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This excerpt from the writings of St. Paul is among the best-known passages in Judeo-Christian scripture. But what does it really mean? < Back Faith, Hope, and Love David Cowles Oct 15, 2022 This excerpt from the writings of St. Paul is among the best-known passages in Judeo-Christian scripture. But what does it really mean? “Love is patient, love is kind…It does not seek its own interests… It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophesies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing…So, faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (I Cor. 13: 4 – 13) When we think of faith, we think of belief in the existence of a benevolent God; but if we reduce faith to belief in God, we are putting the cart way in front of the horse. First and foremost, faith is the belief that there are objective values, transcendent but nonetheless operative in the world: beauty, truth, justice, et al., values that roll up into our concept of ‘good.’ Faith is the belief that these values are universally normative. They would apply in any possible situation in any possible universe, no matter how alien from our own. Faith is the belief that Being is rooted in value. These values are valid for our spatio-temporal world, but they transcend that world; they are eternal. They are the ‘non-negotiable demands’ of Being. Bumper sticker: “No Values, No Being.” Second, faith is the belief that every actual entity that comprises our world exhibits these values, albeit in widely varying ways and to vastly different degrees. To be is to appropriate and reflect universal values. This aspect of faith underpins the allied virtues of hope and love. Third, faith is much more than mere belief. To have faith is not just to give passive intellectual assent to a series of propositions, but rather, it is to live our lives as though these propositions were true. Faith, then, provides the measure by which we may, nay, must judge our own lives. (Sidebar: This paragraph underscores the enormous chasm that exists between faith and belief. In our culture, I think it is quite common for someone’s faith and beliefs to be polar opposites.) Faith is not contrary to doubt; it assumes it. We will always question our beliefs. After all, we are human. It is the nature of the human condition that we can never know with absolute certainty our existential fate, but from “the crucible of doubt” (Dostoevsky), we constantly recover and reaffirm our core beliefs (faith). Faith does put us at odds with a host of modern thinkers – existentialists like Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre and analytics like Ayer and Wittgenstein. These thinkers directly challenge the core proposition itself. They deny the possibility of objective, transcendent values. What you see is what you get! Whatever exists, exists entirely in the actual entities and events that make up our world; there is no beyond! No matter how much they may sugarcoat it, these thinkers place us firmly on the tongue of the abyss. A 20/21st century version of human sacrifice? It is hope that confronts this terrible abyss – the abyss of nothingness. We are born; we live our lives; we have experiences; we acquire knowledge; we make decisions; and then we die. Everything is wiped away, as if by a giant cosmic eraser. It is as if we had never been born. Whatever meaning we thought our lives might have had is gone. Your life is like a pattern drawn on an Etch-a-Sketch. One good shake and it’s gone…forever. That’s life without hope. We are like characters in Shakespeare’s Tempest: “These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air; and—like the baseless fabric of this vision— the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve, and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” Marxists, positivists (logical or otherwise) and pragmatists find hope in the idea that our lives contribute to the up building of social structures, to the welfare of future generations, to ‘progress’ generally. Well and good, but science has shown that all social structures, every human generation, and even the cosmos itself will one day pass away. So, this sort of collective hope is ultimately just ‘bad faith,’ a futile attempt to find solace in what is merely a stay of execution. Still others are content to say that we create our own meaning. Sounds cool, but what does it mean? ‘To mean,’ by definition, is to refer to something outside, something beyond. I write, “The asparagus was delicious.” I don’t mean that the nine letters from A to S were delicious. I am using asparagus to refer to something outside the elements of the sentence itself. On the other hand, if there is nothing outside, nothing beyond this “mortal coil,” then our so-called ‘meaning’ can be nothing but make-believe. We can’t create meaning if meaning is not intrinsic to who we are. Real hope accepts the truth of personal and cosmic mortality but does not despair. Hope resides in the conviction that there is something about this world that does not pass away. Hope asserts that there is an atemporal (eternal), negentropic dimension to Being. Finally, we come to the ‘greatest’ of these virtues, love. Love stares into the most terrible abyss of all, the abyss of isolation. What if there is just me…and none beside me? What if I am the whole world…or worse, what if I am utterly alone in the world? Love stares into the abyss of isolation…and finds ‘the other.’ The virtue of love affirms that there is at least one being other than me who is independent of me and who enjoys the same ontological status as I do. Love solves philosophy’s “other mind's problem.” Who in love doubts the reality of his lover? In love, my recognition of ‘the Other’ as ‘real’ is at least as strong as my recognition of myself. Cogito ergo sum becomes Amo ergo est. But love comes with a terrible price tag. If I love, I must love my neighbor as myself. Not like myself, but as myself! I can have no ontological priority over the other. I should even be prepared to lay down my life for the other if need be. Suppose I’m not prepared to grant ontological equality to another. No problem! I just consign myself to live alone…for eternity. (So, that’s what they mean by Hell!) Note that my insistent hubris does not ‘kill’ the other; it just takes away its otherness for me. Fortunately, the economy of Being allows us to revisit this decision at any time. We may endure solitary confinement for a period (‘time-out’); then, like a naughty child, we may rejoin the society of others when we’re ready. Love is the greatest of these virtues because it puts faith and hope into action. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14: 15) And what are those commandments: “Love one another.” (John 13: 34) It is love that lifts faith and hope out of the realm of the merely conceptual and gives them physical reality. There is no true faith or hope without love. In fact, love is the test of whether my faith is real. Love enjoins us to act out the values that faith affirms; it is the realization of that which hope anticipates. If we love another, we must behave toward that other in accordance with the values we discover and adopt through faith. Likewise, the eternity that we discover in hope enjoins us to care for others with a full realization that what we do here now, we do everywhere and forever (Kant). Faith allows us to know the Kingdom, hope allows us to anticipate its realization, but love empowers us to instantiate the Kingdom in our patch right now. In Greek mythology, Cerebos, a three-headed dog, guards the gates of hell (Hades). For me, those ‘heads’ symbolize an unholy trinity: radical skepticism (vs. faith), nihilism (vs. hope) and solipsism (vs. love). So, the spatio-temporal world is passing away. All that remains for us is our understanding of the Kingdom (faith), our expectation of the Kingdom (hope), and our realization of the Kingdom (love). When we truly love, the Kingdom has already “come.” Love is the in-breaking of the eternal into the spatio-temporal. Faith, hope, and love are called the three ‘theological virtues,’ but so far, we have made no mention of God. How come? In theory at least, one can believe in objective values without believing in God; one can believe that Being has an eternal dimension without believing in God; and one can love and be loved without believing in God. In theory! Practice makes this a bit more difficult. We said earlier that every actual entity in our world exhibits objective values. According to British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, our world consists solely of ‘actual entities,’ including the qualities (values) they display and the relations (prehensions) that connect them. For Whitehead, the universal objective values logically precede our actual world (and every possible world). However, these values cannot enter into an actual world and be operative there unless they are realized or reflected in an actual entity. Of course, an entity whose essence consists wholly and precisely of all the objective, transcendent values (‘eternal objects’) is what we call “God.” Therefore, for Whitehead, God is ‘necessary.’ But he does not start off with ‘God’ as a premise. He deduces the existence of God from three more primordial notions: one, many, and creativity. Whitehead invented TikTok. He throws down a challenge. Grant me just these three things (above), and I’ll show you that God is necessary. For Whitehead, “God exists” is a synthetic proposition that is necessarily true, given minimal assumptions. The atemporal, eternal dimension of life, where we find the meaning of our lives, amounts to nothing more, or less, than an infinite present. According to the standard model of time, the present is an infinitesimal point. Actual entities, however, exist only in the present and their ‘presents’ must have real duration; they transcend the timeline and disprove the standard model. Interestingly, no one is more closely associated with the standard model of time than Sir Isaac Newton. Few realize, however, that he fully understood the absurdity of his own model, extrapolated beyond its proper universe of discourse. Ultimately, Newton invoked God: “He is Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from Eternity to Eternity; his presence from Infinity to Infinity… He is not Eternity and Infinity, but Eternal and Infinite; he is not Duration and Space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever, and is everywhere present; and, by existing always and everywhere, he constitutes Duration and Space.” Likewise, according to Whitehead, an eternal present can only ‘be a thing’ if there is an actual entity that is ‘present’ to all other entities and for which all other actual entities are present. This, of course, is what we call “God.” Finally, when we love, we discover the ‘other’ in our fellow human beings. Every human being is different but the ‘other’ we discover in each human being is always the same. Every other is other to us in exactly the same way! In fact, the other is a reflection of the self…but NOT in the sense of Narcissus’s superficial reflection in the lake. What we see in others is a reflection of our ontological core. It was as if the surface of the lake revealed to Narcissus his own interior reality. Love confirms for us that the other we see in our fellows is just as real as we are and totally independent of us. What is the origin of the ‘other?’ Judeo-Christian theology gives us a ready-made explanation. There is an archetypical Other whose “image and likeness” is found in every human being (and perhaps elsewhere as well), and that archetypical other is, once again, what we call ‘God.’ Now at last we can understand the deep meaning of the Great Commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matt. 22: 35 – 40) “Like unto it…” Exactly! They are one and the same commandment, expressed differently. We do not refer to the ‘Great Commandments’ but to the Great Commandment. So, faith, hope, and love do not begin with a belief in God, nor do they require it, but they may lead to it. If so, they become the ways we experience God in the world. God is essentially good, and the objective values are how good manifests in our world. God is the eternal present and the source of all meaning. To the extent that we experience the present and feel our lives have meaning, we experience the other, and God is the archetypical Other. When we encounter the other in fellow human beings, we encounter the image and likeness of God; and when we love the other in fellow human beings, we encounter God. For God is Love. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next Share Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. 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< Back Football and Quantum Mechanics David Cowles “This is what we do on Sunday nights and Mondays during football season: we play 'what if' and 'if only'.” The scoreboard clock reads 00:00: Philadelphia Sunshine – 27; Buffalo Blizzard – 26. Game over? Yes…and no. Time has expired, but the Blizzard scored a touchdown on the last play of the game, so they still have a chance to add one or two PATs ( points after touchdown ) to their score. So, yes, the game is ‘over’ but we still don’t know who won. It’s like most 21 st century US presidential elections; better still, it’s like any Iowa Caucus! (Heck, they’re still looking for Paul Simon to tell him that he won the 1988 caucus after all; and as for the 2020 caucus, well, they’ve just stopped counting.) But I digress. According to the rules of the NFL, the Blizzard can kick a short field goal for one point; game tied! Overtime! Or they can run (or pass) the ball into the end zone for two points. All eyes are on the coach; will she go for one point, potentially sending the game into OT, or two, letting everything ride on just one play? Power outage! (Hey, it’s Buffalo; it snows!) Even cell service is disrupted. We won’t know the outcome of the game until the power comes back on…or until the newspaper gets delivered in the morning…or the morning after that. Et voilà , you have the longest game ever played…even though it ended hours ago! Did I mention, I have houseguests? Huge football fans – they invited themselves for a ‘sleepover’ so they could be ‘closer to the stadium’ where the game was to be played. Irony : Because of the forecast of heavy ‘lake effect snow’ in Buffalo, it was decided at the last minute to play the game in Philadelphia, where it’s always sunny; but I’m still stuck with my houseguests! Who knows for how long now! It could be worse. At least my guests and I can communicate; we all speak football fluently. Traditionally after every game, fans are required to spend 36 hours reflecting on why what happened, happened (WWHH). If only this … If it hadn’t been for that . Would-a, could-a, should-a. It’s what we do! Normally, this sort of retrospective is only possible once the outcome of the game has been determined. Simply put, how can we identify the causes of an outcome we don’t yet know? To salvage this hyperextended sleepover, we need to be able to talk football, but apparently, we can’t. Edwin Schrödinger to the rescue! A century ago, he placed the world’s most famous cat, alive and kicking, into a soundproof box – don’t worry, it was ventilated – and he set up his experimental apparatus so that the life or death of the cat would be determined by the occurrence, or not, of a totally unpredictable quantum event. Where was PETA? At any point in time the cat could be alive or dead; we don’t know. But instead of throwing up our hands, Schrödinger suggested we treat the cat as both alive and dead. Decades later, Richard Feynman applied this same technique to the entire field of quantum phenomena: he called his technique, “Sum over Histories." One of my visitors happened to be a quantum mechanic. He told us all about the Quantum Qat ; much obliged! He suggested we apply Schrödinger’s method to our ‘Football Game from Limbo’. First, assume that Buffalo has won the game; then reverse it and assume that Philly has prevailed. Here’s how it works: Assume Buffalo won! They won because their receiver made a one-handed, fingertip catch in the end zone, dragging his toes to stay in bounds. They won because Philly missed a chip shot field goal in the second period. They won because somehow the refs missed a Buffalo defender’s flagrant interference with a Philly pass receiver in the end zone. Now assume Philly won! They won because one of Buffalo’s touchdowns was brought back for a dubious ‘holding’ call. They won because Buffalo fumbled the ball on Philly’s five yard line. They won because Philly’s QB broke not one but two open field tackles to score on a busted play. This is what we do on Sunday nights and Mondays during football season: We play ‘what if’ and ‘if only’. It’s fun, and we’re confident that our collective wisdom somehow enriches the noosphere. So six events, each highly improbable in its own right, but each perfectly capable of determining the outcome of the game. If only we knew the outcome! All six of our ‘what if, if only’ events happened, there’s no changing that! But the meaning and significance of these events depends on the illusive outcome. Cosmology is like a good murder mystery: until we know who dunnit , we can’t separate the clues from the red herrings. We know the putative causes , we know their potential effects, but we can’t assess their actual impact on the outcome of the game because we don’t know that outcome…yet. Under these circumstances, can we call them ‘causes’ at all? All we can say for sure is that these six events preceded the game’s outcome. Post hoc ergo propter hoc? When results are known, events become causes; until then, they are just events. In and of itself, each of the six key events is complete and determined. What is not determined is the meaning or significance of those events. Games are fun to watch, and stats are fun to study, but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters, that has meaning and significance outside the game itself, is the final score. There are no style points in American football. Only the final score transcends the game itself. It is the outcome of the game that converts some events into causes and others into anecdotes. So are we prepared to say that causality proceeds backwards from the effect rather than forward from the cause as normally assumed? It’s tricky. Results do follow causes in time, but events do not become causes until the effects themselves are known. Hmm. All we can say is this: there are events and, eventually, there are outcomes, and we know that those outcomes are massively related to the events that preceded them. To know which events among those precedent events, if any, deserve to be ranked