All that is not God

For the Christians, as for the Jews, the story did not begin with all that is but with God’s creation of all that is not God. The world had a beginning. It had not always been here but was instead created by the one and only God and was distinct from him. The story that unfolds in Scripture is thus the story of God’s dealings with all that is not God.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 216

The Stoic paradox

At the heart of the Stoic story as it is expressed in Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus there is thus a profound tension, dialectic, or, perhaps, paradox. To learn what we are and how to become what we are—rational mortals—we must be inducted into the Stoic way of being. Reason is not what we think for ourselves but a specifically traditioned communal craft. And yet to learn the Stoic craft of reason is to go into ourselves, to become solitary, self-sufficient fortresses of right judgment. There remain other Stoics—and there is the need to teach and be apprenticed—but exactly to the extent that we succeed in the Stoic life, even other Stoics are finally removed from us by the same life that initially drew us together in the common task of learning how to love wisdom.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 215

Come, Holy Spirit, our hearts inspire

679 C. M.
The Spirit’s enlightening influences.

COME, Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire;
   Let us thine influence prove ;-
   Source of the old prophetic fire;
   Fountain of life and love.

2 Come, Holy Ghost, for moved by thee
   The prophets wrote and spoke:
   Unlock the truth, thyself the key;
   Unseal the sacred book.

3 Expand thy wings, Celestial Dove;
   Brood o’er our nature’s night;
   On our disorder’d spirits move,
   And let there now be light.

4 God, through himself,
   We then shall know, If thou within us shine;
   And sound, with all thy saints below,
   The depths of love divine.
                            Charles Wesley
                             Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)

On the merry-go-round

Ultimately, however, in the Stoic narrative of repair, these three focal points were not fully separate things, each with its own independent logic and modus operandi. They were, rather, tightly interwoven and interdependent ways of talking about the defining contours of the philosophical life: by getting impressions sorted into the right columns we extirpate the passions and grow in virtue; by extirpating the passions we can sort impressions correctly and grow in virtue; and by growing in virtue we can sort impressions correctly and extirpate the passions. Only by developing these three skills simultaneously will we return to our nature.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 213

<idle musing>
Right. No wonder the early Christians found a fertile field! Once you are on the merry-go-round of self-improvement, it's only too easy to get discouraged—which is why in our social media age we curate our appearance. What you see isn't who you are is the watchword. Of course, Stoicism is more honest than that! They were actually working on changing and becoming. We, on the other hand, simply chase a virtual reality and try our best to ignore the real one.

How's that working for you?

Yeah. That's what I thought. Come home to Jesus and let him heal the broken self. As it says in Isa 55:

All of you who are thirsty,
come to the water!
Whoever has no money,
come, buy food and eat!
Without money, at no cost,
buy wine and milk!
2 Why spend money for what isn’t food,
and your earnings
for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me
and eat what is good;
enjoy the richest of feasts. (Isa 55:1–2 CEB)

</idle musing>

Give it time

The Stoic story of human damage presumes that not even reading Stoic works can be done well without reason’s repair. Unlike Augustine’s story of his encounter with Paul’s Romans, we cannot just pick up and read, but must instead be taught how to read. Reading has an order to it, and this order corresponds to the repair that is necessary to make one into a good reader. Which is to say that we can’t be good readers until we become the kind of person who can read well. If the story here tells of a seeming paradox—right reading requires reason’s repair but reason’s repair requires right reading—the Stoics assumed that there was time enough to work it out.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 211

<idle musing>
Sorry. Doesn't work for me. I'm glad the Holy Spirit gives light to the blind; no need to go stumbling around and trying to fix yourself so you can fix yourself. The Holy Spirit does the fixing—and the teaching.
</idle musing>

Tozer for Tuesday

America is not a God-conscious nation; we are a secular people. We have what the Bible calls a profane mind. And even in those who may toss God a bone when making a political speech to get the votes of a religious-minded people, if you probe in far enough you will find that our leadership is composed of a secular-minded people. I do not use the word in a wrong sense but in the sense that Esau was secular-minded. This world was the point of interest for that man, and that is all right for us, too, provided we have another and higher interest. But Esau did not have it, and the nation of America does not have it much.—A.W. Tozer, Living as a Christian, 97

<idle musing>
And if that was true in the 1950s, just think how much truer it is today, 70 years later.
</idle musing>

A variation on a theme of discipleship

Internal to the Stoic way of reasoning is the claim that its pattern is visible in a human life and not apart from it. The particulars of the exercise that is Stoic reasoning are not analytically verifiable statements but lived shapes. Or, perhaps, the statements of logic that are analytically enticing find their analysis in the course of a Stoic life. A Cato, a Musonius, a Seneca, an Epictetus—these are necessary in the strictest sense to what Stoic reasoning is taken to be. Get an exemplum, says Seneca to Lucilius, so that you see reason in the flesh. Call it to mind so that you know how to become what you seek (Ep. 11.10). According to the Stoic story, the path to nature that is reason’s repair involves imitation of those who have gone before and shown the way.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 211

<idle musing>
There's a lot to be said for examples. But as Christians, we are told to imitate Jesus, which is a far higher ideal than a Seneca or a Cato or an Epictetus or a Marcus Aurelius. And, we are given the Holy Spirit to empower and guide us in that path.

