Paul's background offers up insight into the reasons why God chose him to bring the Good News to the Gentiles. While studying under the rabbi Gamaliel provided Paul with a strong grounding in Jewish law and theology, it was his coming from Tarsus, an important university town renowned for its Stoic philosophy, that gave him a first-class education into the pagan mindset. Acts 17 records an incident in which Paul called upon this training.
While preaching and reasoning to the passers-by in an Athenian market-place a group of Stoics and Epicureans took him to task over Jesus and the resurrection. Luke only records a fraction of the debate, and despite his freely quoting Aratus, Epimenides and, quite possibly, Cleanthes, Paul nevertheless saw their philosophies as standing in distinct opposition to the Creator God of the Bible. Few Christians ever investigate precisely what these philosophies stood for, so some quotes from these ancient world-views would be of considerable aid to comprehend why Paul so unequivocally took issue with them.
The Epicurean belief was distinctly evolutionary. While gods may have indeed existed, they did not truly interact with the world. Equally certain was the Epicurean belief entertained no Creator God who used His wisdom, demonstrated by rapid and accurate completion of task, to bring nature and life into existence. Rather, large amounts of time, unfolding an uncountable number of material permutations upon permutations, eventually brought forth the world as we know it. Time and accident were the factors drawn upon to transform God into a superfluous hypothesis.
Lucretius, in his De rerum natura, states “When bodies are being born by their own weight straight down through the void, at quite uncertain times and places they veer a little from their course, just enough to be called a change of motion. If they did not have this tendency to swerve, everything would be falling downward like raindrops through the depths of the void, and collisions and impacts among the primary bodies would not have arisen, with the result that nature would never have created anything.”
Epicurus, in his Letter to Herodotus, lays out his belief in the eternity of matter, the epistemological prerequisite for materialism: “The atoms move continuously for ever...There is no beginning to this, because atoms and void are eternal.”
Central to any materialist account of origins is that life on earth is merely an outcome of probability. Lucretius states, “For so many primary particles have for an infinity of time past been propelled in manifold ways by impacts and by their own weight, and have habitually travelled, combined in all possible ways, and tried out everything that their union could create, that it is not surprising if they have also fallen into arrangements, and arrives at patterns of motions, like those repeatedly enacted by this present world.”
The Stoics, despite being materialists, held that there was one principle which permeated all of reality, Reason, which gave rise to everything else. If 'God' were mentioned it was rarely, if unambiguously ever, referring to a personal deity, let alone a Creator of the magnitude unveiled in the Bible.
Aetius, reporting on Stoic belief, states that they “made god out to be intelligent, a designing fire which methodically proceeds towards creation of the world, and encompasses all the seminal principles according to which everything comes about according to fate.”
Cicero relates how Chrysippus held that “divine power resides in reason and in the mind and intellect of universal nature..the world's own commanding-faculty...it is the common nature of things..the force of fate and necessity.”
Both of these ersatz explanations remove God's presence as much as possible. By this I mean that theological considerations are weakened to the extent that a fully-blown materialism is the final result. While Epicureanism relied on chance as the universe's creative metaphysic, Stoicism embedded an ordering principle within nature that tamed chaos and directed it to complexity.
Luke's specific mention of these pagan philosophies and Paul's counter to them contains an important lesson for us today. These two counterfeits are perhaps the most logical replacements for the Christian Creator Jesus and both have resurfaced, not without, but within the Church. Leading theologians have stripped the pagan philosophies of their inherent atheism but taken on-board their ultimate reliance on chance, deterministic law and matter. According to their quasi-scientism, God, when he is presented, has brought together this faux trinity and allowed the universe to itself unravel from the Big Bang to the present.
John Polkinghorne, a greatly admired and quoted Anglican priest and physicist, has stated that "[n]ecessity is the regular ground of possibility, expressed in scientific law. Chance, in this context, is the means for the exploration and realization of inherent possibility, through continually changing (and therefore at any time contingent) individual circumstances. It is important to realize that chance is being used in this `tame' sense, meaning the shuffling operations by which what is potential is made actual. It is not a synonym for chaotic randomness, nor does it signify just a lucky fluke.... I am still deeply impressed by the anthropic potentiality of the laws of nature which enable the small-step explorations of tamed chance to result in systems of such wonderful complexity as ourselves."
He also argues that “[a]t the heart of evolution is the interplay between “chance” (the contingent detail of what actually happens) and “necessity” (the lawfully regular environment in which events occur). It takes place “at the edge of chaos,” where order and openness interlace. If things are too orderly, they are too rigid for anything really new to emerge. If they are too haphazard, nothing that emerged could persist.”
The evolutionary palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris, also a Christian, writes that “[f]or all this exuberance and flair [in evolution] there are constraints[but] there is also a patent trend of increased complexity.” He also states “[t]he complexity and beauty of ‘Life’s Solution’ can never cease to astound. None of it presupposes, let along proves, the existence of God, but all is congruent. For some it will remain as the pointless activity of the Blind Watchmaker, but others may prefer to remove their dark glasses. The choice, of course, is yours.”
