How should we understand the following Ancient Greek phrases found in 2 Timothy 1? One possibility that is rarely found in English translations is presented below:
epaggelían zo:ê:s tê:s en /X/ristô:i Ie:soû (verse 1)
a proclamation of life that is by Christ Jesus
agápé:i tê:i en /X/ristô:i Ie:soû (verse 13)
love that is by Christ Jesus
In favour of this way of understanding these phrases are the following considerations:
(1) The eternal life that the gospel announces is always and forever by Christ Jesus, and not only in Christ Jesus (after the final judgement it is not life in Christ, as far as the New Testament says).
(2) Similarly, by the salvation that Christ Jesus provides, a human being can be filled with God's love (Romans 5). This love is not only in Christ Jesus, but is always and forever thanks to, that is to say by, Christ Jesus.
Monday, September 4, 2017
Sunday, September 3, 2017
The New Testament shows the divide between the Cooperative Principle and the Competitive Principle of linguistic communication
Eiséltʰate dià tè:s stenês púle:s
Go in through the narrow gate,
hóti plateîa he: púle: kaì eurú/x/o:ros he: hodòs he:
because wide is the gate and roomy the way that
apágousa
is leading away
eis tè:n apó:leian kaì polloí eisin
into the destruction, and many are
hoi eiser/x/ómenoi di' autê:s
the in-goers through it,
hóti stenè: he: púle: kaì tetʰlimméne:
because narrow is the gate and hard-pressured
he: hodòs he: apágousa
the way that is leading away
eis tè:n zo:è:n kaì olígoi eisìn
into the life, and few are
hoi heurìskontes auté:n
the finders of it.
The Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:13-14 (CFB)
Eàn agapâté me
If you would love Me,
tàs entolàs tàs emàs
the commandments of Mine
te:ré:sete
keep / you will keep,
kagò: ero:tè:so: tòn patéra
and I will ask the Father
kaì állon parákle:ton dó:sei
and another helper He will grant
humîn hína metʰ' humôn
to you, so that with you,
eis tòn aiô:na ê:i
into the aeon, It will be,
tò pneûma tê:s ale:tʰeías hò
the Spirit of the truth, whom
ho kósmos ou dúnatai labeîn
the world cannot receive,
hóti ou tʰeo:reî autò
because it does not see It
oudè ginó:skei
nor recognise It.
humeîs ginó:skete autó hóti
You know It, because
par' humîn ménei kaì
beside you It abides and
en humîn éstai
in / among you It will be.
The Lord Jesus Christ, John 14:15-17 (CFB)
Go in through the narrow gate,
hóti plateîa he: púle: kaì eurú/x/o:ros he: hodòs he:
because wide is the gate and roomy the way that
apágousa
is leading away
eis tè:n apó:leian kaì polloí eisin
into the destruction, and many are
hoi eiser/x/ómenoi di' autê:s
the in-goers through it,
hóti stenè: he: púle: kaì tetʰlimméne:
because narrow is the gate and hard-pressured
he: hodòs he: apágousa
the way that is leading away
eis tè:n zo:è:n kaì olígoi eisìn
into the life, and few are
hoi heurìskontes auté:n
the finders of it.
The Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:13-14 (CFB)
Eàn agapâté me
If you would love Me,
tàs entolàs tàs emàs
the commandments of Mine
te:ré:sete
keep / you will keep,
kagò: ero:tè:so: tòn patéra
and I will ask the Father
kaì állon parákle:ton dó:sei
and another helper He will grant
humîn hína metʰ' humôn
to you, so that with you,
eis tòn aiô:na ê:i
into the aeon, It will be,
tò pneûma tê:s ale:tʰeías hò
the Spirit of the truth, whom
ho kósmos ou dúnatai labeîn
the world cannot receive,
hóti ou tʰeo:reî autò
because it does not see It
oudè ginó:skei
nor recognise It.
humeîs ginó:skete autó hóti
You know It, because
par' humîn ménei kaì
beside you It abides and
en humîn éstai
in / among you It will be.
The Lord Jesus Christ, John 14:15-17 (CFB)
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Knowledge and science instead of a useless even injurious run-around
How can a person stick to knowledge and science, and avoid a run-around into falsehood, confusion, deception, wastefulness, injury, etc?
God says that humanity needs to study and obey His Word (cf. Proverbs 1; John 14).