Yep. I'll take the Christian way over the Stoic way, even while acknowledging that they have much of value. But, it is more a stream of light in a darkened corner than the flood of light in the revelation of God in Jesus.
</idle musing>

Not a lot of hope in that…

In stark contrast to both the modern scientific sense of evolutionary time and the Jewish or Christian sense that God precedes his creation, the Stoic story has no part without humanity. It is simply assumed that human beings are part of what the cosmic cycle produces or contains. We do not “come on the scene," nor do we go off it. As a thing, though not in its individual parts of course, we have always been here and always will be. The cosmic context in which our collective being is lived is thus eternal. Time may be marked in this or that linear way concurrently with our more limited existence (for example, “We will gather next Thursday after sunrise”), but in the big picture time is not a measurement that corresponds to progress or, for that matter, regress. It is, rather, only a local marker in the eternal pulsation that is our movement to and from the conflagration.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 208

Who wins?

God always wins. The last word is always His, as was the first.—Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God, 190

<idle musing>
And we'll leave the book on that note. As I said, a delightful little read. I heartily encourage you to find the time to read it. At less than 200 pages, it's even a manageable read : )
</idle musing>

The righteous one

What does all this mean? That one is not born a Tzaddik [righteous one]; one must strive to become one. And having become a Tzaddik, one must strive to remain one.—Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God, 167–68

<idle musing>
Add in the power of the Holy Spirit, and I'll endorse that view 100 percent!
</idle musing>

Sustaining grace

541 L. M.
Sustaining grace prayed for.

TAUGHT by our Lord, we will not pray
   Out of the world to be removed;
   But keep us, in our evil day,
   Till patient faith is fully proved.

2 From sin, the world, and Satan’s snare,
   The members of thy Son defend,
   Till all thy character we bear,
   And grace matured in glory end.
                          Charles Wesley
                          Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)

He accompanies us

Jacob has just understood a fundamental truth: God is in man, even in suffering, even in misfortune, even in evil. God is everywhere. In every being, not only in the victim. God does not wait for man at the end of the road, the termination of exile; he accompanies him there. More than that: He is the road, He is the exile. God holds both ends of the rope, He is present in every extremity, He is every limit. He is part of Jacob as He is part of Esau.—Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God, 132

And even then…

This inability to live more than one tradition at a time means that in a crucial and, truth be told, rather sobering sense, even the central patterns of reasoning in one tradition—as that tradition understands them—will not be understood in another. Moreover, insofar as we do not participate in the alien tradition we seek to query, we cannot know what it is that we do not know. Short of conversion, we are literally shut out of one by the life we live in another. Rival rationalities are not surmountable by learning.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 204

<idle musing>
And that should make us humble. And cause us to lower our expectations on what we can discover about the past. Part of it will always be unretrievable. No matter how much we dig up or how much we read, the past is still the past and much of it is beyond our grasp.
</idle musing>

It's untranslatable

It would seem to follow, then, that those who have learned a second first language are the best translators. They are those who know how both traditions work and who therefore can put the terms of one into the terms of the other. Maclntyre argues, however, that while there may well be cases where translation of this or that can happen even between divergent traditions, a more significant marker of true traditioned learning is the ability to recognize when translation is impossible, when it’s impossible to say with the words of one tradition what can be said in another (even with all the extensive interpretative glosses and paraphrases that go with the most difficult cases). Precisely because the recognition of “untranslatability presents barriers around or over which no way can be discovered,” those who have learned a second first language become “inhabitants of boundary situations.” They do not blend conflicting traditions into a sort of Esperanto but instead exhibit conflict by means of reasoning on the edges of rival rationalities. Rivalry between traditions, that is, is most profoundly recognized by the fact of untranslatability.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 203

<idle musing>
This makes loads of sense. There are many times when I'm trying to explain something from the ANE/OT/HB and the words and concepts just aren't there in our modern language. No matter how much you try, it just doesn't satisfy. It's untranslatable.
</idle musing>

Labor on in vain

630 L. M.
No success without God’s blessing.

EXCEPT the Lord our labours bless,
   In vain shall we desire success;
   Except his guardian power restrain,
   The watchman waketh but in vain.

2 'Tis useless toil our stores to keep,—
   Early to rise and late to sleep,—
   Unless the Lord, who reigns on high,
   His providential care supply.