As an aside, Morris is regarded, by some, as an expert on the Burgess Shale, despite admitting its fossil remains being so pristinely preserved “by as yet largely unknown mechanisms”. He writes that “the processes of rotting and decay have been largely held in abeyance so that the true richness of ancient life is revealed: not only are there animals such as trilobites and molluscs with tough, durable skeletons, but completely soft-bodied animals are also preserved. These remarkable fossils reveal not only their outlines but sometimes even internal organs such as the intestine or muscles.” Any chance the early chapters of Genesis provide an explanation, say, a worldwide flood destroying practically all life on the earth?
The perspicuous absence of any mention of Christ's role in the creation by these Christians makes their explanation no better than a pagan one. Particularly counter-productive, with respect to a truly Christian world-view, is the preponderate dependence of their explanation for the creation's existence on the creation itself. What principles are supposedly made manifest in the world are made to substantiate the world itself. That is, the marriage of chance and law, evolution, is entirely able to account for the world's and its occupants' being here.
No where to be seen is the direct link Paul and John make between the world and Christ the Creator. Both make it plain that the creation cannot be explained without Christ's visible input. If nothing that exists can be made without him, then nothing that does actually exist can have their ultimate existence put down to principles operating within the creation. If chance and necessity are sufficient, then Christ can be struck out with an Ockham resolve.
More worryingly is the attitude that the creation cannot directly point us to the Creator. No longer is it “in Christ all things consist” and that we can “attain to all riches of the full assurance of understanding”, but rather it comes down to a preference because nothing can, as Morris believes, prove the creation's ultimate dependence on Christ.
Whenever men subscribe to a metaphysical belief that it is principles upholding the creation, and not Christ, then Paul's daily reasoning in the marketplace against the pagans appears a futile exercise. It now seems that Stoic and Epicurean ideas have well and truly taken hold of Christian men's minds. If these non-Christian philosophies are representative of the church – and I believe they are – then the paganisation of the Church is almost complete.
Showing posts with label Baal Worship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baal Worship. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Baal Bones Found in Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney
Attributing an inferior means as evolution to God is nothing more than adopting a philosophy first then moulding perception of God to conform to that a priori. Such thinking, or any variant of it, is not without precedent in those who purport to be the People of God.
It has been often spoken here that Theistic Evolution has a parallel with Baal worship in Israel of old. A fresh insight into this proposition can be found in John Bright's The Kingdom of God, first published in 1953. In pages 52-54 Bright speaks of the Northern Kingdom of Israel's further descent into idolatry in the time of King Ahab and Jezebel.
I cite a section of Bright's comments and encourage readers to observe some similarity with what is going on in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney under the 'rule' of one or more Theistic Evolutionists.
The danger to Israel was immense. The more we know of Canaanite paganism the clearer this becomes. Here was a paganism of the most degrading sort. Its gods and goddesses - Baal, Astarte, Asherah, Anat, it, and the rest - represented for the most part those forces and functions of nature which have to do with fertility. Its myth was closely linked with the death and rebirth of nature. Its cult was concerned to control by means of its ritual the forces of nature and thus to produce the desired fertility in soil, in beast, and in man. As in all such religions sacred prostitution of both sexes and other orgiastic and ecstatic practices of the most disgusting sort were involved.
Clearly the question, Yahweh or Baal? was not a trivial one. We moderns tend to view it as a sort of denominational quarrel, and to find the prophet hostility to Baal rather fanatical and narrow. But we are wrong. For these were not two rival religions, one of which was some what superior to the other; they were religions of wholly different sorts; they could have nothing to do with each other. It must be understood that Israel's very being as a people rested in her confidence that Yahweh had called her, entered into covenant with her, summoned her to live in obedience to his righteous law, and given her a sense of destiny as his people. Baal, on the contrary, would have been destructive of the very faith that made Israel what she was. Here was a religion which summoned men not at all beyond their animal nature, and even fostered that animal nature; which posed no moral demands, but provided men with an external ritual designed to appease the deity and to manipulate the divine powers for their own material ends; which was incapable of creating community but rather, by pandering to the selfish desires of the worshiper, was destructive of real community. Paganism was, then as now, no trivial thing. As long as men take on the character of the gods they serve, so long does it greatly matter who those gods may be. Had Israel embraced Baal it would have been the end of her; she would no longer have lived as the peculiar people of God. Not one scrap of her heritage would have survived.
Of course the menace of Baal was not new with Jezebel. It had been there since the conquest, when Israel first confronted the superior material culture of Canaan and, in taking over her land, took over her agrarian way of life, her cities, and her shrines. The temptation was always present to imagine that the worship of the gods of fertility was a necessary part of the agrarian life. Many were quick to apostatize to Baal or to address Yahweh as if he were Baal. The incorporation of new blood into Israel no doubt much faster than it could be assimilated, and the tolerant attitude of Solomon and others in such matters, could only have facilitated the process. Baal was no stranger to Israel.
