If God can bring two heads together…
…no man can separate…
…I am no man.
So. I must die here???
Fine.
ILP is in His hands.
deepest apologies
bethinking
Been thinking?
Whatever Happened in Corinth?
Did Paul believe that he had failed in his encounter with the philosophers in Athens (Acts 17:16-34), leading to a change of approach in Corinth (Acts 18:1-18)? The start of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 2:1-5) is sometimes seen as supporting this change – and undermining the value of apologetics today. Peter May considers the matter.
There appears to be no evidence at all, either in The Acts of the Apostles or from Paul’s letters, that Paul changed his approach to an unsophisticated, and indeed an unargued, presentation of the Gospel when he went to Corinth after his encounter with the philosophers of Athens. Why then did he say in his first letter to the Corinthians that in Corinth he avoided “lofty speech, wisdom and persuasive words”? And what did he mean when he said, “I was determined to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified”? What conclusions should we draw from this?
And what was he so frightened about, that he arrived in Corinth “in fear and much trembling”? This Paul had been hauled up before the authorities time and again. He had faced jealous mobs which drove him out of Antioch; he fled from Iconium to Lystra to avoid being stoned to death – only to be stoned when he got there! He was dragged out of that city half-dead. He sailed on to Macedonia where he received a sound beating before being thrown into a prison, which then collapsed in an earthquake. He was subsequently attacked by a rabble in Thessalonica, those “lewd fellows of a baser sort” (KJV), who pursued him to Berea, from whence he escaped to Athens (Acts 13:44-17:15).
Now he comes to Corinth and has an attack of the nerves? If he was going to have a nervous breakdown, surely he would have done that a long time ago! This story doesn’t seem to add up. There must be more going on here than is apparent.
The ‘Hermeneutic’ Challenge
Trying to understand any ancient document throws up the immediate question as to what the words meant to the writer at that time and how he wanted them to be understood by his original readers. We have to try to understand them first in the context of those original ‘horizons’, before we can jump the centuries – and the cultures – and apply them within our own ‘horizons’.
This passage of 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 throws up enough red alert lights to suggest there is something important going on here that is not immediately obvious to us, reading it some 2000 years later. So we have to do some digging!
Some have thought that the background situation at Corinth was the rise of Gnosticism, but it seems too early for that to have been the case. Others have thought the Corinthians were just a particularly divisive and contentious lot. Again, some have thought that the use of rhetoric in Corinth was the problem, while others have felt they were just arrogant and that Paul’s eloquence did not measure up to their Graeco-Roman standards.
While Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 have led some to the mistaken idea that Paul changed his evangelistic strategy in Corinth, it soon becomes apparent that these same difficulties underlie much that Paul has written.
A Growing List
What was going on with the divisions which were reported by “Chloe’s people”, such that some say, “I follow Paul” or “I follow Apollos” and others “I follow Peter (Cephas)”? What was all the fuss about baptism, such that Paul was grateful he had only baptised a few individuals? And how did all this rivalry relate to his comment that he did not preach, “with words of eloquent wisdom” (1Corinthians 1:10-17)?
And how come “his speech was of no account” (2 Corinthians 10:10)? Why did he write, “Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge”, when we know his preaching was effective and his word skills were highly impressive?
When gazing at the night sky, as your eyes adapt, more and more stars come into view. So it is here; the more you look, the greater is the complexity and the more you see.
Who then were the “debaters of this age”, who are seen to be foolish in the light of Paul’s preaching (1 Corinthians 1:20-21). And who are the wise, whom God “catches out in their craftiness”, and whose thoughts are “futile” (1 Corinthians 3:19-20)?
Why was money such a ‘touchy’ issue? “The Lord has commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. But I have not made use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision” (1 Corinthians 9:14-15). Why did Paul feel he should pay his way by making tents in Corinth (Acts 18:3, 1 Corinthians 4:12)?
And what was the recurring significance of “flattery” and “greed”, which spills over into letters to other destinations. “We never came with words of flattery or a pretext of greed”, he wrote to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 2:5). Who on earth would have thought that he did come in that way?
He wrote to Rome about “those who cause divisions” who “serve their own appetites and by smooth talk and flattery deceive the hearts of the naive” (Romans 1:17-18).
