IMAGINATION: from the Latin: "imago, imaginis, a likeness or a copy" and "imaginatio, imaginationis" and from "imaginari" to imagine"..and "to reflect as a mirror does" "the clouds were imaged in the still waters of the lake." or "to picture in one's mind, to imagine; conceive."
That we - each one of us as unrepeatable human beings - are the result of God's Imagination is beyond our imagination because we cannot fully understand how God could have imagined us from all eternity. God always had a thought of us. And further, we are made in His own "Image" - that is we have the power to imagine, reason, will and love. We image God most of all in our "personhood". God is One God in three Divine Persons. We are persons who can love one another just as the Three Divine Persons love one another. It is this "Divine Communion of Persons" that gives us to power to commune with God and each others. Therefore, every family is an image of God. He imagined all of this in creating male and female and saw that it "was very good."
How our imagination mirrors God's imagination is the result of our imagination. We are imagining and mirroring as we think...in the way that God images in His own Divine Imagination and Being: as the "Word of God", as the "Logos of God". Our very trying to do this is in itself imagination imagining itself. We are self-reflexive beings imagining ourself. Our thoughts are our little "word" - our little "logos".
Let us see where this leads us. Let us talk about God's Imagination first:
1) God's imagination is Divine Improvisation (Latin: "in (not) pro (forth, ahead) videre (to see or visualize)". Please notice that the word "visualize" is contained in the word "improvisation: which is the power to visualize the possible instantly into the actual. We know from musical improvisation, the composer makes up his music spontaneously as he goes along without preparation. But what is most interesting is that what is in the composer's mind is instantly ontologically out there in the world for our ears to hear. Actually all our speaking is the same thing. But in God's Divine Improvisation, there is an Infinitely Powerful componet to his Infinite Imagination.
2) Was not the Big Bang one of God's instant improvisations which even now ever continues as space (traveling faster than the speed of light) is ever excellerating as if the "light barrier" was similar to our sound barrier that we managed to break. God breaks the "light barrier" with ease. You would think that gravity would slow down the expanding universe which is ever increasing in speed and expansion of space. Does not this acceleration mean that God's Divine Imagination is at work and that God is actively directing the expansion of the universe? If we ask: "Why does space excellerate when gravity would naturally slow down the intial power of the Big Bang?" I believe that the universe keeps excellerating not because of a intrinsic cosmological law such as the constants of gravity and speed of light. I think the cause is on a continuum of the First Cause. Thus, I believe the excelleration of space is not natural but supernatural. The Big Bang was not natural; it was supernatural even if after the Big Bang, the natural was part of the Creator's plan; but this excelleration now of space is in my mind and heart the very improvisation and imagination of God ever creating: on the continuum of the First Cause. God din't just create the Big Band and then go to sleep. God ever directs improvisationally the cosmological expansion according to His own plan and design. God is creating the conditions perfect for life on galaxies yet to be born.
3) Thus God is the Director of His own Creation; and His Divine Imagination is infinite both in the physical relm as well as the spiritual relm - just as God is at this very moment creating new worlds and new saints - great worlds and great saints. For example, God planned Blessed John Paul II before Genesis eve took place. Gis is planning similar great human beings not yet conceived. Likewise, out of the 400 million abortions in China and 53 million abortion in this country over the last 39 years, there have been great, great human beings that have not been able to be born because of the "choice" of doctors and mothers against the plan of God. But God's great counter Creativity will even bring good out of this as these martyrs of life - just as the Holy Innocents - will be great in heaven. When human free will decides contrary to God's perfect plan then God has to be infinitely creative to make a great good come out of it. Jesus Christ, the Word of God, made flesh was God's Creative and Loving response to original sin and death, both of which were never God's plan. Jesus' Justice and Mercy and Resurrection is God response. This response was formulated even before the Creation of the world because God's Loving Response is ever excellerating even faster than physical space. God's Heart is Present to every corner of the universe...and in every corner yet to come and on every world yet to come. God's Imagination is instantly potential to actual - Divine Improvisation beyond our imagination. Even St. Paul knew this by experience when he said: "Eye has not seen; nor ear has heard, nor has it even entered the imagination of man what God has in store for those who love Him."