The philosopher Socrates is reported to have said that he was wisest in Athens because he was honest in admitting when he did not know a true answer to a question.
University of Oxford professor John C. Lennox (mathematics) observed that science has been highly productive in producing knowledge (i.e. facts) by asking extremely limited questions. This is effective for two well-known reasons:
(1) It is possible for the scientific community to test extensively (in different ways and by different people) a hypothesis-answer to an extremely limited question. That testing filters out false hypotheses and obtains knowledge (facts, true statements).
(2) The true answers to extremely limited questions help science to ask and answer more (extremely limited) questions. Reductionism accumulates and links together facts.
So we have three highly credible (and tested) answers to our question.
From these answers, one can evaluate claims about scientific methodology made at a Swedish university recently (U. of Gothenburg), that "research traditions" are important, and that doing research using hypotheses is dangerous and unnecessary. [1]
Are research traditions (where a disciplinary field preserves specific methods) important for producing knowledge and science? Absolutely not: the history of science proves resolutely that research traditions have usually been the greatest obstacle to knowledge and science (cf. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). They should be treated like nuclear waste (figuratively speaking).
Are hypotheses dangerous and unnecessary in research whose goal is to produce knowledge and science? No. A hypothesis is a tentative claim that is made the object of evaluation. It is impossible to do research effectively unless one evaluates one's claims. A scientific work must identify what new claims it is making (i.e. what hypotheses it is raising for evaluation), so that these can be evaluated as either true or false.
Here is a useful distinction: science, journalism, churnalism. Science produces knowledge through critically evaluating claims in a way that can be agreed upon objectively or inter-subjectively. It cannot claim to produce knowledge if "only some people can see it". When only some people believe something, and cannot prove it to all other people, they have produced belief, not knowledge. Although they may claim to have produced esoteric (hidden) knowledge, verifying that in a way that all people can agree on is a demanding task in and of itself.
Journalism seeks to describe the world in a factual way. It claims, "This is what happened." It produces purported knowledge of the world. It is not scientific knowledge because journalism's process does not work with testing claims (hypotheses) that can then be tested by any other person (with the required research resources like microscopes or field-time). Journalism produces less reliable information about the Universe, and as such cannot participate in the highly productive process of reductionism and accumulation that science does. One cannot build on journalism's facts reliably, the way that one is supposed to be able to with science's facts.
Churnalism is a relatively new form of journalism, where the journalist simply takes the statements of others and assembles them into a new publication. There is no attempt to be factual beyond accurately repeating what others have said. Those statements may be complete falsehoods. No attempt to verify those statements is made at all. The onset of churnalism is related to the financial interests of journalistic publications, or perhaps more accurately named information media. Churnalism has few risks (of lawsuits for example) and low costs (information can be produced simply by "churning" information that others provide, through for example "press releases").
Astoundingly, a lot of what is published in the humanities field is closest to churnalism, in terms of informativeness, factuality, tendency to mislead, and method. Humanities academics often simply "churn" the contributors of others into a new publication, adding no knowledge (scientific or purported) at all. The typical method is to critique the work of other humanities academics using the theories of yet other humanities academics, thus merely churning. Without going into the self-defeating foundational ideas of the humanities dating from the early 19th century (ideas concerned with meetings of minds and similar romantic, poetical, unscientific concepts), one can conclude from the patent and ubiquitous churnalistic bankruptcy of the humanities that the entire project ought to be turned out of the universities, where the production of new knowledge should be the rule for all intellectual work.
This brings us back to the need for hypotheses, tentative truth claims that are subjected to rigorous testing to decide whether they are true or not. If they are true, then presto, one has produced knowledge (so long as the hypothesis is new).
What can we say of Gothenburg University regarding hypotheses as dangerous because its students do not know how to handle them? It is a confirmation that the humanities are not really in the business of producing knowledge. Again, the growth of knowledge can only come through making and testing tentative truth claims (hypotheses). If a humanities department (e.g. for the study of religions) has not trained its students to handle hypotheses, then it is unlikely that its focus is knowledge, and much more likely that it is engaged in a highly manicured form of churnalism. That is, although it will claim society's prestige and resources to focus on knowledge, its ineptitude and fear in regard to hypotheses unmasks it as a churnalistic organization.