Another thread is the accusation that Paul was physically weak. “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). “I came to you in weakness” (1 Corinthians 2:3) and “They say … his bodily presence is weak” (2 Corinthians 10:10). How come they thought he was weak? Given all he had endured, he doesn’t exactly sound physically fragile!
And what are we to make of the implied social class distinctions: “Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish … what is weak … what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).
There is rather a lot about boasting: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness” (2 Corinthians 11:30). "Not that we dare to … compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves … we will not boast … we do not boast … ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’ " (2 Corinthians 10:13-18). Who were “these super-apostles”, who looked down upon Paul (2 Corinthians 11:5)?
So what started off as just five verses (1 Corinthians 2:1-5) which are difficult to interpret, now appears to be part of a major undercurrent with a dozen different features, having extensive repercussions for Paul’s engagement with the Graeco-Roman world.
Sophist Oratory
Anthony Thiselton, in his magisterial commentary on 1 Corinthians, writes of “The explosion of recent work on rhetoric in the Graeco-Roman world and in Paul”.[1] He accepts a growing consensus that a certain type of Roman oratory (known as the Second Sophistic) explains a very great deal. In fact, it appears to be the elephant in the room!
Chief protagonist in this is Dr Bruce Winter, formerly Warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge and Director of the Institute of Early Christianity in the Graeco-Roman World. His book, Philo and Paul among the Sophists sets out the case.[2] In the Preface, G.W. Bowersock, Professor of Ancient History at Princeton, writes:
Through his mastery of both New Testament scholarship and Roman history, Bruce Winter has succeeded in documenting, for the first time, the sophistic movement of the mid-first century.[3]
Drawing on the writings of Philo, a first century Jew in Alexandria (20 BC – AD 50), as well as the Greek writer Dio Chrysostom (AD 40-115), Roman historian Plutarch (AD 46-120) and others, Winter compares them with the observations of Paul at Corinth. This has enabled him to establish that the sophist orators were an active force in those two major Mediterranean cities, both centres of commerce and education, in the middle of the 1st century AD. Indeed, he describes the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians as a critique of the Second Sophistic movement.
The first sophists were philosophers at the height of the Greek civilisation, but education and philosophy fell into decline. Under the Roman Empire, the Greeks sought to recover their heritage and the glories of their past. This second sophistic movement was thought to have begun towards the end of the 1st century AD, from the time of Nero, surviving until the middle of the 3rd century AD. Winter has shown that this time-frame must now be extended earlier.
Two Schools
There were two main schools in the revival of sophist oratory. The more philosophical and traditional school (the Atticist) was based in Athens. However, it is the Asianic school, originating outside of Athens, which seems to have given the movement its bad reputation. Philostratus, a sophist writing in the 3rd century AD, described it as being “flowery, bombastic, full of startling metaphors, too metrical, too dependent on tricks of rhetoric, too emotional.”[4] He called it “theatrical shamelessness”.[5]
There are two kinds of rhetoric – the good and the bad! Aristotle defined three modes of persuasion: ethos (the credibility of the speaker), pathos (the emotional rapport of the audience) and logos (the clarity and argumentation of the address). In order to be persuasive, an argument needs to be sound (good logos), but the speaker needs be respected enough for people to listen to him (good ethos), while the audience needs to be inclined to hear what he is saying (good pathos)![6] There is nothing sub-Christian in any of that. These are proper rhetorical considerations for any speaker to reflect upon. Good rhetoric is all about good communication.
The problem comes when the speaker makes himself out to be something he is not (bad ethos), adopts an indifferent approach to truth (bad logos) and makes his primary appeal to the emotions (bad pathos), so that his performance becomes more important than his message.
Some people are very gifted communicators. Their voices and demeanour are attractive. They have what the Irish call the ‘gift of the gab’ and could sell a second-hand car to anyone! These sophist orators were so good they performed professionally. They were not philosophers so much as travelling exhibitionists, who went from city to city to entertain the people with their rhetorical skills. Paul, in contrast, “wants to let truth speak for itself, not to manipulate rhetoric to sway his audience by appeal to opinions”.[7]
Paul wrote of his own ministry, (concerning ethos, logos and pathos): “We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyman’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2). But that, it seems, is the opposite of what the sophist orators excelled in.
