DWill wrote:Deconstruction or destruction?
Ironically, Derrida’s term deconstruction is a translation of Heidegger’s Destruktion, referring to analysis of tradition to uncover its hidden meaning. For example Heidegger deconstructs Descartes ‘cogito ergo sum’ through the observation that human life only exists in a world, and the isolated atomism of Cartesian rationalism establishes a worldview which cannot see care as the meaning of being. Yet Heidegger owes much to Descartes so his critique is intended more as a transformation than a rejection.
I am looking at a similar sort of deconstruction of Christianity in order to transform it into something compatible with its intellectual sources. For example the doctrine of the resurrection can be deconstructed by seeing it as a myth that life with integrity will bounce back against the power of evil, a parable with significant meaning regardless of whether Christ existed. The virgin birth is a story more in need of destruction, as serving the agendas of the church to put Jesus and Mary on pedestals as unhuman beings, and to serve a morality which narrowly focuses on sexuality.
Terms such as ‘heaven’, ‘salvation’ and ‘God’ have dominant cultural meanings which are scientifically false. Yet these terms are immensely valuable, and so need to be deconstructed rather than destroyed.
johnson1010 wrote:Seeing your counterpoints clarifies your position to me Robert. Now given that you are not speaking as though any portion of the bible is literally true, but to be understood as metaphorical, why is this particular text of any greater value than the works of thousands of other prescient writers?
Hi again Johnson, thanks for these comments. The Bible is at the centre of world culture. As I noted, it raises deep mythopoetic themes such as the apocalypse which are powerful parables for the actual trends of world politics. By asking who was Jesus Christ really, we actually open core questions about the nature of human identity.
Are you simply making a case that we should not abandon the writings of the bible all together, or that it should still have a place of honor in our culture, summarily trumping other sources?
’Summary trumping’ is precisely the historic problem of proof by authority, the invalid method applied by the church to squash debate and establish monolithic power. There needs to be a liberal and pluralist contest of ideas, which is why
God is Not Great is such a superb and important book. The ‘place of honour’ question is separate, because the value I see in the Bible is different from the way it has historically been used, which is to claim redemption for very flawed human institutions. My view is that the gospels provide a sublime critique of the psychological grasping at dominion and control which is at the centre of the fallen nature of humanity. The Bible is only valuable if it is contestable.
it almost seems that you may have formulated an alternative view of morality and then retro-actively imposed it on the barbaric lunacy of the bible. Wouldn't you be doing yourself a favor by abandoning this text and making your own way?
No. As Newton said, it is better to stand on the shoulders of giants, providing an evolutionary form of thought which builds on earlier precedents. As I noted above, the key texts of the Bible are the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer and the Last Judgement. These are entirely the foundation of the morality I am proposing. Yes, it is different from dominant theories, but no, it is not something retro-actively imposed, as it is clearly there at the centre of the bible.
Are you making a case that there should be an effort to turn people's familiarity with the bible into something more constructive?
Very much so. This is an agenda that Jesus predicted when he said the end of the age would come when the gospel had been preached to the whole earth. The Christian Age has been built on flawed premises, especially the false equation between eternal life and afterlife. Eternity is only meaningful if it intrudes into the temporal through a focus on lasting values such as love, truth and justice, shifting the basis of behaviour away from instinct (eg the desire to live forever) on to reason (eg scientific understanding).
I guess i don't understand why it would be necessary to re-interpret the bible in the first place. Would you defend Icarus or Prometheus so eloquently?
Great question. Greek mythology, in my view, has a basic flaw by comparison to Christianity, in its lack of an orientation towards a divine totality. Icarus and Prometheus are archetypes of impiety, the assertion of human hubris against divine power. Of course, this assertion is at the basis of western civilization, but these stories have a powerful lesson in the punishment meted by the Gods. Today, we hubristically pile carbon out of the ground and into the air, and continuing this path will produce a destruction akin to the melting of Icarus’s waxy wings when he flew too close to the sun.
By contrast, the message of Christ is that we should transform our lives to achieve harmony with the divine reality. In terms of contemporary world politics this looks to me to require a transformation of our concepts of security away from the military aggrandisement of the nation-state and towards the security agenda of real problems such as poverty, climate and water.
It seems that this is a last ditch effort to try to wring some value out of this text when all other interpretations falter.
Joseph Campbell
’s myth of the hero emphasises that salvation only arrives when we get to the last ditch.
Interbane wrote: I'm not insisting that god must be proven to be an entity. I'm looking to understand what you think god is. I said the same thing a few posts back. If you consider him a force, then how does he compare to the other forces? There is nothing nothing nothing to go on here, I'm not understanding what you mean when you say 'god'. If god can only be understood at arms-length, as the allegory implies, there must be something that is casting the shadow, otherwise it's nothing but your imagination.
Hi Interbane, sorry about calling you dogmatic, I misread your earlier comment. The shadow is cast by the cyclic structures of the cosmos. In our debate in the Milton thread I explained my views on this at some length, focussing on how the physical scientific structure of the precession of the equinox sits at the empirical basis of the Christian theory of time. On this view, God is the determinant regular structure of the cosmos for the temporal patterns of the earth. I explain how I draw this novel claim from the Bible at my
essay on the biblical metaphor of the twelve jewels.
the idea of Christ(whatever that is) is an idea thought up in the heads of men and written in the bible. If it resembles a theory, it most likely was a theory of ancient theologians. By today's standards, theories are held to much stricter standards. Can you elucidate this theory to show how it can be examined by either empiricism or rationalism? Then you mention a connection between temporal life and eternal truth. What do you mean 'connection'? A metaphysical tether? A causal relationship? A correlation? Finally you mention 'eternal truth', which is an ideal which will likely forever be out of our reach. Any progress toward eternal truth would be found in modern philosophy, not in the christian bible!
The ‘idea of Christ’ is summarised in the
prologue of the Gospel of John, where Christ is identified with eternal rationality, through the concept of logos – word or reason. The question of connection is whether eternal rationality can be manifest in human life. You are right that this is a central problem for modern philosophy, but it seems a hasty move to assert that biblical theology has nothing to teach about it. The point of the Bible is that if we all lived according to eternal rationality then the world would be perfect, but our planet is so far fallen away from our original identity that we need a representative of eternal reason, ie Christ, to tell us how to restore our natural harmony with God.
RT