Once one has made the decision to stick to knowledge and science and to avoid a useless (even injurious) run-around, there still remain a huge number of pitfalls that the history of science and knowledge-production informs us of. One of the best summaries here is by the Cornell University agricultural scientist and theory of science scholar Hugh G. Gauch, Jr., Scientific Method in Brief (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Many scientists can attest to hitting unjust obstacles set up within their community. Gauch gives various examples of the kinds of unjust obstacles appearing regularly in the scientific community. A particularly important type of obstacle also appears regularly in the humanities: "the fallacy of unobtainable perfection". Let's let the talented Dr. Gauch describe it for us:
Again Gothenburg University furnishes a cautionary case-example. An obligatory course for a BA degree in theology sets up a range of requirements for students to meet, but some of these requirements are defined so vaguely that a student must hope that the university official's arbitrary decision will be favourable so that the student can receive a degree for several years' work. Specifically, students in this course (RKT 145) should at the course's completion be able to:
Science outside engineering and other applied areas rarely talks about "scientific solutions" to "scientific problems", not least because science doesn't progress that way. Science asks questions and then tries to answer them truthfully. Hey do you have a solution on gravity? What's your solution on the effects of sucrose on mammals? Science doesn't orient to solutions but to questions and hypotheses.
_______________
Notes:
[1] The context was theology and the study of religions. The assertion that hypotheses are dangerous focused on the inability of university students to handle them properly.
The associate professor who made these claims has disagreed that I have understood what he said, and requested I publish an apology. At present I do not yet see any evidence that I have misunderstood the points at issue. In lieu of an apology, I asked if I could publish the email where he argues I've misunderstood and requests an apology, to which he agreed. Here is the main body text of the email.
Jag
önskar dig lycka till med ditt uppsatsarbete, men i fortsättningen
skulle jag stämma av med den person som du kritiserar innan
du gör det offentligt på en blogg. Det skulle vara trevligt om du kunde
föra in en ursäkt på din blogg att du missuppfattat det jag sa på
presentationen.
To understand the associate professor's email with more context, I include here the immediately preceding email from me to him.
Jag ber om ursäkt om jag har missuppfattat din presentation. Jag har ett starkt minne av att du sade:
(a) grundutbildningsstudenter har ofta svårt att hantera hypoteser, exempelvis de fokuserar på att driva på och stödja sin egen idé. Min sammanfattning var att presentationen håller hypoteser för farliga (en universitetsstudent kan ej nödvändigtvis hantera dem).
(b)
grundutbildningsstudenter behöver inte ha en hypotes. Min sammanfattning
var därför att din presentation höll hypoteser för icke nödvändiga.
Jag hoppas att du inte tar det personligt att jag tar upp kritiska invändningar. Jag menar inte att göra personpåhopp eller dylikt. Jag tar på största allvar universitetets uppgift att producera kunskap och vetenskap, och i linje med denna uppgift försöker jag dela mina kritiska invändningar med dig och offentligt. En definition av vetenskap som finns i literaturen är "a community of scepticism". Ingen perfekt definition kanske, men den närmar sig det som krävs för att universitetet ska vara vetenskapligt (producerar kunskap).
[2] Gauch, Scientific Method in Brief, p. 125.
[3] "redogöra för centrala teoretiska perspektiv inom något av de fem ämnesområdena samt koppla dessa till identifierade problem"
[4] "kommunicera vetenskapliga problem och lösningar"
God says that humanity needs to study and obey His Word (cf. Proverbs 1; John 14).
The philosopher Socrates is reported to have said that he was wisest in Athens because he was honest in admitting when he did not know a true answer to a question.
University of Oxford professor John C. Lennox (mathematics) observed that science has been highly productive in producing knowledge (i.e. facts) by asking extremely limited questions. This is effective for two well-known reasons:
(1) It is possible for the scientific community to test extensively (in different ways and by different people) a hypothesis-answer to an extremely limited question. That testing filters out false hypotheses and obtains knowledge (facts, true statements).
(2) The true answers to extremely limited questions help science to ask and answer more (extremely limited) questions. Reductionism accumulates and links together facts.
So we have three highly credible (and tested) answers to our question.
