eternal life. How this plays out can have a great deal of variety, depending upon where we start. But the means for the journey into the safe harbour are there.
I get the distinct impression that Mr. Krumpos’ course of spirituality is more about the journey than the destination. That’s not unusual; for many spiritual seekers that’s the case. While I was slowly but surely lurching towards the hilltop experience that was to set the course for the next quarter century and beyond, many of my contemporaries were astroplaning—or jet planing—towards India, the source of much of Krumpos’ inspiration. But given the eternity of the objective, I never felt (and still don’t) that “New Age” spirituality was an option. And the journey has been good, too.
I guess this is as good a time as any to consider Rob Bell and his universalism.
For those of us who have roamed the Anglican/Episcopal world for many years, we know all too well what this means. We know what it’s like when our church cuts loose from its proper anchor and drifts in the storm. There’s always damage, and that damage always shows up in the declining membership rolls. Our opponents always tell us that they’re doing it to make the church relevant in the modern (and I guess now the post-modern) world, but fewer and fewer people show up to validate that assertion.
There are two ways I’d like to look at this: the lesson of Origen and the dire peril to evangelicalism itself.
I’ve outlined in brief Origen’s case for universalism. I’ve never agreed with it, although I think that he, as a Christian thinker, is ahead of any Evangelical dead or alive. The weakness of his idea was most succinctly critiqued by G.W. Butterworth in the introduction of his translation of the Peri Archon:
The weakness of Origen’s system, considered as a whole, lies in the assumption that the entire cosmic process is a mistake, due to the misuse of free will. He regards it was axiomatic that the end must be like the beginning. Is there nothing, then, to be accomplished in these vast stretches of time? Can God do no more than restore things to the position they were in before the primeval fall? It we are to take Origen literally, it would appear that God cannot. History, however long drawn out, is but the mending of an original fault. We have it on good authority that in one passage he even said that perfected souls would be swallowed up in the divine essence from which they sprang. Such as system of thought is at heart pessimistic, and it was perhaps some instinctive apprehension of this fact which caused the church to turn away from it.
Origen’s emphasis on free will is also the greatest strength of his system of thought. It was one legacy that stuck with the Eastern churches, one that helped to prevent the infiltration of Augustinian fatalism. Allowing his creatures to make mistakes was the risk that God took in granting them free will. But in the end Origen lost his nerve on making those consequences stick eternally, which in positive infinity negates the effects of same free will.
In some respects Rob Bell, coming from a Reformed background, may have made the mirror image error to Origen. He looks at God’s irresistible grace, figures that God came to save everyone, and then comes to the conclusion that he will. Such reasoning has made Calvinism, in its own way, the autobahn to universalism, something that Finney combated in his day and which some Evangelicals will continue to do.
But Butterworth’s criticism of Origen’s universalism applies to Bell’s in that, irrespective of whether there is meaningful free will in the middle or not, universalism renders the whole cosmic process pointless. This is something that Bell probably does not see. As I’ve said before, Evangelicals are notorious for not seeing their thought processes to their logical conclusion, and although Bell will find himself outside of the fold now, it’s easier to take the boy out of Evangelicalism than Evangelicalism out of the boy.
That leads me to the second problem: universalism will corrode the integrity of Evangelicalism as it has that of the Main Line churches, only more quickly. Why more quickly? Because Evangelical churches have dispensed with so much Christian tradition and continuity in the name of winning souls, once the soul winning ceases with universalism, there isn’t anything else left. Consider these things:
- Evangelicals dispensed with “cultural Christianity” because they did not think that it was enough to get people to heaven. Only the Southerners—black and white—developed a culture within Evangelicalism that is really worthy of the name, which may explain in part why the South is the centre of the American Evangelical world.
- Evangelicals ditched the liturgy because it smacked of “formalism.”
- Evangelicals eschewed the episcopate because it looked too much like Rome.
- Evangelicals dropped the history of the church from the death of John to the birth of Martin because it was too “unbiblical” in course.
- Evangelicals pushed out arts such as sculpture and dancing because they were too worldly, or made them think of idolatry.
The result is a simple, straightforward church and Christian life structure that has worked remarkably well over the years.
But if we all face an undifferentiated eternity, what’s the point of all of this sacrifice? Churches such as the Episcopal delayed the inevitable collapse because they at least had enough aesthetic appeal to carry on even when, as Gregory the Great put it, “…in their hearts it had withered away.” Evangelical churches simply don’t have this resource. If Bell’s idea is adopted widely they will drop like a stone, and American Evangelicalism will cede its place to the Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans.
