The Christ Bearers Witness: Happy and God Pleasing Thoughts and Actions
The Christ Bearer’s Witness: Happy and God Honouring Thoughts and ActionsWith Trajan’s offer of peace and common ground hanging in the air, the aged Bishop composed himself. The court must have looked on with hushed silence. The judicious Emperor had just offered an intellectual escape. No need to believe as we do. Just recognize we have the same concern as you, live and let live. Ignatius delivered his answer, “You are in error when you call the spirits of the nations gods. For there is but one God…” The aged pastor offered.
Trajan was always ready to embrace an extra god. What was the problem with these Christians? What held Ignatius in check? He finished his answer, “There is but one God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that are in them…” (The Martyrdom of Ignatius). Ignatious sought to conform all of his thinking and reasoning to be pleasing to the Lord. Here is you’re and my challenge, does our thinking please God? Is their a way of thinking that leads to happiness, and have I found it? What was the main difference between Trajan and the Saint?
The difference was worldview. As I have continued to explore the culture around me, I am seeing more and more the all encompassing nature of worldview. Many people, like me, have study worldview classes at college and university, and we have indeed taken to the idea that a worldview is very important. But I don’t think that we understand how all pervasive and domineering this statement is.
We have, all of us, been brainwashed into the great myths of our cultures. We have bought into a certain way of thinking, and living. Even when we are rebels, we usually rebel, by using the principles, that we do not realize also frame the structure we are rebelling against.
What makes a Worldview?
A worldview, in my current understanding, is a framework for interpreting the world that we experience daily. It is built on our presuppositions, these are our assumptions, those things we hold to be self-evidently true, and require no argument to prove. It is constructed by philosophy and girded in theology.
Presuppositions
So, what I am saying, is that all men and women everywhere, like me, have core beliefs, that they may never even consciously realize they have. These presuppositions include such things as the validity of our experience. Most people just assume they really are alive and acting and experiencing various things as they go through their lives. This is an un-argued, unproved assumption. We all have these assumptions. These are our presuppositions. We suppose them to be true and this impacts all things else that we consider.
Philosophy
There is a wonderful passage from Will Durant that says:
Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Philosophy is a hypothetical interpretation of the unknown (as in metaphysics), or of the inexactly known (as in ethics, or political philosophy); it is the front trench in the siege of truth. Science is the captured territory; and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world (The Story of Philosophy xxvi).
We are all philosophers and we are all theologians. There is no escaping it. But what does this mean exactly?
Theology
This is a virtual parallel to Philosophy. The study of philosophy and theology pursues the same questions and affects the same circumstances in our lives, albeit from a different perspective and with different vocabulary.
Move with me to the real world. Forget all the things you know about the staleness of philosophical wrangling and we’ll look at the only place most of us should care about philosophy. When in impacts our faith, and our lives…
Practical examples
Let me tell you how I have been discovering this, in a more practical way. Here in South East Asia, there is an entirely different culture from the one I hade been familiar with, there is a different history and a different religious heritage and an entirely different set of presuppositions. There is a different philosophy and a different theology.
In close conformity to ancient Rome and the Greco-roman culture of Ignatius’ time, the people of Asia developed a complex superstition regarding their ancestors and the spiritual realm. If this is not one more evidence for Babal, and the Satanic origin for all world religions… The Celtic people of North Europe, the ancient Greek, the Roman of Antiquity and the Korean today, all venerate their ancestors as gods, or godlike guardians of the family. The pater familias, the eldest make in the family, was priest for his family and responsible for the moral spiritual and physical wellbeing of his family. Why should this protection change upon death? And so the roman Lares, the household gods, ancestors of the home were worshipped. The Greek tribal chiefs, became the pantheons we know today, the Asian ancestor, is divine and worship specially on two great holidays, roughly equivalent to Thanksgiving and New Years day. On each of these holidays, Koreans go to their ancestral homes and are hosted by the eldest family representative, and they have a great feast, including seats set for the dearly departed for a number of generations. The bowl of rice left for them has a set of chopsticks left standing in the rice and the food is offered as a way to commune with these protectors. Following this the family goes to the actual familial grave sites and offers incense and prayers to the ancestors, thanking them for the good harvest and seeking their blessing for the coming year. All this is held in common by all the ancient faiths. The particulars alone set them apart, and not by much. But as we move from this interesting phenomenon of common faith, and realize that great religions grew as these people groups “enlightenened themselves” as it were, we find the flower of Plato, and the Glow of Buhda. Some faiths, finding in the natural revelation, the tell tale signs of the ultimate God, who was creator, others, suppressing this fact (as Romans one tells us they are want to do), so deeply as to deny the reality of existence, itself.
Some religious philosophy, or Philosophical Theology is almost bereft of God or gods, and others incorporates them to the maximum. All of the great pagan monotheists, like Greece and Rome embraced the polytheistic pantheons as convenient manifestations of the one god and as helpful for the morality and well being of the ignorant. The non theistic religions, see the gods as helpful steps on the ladder to enlightenment. In reality, they are all the same and so the traditional faiths of ancestor worship and polytheism have continued, wherever the Biblical faiths did not come to dominate.
