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andersent
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 12:19 am |
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hi all,
I have another perplexing question about the theology of the OT. Why is it that God was revealing all sorts of stuff about what to eat, what not to eat, how to go to war, what to do if a woman has her period, etc, but He never gets around to saying "oh yeah, by the way, you all have eternal souls, and after this life, there will be a judgment and eternity hangs in the balance..." I mean, it seems to me that this is the greatest revealed truth, yet it is kept secret until the coming of Christ (it does seem that the OT writers start to understand it shortly before the time of Christ, but i think what bothers me is that all the ceremonial stuff had some relevance to that culture, but I just can't figure why it would never be mentioned that what we do in this life follows us to the next..). I know you can find comments here or there in psalms, or later on like in the book of wisdom, etc. But in the Torah, where all this important stuff for Isreal is mentioned, it seems like God Himself is more concerned about the temporal realm and Isreal as a people within that temporal realm, than He is about telling the people about what ultimately really matters..Heaven and Hell....I mean, these people have eternal souls too, right? So if a revelation is given, why not mention at least something about it? I guess I just keep getting stumped by the Old Testament b/c it seems like it is all about death, and temporal blessings, etc. it just seems so primitive. It doesn't reveal to man who He really is--an immortal being whose temporal life has eternal consequences. Why wouldn't that be hinted at?? It just seems so important to me for humanity to understand that, but it's almost like God duped the Israelites by letting them think that this life is all that there is...
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CajunRick
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 01:20 am |
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andersent wrote: it just seems so primitive.
The people were primitive in their faith. Just like you can't explain to a child that developing good study habits in the first grade will benefit him in college, God could not present concepts of eternity to those of an immature faith. Instead, God had to give them specific tasks, just like we have to tell the first grader to spend a half hour a day on spelling words, to brush his teeth for so many minutes, and to be in bed by a certain time. As the child gets older, the rules become less specific and more general because the child is capable of a better understanding. When Jesus came, he presented a more mature faith to a society that was capable of understanding it, and yet we are still struggling with some of the concepts like how eternity can make itself present temporally.
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beachmoss
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 01:33 am |
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| I have often thought of God as a Father figure in the Old Testament. He is strict, authoritative, and sets the rules. By the time of the New Testament His kids have grown up and He becomes more grandfatherly. He has previously laid down the laws and He sees them being followed. He can now enjoy His creatures and they can relax a little and please Him just by being.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 01:40 am |
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Welcome back, Todd. Your musings are always a joy to read. Now you are asking about the concept of eternity, especially the eternal aspect of the human soul, and why it took so long for God to reveal it.
Well, let me first ask you how old you were when you first started thinking about eternity and associating it with God and heaven. Where did you get the idea? What did you understand about eternity at that time — was it accurate? Was it complete? Was it, at that time, useful?
All human ideas, even if somehow first revealed by God, do not just appear full-blown. There are precedents and there are developments. Take the mathematical concept of zero. It was known for some time prior that one was not the same as none. But it took a Muslim culture during the European medieval times to work out the idea to the point that it could be useful. Later, Christians took it over and developed systems such as calculus and symbolic logic, which use zero in ways never imagined by the early Muslims.
So also with many religious ideas. The concept of eternity is not a divinely revealed one, even in the New Testament; it is simply assumed. For the Jews, it came out of contact with other cultures, such as the middle eastern and Greek. If the Jews had not been exiled, if they had not formed the diaspora, likely the idea of eternity would still be foreign to Judaism by the time Jesus Christ was born. Then where would we be?
Yet it is not as if there were no germ of it in the ancient Israelite religion. In Genesis 49:26 we read, “The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.” And in Deuteronomy 33:27, we encounter the phrase “the eternal God.”
The word “forever,” of course, does not denote eternity but rather a very long time. But it can be seen as a precursor of the idea of eternity, which is defined as the absence of time.
But why is God “more concerned about the temporal realm, than he is about telling the people about what ultimately really matters… Heaven and Hell…?” One is compelled reply by asking in turn, “Did these ancients know about ultimate things? How could these things ‘ultimately matter’ to someone who has no concept of ‘ultimate significance’?”
These days, we take television for granted. A couple of centuries ago it was not even imagined that such a thing was physically possible. Why would God want to “jump the gun” by offering incomprehensible ideas long before their time? How well do you think they would be received? Are we all to be fundamentalists?