From these answers, one can evaluate claims about scientific methodology made at a Swedish university recently (U. of Gothenburg), that "research traditions" are important, and that doing research using hypotheses is dangerous and unnecessary. [1]
Are research traditions (where a disciplinary field preserves specific methods) important for producing knowledge and science? Absolutely not: the history of science proves resolutely that research traditions have usually been the greatest obstacle to knowledge and science (cf. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). They should be treated like nuclear waste (figuratively speaking).
Are hypotheses dangerous and unnecessary in research whose goal is to produce knowledge and science? No. A hypothesis is a tentative claim that is made the object of evaluation. It is impossible to do research effectively unless one evaluates one's claims. A scientific work must identify what new claims it is making (i.e. what hypotheses it is raising for evaluation), so that these can be evaluated as either true or false.
Here is a useful distinction: science, journalism, churnalism. Science produces knowledge through critically evaluating claims in a way that can be agreed upon objectively or inter-subjectively. It cannot claim to produce knowledge if "only some people can see it". When only some people believe something, and cannot prove it to all other people, they have produced belief, not knowledge. Although they may claim to have produced esoteric (hidden) knowledge, verifying that in a way that all people can agree on is a demanding task in and of itself.
Journalism seeks to describe the world in a factual way. It claims, "This is what happened." It produces purported knowledge of the world. It is not scientific knowledge because journalism's process does not work with testing claims (hypotheses) that can then be tested by any other person (with the required research resources like microscopes or field-time). Journalism produces less reliable information about the Universe, and as such cannot participate in the highly productive process of reductionism and accumulation that science does. One cannot build on journalism's facts reliably, the way that one is supposed to be able to with science's facts.
Churnalism is a relatively new form of journalism, where the journalist simply takes the statements of others and assembles them into a new publication. There is no attempt to be factual beyond accurately repeating what others have said. Those statements may be complete falsehoods. No attempt to verify those statements is made at all. The onset of churnalism is related to the financial interests of journalistic publications, or perhaps more accurately named information media. Churnalism has few risks (of lawsuits for example) and low costs (information can be produced simply by "churning" information that others provide, through for example "press releases").
Astoundingly, a lot of what is published in the humanities field is closest to churnalism, in terms of informativeness, factuality, tendency to mislead, and method. Humanities academics often simply "churn" the contributors of others into a new publication, adding no knowledge (scientific or purported) at all. The typical method is to critique the work of other humanities academics using the theories of yet other humanities academics, thus merely churning. Without going into the self-defeating foundational ideas of the humanities dating from the early 19th century (ideas concerned with meetings of minds and similar romantic, poetical, unscientific concepts), one can conclude from the patent and ubiquitous churnalistic bankruptcy of the humanities that the entire project ought to be turned out of the universities, where the production of new knowledge should be the rule for all intellectual work.
This brings us back to the need for hypotheses, tentative truth claims that are subjected to rigorous testing to decide whether they are true or not. If they are true, then presto, one has produced knowledge (so long as the hypothesis is new).
What can we say of Gothenburg University regarding hypotheses as dangerous because its students do not know how to handle them? It is a confirmation that the humanities are not really in the business of producing knowledge. Again, the growth of knowledge can only come through making and testing tentative truth claims (hypotheses). If a humanities department (e.g. for the study of religions) has not trained its students to handle hypotheses, then it is unlikely that its focus is knowledge, and much more likely that it is engaged in a highly manicured form of churnalism. That is, although it will claim society's prestige and resources to focus on knowledge, its ineptitude and fear in regard to hypotheses unmasks it as a churnalistic organization.
