Search Results

< Back Friedrich Nietzsche “Value-based judgments assume a transcendent point of view and sooner or later, that way of thinking leads to God-talk and any such talk is strictly verboten.” David Cowles In the course of Western philosophy, one occasionally encounters a thinker whose work is so original that it is a stretch to locate it within any specific school or tradition. I have 3 such thinkers in mind (but of course there are others): Nicholas of Cusa (c. 1450), Friedrich Nietzsche (c. 1885), and Ludwig Wittgenstein (c. 1940) – three gentlemen with different backgrounds, writing in different epochs, utter a common admonition, best expressed by Wittgenstein: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” These are the meaning police . 20 th century Analytic Philosophy rejected most of the Western philosophical tradition as being ‘meaningless nonsense’. Wittgenstein softened this assessment, relabeling it “ important nonsense”, but nonsense nonetheless. Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas? All nonsense, most of the time. Oh philosophers, how painful it must be to learn that you’ve spent your lives studying the equivalent of Edward Lear literature! It’s so, but take heart, what may be ‘nonsense’ is at least ‘important nonsense’, and that modification makes all the difference. After all, the same could be said of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti – ‘nuff said! People have successfully poked holes in Cusa, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, but no one to my knowledge has successfully prosecuted a full-frontal assault on any one of them. Nor are they ever likely to. Their core positions are congruent with one another…and for my money, at least, virtually incontestable! Have you heard this one yet? A 15 th century priest, a 19 th century atheist, and a 20 th century academic walked into a bar… and they spent all afternoon together, drinking, laughing, and sharing ideas. From their relatively solitary perches, these three non-conformists are part of what I call ‘the conscience of Western philosophy’. They impose standards that every philosophical system should have to meet in order to be taken seriously. Think of them and their ilk as the ‘Greek chorus’ that accompanies Intellectual History. But like other such choruses, their warnings often go unheeded. “How dare you require my Truth to be meaningful!” So, moderns that we are, we ignore the warnings of conscience and go right ahead doing whatever it is that we wanted to do, or think, in the first place. We’ll talk nonsense if we want to, when we want to, and as much as we want to, and you can’t do anything to stop us! So there! Nicholas of Cusa instructs us that the most we can say about God is… absolutely nothing. Any declarative statement about God merely takes us deeper into error. The highest number on Cusa’s Truth Scale is zero. Wittgenstein instructs us that the most we can say about Metaphysics is… absolutely nothing. But we’re here to talk about Nietzsche! Nietzsche instructs us that the most we can say about Ethics is… (no surprise twist here) absolutely nothing. Value-based judgments assume a transcendent point of view, and sooner or later, that way of thinking leads to God-talk and any such talk is strictly verboten, but let Nietzsche speak for himself: “What alone can our teaching be? – That no one gives a human being his qualities: not God, not society, not his parents or ancestors, not he himself…The fatality of his nature cannot be disentangled from the fatality of all that which has been and will be…it is absurd to want to hand over his nature to some purpose or other. We invented the concept ‘purpose’: in reality, purpose is lacking… “One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole – there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” ( Twilight of the Idols ) In this work, one of his last and written in the final year of his sanity (1888), Nietzsche ventures a summation of the views he articulated over the previous 16 years. In contrast to dualism, determinism, and materialism, Nietzsche offers a refreshing ontology based on the concept of “the whole”. In that sense, he anticipates by 50 years Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism and by 100 years the New Age concept of Gaia . All values are qualities, but not all qualities are values. According to Augustine et al., all qualities are good . To the extent that anything is not good, it is just deficient in some good quality. Criminals are not ‘bad’, they are just ‘insufficiently good’. All qualities are good, but most are not normative. To the extent that a quality is normative, it is a value . Take painting, for example. Red and blue are qualities. They are not normative; the artist may use either freely. Beauty is the operative value …and it is normative. The artist must strive for ‘beauty’ however she conceives it. Color is a choice (quality); beauty is a norm (value)! As Picasso once famously said, “If I don’t have red, I use blue;” the results speak for themselves. The Old Testament Book of Job , one of the earliest examples of philosophical literature in the West, is a 40 chapter exposition (in dramatic form) of the concept of values . In Job , values are normative…even for God! But not for Nietzsche! In fact, the very concept of ‘norms’ has fared badly over the most recent 150 years. Norm appears to conflict with Will and like two-year-olds the world over, we are all about our Will . The notion of ‘norms’ is incompatible with a ‘flat universe’ (speaking ontologically, not cosmologically). That’s a problem for us because a ‘flat universe’ is virtually synonymous with a ‘democratic universe’, and we are in love with the idea (if not the reality) of democracy . Norms only have a home in hierarchical universes, and we hate hierarchies of any sort: nobility, aristocracy, clergy, bureaucracy, umpires, one-percenters…you name it. But A can only be normative for B if A exists apart from B; otherwise, A is just part of the structure of B (i.e., not a value, not a norm). So, we can honor Cusa by remaining silent about God and we can honor Wittgenstein by remaining silent about Metaphysics. No problem, I’m more interested in football anyway! But to honor Nietzsche, we would need to remain silent about values…and that proves to be very difficult, if not impossible. Take Albert Camus , an important 20 th century author, for example. Camus begins his master philosophical reflection (1942), The Myth of Sisyphus , with a blistering attack on the concept of normative values. He is paying proper homage to Nietzsche; but then, about halfway through, he veers off: “I cannot conceive that a skeptical metaphysics can be joined to an ethics of renunciation…” He rejects the free choice of mystics the world over (Taoists and Dominicans alike) who prefer a contemplative life to the hurly burly of the daily grind. But what gives Camus the right to reject anything? Effectively, he is imposing his own normative values: “…What counts is not the best living but the most living…value judgments are discarded…A man’s rule of conduct and his scale of values have no meaning except through the quantity and variety of experiences he has been in a position to accumulate…” Jaw dropping! Value judgments are discarded…unless they have to do with the quantity and variety of experiences. In place of the traditional values of Beauty, Truth and Justice, Camus substitutes Quantity and Variety. Quantity may be the new quality, but as a ‘value’ it is still normative. The 2 nd half of Sisyphus provides a litany of lifestyles that Camus judges to be consistent with a recognition of the Absurdity of Existence. Working backwards, who made Camus the arbiter of consistency ? On what does he base his assessments if not on transcendental values? Otherwise, we’re just dealing with his neurotic prejudices and bourgeoisie tastes. Sisyphus would then be reduced to a psychological monograph rather than a true work of philosophy. And who made Quantity and Variety normative, or what makes them so? According to Nietzsche, the source of such norms, like any norms, if they are real and truly normative (not just options), must be transcendent. Somehow, Camus misses, or ignores, this. Much as I admire Camus, and enjoy reading his work, it is clear to me that he is the very paradigm of Sartre’s bad faith . Camus himself sums it all up spectacularly: “For on the one hand, the absurd teaches that all experiences are unimportant, and on the other it urges toward the greatest quantity of experiences.” Really? Someone wrote this? Do you ever suffer from insomnia? I find sometimes a good, heartfelt belly laugh helps me relax. So next time you’re tossing about, imagine Nietzsche’s reaction had he been able to read The Myth of Sisyphus. At first, he would have been ‘all puffed up’ – well, as puffed up as Nietzsche could ever get. “How gratifying to see that my work has had such an impact,” he might have thought. And then…OMG! (I can’t stop laughing just thinking about it. The expression on his face! Priceless.) Nor is Camus an outlier. It seems that bad faith runs in the community of philosophers. The French Existentialist Camus sells out Nietzsche; but at the other end of the ideological see-saw, A.J. Ayer, the English Logical Positivist, follows the exact same trek. First, he denies the reality of transcendental values and then he proposes his own such values, e.g. kindness . We appreciate kindness because we accept the reality of transcendental values, but what makes kindness normative for Ayer and his lot? Who says it’s better to be kind than not? Not everyone! Think Machiavelli, Sorel, even Stalin. So, what makes it so, Professor Ayer? So we honor Cusa and Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, but then we systematically ignore them. Our attitude toward ‘the conscience of Western philosophy’ is similar to the attitude of many professed Christians toward the teachings of the Church. For you, good; for me, not so much! 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 . Return to our Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back Bryon David Contributor Bryon David is just one “weird” person and a sinner trying to do his best. “I believe Jesus Christ is the one true God and my only hope. I believe this after much time spent challenging this belief in many ways. He truly is the only way I know. I write when I feel inspired–fiction, true stories, thought trains, and prayers when they can help someone.” Finding Light: A Prayer for Wisdom and Forgiveness

