Important qualifications:
- I use YHWH (God) because it saves me from calling YHWH by any male/female pronoun. I am also a cousin to YHWH’s people and so a better respect for YHWH is due.
- This text, like the others, are works in progress. If someone writes to let me know of a misspelled word etc or some other grammar-like possible correction necessary, i will change it. I will do the same if I find or am told that there is a logical problem within the context of the argument.
- There are footnotes to these texts, for further reading or from which direct quotes were derived.
In 1859 a book was published that shook the foundations of western society. That book was The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection and the man who wrote it was named Charles Darwin.
The foundations trembled because before that book was published, human beings, at least those who made up the Christian West, had a view of themselves that was both arrogant and unnatural. Arrogant because they considered themselves to be the special creation of YHWH and unnatural because they believed that that ‘special creation’ was separate from the rest of the natural world.
Origin(1) began a process of thinking that underscored what most of us now take for granted though in some cases do not fully appreciate. Human beings are creatures that are as much part of evolutionary creation as any other species on the planet. Our presence and effects upon the chain of being in the world and the universe of which we are a part cannot and must not be ignored. We know now, for example, that if we take a toxic stew from one of our factories and dump it in the ocean or in a river, that eventually we ourselves will be affected because we are part of creation. We know now that the plastics we use and toss away make their way into other creatures on Earth and now are moving up the food chain to human beings. We know, but the manufacturers of plastic, and our use of it, continue apace.
It could be argued successfully that the biblical record does not support the arrogant and unnatural interpretations that were laid on the scriptural text by Christian interpreters. After all, in the mythical creation story in Genesis human beings are created as part of the process of creation; they are never described as separate from it. The biblical term is ‘steward’, not ruler. As well, there is that important line that has run thread-like through these reflections from Ash Wednesday (the story of Adam and Eve): “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We are part of the dust of this world and one day we shall all return to dust.
Some of those who came after Darwin took his observations and conclusions about evolution and applied them to human morality, to the life of the individual and its relationship to society or community. Some of these persons (e.g., social Darwinists[2]) used Darwin’s notion of the ‘survival of the fittest’ to claim that only the strong should survive, that the strong will rise through ruthless competition and that competition will be motivated solely by self-interest. It is possible to look through the lens that these persons supply and see our time since 1859 as very much the practical application of Darwin’s notion in national aggression, colonialism, warfare and in economic development as a form of subjugation.
However, there is a more positive way of seeing this history, another way of seeing our time since Darwin. We can see it as a time of learning about how, in fact, interdependent we are. As a species we are dependent upon the rest of creation for our survival, for the air we breathe, for the food we eat. As individuals we depend upon others in order to survive. We need to cooperate with others if we are to survive and thrive both as individuals and as a species. Even in today’s world economy nations and investors are deeply conscious about how interdependent the world has become. This movement of interdependence is gravely threatened by right-wing jingoistic tribalism.
Of course we have not yet throughly learned because of our own self-interest or through any higher motives that we must cooperate with one another if we are to survive. We have not fully learned and accepted that we need each other. And because we need each other we sometimes have to put our own self-interest aside for the greater good. Sometimes in fact some of us do choose to be self-sacrificial and turn away from the motivations of the self for the good of someone else. Sometimes we even choose to be self-sacrificial because it is the right thing to do.
Here then is the human dilemma writ large: we are, as Darwin re-discovered (what the Genesis story clearly stated centuries earlier), animals who belong to a created order and we have a powerful instinct for our own self-survival. Yet we have, surprisingly, equally powerful motivations to be self-sacrificial. This very human contradiction/conflict is at the core of our discussions of these past few weeks.
We have spent these weeks talking about the tests or temptations that happened to Jesus in the story where he goes into the desert for forty days. In the first week we talked about the value and the terror of going into any desert, whether of the soul or spirit or a physical one. In such a place we have an opportunity to unpack our baggage and our burdens, struggle with our daemons and come out stronger, it is hoped, than when we went in.
As part of that unpacking of the baggage we carry around with us day-to-day and dealing with our very real daemons, we spoke about the three very real and deeply human tests faced by Jesus in the desert. They were the tests of bread and consumption, the test of the desire for power, and the more peculiar one of testing, through doubt, we sometimes feel as to whether YHWH is really among us or not.