3 Grant, Lord, that we may ever flee
   For guidance and for help to thee ;
   Thy blessing ask, whate’er we do,
   And in thy strength our work pursue.
                        William Hiley Bathurst
                        Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)

Original sin?

The concept of original sin is alien to Jewish tradition. We do not inherit the sins of our fathers, even though we may be made to endure their punishment. Guilt cannot be transmitted. We are linked to Adam only by his memory, which becomes our own, and by his death, which foreshadows our own. Not by his sin.—Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God, 30

<idle musing>
I picked up this book at our local used bookstore. It was on the discount cart for $1.00. I more than got my money's worth. I'm only going to cherry pick a few choice paragraphs from it, but if you ever see a copy, it would be worth your trouble to pick it up. It's not very common in libraries, but I think you can find one at the Internet Archive. Not sure if they still allow you to check it out, what with the court ruling (we won't get into that travesty of justice right now!).

OI, that aside, I find this view of Adam very interesting and have been leaning that way more and more. Once you remove the strongly Augustinian and Reformer-heavy views of the Bible, it seems to be the plain reading of the text. Having said that, there is a lot to be said for the idea of original sin—just remove all the sexual transmission stuff from it.
</idle musing>

A second "first language"

On analogy with learning another language, Maclntyre argues that the only way to learn another tradition is to learn it as a “second first language.” Because traditions are “languages-in-use”—their way of reasoning is inextricably tied to the concrete cultural life of the community that bears the tradition—learning a second first language cannot be done simply by matching sentences from one’s second language to one’s first (as if using a basic-phrase travel guide to a foreign country). Such sentence matching can only produce “tokens,” discrete phrases that can work effectively within very limited circumstances to achieve a desired effect (for example, Wo sind die Toiletten? = Where is the bathroom?). Producing tokens should not be confused with learning a language well enough to move fluidly within the cultural patterns that are the language’s lived expression. Rather, “the learning of a language and the acquisition of cultural understanding are not two independent activities.” If traditions are lived languages, then, they must be “learned as second first languages or not at all."—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 202

<idle musing>
Boy, ain't that the truth! That's why interlinears are worthless. And why trying to learn a language as an exercise in "decoding" is a waste. Languages represent a culture; they express a way of life. I like this idea of learning a culture as a "second first language." Naming it as such makes sense of some of the things I've been noticing in my approach to the ANE and biblical texts.

They are alive in a different way than they used to be. Could it be that finally after almost 45 years I'm starting to internalize some of this stuff? (Well, in fairness, it's been happening for longer than recently, but I just noticed it moreso recently.)
</idle musing>

It's the narrative

This is not at all to say, of course, that we should think of narrative as something that is only in the background of practices, normative judgments, metaphysical accounts of the world, and so forth. Narrative, to the contrary, is present in all layers of a tradition’s particularity (even if inchoate or left unarticulated). Nor should we think of any sort of regular historical order, as if narratives must precede practice or reflective questioning. Again, to the contrary, it could easily be the case that narratives arise in light of questions pertaining to long-established practices (why do we do what we do?) or particular queries about existence, for example (why is the world here rather than not?). But as long as practices make sense and as long as “metaphysical” queries proceed beyond the mere statement of the questions themselves, narratives will be found and/or constructed and (re)told. To put it into terms more familiar to scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity, demonstrating that Paul’s letters have a “narrative substructure” simultaneously elucidates the ground of their possibility as intelligible speech. Which is but another way of saying that even in naming particular texts as Christian or Stoic, We presuppose a narrative that allows us to locate them in just this way.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 200–201

Fixed on God

621 L. M.
Self-dedication to the Lord.

O LORD, thy heavenly grace impart,
   And fix my frail, inconstant heart;
   Henceforth my chief desire shall be
   To dedicate myself to thee.

2 Whate’er pursuits my time employ,
   One thought shall fill my soul with joy:
   That silent, secret thought shall be,
   That all my thoughts are fix’d on thee.

3 Thy glorious eye pervadeth space;
   Thy presence, Lord, fills every place;
   And wheresoe’er my lot may be,
   Still shall my spirit rest with thee.

4 Renouncing every worldly thing,
   And safe beneath thy spreading wing,
   My sweetest thought henceforth shall be.
   That all I want I find in thee.
                           Jean Frederic Oberlin, trans. Lucy Sarah Atkins Wilson
                          Methodist Episcopal hymnal (1870 edition)

<idle musing>
I was able to track down some info on the author; you can find it here. Especially interesting is his desire to educate the local populace. And that Oberlin, OH is named after him, which means that Oberlin College is heir to his methods. Fascinating stuff one learns in reading about the authors of hymns, isn't it?
</idle musing>