I guess I just keep getting stumped by the Old Testament b/c it seems like it is all about death, and temporal blessings, etc. it just seems so primitive. It doesn't reveal to man who He really is--an immortal being whose temporal life has eternal consequences. Why wouldn't that be hinted at??
My point is, why would it be hinted at until their proper time? And seeing the little hints I have mentioned above, poor as they are, at least they are not contradictory to the later development.
In like manner, the idea of the Messiah formed very slowly and clumsily over centuries, as the Old Testament demonstrates. When he finally did appear, how was he received? Why should we think that such an idea as eternal existence or eternal retribution would be received so enthusiastically?
David
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andersent
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 09:03 am |
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| All, thanks for your good replies. For the most part, the answers you are giving me are suggesting that people wouldn't have understood anyhow back then, so God had to wait until humanity was ready. That makes some snese to me. But the question remains for me...the afterlife is more important than this life...that's one of the great revelations of the Christian faith (even if you want to argue that the conecpt of eternity isn't fully revelaed in the NT at least the notion of an after life is). I guess part of me would still expect God in the OT to let people know that there is such a thing as the after life not so that they would fully understand it or receive it with enthusiam but b/c it is that important. It is surely more important to each individual soul than is the matter of what we eat, and all of the things found in th OT....i guess the aim of the old covenant seems, to me, to leave out the most important thing of all...the sanctification and salvation of individuals so that each can be prepared to live with God in the next life.
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Br_Carlo
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 09:56 am |
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God's peace. Just how foreign the idea of eternity is to our creaturely mindset can be seen when one looks at how difficult the concept of "deep" or geological time is! I am a biology teacher, and I can tell you that highschoolers haven't the foggiest notion of deep time. And these are modern teens! It's far easier for them to believe that men walked on the moon than it is to imagine a million years. If they can't even imagine that the last dinosaurs died 65 million years ago, how can they be expected to imagine eternity?
Here's a little illustration that I use to help get the concept across. I take a ball of kite string and tie a knot in it about 6" from the free end. This knot measures 1 millimeter across, and I let it stand for 1,000 years. The free side of the knot is today, while the ball side is 1,000 years ago. I ask if anyone can remember an important historical event that took place about 1,000 years ago (some mention the Battle of Hastings, but most are clueless). I then tie another knot and snug it up against the first--we are now at 2,000 years. Most kids remember that Christ walked the earth at that time.
Now the going gets rough. I ask when archaeology places the earliest remains of civilization or agriculture--10,000 years, with a knot at 1 centimeter. Then--the earliest appearance of our species (Homo sapiens, as Cro-Magnon Man); somewhere around 150,000 years, or 15 centimeters. We are still only a handspan from the end!
It's time to go outside the classroom into the hall. Now--when did the last dinosaurs die out? I have previously marked off a 65-meter length down the main hall--about 200 feet--and I send a student with the ball down the hall while I hold the other end. I can assure you that this flabbergasts the students--especially when I remind them that the dinosaurs were in their heyday 200 million years ago, more than three times this distance!
I post all this to point out that to teach such concepts as eternity to man in his infancy was a pretty daunting task. I have enough trouble teaching "modern" people just about geological time! Blessings, ~Br_Carlo~
(Incidentally, the amount of webspace devoted to fundamentalist attacks on "deep time" and the fossil record is massive. Many people are very threatened by these things and will "unchurch" you in a flash if you think they are true--another reason why it's so great to be Catholic!)
Last edited on Thu Jun 7th, 2007 01:36 am by Br_Carlo
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 10:03 am |
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I think, Todd, that there is revelation more fundamental than eternal life. The first is the distinction between good and evil, between virtue and sin. The second is the formation of the People of God and the establishment of the covenant between God and that People on the foundation of their acceptance of God’s reality and the supremacy of good. Eternal life is then the result of the covenant.
Now the concept of eternity, as I mentioned, is a borrowing from Greek and other cultures by the Jews of the diaspora. It is not directly a part of revelation, but merely a means of understanding the revelation concerning the resurrection and the afterlife. In this respect it is like the concept of transubstantiation. Christians believed in the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ for centuries before the term was suggested and adopted; “transubstantiation” is merely a means of expressing and understanding that change.
Does this make sense to you?
