Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:26-29

26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.

27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.

28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.

29 For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to day to the Lord, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.

Continuing with the symbolism of the divine from above touching mortality below, we see in today’s verses how these moments call for the drawing of a line. The situation has come to an impasse, and one cannot try to stand with a foot in each side any longer. One must by chosen. “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Moses asks. Now that the people had sufficient time to choose sin or virtue, who would hold their dignity? All of Levi answers the call and they are given the command to march forth and cut down the rebels.

The command to go to battle is very sharp and direct. Even a neighbor, or a companion, or a brother was not to be spared. If a man chooses God, then he is to choose Him above any other. This may seem a hard thing, difficult to consider given that we live isolated from God while establishing more tangible connections to those we live with. But the more we mature, the more we see that it is the intangible ideals of good and right and truth that matter most, and we develop our deepest devotions to them.

We look around us today and we see that there is no such immediate judgment being carried out upon the wicked. Those that defy God still prosper, and those who are prone to straying see no clear line in the sand that must not be crossed. That doesn’t mean that the God of judgment and retribution has ceased to exist, though. These things come in times and seasons. People are left to ripen, and then the harvest comes, either for glory or destruction. There will be another time of reckoning, and we ought to live so that we will find ourselves on the right side of it.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:9-10

9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

These are some interesting verses, showing God with a singular intent, and in the next verses we will hear how Moses dissuaded Him from it. Does this mean that God’s plans were not set in stone? How does this sort of behavior stack up to the Christian teaching that God is always right and can always be trusted? How can He be all-merciful if Moses is showing a greater degree of mercy than He is?

We’ll examine several aspects of these questions over the next couple days as we consider each batch of verses. For today I will address two of these issues, starting with the question of whether or not God’s plans are set in stone. How could His plans and promises be fulfilled if He destroyed the people He had intended to save?

An explanation for this is that there can be multiple acceptable paths by which the Lord is able to accomplish His purposes and promises. Either He could continue to strive with the children of Jacob, or He could cut them off and raise the children of Moses to receive the Promised Land instead. Obviously, either path would fulfill His promises to Abraham and the Israelite people as a whole.

As for the matter of whether God was all-merciful or not, I would say that this story illustrates that God is all-good. Justice is good. Mercy is good. God is able to execute perfect justice, and He is also capable of showing perfect mercy. Many of us are not so versatile. We are either very good at showing mercy, but weak at standing up for justice, or else we are good at maintaining justice, but struggle to show mercy. In the course of these verses, we see God’s openness to both, which is a testament to His full breadth of goodness.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 32:7-8

7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:

8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

From God’s summary of the goings-on down below we can see that His view is perfectly clear, for He gives explicit detail on how the people had corrupted themselves, even reciting the specific words that Aaron said when presenting the golden calf.

I see this conversation as being representative of God’s observance of humanity throughout all time. How many times have there been similar conversations in the halls of heaven as God and His court consider the ways that mankind has gone astray down below? In the time of Noah? Before the coming of Christ? Still yet-to-come before the second coming? It is quite a privilege to us that Moses was elevated to take part in this instance so that we could receive an account of it.

The role that Moses served in this moment is symbolic of the Son of God, communing with the Father above and then being sent down to resolve the sins of the people. The nature of the Israelites, and indeed of all the world, is to go astray. We receive blessings and freedom, we appreciate it for a time, but then we give in to sin and try to find our own way to the promised land. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way,” (Isaiah 53:6).

For a time, God permits us to run riot, but eventually there must come a time of divine intervention and reckoning. As in the time of Noah, God was just about ready to reset the entire enterprise, as we will see in tomorrow’s verses.

Posted on by Abe Austin

God’s Body: Worshipping in Spirit

What is God?)

I have spoken of God as a super-entity, one that we are all components of. I have referenced both Paul’s allegory of the Body of Christ and the Hindu notion of universal consciousness.

This sort of aggregate view of God is different from other teachings that I believe, though. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has one of the most individualized notions of God, about as far away as you can get from viewing the Almighty as an abstract aggregate.

So, is all this talk about God, the super-entity, purely theoretical to me? An interesting thought experiment and nothing more? No. Personally, I don’t have any qualms about believing in both an individual and an abstract God.

Concrete Conceptions)

It is our natural tendency to try and explain something so that it becomes concrete to us. Religions often describes a very specific version of God, because people need a specific, concrete idea of what they are directing their faith towards.

But most religions also teach that God is beyond comprehension. He is not simply a more powerful version of ourselves, but part of an entirely different classification that exceeds the limits of our mortal minds. Thus, the concrete ideas of God may indeed identify true aspects of Him, but there is no way that they can capture the entire thing.

We know that we cannot conceptualize all of God. There are parts of Him that we might know are right, and parts that we think are partly right, and parts that we don’t know one way or the other, but which possibly could be right. And beyond all of those, there are almost certainly other parts that we don’t know anything about at all, but which bind all the other parts together.

In the book Flatland, a square in a two-dimensional world meets a sphere intersecting with the plane of his existence, appearing only as a slice of its original self: a circle. The sphere raises and lowers itself through that two-dimensional slice, becoming a larger and smaller circle. To the square the sphere appears as different, changing beings, but it is all the same sphere in the end.

Could it be that God is the same? As a higher dimensional being, could it be that God is able to be both simultaneously one and many?

Worshipping in Spirit)

Perhaps it was this uncertain and unknowable aspect of God that Jesus alluded to when he said that we “must worship [God] in spirit.” Because God is of a higher order, and is incomprehensible to our minds, at the end of the day we can only direct our fealty in His general direction. We worship the overall spirit of what we perceive Him to be, devoting ourselves to our imperfect conception of Him, waiting for the next life to fully understand Him as a whole.