At the root of these three tests is the struggle in our nature between the instinct of an animal to survive at all costs and the possibility that is in every one of us to transcend that instinct to become a self-sacrificing creature, something that does not fit the paradigms of certain theories of evolution or of economics or of social structure. We can, to put it bluntly, be mere animals or we can rise though our physical selves to become (like) either devils or angels.
Please note that there are rarely such things as pure motives. We are a complicated kind of creature. Sometimes we do things for the right reasons, sometimes we do not. We are not usually motivated purely by either self-interest or self-sacrifice. Sometimes through necessity we are and should be motivated by self-interest. Sometimes we have to choose which motivation wins out. And that is where our greatest difficulties emerge.
When we are tested by the need or requirement to consume, in our self-interest we seek food, shelter, and security. Yet in that need we sometimes desire more and more and more, not because we actually need more but because we simply want more. In that desire for more we can sometimes be deaf to the cry within that asks: is there nothing more than that which I can buy? We may also be deaf and blind to the needs of others around us who have more significant needs than ourselves. Our self-interest in this test sometimes never allows us to rise above mere appetite, the belly, and ultimately we are consumed by the very things that we buy and the option and impulse to rise above that instinct is lost.
When we are tested by the desire for power our instinct motivates us to get whatever power we can and keep it so that we can beat off anyone else who might want to take away what we have. We adopt a fortress mentality, one that drives us to manipulate and control people so that we get what we want. Some use power well and we call those people ‘persons with authority’. Jesus was such a one. Those who do not use power well, that is, to their own and others’ destruction, are called, well many things, but certainly not persons with authority (unless motivation by fear equals authority. These latter imagine themselves to be like gods, have no doubts, and will do the worst things they can, limited only by ability, chance and human frailty.
Fanatics or fundamentalists or true believers in any human sphere of activity-science, religion, atheism, politics, economics, etc-are the most dangerous people in the world, because nothing can convince them that perhaps their theories need to be tweaked. No evidence can be provided that shows what they believe to be absolute truth, no matter the damage they cause, the crimes they commit, the violence they visit upon others may in fact be wrong or wrong-headed, or at least only part of a truth (4).
Devils or angels are made of us through the quest for and the wielding of power and at least part of the direction in which we become one of these depends upon how certain we are.
When we are tested by the desire to wonder if YHWH is really among us, the third test, we do one of two things. We remain committed to the possibility of the kingdom of YHWH(5), despite the enormous possibility for pain that that stance holds, or we walk away. And we walk away either because the pain of holding belief in YHWH’s’s presence ( and the possibility for goodness) in contrast with the reality of the world is too much to bear or we walk away because we know that, as Dostoyevsky put it over 100 years ago, “if God does not exist, everything is permitted” (6). In this case, self-interest is the name of the game, the game we choose. For such a person, YHWH is an inconvenient obstacle, as are rules, laws, fences put in place to check our self-interest against the common good.
You may think that all this talk about the struggle between our instinct (our base natures) and the call to re-write the program, as it were, by rising above instinct is beyond us in our practical day-to-day existence. However, we see it in human drama all the time: politicians who get caught in conflicts of interest, spouses who leave their families because the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, people who use violence, verbal and physical, to articulate their fear of losing control or power, decision-makers in companies or government who lay off employees only to gain ever-increasing returns for investors.
These human tests of bread, power and belief or trust test our instincts for survival but they also test our capacity for self-sacrifice.
With the test of bread our capacity for self-sacrifice is tested at a personal level every time we are asked to give to a charity of some sort. We in the West, for example, have the smallest percentage of the population of the world yet we consume most of the world’s goods and control most of the world’s wealth. We are asked as individuals and as nations how much we are willing to give up of our personal luxuries so that the vast majority of the population of the world can raise their standard of living. How much are we willing to give up, or sacrifice for the good of others?
With the test of power our capacity for self-sacrifice is made evident in how comfortable we are in hearing and accepting what others say, how we deal with disappointment, in not getting what we want, especially in limiting our ability to manipulate and control others to our own ends. To the extent that we have power and are able to make the sacrifice of humility in these sorts of things, to that extent we have authority. To the extent that that we cannot hear anything but the sound of our own voice, the dictates of our own impulses, the desire of our own will over others, we will have only power, not authority, and we will not have made any self-sacrifice. Indeed, the very notion in such a state would make no sense.