David
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andersent
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 12:53 pm |
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| David, thanks for the response. What you say about development makes good sense--that God started out with covenant and with good and evil...it is not eternity per se that bothers me...i realize that even though it has been taught or revealed or developed for over 2,000 years that even we "moderns" cannot really grasp it. So I understand that the mind of the ancient would not have perceived eternity. I guess what I am thinking though is not eternity per se, but the reality of the soul and of the after life..that what we do in this life follows us to the next. Regardless of the difficulty of the human mind in grasping the notion of eternity, i don't think that most of us (even ancients) have a terrible time grasping the notion that your "deeds" from this life follow you to the next. Yet, the earliest revelations in the Bible to the hebrew people seem to be entirely silent on that point--it's almost as if the temporal life is seen as what is most important. I mean, surrounding cultures (like Egypt) had a belief in the after life (maybe a vague or distorted one) but the Hebrews seem to have been ignorant of it. It's just bothersome to me b/c it seems to me that the after life is essential to religion and that people ought to know that this is the fundamental meaning of their temporal lives...to be ignorant of what Christ taught (what does it profit a man to gain the world) but lose his soul) seems very unfortunate and in my mind somewhat unfair I guess...
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andersent
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Posted: Wed Jun 6th, 2007 12:55 pm |
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| David, what did you mean in an earlier post where you said "not all of us are to be fundamentalists..."?
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Thu Jun 7th, 2007 12:26 am |
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andersent wrote:Surrounding cultures (like Egypt) had a belief in the after life (maybe a vague or distorted one), but the Hebrews seem to have been ignorant of it.
This is a good point. And I think that we have an answer in the way everything Egyptian among the Israelites was treated by God with disdain.
The Egyptians had their lifestyle, and this was denied to the Israelites, who complained bitterly during the exodus of their desert food, the lack of water, etc. Many of them wanted to return to Egypt, where they remembered the stews and fresh fruits and vegetables they had left behind.
The Egyptians had their gods: the sun, moon and stars, the animals (we remember the incident of the golden calf), the fertile soil, and so on. These were denied to the Israelites: they were actually to sacrifice the “gods” of the Egyptians, especially the animals and the grain, to the true God, so as to wean them from the past.
The Egyptians also had their beliefs about the afterlife: the mummified remains of the king-god were supposed to go off to a paradise in the next life; it was supposedly the person whose body decomposed that had no everlasting reward. On the contrary, the Israelites were to bury their dead and allow them to return to the earth from which they came (“adam” in Hebrew means both red clay and mankind, who was made “from the dust of the earth” — cf. Genesis 2:7).
And likely this is why they also did not develop an immediate belief in an afterlife: it would have been too like the Egyptians to do so. Thus it took them centuries and contact with other cultures to the east to convince them that eternal life might be of value.
It's just bothersome to me b/c it seems to me that the after life is essential to religion and that people ought to know that this is the fundamental meaning of their temporal lives...to be ignorant of what Christ taught (what does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul) seems very unfortunate and in my mind somewhat unfair I guess.
Certainly. But this is Christian belief, the result of all those centuries of development. So it’s really kind of an anachronism. You see the poverty of not believing in an afterlife because you have grown up with such a belief. But the ancient Israelites saw things differently; they considered themselves rich because they had God.
Regardless of the difficulty of the human mind in grasping the notion of eternity, I don't think that most of us (even ancients) have a terrible time grasping the notion that your "deeds" from this life follow you to the next.
And indeed there was a considerable amount of grappling with this point of yours throughout the Old Testament. However, it was not until very close to the time of Christ that a solution became evident to them.
Let us imagine for a moment one or another mystery of our own faith and time. Say, the question of what happens to unbaptized babies. We’ve discussed this topic at length in its proper place on the forum, and perhaps you have read those threads. The bottom line is that we don’t have the answer to this complex question. Maybe in another millennium or so somebody will come up with a solution to it. Will those who come after that time then turn and wonder why we in our time did not see the “obvious” answer? I should hope that they would be more understanding of our situation and not just blame us for being so clueless.
David, what did you mean in an earlier post where you said "not all of us are to be fundamentalists..."?
Evidently you are referring to the following questions that I posed several days ago:
Why would God want to “jump the gun” by offering incomprehensible ideas long before their time? How well do you think they would be received? Are we all to be fundamentalists?
