And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him till the morning.  And he saw that he prevailed not against him; and he touched the broad part of his thigh, and the broad part of Jacob’s thigh was benumbed in his wrestling with him.  And he said to him, Let me go, for the day has dawned; but he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.  And he said to him, What is thy name? and he answered, Jacob.  And he said to him, Thy name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name; for thou hast prevailed with God, and shalt be mighty with men. [Genesis 32]

Well, so then Israel means something like “one who wrestles with God” or at the very least prevails in his struggles with divinity. The early Church father’s, who by and large were not of Hebrew ancestry, read that through Christ we are all striving to shed our inner Egyptian and cross the Jordan to be come Israelites. The connection of out spiritual state with Israel can be quite plainly seen in Gregory of Nyssa’s The Life of Moses. So … let’s take this and see what it might mean for the American Christian today? What does it mean for the individual Christian. How do you wrestle with God?

Back when I was at University, in the 80s and not as I tell my children when the dinosaurs roamed the plains, most of my study was concentrated in maths and physics which essentially was to wrestle with Nature. Which was to ask, how was the world constructed? How can we understand it? How do we interact with it on a fundamental level? However, these are the big questions. People working in the field don’t work directly on the large questions. At any one time, people are working on smaller, more tractable questions which on getting answers will move the larger communities understanding of the big picture forward … or at the very least sharpen our understanding of what we don’t know.

Similarly, it seems to me, we as Christians are called to wrestle in exactly that way with God. How do we understand God? How are we to interact with him and with others? How to understand and work toward Theosis/Sanctification?

So, here’s my question for the gentle reader. What smaller questions are you working on as you wrestle? What knots are you trying to untangle?

1. How fast memory fades. There was little mention of this the last few days.
2. H1N1 lies, apparently told.
3. A book with advice.
4. From the outside looking in, the Japanese are often very weird. I wonder about from the inside looking around?
5. Refining a position on SSM.
6. Talking about human life and its inception.
7. Of aid and ownership.
8. Teen employment and the min. wage.
9. Will Mr Obama deign to notice?
10. That’s starting to sound like real money, no?
11. Managing personal finance, an evangelical convinces a secular b-school graduate on method.
12. Wow, the lies people tell to demonize the other side.
13. A new army unit.
14. Summer dance photos.
15. McIntyre and climate.
16. Heh.
17. Connect-the-dots.
18. What price failure?

1. Utility monsters, which apparently are not scary creatures creeping in your gas lines.
2. A lottery and communist oppression.
3. Considering the Grand Inquisitor.
4. National Geographic and the Holy Mountain.
5. From the same source, an atheist (a Mr Tallis) on consciousness and evolution.
6. Unimpressed with a mix of politics and art.
7. Of death, sorrow, and hope.
8. Of poverty, corruption, and law.
9. Heh, DeSoto indeed.
10. Conservative populism.
11. The babysitting co-op.

1. Carbon sponges.  The APS and climate noted here.
2. Considering the armour of God and actual armour.
3. Guns and jihad.
4. The AP and scare quotes.
5. Lampooning some Palin critics. More from another source here.
6. Zoom.
7. Peak … gold?
8. Muslims abused in the military? Apparently not.
9. More than a little strange.
10. Somebody not getting military strategy. Waiting to get it all “just right” is almost always wrong, recall Mr McClellan.
11. Not stupid, stupid raised a non-trivial exponential degree.
12. Considering a coming trial … continued here.
13. Mr Obama’s self portrait viewed from the right.
14. Patriarch Pavle has fallen asleep in the Lord.
15. While I’m not a fan of Ms Rand … the logical fallacies come fast and furious in this piece.
16. Chair and space.

1. Political manoeuvring in Sri Lanka.
2. Brains and honesty.
3. Economics models and predictions.
4. Sugars and exercise.
5. North and South Korea.
6. Chavez.
7. On freedom and equality.
8. 2nd hand … smut.
9. A man and a birthday.
10. TV writers and the bike.
11. Suffering puppies (read to the refrains of “kill the wabbit” ringing in your ears).
12. Life and living from the atheist perspective.

