For the whole law is fulfilled in one word:
"You shall love your neighbour as yourself."
But if you bite and devour one another,
watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
But I say, walk by the Spirit,
and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit,
and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh,
for these are opposed to each other,
keeping you from doing the things you want to do.
But if you are led by the Spirit,
you are not under the law.
Galatians
5:14-18
Jesus declares in
It takes personal endeavour if we are to know
God, we must seek Him out, seek His face, and ultimately gain the confidence to
bask in His smile.
In attempting to understand God, to know Him as
He is and live an eternal life, we can draw both on His creation and on the Scriptures
that He has inspired His prophets and teachers to write. (Job 12:7-10).
More importantly we need to live Godly lives
ourselves if we are to know him (Jer 22:15-16)
In looking at His handiwork in His creation we can
see evidence of His care and His passion for what He has created. This is seen
in His attention to detail and the harmonious environments and ecologies that He
has created for the comfort and continuance of all of His creatures.
The pages of the Scriptures record many events
and incidents involving the actions of men or mankind and the actions of God. Each
event and incident is a cameo picture, presented to illustrate aspects of the
character of God.
Within this text we also have a record of God’s
own laws for the growth and guidance of the fledgling nation of
To better understand how these all fit
together, I want firstly to examine the nature and mind of mankind. If we are
to understand God, then there is probably no better place to start than by
looking at the human creature, since it was this creature that God made to
declare, in part, His own character. Then we can consider what the nature and
spirit of man reveals concerning our Creator.
In assembling the elements of evidence that we
find, we are confronted with several possible ambiguities. Like pieces of a
jigsaw puzzle that are the same size and shape, these elements may be placed in
more than one place and, in so doing, may drastically alter the picture. As
anyone who has done a jigsaw puzzle knows, the best way to see if a piece really
belongs where it is placed is to observe the picture being constructed. The
piece may fit, but if the resulting picture is wrong, then it is not the right piece
for that place.
Robert
Alter,
in his translation ‘The five Books of
Moses’, comments in the Preface about a tendency of translators to
‘disambiguate’ the text. By this he means that it is not uncommon for
translators to assume the need to interpret,
rather than translate the text in
such a way as to favour their own preconceived views. In so doing they feel
that they are being faithful in their translation, sometimes not even aware
that they have relayed such bias. Translation is often a rather blunt tool when
applied to a literary work. The different language inflections of ancient text are
not always understood by modern day linguists and wordplay that is evident in
the original is often difficult or impossible to replicate in translated work.
Added to this, ambiguities may exist with
respect to the tenor of the text which
may bias our understanding one way or another. Because of this we need to tread
carefully as we navigate the text of the Bible and examine the intent of what
is being relayed to us.
These problems and the fact that the
perspective presented here is a departure from traditionally held views, may
cause some readers to consider some things presented here to be controversial. It
is not my intention to be controversial for the sake of theological argument.
If my promoting of a different view were to cause me to feel smug then I would stand
condemned of divisiveness, but this would be the last thing that I would like to
result from this paper. My sole intention is to illuminate an aspect of
scriptural understanding that I believe has been glossed over by adherence to long-held,
poorly formed concepts. It is my contention that some of what we have been
taught, was originally formulated by those who wished to maintain authority within
the church by fear.
Having said this, I firmly believe that it is the
responsibility of each of us to examine all points for ourselves. What I
present here is just another way of looking at some things, and my hope is that
it may be a spur to each reader to seek God more diligently.
At the same time, we need to be careful that we
do not just end up practising a form of 'creative avoidance' by spending our
efforts in fruitless study for the sake of study. The aim and focus of all
research must be to help us draw nearer to God and to live as His children. All
study must bear good fruit in our lives if it is to be an effective use of our
time.
We
must never lose sight of the fact that the gospel is simple; it is simple
enough to be understood by the least educated yet, paradoxically, is often too
hard for an intellectual to grasp.
Moses
writes:
For this commandment which I
command thee this day,
it is not hidden from thee,
neither is it far off.
It is not in heaven, that thou
shouldest say,
Who shall go up for us to heaven,
and bring it unto us,
That
we may hear it, and do it?
Neither is it beyond the sea,
that thou shouldest say,
Who shall go over the sea for us,
and bring it unto us,
That
we may hear it, and do it?
But the word is very nigh unto
thee, in thy mouth,
and in thy heart, that
thou mayest do it.
Deuteronomy 30:11
Paul
also reminds us of this:
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to every one that believes.
For Moses describes the
righteousness which is of the law,
that the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
But the righteousness which is of
faith speaks on this wise,
Say not in thine heart,
‘Who shall ascend into heaven?’
(That is, to bring Christ down from above) Or,
‘Who shall descend into the deep?’
(That is, to bring up Christ again from the
dead.)
But what saith it?
The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart:
that is, the word of faith, which we
preach;
That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved. Romans
10:4-9
In
all examination of Scripture, we need also to invest time in examining where
our theology is taking us. We have the innate ability to know the
righteous morality of God; it is in our heart.
The difficulty that we so often face is that our view is so easily clouded
by self interest.
I am going to start from a place way out left
of field at a very grassroots level, because it is important that we not leave
preconceived foundations as unchallenged. If we are to look at how people work
and to see in their workings the hand and character of God revealed, it is
first necessary to understand the way people see people, to look with fresh
eyes at the biases we have and the natural mind that in the most part rules our
thoughts and actions. Some may find it uncomfortable to step outside of ‘Scripture’
to explore the nature of man, but when all is said and done, man came before Scripture
and while Scripture deals with the consequences of man’s nature, it would be
silly to think that we cannot gain a degree of understanding about the way we
are by observation and consideration of our motives as they are outworked in
our actions and reactions.