My vision was of the well-known fundamentalist line: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” This is good as far as it goes, but it lacks two elements: first, a motive for God to reveal something; second, a need for comprehension and proper response on the part of the believer. In other words, it gets off to a good start, but it lacks the essentials to carry the believer to his goal, which lies beyond faith, for faith comes to an end in heaven when the soul enters into the glorious vision of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:8–12). Who is to say that a premature revelation of eternal life would not lead the People of God astray either by provoking a revolt against something seemingly incomprehensible or by deceiving them into thinking that they are indestructible even in this life?
David
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andersent
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Posted: Thu Jun 7th, 2007 01:02 am |
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Good points David. Thanks. Maybe the people back then would not have received the notion of a next life very well. Maybe it would have been more of a distraction or something to that culture. I hadn't thought of that.
What then, do we make of the people who were slaughtered? I'm thinking along the lines of the same context here...that people have eternal souls and our Catholic teaching that each life is precious. It seems that the OT doesn't really think in those terms...God has the Isrealites go into the Promised land in clean house, God takes the first born of the Isrealites, etc. Or some people look at the ark incorrectly and die (I'm thinking of 1 Samuel, but i don't have hte passage in front of me). Do you see my point? It's not just the underdevelopment of the people that are in effect treating life as if each soul were not important, but it is God Himself who is taking life. i realize He gives and takes and that is His to do, but I read stories like the one's i mentioned above, and I think gosh, does that mean all of those people just go to hell then? Do you see my point? It's not just the people who don't have a clue about an after life, it's that the way God acts before them would sort of, in effect, disrespect the notion of the immortality of the soul or at least the preciousness of each life. What about the guy who took some of the plunder, and his family was stoned...etc. I guess I can't really find any way to reconcile such stories with our modern belief that each life is absoultely precious to God, etc...I mean, I have a hard time thinking that the people above all go to heaven, because that would be like God saying "well, I didn't really mean to much by killng you like that, i just had to make an example of you though, come on into Heaven." On the other hand, I don't know that I would be comfortable saying that all of the people from the above stories just go to hell for either A) not being Isrealites, B) looking at the ark in a way that wasn't prescribed, etc. That seems too flippant to me for God to judge eternally based on such things. Or Lot's wife...that's another good lesson on the one hand, but when we think of the preciousness of every life in the eyes of God, how do we apply that to her (or any of the others I mentioned above)? This is all very confusing to me, so I am tempted to either A) opt for a non literal interpretation of some of these events, but that seems quite difficult at least across the board or B) lose faith altogether in the claim that the Bible is inspired (which, has ramifications for faith altogether)....I should mention that I have a form of ocd, so my mind is conditioned to think in terms of all or nothing...kind of like, if we were to find one story or a handful of stories from the bible that don't make sense theologically or historically, then that's perceived as a threat to my entire faith...
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setapart
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Posted: Thu Jun 7th, 2007 02:09 am |
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Andersent,
1 In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; 2 in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe
Heb 1:1-2 (NAB)
17 because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
John 1:17 (NAB)
I encourage you to read Chapter Two God Comes To Met Man from the 2nd edition of the Catholic Catechism at the following link:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/part1.html
It is not a full exposition but does give a summary of God's progresive revelaion to man.
Bill
____________________
But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture. Mal 4:2
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Thu Jun 7th, 2007 10:13 am |
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What then, do we make of the people who were slaughtered? I'm thinking along the lines of the same context here...that people have eternal souls and our Catholic teaching that each life is precious. It seems that the OT doesn't really think in those terms.
Yes, this is an expansion of your topic. And the answer is pretty much the same.
Let’s return to what I outlined about how the Israelite nation was formed during the forty years in the desert. The Lord told Moses over and over to tell the people: “I am your God, and you are my people. You are not the Egyptians, and you shall not worship their gods, who are nothing. Nor are you any of the other tribes you may encounter; you are unique, the chosen one. I alone, then, must be your God.”
This was the beginning of the covenant. It was also the beginning of a new way of thinking: “We are, then, a real people, the only people that has the Lord for its God. We must defend ourselves and our children from the heathen who surround us.” Tribal warfare ensued for centuries. The tribes who inhabited the promised land had to be driven out and exterminated. Why? To “make room” for the Lord and to prevent the Israelites from reverting to idolatry.
Recall too that this tribal warfare was not a unilateral thing. It often began on the side of the heathen, and the Israelites were forced to defend themselves, which they did in the name of the Lord.