4) What St. Paul has said pertains to the heavenly world of the Beatific Vision. Yet, in this Universe, God could be planning and even in the process of creating new civilzations, billions of new galaxies, trillions of new stars - all known by name - and all of this billions of years in the future. God's imagination is so vast...and so immediately from potential to actual that a millisecond seems like a long time to wait to satisfy God's love to Create! "Bonum est diffusivum sui" ("Goodness tends to go out of itself." means more in light of the Big Bang and ever-excelling expanding universe...God is a Great Artist; and the universe is His canvas! What He wants to paint is in His imagination...which can never enter fully into our imagination..as St. Paul attests regarding heaven.
5) Thus God's imagination is beyond our minds's comprehension. He did respond to Job when Job asked God why was Job suffering by telling Job: "Where were you when I created the world and is seas and the heaven?" Of course that issue was regarding suffering, but the implication is that we were not there: that we cannot comprehend God. God's answer to Job was trying to expand Jobn's mind to try and understand the Big Picture. God thinks Big! How Big? There may be billions of worlds like ours in several mutltiple dimensions that do not intereact with each other at all. We could search the heaven for centuries and will not ever see these worlds. We won't find them with intergalactic probes and telescopes because these worlds may not be in our dimension. We don't see God; but that does not mean He is not there. He is the Creator of all. We can see what He does...see the entire Universe. He reaches out to contact us and even gives us His Son and Holy Spirit to dwell in us by His Holy Spirit. "Know ye not that ye are temples of the Holy Spirit?"
God is not so aloof.....Jesus is "Emmanuel: God with us."
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Let us talk about man's imagination because God's Imagination is mirrored in many ways by our own imagination. Let us look at a few examples how we humans mirror God's Imgaination:
1) Movies we like to see often are very good use of our imagination and mirrors the goodness of God's creative Imagination. For example, have you seen Steven Speilberg's "Super 8"? There is a lot of creative imagination at play in this movie: The ten to 12 year olds in this movie are actually making their own movie within the move by using a Super 8 camera. These kids write the script, do the casting, play in the movie, direct and produce it. While filming their movie, these kids happen to catch an incredible train crash..that when the film is developed shows that an alien was on this train and was being transported by the special forces of the Air Force to a holding station to kill it. The kids get very involved in this bigger story and actually find a way to communicate with the alien who happens to be very advanced, scared for its life, and actually a good being. At the end of the movie, the film that the kids were making is shown while the credits of the main film are being shown. People were leaving the theartre when the kids film started at the margin of the credits. It was a marvelously funny movie..(meant ot be serious) that just seem to be such a wonderful use of man's imagination. Just showing the kids' movie during the credits was a marvelous idea. Someone had to imagin this ending. The whole movie is about goodness triumphing over evil: unjust and unwarrented goverment control over alien life.
7) Have you seen Best Picture: "Man for All Seasons" - the life of St. Thomas More? I saw the movie more than once and also the stage play at the Fisher Theatre here in Detroit. This is a marvelous use of the imagination. It is a historical movie/play that is very accurate. The screen play is moving and would cause even St. Thomas in heaven to watch it with interest. This movie won Best Picture because it was perhaps the best picture ever produced by Hollywood in the 20th century. To be able to imagine such scenes in the life of St. Thomas is truly God-like in creativity and goodness.
8) There is another Spielberg movie, "E.T." that is wonderful because E.T.. a benevolent and childlike alien..seems to have come from a world that has not fallen from grace and seems to be immortal. This being may be an example of what our world would have been like if we had not sinned. This E.T. is good to the core...childlike and innocent. His last scenes of "resurrection" seems very much a type of Christ's Resurrection with Christ's Heart being the Heart-Light. There are only three kinds of world: 1) fallen and redeemed like ours; 2) fallen and not redeemed; and 3) not fallen and in a state of original justice. E.T. comes from the last kind of world. So, man's imagination does mirror God's immagination in presenting goodness in a human story as is the whole redemptive human story of humankind is unfolding.
9) George Lucas' "Star Wars" goes deep into the fight of good against evil. The evil emporer with Darth Vader as his apostle for the dark side of the force are no ultimate match of the good side of the force. Luke converts his father, Darth Vader, to the good side. Darth Vader then picks up the Emperor and throws the Emperor of all evil down (as lightning flashing from the Emperor juar like Satan was cast out of heaven by St. Michael) the great shaft where the satan-Emporer explodes at the bottom in a great burst of flame.