So in many ways, as Christianity spreads through Asia, I am provided with a marvelous window into the reality that faced Ignatius. He would have looked about his culture and seen its paganism everywhere, as I can see in Korea.
Architecture
Touring the ancient Palaces of Insadong, in Northern Seoul, I was treated to a full measure of “architectural philosophy”.
The palaces all had main gates, which faced in a certain direction and once inside, one crossed a small man made stream, before coming to the main buildings. This was in accordance with the Fen sheui, the buildings have roofs with upturned corners, in order to uphold the celestial order.
On each “wing” of the roof, were statues of monkeys, representing the monkey god. Monkeys, are fun loving and playful, and so naturally, they would want to keep dark, evil spirits away, because the dark spirit spoils the fun mood. Thus the Monkey statuery protects the inhabitants of the building from evil spirits. Architecture is heavily influenced by worldview. Think of the difference between Imperial war monuments and Vietnam war monuments. War moved from glory to gory! All of our building reflects our cultural consensus. At one time in the West, the church steeple was the dominant feature of any town and the Cathedral the most glorious adornment of any city. Today, the temple is the shopping centre, the Mall, the greatest architectural marker of our day, the god of greed sits enthroned in the Towers of Wall Street.
Politics
The way we run our governments and the way they run us are definitely affected by our worldview. This was seen in the way in which the Emperors were treated here, until the 1930’s, the Emperor was forbidden, in according with the teachings of Confucius to exercise in any way and so he was carried everywhere. As it turns out this was a touch unhealthy, and the average age of death was about 47 years old (the longest lived monarchs in Asia!).
The King had a council, which dictated according to religious omens and astrological signs, nearly every aspect of his life, including, when he could, “go in” to the queen. When the omens said she was fertile, he was free to visit. Other days, he had a harem to serve his needs. The emperors, were thought of as having divine right and in fact being at least semi-divine themselves.
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Language
In Korea, you cannot say a word, without determining an entire posture. All verbs have different ending and nouns different forms, depending on whether you are addressing and older/higher person, or a younger/lower person, or a person your equal. English cultures, are first name cultures, primarily, reflecting the Christian value of the equality of all men under God, as they are “devoted to the proposition, that all men are created equal…”.
Yet even deeper the very framework of language is a worldview issue. The Confucian system of politics, had a further impact on language. Because all must reflect balance, so does the very alphabet, with which Koreans form words and sounds. The Hangul script was purposefully designed, unique amongst Asian nations, to be easy, orderly and lead to the literacy of the whole Korean people. It was so effective that the King who commissioned it, King Sajon, is the namesake of the UN reward in recognition of literacy achievement today. The Mongolian government, furthermore, is carefully considering the adoption of Hangul, as their own form of communication today. But on what foundation was this language laid, was their any spiritual or philosophical aspects to it? Many assume at least the alphabet is neutral. If language cannot be neutral, at least symbol can be, right?
The Hangul alphabet, then consists of three types of Characters, Consonants, vertical vowels and horizontal vowels. These are grouped in consonant squares. (Note: if you have trouble viewing the Korean script, go to the “view” tab of your internet explorer, and choose, “encoding” then click on the Korean ISO. This will enable you to see the Korean Script).
There must, in accordance with Confucian principle be a balance between these, and so no consonant may appear without a vowel. For example, my name is Chad, a simple English construction, which can be transliterated into Hangul simply, 채드, or chad-uh. The ‘uh’ at the end very soft, yet definitely there, it balances the spelling of my name and gives full representation of the three balancing aspects. Now if there is no consonantal sound, the principle of balance must still be kept. Thus, a “null” consonant was created.
Similar in function to the Hebrew Aleph,(a)the Korean eiung (ㅇ), this symbol represents the Confucian principle of “heaven”. It is a circle, because a circle is never ending perfection. Earth is represented by horizontal vowels, most easily represented by the straight horizontal line (ㅡ), which makes the ‘uh’, as it were at the end of my name. These represent our planet, because, the Earth was thought to be a flat square. Between heaven and earth, stands the creature which bridges the gap, and thus vertical lines represent man, (ㅣ).
There is absolutely “nothing” that is unaffected by our own, or someone else’s presuppositions. How can we figure out what is of God and what is of man? How can we know whether what we are hearing is pleasing to God, or rebellious? How can we tell if a certain way of thinking will make us happy?
Conclusions
Well to tie this all together, is a challenging task. Like Ignatius, we live in a world surrounded by philosophical and theological assumptions, and consciously, or unconsciously, everything we think, and say and do, reflects or is influenced by our theology/philosophy and the pre-assumptions which they give us. But why should we worry? What is the practical point?
The question we have to ask ourselves, is this, “Do we want to please God in our thinking and action?” and secondly, “Do we want to be satisfied, really and truly happy?” if the answer is yes to both questions then we are on the right track.
First I want to explore, how thinking about the way we think, can move from a boring tedious exercise, to a vibrant fun foundation for a happy and fulfilled life. Then I will explore how to please God in my thinking and actions.
posted by Chad @ 10:52 PM
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