These historical facts are symbolic of what happens inside each person who is converted to the Lord. Before the Lord can reign supreme in a soul, the false gods have to be purged and exterminated. And when those false gods rise up and attack the soul, it must defend itself by turning to the Lord and trusting in his grace to provide the strength and courage to do battle in his name. Thus the covenant is strengthened and preserved.
Now why does this happen at the cost of human life? Let us consider that lives are still being lost. They are slain not by the people who have been given the whole truth and who have in return given themselves entirely to the Lord, but by those who have rejected the Lord in their hearts. Methods have evolved to make the slaughter more subtle and hidden from view.
We do not have blood running in the streets. It now flows inside abortion clinics, and the toll in this country alone is about 50 million. It flows in the persecution of God-fearing people the world over; hundreds of millions have died at the hands of the communists, the Muslims and others who reject the people of the covenant. But it also flows in the AIDS epidemic and in the complications of the disruption of the human body’s natural functions by deliberate use of drugs such as those found in contraceptives. The astronomical rise in breast cancer is one such complication.
Now, as never before, we can see clearly that the wages of sin is death.
Let us look back at the examples you give. I have already spoken of the extermination of the peoples who inhabited the promised land. These tribes represented the evils which the Israelites had to exterminate within themselves. Their death was the consequence of sin, just as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was. Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt not “just because” she paused to look back at the burning cities, but because in looking back she disobeyed the word of the Lord.
You mention also the incident with the Ark of the Covenant. Here is the passage from 2 Samuel 6:6–7:
And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there because he put forth his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.
Why did God strike Uzzah? Because he did what was not permitted. According to the Torah, only a priest could touch the Ark. Uzzah was not a priest, but a soldier. His death reminded King David and all in attendance that God is the true King, the Lord of life and death. It was David, in fact, who through delegation had assigned Uzzah his post as guard to the Ark, instead of assigning a priest. So he felt responsible for that death. In the subsequent verses, we also see that David understood the event as a sign that he was not to bring the Ark into the city of Jerusalem proper, that it was not the king’s possession, but rather the king and the people were the Lord’s possession. This is an important insight.
It's not just the underdevelopment of the people that are in effect treating life as if each soul were not important, but it is God Himself who is taking life.
Not quite. Death comes not from the Lord but from sin; cf. Romans 5:12–14. In the Old Testament, however, nearly everything that happens is attributed directly to God’s will and action. Secondary causality by creatures is not considered. So it is a mode of speaking.
Here is another thought. I mentioned above the slaughter of the innocent and of God’s people. Are these then being judged by God? No. Their death witnesses to the truth, and God’s love for them will be manifested in the resurrection. You know that.
Likewise, even though people, both of the heathen and of the Israelites, die seemingly by the hand of God, their reward will be manifested in the resurrection. They weren’t told about the resurrection, but Christian belief is that all human beings, past, present and future, will be raised up on the last day and will be judged and will receive their recompense. So even though it does not appear in the chronicle of the Old Testament, we can certainly view those deaths as not tragic at all but according to the universal law, that death eventually claims all of humanity.
I should mention that I have a form of OCD, so my mind is conditioned to think in terms of all or nothing.
I have met with this before, and I note the family resemblance. This is why I have worked through these issues methodically.
David
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Tina in Ashburn
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Posted: Thu Jun 7th, 2007 11:47 am |
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Dear Todd,
I'm no scripture scholar but here's a point, which may need clarification by someone better at this than me. The Old Testament is a prefiguration of the New Testament.
I'm not sure that the Hebrews didn't recognize an afterlife. How do we know they didn't? The Hebrews were acutely aware of the loss of Paradise and that limited intimacy that Adam lost for us. A Messiah was promised by numerous prophets and prefigurations. This Messiah was to regain Paradise for us. Unfortunately the materialism that overtook some Jews who missed the point, thought [and still do] that the Messiah was only coming to restore temporal Jewish power. This doesn't mean there weren't Jews who understood the spiritual aspect.
Aren't there hints at the afterlife when Elijah's fiery chariot zoomed to heaven? Or how about "the bosom of Abraham" where there's no beatific vision while the deceased good await the promise, those Jesus released as soon as He died?
The New Testament is a fulfillment of the Old Testament. For instance, we have the priests and the "order of Melchisedec" which is a prefiguration of Jesus as Priest, and our priesthood today. Confession is prefigured with the scapegoat of the OT. The sacrifice of Jesus, and the Mass, is prefigured throughout the OT by such occurrences as the planned sacrifice of Isaac, the sacrifice in the Temple. So this "primitive" version of Truth has its purpose as an illustration, a prefiguration of what was to come.
