Nathaniel and Human Nature, A Reflection

A few moments after my son Nathaniel's birth, I sat next to him in the intensive care unit alone.  The technological contraptions going in and around him weighed more than his meager four pounds.  Yet his eyes were wide open to a whole new world –a world which began with a brown and bearded man whispering nonsense to him behind tempered glass =)   I imagined his future and what it could possibly entail.  So many possibilities.  Some seemed hopeful, some seemed dreadful.

The British empiricist John Locke believes that humans beings start out as a tabula rasa, a blank slate.  Experience writes the language of all thought and concepts onto the mind.  It means that in this moment Nathaniel's mind is not just immature and undeveloped; it is literally blank and bare and thus has within it endless possibilities.  Gottfried Leibniz disagrees.  Instead of a blank slate, Leibniz says a better image is an unformed block of marble.  A raw block with its own crevices, cleavages, and veins.  And of course in order for an artist to sculpt and form the marble he has to creatively work with (and around) these veins and cleavages.  So for Leibniz, it means that in this moment Nathaniel’s mind is just beginning to be chiseled and shaped.  The possibilities are wide open, but they are not the same for every block of marble.  So it is with us, says Leibniz.  So then what is going to shape and chisel my son over his 60+ years?  What will his final shape ultimately turn out to be?  And if Leibniz is right, what cleavages and crevices are already a part of him now?

A Christian worldview says (similar to Leibniz) we are born with an innate nature –a rebellious one.  We not only have cracks and crevices that have pre-shaped us, but our cleavage is so deep that its contours actually tend toward self-destruction.  This was the dreadful part of my imaginings.  I felt an instantaneous desperation to pray for my son, like my father once felt for me.  No matter how much or how little I might chisel, his ultimate shape is outside my control.

If this is the world Nathaniel is born into, he will need more than many skilled hands to shape him.  He needs to be a “rock that is cut, but not by human hands.”  He needs cuts that reform the actual cleavages… not just go around them. 

This is my prayer for my son.

The Mindset of Prayer

“Nothing is more important to a life of prayer, than learning how to become a branch (John 15:4).”

         –Richard J. Foster

Behind the Name

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” – James 1:17

Two months after exposing my true heart for Heidi in the dusty streets of Delhi, the Holy Spirit opened this verse to speak to her.  The Spirit showed her, she says, that I (and our marriage) would be a gift from above.  And even though we often change our minds, the Father doesn't.  Heidi felt a release.  She no longer needed to waver through old fears.  The thrill in me of a new journey together was enhanced by an amazing strength and courage I saw in my new fiancé through this.  A strength that sprouted in seeing the God behind this verse.

The culmination of our “gift” is a little boy the Lord has given us.  He is 7 months old (in the womb).  He is the consummation of God's promise of a good and perfect gift.  Our little one reminds us that in the midst of risk and indecision, all we can hold on to is actually not within us.  We hold on to something that first has to be received.  A gift from above.

The name of our little boy is Nathaniel.  Nathaniel means “gift of God.”

Priesthood over Politics

Antiochus IV gave himself the name “Epiphanes.”  He saw himself as the visible manifestation of Zeus -the most high god.  But on the road from Syria to his most prized conquest Egypt, there was trouble stirring.  The Jewish priests of Jerusalem squabbled and skirmished about who was the rightful high priest.  Antiochus had little patience.  He sent in the army.  After a brutal suppression, he outlawed Jewish worship and practice.  He intentionally desecrated the temple and erected an idol of Zeus within, forcing the Jews to worship it.

An old priest named Mattathias would have none of that.  He and his sons began open rebellion against the Greeks, refusing to be threatened by death.  After two surprising victories, they eventually marched into Jerusalem to reconsecrate the defiled temple.  If you didn't already know, this is what is remembered during the Hanukkah feast.  According to Josephus, Mattathias' son Judas also assumed the title of high priest and after Judas' death, his younger brother Simon became ruler and high priest (cf. 1 Macc 13:41-42).

For the first time in 400 years, the yoke of foreign occupation was cast off, and Jews could rule themselves again.  Unprecedented in Judaism, Simon was both king and priest.  I'll repeat that: Simon was both king and priest.  It was unheard of in the Jewish world because kingship was to be from the line of David, a descendent of Judah.  The priesthood was only permitted from the line of Levi.  But Simon and Judas' messianic heroism inaugurated a new age of restoration.  The priesthood was reinstated by casting off political oppression.  Intercession with God was now free and unhindered.  That is, if the political status quo was maintained.

Of course it wasn't.  Two hundred years later, once again under foreign oppression, two brothers approached their rabbi with the same messianic/political hopes in mind.  “May we sit at your right and left hand when you come into your kingdom?”  As N.T. Wright says, they were attempting to secure their cabinet positions in the government as they supposed Jesus would shortly become king.  Jesus says, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you... even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mk 10:42-45).”

