Working It Out, A Thought At a Time

Well, that's one way of doing it.

I've always been pretty confident in the way I look at scripture. I have always seen it as a most human endeavor.

We are a curious being. We like answers. When we are confused by the world, we seek to understand it. We seek to explain. We seek to predict if possible. We like answers, as I said.

I have mostly thought this way for a very long time. Common sense tends to dictate it surely. If indeed God wished to create a "manual for human living" I think he could have done so in pretty simple ways, similar to his alleged "giving of the 10". Concise, to the point, you know, CLEAR. While we may quibble about the parameters of some commandments, (does kill include all "killing" or only human defined "murder"?), for the most part they are pretty straight forward.

So when I began to formally study scripture with the assistance of learned teachers, it came as no surprise that however much we may infuse scripture with "Godly inspiration", it is still a human activity, meant to help other humans understand what is quite literally inexplicable. As such, it is open to an array of hermeneutical tools the average person has little contact with. There are form and source criticisms, redaction and textual, comparative, iconographic, psychological, anthropological , sociological, poetic, gender, feminist, liberationist, literary, and a host of others. They are all intent on trying to figure out exactly what the writer actually meant.

And I loved this more than you can imagine. It meant that there was really no end to the possibilities, no end to the new insights available. In that sense, scripture remains an alive and vibrant series of documents, giving endless bounty to the determined exegete.

I have, increasingly it seems, warred against the literalist, the fundamentalist, who is never one such except when it suits them. The bible must be read literally they exclaim, for some reason God waited until the KJV translation to use the "obvious words" that anyone with an 8th grade education can understand. But, that aside, they rebel at the idea that they need anyone to teach them anything. God teaches directly to the inquiring heart they claim.

Such people don't read stuff literally when it impinges upon their life style. No usury for me, THAT is a OT prohibition for Jews only, cancelled in the saving power of the Cross. They don't explain why they still cite Leviticus for the proposition that men should not "lay with men". But somehow that is "different." Like I said, they use literalism selectively. As many have said, "how curious that for the fundamentalist, God just happens to agree with everything they are against."

So, I was going along in my self-righteous assumptions, when as usual, the obvious hits me in the face. In reading something in a book on the early church fathers and the development of Christian theology, I noted that the New Testament writers quite often cited "scripture", and that included Jesus.

Suddenly it hit me. Did they cite scripture in a manner that would be akin to "literalism"? Did they treat scriptures as the "actual word of God"? If so, then wasn't my assumption that these were words of men in some difficulty?

As I mulled that thought over for a day, thinking of where I would search for an answer (since I knew there must be one), I of course ran directly into the answer. Funny how things work like that.

To know me, is to know that I cannot abide conflict. My brain simply screams FIX IT when confronted with believe in any two things that are in opposition. Drop one, add a third, alter one or both, but fix it. Make it make sense. My brain demands it. It has always been an utter shock for me to learn that some folks have no such problem with conflict. Fundamentalists are like this, blithely believing in things that are complete opposite, and never nagged in the slightest with the need to reconcile the disparate ideas.

A dear friend had sent me a box of books a while ago. I have slowly but surely worked on reading them. One is a Dictionary of New Testament Background, and I read an entry each morning. I am in the B's, and the day after my "conflict" I got to: Biblical interpretation: Jewish. 

And I learned that almost from the beginning, Jewish scholars interpreted their scriptures not at all literally, but rather more as a "living" document.

An example may suffice to explain.

Many scholars (I'd argue the best and majority) see the US Constitution as a "living document". In other words, they argue that the true genius of the Constitution is that our Founders were wise enough to realize that they could not possible construct a government that could foresee all possible issues and controversies. So rather than being too terribly specific in the "rights" and "duties" department, they were deliberately vague, assuming that later generations would use the "principles" stated to fashion the proper solution to the very current problems being faced.

In other words, unreasonable searchers and seizures in the 4th amendment will change over time, as we define intellectual "property" to be treated no different than one's home or car. Such property can also be seized, and thus the legislature and judiciary together will define it's parameters. Similarly, the Warren Court concluded that taken together the first ten amendments constitute a "protection of privacy" which is not stated specifically but is a rational deduction from the others together.