Once one has made the decision to stick to knowledge and science and to avoid a useless (even injurious) run-around, there still remain a huge number of pitfalls that the history of science and knowledge-production informs us of. One of the best summaries here is by the Cornell University agricultural scientist and theory of science scholar Hugh G. Gauch, Jr., Scientific Method in Brief (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Many scientists can attest to hitting unjust obstacles set up within their community. Gauch gives various examples of the kinds of unjust obstacles appearing regularly in the scientific community. A particularly important type of obstacle also appears regularly in the humanities: "the fallacy of unobtainable perfection". Let's let the talented Dr. Gauch describe it for us:
An alluring fallacy for scientists is unobtainable perfection, or at least excessive perfection. This fallacy discredits a result by requiring greater accuracy or scope. For instance, if a paper under review compares methods A and B, a reviewer might say that it must also compare method C in ordre to be publishable. But simply to complain that more could be done is irrelevant because this is always the case. Rather, the relevant criteria are whether that paper adds to what was known before and whether it has some theoretical interest or practical value. [2]
Again Gothenburg University furnishes a cautionary case-example. An obligatory course for a BA degree in theology sets up a range of requirements for students to meet, but some of these requirements are defined so vaguely that a student must hope that the university official's arbitrary decision will be favourable so that the student can receive a degree for several years' work. Specifically, students in this course (RKT 145) should at the course's completion be able to:
"describe central theoretical perspectives in one of the five disciplinary areas and connect these to identified problems" [3]
"communicate scientific problems and solutions" [4]What are "the central theoretical perspectives" in any humanities field? There is a continuous upheaval and expansion in the theories of a humanities field, not least because of churnalism (where theory is substituted for knowledge). So this is an arbitrary decision to be made by a university official, a situation exacerbated by requiring a student to "connect" these theoretical perspectives to "identified problems". The spectre of unobtainable perfection appears quite clearly here. But that spectre really gets to spook when armed with the requirement to communicate "scientific solutions" to problems established in the humanities. What are these? Only the university official can say, using his or her arbitrary calculation.
Science outside engineering and other applied areas rarely talks about "scientific solutions" to "scientific problems", not least because science doesn't progress that way. Science asks questions and then tries to answer them truthfully. Hey do you have a solution on gravity? What's your solution on the effects of sucrose on mammals? Science doesn't orient to solutions but to questions and hypotheses.
_______________
Notes:
[1] The context was theology and the study of religions. The assertion that hypotheses are dangerous focused on the inability of university students to handle them properly.
The associate professor who made these claims has disagreed that I have understood what he said, and requested I publish an apology. At present I do not yet see any evidence that I have misunderstood the points at issue. In lieu of an apology, I asked if I could publish the email where he argues I've misunderstood and requests an apology, to which he agreed. Here is the main body text of the email.
Jag menar inte att hypoteser per se är farliga; det är en uppenbar missuppfattning.
Den
fråga som ställs i en uppsats kan antingen inbegripa en hypotes eller
inte. Det är fortfarande en fråga: dvs. Är denna hypotes
hållbar? Man anför då argument och bevis mot och för hypotesen som på
detta sätt prövas. Detta är helt oproblematiskt.
Sedan är det ett empiriskt faktum att många studenter inte är så pass insatta i sitt fält att de har formulerat en hypotes.
Vissa
studenter har dock en kvasireligiös tro på sin hypotes, med andra ord
oavsett vilken kritik som framförs eller vilka motbevis
som läggs fram så håller man fast vid den. Då är det inte längre en
fråga om hypotesprövning utan om ett slags religiös tro.
To understand the associate professor's email with more context, I include here the immediately preceding email from me to him.
Jag ber om ursäkt om jag har missuppfattat din presentation. Jag har ett starkt minne av att du sade:
(a) grundutbildningsstudenter har ofta svårt att hantera hypoteser, exempelvis de fokuserar på att driva på och stödja sin egen idé. Min sammanfattning var att presentationen håller hypoteser för farliga (en universitetsstudent kan ej nödvändigtvis hantera dem).
Jag
står kritiskt till dessa påståenden i din presentation, och står fast
vid min sammanfattning (dock det kan förbättras genom att bakgrundsfakta
läggs fram. Jag bör göra det.)
Jag hoppas att du inte tar det personligt att jag tar upp kritiska invändningar. Jag menar inte att göra personpåhopp eller dylikt. Jag tar på största allvar universitetets uppgift att producera kunskap och vetenskap, och i linje med denna uppgift försöker jag dela mina kritiska invändningar med dig och offentligt. En definition av vetenskap som finns i literaturen är "a community of scepticism". Ingen perfekt definition kanske, men den närmar sig det som krävs för att universitetet ska vara vetenskapligt (producerar kunskap).
[2] Gauch, Scientific Method in Brief, p. 125.
[3] "redogöra för centrala teoretiska perspektiv inom något av de fem ämnesområdena samt koppla dessa till identifierade problem"
[4] "kommunicera vetenskapliga problem och lösningar"
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Biblical infallibility is masked by use of the Competitive Principle
Update: My understanding of the infallibility of the Bible has progressed since writing this 7 years ago. Please see my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible.