Roman Education
I recently heard a university Vice-Chancellor saying that he thinks every one of his students should be taught the art of public speaking. This is an essential skill, in his view, for all senior posts whether academic or commercial. Well, the Romans evidently agreed with him. Training in eloquence was an essential part of their further education, not just the rudiments of philosophy but appropriate rhetorical skills.
Every educated person of high rank in Roman society, whether senators, ambassadors, politicians, administrators, poets, magistrates, diplomats or soldiers were trained in rhetoric. This was a skill of the educated, upper classes in contrast with the Christians of whom “not many were wise by worldly standards, powerful or of noble birth” (1 Corinthians 1:26). In comparison, they were the “foolish things which shamed the wise … the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28).
What then were the features of this particular Asianic style of Sophist oratory?
The Asianic Sophists
These sophists were celebrity speakers who travelled from city to city. They always charged fees and made their living from their oratory. The best earned a fortune and some became major benefactors to the cities they visited. Paul, in contrast, was not a ‘pedlar’ of God’s word but saw himself as commissioned by God (2 Corinthians 2:17).
There were established conventions surrounding the arrival of an orator. Their initial ‘coming’ to town was important and followed a set pattern. There was advance publicity, and venues such as amphitheatres or lecture halls were booked. There was a sense of expectation in the crowd, who looked to be entertained – and the orator’s initial reception determined his future.
Orators were expected to begin with an introductory speech (an encomium) where they would say flattering things about the city and its people. They may also make generous gifts to the city. Depending on how well this was received, they could then speak on a wide range of topics, sometimes determined in advance but sometimes chosen by the audience at the time, giving the orator only a few minutes in which to gather his thoughts. He might be asked to describe an historic or fictional event, such as the death of a Greek hero. This would allow him to describe the scene dramatically, pulling on the heart-strings of the audience. He would look for loud applause and shouts of acclamation from the crowd, as he basked in his own glory.
“Dio states that they are as ineffectual as eunuchs. They love their reputation and so never say anything to offend their audience: thus they simply expound the views of their hearers”, writes Winter.[8]
Their appearance was very important. Some were athletic and others were described as “gorgeous peacocks”.[9] They appeared in elaborate and effeminate dress, with coiffured hair-dos. They might pluck their body hair[10] and wear expensive jewellery. Their affected manner extended to a sing-song voice, with “charming pronunciations” and rhythmic metres in their speech. They displayed expressive glances and theatrical gestures, stomping their feet and falling to their knees, then pausing for applause and shouts of approval.
Winter quotes Philostratus, who noted that when Alexander of Seleucia came to Athens his “perfect elegance” sent an appreciative murmur through the crowd. He was described as “godlike” – “for his beard was curly and of moderate length, his eyes large and melting, his nose well shaped, his teeth very white, his fingers long and slender and well-fitted to hold the reins of eloquence.”[11]
Their rhetorical flow of words was everything – while truth counted for nothing. This was a style of entertainment, equivalent in its day to the music halls of the 19th century, or the pop stars and Strictly Come Dancing of today. The crowds knew what to expect – and they expected to be amused, emotionally moved and generally uplifted.
As for Paul resolving “to know nothing among them except Christ”, he was clearly not prepared to speak about the Greek myths! Thiselton comments:
what we now know of the rhetorical background at Corinth, releases Paul of any hint of an uncharacteristic or obsessional anti-intellectualism, or any lack of imagination or communicative flexibility. His settled resolve was that he would do only what served the gospel … regardless of people’s expectations or seductive shortcuts to success, most of all the seduction of self-advertisement. Neither then nor now does the gospel rest on the magnetism of ‘big personalities’.[12]
Each orator cultivated a following and there was great rivalry between performers, sometimes succumbing to physical violence between their supporters. Followers would imitate their heroes, mimicking their accents, their walks and their attire. This gives a context for understanding why Paul wrote, “I urge you then, be imitators of me” (1 Corinthians 4:16).