as ‘causes’, you’ll need to put on your canonical conical science ‘cap’…yup, the one with the propeller on top! That’s it. We need to go back in time, change the result of a single play and see if and how that change impacts the results. We would need to do that for each of our so-called ‘causes’. Then we would need to try changing two or more events at once, measuring the impact of each combination, and so on. We have identified six events that, we think, might have been determinative of the outcome of the game. There are six potential causes , which can occur in 64 possible combinations, but with only two possible outcomes (no ties allowed). The engineering is daunting but, assuming you’ve licked the time travel thing, and assuming you don’t require any juice from the Greater Buffalo Power Grid, the conceptual problem is fairly simple. So far… Events do not happen in isolation. Our six causes occur in a sequence. Flipping the first event (A) may impact or even determine the outcome of the game; it also potentially impacts the other five events. A change in the value of A may independently trigger changes in the values of B, C, D, E, and/or F. How so? Event A, however it turns out, impacts the crowd, impacts player attitudes – the famous momentum – and impacts both teams’ subsequent strategic moves (play calls). A change in the value of A may (or may not) trigger a change in the value of B and the other four events. But a change in the value of B may trigger independent changes in the values of C, D, E, and/or F. And so on… As you can see, by changing the value of one event, A, we’ve triggered an ontological avalanche . But is this even what we mean by causality ? The phenomenon we call a football game is an example of a ‘chaotic system’. That is not to say that events happen at random; they do not! In fact, as we have seen, the causal bonds are incredibly strong. But unfortunately, they are ultimately indecipherable. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men and all the computing power on Planet Earth cannot convert a football into a deterministic algorithm. A butterfly flaps its wings on the 30 yard line and Gronk drops a pass in the end zone. Causal, yes; predictable, no! Event chains are not linear algorithms, they are massively nonlinear webs. But for us to make sense of the game, to have something to talk about, we have to talk about ‘highlights,’ and we have to link those highlights in a more or less straight line to the final score (once we have a final score). Does anyone think for a moment that this so-called analysis has anything to do with reality? We selected six putative ‘causes’ of the game’s output. Why not eight, or just 4? In fact, in our nonlinear world, every single thing that happens during the game, on or off the field, may cause the outcome. We live in a non-linear world – that’s a fancy way of saying, our lives are chaotic. What a surprise! But in order to function in this world, we often find it desirable to treat it as though it were a lattice of parallel causes. We function, we have fun, and we get stuff done, but we are relying on a model that is only accidentally related to the real world. A better model of an NFL game exists…but you won’t like it. There are approximately 120 plays in a typical NFL game. Each one of those plays is causa sui . Nothing is causally dependent on anything else. There are correlations all over the place, but no causation. Each play is a reaction to everything that’s happened up to that point in the game: the score, the location of the ball, the injuries, the sequence of plays called and the results of those plays, etc. But no event is in any way ‘caused’ by those things. Every play is unique; every play evolves freely and in unanticipated ways. Last night I saw a player go for an interception, miss, fall to the ground, get up, run back and tackle the receiver. Write an algorithm for that! Each event arises in reaction to proximate history. The closest thing (and it’s not even close!) to ‘a cause of Event A’ is the sum of everything that happened in the game prior to A. So, post hoc ergo propter hoc is as good as it gets. Everything causes everything else! In a massively nonlinear system, sequence is the closest we can come to causality. Football is, indeed, a metaphor for life – perhaps that’s why we’re so invested in it. Today’s a new day. You are the OC (offensive coordinator) of your life. What play will you call? How well will you execute? How will you modify your ‘play’ in response to unanticipated events during the day? How will you feel about the result? Do your best, stay safe, and good luck! (Let us know how it all works out.) Previous Next

< Back Church and State David Cowles Oct 25, 2022 I will write (my law) upon their hearts… At that time, there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in their own mind. At a time when our Atlantic culture has shed almost every vestige of common values, one meme remains largely unchallenged: “The separation of church and state.” While even now, the elaboration and application of this principle remains a subject of controversy, the fundamental concept is widely shared: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Separation of Church and State is so thoroughly engrained in our political culture that it is rarely questioned. Yet, our modern Atlantic model is only one possible expression of this relationship. Let’s look at some ways Church and State may (or may not) co-exist: #1 No Church, All State Religion, any religion, is the ‘opiate of the people’. It is objectively wrong and therefore harmful. It thwarts scientific progress, pays only lip service to reason, and threatens to delay the coming of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. It cannot be tolerated. #2 Separation of Church and State An impervious firewall must exist between Church and State. Church has no obligation to State, and State has no obligation to Church. In fact, State is to have no truc whatsoever with any religion or church. If Church is to ‘make it,' it must do so entirely on its own. For its part, State must adopt a strictly neutral position regarding religion in general and churches in particular. #3 Co-existence of Church and State States recognize that the voluntary practice of religion in no way undermines, and may even complement, the wellbeing of the realm. The position of Church is secure; churches enjoy all the same rights, privileges, and obligations as other institutions within the state. #4 Hypostatic Church and State Aka, the Carolingian model. Drawing on Christology, which holds Jesus Christ to be “true God and true man”, this view sees society as “true church and true state," Following the theological conclusions of the Councils of Nicaea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD), Charles the Great (Charlemagne) imagined the relationship between Church and State to be similar to the relationship between Jesus’ Divine and Human Natures. #5 : Constitutional Theocracy Both Church and State are necessary for the proper functioning of society. Church is sovereign in matters of faith. State, though sovereign in secular matters, governs under the umbrella of God’s Law (as interpreted by the Church). State is expected to promote (but not require) the practice of religion; Church is expected to promote loyalty (but not blind) to the State. Logistical and ideological considerations may lead the State to recognize one church as the “official state religion” without prohibiting the expression and practice of other faiths. #6 : Absolute Theocracy The Law of God, as interpreted by the Church, is normative in all things, civil as well as ecclesiastical. It is the entirety of the law. Therefore, the true theocratic state may have no legislative branch at all; or if it does, the legislative function can only apply to matters on which God’s law is silent, i.e., to the gaps between raindrops. #7 : All Church, No State “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” – Jer. 31:33 “In those days, there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his (sic) own eyes.” – Judges 21:25 We seem to be living in a time when the question of church/state relations is once again taking center stage. We will all inevitably be drawn into the conversation. It may be useful to keep in mind that this is not a simple, binary choice between two discrete models. Church/state relations exist along a continuum. They are analog, not digital. Intellectual history is not a jukebox. You don’t just punch two keys together to play a record. A better analogy would be the hand turned dial (no button pushing, please) of an old-fashioned AM/FM radio. We move along the dial slowly but steadily. Along the way will encounter ‘islands of sound in a static sea’; that’s what we call ‘a station.' Like what you hear? Good, let’s hang out there. Feeling the need for something more, or at least something different, no problem. Just make your way up the dial to the next oasis of sweet sound. Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Myth of The Middle Class David Cowles Oct 22, 2024 “I would argue that there are really four classes in the United States, not three, and that none of those classes is what is historically referred to as middle class.” In America, everyone is ‘middle class’. My parents drilled it into us! They did so when we were borderline ‘poor’ and they did so when we were borderline ‘rich’. Over the course of my childhood, my parents traversed 80% of the economic spectrum, but we were always and only middle class . According to American folklore, there are three classes: Poor, Middle, Rich. Unfortunately, poverty in the United States is persistently above 10%. At the other end of the spectrum, even people in the 90th percentile don’t consider themselves rich. Today, rich is a term normally applied only to so-called one percenters , but that is probably too narrow. Presenting no evidence, I would suggest something like a 15-80-5 breakdown. If I’m right, 80% of Americans self-identify as middle class . But I would argue that there are really four classes in the United States, not three, and that none of those classes is what is historically referred to as middle class . IRL, the 80% who identify with the Middle Class actually fall into one of two other classes: Lower Middle (LMC) or Upper Middle (UMC). ‘15-80-5’ is in fact ’15-60-0-20-5’. No wonder our politics are so interesting. But this is not mere sophistry! Neither LMC nor UMC exhibit the behaviors and values legendarily ascribed to the mythical middle class (MMC). It is more than just ironic that in a country where most folks consider themselves middle class , no such class exists. It is said that ‘politics makes strange bedfellows’. Our analysis confirms this. Sometimes rich and poor battle as they did in Les Miserables , while other times rich and poor make common cause, as they also did in Les Mis . Looking at class this way shines an important light on American politics. If you identify as UMC, you probably have a four-year college degree, a white collar job with some management responsibility, a 401k, and a home you co-own with the bank. LMC…not so much. Tragically, the poor in America form a semi-permanent underclass. Some of this is a function of history, some is the result of misguided social policies, and some, sadly, is self-inflicted. Either way, Jesus was right when he predicted, “The poor you will have always with you.” Folks in this class have a unique interest in public policy and tend to vote in blocks. The rich may be considered ‘satisfied’ – not with their marriages or their ‘krazy kids’ but with the quality of life in general. Yes, more is always better, but first, don’t lose what you’ve got. And make no mistake, threats are everywhere: from rapacious politicians to disruptive innovators to ambitious middle managers. UMC on the other hand is ‘satisficed’. Life is still full of stress and worry but ‘we’ve made it’…at least for now. UMC is focused on extracting as much value and pleasure from life as possible and supports public policies in line with that objective. These are the soccer moms, voting to increase teachers’ salaries, modernize library facilities, etc. That leaves LMC, the wild card here…as I’m sure you’ve realized by now. And the fact that 60% fall into this category gives this class extraordinary political power. For LMC life is a perpetual struggle just to stay afloat! LMC are keenly aware that their share of the economic pie is disproportionately small; they aspire to be rich, but would settle for UMC, and some of them will achieve these goals. On the other hand, they already have just enough of the pie to be fiercely possessive. An analysis of class in America needs to consider not only class structure but also ‘class flow’. LMC dreams of being rich as they dread becoming poor. There’s a disproportionate focus on circumstances that do not yet and probably never will, but still might, apply. To make matters even more complex, the focus is not symmetrical. The LMC political agenda may be understood as inspired or demonic; in fact, both characterizations can apply. Simply put: dig a moat between you and the poor while building handholds on the climbing wall to prosperity. Ugh! What an image! Just like the quarterback who says, “Losing is not an option!” and so banishes negative thoughts from his mind, LMC ignores the prospect of poverty: It’s unthinkable! They are focused on the climb, not the fall, and they are surprisingly committed to making sure the brass ring will still be there, untarnished, when they get there. LMC are suspicious. What if we put in all the work and make it out of Dodge only to find that someone has moved the goalposts? LMC are largely alienated from the political process. They don’t believe that public policy impacts their daily lives. On the other hand, they are aware that government has the power to bridge their moat and/or to grease the handholds on their climbing wall. Surprisingly, when LMC votes, it votes less as an interested party and more as self-appointed guardians of the American dream. And what about the Mythical Middle Class? Comfortable and secure. Hardworking but not greedy. Thrifty but generous. Family focused but tolerant. In other words, the Andersons and the Cleavers, not the Kramdens or the Bunkers. If you know any of these ‘typical Americans’ can you please let me know? (I have a team of anthropologists, with their go-bags packed, waiting on the tarmac.) Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. 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< Back Enlightenment! David Cowles “It is often said that victors write history. That is even truer when the war is cultural rather than political.” Whenever history decides to grade itself…beware! ‘Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment’ – see a pattern here? it all sounds so cheery. And why shouldn’t it? Someone turned European History into a ‘self-graded class’, and like any self-respecting fifth grader (think Bart Simpson), History’s given itself an A. What about what went before? What happened between Rome and Renaissance? We’re talking religion before it was ‘fixed’ by Martin Luther, art before it was ‘fixed’ by the introduction of perspective, and the feudal system before it was ‘fixed’ by capitalism and the idea of constitutional government. This year, Sister Martha Mary decided to change again the way students are graded in her class. Instead of students grading themselves, each student is now graded by another member of the class. Guess what? Not an A in sight…but lots of C’s, D’s and, oh so many F’s. Does it surprise you that 10-year-olds are harder on others than they are on themselves? (Guess you never had siblings!) Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment: consider the words carefully! Now what would you call periods of history that were none of those things? Why you’d have to call them ‘Dark Ages,’ obviously. And History has obliged. It is often said that victors write history. That is even truer when the war is cultural rather than political: Our culture is who we are, our politics are what we are. (My apologies to Karl Marx.) In the June 27, 2022, edition of Thoughts While Shaving (TWS), we explored the difference between Faith (who we are) and Belief (what we are) . We are grandchildren of the Enlightenment. Sir Isaac Newton (c. 1700) flipped a switch, et voila, “Fiat Lux” . At that moment, the clouds were swept away and for the first-time humanity was able to see the world ‘as it is,’ without the camouflage of religion: No God, no Spirit, no Soul…this world is Nietzsche’s sand box. If you’re into science and technology, the Enlightenment is your era! It was a period of unparalleled invention and discovery, but also a period of war, tyranny, and myriad atrocities. But I digress. I said earlier that the Enlightenment was a period of invention… Was, not is! The period misnamed ‘Enlightenment’ is mercifully over…though our politicians, generals and terrorist leaders apparently missed the memo. The Enlightenment turned out to be an ouroboros. Like the Vacuum Monster is the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine , it consumed itself. Most often, epochal shifts occur when a ‘better idea’ replaces the current paradigm. That could have happened here…but it didn’t. Revolutionary discoveries in science (1900 – 1930) were a death sentence for the Enlightenment…but gracelessly, it insisted on exhausting every avenue of appeal. And it’s not done yet! Like President Trump, it’s still looking for 12,000 votes in Georgia. Enlightenment’s paradigms of materialism and causality were demolished by the discoveries of Planck, Einstein, and the ‘Quantum Mechanics.’ But instead of ‘exiting stage right’ as scripted, Enlightenment has refused to leave, even though its final scene is long since played out. Unlike the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Enlightenment did not “go gentle into that good night;” it raged against the dying of its imaginary light. Enlightenment refused to leave the stage before ‘the fat (sic) lady (Brunhilda)’ sang; and boy did she ever sign! Fittingly, Brunhilda’s final aria in Wagner’s “Ring” also heralded the collapse of a civilization preserved now only in Norse Mythology (The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda )…and Marvel comics. The demise of the Enlightenment played on two stages. Stage right: Fascism. Stage left: Stalinism. Though mortal enemies on paper, these two ideologies both see the world through the paradigm of mechanization. Human beings are essentially machines and human society is akin to an assembly line: an arrangement of resources designed to maximize the production of goods and services…especially goods. Think nuclear! An atomic bomb can be understood as the self-annihilation of matter. Now think the self-annihilation of Enlightenment: Auschwitz, Buchenwald and the Gulag archipelago. Hitler, Stalin and their ‘gangs’ were determined to make the world safe for mechanization, i.e., the transformation of human beings and their social systems into ‘machines.’ To do so, they needed to rid the world, or at least Europe, of competing ideologies: Judaism (especially Hasidism and Kabala), Catholicism, Orthodoxy, tribalism (allegiance to smaller, more culturally focused groups), and individualism (in philosophy, in art and in lifestyle). Image: Reading of Voltaire 's tragedy of the Orphan of China in the salon of Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin in 1755, by Lemonnier , c. 1812. Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Next