< Back Jericho David Cowles “Some of us were waving copies of Mao’s Little Red Book; we all should have been clutching copies of the Old Testament.” Have you ever read the Book of Joshua? It’s the first book of the Old Testament, following the 5 books of Moses ( Torah ). It begins where Deuteronomy leaves off. Moses has died, God has appointed Joshua as Moses’ successor, and now the Hebrew army sits on the border of the Promised Land. Next stop, Jericho! Jericho is a massively fortified walled city, seemingly impregnable to attack. The city’s rulers are little troubled when Joshua’s rag tag army shows up at their gates. But rulers beware! Joshua has no intention of launching a frontal assault. Instead, he cleverly exploits the inequity of Jericho’s social structure to orchestrate a revolution from within. In the history of urban planning, center-city locations have been prized (easier access to the engines of government and commerce); it’s true today (Mayfair), it was true of the Medieval ville (the proto-cities of the Middle Ages), and it was true of ancient cities like Jericho. The poorest residents “lived in the wall” at the edge of the city; they would be the first to die if the city were attacked. But who cares? They’re poor after all, they’re expendable…right? Not according to Joshua! He was committed to the ideology of social equality hammered out in the Sinai wilderness. He also understood that what made Jericho’s ‘wall flowers’ vulnerable in the event of an attack made them powerful in the event of a revolution, an eventuality unanticipated by the Jericho’s resident urban planners. Joshua also understood that being poor and marginalized (quite literally as it happens), these outliers might be less loyal to the existing order and more willing to consider something new. And boy, did Joshua represent something new! How about the egalitarian redistribution of all of Jericho’s ‘means of production’, i.e., its wealth generating assets? Joshua promised more than any politician ever has, before or since. The promises of Marx and Lenin pale by comparison. Yet, Joshua delivered! He fulfilled his promise. And what was that promise? Simply to export the nascent Israeli constitution to Jericho and other cities of Canaan. Sidebar : In the 1960s, the United States was involved in a bloody war with North Vietnam. In its early years, the war was broadly unpopular on college campuses but just as broadly supported in the working-class neighborhoods that furnished soldiers for the US military. The course of the war shifted when, in the later years of the decade, college campuses emptied and student radicals spilled into the neighborhoods, spreading the anti-war gospel. We were so proud of ourselves. We didn’t realize that we had simply rediscovered a tactic that Joshua had used more than 3,000 years earlier. Some of us were waving copies of Mao’s Little Red Book ; we all should have been clutching copies of the Old Testament. We were following Mao and Marx when we should have been following Moses. When Joshua was preparing to cross into Canaan, his first act was to send two spies into Jericho to reconnoiter and to build rapport with its disadvantaged residents. In support of these fifth columnists, Joshua, at God’s direction, staged a massive demonstration, not of Israel’s military might but of its socio-economic constitution. “The Lord said (to Joshua)…have all the soldiers circle the city, marching once around it. Do this for six days with seven priests carrying ram’s horns ahead of the Ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times and have the priests blow the horns…The wall of the city will collapse...” (Jos. 6: 1 – 5) And so, for seven days, Joshua’s entourage engaged in a series of militarily ineffectual maneuvers outside the city’s ramparts. Did Joshua invent the concept of liturgical dance? The city’s rulers were mesmerized. They had no hint of what was coming! Jericho’s rulers did what we all do; they attempted to shoehorn novel experience into familiar categories. They did not understand that Joshua was bringing new wine, and we all know what happens when you try to put this spring’s Beaujolais Nouveau into last year’s skins --- the skins explode! (The ‘skin’ of an ancient city is its wall…and the walls of Jericho were about to explode.) It’s Day 7 of Joshua’s so-called ‘siege’. Everyone’s attention is riveted on the strange liturgical performance happening just outside the city’s gates. A brilliant media mogul, Joshua has built suspense. He has tantalized his audience, and now at last it’s time for the big reveal. According to Nielsen, on Day 1 Joshua’s antics earned him a market share equal to 40% of Jericho’s households. By Day 6 it was up to 70%, but Day 7 is what everyone was waiting for…and it did not disappoint. ‘The Joshua Show’ enjoyed an audience share of 93%. Eat your heart out, Super Bowl! Joshua was not just an ancient version of Fellini; he was also an avatar of Ronald Reagan. He was a ‘great communicator’. While the rulers of Jericho saw ineffectual military maneuvers, the city’s dispossessed, coached by Joshua’s spies, understood that Joshua was acting out a coded message for their benefit. Through liturgical dance, the Hebrew army acted out the constitution of the emergent Jewish state…"and the walls came tumbling down." The first six trips around the city wall symbolized the first six days of creation, the six days between Sabbaths, the six years between Sabbaticals, the six Sabbaticals between Jubilees. The seventh day’s ‘performance’ incorporated the other six and added one more. It symbolized the seven days of creation, the seven-day Sabbath cycle, the seven-year Sabbatical cycle, the seven-Sabbatical Jubilee cycle (7 x 7 + 1 = 1). The Constitution ( Leviticus ) of the Jewish state included a complete redistribution of productive wealth every 50th year, i.e., during the Jubilee. Just as Jesus of Nazareth (whose name means ‘Joshua’ too, ‘Joshua two’) proclaimed a Jubilee throughout the land on the first day of his public ministry (Luke 4:21), so Joshua proclaimed a Jubilee for the residents of Jericho upon his arrival in the Promised Land. What happened? A divine miracle, a feat of magic, or a David Copperfield illusion? None of the above. Nothing so ‘extra-terrestrial’. Do not expect God to resort to a flood when a rain drop will produce the desired result. Do not invoke the miraculous when the historical will do just as well. Sidebar : We are proposing here a new Razor to sit beside Occam’s on the vanity: Events follow a path of least resistance; they will alter the ‘actual worlds’ they inherit as little as possible, consistent with each event achieving its unique objective. Being is conservative as well as revolutionary. Please don’t underestimate God. He’s got mad skills; but send an army into a battle they might not win? No way! God is no Pickett. Dissolve the walls of Jericho with the wave of a wand or a sprinkle of pixie dust? Not his style! Those are the kinds of desperate measures that a third-millennium deity (BCE) might employ…but not our third-millennium God (CE)! Our God knows his Marx. He knows that a Kingdom created and sustained by a slew of miracles will not endure. Real change has to be rooted in the hearts and minds of the people. The rulers are mesmerized, but the marginalized members of society, ‘the people of the wall’, are energized. Why? Because they understand the meaning of Joshua’s choreography. They know the code. Joshua has presented what is possibly the ‘first political platform’ in Western history, and it is drawn entirely from the Old Testament Book of Leviticus . If Moses led the West’s first ‘nationalist’ rebellion against Pharaoh, Joshua orchestrated its first ‘socialist’ revolution against the economy of Jericho. Image: BATTLE OF JERICHO. The walls of Jericho falling. Fresco at the Vatican by Raphael or his school, 1508-1524. 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

< Back Naomi S. Baron Contributor Professor Baron is interested in language and technology, written language, reading, the history and structure of English, and higher education. She is a former Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, and Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Her books include Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World (which won the English-Speaking Union’s Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Award for 2008), Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World (2015), and How We Read Now: Strategic Choices for Print, Screen, and Audio (2021). Her newest book (forthcoming) is Who Wrote This? How AI and the Lure of Efficiency Threaten Human Writing. Professor Baron taught at Brown University, Emory University, and Southwestern University before coming to American University in Washington, DC, where she has served as associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, chair of the Department of Language and Foreign Studies, Director of the TESOL Program, and executive director of the Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning. Professor Baron has appeared extensively in the media, including interviews on Good Morning America, ABC News 20/20, CNN, The Diane Rehm Show, All Things Considered, the BBC, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, New Yorker, Fortune, and Time. How ChatGPT Robs Students