This is a type of Biblical account of what happened in heaven but set in the great distant future. Truly this film is a wonderful use of imagination that mirrors God's.
10) "War Horse" just came out and is a story of how a mother can influence her son to be the best that he can be. This is a mother-son movie at its best. The horse story is wonderful and the scenery is spactacular. But what is great is that in all very authentic war scenes - many - you never see any one really get killed - and if so, it is at a distance. The movie is as squaeky clean as you can get these days.
It is a creative and imaginative story of Courage: the boy's, the mother's, the dad's and even the enemy's and of course, the horse, Joey, is the hero of hero..and "a good soldier" in his own right.
11) Media: Great imagination is evident in EWTN's programming: Marcus Brodi who interviews Protestant ministers who have found their way home in his seriest: "Journey Home." Also, Fr. Mitch Pacwa's teachings. Also, the vibrant series: "Saints Alive" where great Saints are re-inacted and interact with the audience and answer contempory questions on today's greatest issues of our day. This whole series comes from a very imaginitive and historical mind. New Director and anchor man, Raymond Arroyo's "The World Over" series is better than any newcasting in the world. Daily Mass and Scripture readings with homilies is a wonderful imaginative idea that nourishes me daily - never miss it. All of these series and programming is the best use of Media and does very much mirror the Imgination of God as God teaches us about the Faith on EWTN. Marshall McCluen was so right when he said: "The media is the message!"
12) In Literature:
"Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkein is a Catholic base epic that is a marvelous expression of how our imagination mirrors God's. The epic is really a allegorical history of our salvation. Notice how Frodo has the Bread of Life in his pouch. Evil is seen as totally vanquished by a courageous man who suffers for the good of "halflings" who come from a very wonderful Shire based on brotherly love and sharing.
St. Teresa of Avila's autobiography as well as St. Therese of Lisieux's autobiography: both are truthful accounts of a holy life but in an imaginative way that is open to the Holy Spirit's promptings: full of metaphors and mystical experiences.
Jesus' story of the "Prodigal Son" is the most beautiful story ever written. There is not a single word too much or a single word too little. It is Perfect. This story was perhaps the greatest use of human and Divine imagination ever. This story perfectly mirrors the Father's own Imagination because what Jesus imagins he spontaniously brings into being in the hearts of His hearers.
13) In Art and Architecture:
All of Michaelangelo's works, Leonardo De Vinci's works and the like; St.Peter's in Rome and the great Cathedrals of the world.
14) Plays:
"Man for All Seasons" and "The Jeweler Shop" by Blessed John Paul II and the like.
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But very Bad uses of human imagination that in NO WAY mirror God's Imagination are as follows:
1) All horror films and novels that degrade human beings and that try to destroy the "image and likeness of God" in human beings. For examples: the dark works of Steven King; series called "The Walking Dead and the like.
2) All premeditated crimes: murder, rape, burgularies, abortion, assault, infanticide, suicide, assinations, and acts of terror.
3) All pornography that degrade women and reduce women to objects. Pornography is bad not because it shows too much; since the human body is a beautiful creation of God. But it is bad because it shows too little. I does not show the woman's whole personality, soul, goodness but rather reduces her to an identity of mere body parts. Pornography also reinforces sexuality as "getting-something-for-me" mentality when human sexuality is a power that urges us to give ourselves to another as a gift of love. Lust is a "me" sexuality: getting pleasure for me. It is the very opposite of getting "ready for marriage." Marriage is what our hearts really long for: a holy union that is permanent, exclusive and faithful.
4) Evil use of Media: when it tells teens to "have sex, get drunk and get even". It is very evil when it marginalizes, vilifies and persecutes Christian, Molems and Jews because of their Faith. The Media in China - also the media being the message but a bad message - slanders and detracts the Catholic martyred Saints of China. Point in case: Fr. Crescitelli was an Italian who went to China to ministers to the Chinese faithful. He loved the Chinese people and dressed and looked just like them. As St. Paul, he was "all things to all people to win them to Christ." Two men eventually killed him for the Faith by cutting his head off slowly with a large farm implement. Eventually, his murderes in 1902 were themselves excuted by the government for killing a perfectly innocent man. But when Blessed John Paul II canonized Fr. Crescitelli, this new Saint Crescitelli was so incredibly detracted by the goverment that I cannot even write in this blog what fabricated lies they broacasted on their newcasts. All their allegations had no truth in fact or in historical accounts. Fabricated stories had no back-up and were totally made up so the Saint Crescitelli would not be honored by the Chinese people. But his memory is revered and honored by the Chinese people anyway. But here is a case where the Chinese Media is using an evil immagination to persecute the Church and martyr St. Crescitelli twice: once when he died for the Faith and again now by trying to kill his goodness. But God makes great good to come from all this evil because God is Very IMAGINATIVE.
