Israel

For some reason tonight I thought of struggles, and in particular, the idea of wrestling, of coming to grips with something.

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

So says St Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians. It is an interesting image, because in some ways, it leads one's eye away from that other great wrestling match of the Bible, the one found in the 32nd chapter of Genesis:

Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”

But Jacob said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”

So He said to him, “What is your name?”

He said, “Jacob.”

And the Man said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.”

And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

It is possible to contend with God, it seems. And God seems to welcome it. Why else does He allow men like Abraham and Moses to argue with Him all the time? That makes hash of the Greek philosophical argument known as the Euthyphro dilemma for the simple reason that God is not bound to fit any human idea of good, and yet is good. It lowers the philosophical hazard to believe that, than to believe that there isn't a God at all.

I invite people to wrestle with that issue, if they can bring themselves to it. Perhaps they will end up joining hands (figuratively) with the Good Doctor, Thomas Aquinas. Or maybe the other Good Doctor, Isaac Asimov. Heh.

Transdarwinian

In the last couple of decades, the determinists have hit the wall of reality while the atheists have been pushed to another wall by a tide of relentlessly unmindful religionists. The world is turning like Dorothy's house on a whirlwind simply because some people don't know where to stop.

For a start, I say to Christians (who the bulk of the relentlessly unmindful seem to be), "Have you considered what actually is necessary for salvation? Does it include the ideas that the Bible is a science manual and that Man is unable to write a Bible with errors in it? For if so, none are saved since those two points have been clearly and decisively disproved."

But in the humility of my own mind, knowing that I am all too fallible and human and prone to error of all kinds, I think of what might have been. I look at what the Bible says. And I look at what kinds of expression humans typically use. And I look at what we seem to see of history. And maybe...

Two hundred thousand years ago, God (in whose image man the scientist — as well as man the artist — was made) raised one particular kind of animal upright in the plains of Africa. For thousands of years, this animal had been viable, intelligent, but not going anywhere fast. And that is the message of Genesis 1, for it is clear that when God speaks, He speaks to an entire race of humans, male and female, and then He rests. They filled their African world, a world where no less than a dozen different population clusters of breathtaking genetic diversity could be found. This took 130,000 years.

Seventy thousand years ago, God inspired man. For some reason, the mind of man opened, as did the geography of man, and man exploded from Africa. But it was a slow and odd migration, for crossing the centre of the world (where Africa meets Eurasia) and then filling the rest of it with loose groups of random humans, took 60,000 years. And then man decided to build permanent settlements in Eden, where God had finally placed him — for that is what history tells us.

And somewhere around 6000 BC, where recorded history first begins in written language, the second narrative of Genesis has begun. For there are two creation stories in the first three chapters of that book, and one question has always been, why two? And perhaps the first is the story of Man the organism, while the second is the story of Man the inspired. Where inspiration arises, choice follows, and where choice appears, change will come.

Genesis 4 tells us that Cain, the farmer who founded a city killed his brother Abel the nomadic herder. It might have been literal, but it is certainly historical in vision. For the third son of Adam was Seth, and in his time, men adopted organised religion. There is no way to prove that any of these people existed, but history tells us that the kinds of people they represent did indeed arise in that order.

Who knows the mind of God? We see in part, as if through a glass darkly; we know in part and think in pieces. And we don't have all the pieces, and never will have, till time ends.

There is a strange world out there, with mysteries which we know because of our science and our reasoning will not be solved. The narratives we spin and contest may incite fear and division, or inspire great feats of achievement, or may have no meaning at all. But one thing is for sure — Christians spend too much time contesting the little firefights and not looking at the prize they claim to be aiming for. You don't need to fight science to be holy.

Abraham

These days, I have been moving through the patriarchs of old, trying to see how they conducted themselves in the face of the Almighty. In the last few days, and apparently for a few days in almost every month, I have been thinking of Abraham. On a trivial level, his name is interesting in English because it uses the symbol 'a' for three distinctly different vowel sounds. But on a non-trivial level, it is interesting to see what kinds of man he was – for he was certainly a man of many facets.

Abraham's story is taken from the Old Testament, and it spans the narrative from the end of the 11th chapter of Genesis to the beginning of the 25th chapter. According to this narrative, his story begins at the age of 75 and goes on till his 175th year. In this 100-year career, the patriarch and his wife (his half-sister Sarah) travelled the entire Fertile Crescent, from Mesopotamia up into the foothills and down into Egypt (and up again).

We tend to think of this man as a wanderer travelling light and fast, with a few good servants and a number of relatives. But the account is more specific than that. When Abraham's hapless nephew Lot is captured, Abraham raises an army of 318 trained warriors of his household and goes in pursuit, smites the ungodly, and then disdains the loot. After his Egyptian adventure, he is said to be extremely rich in gold and livestock. No, Abraham is at least a major warlord. His name must have been mentioned with fear and trembling across the entire Crescent.

Similarly, he is an opportunistic politician. Not once, but twice, does he present his wife as his sister for political gain. In both cases, the ruse is somewhat successful and brings great trouble to his opponents. His first victim is the Pharaoh of Egypt, in chapter 12; his second is Abimelech of Gerar in chapter 20. In both cases, huge embarrassment ensues, but not for Abraham.

This streak of limit-pushing is not confined to earthly sovereigns. He enters into discussion with God about how many righteous men it would take to save Sodom from destruction. He has political capital in there, having saved the King of Sodom's sorry ass in the previously mentioned military venture. Furthermore, his nephew Lot and the household thereof are living there.

Along the way, Abraham spawns a truly all-star cast of descendants. There is Isaac, who will be the father of the Israelites. There is Ishmael, who will be father of the desert tribes. There are also the Midianites, from his second listed wife. And apparently, after he was 'well stricken in age', he had many concubines and he sent them all away with gifts in the direction of his ancestral homeland!

After reading these fifteen chapters or so, I am inclined to think of Abraham not merely as some pious patriarch, but perhaps more like an ethically more-or-less correct Mafia godfather. He has the street-smarts and sense of justice, the business acumen and the foot-soldiers, the opportunism and the prolific generosity. What a role-model!

Labour Day

Here are some good words:

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

I thought that it was a fitting conclusion to last night's cell group meeting. It reminded me of this show I saw on the History Channel, about life after the humans had gone. I think we tend to see the Creation account as ending on the sixth day, with Man the capstone of creation. Well, yes, it does seem that way, especially to Man.

But 'six' has always been the number of imperfection; 'seven' is perfection. And what God did on the seventh day was that he created the sanctity of rest, which had not been seen in the universe up till then. God did not end creation at the end of the sixth day, but on the seventh day, by establishing an end to work and the hope of a better life beyond mere humanity.

We all need to learn this; if a man will not work, neither let him eat, says the Good Book. But if a man will not rest, he deserves whatever he gets for thinking that the be-all and end-all of Mankind is Man.