Which it will probably do anyway…
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Return To The Divine: Salvation In The Thought Of Plotinus And Origen
This article, by Dr. Antonia Tripolitis, is presented here for three reasons:
- It is an excellent exposition of Origen’s views of the difference between created and uncreated beings, one which I make in My Lord and My God.
- It shows how two people, who start with a virtually identical philosophical framework, end up with different conclusions because of the way in which their faith (or lack of it) informs their world view. In spite of the common criticism that Origen paganised Christianity, the reality is actually the opposite.
- It is a succinct presentation of Origen’s view of the origin and destiny of the soul, a very relevant topic in view of the controversial universalism set forth by Rob Bell in his book Love Wins.
Dr. Tripolitis taught for many years at Rutgers University. The article originally appeared (with the citations) in the Patristic Monograph Series No. 6, Disciplina Nostra: Essays in Memory of Robert F. Evans, Donald F. Winslow, ed. Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1979, pp. 171-178.
In the third century it was Plotinus and Origen whose anthropologies were to have an important and lasting influence upon the thought of succeeding theologians and philosophers. Their views were formative also for the mysticism, both pagan and Christian, which was to be developed in subsequent generations. In particular, Origen’s ascetic concepts and mystical perception of the human soul pervaded the thought of later thinkers in the East as well as in the West; they are an impressive contribution to the progressive understanding of human salvation. Fundamental to the thought of both Plotinus and Origen is their insistence on the divine origin and divine nature of the individual human soul. Their major concern, indeed the goal of their thought, was the ultimate “return” of the soul, by means of knowledge, to unity with its divine source. Both were convinced that the human soul belongs to the world of intelligible reality, and both undertook to describe, each in his own way, the means by which this union with Reality could be attained.
Origen and Plotinus were products of the eclectic intellectual environment of the Egyptian metropolis of Alexandria. They both shared the Platonic tradition as this had developed by the third century. It is believed that each attended, though at different times, the lectures of Ammonius Saccas, a key figure in the establishment of Neoplatonism. Although both men shared a common tradition, it manifested itself in their writings in different ways. Plotinus, a pagan, recast Platonic ideas into a new pattern of thought. Origen, a defender of Christianity, adopted Platonic views as these could be called into service to help explain the Christian understanding of God, of human nature, and of human destiny. These Platonic views he revised and reshaped to as to make them congruent with Christian beliefs. Thus, although their concepts are in many ways similar, the significant differences between Origen and Plotinus stem from their religious orientation. The purpose of this essay, then, is to present a brief analysis and comparison of the understanding of salvation in the thought of Plotinus and Origen with a view to determining the sources behind their similarities as well as their differences.
Both Plotinus and Origen believed that the rational soul participates in the divine eternal world and that its origin lies outside of time in the realm of the “intelligible” or divine.2 However, there is a difference in how each perceives the status of the soul as it participates in the divine, that is, the nature of the soul’s participation in its transcendent source. According to Plotinus, the human rational soul, which is a person’s true nature, is ,a direct emanation of the divine essence. It is a part of the divine world, a being which exists on the lowest level of divinity and therefore in continuous and direct relationship with the divine intellect.3 Origen, as a Christian who was influenced by the biblical view of creation, could not accept so exalted a view of human nature, that the rational soul was a part of the divine and in direct association with it. This biblical pessimism notwithstanding, he did find, through a rational interpretation of the Genesis narratives, the basis for a qualified assertion of the soul’s participation in the divine.
According to Origen, the rational soul is a created being; created outside of time, it is nevertheless created. For this reason, it is unstable, subject to change and alteration,4 in contradistinction to the simple and eternally changeless essence of uncreated divinity.5 Therefore, the human soul is not of the same essence as the divine,6 but is capable of sharing or participating in the divine.7 Referring to the biblical account of creation, Origen states that it is the rational soul which was created in the “image” of God.8 It is capable, accordingly; of perceiving and understanding, if it so wills, the intelligible divine truth and, through its imitation of the divine Logos, is capable of attaining perfection and “likeness” to God.9 It is through this interpretation of the imago Dei that Origen, like Plotinus, can speak of the soul’s participation in its divine source. Yet it is his adherence to the biblical view of creation that causes him to differ both from Plotinus and the other Platonists of his time. A Platonic concept has been modified in order to make it congruent with Christian belief.