It was priesthood over politics.  Sacrifice first, political implications second.  He became king in a way, no other person could even have imagined.  He became priest (outside of Levi) in a way no one had remembered (cf. Ps 110:4, Heb 7:1-28).  There were so many Jewish rebellions and messianic contenders hoping to bring the kingdom back to rightful Jewish rule.  The rebellion of Zedekiah, the Maccabeus (as I described above), the rebellion of Theudas and later –during the census– Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:36-37), and of course the Zealots of A.D. 70 and the final rebellion of Simon Bar Kokhba (A.D. 135).  They all sought to reinstate Jewish worship and true priesthood by casting off political oppression.  Jesus of Nazareth was the only one who did it the other way around.  Reinstating the kingdom that was lost... by starting with the work of a priest.

Priesthood over politics.  Something that his followers (like James and John) still struggle with.

Identical or Inseparable

During the impeachment hearing, President Clinton tried to rationalize his case to the grand jury by asking the question: “That depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is!”  His distinction of present and past tense was perceived by many to be quite contrived.  Be that as it may, there is still some important distinctions to be made between different uses of the word “is.”  And the implications here can be huge.  But first, let's understand the distinction.

1. Socrates is the teacher of Plato.
2. Socrates is tall.

Sentence (1) is an identity statement.  The use of “is” is for identity purposes.  Socrates is identical with that person who happens to be the teacher of Plato.  Sentence (2) is not an identity statement.  It is what grammarians call predication, and what I will call attribution.  Socrates is not identical to all things tall (there are many redwoods that are not Socrates, for instance), but rather Socrates merely has the attribute or property of being tall.  There are actually 2-3 other uses of “is,” that I won't talk about.

Around the world today it is common to hear phrases like:  To be Thai is to be Buddhist.  To be Swedish is to be Lutheran.  To be Malaysian (according to the constitution!) is to be Muslim.  To be Italian is to be Roman Catholic.

These phrases show what anthropologists have insisted on for years.  That so many cultures (unlike many western cultures) do not draw sharp and distinct lines between their family, community, religious, national and political life.  For most cultures in fact, it all flows together in a seamless whole.  To break off one aspect is to undo the rest.  This reality tempts many anthropologists to make the case that these phrases show how the religious categories of many other cultures actually function as ethnic/cultural categories as well.  These cultures, they say, do not see these categories as distinct.

But first, let's use what we've learned and ask this question: Is the use of “is” in each of these statements, the “is” of identity or the “is” of attribution?  A moment's reflection shows that it is the “is” of attribution.  We know this because if being Thai and being Buddhist mark out the same category (identical), then there would not be any non-Thai Buddhists.  But of course there are: Tibetans, Japanese, Richard Gere =) , even the Buddha himself.  Every Thai person knows this.  This is not surprising to them.  Yet what do they mean when they might say “to be Thai is to be Buddhist”?  They mean that the attribute of being Buddhist always comes with being Thai.  In their minds it is an inseparable attribute.  Inseparable, not identical.  Do you see the distinction here?

Look at a Venn Diagram.

Substitute (A) for Buddhist (B) for Thai.  When a Thai person says “To be Thai is to be Buddhist” is she implying the diagram on the left or the right?  I am arguing it is actually the diagram on the right.  She is saying all Thai people are within the category of being Buddhist.  But she will readily admit not all Buddhists are Thai.  The categories are not identical and interchangeable.  That's because she is using the “is” of attribution, not identity.  And it is a particular type of attribute that is easy to confuse with identity –an inseparable attribute.  Second, it would actually be a meaningless statement if it was identity!  If being Buddhist means nothing more than the cultural designation of “being Thai”, then all the statement would mean is “to be Thai is to be Thai” –which is trivially true.  It is a meaningless tautology –certainly not what its advocates seem to mean.

Similarly, when a Malaysian goes to Canada on business or goes on the hajj and meets non-Malaysian Muslims, is he befuddled?  Since he believes the statement “to be Malaysian is to be Muslim,” does he have a category for non-Malaysian Muslims?  Of course he does.  And the reason it is possible in his mind, is only because that statement is not an identity statement for him.  It is attribution.  In his mind, what he truly believes is that Malaysians have an inseparable attribute of only being Muslim.  Inseparable, not identical.  If he believed those categories were identical he would have no comprehension of a non-Malaysian Muslim.

Take the concepts of faith and works in the bible.  Classic theology insists that faith and works are inseparable within the life of a true believer.  Those with true faith will have true works.  They will always flow together.  They are inseparable.  Now, does that mean they are identical?  If they necessarily flow together, does that mean faith and works must be the same thing?  No, of course not.  Though they are inseparable, they are still distinct things.

This distinction can re-clarify some of the blurring that anthropologists are sensing with non-western cultural and religious categories.  It is true that these categories are not used in the same way that they are used in Europe and North America.  They are not compartmentalized into their own hemisphere.  Culture and religion are organically tied to one another.  But being tied to one another (inseparable) is different than being identical.  And for anthropologists that are inclined to see identity here, I think, they underestimate the subtle nuances that non-western cultures really do have under the surface.