< Back Causes of the Civil War “Chaos is not an absence of causality, as is generally supposed, but an excess.” David Cowles When I was a bit younger, it was almost guaranteed that any major high school exam covering American History would include the question, “What were the causes of the American Civil War?” In those days, if you wrote “Slavery” across your exam paper, handed it in and headed for the beach, you probably weren’t going to get college credit for your efforts. Today…? But the question is a good one for several reasons: It concerns something we still care about. It allows for weighted consideration of economy, technology, ideology and culture. It encourages the precocious student to reflect on the nature of causality per se , especially in the context of historical process. The American Civil War did not spring unheralded from the head of Medusa but neither did it evolve with billiard-like efficiency. Two hours into exam time, you think, “Everything caused the Civil War…and nothing caused it,” and now you’re on to something! Now you’ve earned that college credit. Marxists call this ‘over-determination’ – events are the intersections of multiple causal chains. Like peaks and troughs on the screen of an oscillator, some waves reinforce, others dampen, and some cancel. You are face to face with the ‘3 Body Problem’, dumbed down for us social science majors. On one hand, history is not magic. It does not rely on spells and incantations; nor does wishing make things so, not even “when you wish upon a star,” Pinocchio. On the other hand, spells and incantations need to be studied as phenomena in their own right and the wishes of various population groups can be a powerful historical force. Yup, it’s the 3 Body Problem, for sure. Everything interacts with everything else. We understand each interaction on its own, but we are flummoxed by the search for an overarching algorithm. For all our erudition, we are ultimately forced to conclude that anything could have happened…and been explained in terms of everything else. This leads to an odd cognitive state in which we can predict nothing…but explain everything. The eyes in back of my head see 20/20; my other eyes…not so much. The 2024 US Presidential election is a case in point. Long expected to be the ‘closest race ever’, it wasn’t close at all. But no one knew that 5 days before. Sure, some may have guessed right, but guessing is not knowing…even if you think it is. It’s impossible to know the future; that’s what makes it future . So no one knew ! No one, that is, except a certain woman in Iowa. She had been polling Iowans for decades and had a reputation for uncanny accuracy. Iowa was not even one of the so-called Battleground States . It was Trump +8% in 2016 and in 2020 and in most 2024 polls. Suddenly, on the weekend before the election, pollster Ann Selzer announced in the Des Moines Register that she had detected a major groundswell of support for Harris: Iowa was now Harris +3%. If that had happened in Iowa, TV networks would have been able to call the nationwide race for Harris by 10PM EST. Suffice to say, they didn’t! The Harris-Walz Wave turned out to be a trough. Iowa ended up Trump +13%. Selzer was off by a whopping 16%. How’s that for a margin of error? The first polls close in some states at 7PM EST. We were on the edge of our seats. If the Selzer Effect were real, it would be evident in the first returns from Indiana and Kentucky. Could one person be so right and everyone else so wrong? 7:05, 7:20, 7:35 – nothing unexpected in the data! No sign of any last minute migration from Trump to Harris…because there wasn’t one. But if there had been such a shift, would that have meant that Selzer was ‘right’? Not necessarily. A broken clock displays the exact time…twice a day; but referring to those moments, we don’t say ‘the clock was right’. A football co-captain calls, “Tails” and it is tails! But we don’t say that the captain ‘got it right’. Being right is more than just being correct. Right is anchored in reason. Why did you think what you thought and was that reasoning valid and/or supported by the relevant evidence? Back to Iowa. Had it gone Harris’ way, folks would have said that Selzer was right. But note, it’s the same Selzer. The outcome , unrelated to her work, just happened to be different. Now libraries are filling up with articles explaining Trump’s triumph; but no one was prepared to publish such a column on the Monday before. The fact is, we are always flying blind into an unknown and undetermined future; looking back, ‘it was always obvious all along’. But to whom? God? Or not even? Science has a name for this state of affairs; it’s called Kaos (chaos)! Chaos is not an absence of causality, as is generally supposed, but an excess . Our Civil War exam taker figured it out: if everything causes everything else then nothing causes anything! Anything overdetermined is everything undetermined, and by the exact same amount. Yet events do not seem entirely random either. They relate to one another but not in mutually reinforcing causal waves. But what’s the alternative? Short of pure mysticism, how else can we account for the regularities of experience? Every event is an expression of the entire Universe. It is a synthesis of what has been and what is coming to be. The event itself samples and weights everything that is and projects it forward into what is to become. Every event is a dissipative membrane, templating settled matters of fact with pure possibility. Events live in the space between what has passed away and what may yet come to pass. The event itself includes no past or future but the event swims in a sea of time. ‘Event’ then is what we mean by ‘Present’. As such every event must begin by executing judgment on the world it inherits (the past). To act as judge, our event must include elements of a different ontological order. We can only judge the contingent from the perspective of the necessary, the actual from the perspective of the ideal. This realization was Plato’s greatest gift to Western philosophy, and it is what connects Plato to Nietzsche , strange bedfellows indeed. A box of Cracker Jacks cannot execute judgment on a Beethoven symphony. Judgment must be from the transcendent perspective of eternal and universal values (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice). Only ‘what is not of this world’ can judge ‘what is of this world’. Jesus nailed it during his brief interview with Pontius Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world…the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the Truth.” (John 18: 36 – 37) Scripture doesn’t give Pilate his due. He was no slouch. He answered Jesus in his best Oxbridge accent: “What is truth?” thereby earning himself posthumous degrees emeritus from 3 Ivy League colleges. The creative advance is always fueled by the desire for Good. “I set before you life and death; therefore choose life.” (Deut. 30: 19) However, we live in an alienated, entropic, post-utopian world. Our goals are pure, but our pursuit of those goals may not be. We do not always follow through on our good intentions. Because of this, there’s often “a slip ‘twixt cup and lip.” In other words, we can’t get out of our own way. Accordingly, as we pursue our initial objective, we entertain new objectives along the way. We get distracted. “What I wish to do, I do not do; what I hate, I do.” (Romans 7: 19) Our beautiful sweater ends up more like a bundle of yarn. And so the academic discipline known as History is born. 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 Yuletide 2024 Previous Next

“The Gospel of Mark is no biography…It’s a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st.” < Back Marx vs. Mark David Cowles Apr 15, 2024 “The Gospel of Mark is no biography…It’s a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st.” The New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke are recognizable as biographies of Jesus. We may be forgiven for expecting the same from the shorter and darker Gospel tucked in between them. I mean, of course, the underappreciated Gospel of Mark. Mark was almost certainly the first Gospel written and many of the episodes recounted in Mark also appear in Matthew and Luke. It is very likely that the authors of these two later Gospels had prior knowledge of Mark’s version of events. The author of Mark is believed to have been a close confidant of Peter, lending additional authenticity to his account. For these and other reasons, I am inclined to view Mark as the most literal account of the goings-on in Israel c. 30 CE. The Gospel of Mark is no biography, not even by ancient standards! It is a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st. Looking for some modern parallels? Lenin’s What is to be Done , Giap’s People’s Army, People's War , Hoffman’s Revolution for the Hell of it . After a very brief intro, Mark kicks off with “After John (the Baptist) had been arrested…” John’s arrest and eventual beheading by Herod is a pivotal moment in the history of the ‘Good News (Gospel) Movement’. (Mark 1: 14) Think Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco. Jesus had previously been anointed by John (and the Holy Spirit) to be his ‘successor’ (1: 9-11). Following that baptism, Jesus retreated to the desert for 40 days of introspection, prayer, and preparation. Think Fidel Castro in Oriente Province. “Last chance to back out, Jesus. Put your great talents to constructive use. Accumulate wealth and power, and do good if you must, but do so within the system.” We’ve all been there ! Thanks, but no thanks! So, “…Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: ‘The time has come; the kingdom of God is upon you…’” And with that, Jesus began to build his spiritual army, beginning with Andrew, Peter, and the Sons of Thunder, James and John. (1: 14–20) You cannot build a successful para-military movement with words alone. To win the adherence of the people, you must demonstrate concretely what life would be like under your proposed ‘new world order’. The Black Panthers did this with their Breakfast Program in the 1960’s. Apocalypse Now (Director’s Cut) shows local schools run by the Viet Cong and highlights the rich civic life in areas under their control. So, Jesus and his still tiny band of followers went throughout Galilee performing good works: teaching, counseling the afflicted (exorcism), and treating the sick. (1: 21-26) The life of a guerilla leader is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you cannot build a successful revolutionary movement without intimate contact with the people you hope to serve. On the other hand, such contact brings with it security risks. Almost immediately, Jesus learns to live on the run. After a disastrous campaign rollout in the synagogue at Capernaum, he hides in the home of Andrew and Peter and meets with the people of the area only after dark. (1: 29 – 34) Sidebar : Mark doesn’t tell us what happened at Capernaum, but we know from other sources that Jesus proclaimed a Jubilee , i.e., a total redistribution of productive property (e.g. farmland), in accordance with a mandate ( mitzvah ) found in Torah (Leviticus 25: 10). It is often said that Social Security is the ‘third rail of American politics’: touch it and you