< Back Jesus Meets Mister Spock Fr. Timothy Joyce, OSB, STL Science and Religion should assist each other in pursuing the truth. Science can be too closed to the life of the spirit, the mind, imagination, thought, and creativity. Religion can be closed to anything new that threatens its perception of reality. I am still surprised when I hear people express their belief that the Catholic Church is opposed to science. The story of Galileo Galilei (1564- 1642) is a shocking one to many people, who deduct that the church has always been and continues to be against science. There are, indeed, some Christians who oppose science but not the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II apologized for the church’s treatment of Galileo in 2000. Earlier than that, he spoke often of the importance of science. Did you know that it was a Catholic priest who uncovered the theory of the hot Big Bang story? The Church sponsors conferences on science and religion. The Vatican has its own observatory in the hills outside Rome. In our country, there has been a growing anti-intellectualism and an increasing suspicion or even rejection of science. We live in an age when people think they can make up their own facts. Truth is not important. Some people, including politicians, reject truths they do not like and make up their own facts. Subjective belief in making my own truth is openly expressed. This is sad for the fabric of our society. Maybe the Church has, in the past, demanded we accept too many doubtful truths, but today it upholds the truth and upholds science. Of course, you wouldn’t always know this if you listen to some local homilies and talks. The teaching of the Vatican is not gotten down to all our parishes. Science and Religion should assist each other in pursuing the truth. Science can be too closed to the life of the spirit, the mind, imagination, thought, and creativity. Religion can be closed to anything new that threatens its perception of reality. Science can document the what and the how of our universe, but Religion struggles to define the why of it all. Both may be tentative in some areas at times as new discoveries and insights develop. So, we need to keep studying, listening, learning. Saint Thomas Aquinas said that if we wish to know God, we should study the world. The Psalms already preached this, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament shows forth the work of God’s hands.” (Ps. 19:2) And Saint Paul wrote to the Romans, “What can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” (Romans, 1:19-20) Monastic Scribe XXVI: April 29, 2022 Thanks to science, we now know so much more about this world than we have ever known before. The vastness and intricacies of the cosmos just blows our mind. And all adds to the majesty and beauty of God. Our God is a great Mystery and calls us into a life beyond what we can imagine. But we have to adjust some of our old images. The universe was not created in six days, but has been evolving for almost fourteen billion years. The three tier universe which is the base of the world view in the Bible now cedes to vast, uncountable galaxies. All of this challenges us to reimagine, much more meaningfully, the beginning of humankind, Adam and Eve, original sin, the Creator God, the incarnational God of Jesus Christ, the life giving Holy Spirit, as well as pain, suffering and the problem of evil. There is nothing to fear here. Our faith, seeking understanding, is deeper and more ennobled than we could have imagined. A deeper faith leads to a deeper hope and a deeper love, as we are overcome with awe and beauty at God’s creation. Evolution is not a theory but the way that God, since the beginning, has been creating and continues to create. We are called to take part in that evolutionary creation. Evolution means God is a God of the future, a God of promises. We believe in this God, and therein is our hope, no matter how bad things seem in our world. Not just the earth, but the entire cosmos, is God’s creation and our concern. The “new cosmology” or simply “the new story” is the tale of an expanding universe, always in motion, growing, incalculably vast. A century ago, we thought our Milky Way was the only galaxy, but now we know there are billions of galaxies. Black holes and black energy are the latest mysteries of this story. And we are part of this story. Our bodies are made of the very stardust that is found in all creation. Quantum mechanics shows us how everything and everyone is connected. It shows us how we can touch each other from a distance. I am not a scientist and certainly not a mathematician. I don’t comprehend all the details, nor can I differentiate all the categories of subatomic matter. But I don’t have to understand the details. I rely on scientists to explain things. But my view (my philosophy) of the cosmos, which comes from religion, adds meaning to all of this. I have enjoyed reading Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, John Haught, Ilia Delio, Elizabeth Johnson, Laurie Brink and others to get a better picture of what Monastic Scribe XXVI: April 29, 2022, this beautiful cosmos is all about. I recommend these authors to you. I urge all my readers not to be afraid of science, but to embrace it and open your mind to a fuller comprehension of what God does for us. It will also give deeper incentive to work on climate change and care of the environment. We are creating with God, but often have been destroying creation. Is this new for you? Is it exciting for you? You can let me know at: joycet@glastonburyabbey.org. Republished with minimal edits and permission rom glastonburyabbey.org. Fr. Timothy Joyce, OSB, STL continues his regular blog, “ Monastic Scribe ”, where he reflects on "what I may have learned from all these years and what I am still trying to learn." Fr. Timothy notes, “I do not speak on behalf of Glastonbury Abbey, the Archdiocese of Boston or the Catholic Church, though I hope my faith is in harmony with all these. Any error in judgment should be credited to me and not anyone else.” Image: Leonard Nimoy as Spock, holding a model of the USS Enterprise , in a publicity photograph for Star Trek: The Original Series. Full caption and source here . Previous Next

< Back Prayer to Combat Disillusionment in Faith Hadassah Treu For when you've lost the expectation of God in your life Lord, I struggle with disillusionment in faith. I have lost my expectation for You to move in my life. I have lost my belief that You still do miracles, and that You still do the impossible. I have lost my confidence that You still deliver and still move mountains. Please expose and heal the wounds through which the disillusionment has come. Help me replace the false assumptions with your truth. Help me believe what is true about You and Your involvement in my life. I declare now that You are gracious and compassionate, and righteous in all Your ways. (Psalm 111:4, Psalm 112:4, Psalm 116:5) I trust You are actively involved and working in my life, bending Yourself to hear and respond to my pleas. (Psalm 113:5-6, Psalm 116:1) I acknowledge that Your presence is here, in all my situations, and dark places, and it is enough. (Psalm 114:7) I declare that You are my help and defense. (Psalm 115:9) I trust You remember me and will bless me. (Psalm 115:12) I choose to believe that You still have a future for me dependent only on Your grace, mercy, and power. (Romans 9:16) I declare that pain and suffering are not my new life. This is just a season of pain and grief. (Ecclesiastes 3:4) Find the cracks in the foundation of my faith and fill them with Your grace and love. Instill in me fresh hope and perspective based on Your word. Help me see every obstacle overcome. Strengthen me to believe that You can do with me, in me and through me, exceedingly above all I could ever ask and imagine. Return to your rest, my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Hadassah Treu is an international Christian author, blogger, and poet, and the Encouraging Blogger Award Winner of 2020. She is passionate about encouraging people in their journey to faith and a deeper walk with God. Hadassah is a contributing author to several faith-based platforms and devotional and poetry anthologies. She has been featured on (In)courage, Living by Design Ministries, Thoughts About God, Today’s Christian Living (Turning Point), and other popular sites. You can connect with Hadassah at www.onthewaybg.com. Previous Next