5) All exaggerated and false advertizing: especially polictical advertizing.
6) More subtle misuse of imagination in the media: Most advertizing encourages narcissism: the love of one's own image. Nearly all advertizing is based on narcissism. Just look at American Idol. There are many would be stars who have absolutely no talent for stardom in the entertainment world. Then why do they feel entitled to this. False Entitlement is the result of narcissism in full bloom. Our kids -- from watching too much TV, become little beings who feel that they are entitled to things they are not. Entitlement in this extreme is manifested in the "I can do what I want with my body" mindset. Some men feel they are entitled to have sex with anyone who is willing and sometimes with someone who in not willing. Abortion is narcissism because the woman feels she is entitled to her happiness even if that means getting rid of the child within her.
7) Even good shows like "Sesame Street" did something that it was not intended to do. Remember this show was spearheaded by Psychiatrist to touch children. But what did it really do? It was the very spearhead of causing children to become adicted to TV..and not read. Only one children's show was truly good for kids..in every way...that was "Mr. Rogers" who was a Prysbeterian minister..whose basis for his show was Christian love. I saw my five year old kiss the screen when he came on the screen. Now that is good interaction and good use of the imagination. But most children shows today are adictive, nacissistic and the "spoilation" of children's minds.
But in all these above bad uses of the imagination. you can be sure that they are indeed inspired. Yet, by whom? What spirit inspires them? They are all encouraged by the spirit of Satan himself. They come from hell and are designed to bring souls to hell. Satan tries in all bad uses of imagination to lower human beings to a worst and lowest animal nature. AMC's "The Walking Dead" tries to erase that human's are made in the image and likeness of God. Satan cannot touch our wills; but he can and does touch our imagination.
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Let us pray:
Father, please grant Your Holy Spirit to help us to use our imaginations to mirror Yours in all we do and think and create. Protect us from the evil one who tries to stimulate our imagination to sin. Grant that St. Micahel will use his power and imagination to fill our minds with what is good, holy, pure, joyful, loving and beautiful. Help us to think on these good and holy things and express them creatively and BEAUTIFULLY.
All this we ask in Jesus' Name through Mary who imagined Jesus to make perfect wine for the wedding pardy and creatively asked Jesus to do so. Her Magnificat is her loveliest creation of prayerful expression. She is Mother of Beauty and grateful Love.
Love,
Pio...and thank You, Father, for giving me the imagination to write about imagination. :)
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[Comments from Benjamin Bourlier]
Pio, I think this may be your best blog entry! Certainly my favorite so far! I'm very fond, as an improvising musician, of your notion of the big bang as an improvisational spontaneity, and your notion of an accelerating universe as creative anticipation. While our lists of great imaginative works are wildly different, and of course while our reasoning is fundamentally different, we share many of them and, I feel, essentially agree (without exception) when it comes to the negative examples.
But, I must say, there are some examples of what might be called "horror" and even "pornography" films that are surprisingly, even redeemingly imaginative or profound. Of course these are far and away the exceptions, films made by consummate artists, auteurs, and in no way reducible to those vulgar genre labels (so in this sense I still entirely agree with you).