_______
But I have also found much evidence of the operation of the Competitive Principle, both in how the Bible teaches and how readers treat the Bible. That is, there are two directions of competition: the writer's competitiveness and the reader's competitiveness. The result of this competition we can see today: many readers "discover" huge amounts of fake evidence that the Bible is not infallible. They wanted to find it and did; they approached their reading of the Bible competitively rather than cooperatively. Similarly, Almighty God is described in the Bible as wanting that very same outcome (Proverbs 1:7; Matthew 13:10-15; Luke 8:9-10).
What is the Competitive Principle? See the articles at this website about it.
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Is theology an esoteric science?
Update: Schisms and apostasy may have been caused during the first and second millennia AD by factors other than the professional practice of theology. I.e. schism and apostasy may have been largely caused by lack of genuineness about being a disciple of Christ.
____________
Firstly there is the testimony from God's Holy Word.
(1) Christ Jesus is described repeatedly by different sources (Mt 13:10-15; Lk 8:9-10) as having taught deliberately in an esoteric way about the Kingdom of God.
(2) Christ Jesus also is described as having said that few people find the way to eternal fellowship with God (Mt 7:13-14).
(3) Christ also is reported to have said that only the obedient can and will receive the spirit of truth (John 14:15-17). This is echoed in Christ's warning that the way to life is difficult, through a narrow gate, suggesting obedience that is highly demanding (Mt 7:13-14).
(5) Saint Paul the Apostle described that the announcement of God's Kingdom and the rescue through Christ Jesus could not be perceived by people going into eternal condemnation, whose minds were blinded by "the god of this aeon", i.e. the Devil, the Satan (2 Cor 4:3-4).
(6) God is described also in the Old Testament as having a personal quality of following a principle of competition in communication, rather than cooperation, with certain types of people (Ps 18:26; Ps 25:12-14; Prov 1:7).
Secondly, the testimony of the Holy Bible is confirmed by what (perhaps) anyone can see in the experience of the universe.
(7) Simultaneous with the establishment of theology as a discipline of a university, i.e. as a universally accessible science, there was a catastrophic and since-then unretrieved loss of consensus among the community of nominal Christian theologians and practitioners on how a human being gains eternal fellowship with God (i.e. inherits the Kingdom of God). Although the first milennium also witnessed schisms (also thanks to the inability of theologians to preserve agreement), it is the second millennium of Christianity, when theology detaches from churches and runs its own course, that could be called the Age of Schisms.
This, despite the conditions for inheriting eternal life being the central topic of the New Testament's 27 books, whose study was already then circa 1000 years old.
As of A.D. 2017, the absence of consensus has persisted. For example, teaching on the topic of how to enter eternal life differs radically among the three main groups of churches, the Orthodox, the Catholic, and the Protestant.
(8) The academic/scientific interpretation of the New Testament is fractured and confused, lacking consensus on most or all of the texts that are focused on inheriting eternal life. The field of New Testament Studies can be compared with illegal genetics modification research, for its chaos and destructiveness. Only rarely does it produce beneficial (actual, relevant) knowledge (see for example the scholarship of Joachim Jeremias).
(9) Outward evidence of citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven is found only among few. There are only few Christians who are martyrs, in the classical, original sense of losing earthly foundations (life, health, property, etc.) for the sake of their testimony and loyalty to their heavenly foundations. It is also very rare to observe the fruit of the Holy Spirit (cf. Galatians 5) among nominal Christians.
(10) Rationality requires obedience to God, given the incontrovertible evidence that a supreme God created the Universe and the infinite cost of being condemned to eternal Hell fire and torment (cf. Pascal's Wager). However, most people do not choose obedience.
(11) Rationality would also suggest that God, when making an eternal choice of who will live with Him and His family, will create severe tests of loyalty, where 'faking it' isn't possible. This would make it less plausible that eternal life could be inherited on the basis of making a certain confessional statement or doing certain actions (that could be performed mechanically).
Now, is there a way to prove objectively the existence of esoteric knowledge? Some pathways are worth considering:
(a) If the proper interpretation of the New Testament is hidden, then one would expect certain phenomena to be observable.
- No consensus on the interpretation of the New Testament.
- All attempts to formulate an objective description of how to inherit the Kingdom of God and eternal life will fail to gain agreement.
- Widespread claims by practising Christians that there is esoteric knowledge (cf. Christian mysticism) central to the practise of Christian discipleship.