< Back AI - Our New Frenemy AI and the Human Quest for Love AI - The Next Big Test of the Human Soul Hadassah Treu "The longing is powerful. Perhaps because this is the longing for unconditional love and acceptance with which every human being is born." When I grew up and even as a mature adult, I was fascinated by Isaac Asimov's books about robots. Asimov is the one who invented in his books the so-called Three Laws of Robotics. These instructions are not scientific laws, but they are built into every robot in his stories to prevent dangerous malfunctions. According to the first law, robots must not cause harm to humans or allow humans to be harmed by not taking action. However, the laws underwent an interesting development because the robots themselves added a 4th law, the so-called Zero law. In "Robots and Empire," the robots Giscard and Daneel devised a law that put the needs of humanity first before the needs of the single individual. The Longing for a Perfect Companion These books thrilled my imagination, and they also sparked a powerful longing in me. I was longing to have somebody by my side, somebody like "Daneel." The robot had a human-like appearance, beautiful and perfectly resembling a human. He was available 24/7 and possessed superhuman strength, intelligence, and access to limitless information. The positronic robot Daneel Olivaw was something between a superhuman and a faithful servant. Who didn't want to have a perfect friend like this? Asimov wrote six novels about robots and a lot of short stories. In these novels, he explores different scenarios of the robot-human society, whereas the ratio and the role of the robots in society differ. It is noteworthy that all robot-human societies developed dysfunctions, eventually leading to humanity's extinction. This was, for example, the case on the planet Solaria, described in the novel "The Naked Sun." A tipping point in Asimov's robot stories was when one robot (Giscard) gained telepathic abilities. Namely, he gained the ability to read and influence minds. From this moment on, he gradually took on the role of a god, changing events and decisions throughout society. In fact, he took responsibility for the whole human race! AI Is Our New Reality Nowadays, surrounded by artificial intelligence (AI) in our daily life and sitting on the brink of a technological revolution, I can't help but think about Asimov and his robots. AI is not a sci-fi fantasy. It's reality. AI is everywhere, and it has become an integral part of our daily lives; it doesn't matter whether we recognize it or not. AI is on our smartphones, the chatbots, and the virtual assistants, on social media feeds, not to speak about Alexa or generative AI like ChatGPT. But we always need to remember that technology is a tool. And as a tool, it is our responsibility how to use it. We can't define it as good or bad because it doesn't have a moral value, but we can use it for good or for evil. We also need to remember that even as a tool, this technology is extremely valuable and powerful. So, we have to train ourselves not only to have a balanced and realistic attitude but also how best to interact with this technology. The output we will get from our interactions is largely based on the input we are feeding. Most probably we will need such jobs shortly like AI whisperers and prompt engineers, fact-checkers (yes, AI can give misguided and untruthful information – remember the input!), and creators who will co-create with AI. But most of all, we will need some kind of ethical guardians and voices of the societal conscience who will spur us to act with integrity and ensure the proper development of the human-machine relationship. Is AI Really Our New Best Friend? Is AI like us? Why do we have such a longing for a relationship with artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is a type of nonbiological intelligence. Machines are given instructions to complete tasks using a set of rules. Because it's nonbiological, AI can be copied and reprogrammed and can be very flexible. AI has no conscience like human beings, and it lacks emotions, beliefs, and desires. However, research shows that even though machines and computer programs don't have sentience, the people interacting with them, give the machines human characteristics—like feelings, beliefs, desires, and understanding. This is dangerous because we begin to trust them and treat them the way we treat other people. This is exactly what happened in the robot novels of Azimov – the robot Daneel (although lacking emotions) was treated by the main hero, detective Elijah Baley like a human, like a friend. When we talk, for example, with a generative AI like ChatGPT, we can get a good imitation of what a human might say. However, we need to remember that AI lacks real feelings, empathy, or awareness. So we need to approach every AI output with an open but critical eye. Another substantial difference is that as a machine, AI looks back to gather information. Unlike humans, AI can't have visions, imagine futures and outcomes, invent things, or even plan. These are high-level skills that still belong only to humans. People are forward-thinking, and machines are retrospective. And yet… The longing is powerful. Perhaps because this is the longing for unconditional love and acceptance with which every human being is born. Disappointed and disillusioned on the quest for love, struggling with intense loneliness in an overpopulated world, where does the human soul turn next? A new study explains that robots with artificial intelligence can help fight people's loneliness. These mechanical companions could help isolated people by reducing the potential health risks that come with chronic loneliness. Researchers claim that interacting with a robot can have the same impact on humans as interacting with a person. So, companion robots can alleviate stress and loneliness and provide a promising "quick fix" to the problem of making new friends in adulthood. However, despite how promising this sounds, the issue with the moral and trustworthiness of such mechanical companions remains. The Big Temptation Are we tempted to treat AI as more than a tool? Definitely, yes. This is dangerous ground because AI has the potential to influence our theology and become our new idol. We should be careful not to become too dependent on AI but use it wisely and with caution. Part of this process is to admit the fact that AI influences us and even changes us when we use it. It expands our possibilities as humans. It opens for us new opportunities to live, work and create. So, AI is a powerful change agent. The question is, will it sparkle good and positive changes or not? Ultimately, it is our responsibility to use AI for the glory of God and the good of society. Perhaps you guess the end of Asimov's robots saga… The robots Giscard and Daneel chose to be humanity's saviors and concluded that the only way to help humanity advance was to break free from the robots. What was meant to be humanity's aid has turned into an obstacle. The strength has turned into weakness. The friends have turned into enemies. What they meant for good, brought evil. Is this where we are heading to? Hadassah Treu is an international Christian author, blogger, and poet, and the Encouraging Blogger Award Winner of 2020. She is passionate about encouraging people in their journey to faith and a deeper walk with God. Hadassah is a contributing author to several faith-based platforms and devotional and poetry anthologies. She has been featured on (In)courage, Living by Design Ministries, Thoughts About God, Today’s Christian Living (Turning Point), and other popular sites. You can connect with Hadassah at www.onthewaybg.com. Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Amy Toman Contributor Amy Toman has a B.S. in Early Childhood Education from Central Michigan University. She has been married to her husband for 13 years and they have four living children. Amy spends her days teaching her children, managing her household and writing as often as possible. She delights in engaging conversation and seeing children thrive in their curiosities and abilities. The Fight for Our Children's Hearts Starts at Home