die! Jubilee might be the 3rd rail in 1st century Israel. Next day, Jesus “…got up and went out to a lonely spot and remained there in prayer,” but to no avail. Peter finds him and warns, “They are all looking for you.” So Jesus decides, “Let us move to the country towns in the neighborhood…So all through Galilee he went, preaching in the synagogues and casting out the devils.” (1: 35 - 39) At that time, Jesus cured a leper. Mindful of the risk involved, he swore his beneficiary to strict secrecy, “Be sure you say nothing to anybody.” (1: 44) Dilemma : it’s all well and good to perform good works under the cloak of secrecy…but then how do you build a popular movement? Jesus hits upon a middle course: “Go, show yourself to the priest.” But “…The man went out and made the whole story public; he spread it far and wide until Jesus could not show himself in any town…” (1: 45) Unable to execute the public campaign he’d originally planned, Jesus turns to the task of building out his cadre, beginning with Levi son of Alphaeus (2: 14). “He then went up into the hill country and called the men he wanted… He appointed 12 as his companions, whom he would send out to proclaim the Gospel…” (3: 14) And he continued to teach: “No one puts new wine (revolution) into old wine skins (institutions); if he does, the wine will burst the skins and then wine and skins are both lost.” (2: 22) So much for trying to work within the system. “Fresh skins for fresh wine!” Our first bumper sticker. Next comes what is perhaps the most human scene in all of scripture. When you read about a great teacher or a fierce revolutionary, a grown man to boot, you don’t imagine his mother dragging him home like a naughty 8 year old to eat his supper: “He entered a house; and once more such a crowd gathered around them that they had no chance to eat. When his family heard of this, they set out to take charge of him; for people were saying he was out of his mind.” (3: 20-21) After this, it’s no surprise that Jesus was forever belittled by his former neighbors whenever he returned home: “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother (or cousin) of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (6: 3) It is no wonder then that “he could work no miracles there.” (6: 5) Of course, Jesus’ relationship with his family was evolving. His mother was with him at the foot of the Cross and she played an important role in the Good News Movement. Jesus’ ‘brother’, James, became the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. Like any persecuted revolutionary, Jesus learned to communicate with his followers via a sort of code. We call these teachings parables . It turned out to be a brilliant strategy. It’s hard to find evidence of treason or blasphemy when a man is simply telling homespun tales of everyday life: a sower of seeds, a bedside lamp, a mustard seed. (4: 4-34) Think Prairie Home Companion . Over time his inner circle grew to understand the full significance of these coded messages. Sidebar : The traditional interpretation, that the use of parables was Jesus’ way of adapting his message to the sophistication level of his audience, is ridiculous…not to say chauvinistic. Jesus’ followers were thoroughly familiar with OT scripture and perfectly capable of engaging in theological speculation. Obviously, Jesus used the parable form for security reasons. While Jesus’ message was encrypted, his good deeds were not. Even as he honed his revolutionary skills, Jesus and his apostles continued to do good works throughout the countryside. It is important to note that according to Mark, Jesus never leaves his ‘home base’ of Galilee, except to flee north to Lebanon, Syria, and the Trans-Jordan. Never that is until his final push into Saigon…I mean Jerusalem. Mark defines Jesus-stan as Galilee, Southern Lebanon, the Golan, the Decapolis (10 nearby Greek cities), and the East Bank of the Jordan. Notably missing: Judea and Jerusalem. YHWH didn’t raise no fool! Now it's time to put this thing into 2nd gear: Jesus sends his 12 apostles in pairs to perform good works and to proclaim the Gospel. His instructions are telling: “When you are admitted to a house…stay there until you leave those parts.” In other words, keep a low profile; above all, do nothing to call attention to yourselves. By all accounts, the apostles’ mission was a great success, so great that when they rejoined Jesus, the crowds were even larger than before. To escape the press, Jesus frequently retreated onto the Sea of Galilee in a boat. Then he and his apostles would show up first here, then there, all along the shore, like 21st century ‘pop-up’ marketers. We’re I handling Jesus’ PR, I might call them “Wisdom Raids!” These hit and run tactics provided some temporary relief, but eventually, like Cornwallis at Yorktown, Jesus finds himself ‘trapped’ by the crowd. It’s coming at nightfall, the people have not eaten, and the apostles are understandably concerned. “Give them something to eat yourselves,” Jesus counsels. So they feed 5,000 with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish; and to make the point even clearer, they collect 12 large baskets of scraps at the end of the meal. No one went hungry! The significance of the multiplication of loaves and fishes cannot be overstated. It is the only pre-resurrection miracle reported in all 4 Gospels. In fact, a second, similar but not identical, story appears in both Mark and Matthew. 4 Gospels, 6 ‘multiplications’. The Evangelists clearly saw the Multiplication as a mission-defining moment, on a par with Transfiguration, Transubstantiation, and Resurrection, but we can only guess at how they understood it. Three things, I think, can be said with certainty: Feeding the masses is a paradigmatic revolutionary act. It provides a concrete foretaste of the kingdom to come. (“Give us this day our daily bread.”) The details of the story have symbolic significance. Jesus fed the crowd with 7 pieces of food (the Sabbath #), he fed them in groups of 50 (the Jubilee #), and he gathered the scraps into 12 baskets (the Zodiac #...and the # of the tribes of Israel). All concerned, Jesus, the apostles, and the evangelists, understood this as heralding a new phase in Jesus’ ministry. Where acts of charity had previously been focused on individual beneficiaries and performed in relative secrecy, now Jesus was feeding a huge crowd, and he was doing so in full public view. It’s happening! So, the establishment turned up the heat. A cadre of Pharisees and Doctors of Law ( aka Scribes) were dispatched from Jerusalem to gather evidence against this Jesus. So, “he left that place and went into the territory of Tyre. He found a house to stay in and would have liked to remain unrecognized.” (7: 24) How could anyone have missed this ? Tyre is not ‘down the road’ from Galilee; it’s a three-day journey…minimum. It’s in Lebanon for crying out loud! Clearly, Jesus is on the run; he’s hiding out! When Jesus left Tyre, he did not make a bee line for Galilee. We can only speculate as to his reasons. Instead, he goes in the exact opposite direction, north toward Sidon and then east through the (Greek speaking) Decapolis. Essentially, he circles Galilee…from a very safe distance…and he re enters from the East. Master tactician! He’s outflanked his enemies. We don’t know how long Jesus was absent from Galilee, but when he returns, it’s clear that little has changed in his absence. He is immediately faced with another hungry crowd and with nettlesome Pharisees pressing him for a sign . Again, Jesus feeds the crowd, this time using a different ratio of loaves and baskets. Clearly, the numerology is symbolic…and significant; but if you’re struggling to crack the code, take heart - the apostles didn’t have a clue either…much to Jesus’ consternation: “‘Do you still not understand? Are your minds closed? You have eyes: can you not see? You have ears: can you not hear? Have you forgotten? When I broke the 5 loaves among the 5,000, how many basketfuls of scraps did you pick up?’ ’12,’ they said. ‘And how many when I broke the 7 loaves among the 4,000?’ They answered, ‘7.’ He said, ‘Do you still not understand?’” (8: 17-21) Was Jesus talking to his apostles…or to us? On the first day of his public ministry, Jesus proclaimed a Jubilee at the synagogue in Capernaum. It failed…and he was very nearly killed. For the next 3 years, Jesus’ message never changed (Jubilee now!); but his strategy did. Like Joshua (Jos. 6), Jesus lived out his message in concrete deeds and communicated that message symbolically, even liturgically. Again, Jesus takes his band north, to the region around Caesarea Philippi. There is no record of Jesus entering the city; probably due to security concerns, he confined his activity to the surrounding villages. But Jesus clearly knew that he could not remain north of Galilee forever, playing cat and mouse indefinitely; eventually he would have to confront the political and religious authorities in Jerusalem. But when? In preparation for the final event, Jesus returned to Galilee but “wished it to be kept secret.” (9: 31) Taking refuge in a ‘safe house’ in Capernaum, he confronted the fallacy of ideological purity with his apostles. Throughout history, revolutionary movements have failed by insisting on an unreasonably strict orthodoxy. Jesus sought to avoid that pitfall. John had complained that another man, not of Jesus’ party, was doing good works in the area. “Do not stop him…for he who is not against us is on our side.” (9: 39) In other words, we’ll take all the help we can get, whatever we can get. So the time has come, Stage Three : the ‘assault’ on Jerusalem. As Jesus approaches the City, he pauses to set up a base camp in Bethany, apparently a Good News stronghold. Jesus understood logistics; he was not going to out-run his supply lines. Next day, his advance team orchestrates the first century version of a ticker tape parade, replete with palm branches and Hosannas, through the by-ways of Jerusalem. Jesus ended the day at the Temple but, as it was now quite late, the precincts were largely deserted; so he retreated to Bethany for the evening. Next day, Jesus again returned to the Temple; he struck the stalls of the bankers and retailers who had set up shop on sacred ground. Again he retreated to Bethany at night, only to return to the Temple next morning, all the time teaching the people in parables and disputing with