Similarly, Jewish scholars considered scripture to be living as well, the genius to them was that interpretations would change to meet the current crises facing the community. So a literal statement in the bible would be interpreted in light of the problem needing an answer. These interpretations were in extra-canonical writings. There was no interest in "what the writer meant".

When we turn to the NT, and look at instances of citation to OT sayings, we find a similar response. The interpretation is often borrowed from these Jewish interpretations, as needed to make the point that needs making. Scripture was often changed to more clearly reflect what the NT author wished to convey. Jesus did exactly the same thing.

A perfect example is 2 Timothy 3:8, wherein Jannes and Jambres (two magicians from Egypt) opposed Moses. Nowhere in the OT are the two men named. However, the names are found in several ancient sources used to interpret those portions of Exodus pertaining to the events between Moses and Pharaoh regarding the plagues. So extra-biblical material is added to actual scripture by the interpreter, in order to make his point in Timothy.

Far from putting into danger my belief that scripture is written by humans for humans, and interpreted by them to solve present problems, it actually makes it crystal clear that this is the way interpretation was done, OBVIOUSLY BECAUSE NOBODY FROM DAY ONE EVER THOUGHT THAT SCRIPTURE WAS THE ACTUAL WORD OF GOD.

This is what scripture is to me. An endlessly fascinating examination of what we believed, why we believed it, and how it has changed over time as we have learned more. It makes sense.

Surely not a single fundamentalist will be convinced. Their compartmentalized thinking won't allow it firstly and secondly, it is all too comforting to interpret in a way that allows God always to agree with you in the end. Their deliverance to truth must come when in some moment of weakness they open the door just a crack, and the facade breaks and falls. Logic will never move them, since logic is something they are deeply suspicious of.

I am happy simply to realize that I am still on the road, I haven't fallen into a ravine, or waded too far into the raging current to recover. I am still, by fits and starts, leaps and crawls, working my way to unity with the divine.

Come, join us. The ride is wild, but oh so rewarding.

This Crazy Thing Called Faith

What do you have faith in? Anything? Nothing? The usual?

Are faith and belief the same thing?

I have been reading some stuff on faith, and more importantly (at least to me) doubt. How do they fit, relate, contradict each other?

Faith is a journey for sure. Anyone who claims it for an end is selling themselves and God short. Oh sure, the evangelicals of the rightie-tightie persuasion will affirm in loud and clear voice that they have no doubt. The louder and more vociferously they announce it signifies but the true terror they live in that they won't be believed. Think, thou protest too much.

We believe in God. We have faith that God is worthy of that belief. Blasphemy? No, just honesty. The fundamentalist is incapable of such honesty, because fear rules them so fiercely. Fear that if they allow one smidgen of doubt to be recognized, God will surely abandon them. Such a God they create.

To believe means to choose to accept certain propositions and doctrines. It doesn't mean that you don't question them, incessantly in some cases, but question them we do and must. For we are thinking beings, thinking about another thinking being. We are the creation of that being, and we long to understand.

The Church, by long and troubled contemplation announces the doctrines and creeds that it concludes reflect true belief. That of course doesn't mean they actually know true belief at all, but they have a worthy history that allows them to claim some superiority, since no one can match the amount of time it has spent on such issues.

Still, the Holy Spirit blows as it will.

We are urged as Catholics certainly, that nothing should supplant our earnest, well-thought out, well-prayed through conclusions. Yet, we are then assured that in most cases at least, the Church should be respected and looked to as more likely to have found truth than the average person's paltry attempts. All Christians should at least agree that constant attention to the big questions are in order. We cannot and should not give over this responsibility to any institution, no matter how benevolent it appears.

In the end, faith is personal, dependent upon the developed relationship between Creator and creation. The Church offers it's expertise and experience, but the walk is ours.

