Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 7:00 amThis is to me really interesting and worthy of discussion in a thread titled "Christianity": how, according to Biblically faithful Christianity, is a person saved through Christ? What exactly does it take? Is merely mouthing doctrinal words of acceptance of salvation (through Christ) adequate? Or does one in addition have to feel and believe the words? If the latter, what if the person seeking salvation theoretically wants to accept salvation but can't muster up the adequate feeling and belief? When they utter the words, are they saved anyway, or not? Is salvation-by-utterance, under whatever conditions are required, irrevocable, or can it be revoked on the basis that, according to later events, the utterance was determined to be non-genuine?
If we allow that - as is obvious - Biblical Christianity is absurd, but that it must have had its seeds in something that is/was very real and not at all absurd - the historical personage of Jesus Christ - then who exactly is he, what did he do, what are the possibilities of relationship with him (assuming his immortality), how are they realistically entered into, and how can they be of help to the average person who doesn't want to buy into a load of bull (with hat tip to atto)?
Before addressing the questions here I'd recommend starting from a somewhat different point. I think that what we need to examine is the
absurdity of the positions we find ourselves in. Take the various people, and the conflicting positions, of everyone participating in this (odd) thread on this (also odd) forum. Not only is their no agreement in any fundamental sense, there is a sort of barking lunacy. When the fundamental agreements break down, the very structure upon which the personality sits and anchors itself, becomes unstable. And it seems to me that the thing we need to focus on and think through is that instability.
One of the lasting helpful concept I got from our friends on the forum we participated in for years was the idea of 'causation'. For this reason I often refer to us as 'outcomes' of processes about which we are ignorant or, at best, only darkly aware. In my way of seeing things, and understanding our present, what most stands out for me is what I call *unmooring*. True, I am speaking about it in relation to having a foundation within a Christian praxis, a Christian community, and within a Christian culture, but the issue of *unmooring* is evident everywhere. Thus my reference to Waldo Frank (a forgotten philosopher and novelist from the 20s and 30s) who noticed that the general, corporate body of Europe was in a state of inanition connected to processes of moribundity. What he said stuck with me (as an image): in a dying body all the cells light up. The death of a body produces a light-show as the system breaks down. The relationships in a holistic sense between the various cells and parts is sundered and each cell lights up in its separate, atomized, subjective death throes.
The question I have often asked (in relation to Immanuel Can's productions and rehearsals) is What is salvation? The question becomes relevant when (and if) we accept that the structures that uphold the person and the personality are coming undone. What is a person whose 'unity' is fracturing to do? We are aware of therapeutic means to help the disintegrating person to hold themselves together. We are aware that the state of disunity results in an unstable person who is then inclined to bolster the self in one way or another. To seek a rock or a structure upon which to anchor himself. We are also aware that some people succumb to the disintegration process and die -- a metaphorical reference to falling into the stream of dis-unification, of lostness and perdition.
But what, in any *ultimate* sense
is salvation? The term only has relevance in relation to the system of understanding of which it is an expression. And in Christian terms, as I have said, the 'picture' of the world has to be described and understood in order, then, to define 'salvation'. So when we reduce it to a simplified statement we can, perhaps, see what it is. It seems to me that it is a *ticket out of this world*. A sort of "paz y salvo" (paid in full) which entitles one to leave behind the binding 'mortal coil' [to "shuffle off this mortal coil" is to die]:
"Coil" has an unusual etymological history. It was coined repeatedly; at various times people have used it as a verb to mean "to cull", "to thrash", "to lie in rings or spirals", "to turn", "to mound hay" and "to stir". As a noun it has meant "a selection", "a spiral", "the breech of a gun", "a mound of hay", "a pen for hens", and "noisy disturbance, fuss, ado". It is in this last sense, which became popular in the 16th century, that Shakespeare used the word.
When examined closely it is a very strange concept. The Redeemer has 'paid the debt' and one is 'free to go' -- to go on from here to another sort of existence in a realm beyond this realm. The idea can be seen as a symptom of sickness (too tired, too worn out, too frustrated, too pained to go on) and so by resolving to give up on manifest life one
simultaneously resolves to give up on building or setting down foundations in
this world. But there is also another level which has to do realignment of the self within life-lived and performing in such a way that one is, at least in some degree, contributing to positive evolutionary currents. This latter element, it seems to me, is obviously opposed to the "I desire to escape" motivation. It should be obvious that for activist Christians that the source-book for ethical activity, indeed for all activity, is found in prophetic values.
See for example
Abraham Joshua Herschel:
The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man: no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of this world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophets’ words.
What distinguishes the Christian value-system from that of other religious value-systems is the root within prophetic values and these are inseparable from the Hebrew context.
Herschel wrote:
It is common to characterize the prophet as a messenger of God, thus to differentiate him from the tellers of fortune, givers of oracles, seers, and ecstatics. Such a characterization expresses only one aspect of his consciousness. The prophet claims to be far more than a messenger. He is a person who stands in the presence of God (Jer. 15:19), who stands "in the council of the Lord" (Jer. 23:18), who is a participant, as it were, in the council of God, not a bearer of dispatches whose function is limited to being sent on errands. He is a counselor as well as a messenger.
The words the prophet utters are not offered as souvenirs. His speech to the people is not a reminiscence, a report, hearsay. The prophet not only conveys; he reveals. He almost does unto others what God does unto him. In speaking, the prophet reveals God. This is the marvel of a prophet's work: in his words, the invisible God becomes audible. He does not prove or argue. The thought he has to convey is more than language can contain. Divine power bursts in the words. The authority of the prophet is in the Presence his words reveal.
I have only partially *answered* the question you are asking. It seems to me that in order to understand the Christian revelation one has to understand what distinguishes it from other revelations (I am most familiar with the Vedic revelation which is substantially and notably different). One also has to try to *see it* from some distance above it, outside of it, in order to better appreciate it and also defend it. It is, after all, what has most
informed us.
Now let us turn back to our *real situation*: extraordinary & profound (possibly irreconcilable) differences that to all appearances do not look as though they can be, or will be, bridged.
There are two distinct lines of activity it seems to me. One is the personal and the strictly subjective: how we *orient ourself* within the existential problem? What do I
say to myself about where I am and what I am? What do I
say to 'god'? How do I become reconciled to the fact of my real existence here, in a temporal condition, with death and utter breakdown just over the next hump in the road? (An essential grasp of the reality of our situation). What shall I do? Pray to be relieved of the burden? Pray for crafty intelligence ('
cunning intelligence' -- Metis [Ancient Greek: Μῆτις, romanized: Mêtis, lit. 'wisdom', 'skill', or 'craft'] -- is an important Greek idea and indeed a method for getting through life) in order to, to put it directly, better
connive my way through the material entanglement? This involves being smarter than the average person or 'the next guy'. It implies seeing life and life's struggles as a game and thus brings out the notion of gaming; of good use of investments; or careful and strategic planning; of being ahead of the curve.
Mêtis as an intelligent ability comes into play on a widely varying levels but in all of them the emphasis is always laid on practical effectiveness, on the pursuit of success in a particular sphere of activity: it may involve multiple skills useful in life, the mastery of the artisan in his craft, magic tricks, the use of philtres and herbs, the cunning stratagems of war, frauds, deceits, resourcefulness of every king.
The other side of the equation is in What is my relation to other people and what are my obligations? Where will I place my allegiance? To whom will I (or must I) offer my service? This is not an easy issue to answer because I will have to answer a range of other questions first and these, also, have all sorts of metaphysical implications.
So here I have at least opened up the issue to examination and further discussion.