With the test of doubting whether YHWH is among us or not our capacity for self-sacrifice is tested as to whether we are bound by any ideals, laws, rules, principles, authorities than our own. Do we have what it takes to sacrifice ourselves, or at least some part of ourselves, for something that is part of a broader vision (in our case, the kingdom of YHWH)?
Darwin was correct. We are animals, part of the earth’s ecosystem and we have the same basic desire for survival that all other animals on earth have. However, we have also as part of our nature the ability to rise above motives that derive strictly from self-interest. Self-interest in competition with self-sacrifice. We have both and we need both in order to survive as individuals and as a species. The question is; which will become the predominate trait in each of us? There are moments in each of our lives when we make decisions that determine our character, and define us as more self-sacrificial or more self-interested. We are molded by such decisions and once the mould sets we may be fixed in our character for life, predominately as selfish or as self-sacrificing, or to use biblical language, devils or angels.
Last week the reflection ended by stating that there is another piece of the puzzle that has not yet been considered as critical in describing how it is that we who follow the Nazorean messiah are to be little messiahs to the world. That piece runs through scripture like a glowing thread, transcending time and space. As one of those pieces of scripture puts it, “Jesus said to his disciples: “if any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?”(7)
There are two significant points in this statement. 1) That following Jesus, being his disciple means that one follows the Nazorean messiah to the cross. 2) That human life, and indeed the life of other species and the planet itself is more important than short-term want or desire.
Let us take the second point first. This is a familiar point from these past few weeks. From YHWH’s point of view our lives are more precious than what we gain in life, if even it would be the whole world and all that it offers. Sometimes we give our lives away to things that are of much less value than we ourselves. We give our love to those things that are not gods.
The first point. The piece of the puzzle that defines for us what it is to be a Christian who trusts the Nazorean messiah, is to make decisions that will ultimately define us as self-giving, self-sacrificial. In a word, that we know YHWH through this first-century Jew whom we follow as disciples, from the cross. The cross is the ultimate example for Christians of what it means to be righteous in the world, as an example of self-sacrifice, self-giving for others. YHWH has shown something about God’s self in this instrument of death; it shows the lengths to which YHWH will go to get our attention and our willing service, our willing self-sacrifice.
The choices we make ultimately define us as self-giving or self-serving. At various points in our lives we have to do both. But what is the final sum of those choices?
As Christians of course we are called to win our tests or triumph over our temptations, when they come, by choosing self-sacrifice. We are not called to attempt to wipe out our self-interest, our own will to survive, for that is impossible. Or at least it is a path that very few can or are willing to travel to its very end. But we are called to rise above self-interest, to seek a higher way, to take the road of the cross, the road of self-sacrifice, as far as we can bear the load.
It might be asked: what gives legitimacy to this road, this approach to human ethics and human choice, to being human? It is the fact that Jesus’ movement did not die with him. And also because of the fact that many millions of Christians over the centuries have done, and today still do, work that is self-sacrificial, self-giving. Such acts bring new life, the very presence of God, into the world. The message of the cross, of Easter, as St. Paul puts it, may be foolishness to the contemporary despisers of faith, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. But the cross is not an explanation; it is a message.
More about that next week.
Footnotes
(1) He developed his work further in a later volume entitled The Descent of Man.
(2) Some of the names associated with this term, often by others, are Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, Francis Galton (the grandfather of eugenics) and Ernst Haeckel.
(3) It was actually Herbert Spender who created the phrase as an analogue to Darwin’s ‘natural selection’, by which both meant the ability to procreate, not the ability to dominate. Darwin himself used Spencer’s term alongside his own. Modern biologists prefer Darwin’s.
(4) A worthy volume to read on this point is Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1985).
(5) This concept is difficult to see in any way that it can be a reality. And what sort of are laity could it possibly be? The best we can do will we wait is to ask: what can I do now to make the world a better place, not just for me and my tribe, which was the Greco-Roman choice: their civilizations, though the writings of most of their literature tend to imply that some persons are less human than others. The Judeo-Christian option chose to define all persons as humans, regardless of assets, power, colour, differences of sexual matters, social status etc. Speaking only of the Christins; did they succeed? Far from it, but they had a few shining moments where the impetus of Chesed (loving kindness) broke free of the shackles of credenda and its worship and did some good in the world.
(6) In his The Brothers Karamazov.
(7) Mark 8:34-37