There was a long history of this rivalry. Dio reported that back in the days of Diogenes in 4th century BC:
one could hear crowds of wretched sophists around Poseidon’s temple shouting and reviling one another, their disciples, as they were called, fighting one another, many reading aloud their stupid works, many poets reciting their poems while others applauded them … and pedlars not a few, peddling whatever they happened to have.[13]
Paul’s contemporary, Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, described the sophists as:
imposters, flatterers, inventors of cunning plausibilities, who know well how to cheat and mislead, but that only, and have no thought for honest truth.[14]
Speaking to a huge crowd in Alexandria, Greek philosopher Dio Chrysostom (c. AD 40-112) accused the orators of deception, “If in the guise of philosophers they do these things [declaim their speeches] with a view to their own profit and reputation and not to improve you, that is indeed shocking.” They cared nothing about their audiences. Dio went on to compare them with visiting physicians, who instead of providing treatment bring only flowers and perfume![15]
An even earlier example of this style of oratory is described by the Roman historian Plutarch in relation to Cleopatra’s Mark Anthony (83-30 BC). He “devoted himself to military training and to the study of public speaking, adopting what was known as the Asianic style. This type of oratory … had much in common with Anthony’s own mode of life, which was boastful, insolent, and full of empty bravado and misguided aspirations.”[16]
This sense of bravado draws attention to Paul’s comments about fear and trembling. Thiselton comments that this phrase contrasts with “the self-confident, self-promotion of the sophist’s visit. Paul is precisely not a visiting orator come to entertain the crowds as an audience-pleasing performer.”[17]
The importance of the arrival of the orator in a city is touched on by Paul distancing himself from such expectations: “But as for me, when I came to you, I did not come with lofty speech …”. Paul must have been a colossal disappointment to them!
Lampooning the Sophists
Lucian of Samosata, a 2nd century rhetorician, wrote a satire called Dialogues of the Dead. Lampooning the sophists, he describes the Olympian god Hermes welcoming the soul of a ‘philosopher’ on board his boat to Hades:
My goodness, what a bundle: quackery, ignorance, quarrelsomeness, vainglory, idle questioning, prickly arguments, intricate conceptions, humbug, and gammon and wishy-washy hair-splittings without end; and hullo! Why here’s avarice and self-indulgence, and impudence! Luxury, effeminacy and peevishness! Yes, I see them all and you need not try to hide them. Away with falsehood and swagger and superciliousness; why the three-decker is not built that would hold you with all this luggage![18]
And that, it seems, is what Paul had to compete with at Corinth!
Re-reading the Text
So now review those words of 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, here in a translation offered by Anthony Thiselton:[19]
-
As for me, when I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come with high-sounding rhetoric or a display of cleverness in proclaiming to you the mystery of God.
-
For I did not resolve to know anything to speak among you except Jesus Christ and Christ crucified.
-
I came to you in weakness, with much fear and trembling.
-
My speech and my proclamation were not with enticing, clever words, but by transparent proof brought home powerfully by the Holy Spirit,
-
that your faith should not rest on human cleverness, but on God’s power.
Winter says that these verses reveal “a distinct constellation of rhetorical terms and allusions.”[20] They reflect the extraordinary cultural context in which Paul was working, and not merely some change of strategy on his part to avoid philosophical ideas.
Finally, with the curtain being drawn back on the sophist orators, we might now see some of Paul’s statements to the Thessalonians in a new light. Paul wrote this during his time in Corinth around AD 51:
1:5 Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord.
1:9 For they themselves report concerning the kind of reception we had among you …
2:1-9 … our coming to you was not in vain … For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive … so we speak, not to please man but to please God … For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed – God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her children … ready to share, not the gospel of God only, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. For you remember, brothers, our labour and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.
In Conclusion
It has been suggested by many people over the years that Paul, disappointed by the reception he had at Athens, changed his approach when he moved on to Corinth.[21] In Athens, he seemed to argue from nature rather than scripture and quoted from Greek writers (Epimenides of Crete and Aratus of Cilicia) to address the pantheism of the Stoics and the idolatry of the Epicurean philosophers. So it has been assumed that it was this philosophic style of “eloquence and superior wisdom” which he now abandoned.
However, there is nothing in Luke’s writing to suggest this. Rather the opposite. Paul’s Athenian address is presented in detail as if it were a fine example of Paul engaging with cultured pagans. And it is, moreover, the only account he gave us!