Some examples of these films: German director Michael Hanaecke's film Funny Games, which is a scathing attack on the dehumanizing vulgarity of American horror films, and, while being itself a profoundly violent and disturbing film, is still working imagination for the purpose of RE-humanizing its viewers, reminding them of the reality and depth of human suffering and the enormous power of human love in the face of vacuous, senseless malice. Also, several 21st century films by the "New Extremism" directors which, again, while involving profound violence and sexuality, are still enormously beautiful and vital films that champion humanity, that work AGAINST the degrading tendency of commercial films. Namely, Lars von Trier's Antichrist, which is one of the most beautiful and profound films I've ever seen, and which explores the grief of the death of children, the ugliness and neuroses of misogyny, and the violence of nature; Gaspar Noe's Irreversible, which is a deeply, deeply moving depiction -- in reverse chronological order -- of a violent rape and assault, forcing viewers to engage directly the reality and humanity and suffering of such events, working towards an astonishing ending where the camera whirls over a peaceful pregnant wife in a beautiful Paris park, children in sprinklers, and Beethoven's 7th Symphony; Bruno Dumont's film Flanders, which explores the horror of war, of a teenage girl's abortion and depression thereafter (something you can certainly understand the reasoning of), and rape, but which ends gorgeously with a bare, infinitely weighted affirmation of love, "I love you", a discovery of the true power of human love against these forces in the world; Carlos Reygadas' film Battle in Heaven, which centers on the existential despair of a man after his wife accidentally kills a child they've kidnapped for ransom, and which involves raw depictions of tender sexuality...and on and on. These films are to my mind astonishing feats of imagination and sensitivity, and in no way degrade the sense of humanity but only HEIGHTEN it, only explore the infinite expanse of human experience (in ways commercial horror and pornography genre films obviously don't do, as you know). And it must be said that all of these films are comparatively far LESS commercial films than the ones you mention (however good), and which were pursued with an artistic spirit less contaminated by capitalistic concerns.
I can list one (still somewhat interestingly) bad use of imagination, which you would certainly agree on if you ever saw it, which like the above films, involves graphic violence and sex, and was in fact intended as an art film -- it even begins with a reading list, including scholarly articles, which the director demands the viewer read before even watching it -- but which is ultimately rather pointless and unredeeming to me. This is the Italian auteur director Pasolini's film Salo, based on the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. For me this film did not deliver any real substance and was, like the Sade, simply an inventory of vacuous perversions. It degraded one's sense of humanity because it was executed with such banality, such sense of tortuous inevitability and vacuity. The Marquis de Sade is a perfect example, more originally than Pasolini, of what we'd probably both agree is a "bad" use of the imagination (or at least an insufficiently inspired use of it). Sade had an enormously powerful imagination. Yet his sense of human psychology is deeply, fundamentally flawed; he has no legitimate sense of the formation of neuroses, of fetishes and paraphilia, of the depth of suffering. Rather, he simply takes the norm, and inverts it. If something's good, he makes it evil, and vice versa. He takes away God from the universe, and, in his mind, to build everything back up on an atheist basis means to invert everything. This is so miserably false. In other words, he pursues his project politically. He has only a political notion of the shock value, the mass appeal, of vacuous perversion. And I've never liked this about his writings.
That said, I have to also say that "good", redemptive, powerful use of the imagination is inevitably involved in moments of genuine Nietzschean doubt, of "honest atheism". Doubt is in many ways the imagination continuing to work out alternatives, the imagination continually re-examining itself and improving. If one paints a decent painting at age ten, say, and has certain faith that this is the greatest one can achieve, without doubting this relaxation, one can never improve to reach sublimity. The best example of this imaginative doubt I can think of is involved in a verse we've discussed now several times:
The Centurion’s “servant” (Luke 7): a remarkable parable, very ironically revealing. The word “servant” in the English Bibles here is translated from the Greek pais, which in its extended meaning meant a male concubine, typically a child, a sex slave. It is interesting hearing both the conventional Catholic interpretation of this story – an illustration of the generosity and tact of Christ’s evangelical method, his open acceptance of a pagan centurion, finding in him an ironic example of great faith, etc – and the gay Christian community’s twist on this, based on the hermeneutical expansion of pais, to suggest it’s also an illustration of Christ’s acceptance of homosexuality. Both of them overlook what is, to me, the obvious irony of this story in either reading but especially in the gay Christian reading, regarding the role of the servant. Both readings are insufficiently imaginative and sympathetic. You know the story, of course: the centurion sends elder Jews on his behalf to ask Christ to heal his servant. He has clout with the Jews because he built them a synagogue – they obey him because he is “deserving of this favor”, they decide, as the authorities themselves, to recognize the wish of a pagan. Before Christ can enter the house, though, Jews come out on the centurion’s behalf, again, saying the centurion claims he’s unfit to have Christ enter his house, and that being a man of authority, he understands that Christ can command the disease to leave his servant from any position, any place, given Christ’s own authority, the same as the centurion’s servants obey his commands. The servant/pais, mind you, is denied freedom in life, lives in servitude, is dying, suffering, and as pais, is even in health being literally fucked in the ass by governmental authority, and here even in his Christian salvation, is denied any direct encounter with Christ, any direct representation or plea, on the grounds of the pagan centurion’s faith, his recognition of Christ’s authority (such that he won’t admit him into the home, even), which is itself grounded on the centurion’s assertion of his own authority, his authority over the servant. Christ celebrates the centurion, not directly to him, mind you, but to the elder Jews, saying “Not even in all of Israel have I witnessed such great faith”. The intended irony is based on the authority of the elder Jews – which is, of course, built on faith – who make this uncommon allowance for a pagan centurion, an enforcer, being ultimately shown up by the pagan’s own faith. Faith is the crux – pun intended – of the intended ironic twist. But of course the ultimate irony is not regarding faith but authority, the situation of the servant – he is saved, but thus only restored to his servitude under the centurion. The irony of the way in which authority feeds faith and vice versa feeding servitude and – arguably – sexual exploitation by a government official, is the deeper and more imaginative reading. One must, that is, imagine and assume the role of the servant also if one's to fully grasp the story, and the underlying paradox and contradiction.