the Pharisees and Doctors of Law. Like most revolutions, the Good News Movement was about to come to a seemingly bitter end. Two days later, Jesus would be executed, and the persecution of his followers would begin, just as Jesus had predicted. Ultimately, only two apostles escaped martyrdom, Judas who took his own life, and John who died a natural death, probably at a very old age. Sidebar : Jesus tried valiantly to prepare his followers for what was about to occur. He even gave them post-Resurrection tactical advice: “…I will go before you to Galilee.” (14: 28) As always, Jesus knew the value of a good strategic retreat; but at the time he was ignored. Understandable – there was a lot going on! So the order was repeated after the Resurrection to Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Apparently, the renewed directive never made it to Peter and the rest: “They said nothing to anybody, for they were afraid.” (16: 8) Outside of Mark, there are reasons to believe that the apostles did not follow Jesus’ order, at least not immediately, with predictably disastrous results. But this revolution was like no other. It did not die with its leader. It lived on in the hearts of the people and it has re-rooted itself, time and again, all over the globe. Jesus sowed the seed, and unlike the infamous fig tree (11: 12-14), it yielded fruit, both in and out of season. We are perpetually rediscovering the wisdom of Jesus’ teachings and the justice of his agenda. Last year (2023) marked the 175th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto…and the milestone passed largely unnoticed, at least in North America. Is that because we’ve moved on? From Marx to Mark? 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 . Click the image to return to Holy Days 2024. Share Previous Next Click here. 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! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Chatting With C.S. Lewis “It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had… As long as you are governed by that desire, you will never get what you want.” David Cowles Proponents of AI, of which I consider myself one, assure me that soon I will be able to hear a debate between Karl Marx and Pope Leo XIII, ‘live’. I can’t wait; I will pay through the nose for this ticket. But I also believe that AI was not invented last night; it’s been around at least since the dawn of written communication. For example, here’s the edited transcript of a conversation I had with C.S. Lewis (d. 1963), thanks to an old-fashioned version of Artificial Intelligence (books). Enjoy! CSL: (In a passage) from Tolstoy, the young second lieutenant, Boris Dubretskoi, discovers that there exist in the army two different systems or hierarchies. The one is printed in some little red book… The other is not printed anywhere…You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it. AT: So, if I understand you, you’re talking about identity here; you’re saying that people derive ‘identity’ from their ranking on some sort of socio-economic Tennis Ladder? Or to use your terminology, a series of ever tightening concentric rings ascending in an inverted cone, like Dante’s Paradise. Each ring is inside some rings and outside others. So everyone is outside, outside of what? CSL: From outside, if you have despaired of getting into it, you call it “That gang” or “they” or “so-and-so and his set” or “The Caucus” or “The Inner Ring." AT: I think that perhaps because of differences in our age (50 years) and nationality (the Pond), we are saying similar things using slightly different vocabularies. For example, where you say ‘ring’, I might say ‘rung’. In 21st century U.S. we certainly have our ‘inner circles’ but we also have our justly infamous ‘socio-economic ladder’. CSL: I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods, between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. AT: Being British, it’s natural for you to think in terms of groups; being American, I’m afraid I think in terms of individuals or, better yet, Groups of One . For us, it’s about the compulsion to be someone and the dread of ending up as no-one . Life is a giant game of Musical Chairs; there’s always a chair for everyone…except one. Ultimately, there’s only chairs enough for one. One winner…all the rest, Losers! Being someone might mean being part of an inner circle, as you put it, but it could also mean celebrating some sort of personal triumph (e.g., becoming CEO or earning a million dollars). CSL: People who believe themselves to be free, and indeed are free, from snobbery, and who read satires on snobbery with tranquil superiority, may be devoured by the desire in another form... An invitation from a duchess would be very cold comfort to a man smarting under the sense of exclusion from some artistic or communistic côterie. Poor man—it is not large, lighted rooms, or champagne, or even scandals about peers and Cabinet Ministers that he wants: it is the sacred little attic or studio, the heads bent together, the fog of tobacco smoke, and the delicious knowledge that we—we four or five all huddled beside this stove—are the people who know . AT: The cognoscenti . What you’re describing sounds like a 21 st century, pardon me, 20 th century, version of Gnosticism. Being a member of an Anarchist cell is just as much an identity as being CEO of General Motors. Of course, here’s where our terminologies converge. The revolutionary’s cell is every bit as much an Inner Circle as those exclusive country clubs that welcome only the movers and the shakers . CSL: Men tell not only their wives but themselves that it is a hardship to stay late at the office or the school on some bit of important extra work which they have been let in for because they ‘and so-and-so and the two others’ are the only people left in the place who really know how things are run. But it’s not quite true! It is tiring and unhealthy to lose your Saturday afternoons: but to have them free because you don’t matter, that is much worse. AT: Are you familiar with Victor Frankl? He’s a holocaust survivor who argues that the defining quality in life is ‘having a purpose’. If you don’t matter, you can have no purpose. You are quite literally no-one. People make the mistake of thinking that Being Someone is the same thing as Having Purpose . Being someone is just about self ; having purpose involves others. But shifting gears: would the dreaded adolescent ‘peer pressure’ also fit your model? CSL: I wonder whether, in ages of promiscuity, many a virginity has not been lost, less in obedience to Venus than in obedience to the lure of the caucus. For of course, when promiscuity is the fashion, the chaste are outsiders. They are ignorant of something that other people know. They are uninitiated. AT: Good one! Here, of course, we are talking about ‘to know’ in the Greek sense of gnosis but also in the carnal ‘Biblical sense’. CSL: The number of people who first smoked or first got drunk for a similar reason is probably very large. I must now make a distinction. I am not going to say that the existence of Inner Rings is an evil. But the desire which draws us into Inner Rings is another matter. A thing may be morally neutral, and yet the desire for that thing may be dangerous. Let Inner Rings be unavoidable and even an innocent feature of life, though certainly not a beautiful one: but what of our longing to enter them, our anguish when we are excluded, and the kind of pleasure we feel when we get in? AT: Identity is idolatry! CSL: …This desire is one of the great permanent mainsprings of human action. It is one of the factors which go to make up the world as we know it—this whole pell-mell of struggle, competition, confusion, graft, disappointment, and advertisement… Unless you take measures to prevent it, this desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life, from the first day on which you enter your profession until the day when you are too old to care. AT: That’s me, “too old to care”, but seriously, what you’re saying is incredibly sad. You’re saying that the irresistible desire to be somebody is precisely what ensures that you will never be anybody , that you will forever be nobody , the very thing you dreaded in the first place. Perhaps we’re hoping that by ‘being somebody’ we can escape death. We’re hoping to project our frail and mortal humanity into some quasi-permanent physical or social structure. Ozymandias, King of Kings! But by fleeing from our humanity, we shun the gift of being human, the gift of being itself. CSL: That will be the natural thing—the life that will come to you of its own accord. Any other kind of life, if you lead it, will be the result of conscious and continuous effort. If you do nothing about it, if you drift with the stream, you will, in fact, be an “Inner Ringer.” I don’t say you’ll be a successful one; that’s as may be. But whether by pining and moping outside Rings that you can never enter, or by passing triumphantly further and further in—one way or the other, you will be that kind of man (sic). AT: So the CEO is just ‘going with the flow’, doing what comes naturally in our culture, while the contemplative monk, the one who seemingly does nothing, is, in fact, the one who is acting, the one who’s swimming against the tide, the one who’s doing something. Thomas Merton, for example, believed that contemplative prayer is what holds the universe together. CSL: Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come… and at the word “we” you try not to blush for mere pleasure… AT: “We” – the most powerful word in the English language. We pharisees, we band of brothers (or sisters), we police, we mafiosi, we tenured professors, we senators, Sein Fein . CSL: And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world… It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. AT: We tell ourselves that we do what we do for wealth, for security, for comfort, but in fact we do what we do for prestige, for power, for status…in other words, for identity. CSL: The torture allotted to the Danaids in the classical underworld, that of attempting to fill sieves with water, is the symbol not of one vice, but of all vices. It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had. The desire to be inside the invisible line illustrates this rule… AT: To be inside the event horizon of a black hole… CSL: …As long as you are governed by that