Yet we must not allow this to obscure the magnitude of the threat which Jezebel posed. Here for the first time was an overt attempt on the part of the state to impose a foreign paganism by force. Jezebel, as we said, resorted to persecution, and this persecution had far-reaching effects. It fell with especial force on the prophets of Yahweh (I Kings 18:4; 19:14). For the first time in Israel the prophet was faced with reprisals for speaking the Word of Yahweh. In the face of pressure some of them gave way and surrendered to the state. We see thereafter groups of prophets, in the pay of the court or the shrine, clustering about the king to lick the royal hand and to say- unanimously - what the royal ear wished to hear (I Kings 22). But we see also a succession of lone individuals who like Micaiah, because they refused to compromise their prophet Word, were ever more completely alienated not only from the state but from their fellow prophets as well. To these prophets Yahweh
was against the state.
I leave it to readers who have participated in the life of the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney over the past fifteen or so years to see the irony of what went on in Israel of old and what has been recent Sydney experience - some not so dramatic yet difficult just the same and some concern for what the like idolatry produces.
Sam Drucker
It has been often spoken here that Theistic Evolution has a parallel with Baal worship in Israel of old. A fresh insight into this proposition can be found in John Bright's The Kingdom of God, first published in 1953. In pages 52-54 Bright speaks of the Northern Kingdom of Israel's further descent into idolatry in the time of King Ahab and Jezebel.
I cite a section of Bright's comments and encourage readers to observe some similarity with what is going on in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney under the 'rule' of one or more Theistic Evolutionists.
The danger to Israel was immense. The more we know of Canaanite paganism the clearer this becomes. Here was a paganism of the most degrading sort. Its gods and goddesses - Baal, Astarte, Asherah, Anat, it, and the rest - represented for the most part those forces and functions of nature which have to do with fertility. Its myth was closely linked with the death and rebirth of nature. Its cult was concerned to control by means of its ritual the forces of nature and thus to produce the desired fertility in soil, in beast, and in man. As in all such religions sacred prostitution of both sexes and other orgiastic and ecstatic practices of the most disgusting sort were involved.
Clearly the question, Yahweh or Baal? was not a trivial one. We moderns tend to view it as a sort of denominational quarrel, and to find the prophet hostility to Baal rather fanatical and narrow. But we are wrong. For these were not two rival religions, one of which was some what superior to the other; they were religions of wholly different sorts; they could have nothing to do with each other. It must be understood that Israel's very being as a people rested in her confidence that Yahweh had called her, entered into covenant with her, summoned her to live in obedience to his righteous law, and given her a sense of destiny as his people. Baal, on the contrary, would have been destructive of the very faith that made Israel what she was. Here was a religion which summoned men not at all beyond their animal nature, and even fostered that animal nature; which posed no moral demands, but provided men with an external ritual designed to appease the deity and to manipulate the divine powers for their own material ends; which was incapable of creating community but rather, by pandering to the selfish desires of the worshiper, was destructive of real community. Paganism was, then as now, no trivial thing. As long as men take on the character of the gods they serve, so long does it greatly matter who those gods may be. Had Israel embraced Baal it would have been the end of her; she would no longer have lived as the peculiar people of God. Not one scrap of her heritage would have survived.
Of course the menace of Baal was not new with Jezebel. It had been there since the conquest, when Israel first confronted the superior material culture of Canaan and, in taking over her land, took over her agrarian way of life, her cities, and her shrines. The temptation was always present to imagine that the worship of the gods of fertility was a necessary part of the agrarian life. Many were quick to apostatize to Baal or to address Yahweh as if he were Baal. The incorporation of new blood into Israel no doubt much faster than it could be assimilated, and the tolerant attitude of Solomon and others in such matters, could only have facilitated the process. Baal was no stranger to Israel.
Yet we must not allow this to obscure the magnitude of the threat which Jezebel posed. Here for the first time was an overt attempt on the part of the state to impose a foreign paganism by force. Jezebel, as we said, resorted to persecution, and this persecution had far-reaching effects. It fell with especial force on the prophets of Yahweh (I Kings 18:4; 19:14). For the first time in Israel the prophet was faced with reprisals for speaking the Word of Yahweh. In the face of pressure some of them gave way and surrendered to the state. We see thereafter groups of prophets, in the pay of the court or the shrine, clustering about the king to lick the royal hand and to say- unanimously - what the royal ear wished to hear (I Kings 22). But we see also a succession of lone individuals who like Micaiah, because they refused to compromise their prophet Word, were ever more completely alienated not only from the state but from their fellow prophets as well. To these prophets Yahweh
was against the state.
I leave it to readers who have participated in the life of the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney over the past fifteen or so years to see the irony of what went on in Israel of old and what has been recent Sydney experience - some not so dramatic yet difficult just the same and some concern for what the like idolatry produces.
Sam Drucker
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