Faith is lively when it is full of questions and in tension at all times. We wish a God who "knows" the outcome of life, yet we cling to our need to be free to make choices ourselves. We want the assurance and safety of a universe all wrapped up and tied with a bow, yet we rebel at any notion that the game is "rigged and fixed."

We are growing with God. Perhaps God is also growing, learning, and adjusting. We certainly are, or should be. When we spake as a child, our notions were childish. As we grow into our personal and collective adulthood, we should begin speaking as an adult, and our thinking should grow up as well.

In any case, what once concerned us is solved, and then a bit further along, something else concerns us, and we struggle once again to bring into agreement new insights and new conflicts. We reread scripture, looking for clues for our new questions and perhaps some old bugaboos.

We let it be when we are fragile and weak, we push on boldly, sure that both God and we can take it, when we are strong. We live in grace, offered, rejected, ignored, toyed with, fondled, left until tomorrow. We are after all human.

I struggle with many issues. I find myself in extreme disagreement with my Church on many issues. That leads to a "go it alone" attitude. Yet Church is also community, a concept reflected countless times within sacred writings, as well as in the Trinity itself. We don't do faith rightly it seems alone. We cannot nod and smile as we sleep in on Sunday, assuring ourselves that we are "spiritual" not religious.

Religion is getting a very bad rap these days. Everywhere you look, the extremists within faith traditions use this powerful tool to entrap followers into their rigid thinking, "doing it for God" so we claim, all the while we seek our own ends, be they belonging, power, money, or misguided assurances of ultimate truth and finality. So many need to KNOW, to be certain.

The need for this certainty leads to the  radicalizing of  sacred books into manuals for extending one's beliefs to encompass all comers, willing or otherwise. It leads to fundamentalism and its inherent limitations. One must reject any possibility of doubt, for doubt means failure. Doubt is no faith. So they say.

But of course this is not true. It is just convenient. It serves to prevent the exodus of disaffected believers or to their maturing, if lucky. It keeps them docile, malleable, lead able. We need to grow if we are to do more than give glib responses to creedal demands.

Walter Brueggemann, OT scholar extraordinaire, writes that the OT suggests a God in conversation with His creation. God asks questions. Humans lament, argue, deny, refuse, bargain, accept grudgingly. Look at the prophets and what they endured. How they begged to be released from the calling. Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is our nature, and perhaps God's as well.

I am in deep contemplation of many things again. I am returning to "churchy" things, if not permanently, then for as long as it seems good and valuable to me. Last week, we returned in liturgy to the opening chapters of Genesis. God, enters the garden and cannot locate his creation. He calls out "Where are you?"

That question hit me between the eyes, for it spoke to exactly where I am today. I am trying to figure out where I am in this world of faith, with all its troubling aspects. Some move to agnosticism--whatever God is or isn't is beyond me! or worse, atheism--"I'm taking the easy way out. If I can't prove God, than I'm going to forget it as impossible and not worth the time." Some struggle with the question, until some satisfaction is reached. Before a new question arises.

This is the way of faith. The right way of faith I would contend. I may be no nearer the resolution of anything, yet I feel the better for the trying. I feel clearer in my mind why I do or don't do, think or don't think, say or don't say things. It settles things for a time, even though I know the time will be limited.

God, to me at least, will always be such. Fascinating yet just out of reach. I will never draw a picture of God that is true or satisfactory. I will only in the end fashion? or uncover some notion of God that works for me at that time and place. That is all that is necessary. To know that this God is adjustable, to meet my needs, as I struggle to understand. is enough. That truth is enough today.

This journey is done in fits and starts. Highs and lows distribute themselves along a continuum of feeling presence to utter absence. I'm somewhere along that line at every moment. I feel okay with being in many places along it at any given time, and then wildly at odds with where I am, and ready t move.

I like thinking that God learns things. I love it that God doesn't pretend to know everything. I am okay if God can't fix everything, or maybe even nothing. Sometimes at least. God remains the moving target that I can barely get sighted in on before He surprises me once again.

I keep my bags packed. God tends to want to travel at a moment's notice. It's best to be ready.