One can see how something like Hitchens’ analysis of Mother Teresa’s dealing with Charles Keating -- wherein Keating was obtaining clout with Mother Teresa and thus the Christian community by donating over a million dollars to her cause, and thus she provided a character witness for him at trial, each recognizing the other's authority, while the Christians overlooked the position of the people Keating stole all the money he donated from (!), people who gained nothing from the trial and were only restored to their previous suffering -- is built on PRECISELY this deeper, more imaginative and more sympathetic reading of the people on the fringe of things, people who are given no direct say in a matter.
I know that as a Catholic you cannot accept this reading -- I will here formally invite you to abandon the shackles of faith and dip into the deep water of doubt, or hermenuetical freedom (ha!) But I hope you can appreciate the consistency of my argument here regarding this parable, if only to adequately confront it:
1) The elder Jews, people of faith, decide that a pagan centurion, someone they consider "faithless", is worthy of the favor of Christ's visit because he's built them a synagogue, he cooperated with their faith. Notice this is no different than any creditor/debtor relationship -- you did this for me, I'll do this for you. The "true Christian" reasoning would be that the centurion is deserving of Christ's visit because everyone is so deserving, and because helping others is simply "the Christian thing to do".
2) Is it THIS point on which Christ corrects (as it were) the elder jews? No. Christ does not say, "What difference is it whether he built a synagogue, if he is asking that I help the sick?" etc.
3) It is not through direct recognition of Christ but through sending Jewish representatives that the centurion calls on Christ. In other words, the centurion does not, say, fall to his knees directly in front of Christ begging for his help. Neither he nor (least of all) the servant has any direct encounter with the person of Christ. Such that one can imagine the centurion in a very different way and the story is effectively the same: perhaps he is calling on Christ not out of genuine faith but in a mocking sense, challenging his authority by comparing it to his own and not admitting Christ into the house on this pretense, only saying what he does to the Jews to goad him? Perhaps the servant wants to die, even, and resents his restoration -- which, Hitchens points out, is in fact the plight of many people who've undergone a healing transformation that returns them anew to suffering.
4) But regardless, one sees Christ's ironic counsel is not TO the centurion, and least of all to the servant. It makes no difference for the purpose of the story. No, he exclaims the centurion's faith to the elder Jews! It comes full circle! He exclaims the faith to illustrate to them the ironic example of the centurion, and his own evangelical method -- as you've said, his generosity of spirit, in accepting even a pagan -- and to provide a model for them of increasing their faith in his authority and recognizing that potential in others. The Jews are nearer Christ, and thus to Christianity, as you've also said; but the centurion -- who has "a greater faith than in all of Israel" -- is still effectively twice removed -- how, why?; and the servant remains throughout thrice removed! How, why? While Christ may be extending generosity to a pagan, he is extending it on the elder Jews' pretense of mere exchange of favors, where the stress is still ultimately not on his generosity toward the servant but toward the centurion (shouldn't it be precisely the opposite? Re: no.1? Shouldn't it be precisely the opposite throughout this whole story, beginning initially with more basic Christian sympathy in the elder Jews with the dying man? Nowhere does it say "this good servant", "we should save this good servant", etc., nowhere does the servant ask his benevolent master to ask Christ to spare him, etc. No, it says "a servant [the centurion] held in very high regard". From entrance to denoument the servant is thrice-removed, his very claim to life premised, thrice-removed, on the mere favor of the centurion.)