Plotinus believed that in their original state all souls were pure rational beings, logoi or logika, alike and equal in their contemplation of the divine intellect and in perfect communion with it.10 However, these rational beings turned away from their contemplation of the Good and assumed material bodies. The “fall” of the rational beings is considered by both Plotinus and Origen as a consequence of this turning away. For Plotinus, this “fall” was both a cosmological necessity and an indication of the soul’s voluntary inclination towards that which is void and vain. The embodiment of the rational soul is necessary for its own development and for the subsequent creation and perfection of the cosmos. But still it is a “fall,” a voluntary self-alienation of the soul from the Good.11 Plotinus never reconciles the “necessary” and “voluntary” elements of the logoi’s turning away from their original state.12 Origen, on the other hand, attributes the fall of souls to their created, generated nature. By virtue of the fact that they once did not exist and then came into existence, rational souls were necessarily subject to change and alteration; inherent instability is part of their nature.13 It was this instability which led the souls, albeit created in the image of God, to make a wrong choice, to neglect God, and thus to fall away from God and into evil. So Origen, although believing the fall to be an unavoidable consequence of genetic instability, nevertheless holds these created beings morally responsible for their fall.14 However, in spite of the logika’s estrangement from God, they still retain their participation in the divine essence and thus have the ability, potentially, to return to their original pristine state.
Adhering to the Platonic doctrine of “assimilation to God,” both Plotinus and Origen maintain that the world of sense is alien to the soul and a hindrance to the soul’s realization of its own true nature. Eachbelieves that a person’s goal should be to become liberated from the things of sense and to realize one’s divine nature as logos or logikos, thus regaining one’s original status. The rational soul possesses within itself both the desire and power for communion with the divine. The attainment of perfection and the regaining of original purity is thus within the grasp of human capability.15
According to Plotinus, the rational or “higher” soul remains always in the intelligible world, in continuous and direct contemplation of intelligible realities.16 It remains eternally stable and impassible,. untouched by the passions, sin and suffering which are a part of the sensible world.17 Eternally maintained in the intelligible universe, and in constant communion with the One, the rational soul continually receives from the One, through the eternal and spontaneous emanation of its energy, the power always to return to the world of the intellect. In its process of creative emanation, the One gives movement to the soul and the power to return to its source.18 It is thus the continuous illumination of the soul by the One which provides the soul both with the desire for, and the power necessary to achieve, salvation. A person needs only to turn inward to recognize this impulse the power within and to pursue the necessary moral and intellectual discipline involved in the process of purification.19 Through moral training, philosophical reflection, and the study of the sciences, the soul gradually attains knowledge of the Good and ascends thereby to the intelligible world.20 Thus, in Plotinus’ view, there is no need for what might be called additional, special or providential grace to assist the soul, nor any need for the mediation of prayer, for rites or sacraments. Within human nature itself exists all that is required for the process towards salvation, a process culminating in the soul’s ascent towards purification and the final appearance or vision of the One. It is this conscious awareness within the soul of the divine presence which allows for the soul’s ultimate awakening and realization of its true nature.21 In spite of this universal possibility, however, not all are capable of reaching the highest level, for few are aware of the power within themselves, and still fewer are willing to undertake the vigorous intellectual and moral discipline necessary to bring the true divine nature of the soul to full realization. It is for this reason that those who do experience the divine vision are few, and their experience of it is rare.22 Yet it is still true that the vision or appearance of the One does come naturally to anyone who is properly prepared to receive it.23 This is both similar to and, in some respects, divergent from Origen’s view in which he maintains that it requires persistent and steady effort, in addition to God’s continuous grace and guidance, for the soul to regain its original state of purity.