(b) A technology whose operation is kept secret (hidden, esoteric) provides a simple example of being able to prove the existence of esoteric knowledge. The operation (work) of the technology can be seen; for example, a mobile phone is able to perform some operation. However, the way that the mobile phone does this is kept secret.
Generalising, the hypothesis that "how to do X is esoteric knowledge" fails to be refuted so long as it is possible to see X being performed, and yet no explanation (knowledge) of how to do X is forthcoming.
Returning to our case of the New Testament, and specifically its teaching on how to inherit the Kingdom of God (and eternal life), we see that if one can see that inheritance, and no explanation of how the inheritors have done so is forthcoming, then the knowledge of how to inherit can be said to be esoteric (hidden, secret).
Can one see inheritance of the Kingdom of God? One of the key texts that helps to answer this question is Romans 8:14-17.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (AKJV)
This text clarifies that one can see the preconditions of inheritance: (a) being led by the Spirit of God; (b) suffering with Christ; (c) glorification with Christ. It is difficult to believe that a person evidencing all these three preconditions would not inherit God's Kingdom and eternal life.
A very similar picture of the road to eternal life is found in Philippians 3:8-14.
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 11 if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (AKJV)
Certainly, these texts from Saint Paul are consistent with the warning by Christ Jesus that the way to eternal life is hard-pressured and few find it. It is notable that both Pauline texts talk about the process of suffering with Christ and being glorified with Christ, in a way that is at least a little cloudy (mysterious? hidden? esoteric?).
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Notes
AKJV: KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
God's Word is perfect, but Christians "all stumble a lot"
Update: on infallibility, please see my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible.
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The infallible translation of Matthew 5:48 would instead read, "Thus you will be absolute [i.e. unqualified, in loving all], as the Father of yours, the Heavenly [one] is absolute."
Here as most elsewhere in the Holy Bible we see the operation of the Competitive Principle, where God's Word allows for misunderstanding by the uncooperative reader.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Tragedies of mistranslation: the case of snake, poison and illness protection
Mark 16:17a
Greek: semeîa dè toîs pisteúsasin taûta parasoloutʰèsei
Proposed solution: And signs will accompany them having been faithful to these things [i.e. Christ’s commandment in Mark 16:14 to go into the entire world and preach the good news to all Creation]
Importance: The dominant translation tradition (at least from the KJV onward) opens the door for the tragic and possibly entirely wrong practice of testing Christian belief by handling poisonous snakes, or insisting on healing without medical doctors or medicines (cp. Ecclesiasticus / Ben Sira 38:1-15), etc.
Evidence in favour of the proposed solution:
(1) The New Testament repeatedly describes precisely these miraculous signs accompanying Christ’s apostles.
(2) The logic of the text fits with the rest of the New Testament: God does miracles so that people will believe God’s messengers.
(3) That logic—of apostles being confirmed and aided by God’s provision of miraculous signs—is explicitly described in the immediately following text (Mark 16:20).
(4) The Christian Bible explicitly gives place to medical science as a gift from God (Ecclesiasticus / Ben Sira 38:1-15). If every church (or every Christian) could heal, there would be no need for Holy Scripture to exhort believers to go to physicians (who pray to God).
Proposed solution: And signs will accompany them having been faithful to these things [i.e. Christ’s commandment in Mark 16:14 to go into the entire world and preach the good news to all Creation]
Importance: The dominant translation tradition (at least from the KJV onward) opens the door for the tragic and possibly entirely wrong practice of testing Christian belief by handling poisonous snakes, or insisting on healing without medical doctors or medicines (cp. Ecclesiasticus / Ben Sira 38:1-15), etc.
Evidence in favour of the proposed solution:
(1) The New Testament repeatedly describes precisely these miraculous signs accompanying Christ’s apostles.
(2) The logic of the text fits with the rest of the New Testament: God does miracles so that people will believe God’s messengers.
(3) That logic—of apostles being confirmed and aided by God’s provision of miraculous signs—is explicitly described in the immediately following text (Mark 16:20).
(4) The Christian Bible explicitly gives place to medical science as a gift from God (Ecclesiasticus / Ben Sira 38:1-15). If every church (or every Christian) could heal, there would be no need for Holy Scripture to exhort believers to go to physicians (who pray to God).
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