1. Democrat pundit Ms Paglia not enthused about the Democrats healthcare notions.
2. Of Christ and Trinity.
3. Some thoughts for Veterans day.
4. The dread haunted vet narrative.
5. Correlating perception, reality, crime and economy.
6. Global warming and some not-carbon notions.
7. Of freedom and uniformity and the Church.
8. Arrogant glaciers.
9. China bubble?
10. Uhm, yech.
11. Senators and healthcare.
12. Whip it.
13. Silence and evil.

If one were to attempt to continue the conversation about the Church in late modernity started by Matthew Lee Anderson here, there are a few avenues one might pursue. In the comments, there are suggestions of following threads from CS Lewis Abolition of Man. One might also suggest Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, or Huxley’s Brave New World. In the following, the endeavor is made to both step off that beaten track and to ask a question.

As an outsider looking in at the modern protestant (non-liturgical) evangelical church, one thing which strikes me which is synch with the secular enlightenment culture which Mr Anderson highlights is a personalization of the notion of the sacred and a loss of an exterior idea of Holiness. One of the aspects of the enlightenment which is entwined with the Protestant separation is the de-emphasis of the liturgical expression in favor of or over and above the interior spiritual experience.

From Biblical narratives there is no small emphasis of Holiness. “Take off your sandals for the ground on which you stand is Holy” is repeated in Exodus and Joshua. Other examples abound of how being in a Holy place or the presence of God … one changes one’s mode of presentation and practice. A place is Holy not because of Moses (or Joshua’s) interior spiritual experience, but because of a thing outside of either, that is the presence of God was being there, at that place and time. 

At Emmaus the disciples knew Jesus when he broke the bread, and the Church through the ages took that to mean that in the Eucharist God is present in the sharing of bread and wine. One of the common features of liturgical churches like the Catholic, the Anglican, and the Orthodox is that their worship experience expresses and reflects a sense of a sense of Holiness which is not primarily to attain an interior spiritual effect akin but more in line with the taking off of one’s sandals for one is in the presence of the Holy. The Eucharist is a singular Holy event taking place in each Sunday liturgy, and their various liturgical celebrations express this in different ways.

So, as an outsider to the community noted above, (the non-liturgical protestant ones), I have a question. Where is Holiness to be found in your parish? How is it treated? How is it expressed? What does the term Holy mean for your church?

1. Raising kids.
2. On a relationship with God.
3. Modern slavery in the Maldives.
4. On the Healthcare bill.
5. Guns and the right to life.
6. For those not reading Greek.
7. Inconsistencies in the White House healthcare notions.
8. Difficulties in reading the bills.
9. Afghanistan over the last 8 years. The administrations narrative that of 8 years of neglect … not true. Surprised?
10. Moses as an American hero.
11. Road trains.
12. 50k soldiers buried.
13. Contra euthanasia.
14. Quietly giggling on a shelf.
15. That brave new world.
16. Economics, back to square one or not?

The link at #5 was wrong, it is fixed now.

Good morning, hmm, well mid afternoon at any rate.

1. Start with trivia? Or something like that.
2. Turkey teaches how not to compare crime.
3. An Indian pro-Pakistani blog … for a US audience.
4. The Ukraine and the H1N1 panic.
5. Regarding the historical Jesus.
6. Indie beating it.
7. Climbing robot winner.
8. Of socially and liberty conscious investing.
9. On monogamy.
10. It’s not Mr Obama’s fault, btw on that I concur.
11. This on the other hand …
12. Not Maxwell Smart’s shoes.
13. Not exactly news.
14. Grammar and the Bible … When grammar is mentioned, Mr Saffire’s long lost grammar column from my youth comes to mind … to whit “A prepositions is something you should never end a sentence with.”
15. Even if Mr Obama couldn’t be bothered, the East noticed.

I have an excellent excuse for not posting tonight … and a small request.

Tomorrow my (far) better half is going to have a small procedure at the Hospital. She will be there overnight for observation after the procedure. It’s not an emergency and not very risky but if you could remember her (Jill) in your prayers I’d appreciate it.

Thanks

1. Cities and global warming.
2. Global warming and the denier.
3. The UN and money … starve the beast?
4. Of social contract and criminal law. I guess as a recent un-subscriber to social contract, I need to consider criminal law myself.
5. Becker and Posner consider employment and the economy.
6. On the whole, “not a news channel” thing. Another view on that here.
7. Americans aren’t the only ones bad at history.
8. Considering loving God.
9. Well, that prediction went well.
10. Some logic.
11. Honduras.
12. Science fiction and a rock star.
13. Hmmm, perhaps because it was noticed?
14. You go girl!