When we stop and look at what it is that people
have filled their days with (aside from working to survive) over all the thousands
of years that man has inhabited the earth, we notice that of all thought,
philosophy and storybooks ever written (and all the plays and films and poems
and songs) the vast majority are concerned with one thing, Humanity, its
identity and its relationships. Just what it is to be human and how it is that we
relate to others. We are naturally obsessed with relationships between genders,
races, social strata, generations, and any other discernable social groups. It
has become apparent that authors and scriptwriters of fiction are now our
philosophers, illuminating the psychology and motives of mankind.
This quest to define precisely what it is to be
human is one that has plagued philosophers, scientists, and sages for thousands
of years. Even today the answer is proving illusive and attempts to manufacture
artificial intelligence, or to synthesise consciousness and bestow freewill on
manufactured apparatus, still falls short of all aspirations.
It is this pursuit that has given rise to a
literary tool used to examine the foundations of consciousness and conscience.
This tool is the consideration of inanimate models (fake creatures) to
highlight, by contrast, the characteristics of real, sentient creatures.
The trend to do this began some time ago and
classic tales like the one of Pinocchio were an attempt to illustrate that, in
order to claim to be really human, a subject must firstly exhibit the qualities
of conscience (Jiminy Cricket) – courage, honour, loyalty, honesty and love.
In more recent times it seems that authors have
resorted to the use of robots to probe these qualities. In most stories and films that encompass the
use of robots, there is an assumption of three fundamental laws of behaviour
that are built into each robot to govern the way these characters behave and
relate to people. In some stories, these laws are directly referenced.
These specific laws of behaviour were famously
first stated by feted science fiction author, Isaac Asimov, in his book Runabout, written in 1942. Isaac Asimov
proposed that these laws were to be hardwired into the robots in such a way
that they would never be negotiable.
The FIRST of these laws
was, in essence, that no robot could autonomously, or under direction, harm or
kill a human under any circumstances.
The SECOND law was that
robots must obey all of the commands given by a human, provided these commands
did not conflict with the first law, so that a human could not command a robot
to kill or injure another person.
The THIRD law was that each
robot must protect itself from damage, provided that the defensive action necessary
to do this did not conflict with either of the first or second laws.
When we stop and consider the laws proposed for
robots, it is interesting to note that they declare something of Asimov’s own
insecurity. He reveals by his laws that he was concerned about his safety
and the safety of all mankind should these creatures ever be made superior to
man, either physically or mentally (or both). His laws also declare that he was
concerned that men should remain the masters – never slaves to robots. The fact
that most other storytellers that have written about robots since then, have also
borrowed, or assumed, these laws from Asimov declares a consensus that the laws
should stand and, in this way, the insecurity of mankind generally is revealed.
However, ultimately, the concept of 'fundamental
laws of behaviour' was borrowed from nature. God has built fundamental laws of
behaviour into every creature. These behavioural laws define each creature
every bit as much as each is defined by its physical form. Each kind of
creature behaves in its own characteristic ways. Dogs wag their tail when they
are happy, they bury bones and crave companionship. Each type of bird has its
own call, nest architecture and mating ritual. These behaviours are hard-wired
into each creature. They are not taught but they are innate, and they are often
involuntary and, as a consequence, easily predictable.
Apart from creature-specific laws, there are
some that are much more general. All creatures were made to eat, to procreate
and to provide for themselves in a manner befitting each kind of creature and in
a way that is related to each creature’s characteristic nature and form. All
creatures are hard-wired to defend themselves and, in most cases, to defend
their young.
We notice however that the fundamental laws
that God has built into every creature have no equivalent in the first two of Isaac
Asimov’s laws for robots. God’s laws reveal that He has no insecurity at all
but only a concern for the welfare and continuance of His creation.
Like all other creatures, humans too have characteristic
behaviours. These reside in our subconscious mind and, consequently, we are not
always aware of the basis of some of our actions and decisions. One of the more
human traits is the use of narrative language, which we develop as we learn to
speak at about age two. Narrative language is when we verbalise (either out
loud or in our mind) the things that we are consciously doing. For youngsters,
this trait is quite involuntary and often spoken audibly.
As we develop, we learn
that we are able to have more than one narrative – one is the actual memory of
events as they happen; another is the way we would like to present it to
others.
Because these natural laws reside in our
subconscious, they more often surface when we are not directly making a
conscious decision, or at times of stress or reflex. When driving a car, we
often make split second reflex decisions. This deference to reflex most often
means that it is the natural defensive mind that makes the choice of action, and
it is not unusual, on reflection, to find that we are driving so as to guard
our position on the road.
While we may carefully monitor our considered
actions, we are more likely to declare our natural mind when we react to events
or when we are placed under duress.
The mechanism that God has provided to cause
all creatures to defend themselves is a perception of either security or
insecurity. Insecurity is what drives each creature’s need to be defensive and
to adequately ensure its own provisions with an urgency that will generally
supersede the needs of all others.
We are all made to crave
security and out of this hard-wired need, we naturally do things that are
considered to be not the behaviour of Godly people. We hoard goods beyond our
ability to put them to good use. We covet goods that we don’t really need. When
challenged we may lie to cover our failings or become verbally or physically
aggressive or abusive. We form cliques as a defence against outsiders and
strive for positions of wealth, power, and authority. In an effort to improve
our own relative position we become miserly and less able to be generous. We
may even slander others in an effort to strengthen our own social position at
the expense of theirs. It is out of insecurity that people strive for more
goods, for better goods, for status and, out of insecurity, will steal or lie
or murder.
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