a chip off the old block

Two posts in one day is a rare thing to expect from me but I wanted to share with you  some of my  personal reading, on what Karl Barth has to say about wisdom. From Dogmatics in Outline, Chapter 3: Faith as Knowledge.

Faith is knowledge; it is related to God's Logos, and is therefore thoroughly a logical matter.The truth of Jesus Christ is also in the simplest sense a truth of facts. Its starting point, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, is a fact which occured in space and time, as the New Testament describes it. The apostles were not satisfied to hold on to an inward fact; they spoke of what they saw and heard and what they touched with their hands. And the truth of Jesus Christ is also a matter of thoroughly clear and, in itself, ordered human thinking; freeü precisely in its being bound. But - and the things must not be seperated - what is involved is living truth. The concept of knowledge, of scientia, is insufficient to describe what Christian knowledge is. We must rather go back to what in the Old Testament is called wisdom, what Greeks called sophia and the Latins sapientia, in order to grasp the knowledge of theology in its fulness. Sapientia is distinguished from the narrower concept of scientia, wisdom is distinguished from knowing, in that it not only contains knowledge in itself, but also that his concept speaks of a knowledge which is practical knowledge, embracing the entire existence of man. Wisdom is the knowledge by which we may actually and practically live; it is empiricism and it is the theory which is powerful in being directly practical, in being the knowledge which dominates our life, which is really a light upon our path.Not a light to wonder at and to observe, not a light to kindle all manner of fireworks at - not even the profoundest philosophical speculations - but the light on our road which may stand above our action and above our talk, the light on our healthy and on our sick days, in our poverty and in our wealth, the light which does not only lighten when we suppose ourselves to have moments of insight, but which accompanies us even into our folly, which is not quenched when all is quenched, when the goal of our life becomes visible in death. To live by this light, by this truth, is the meaning of Christian knowledge. Christian knowledge means living in the truth of Jesus Christ. In this light we live and move and have our being (Acts 17.28) in order that we may be of Him, and through Him and unto Him, as it says in Romans 11.36. So Christian knowledge, at its deepest, is one with what we termed man's trust in God's Word. 

One of the great benefits of following an orderly reading of the Scriptures round the Church Calendar is that it brings to our attention those parts of the Scriptures that we're not necessarily familiar with. I think highlighting a limited portion also helps one focus on that particular portion and thus improve understanding. Since becoming part of an Anglican church community here in Oxford that's exactly how I feel like many Sundays. This past Sunday was no exception.

The reading (for Candlemas) from Luke 2.22-38 reminded me of the place of the elderly in our communities. The text talks about Simeon and Anna, who have both been expecting the arrival of the Savour in the world. Luke tells us Simeon was a righteous and devout man who enjoyed a vibrant relationship with God in this old age. Anna also lived in the Temple daily worshipping in His presence.

The passage made me think of the important place and role of the elderly in our communities. To be honest when I think of them I usually see them as a "fragile" group of people who need to be cared for, treated with special kindness etc. With this mindset they're the ones who do moreof the taking from the church and the rest of the community do more of the giving. ...almost as if they need the church community more than the community need them. In a sense this might be true - we do need to show a special concern and care for the elderly.

However this is not the whole picture. They need not be the takers only, they do have a lot to give to the community. Simeon and Anna gave shared with the world words of faith, the value of faithful expectation from God and recognition of God's work in their midst. They lived as witnesses to God's faithfulness and God used their committment for long years as instruments of his grace and wisdom. Anna may have easily been seen as a public nuisance by many at the Temple. "This old woman who doesn't do anything but just talk!" I'm almost sure she didn't look as pretty as the Christian films and iconography's depiction her either. Yet both her and Simeon fulfilled an important role in and for the Jerusalem community.

It's a pity that we do not have a significant group of elderly in our churches in Turkey. The church is very young and many of even the oldest members are Christians for a few decades. Yet the church needs its own elderly today as signs of God's faithfulness and instruments of his wisdom. They give the church her recent history, which is actually God's history and milestones to remember and celebrate (or sometimes mourn) in the community. This also reminds me that God is still in the very early stages of forming his community of believers in Turkey. The church is not "complete" yet in the demographic sense. It is still not at that stage where there are significant faithful elderly who can contribute and point to God in a way that us younger one's can't. I should hope (and pray!) that it will most probably come to that stage in the next two to three decades. It will be interesting to see how the church will be blessed from their existence. It will definitely be a wiser and more balanced community, don't you think?

Therefore I pray a weird prayer today and say "God, mature us, give an increase to our days, age your church and make it a place that welcomes the contribution of the elderly. Amen."

Are you one of those who couldn't resist the hype around Avatar and ended up going to the cinema to see it? I am... And I can't say I found much in it besides the 3D aspect. The story has been worked many times before, don't you think? The whole 3 hours (or was it 5?) I felt like I was just watching a coloured up re-take of Dances with the Wolves. The good old evil-white-men-need-to-be-stopped-by-the-good-white-man story.

I did find one aspect of the movie very interesting though, and that is the theological message of Avatar. The alternative and unspoiled world (eden?) of Pandora (a touch of mythology always works) has this weird network of all-encompassing energy, which is researched by Grace Augustine (a touch of Christianity always works). Every creature is connected to this higher energy/spirit called Eywa through their various bodily extensions. It's more than being connected really, I think the idea is that all beings are actually parts of the bigger Eywa. The Na'vi (the blue people with the tails) go to a sacred tree (of souls, we are told) to connect with the rest of their world (Eywa, ancestors, etc.). They plug their tails into the tree and get advice from it. So far what's pictured (although not explicitly told) is a pantheistic world.

As you already know pantheism is the view that the nature and God are identical. It Pantheism promotes the idea that God is better understood as way of looking at nature and everything we see around us (the sum total of all that was, is and shall be), rather than as a transcendent and especially anthromophic entity. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or creator god. This becomes very visible in the movie, especially in the scene where Jake "prays" in front of the tree. He's encouraged by one of the blue people not to pray, because "Eywa never takes sides, she only watches the balance of everything!" This spirit/energy is totally impersonal and therefore cannot have a personal relationship with the rest of the beings. People are on their own!

Or so you'd think - because the movie takes the opposite turn in the end. Eywa decides to get involved in the business. "Eywa does hear Jake" and mobilizes the beings of Pandora to fight against evil. Quite a dramatic turn, isn't it? We are tempted to ignore the significance of this u-turn while getting our appetites satisfied with the following war scenes, however this was the gist of the whole deal for me. This was the moment where in my opinion the story writers shot themselves in the foot. Because here Pandora's pantheism shatters at this point and gives way to a supreme being who is first personal (hears and answers prayer), and then makes a distinction between good and evil (it's not about the balance, mate).

The end that satisfies us always has to admit that there is good and there is evil and they are distinct from one another, and more important, behind the story of it all there is a Supreme Personal Power who has the first and last say in things. We just can't escape from admitting it because this is the only end that makes sense of the story.

So... I know that some out there are livid about Avatar and see it as yet another subtle attack on the Christian worldview. In my opinion - if it really is - it is but be a poor attempt, because all it does is to prove to me that the pantheistic view is not sustainable and there is more to the universe than that old woman called Eywa.