1. Well, granted learning (or knowing) how to learn is not a substitute for learning itself, but I don’t think you can actually do the former without accomplishing the latter.
2. More on education here.
3. Punishment and crime … a modern crucifixion … but is it appropriate?
4. Is he too busy … or does the left still diminish the nature and extent of those crimes?
5. Russia and AGW.
6. US, Russia and human rights.
7. Demonized by Mr Brown a film to set the record straight.
8. Well, there was the notion of “lies, damned lies, and statistics” but this admin takes the cake, that goes a bit beyond deceitful statistics.
9. The tale of the cars and German-US relations.
10. Polygamy and the Bible.
11. Iran mocks Mr Obama. And so does one ersatz comedian.
12. Metaphor noted.
13. Protesters attacked in Iran … but the world is no longer watching.
14. A left leaning tea party.

Mark Horne offers some arguments why “he can never be a Roman Catholic.” I’m not a Roman Catholic … but it seems like a number of these reasons are not valid criticisms. I’m going to concentrate on one (and mention one more). Mr Horne offers:

Necromancy is almost as huge a sin and praying to the departed saints is necromancy.  See #1 above.  People raised thinking bigamy is Christian may be true Christians, but people who know better are living in sin and without hope of eternal life unless they repent of such behavior.

Praying to Saints by Catholics is not because Catholics believe that “some other intercessory agency between themselves and God” is required. Examine their liturgy and the prayers they pray. They pray to directly to Father, Son, and Spirit. So they are not asking Saints (or Mary) to pray for them because they think it is required. Something else is going on here, they do it because they think it is efficacious. My understanding of the way prayer to Saints is seen not as a required intermediary but as being equivalent to your asking a friend, acquaintance, or even some Christian you don’t really know, to pray for you. That is it. Just in the same way that Protestants (and every Christian) thinks that the prayers of others on our behalf is beneficial, likewise Catholics (the East and the original Reformers for that matter) think that the dead can pray for us … after all they are not dead but are with God.  You are asking that this Saint, asleep in the Lord whom you believe is “now” outside of time participating in God’s presence (no longer seeing through a glass darkly), to pray for you. How is that akin to bigamy and living a life of sin?

There are two pieces to this that I think give the American evangelical cause to pause. The first is that the notion that a saint from a country far away and centuries removed will be aware of my request that he (or she) pray for me and that furthermore that he (or she) might do so. The second is that in our American notions of egalitarianism and equality Americans find the notion that we are not equal in the eyes of the Lord, a difficult one to master. To the latter, when the disciples were having a debate about who would be seated at Jesus right hand when he came into his glory, Jesus rebuke was not that “nobody would be sitting there” as we are equal in the afterlife, but that they were not the ones to be seated there.

Yet that isn’t really the question.

The real question is why is asking for the intercession by a deceased hero of the Church not adiaphora? And this has a counter question for the East and the Roman Catholic, why is not asking that the Saints intercede for us also not adiaphora?

A final remark Mr Horne objects:

Nowhere are Christians required to do a genealogical study to see if they are members of the true Church.

I for one, have no clue what is he talking about here. Any guesses?

1. The role of the fool.
2. Ethnic tensions in Russia.
3. AGW … not carbon related. Be a shame if that effect was larger than the carbon one, no? Another climate article here.
4. Scripture and the ELCA.
5. Ballet.
6. So, evil is it banal or not.
7. Liberatarians and immunization campaigns.
8. Mr Obama celebrates his election anniversary how? Hmmm. Another review of policy here.
9. The White House and reviewing their Asian policies.
10. Considering the deficits … the experts are worried.
11. Pointing connections and a certain Ms O’Toole.
12. Pointing out an elementary Krugman error.
13. On the Lives of Others.

In the past, I’ve ventured to consider the hypothesis (ansatze) that a noetic realm, a rough analogue of the Platonic realm of Ideals, has a real existence, in a parallel universe of sorts to our own. Part of this ansatze is that these two universes are not completely disconnected, and that the human intellectual machinery glimpses this realm and it is through this mechanism that our brain’s machinery accomplishes the semiotic scaffold and bridges gap between pattern and synapse to thought, meaning and intention.

What sorts of features might we imagine a noetic realm to have? Read the rest of this entry