Furthermore, there is nothing in Paul’s writing to substantiate a different approach in Corinth. Instead, in a letter to the Corinthians, we get a very clear picture of his strategy:
We demolish arguments and every lofty idea raised up against the knowledge of God and we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)
If he had a difficult time in Athens, he certainly had difficulties in Corinth. This is reflected in numerous clues in his letters, which have previously been difficult to understand.
I have listed at least a dozen such mysteries from the text of Paul’s letters. Occam’s razor encourages us to look for a single solution, and not a diversity of explanations, to solve a complex problem. We have such an explanation here. The oratory of the Asianic Sophists has now been shown to have been a major feature of Corinthian life at the time of Paul’s visit. It has ample power to explain both the depths of Paul’s difficulty and the scope of the wide-ranging details he has given us.
The idea that Paul changed his tactics in Corinth and abandoned cultural and persuasive arguments in his preaching must now be laid to rest. We have here an altogether more compelling account of what was going on.
References:
[1] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC, Eerdmans, 2000, p.218.
[2] Bruce W. Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists, Eerdmans 2nd Ed., 2002.
[3] Ibid, Preface, p.ix.
[4] Philostratus, The Lives of the Sophists, trans. Wilmer C. Wright, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1961, p.xix.
[5] Ibid, p.xx.
[6] Peter S. Williams, A Faithful Guide to Philosophy, Paternoster, 2013, p.7.
[7] Thiselton, op.cit. p.219, Thiselton’s emphasis.
[8] Winter, op.cit., p.55.
[9] Dio Chrysostom, quoted by Winter, op.cit., p.54.
[10] Winter, ibid, p.114.
[11] Winter, ibid, p.114 footnote.
[12] Thiselton, op.cit., p.212.
[13] Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 8, Loeb Classical Library, 1932, para 9.
[14] Philo, Her. [Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit] 302, quoted by Winter, op.cit., p.90.
[15] Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 32, Loeb Classical Library, 1940, para 10. See Winter, op.cit., p.50.
[16] Plutarch, Makers of Rome – Nine Lives, Guild Publishing, 1993, p.272.
[17] Thiselton, op.cit., p.213.
[18] Lucian of Samosata, Dialogues of the Dead X, trans. Fowler & Fowler, Clarendon Press, 1905.
[19] Thiselton, op.cit., p.204.
[20] Winter, op. cit., p.150.
[21] Sir William Ramsay, St Paul the Traveller, Hodder, 1895, p.252.
© 2013 Peter May
Acropolis at sunset
Whatever Happened in Corinth?
Peter May
About the Author
Peter May is the author of The Search for God and the Path to Persuasion. From 2003 to 2010 he was Chair of the UCCF
Evangelism without persuasion won’t convince anybody - how can we put this vital ingredient back where it belongs?
Doing ApologeticsEvangelismDescriptors
Biblical Foundations and Models for Contemporary Apologetics
Lars Dahle
What are the biblical foundations for apologetics and what models does it offer? Takes Acts 17 as a case study.
Tags
Biblical ApologeticsDescriptors
Intermediate Audio
Bridges
C.S. Lewis’s Approach to Apologetics
Jerry Root
C.S. Lewis had a first rate mind and a poet’s power of expression. This talk looks at how he applied his powerful imagination to…
ApologistsDoing ApologeticsDescriptors
"Cosmic Christ & Creative Techne
“In the beginning was the Word (Greek: Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:1-3 NRSV).
We often read all too quickly passed this astounding foundation of Christian faith. John reveals that Christ precedes the life of Jesus of Nazareth on Earth. This is a Cosmic Christ that was with God “in the beginning.” God’s first creation is Logos Christ, through whom God creates all things. God begets Christ, and through Christ God makes the cosmos. The cosmos partakes of God through the creative act of Christ, and it is the Logos itself by which creatures come into being, through which they become themselves in fullness, and to which they turn in praise to worship the Godhead through Christ; the cosmos is “Christiform.”
Creation, however, is not an empty act of mindless bringing-forth. It is not an “art for art’s sake.” Creation is an experience of perfect love. It was out of God’s endless, overabundant love that God brought forth creation. God creates because God is love, but moreover and more importantly for our purpose here, we must understand that God’s creation is the very love of God. Following Christ, it is the nature of the cosmos to create, to bring forth. We see that creativity is an act of love, a sharing of God’s intention for all the cosmos. A loving creativity is the way of all things.
