Forgive Us Our Trespasses

If you are a frequent flyer on Aletheia Today, you already know that we think early Christians reached over Cerebos, the 3 headed dog guarding Hades – I mean, of course, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – to rediscover the insights of the 5th century BCE pre-Socratics. 

It can be no exaggeration to say that this was the most fecund century in the history of Western philosophy: Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Zeno… And of course, the Father of Western Philosophy, Parmenides. But for the Grandfather, Anaximander, we need to slip back to the 6th century BCE. Believe me, it’s worth the trip!

“Forgive us our trespasses.” As a pre-tween, I thought this verse from the Lord’s Prayer referred to our habit of trespassing on neighbors’ lawns on our way to school, church, the candy store, the playground, or a friend’s house. 

God had better forgive us because there’s no way we’re ever going to give up cutting through folks’ backyards. God and I had better come to some sort of understanding. And then…Here’s Johnny! “As we forgive those who trespass against us.”  

No problem, I forgive you, everyone. You’re all more than welcome to trespass on my parents’ lawn anytime you wish…so I guess I’m all set after all.  

 Returning to Christianity as an adult, I realized I needed a better understanding of ‘trespass’. Luke substituted ‘debts’ but that seems too narrow. It was at about this time that I was first exposed to the pre-Socratics.

Gradually, I came to realize that the Christian message needed to be viewed in the context of Greek philosophy as well as Jewish tradition and that special attention needed to be paid to these pre-Socratic proto-scientists and metaphysicians, from Thales (d. 546 BCE) through Democritus (d. 370 BCE).  

Anaximander proposed that all creation is co-creation. Come again? We Westerners are used to the idea of creators and creatures. Genesis: God said ‘let there be’… and there was. 

Anaximander offered a completely different, and frankly more ‘modernist’, model. Our knowledge of Anaximander’s thought is sketchy. However, it appears that he imagined  Being as a permanent state of pure potentiality (suggestive of Aristotle, Bruno, and Whitehead) which could be actualized only by the mutual, unconditional, granting of ‘reck’.

This idea was difficult for Anaximander to express even though he had multiform Ancient Greek to work with. For us, with our scaled back modern Indo-European languages, it is impossible. But of course we must try. So brace yourself.

According to Anaximander, Being behaves somewhat like a field in Quantum Mechanics. ‘Quanta’ (be they particles, persons or events) are only actualized in pairs and then only when each member of the pair freely grants reck to the other.

The Greek concept of Reck is somewhat similar to the Hebrew concept of Shalom. I grant you ‘reck’ when I unconditionally cede you the space you need to ‘be all that you can be’. Am I the US Army on steroids? 

Or am I God’s co-conspirator? According to Genesis, when God created the World he granted it reck. The created World is made in God’s image and likeness; as such it is endowed with autonomy, agency and freedom (free will). 

My ethical imperative is to continue God’s work by granting ‘reck’ to others (i.e. whatever comes across my path). Am I Lao-Tze, the Buddha, Jesus, Ghandi? “A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench.” (Isaiah 42: 3)   

By the same token, I am because I have been granted reck by others. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” (Tennessee Williams) What’s that? You’ve had a tough life. Nobody ever granted you reck! Well, I doubt that, but even so, God has granted you reck. 

This ontology has intriguing consequences. For example, ‘trespassing’ now must be understood as a failure to grant reck. Instead of creating space (womb) for you to grow into, I impinge on your space, stunting that growth. I am an abortionist. To paraphrase Robert Oppenheimer, it is the trespasser who has ‘become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds’. Thus, failure to grant ‘reck’ is the essence of all ‘sin’. 

Consider the Great Commandment  (one commandment with two aspects): “Love the Lord God with all your heart…and love your neighbor as yourself. Everything in the Law and the Prophets hangs on these two commandments.” ( Matt. 22: 37 - 40) 

Conversely, the Great Commandment gives us a prototype for sin (i.e. the failure to love God or neighbor properly). There is only one sin, but it has two potential expressions. Sin is conceptual when we place something ahead of God: Idolatry. Sin is physical when we fail to grant reck, i.e. when we ‘trespass’ on another being’s potential.

 But since God’s work (creation, redemption, salvation) is the granting of reck, my failure to grant others reck puts me at cross purposes with God. 

Effectively, I have found something more personally compelling than loving God and my neighbor. I have an attachment to something inanimate…or at least transient.  Sex, drugs, money, power… or rock & roll, pick your poison. 

Therefore, Jesus follows up with, “And lead us not into temptation (attachment),” and finishes with, “Deliver us from evil.” Entropy is the scientific manifestation of the ‘not-so-good’ – the emergence of chaos out of order. Trespassing is an agent of entropy (1) because it is itself disordering and (2) because it interferes with the ‘actualization of potential being’, aka the Good, aka Order. 

Sidebar: In everyday conversation we often confuse ‘order that emerges organically’  with ‘order that is imposed violently,’ which is actually an agent of entropy.  

After Anaximander the concept of ‘reck’ lies more or less fallow…until it is resurrected by Jesus and the early Christians. Consider, for example, the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the poor in spirit (non-trespassers) – theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven… Blessed are the meek (non-trespassers) – they will inherit the Earth… Blessed are the merciful (non-trespassers) – they will be shown mercy, etc. 

Being haughty, violent or cruel are ways I trespass on my neighbors’ space; I interfere with the realization of potential being and the emergence of local order. It turns out that the Beatitudes constitute a How to manual for folks who wish to avoid sin, i.e. trespasses.

The concept of ‘reck’ is central to Hasidism. Whatever is contained within itself, whatever has an identity, contains a fragment, a spark, of divinity. That is what makes something, something. It is the non-linear factor that distinguishes figure from ground. It is Logos. 

Shechinah, God’s Presence, is in exile in the World. It has fragmented and is now distributed among the myriad persons, places, things and events that constitute our World. As actors in that World, our job, should we choose to accept it, is to release those sparks so that they can be reunited in Godhead. 

When we grant ‘reck’, we empower someone or something other than ourselves to release its divine spark, reuniting that spark with other sparks, repatriating the Shechinah. In the case of inanimate objects, we grant reck when we take care to use an object properly, i.e. when we allow it to function according to its nature or when we allow it to fulfil the purpose for which it was intended. 

Kabballah, an esoteric philosophy rooted in medieval Judaism, can be understood as a road map for reuniting the divine sparks scattered in Malkhut (the Kingdom, i.e. the World) with Keter (the Crown, i.e. Godhead). 

Kabbalah and the Beatitudes are closely related. In the non-Hasidic West, Anaximander’s ethic shows itself most prominently in the Christian theology of St. Francis of Assisi and in the Existential philosophy of Martin Buber. 

So in a nutshell, ‘we will drink no wine before its time’ (except Beaujolais Nouveau) and we will break an egg only to make an omelet. This ethic of caring for God’s creatures, regardless of their form, is characteristic of spiritual practices originating in India, China, and Japan, as well as in the relationship of Native Americans to their quarry. 

Finally, young children around the world, across many cultures, instinctively practice a form of Hasidism in their everyday lives. They easily recognize the divine spark in whatever they encounter and they spontaneously grant reck to everything around them (except their siblings). 

No wonder Jesus said, “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt. 18: 3) Unless you grant reck as children do…

***

Image: James Tissot, French, 1836–1902. “The Lord’s Prayer (Le ‘Pater Noster),” 1886–1896. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, 8 1/2 x 6 7/16 inches. Brooklyn Museum, purchased by public subscription, 00.159.167. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

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