desire, you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed, there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain. AT: I’m working on an assembly line, but I desire to enjoy the prestige and the perks of being foreman. I am a professor, hoping to be department head. I am a Senator, working to become President. How high is up? How deep is in? CSL: This is surely very clear when you come to think of it… If all you want is to be in the know, your pleasure will be short-lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you, it has lost its magic. AT: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” – Groucho Marx CSL: Once the first novelty is worn off, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one. But your genuine Inner Ring exists for exclusion. There’d be no fun if there were no outsiders. The invisible line would have no meaning unless most people were on the wrong side of it. Exclusion is no accident; it is the essence. AT: Yikes! So no club is worth joining unless it mercilessly excludes the others ? The quest for a unique socio-economic identity automatically creates classism, racism, jingoism, even slavery. And yet, there is no such ‘identity’, we are clutching at a phantasm…at the expense of everyone else…and at the expense of ourselves. CSL: The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts - unless you break it . But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. AT: You are describing the ‘Master Builders’ in the 21 st century film, The Lego Movie . Honors and accolades are indeed often disconnected from quality, creativity, and productivity. CSL: To a young person, just entering on adult life, the world seems full of “insides,” full of delightful intimacies and confidentialities, and he desires to enter them. But if he follows that desire, he will reach no “inside” that is worth reaching. The true road lies in quite another direction. AT: Amen! * C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. His remarks (above) come to us by way of “The Inner Ring”, the Memorial Lecture given at King’s College, University of London, 1944. 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 . Return to our AI Issue Table of Contents Previous Next

< Back The Sultan and the Sea Challenge First, read The Sultan and the Sea in this issue of Aletheia Today magazine. Next, take the challenge below: Challenge Answer the five questions below and be entered in a drawing for a $100 gift card. ( Hint : there are no right or wrong answers.) We will report the results in Issue #3 of AT Magazine (9/1/2022). The gift card drawing will occur on Labor Day 2022. 1. The Sultan disappeared from his Palace on the morning of his 25th birthday; he returned on his 75th. How old do you think the Sultan was when he got back to his Palace? (Choose one answer only.) He was 25 when he put his face into the basin of water, so he must still be 25 when he lifts his face back out. _____ He lived on the island for 50 years. He was 75 when he dived into the waves, so he must still be 75 when he picks his head back out. _____ Other (please comment): ________________________________ 2. How do you think the Sultan feels about what’s happened to him? (Check all the answers that you think are true.) He’s happy to be home in his palace at long last. _____ He’s angry that his life was turned upside down like this. _____ He misses his wife and kids and his life on the island. _____ He is grateful for this chance to live two full lives. _____ 3. What do you make of the Sultan’s Trusted Assistant? (Check all the answers that you think are true.) He had nothing to do with the Sultan’s disappearance from the Palace. _____ He is responsible for the Sultan’s disappearance? _____ He did it because he was angry with the Sultan. _____ He did it to teach the Sultan a lesson. _____ It was his 25th birthday gift to the Sultan. _____ When the Sultan returns to the Palace after 50 years, how old in the Trusted Assistant? He’s the same age he was when the Sultan was 25. _____ He’s 50 years older now than he was on the Sultan’s 25th birthday. _____ 4. Now that the Sultan is back in his Palace, will his life be different from it was before his great adventure ? (Check all the answers that you think are true.) No, nothing will change; things will go back to being just as boring as they were before the Sultan disappeared. ____ Yes, he will leave his Palace every day to look for the family he left behind on the island. ____ Yes, he will leave his Palace every day, looking for new romance, hoping to start a new family? _____ Yes, will adopt orphans to live with him in the Palace. ____ Yes, he will learn a useful and productive trade. ____ Yes, he will move out of the Palace entirely and turn it into public housing for the homeless citizens of his realm. ____ Yes, he will turn the Palace into a $1,000/night luxury resort. ____ 5. Our story occurs in two places: in the Sultan’s Palace and on the Island. Which is real and which isn’t? (Check one answer only) Only the Sultan’s palace is real; the island is not: _____ Only the island is real; the Sultan’s Palace is not: _____ Both the island and the palace are real: ____ Neither the island nor the palace is real: _____ Please feel free to elaborate on any of your answers (optional). Please submit your answers to editor@aletheiatoday.com. Be sure to put "Sultan & Sea" in the subject line and tell us who you are and how we can reach you (name, email address, and phone number) so that your name can be entered into the $100 gift card drawing to take place on Labor Day. Previous Share Return to the Table of Contents, Beach Issue Next Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

“Genesis is no longer something that explains; it has become something that has to be explained away.” < Back The 7th Day David Cowles Oct 15, 2023 “Genesis is no longer something that explains; it has become something that has to be explained away.” Before apes discovered Darwin, Christian children’s knowledge of the Old Testament was spotty at best – a pinch of Able, a dollop of Noah, a morsel of Moses, a whiff of David. But every student knew, almost by heart, the first 34 verses of Genesis. Today, almost no one would introduce Judeo-Christian theology this way. Genesis is no longer something that explains; it has become something that has to be explained away . Teachers, myself included, are now inclined to begin with the heroics of the Exodus, the politics of Joshua and the Judges, the poetry of the Psalmist, the wisdom of Solomon and Job, the eschatology of Daniel and Ezekiel, or the social commentary of Isaiah and Jeremiah. No doubt, much is gained by this approach, but something is lost as well. The first verses of the Book of Genesis describe the state of Universe at the moment of Creation: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters…” Note that the authors and translators of Genesis carefully avoid using the term ‘before’ in discussing the state of Universe at Creation. Of course, there was no ‘before’; time itself began at Creation. Plus, Judeo-Christian theology makes it clear that God created the Universe ex nihilo : he did not just rearrange deck chairs. So, how could earth, abyss, wind, and waters exist at the moment of Creation? To understand the complex cosmology of Genesis, it is necessary to define what we understand by the term, Event . An event occurs whenever order is injected into disorder. Creation, “Fiat Lux!”, Big Bang, is an event like every other event. It infuses chaos with order. But it is also an uber-event : it is the locus for virtually every other event in Universe. From the perspective of any emerging event, the pre-existent Universe is disordered. It does not matter whether that Universe is ‘perfectly disordered’ (whatever that means)…or whether the emerging event is ‘perfectly ordered’ (whatever that might mean). What matters is that Universe is relatively disordered from the perspective of the event, and that the event is relatively ordered from the perspective of Universe. In any case, an event is the injection of relative order into relative chaos, and that’s all that matters. We know that Universe is becoming progressively disordered; it’s called entropy (2 nd Law of Thermodynamics). Events are islands of order in a torrent of chaos…but sea levels are rising…and not only because of climate change ! Therefore, the emergence of a novel event is not only counter cultural, it’s ‘counter cosmological’. So then, why are there novel events? Why isn’t Universe content to wind down gracefully, to die with dignity? Here Nietzsche and I agree; there is only one possible answer: Value , a concept that has acquired a bad name in our hyper-secularized culture. You see, values can be construed as imperatives and, like two-year-olds everywhere, we hate imperatives. We would rather wallow in ignorance than admit that there were compelling, objective norms beyond our prized, subjective tastes. Contemporary culture encourages us to say that we want to leave the world ‘a better place’ than we found it. But ‘better’ how? More beautiful, more truth-filled, more just? And so we’re “singing songs…and carrying signs” (Buffalo Springfield); but later on, in private conversations with friends, we affirm that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and we echo the immortal words of that great savant, Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?” There’s a clinical term for this constellation of symptoms. It’s what your doctor was referring to when she pronounced, “You’re all messed up!” Events are motivated by Values that are transcendent and eternal: e.g., Beauty, Truth, and Justice. Events begin as an evaluation of what is from the perspective of what might be : “I dream of things that never were and ask why not?” (Robert Kennedy) Values are a perpetual lure to Being, to Creation, to Eventuality. Universe is disorder with respect to the ideal order defined by Values . Today, we find it convenient to imagine the pre-history of Universe as vacuum or void. But if Creation is an event (it is) and if an event is the infusion of order into disorder (it is), then we are mixing our metaphors. Void is not the antonym of order, chaos is, though the two are functionally identical. Gregory Bateson defined ‘Mind’ as ‘a difference that makes a difference’. I would propose that we apply that definition to ‘Being’ itself and treat Mind as a subset