We might best understand this creativity as techne, coming from the ancient Greek philosophical tradition as a craftsmanship or artistry. Techne is a craft-like knowing, a practical art, a working with the hands to fashion something new. We all know the love found in something finely made, and such love shines out from the cosmos, from the power of starlight to the emergence of life itself. Christic creativity is no mere abstraction. As tradition shares from Genesis 2, our God is hands-on: planting gardens, watering the ground, forming humanity from bare earth and breathing the very life into us. Jesus Christ, son of a carpenter, also often worked with his hands in the dirt, and frequently spoke of working in the natural world. The Eucharist itself is techne; as the Catholic mass says of sacramental wine: “fruit of the vine and work of human hands.”
Cyborgian Incarnation
Thinking of the Cosmic Christ’s creativity as a techne brings us to the “Cyborg Christ.” Philosopher of Science, Donna Haraway, uses the science fiction concept of the “cyborg”—a cyber-organic being, both machine and organic flesh—to show that technology is not in a separate domain of life, divorced from the areas of culture, science, or even nature itself. As she writes, “…universal nature is itself fully artefactual…nature is a technics through and through.”[4] It is not just that humanity is cyberorganic, but that nature itself is cyborg.
The cyborg makes perhaps the most sense within a Christological framework of incarnation. Christ, who is “begotten-not-made,” constructs the cosmos in Creation, and then indwells it in Incarnation—the Word becomes flesh, the begotten joins the made. In this regard, via the incarnate Christ, creation is both born-and-made. Put another way, the incarnation is the emergence of the Cyborg Christ. This means all creation is a divine artifact, all creatures are cyborgs in the image and likeness of our cyberorganic God.
The Word of God found in the cosmos at large is also present in human creativity. With humanity, Christic creation brings-forth creativity itself once again. Human techne is the first moment in the cosmos when God’s creation is able to create for itself. In human techne, creation is self-aware, becomes aware of its ability—its calling—to create. In answering that call, in being as individual selves the creativity that flows through the universe, humanity is able to create at an exponential rate and in a steadily compounding fashion never seen before in the sweeping history of the cosmos.quote by Gregory Hansell
Human techne brings us to modern technology. From an incarnational point of view, technology has the same relationship to humanity as creators, as the cosmos does to Christ. Technology is our created world, the technical reality that we imbue with meaning and purpose through our unique participation in Christ’s cosmic creation. Every piece of technology—every techne—partakes in the same Christic creativity and incarnation as the rest of the cosmos. A cyborgian theology understands that God is in the machine as much as God is in the lily or lotus flower. In a very real and profound sense, technology is the flesh of human creativity.
iPhones & Resurrection
The human creativity that is technology can take sinful and graceful forms. If technology leads us away from our encounter with God through creation and each other, then that technology is sinful. As Sister Ilia Delio points out, when the “‘I-Thou’ relationship has mutated into an ‘I-phone’ relationship,”[5] we have a problem. She writes: “The human person, wedded to the artificial screen, is caught between care for the earth and flight from the world.”[6] Technology that is sinful takes us away from the world, in effect rejecting the incarnation as the material reality of God’s creation. Sinful technology is, in this way, anti-Christian, because it rejects incarnation, the most basic belief of Christian faith.
Our technology needs a resurrection. We have to allow our technology to participate in the same resurrectional reality that Christ inaugurated on the Cross. Part of allowing technology to participate in resurrection—and be graceful rather than sinful—is no longer creating a dualism that separates technology from creation. Resurrection is cyberorganic, but we ourselves thwart technology’s place in the cosmic order by divorcing it from God’s created reality. We must craft technology that, in Delio’s words, seeks to “deepen the heart of love,”[7] releasing it to more fully participate in the fullness of God’s creation.