5) There are three paradoxes here: first, in the humility of the centurion in not even admitting Christ into his home (that he's unworthy) against the vanity of comparing Christ's authority to his own -- something only this pagan government official would have the arrogance to do; secondly, that it's this very paradox upon which Christ asserts the centurion's faith; lastly, most importantly, that the authority of the centurion assures this dying man's servitude and yet Christ has restored him on the basis of -- or at least partly in recognition of -- that very authority, and back to that very servitude. The servant's role in this story is objectionably perfunctory. Which one must have imagination to see; one must read beyond the intended meaning! One must assume an essentially Marxist critique!
I hope you see my point. I've enjoyed sharing it with you, as always, Pio.
your friend, in doubt and togetherness, as always,
Benjamin
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[Comments by Pio]
I agee with all your comments except one: that you kindly "invite" me "to abandon the shackles of faith and dip into the deep waters of doubt." Now, Benjamin, you know we are not talking about "faith" and "doubt" on the same page, here. Your understanding of the definition of "faith" and "doubt" are profoundly different from mine. Your definition of "faith" and "doubt" are filtered through your matrix of personal experiences that are more philosophical than mine which are intrinsically theological. So, when we dialogue on these two subjects, we are doing so from different base of epistomological and intrinsic nature of what "faith" and "doubt" really are. Your use of "doubt" is clinical, too, in that you se "doubt" as intrinsically good for man. IT IS! How in the world could we do any research microscopically or telescopically without "doubt". Actually, there is a healthy doubt even in theology in that "seeking understanding" of truths is a very good thing. But this "faith seeking understanding is not doubt"; it is an curiosity into holy things. Without this "faith seeking understanding," the world would be wittout the Summa Theologica and all of St. Augustine's writing..and even St. Paul's writings because St. Paul was persecuting "the way" as a blatant contradiction to his Jewish beliefs. So, please understand that "doubt" that is really "faith seeking understanding" is a virtue for me. But "doubt" that is not virtuous is thing: "The kind that does not believe the angel's message to Zachariah that John would be born from his wife. That doubt was immediately punished. Also, Satan saying, "I will not serve" is a doubt in the goodness and plan of God. Satan thought that Jesus should be an angel not a man. Satan had much more arrogance than the centurion who compared his authority to Jesus. But the centurion only did this so as to convince Jesus of the centurion's faith not to degregrate Jesus' authority in anyway. Also, doubt is bad when a person gives up, commits suicide because he doubts the goodness of the world..and because he has given up the virtue of HOPE. Vincent Van Gogh lost hope...if he had lived, he would have been a millionnaire in his own life time and could paint twenty-four seven if he wished. "Faith" is a supernatural gift from God to enable our natural minds to be able to see him. Jesus said: "Blesed are the pure of hart, for they will see God. (NOW not just in heaven). Being able to see God here and now persupposes some conditions: purity of heart. I am not speaking just about sexual purity (although it includes that); but I am talking about the humble posture of the soul that sees all the "good" that God has really placed here in ourselves, nature, our minds, our hearts, our longings, our hopes and dreams - even a man's dreams to have one and beautiful wife in a relationship that is permanent, exclusive and faithful. All that said, please understand that "purity of heart" as a prerequisite for seing God. We can ask God for the gift of purity of heart...even natural purity of heart...so that we can see Him in all things. Atheist's greatest problematic stance is that cannot see God in everything. They are more interested in seeing the bad in Mother Teresa than the good in her. Purity is the piercing of reality with the right microsope or telescope that is clear and not cloudy.
So, I cannot let go of the "shackles of faith and enter into the depth of doubt" because I see Faith as a Theological virtue - a grace from God. I see theological doubt (not scientic doubt which is good) as a volitional denial of the grace of Faith. And this "Faith" is a free gift from God. But just as Beethoven could not compose without some knowlege of music, could not hear the inspirations of God to write these marvelous works, we cannot hear the music of God in our own souls without first having the belief that God is there to give them to us.
Peace and love, Peter
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