The One Is Indivisible
The Truth Is The Whole
Today brought a delightful discovery, a blog named The Aspen beat and produced by an elegant litterateur and accomplished attorney named Glenn K. Beaton. Scott Johnson at Power Line brought my attention to Glenn’s labor of love.
In a post on 15 December 2019, titled Here’s what I know, Jesus is not our mom, Glenn in effect recapitulates examinations of Biblical curiosities, inconsistencies, and discrepancies undertaken by Hermann Samuel Reimarus. Reimarus’ examinations were published posthumously in fragments by a close friend of the Reimarus family, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and then later published together under the title Fragments. Albert Schweitzer’s famous Von Reimarus zu Wrede, published in English as The Quest Of The Historical Jesus, treated of these matters in the Biblical text as noted by Reimarus and adjusted by William Wrede.
Glenn Beaton’s treatment of curiosities, inconsistencies, and discrepancies in the Biblical text is by way of how reasonable and learned modern Americans can see these phenomena, inquire about them, and move to understand them.
A brief exchange of comments between Glenn and I occurred. I include the exchange here in order to invite attention to Glenn’s blog and this post in particular and also because my initial comment, I say made in modesty, is about the finest succinct description of what was at stake at Nicaea and Chalcedon I have ever seen, much less had the honor to compose.
David R. Graham
Fine writing, historiography, and theology. You are right to wonder. He underwent three self-realizations, which can be sussed out from the Gospels. First He realized that he is a messenger of God, a son of man, akin to an OT prophet. Then He realized that he is closer to God than that and the term son of God comes into use for and by Him. This term is familiar to Greco-Roman culture but applied to Generals and Emperors, not carpenters and criminals. Finally, He realized that He is even closer to God than a Son is to a Father, and with that awareness He declared that He and God are one. So yes, there is a developing awareness there that is inside the Gospels but not clearly stated in one place. Once you see the development, I think wonder will increase and confusion decrease.
The two great Christological Councils, Nicaea and Chalcedon, even though unaware of its historicity, tried to put that development into language familiar to Greco-Roman classical diction — adapting [for the purpose] what we tend to see as, say, a Pythagorean Stoicism — and also loyal to Jesus’ final realization as one with God. This was a very tough project made not easier by the fact that Jesus’ personal experience in developing self-realization is not stated succinctly in the Gospels. The canon-formation process is partly at cause for that, but even more so is the demand of piety that His final stage of self-realization — unity with God — is that on which faith in the soteriological force God throws into existence through Jesus of Nazareth as The Christ of God is most reliably built.
Thank you for your blog and other labors of love. I was unaware of the blog, learned of it just now through Power Line. I will add it to recommends on my blog, Theological Geography.
Glenn Beaton
Thank you for your excellent insights, David. I’m not a student of the Bible, as you are, but am a curious reader or it. My background is in law. A lawyer would criticize the Bible as unclear. I say: Exactly, and wonderfully so. Glenn
David R. Graham
Good point. As law, the Bible is indeed unclear. The Mel Brooks-ian sense of stinks also comes to mind. It is best read, perhaps, as a collection of treatises on military engineering in the spiritual dimension of life, the dimension of life, felt only by humans, in which power and meaning unite. Were one to itemize periods of history showing as Heinlein’s bad luck, one will find they correlate with clergy, of whatever religion, preaching their scriptures, whatever they are, as a library of statues, and of divine origin no less. We need law to protect us in the here and now, and we need religion to reconnect us with the freedom native to our divine interior in the now and soon. Again, thank you for your labors of love. I feel akin.
Embodiments of love! Brahman (Divinity) is full of love and is in fact the embodiment of love. Your love should merge with this love. This is only one; there is no second. It is the non-dual state. The essential nature of love is sacrifice. Under any circumstances true love does not give room for hatred. It is love that brings even a person far away closer and more intimate to you. It is love that drives away the feeling of separateness and promotes the feeling of oneness. Love also raises a person from the animal to the human. Prema (Love) is the Prana (Life Force) of mankind. Love is shown only to persons who are alive. No one loves a corpse. One without love is like a lifeless corpse. Love and life are therefore inter-related and intimately connected.
Sathya Sai Baba – Divine Discourse, January 1, 1994
Βασιλεία του Θεού