Raimon Panikkar reminds us that incarnation and resurrection are an on-going part of the creatio continua. He writes: “the coming Christ, the Parousia Christ, is not separable from the eucharistic and risen Christ. So the eschatological ‘Second Coming’ is not another Incarnation or a second Christ appearing here or there.”[8] Christ has already come as a human being, died, and was resurrected. Incarnation and resurrection are woven into the very nature of the cosmos and do not need to be re-incorporated. Therefore, we ask in what form will Christ come again…
Perhaps we may even ask whether we can view a possible Parousia incarnated not through human being but through human techne, a second coming of Logos in the form of a global social network, the Internet of Things, an artificial intelligence, or some altogether new innovation that includes but transcends these early technological attempts at a coincidentia oppositorum on a truly global scale.
What divine love comes forth in code, waiting to be born, yearning to transform?"
literal clouds were meant, but ya just don’t never know
poetic justice do be like that
Indeed, while the receptive hermeneutical method implies that we have something to learn from a text, the method employed by the Gnostics, which we may call the “revelatory” method, was founded upon the idea that they (the Gnostics) had received a supra-cosmic revelation, either in the form of a “call,” or a vision, or even, perhaps, through the exercise of philosophical dialectic. This “revelation” was the knowledge (gnôsis) that humankind is alien to this realm, and possesses a “home on high” within the plêrôma, the “Fullness,” where all the rational desires of the human mind come to full and perfect fruition. On this belief, all knowledge belonged to these Gnostics, and any interpretation of the biblical text would be for the purpose of explaining the true nature of things by elucidating the errors and distortions of the Demiurge. This approach treated the past as something already overcome yet still “present,” insofar as certain members of the human race were still laboring under the old law—that is, were still reading the Scriptures in the receptive manner. The Gnostic, insofar as he still remained within the world, as an existing being, was, on the other hand, both present and future. That is to say, the Gnostic embodied within himself the salvific dynamism of a history that had broken from the constraint of a tyrannical past, and found the freedom to invent itself anew. The Gnostic understood himself to be at once at the center and at the end or culmination of this history, and this idea or ideal was reflected most powerfully in ancient Gnostic exegesis. We must now turn to a discussion of the concrete results of this hermeneutical method.
- The Gnostic Mytho-Logos
The Gnostic Idea or Notion was not informed by a philosophical world-view or procedure. Rather, the Gnostic vision of the world was based upon the intuition of a radical and seemingly irreparable rupture between the realm of experience (pathos) and the realm of true Being—that is, existence in its positive, creative, or authentic aspect.
The rainbow tastes like fulfilled promises.
All other flavor is nihil.
Hear me no_?
Yes I do, and reading the enclosed, which I have not been able to do yet, I can only re but with;
JESUS’ mission was based on a feeling of inclusion; otherwise he be excluded from the love that most people at that time sgared by visual certainty.
He did not deny the power behind the sight of shared belief, that did not incur the knowledge of that belief.
Therefore, his call to believe by unseen events described by those, to Whom these things relating to God’s miraculace direct expression of behind the fire of love, was politically the right one for obvious reasons.
" For He so loved the world…"
That was willing to prove Himself through the sacrifice primarily through the self sacrifice of the son.
That part is very hard to follow without a direct attesting, and that is why stopped the act of belief in the biblical sacrifice he called for.
Therefore, it is blessed to believe without this direct knowledge.
However, Ishchus 77 will read through the lengthy quote and see where it goes.
Incidentally He was thought to travel the silk road , where such ideas have probably entered unescapably through His mind.
Dream : imagine waking to and with an image less dream the second in my life as unbelievable as 10 years ago , Polanco, and last night ouroboro. No sight and this time no sound just an image.
Can’t make anything of it, mone at all except …the gnostic repressiin; looked it up, maybe all this about egyptioan magic and cleopatra… But what of writing ??? The recurrent alchemical recurrence through the idealized middle ages? Whatever. Christ’s dual nature?
Hypostaticl Union
Even if it’s science, it requires a spirit that can do nothing without permission from the Holy Spirit (of Jesus and the Father).
Hylomorphic (hold on) is an individual person. God is three persons in union. Different from the Egyptian three-gods thing.
No cigar.
I need coffee.
Actually what I need to do is my homework. This place doesn’t exist until then. Just kidding but seriously.
And asking (myself) why am I doing this? To prove something no. Just trying to reconstruct all that’s missing from the time it all began to dissolve through neglect of apparent paradox; contraindications leading to fallacious irony.