The OT describes a more "black and white" version of God. He is a God of Justice and immediate retribution. Remember, Man was not redeemed. There was no Christ. Man labored under the sin of Adam and suffered terribly. There was only Man to deal with the punishment of sin. With the glorious redemption that Jesus brought us, the NT signifies a new era of mercy. The God of the New Testament is a God of MERCY. During His time on earth, Jesus spent a lot of time alleviating the miseries of sickness and demonic possession. Imagine the burden of 7,000 years of unremitted Original Sin by the time Jesus showed up! This is what makes Jesus' redemption of Man so unbelievable. It really took God's Son to make up for what we had done. Man could never have possibly suffered enough to redeem himself, all the while adding his own personal sins. So a difference between the OT and the NT, is that immediate retribution for sins is replaced by time to convert. Man is no longer struck by floods or turned into a pillar of salt, rather we are given time to choose sin in hopes that the time will allow us to convert.
Jesus is thought to have belonged to a Jewish sect named the Essenes who believed in resurrection. So if these good and faithful Jews understood the resurrection, they obviously accepted the concept of the afterlife. Without good Jews, where would the beginnings of Jesus' Church be?
In the end, we have the "felix culpa" - the 'happy fault'. The common understanding is that although Adam spoke with God, he did not have the Beatific Vision. When he lost Paradise, mankind labored with this loss of Paradise, never having the Beatific Vision to begin with. Then Jesus redeems us, not only regaining Paradise, but also winning us the Beatific Vision! In this way, the OT and the NT would present a different understanding of the afterlife.
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Tina
Arlington Diocese
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andersent
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Posted: Fri Jun 8th, 2007 12:59 am |
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David W. Emery wrote:
Thanks Dave, as usual these are good thought out responses.
Tribal warfare ensued for centuries. The tribes who inhabited the promised land had to be driven out and exterminated. Why? To “make room” for the Lord and to prevent the Israelites from reverting to idolatry.
I understand that the people had to be set apart and kept from idolatry. But I always wonder why the promised land had to be a place where others live that "had to be driven out." These historical facts are symbolic of what happens inside each person who is converted to the Lord. Before the Lord can reign supreme in a soul, the false gods have to be purged and exterminated. And when those false gods rise up and attack the soul, it must defend itself by turning to the Lord and trusting in his grace to provide the strength and courage to do battle in his name. Thus the covenant is strengthened and preserved. Well put. The deeper spiritual sense of the scriptures (especially as interpreted later by the NT) always makes more sense to me than just the literal.
Now why does this happen at the cost of human life? Let us consider that lives are still being lost. They are slain not by the people who have been given the whole truth and who have in return given themselves entirely to the Lord, but by those who have rejected the Lord in their hearts. Methods have evolved to make the slaughter more subtle and hidden from view. Yes, good point. However, it is still true that in the latter case, we are dealing with humans who are taking or disrespecting life--this should not surprise us. In the case of the taking of the promised land, I'm not sure that the taking of human life as commanded by God can be justified or understood in light of humans centuries later taking or disrespecting life. What you have essentially done here is shown that murder or disrespect for life happens today for less noble purposes than the taking of a land promised to His people by God-- I agree. But it seems that this still doesn't quite get us out of the problem that our Church teaches that every human life is sacred to God--and that this act of killing even women and children doesn't seem to have such a view--yet we know that God cannot change.
Death comes not from the Lord but from sin; cf. Romans 5:12–14. In the Old Testament, however, nearly everything that happens is attributed directly to God’s will and action. Secondary causality by creatures is not considered. So it is a mode of speaking. Indeed, and this must be part of the mystery here. God does not say "and it was good" after the slaughter as He did after the creation. Here is another thought. I mentioned above the slaughter of the innocent and of God’s people. Are these then being judged by God? No. Their death witnesses to the truth, and God’s love for them will be manifested in the resurrection. You know that. In your statement above, what exactly do you mean by "their death witnesses to the truth?"
Likewise, even though people, both of the heathen and of the Israelites, die seemingly by the hand of God, their reward will be manifested in the resurrection. They weren’t told about the resurrection, but Christian belief is that all human beings, past, present and future, will be raised up on the last day and will be judged and will receive their recompense. So even though it does not appear in the chronicle of the Old Testament, we can certainly view those deaths as not tragic at all but according to the universal law, that death eventually claims all of humanity.