of Being. According to 20 th century British philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead , Universe consists exclusively of events. In fact, Universe ( aka Creation) is an event, an uber-event that both pre-conditions and embodies all other events. God exists; therefore, God is an event like every other event. The eternal Values are available to all events only because they are aspects of the primal event that we call ‘God’. Therefore, every event originates with God – not via some serpentine historical route, but immediately, as access to Values . To be is therefore to be created de nuovo by God! Every novel entity begins with an evaluation of the World and a resolution to improve it. That evaluation and that intention reflect and are guided by eternal, transcendent Values that, according to the Book of Job, precede even God (ontologically, not historically). All of which brings us back to those first 34 verses. All told, there are 31,102 verses in the King James version of the Judeo-Christian Bible. Arguably, 30,068 can be read as commentary on the first 34. Those 34 verses by themselves present a 'complete cosmology’ but they in turn can be further broken down into three asymmetrical subsections: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters…” This is the primal disorder into which God injected order: “Then God said, ‘ Let there be light’ .” (Genesis 1: 1 – 3) “Ya da, ya da, ya da.” (Genesis 1: 4 – 31) “Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed. On the seventh day, God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, he rested from all the work he had done in creation.” (Genesis 2: 1 – 3) We are living in the 7 th Day of Creation. Every event is a unique expression of the entirety. Past events contribute legacy, but not causality, to subsequent events. Of course, most such contributions are negligible; but ‘relevance’ is not hardwired. Each novel event determines into own gradations of relevance. Conversely, every novel event becomes an element in the World of every subsequent event; that’s what defines it as ‘subsequent’. Bumper Sticker #1 : Everything influences everything, but nothing causes anything! Bumper Sticker #2 : Everyone is responsible, but no one is to blame! But this is not how we see the world, is it? It may be the way the world works, but we don’t see it that way. According to our conventional view, freedom and responsibility are largely illusory. I am overwhelmingly the product of my DNA (nature). Beyond my genes, I am the passive outcome of my upbringing (nurture). Beyond even that, I bear the scars of life’s vicissitudes – all the things that have happened to me in the course of everyday living. Finally, I am the product of chance, fate, destiny, physics, or the will of God – take your pick…or mix and match. This conventional view can be quite comforting: I AM NEVER TO BLAME FOR ANYTHING! The ‘Devil made me do it’, quite literally. On the other hand, while I have little or no control over my own actions, I have amazing, almost magical power to control things in the external world. I can turn my child into a ‘mini-me’; I can reverse climate change and save the planet; I can make sure that my favorite NFL team performs up to its potential on Sunday afternoon. Imagine going through life like this! Well, imagine being us! We have turned the Serenity Prayer on its head. We are totally responsible for things entirely out of our control, but we bear no responsibility for the things we can influence. It worked for Merlin, perhaps it will work for me too! 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 . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Share Previous Next Click here. 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! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Vacuum Monster Is there any such thing as Vacuum Monster in our universe today? Sure, there is! David Cowles When you were very young, were you ever afraid of your mother’s vacuum cleaner? Most kids are. Were you scared it might suck you up? And, if so, what would happen then? Would you just vanish? Of course, you’re much older now, and you know that something like that could never happen…or could it? More than 50 years ago, a famous Rock and Roll band known as The Beatles made a movie called Yellow Submarine . In this movie, the four Beatles (John, Paul, George, and Ringo) sail from Liverpool (England) to a magical world outside of space and time called Pepperland. They made the voyage in a yellow submarine. But this is not like any family vacation you’ve ever been on. The Beatles travel across a Sea of Time and a Sea of Science (Space) into a Sea of Monsters. In this Monstrous Sea, the yellow sub is attacked by a bunch of fierce creatures and machines…but nothing is more frightening than the dreaded Vacuum Monster. Like most monsters, this creature looks a little bit human but where it should have a nose and a mouth it has instead a large cone-shaped funnel. This funnel looks very much like an attachment you might put on a real vacuum cleaner. And sure enough, true to its name, the Vacuum Monster uses this funnel to suck up everything in its path. First, it sucks up all the other monsters; then it sucks up the submarine itself. But it’s not done yet! It sucks up spacetime. Now there is nothing left in the whole universe except the Vacuum Monster. But it’s still not done! Now, it sucks itself up and vanishes, along with almost everything inside it. Why does it do that? Why does it suck itself up along with everything else? Because it can’t help itself! As long as it lives, it can’t stop sucking. It’s a vacuum cleaner, after all; sucking is what a vacuum cleaner does, no matter what the consequence. But unlike your mother’s vacuum cleaner, it doesn’t have an off switch. So, when there’s nothing left for it to suck up, it sucks up itself. We’re not like the Vacuum Monster. We have free will. We can decide what we want to do and when we want to do it. And we can stop doing it when we want to stop doing it. There’s nothing we can’t do (up to the limits of our ability) but there’s also nothing we have to do. There are things we should do and things we shouldn’t do, but whether we actually do them or not…is up to us! We get to decide, but the vacuum monster doesn’t. It does what it’s programmed to do, nothing more, nothing less. It has no choice but to suck itself into oblivion. What if it didn’t? That would mean that our world was really two worlds…a world of things that get sucked and a world of things that do the sucking. But that’s not the way our world works, is it? Our world is one world, not two. In our world, everything sucks, and everything gets sucked. If something sucks, and doesn’t get sucked up by another sucker, it will eventually sucks itself up too. In our world, what you do to others, you eventually do to yourself as well. You’ve probably heard of the Golden Rule. It goes something like this: “Do to others what you would like them to do to you.” If you would like to be treated kindly, for example, then you should treat others with kindness. If you would like others to be generous towards you, then you should be generous towards them. It’s a good ‘rule’ and most of the time things work out better for us when we follow it. In fact, Jesus himself taught the Golden Rule; however, there is another rule in the Bible called the Great Commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says it, St. Paul says it, St. James says it, but it was first said in the Torah (law), the first 5 books of the Old Testament. The Great Commandment is like the Golden Rule, only different. According to the Golden Rule, you do nice things for other people because it’s the right thing to do and because you hope they’ll do nice things for you. The Great Commandment says something a little bit different. According to the Great Commandment, when you do nice things for others, you also do something nice for yourself… immediately and automatically . And of course, when you do mean things to other people, you’re being mean to yourself as well. If you make another person happy, you make yourself happy, and if you make another person sad…well, you know what’s coming next, don’t you? Whatever you do to another, you also do to yourself. Your actions affect others…and yourself…at the same time. Yellow Submarine follows the Great Commandment, not so much the Golden Rule. The Vacuum Monster is a sucker. It sucks up its neighbors and oops, when it sucks up its neighbors, it sucks up itself too. What it does to others, it does to itself…automatically. I said the Vacuum Monster sucks itself up and vanishes, along with almost everything inside it. Not everything inside it, almost everything inside it. What survives? Just one thing: the yellow submarine and its crew! How come? Because the yellow sub doesn’t exist in Liverpool only; it also lives in the magical world called Pepperland. The yellow submarine is how people go back and forth from Liverpool (our world) to Pepperland. As far as we know, there is no other way! Going from Liverpool to Pepperland and back is quite a trek, but it is not a trek in space or in time. The yellow submarine travels in another dimension; it is always right here, always just now! So, when the Vacuum Monster sucks up everything ‘in Liverpool’ (our world), even the yellow submarine itself, the sub survives. Why? Because it exists in Pepperland as well as in Liverpool, and nothing in Pepperland can ever disappear. Pepperland is the ‘forever place’, the place of ‘evermore’! Is there any such thing as Vacuum Monster in our universe today? Sure, there is, and it’s called a ‘Black Hole.’ Black holes exist throughout space, and one is even sitting right now at the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. A Black Hole sucks up everything around it, yes everything, including space and time and subs and even the black hole itself. And just like the Vacuum Monster, eventually black holes even suck themselves into oblivion. According to the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, when a black hole sucks, it sucks up more than just things. It sucks up information (or knowledge) too. The things that get sucked up disappear…but the knowledge stays behind. But there’s a catch! The knowledge that survives is so jumbled and confused that you can’t make any sense out of it, much less use it for anything worthwhile. This very same thing happens in Yellow Submarine . After the Vacuum Monster sucks itself into oblivion, there is no more space and time. What’s left is a real ‘nowhere land.’ The Beatles find themselves alone in a totally empty world…empty, that is, except for Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD. Dr. Boob, – a real ‘nowhere man’ living in this nowhere land. He knows everything that has ever been known by anyone anywhere…but really, he knows nothing at all because he doesn’t know what he knows. It’s as if you memorized a speech in a foreign language that you don’t know how to speak. You might be able to recite it, but you would have no idea what you were saying. That’s how it is with Dr. Boob. And that’s how it is when a black hole vanishes. With the Beatles’ help, Dr. Boob begins to organize his information and slowly but surely, he learns to make use of it. Eventually, he joins the Beatles on board the sub and accompanies them for the rest of their voyage, through the Sea of Holes into the Sea of Green to Pepperland itself…but that’s another story, perhaps for another day. Now back to Liverpool. Would it surprise you to hear that there are stories in the Bible that sound a lot like this story? Take creation, for instance. Genesis says that the earth was once without form or shape; in other words, it was a real-life Nowhere Land. Then God said, “Let there be light and there was light…and God separated the light from the darkness.” God separated sky from earth, oceans from dry land, and day from night. In other words, God organized everything so we could make sense of it…and put it to use! Then on the seventh day of creation, God rested. Now our job is to continue to make sense of this world and to continue to organize it so that we can accomplish useful things. The same thing happens at the other end of time, when our world finally comes to an end…only it happens in reverse. Christ, the Son of God, finishes the job. He puts everything in “proper order” and he even destroys death itself. Then he draws all things to himself, and finally, he turns all things, including himself, over to God the Father, “so that God may be all in all.” Christ acts just like the Vacuum Monster, except that when he draws everything to himself , he does not draw everything into oblivion but into Heaven(Pepperland)! 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. Share Previous Next

< Back Everyday Resurrections: The Divine Pattern of Healing and Transformation Hadassah Treu "Do you know that as a human being created in the image of God, you can experience everyday resurrections as part of God's pattern of healing and transformation?" Do you know that as a human being created in the image of God, you can experience everyday resurrections as part of God's pattern of healing and transformation? God has given us the abilities, the opportunities, and the means to experience new growth, renewal, and transformation in the places marked by death and loss. Jesus Christ is the Risen Lord, the Lord of Resurrection and Redemption, and the Giver of life. If this life flows through us, so does His resurrection power. Daily resurrections are the divine answer to loss and trauma. Life on this earth is a chain of small and big deaths: the death of things, relationships, dreams, and people we deeply treasure. How do we deal with death? How can we overcome it? What is the way God has provided for us? The Divine Pattern of Darkness and Light, Ends and Beginnings Since the beginning of creation, God has implemented a divine pattern of night and day, death and resurrection, destruction and renewal. This is the divine cycle of ends and beginnings, transition, and change. We find this pattern in the first chapter of Genesis. "God called the light 'day,' and the darkness He called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." (Genesis 1:5, NIV) The first day and all the days after that start with the evening, followed by the night before the morning sun rises. First is the night, and then comes the day. This applies to creation, but it is also true for our lives. A day, a season, or a period starts with darkness: the darkness of physical or emotional pain and suffering in various forms. We go through a dark night of the soul, losing something we value or struggling with rejection, disappointment, doubt, anger, loneliness, and failure. Our hope dwindles, and our joy diminishes. But a new day is coming, for "weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5, NIV). The Creator of the night and day, the darkness and light, will not withhold His life and mercy from us. Dawn comes right after the darkest hour of the night. The best moments happen when we’ve already given up hope and don't expect anything. Sudden joy rushes through our veins, triggered by a child's smile, a meeting with a stranger, a gentle hug from a friend, the stunning beauty around us, or unexpected good news. Surprised, we can feel joy again. We fill our lungs with the breath of fresh life. We dare to hope again. Perhaps you've lost the hope of building a family of your own. Don’t give up: today may be the day to get acquainted with your future partner. Perhaps your dream of having a successful career as an artist has died. Don’t pull it away from your heart: today can be the day of a new start. Or you've lost hope of seeing a loved one healed and free from addiction or of mending a broken relationship. Don’t stop putting your hope in the God of the Impossible. If He could roll the heavy tombstone and let His life and light shine again in the dark grave, He can do this for you, too. His mercies are new every day, and so are our possibilities to experience the renewal of our souls, bodies, lives, and relationships. Every morning, we open our eyes, resurrected from the "small death" of sleep, to experience God's fresh mercies. Again. The Promise of AGAIN This is the code word of everyday resurrections. God has encoded this word in nature and the recurring seasons, in our making, and in His mighty word. Do you know God gives 15 "again" promises in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter 31? Jeremiah gives these beautiful restoration prophecies immediately before severe disasters befall Israel. Even before death and loss strike, God wants Israel to know that He has a good plan and is working on how to restore the people. He gives them the powerful promise of "again" as a stable foundation of hope for redemption and a good future. The foundation and the guarantee of our daily and eternal resurrections is God's everlasting love: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness." (Jeremiah 31:3, NIV) When we are in the deepest of sorrows, God doesn't abandon us but thinks about how to deliver and restore us. He always has a plan. Here are several promises of restoration and renewal containing the power of "again": • Again, we will be rebuilt. (verses 4, 28, 38)• Again, we will be given comfort and joy instead of sorrow and will be like a well-watered garden. (verses 4, 12, 13)• Again, we will be delivered and redeemed. (verse 11)• Again, we will be satisfied with abundance and God's bounty. (verse 14)• Again, we will be blessed and turned into a blessing. (verse 23)• Again, we will know the Lord on a deeper, intimate level. (verse 34) How Does God Resurrect Us? The first way God brings us to life after experiencing a valley of the shadow of death in our lives is by giving us a roadmap for our future based on His promises. When we take this roadmap to heart and start trusting it, we begin to heal and develop positive expectations for the future. When we let these specific promises speak into our present circumstances, we can start living with the expectancy for God to move and fulfill His promises. The second way God breathes life into our shattered souls is by resurrecting our joy and hope. Joy is the pulse of life. The Holy Spirit hovers over and fills the voids in our souls with fresh joy. This is not a superficial, fleeting joy, but the powerful current of God's love and sovereignty. He draws our attention and opens our eyes to see and behold our eternal, living hope. This enables us to live in the present and what is happening now. We can find the strength to let go of the past and embrace the new life and all the new things God does in the present moment. And by doing so, we heal. And we change. When we focus on the present day, and on God's constant and loving presence, we are ready to receive our daily resurrections because "this is the day which the Lord has brought about; we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24, AMPC). Resurrection Is a Transformation Our healing from trauma and loss and the daily renewal of hope and joy are no small miracles. However, the biggest miracle of the resurrection is that God doesn't just bring dead things to life. No, He transforms them in the process, giving them new nature and characteristics. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is a powerful example of this. His resurrected body has a completely different nature than His fleshly body. It went through a powerful metamorphosis. Jesus' body was transformed into a heavenly, immortal body with which He could stand on the right side of God. This is what we are looking for at our final resurrection, too. We are longing for our eternal and final transformation. Mortal into immortal. Death into life. Sorrow into joy. Weakness into glory. In God's perfect timing, He will redeem all our deaths and the ultimate death, and shape something new and beautiful from the dust. Till then, we will again experience joy, comfort, satisfaction, blessings, and the most precious thing—a deeper and intimate knowledge of the Lord. Till then, let's count our daily resurrections. Image: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on oak panels. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Hadassah Treu is an award-winning author of "DRAW NEAR: How Painful Experiences Become the Birthplace of Blessings," poet, speaker, and motivator, author of 2 poetry books, and co-author of 13 devotional and poetry anthologies. She loves encouraging people to draw near to God in the dark valleys of life. She has been featured in The Upper Room, (In)Courage, Proverbs 31 Ministries, Today's Christian Living, and others. Connect with her at onthewaybg.com, and on social media @onthewaybg and @hadassahtreu. Previous Next