Origen, too, as we have already seen, believed that the rational soul is capable of participating in the divine life. As the “image” of God, or of the divine Wisdom, the soul is able, if it wills, to perceive and understand the divine intelligible verities.24 However, Origen could not, as a Christian, accept the idea that a person’s true self (rational soul) is by nature eternally pure, stable, changeless, and impassible. Origen believed that it was the whole soul which had fallen in its entirety and was therefore, all of it, in need of purification. It is the entire soul which, because created, is mutable, provisional, incomplete, and dependent. All that the soul possesses is due to God’s power or will, and it requires God’s constant and continuous grace for its spiritual status as well as for its very existence. This assertion of the soul’s unstable nature and of its dependence upon God’s grace is of primary significance to Origen’s discussion of the soul’s spiritual ascent.25 Unlike Plotinus’ description of the “rational” soul, for Origen there is no part of the soul (rational or otherwise) which inherently possesses goodness. Rather, the soul is given a share in goodness by God’s grace in accordance with its developing capacity to receive it. Both Origen and Plotinus claim that the ability and power, movement and desire, to return to God have from the beginning been implanted by God within the soul.26 Both Origen and Plotinus state that it is the responsibility of the individual soul to recognize the power within it and, by means of this power, to strive conscientiously to attain the world of intellible realities.27 But it is only Origen, who holds to the soul’s unstable and changeable nature, in whose writings we find the insistence on the soul’s inability, of itself, to realize and utilize the divine power implanted within it to attain ultimate communion with God. It is important for the soul to realize and acknowledge its own limitations, that is, its instability and dependence, if it is to turn to God for that grace without which salvation is impossible.28 When it does this, the soul begins to receive God’s guidance, those personal and individual acts of grace which guide it through the various phases of the ascent towards God, all in accordance with the given soul’s maturity and capacity for spiritual progress.29 It is through the soul’s conscientious effort, its imitation of the divine Logos, and with the help and guidance of the Logos, that the soul is capable of being perfected and led to union with God. It is the Logos which provides the soul first with th’e moral power with which it can do battle against sin, and then with an increase of intellectual insight as it advances towards God, during which advance it begins to perceive and understand those mystical divine truths which heretofore had been hidden from it.30
For Origen, God reveals himself by means of the Logos both in history and in the inner life of the individual. God reveals himself through the Holy Scriptures and to each individual in accordance with that individual’s capacity to receive him.31 Thus, unlike Plotinus, Origen maintains that salvation is universally available to all, not just to those who are intellectually capable.32 The means of salvation are in accordance with an individual’s needs or degree of insight at a given moment, but salvation itself is potentially available to all.
Although the process by which an individual soul attains true knowledge is described differently by Plotinus and Origen, each sees the ultimate goal as the same: The soul’s mystical union with the divine. Each describes the relationship of the soul to the divine in terms of a mystical marriage, making use of the Platonic myth of Eros and Psyche as elaborated in the Symposium.33 After much searching and longing for the Good, the soul is joined to the Good in a union which both Plotinus and Origen see as analogous to the union of earthly lovers.34 But the union of the soul with the Good in no way partakes of the sensual; rather, it is that fulfilment by which the soul, in perfect self knowledge, comprehends the eternal divine realities. This is the goal of human existence, the end of life’s journey.35 Plotinus sees the last stage of this journey as the complete union of the soul with the One, a state in which the soul has turned completely inward, where pleasures and happiness are from within, when the soul has been freed from everything alien and external. Things of sense have become relegated to the level of meaningless accessories, and the soul itself has become one, both with itself and with the divine.36 Plotinus does not say that the soul becomes “identical” with the divine; rather, the soul has finally realized its own true divine nature and has thereby been completely fulfilled by the One.37 It is even possible, Plotinus claims, for this state of unification to be attained by a purified soul while still in the earthly body, but such experiences are very rare and of brief duration. Final and permanent union with the One is possible only after death, when the soul is completely free of the body.38
In language similar to Plotinus’, Origen describes the final union of the soul with God as that stage in which the soul will no longer be conscious of anything other than God; it will think God and hold God and God will be the mode and measure of its every movement. God will be all in all to the soul.39 But nowhere does Origen speak of a oneness or unity of the soul with the divine while still in an earthly body. The soul can indeed reach that contemplative stage in which there is an awareness of the divine and an approach of,the divine towards the soul, but this awareness and approach stops short of complete oneness or union.40 While in the earthly body, the soul is still too weak and unstable to attain complete union with God, even for a rare or brief instant. The earthly body is in fact an impediment both to the soul’s complete union with God as well as to its fitness for such union.41 Thus, according to Origen, complete and lasting union with the divine can be achieved only in the life hereafter.42 From a common Platonic tradition, then, there emerged two views of salvation, one of them pagan and one of them Christian. What they have in common stems from this shared tradition. Where their views differ stems from their respective understanding of human nature. Plotinus, as did the pagan Platonists, adopted certain elements of the tradition, reinterpreted them, and developed out of them an exalted anthropology. For Plotinus, the human is essentially divine; the true self, or rational soul, is a member of the intelligible universe, a stable, impassible, immortal, divine entity which is uncreated and exists from before all time, eternally sustained in the intelligible universe and in constant communion with the divine. The goal of human ‘existence is to understand this essential divinity and, through virtue and philosophy, to restore it to its proper, original relationship to the One and to the divine world.