This is my hope and the only thing we can fall back on, i suppose.
I should mention that I have a form of OCD, so my mind is conditioned to think in terms of all or nothing.
I have met with this before, and I note the family resemblance. This is why I have worked through these issues methodically.
David
Thank you for dealing with my questions with so much patience and depth.
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andersent
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Posted: Fri Jun 8th, 2007 01:02 am |
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| Tina, thanks for your good response. This gives me more to ponder. I appreciate the depth and insight you provide here.
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andersent
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Posted: Fri Jun 8th, 2007 01:06 am |
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| Thanks Bill. I'll read through that.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sat Jun 9th, 2007 02:40 am |
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andersent wrote:I always wonder why the promised land had to be a place where others live that "had to be driven out."
“But nothing unclean shall enter it (heaven, the true promised land), nor any one who practices abomination or falsehood” (Revelation 21:27).
“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:11–14).
In the case of the taking of the promised land, I'm not sure that the taking of human life as commanded by God can be justified or understood in light of humans centuries later taking or disrespecting life.
You are right. I saw this as I wrote it, but wanted to use an instance of deliberate killing rather than accidents and illness. But I make the same point in a different way further on (physical death comes to all, regardless of innocence or guilt), and you seem to have agreed with it.
What exactly do you mean by "their death witnesses to the truth?"
The innocent and the saved who die by the hand of others are martyrs; therefore their death witnesses (the meaning of the word “martyr” being “witness”) to the truth that they upheld in life. For merely by existing, even briefly, the innocent and the saved are giving witness to the Truth that created them.
David
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lifetone
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Posted: Fri Jul 11th, 2008 03:56 pm |
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Hi guys, wait ... I know you. I was googling up the rather confusing issue of why NAB's Deut 33:27 is so utterly different from the Douay-Rheim's even. I even seriously like the footnote in the Douay Rheim's. So I did a search on that verse and found this post and was hoping it would be about that.
But this was way more interesting.. Plus I think I've read from a few of you before. Somewhere..
I have to profoundly disagree with eternity as being the absence of time, except of course in the obvious sense of the end of time as it is now. I hope that's not like canonical. Eternity is a very long time and all time. Eternity is right now.
And that's why I think they had all those rules and stuff. Because what we do here and now matters. Not in some weird superstitious sense but in the sense that eternity is right here. Yahweh is right here. Now of course things develop over time and all but that is why. Because God said so and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Because the problems they had then are the problems we have now, we've just hopefully become more refined at dealing with them. Ie. deliver the witch from sins rather than stone her - but hopefully we all agree going to bad spirits to manipulate reality in unwise ways is ... unwise. That's a Wicca joke by the way. Wicca means "wise" and witches are often called "wise women." Someone somewhere finds this funny I'm sure..
Anyway, hi!
Yes, God is dealing with us and will continue to do so. He doesn't change, but His methods develop over time as we know it.
I think the Israelites did understand forever, or as much as we often appear to now. When I think of all the "silly" things we honestly worry about today. How different are we - really? ;-) How much time do we spend judging people for say the color of clothes they wear or the style or what material they are made of ;-) or whatever else we can latch onto and how awesome of a job does my precious new Church that I just joined up do in dealing with all of these "petty" issues? Thank God for His grace. And how He finds ways to speak to us here and now. How things have gotten a lot better as He works in human history. All glory to God for that - because it must be God at work in us.
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sat Jul 12th, 2008 05:09 am |
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lifetone wrote:I have to profoundly disagree with eternity as being the absence of time, except of course in the obvious sense of the end of time as it is now. I hope that's not like canonical. Eternity is a very long time and all time. Eternity is right now.
Let’s just say that eternity as “the absence of time” is the theological position that Catholics generally take. I don’t recall it being defined as a doctrine, because it is itself a definition and not really a doctrine. You may be interested in St. Thomas Aquinas’ explanation of eternity, which can be found here. Both article 1 and article 5 seem to have some immediate relevance to your musings.
The rest of your post definitely shows why it is so difficult for us human creatures to wrap our minds around the concept of eternity. You speak repeatedly of the “here and now,” and this is definitely important for the understanding of eternity from a moral and experiential point of view. But it doesn’t explain what eternity is; it only shows how we tend to experience it.
David
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Gloria Mundi
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Posted: Wed Jul 16th, 2008 08:38 am |
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