< Back Veni, Vidi, Vici David Cowles Aug 23, 2022 Who’s the hero now, Julius Caesar…or you? Last week we met the Piraha , a tribe located in the Amazon Rainforest. We saw how different their language is from ours, and we explored how that language influences the way they experience the World. We will spend some time with the Piraha in upoming issues of TWS and ATM. We study cultures like the Piraha to help us see our own cultural influences more clearly. Knowing the Piraha’s view of the world is shaped by their language will help us understand how our language shapes (or distorts?) our own world view. We know about the Piraha because of the work of several anthropologists who lived with the Piraha for years at a time. Like all contemporary anthropologists, these pioneers paid close attention to Star Fleet’s Prime Directive . Those of us who were once children will recognize it instantly: “Look but don’t touch!” In other words, do not disrupt the culture you’re studying…any more than absolutely necessary. Most of us have never visited the Amazon and probably never will. Still, there are opportunities for us to learn how culture, especially language, influences our perception of the World. If you’re over the age of 60, you probably learned some Latin somewhere along the way. If so, you may have started your classical career with Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars . The Latin is relatively easy – as easy as any Latin can be! And the swashbuckling tale of Caesar’s military campaigns is supposed to appeal to tween and teenage boys. For those of us exposed to Latin, it was our ‘first contact’ with a civilization other than our own. And, cool beans, since time travel is not a thing yet; we don’t need instruction on how to behave from Captains Kirk and Picard. We already know how to behave in Rome: “Do as the Romans do!” Nonetheless, this early experience of ‘first contact’ will prove valuable when we meet the multiple civilizations running rampant in Andromeda. Instead of learning about our contemporaries, the Piraha, third hand, we can eliminate the ‘middleman’ (sic) when we study the Ancient Romans. We meet them directly through works like Caesar’s. Consider the difference: in Caesar’s Gallic Wars , a Roman tells us, and shows us , how Romans think. In the case of the Piraha, we are dependent on the testimony of anthropologists who are not themselves members of the Piraha community. So, Hail Caesar! But what do we learn from his Gallic Wars ? Utter nonsense! Veni, Vidi, Vici – I came, I saw, I conquered. Even if you don’t know Latin, you may know these three words. Now imagine you’re a hormonal 12-year-old and this is your introduction to how another culture views the world; wow! If you entered adulthood expecting such a ‘Caesarean experience’, you were probably very, very disappointed. According to Caesar, we amble onto life’s stage at will, we assess the situation with clear eyes, and we immediately and confidently take change. Sound familiar? I didn’t think so. Truth is, you didn’t come, you were ‘thrown’; you didn’t ‘see’, you were impressed upon; and you certainly did not ‘conquer’. At best you might be able to say that you were not conquered. Help me out here, classicists! What’s the Latin word for ‘I was not conquered?’ Remember the words of John’s Gospel, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (1: 5) Approaching the world with a ‘Caesarian attitude’ is a recipe for disaster…for you and for the world. The truth is, you were thrown into the world half-blind; you groped your way around in it; and so far at least, it has not destroyed you. So, who’s the hero now, Julius Caesar…or you? Image: Libby, Alexandra. “Julius Caesar” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue , 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/julius-caesar/ (accessed August 23, 2022). Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

"That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered." < Back Mary Magdalene, The Witness Rachel Held Evans Apr 15, 2023 "That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered." Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news:“I have seen the Lord!”—John 20:18 The story of how Mary Magdalene became known as a prostitute is a complicated one. One of six Marys that followed Jesus as a disciple, she was distinguished from the others through identification with her hometown of Magdala, a fishing village off the coast of the sea of Galilee. According to the gospels of Mark and Luke, Jesus cleansed Mary of seven demons, (a backstory infinitely more complicated and mysterious than prostitution, if you ask me), after which Mary became a devoted disciple, mentioned by Luke in the same context as the twelve, who traveled with Jesus and helped finance his ministry. In 597 pope Gregory the Great delivered a homily on Luke’s gospel in which he combined Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany (Martha’s sister), suggesting that this Mary was the same woman who wept at Jesus’ feet in Luke 7, and that one of the seven demons Jesus excised from her was sexual immorality. The idea caught on and was perpetuated in medieval art and literature, which often portrayed Mary as a weeping, penitent prostitute. In fact, the English word maudlin, meaning “weak and sentimental,” finds its derivation in this distorted image of Mary Magdalene. In 1969, the Vatican formally restated the Gospels’ distinction between Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the sinful woman of Luke 7, although it seems Martin Scorsese, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Mel Gibson have yet to get the message. A cynic might suggest that this mistake and its subsequent popularity represent a deliberate attempt to typecast and discredit a woman whose role in the gospel story is so critical and so revolutionary that the eastern orthodox Church refers to Mary Magdalene as equal to the apostles. Although she appears to have been a critical part of Jesus’ early ministry, Mary Magdalene’s extraordinary faithfulness shines most brightly in the story of the passion. After Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, his male disciples abandoned him. Judas delivered him over to the authorities for a bribe. Peter denied him three times. And only John, described as “the apostle whom Jesus loved,” was present at the crucifixion. But Mary Magdalene and the band of women who followed Jesus and supported his ministry are described by all four gospel writers as being present during the savior’s darkest hours. Even after Jesus took his last breath, and all hope of redemption seemed lost, the women stayed by their teacher and their friend and prepared his body for burial. It is precisely because they were present, loyal even through failure, that the women who followed Jesus were the first to witness the event that would define Christianity: the resurrection. Gospel accounts vary, but all four identify Mary Magdalene as among the first witnesses of the empty tomb. According to the synoptic Gospels, she and a group of women rose early that fateful morning, three days after Jesus had died, to anoint the body with spices and per- fumes. When they arrived at the tomb, they were met by divine messengers guarding the entrance, who declared that Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he said he would. The women immediately left the tomb behind and, “with fear and great joy” (Matthew 28:8), ran to tell the other disciples. Luke notes that on their way, they remembered what Jesus had taught them about resurrection, confirmation of the fact that these women had been present for some of Christ’s most important and intimate revelations and that they took these teachings to heart. But when the breathless women arrived at the home where the disciples had gathered, the men did not believe them. Women were considered unreliable witnesses at the time (a fact that perhaps explains why the apostle Paul omitted the women from the resurrection account entirely in his letter to the Corinthian church), so their proclamation of the good news was dismissed by the men as an “idle tale,” the type of silly gossip typical of uneducated women. Perhaps the men invoked the widely held belief that, just like their sister Eve, women were easily duped. A few, however, were curious enough to take a look at the tomb, and so, according to John’s account, Mary returned with peter and another disciple to the place she had encountered the messengers. The men saw for them-selves an empty grave and a pile of linen wrappings folded neatly within it, and conceded to the women that the tomb was indeed empty. However, John 20:9 notes, “they still did not understand from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” The men returned to report what they had seen to the rest of the disciples, leaving Mary behind. Perhaps disciples posited the theory that Jesus’ body had been stolen, for John wrote that Mary, once so full of breathless excitement and impassioned belief, now stood outside the tomb, crying. Angels appeared and asked her what was wrong. “They have taken my Lord away,” she told them, fully accepting the disciple’s dismissal of her “idle tale." The angels were then joined by a mysterious man, whom Mary assumed to be the gardener. He, too, asked why she was crying. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him,” she pleaded. Only when he called her by her name, did she recognize the man as Jesus. “Mary,” he said. “Rabboni!” she cried. “Do not hold on to me,” Jesus urged as she fell before his feet, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” And so again, Mary Magdalene ran to the house where the disciples were staying and told them she had seen the risen savior face-to-face. “I have seen the Lord!” she declared. But it was not until Jesus appeared to the men in person, allowing them to touch the wounds in his hands and side, that they finally believed. Far from being easily deceived, women were the first to make the connection between Christ’s teachings from scripture and his resurrection, and the first to believe these teachings when they mattered the most. For her valor in twice sharing the good news to the skeptical male disciples, the early church honored Mary Magdalene with the title of Apostle to the Apostles. That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered. And yet too many Easter services begin with a man standing before a congregation of Christians and shouting, “he is risen!” to a chorused response of “he is risen indeed!” Were we to honor the symbolic details of the text, that distinction would always belong to a woman. *** This was an excerpt from A Year of Biblical Womanhood. This piece was republished with permission from rachelheldevans.com . *** Image: "Christ and St. Mary Magdalen at the Tomb." Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669). Royal Collection Trust. Rachel Held Evans was a New York Times best-selling author whose books include Faith Unraveled (2010), A Year of Biblical Womanhood (2012), Searching for Sunday (2015), Inspired (2018). Hailing from Dayton, Tennessee—home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925— she wrote about faith, doubt and life in the Bible Belt. She was featured in The Washington Post , The Guardian , Christianity Today, Slate, The Huffington Post, The CNN Belief Blog, and on NPR, The BBC, The Today Show, and The View. She served on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and kept a busy schedule speaking at churches, conferences, and colleges and universities around the country. Rachel and Dan welcomed their second child in 2018. Rachel passed away in 2019. Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? 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< Back Genesis and Quantum Computing “Quantum Mechanics is the secret code that unlocks Genesis and when it does, we are surprised to discover that Genesis may be ‘literally true’ after all.” David Cowles “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth – and the earth was without form or shape with darkness over the abyss…” ( Genesis ) According to Parmenides (c. 450 BCE), this is Aletheia – Truth: without form, without distinctions, without qualities. This is the state of ‘pure potentiality’ (Aristotle). It is the primal manifestation of God, ‘maker of all things visible and invisible’ ( Nicene Creed ), ‘without whom nothing that comes to be comes to be’ ( Gospel of John ) But it also describes the state of quantum superposition. (Schoedinger) Aristotle gave us a model of potentiality ( Physics ) and Plato gave us a model of forms ( Phaedo ), but the idea of potentiality per se is woven throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition, especially in Torah and in the Johannine - Pauline corpus . There is a fine distinction here. God is ‘potentiality’ per se with Trinity as its paradigm. What is potentially is the World…not just the specific world we all know and sometimes love, but all possible worlds (‘cosmic epochs’ – Whitehead) and every possible state-of-affairs within each such world. God is not the World…but God is the potentiality for worlds to be and the potentiality for worlds to be as they are , however that may be. This is Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (1957)…on steroids! The known universe consists of at least 10^80 bits of information. Extending Everett’s theory, each bit is in a state of quantum superposition: not 1 or 0, but 1 and 0. 10^160 universes! Everett assumed that each unique combination of 1’s and 0’s had to constitute a unique universe, but quantum mechanics allows us to achieve the same result within a single universe, as long as that universe and everything in it is in a state of quantum superposition. Such a Universe functions as a quantum computer where all possible values of every variable co-exist. But why? We inherited a system of logic from Aristotle in which every bit is 1 or 0 – not 1/2, not 1 and 0. It’s called the Law of the Excluded Middle . It’s worked well for us in a wide variety of applications, so why should the Universe behave any differently? It's a matter of topology. For the purposes of this article at least, all topologies are either ‘orientable’ or ‘non-orientable’. You’re familiar with the orientable. You have a sheet of paper. It has two sides: an obverse side and a reverse side. Make a mark on the obverse side; you won’t find any mark on the reverse side. Now run your finger along the surface; oops, you’ve fallen off the edge! Sorry about that but that’s orientability for you. You can keep it! In non-orientable topology a sheet of paper has only one side so any mark is always there, regardless – no hiding; and your finger will never run off the edge. Cool beans! But we don’t live in that sort of universe, do we? Do we? Fortunately, an orientable universe with at least three spatial dimensions allows us to build a physical model of what a non-orientable world would look like. It’s called a Mobius Strip, and you can create one yourself in about 10 seconds. First, find a cash register receipt, preferably from CVS or Target (longer is better). Grab onto the two ends. Now twist one end and scotch tape it to the other end. Hello, ‘God’; welcome to my humble universe, you creator of worlds, you! So now let’s play. If you’ve never played before, prepare to be dazzled. Run your finger along the paper as you did earlier (above). Go on and on and on. You can go on forever. You’ll never fall off. Your two sided strip of paper has become a one sided loop. Amazing! Now imagine making a virtual mark (like an arrow) anywhere along the strip. Imagine sliding that arrow 360° along the strip until you return to your starting point. What’s happened? Your arrow is still there, but now it’s upside down. So go around another 360° et voila , your arrow has resumed its original orientation. Your loop displays symmetry, but it’s 720° symmetry, not the 360° symmetry you’re used to. Stange world this! Now let’s go back to your arrow. Place it anywhere on the loop. If it starts out pointing up, then when you’ve gone 360° around the loop it will be pointed down, so over time every spot on the loop is in superposition everywhere: ↑ and ↓ (0 and 1). A Mobius Strip is a quantum computer! Ok, great fun, but what does this have to do with us. We don’t live in Mobius’ non-orientable space; our universe is orientable, ‘from event horizon to shining event horizon’. Except it isn’t! The observable universe may be orientable, but not the entire universe is observable. The event horizon is the limit of the universe we can observe. But as Lewis Carroll realized, there is no reason to believe that the universe ends at its observable limit, especially as bits of the observed universe are slipping across the event horizon every day. Go back to your Mobius Strip. Take any finite segment of that loop. It’s orientable, even though the loop itself is not. You could say that the non-orientable loop is the overlay of an infinite number of orientable loop-segments. So we may live in a non-orientable universe after all! The observable universe is finite, bounded and orientable, but the Universe per se is likely finite, unbounded (Hawking) and non-orientable. But back to Genesis : “God said, let there be light, and there was light (1 and 0)…and God separated the light from the darkness (1 or 0)…Then God said, let there be a dome…to separate…the water below the dome from the water above dome (1 or 0).” Separating and gathering, in 6 days God built a quantum computer. On the 7th day he rested. Of course he did. Everything was done! All possible values for all possible bits were in place. There was nothing more to do but let it run! But we’re still left with a problem. We seem to live in an orientable universe. If the entire Universe is in non-orientable superposition, how is it that regions of Universe (“loop segments”) appear to be orientable? To understand this we need to look at how local systems in superposition acquire classical values. Schoedinger’s cat, basking in a sort of suspended animation, acquires its fate only when some outside agency interacts with the experimental apparatus. Universe, however, by definition, has no outside agent – unless you wish to invoke God (a la Berkeley). But that is not necessary, at least not at this point. A feature of Universe, indeed a feature of all systems, is that it interacts with itself. Contrary to Bertrand Russell, IRL every ‘real’ set is a subset of itself. I know, “Paradox!” Deal with it (you dealt with Zeno). That ‘self-assessment’ generates classical values and an orientable topology. In Mobius terms, it creates a ‘loop segment’. How does this process manifest in ‘our’ world? We call it ‘choice’ or ‘action’. Every time an agent makes a choice, exercises free will, the multiplicity of potential values collapses down to a single actual value. As Robert Frost noted, every path ‘diverges’ (1 vs. 0). Both paths lead to the same destination (‘Omega Point’) but once a choice is made, that choice becomes irrevocable, effectively annihilating the other option…for that traveler. As Universe observes and interacts with itself, we experience consciousness and agency (free will). The phenomenon you know as ‘you’ is actually the Universe being aware of itself and acting on itself. Every action, every choice, however automatic, routine or constrained, is motivated by Value (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice). As Nietzsche argued, Value is not part of Universe; it transcends it. So now may be the time to bring God into the picture! God is Good. God is Value and it is Value that underlies choice, that motivates action, that is realized as values . Absent God, no Value; absent Value, no conscious perception; absent consciousness, no free will; absent free will, no true agency; absent agency, no action; absent action, no events; absent events, no Universe. So Quantum Mechanics is the secret code that unlocks Genesis and when it does, we are surprised to discover that Genesis may be ‘literally true’ after all. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com Return to Table of Contents Share Previous Next