Origen, also a Platonist, differed from Plotinus precisely in his adaptation of a more biblically based view of creation and of the imperfection of human nature. Thus he used those Platonic concepts which could the more readily explain his Christian anthropology. Origen is less optimistic than Plotinus about the inherent goodness of human nature, but more optimistic about the possibility of eternal salvation for all created beings. Heeding the biblical accounts of creation, Origen assigns to the human soul the status of creatureliness, albeit created from all eternity in the image of God. As such, the soul has a certain “kinship” with God, is immortal, and capable of participating in the divine life. But it is not essentially divine. As created, the entire soul is basically unstable and in need of God’s grace and assistance. The aim of one’s life should be to purify oneself from things of sense and to return to fellowship with God. For the Christian, this is done through faith in Christ (Logos) and diligent imitation of Him who guides all souls in their return to God.
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New Song: A City Set Upon a Hill Cannot Be Hid
New Song
A City Set Upon a Hill Cannot Be Hid (New Song NS-0001) 1976Back when I first encountered the “Jesus Music” of the 1970’s, I always wondered: what if they ditched the guitars and tambourines of the “Fisherfolk” and did something orchestrally? Evidently someone else had the same idea. The result of that is this album, which is in a class by itself.
This album has always been the mystery album of 1970’s Christian music. Coming from Huntington Beach, CA, it has no credits to its musicians, but gives all the credit to “God the Holy Spirit.” That’s always buffaloed those who want to know the people who actually performed on and produced this unique work.
It’s obvious, however, that New Song Ministries implied that the music came directly from God. That’s a stretch: the rich vocals and instrumentation are frequently overdone, and one gets the impression that what they’re trying to convey is well beyond the power of their expression. But the effort is well worth it.
The last half is a suite based on the book of Revelation. Christian music buffs will draw the parallel with the second half of Daniel Amos’ Shotgun Angel, released the following year. But New Song’s approach is entirely different and, in some ways, dates more gracefully than Daniel Amos. And the end…well, that’s the most powerful moment of the album, you’ll have to experience that for yourself. It begs for live performance.
Update (June 2013): Much of the mystery behind this album is peeled away by the comments of group member Paul Griffo. You can read these below; my comments on them are here.
The songs (for individual download:)
- Sing Praise To God
- Cry Out Hosannah
- Song Of Joy
- Jesus Savior
- Don’t Let Your Heart Be Troubled
- Maybe This Day
- The Bride’s Song
- Behold I Come Quickly
- I Had Never Imagined
- The Harvest Is Past
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Month of Sundays: Cost
Why, which of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and reckon the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?– For fear that, if he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, every one who sees it should begin to laugh at him, And say ‘Here is a man who began to build and was not able to finish!’ (Luke 14:28-30)
Early Christian churches were, for the most part, “house churches,” which is still the case in countries where Christianity is illegal. When the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, churches began to be built in earnest. One of the earliest was in Tyre. Speaking at the dedication of the church, Eusebius of Caesarea noted that the building was built “…solidly of still richer materials in abundance, never for a moment counting the cost.”
Almost 1,700 years have passed, but one thing hasn’t changed: too many projects such as churches, houses, and other buildings are undertaken with little regard for their cost. But the bill comes due eventually and, if we’re paying on credit, sooner than we’d like.
Jesus challenged his disciples to first count the cost, not only of buildings, but the cost of following him. Were they prepared to pay that price? “‘If every one else falls away from you,’ Peter answered, ‘I shall never fall away!’ ‘I tell you,’ replied Jesus, ‘that this very night, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times!’ ‘Even if I must die with you,’ Peter exclaimed, ‘I shall never disown you!’ All the disciples spoke in the same way.” (Matthew 26:33-35) But Peter did deny Jesus; his Lord knew him better than he himself.
And he knows us better too. We say we’re prepared to go where he sends us. But are we? Are we prepared to pay the price by giving of ourselves? Or are we simply willing to stay home and spend money, which has a high price of its own? Ultimately we must ask: what’s really important to us?
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:21)
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 