It’s something.Dreams are revelatory, at the very least.
The appearance is hell.
Different yet not unrelated. Ahira Mazda acquired from zoroaster the triple aspect of ancient religions and infused it into the Hindu Vedas.
This proves nothing because Egyptian writing was preceeded by the Hindi writing by a thousand years. As far as that probably mistaken analogy with the hand to mouth Indu to Middle Eastern transmission through magical triads. But there is uncertainty over that connection with that of the Persian Empire …I believe of Cyrus.It’s worth looking into, as the Persians went down through Mesapetomia’s Alexander The Great.
The point is, that the Egyptian triad - icons are not insignificant to those of Aristoteles forward into the Holy Roman Empire.
This is a bit beyond my reach but feels close. He calls it ad hoc, but I sense my Venn thingies intuit something that underlies the fuller explanation. Not there yet. maverickphilosopher.typepad.com … posit.html
Not yet but something else intuition.
The deeper question and not necessarily perceived.
Is faith in God a constructed fence to keep fear at bay, that the conflicts apparently created by civilisation is the same old same old offering of innocence to appease those very same fears?
Or is there something less absolutely reductive , without a epochs of finality , to avoid the post modern absurdity that are plunging us eternally into abyss of unlearned repetition?
Is a culmination from internal -integral c omminucation expect the verification from above?
Jesus dis say the following:
That those who love life will loose it , but those who hate life will gain eternity.
What does this mean protracted into the very post modernity, as it meant within the context of the time it was uttered?
Love this life means very much as it was meant back in Jesus time as it means today to most people. That a pleasurable life is one we can love. And contrary ( allusively-fallaciously) ; a painful life is not one that any one can desire.
But what of it?
How can not then a life we call desired, exclude us from eternal.life?
Besides the Buddhic cliché that things which make life attached to existence are contrary to the Truths expounded, what are the underlying Western ideas which apoear contradictory?
Look at to the basic question, again drawn from an interior terrain, that paints man as a product of evolution, and his happiness post scripted around a wholistichumanistic paradigm, should not his sources of past life(s) be interiorized and judged in toto as well.?
More answers to fewer questions emerge from the heavenly abyss then those predicated from the origin.
Yet:
The basic question remains the constructed civilization unhappiness from which barricades were erected so as to offer consolation. But this is not necessarily so !
The transcendent liberation may be the very objections brought against the introspective dialogue with powers that will withstands any battering ram to punch a whole into .
The basic fear that victimization may mean more than merely objects thrown about from within to the without , brings into question the basic premise of that dialogue questioning the value of mere existence it’s self , that is, can we as human beings, created even as a product of evolutionary processes, try to hold on, hold on on at least a reflected memory of ourselves; with our joys and pleasures and regain entrance into paradise?
Or, must we let go even of a single trace of what reminds ourselves of who we were, to become worthy of entrance?
The down to earth price, if we were to accept the offer , is to give up absolutely, or else we well be condemned to return, with a round trip payback that will be the justified value of that ticket.
William Burroughs brought that up allegorical in ’ The Ticket That Exploded’ and alluding to that may be counter - productive at this point, anyhow. But all things gave some connection under the miasma of the vertex which pulls us under, …
.
The idea is that amor fatigue does not determine our progress toward the 'good" is a heavy and maybe an intolerable medicine for those who may not be able to come back or, reincarnate ever again, and by nature of the karmic laws of the cosmos, it is those highest laws which signal the indemnity of ‘The Good’ that lower powers not pull it back down.
Jesus may have meant this; to posterity it may convey that following Him, and reducing any attacment including that of rebirth, should not entail fear. The binds of attachment, that prevents an absolute realese from Being, does not, can not guarantee an infinite return, because the manifold contexts within , do unshakeable the very loss of attachment which negate infinity by it’s very definition.
So in that sense, God is not dead, and the faith is what can move even the most convincing barrier.
The old belief of offering the naive and the innocent, st I look worksnin this static barter which can not recognize that the offered is a relation which the gods can not accept, by virtue of who They are.
If we can not accept this/ Them, then it is ourselves we sacrifice to a mediocre and finite existential fear ; without concern for what and Whom we are throwing into the burning pit.