In either case, I find the questions of what the nature of God is, and what His “body” is, and what it is in relation to us, and what that means for how we ought to view reality to be most intriguing. These questions yield all manner of thoughtful introspection. This will conclude my study in this area for now, though it is an area that is still active in my mind, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I revisit it at some point. Thank you for accompanying me on this journey.

Posted on by Abe Austin

God’s Body: The Beginning and the End

Part of God)

I have spent some time discussing how viewing ourselves as part of God whole allows us to better accept the trials of life that come our way. Yes, those times still hurt, but we understand that since we are a part of God, He isn’t asking us to go through anything that He isn’t willing to face Himself. He is right there experiencing the exact same pain alongside of us, thus able to provide both perfect empathy and healing care.

Of course, exactly what it would mean to be “a part of God” is still open to interpretation. We do know that individual cells are part of the organ, the individual organ is part of the body, the individual body is part of a community, the community is part of a nation, and the nation a part of the human race. Man is both made up of parts and a part of something more. He is in the middle of an order that extends out to places smaller and larger than we know. Could it be that both its root and its end, its smallest origin and its largest aggregate, are one and the same God?

A Divine Struggle)

Considering that such might be the case, that all of us might be from God and for God, then that raises some interesting ideas as to what we are all doing here, and why difficulty and pain are a necessary part of this earthly existence. Consider these verses from Paul in his letter to the Corinthians:

For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
-1 Corinthians 15:25-26

If we are all a part of God, then the greatest thing that this collective body of God could do is learn how to overcome every ill and affliction, including its own death. This gives a fascinating lens with which to view the increase of corruption and chaos around us. Could it be that this mortal trouble is not contrary to the plan, but exactly in accordance with it? Could it be that the plan is to take on all trouble by degrees, so that the body of God may struggle through every trouble and overcome it? And if that is so, then each of our individual struggles is part of the striving and overcoming of the whole!

Posted on by Abe Austin

God’s Body: Missing the Mark

In my last post I discussed how the Western philosophy of individualism can create a moral dilemma about God allowing pain in this world. I explained that an Eastern philosophy of collectivism can dispel that dilemma, because when one views himself as part of God, then God is actually experiencing the pain personally, enduring it for the greater good.

Human Shortcomings)

Does this mean that Eastern philosophy and collectivism is superior to Western individualism? Maybe in some regards, but I don’t believe in all.

Every philosophy we have has passed through human hands and is therefore corrupted. Even if the philosophy originated from a pure source, such as the word of God, it all passes through the prism of flawed mortal understanding. The pure light is bent and diffracted and we end up with philosophies that might be generally good, but which now have flaws. In time, those flaws will compound until we have a serious divergence from the truth. This is true for any Western philosophy, and any Eastern philosophy, and any other philosophy at any time or place.

We all miss the mark and create confusion. When we do so consistently across our entire culture, then the people of our nations will have inherent problems with God, based upon those flaws. And since that philosophy becomes ingrained at an extremely young age, most won’t even question the premises behind their complaints. They won’t consider, “maybe God isn’t wrong, maybe my fundamental framing of life itself is off.”

A Glass Darkly)

Paul acknowledges this inherent shortcoming in humanity with his famous words, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). He admits to murky vision, though he does at least carry the hope of future clarity.

I believe at the root of most, if not all, moral quandaries is a fundamental misunderstanding of God, Himself. Because our conception of His person, His attributes, and His relationship to us is misaligned, we become misaligned to ourselves, our neighbors, and the world at large.

Being able to recognize this predisposition for error is the first step in seeing past our flaws. So humbled, we can grope forward, taking the light where we can find it. We can understand that any person we listen to for long enough will surely tell us something wrong, but also, they might tell us a new truth we never before had seen. And then, one day, as Paul attests, we shall see face to face and know in full.

Posted on by Abe Austin

God’s Body: The Problem of Pain

Yesterday I spoke briefly about Western philosophy and its emphasis on individualism, and Eastern philosophy and its emphasis on collectivism. I spoke of benefits and drawbacks to each, and today I will present another unique effect of Western Individualism. First, though, let us address a problem that everyone will face whatever philosophy they live by.

Blind Spots)

When a large culture adopts a particular philosophy, it quickly becomes ingrained in their lives and shapes the way that they think. Certain perceptions and reactions will be culled from their range of possible responses. Thus, their view is controlled by their philosophy, but they are blind to the fact that they are being influenced at all. They just think their view is self-evident and are incredulous that anyone could feel otherwise.

As I say, this is common for any culture. All people have assumed premises, regardless of their background. This idea is captured very well in the famous joke of a fish that does not realize it is in water, because the water is so ubiquitous that the fish has ceased to perceive it.

Discomfort at God’s Wrath)

Let us keep that idea of cultural blind spots in mind as we consider what is arguably the most controversial aspect of God in Western culture: Him commanding the destruction of certain civilizations. Throughout the Bible there are some instances where God either wipes out a people by His own hand, or He orders the Israelites to carry out the extermination of another kingdom. I recently devoted an entire study to examining this matter, and how I wrestled to resolve my discomfort with these passages.

But the criticism of God goes even deeper. Just the fact that He allows tragic things to happen, even if not by His own hand, is greatly distressing to many. We often hear the example of childhood cancer as the sort of thing that a loving God simply wouldn’t allow. This complaint is so prevalent that renowned Christian author C. S. Lewis dedicated an entire book to it entitled The Problem of Pain.

And this logic seems to be entirely self-evident to us in the Western world, a matter that every religious person would have to deal with, no matter their conception of the divine. I was surprised, then, to learn that this matter is actually not a great concern to people of other cultures. There seems to be evidence that this moral dilemma is a product of our Western philosophical blind spot as opposed to an obvious universal truth.

A Different View)

But how could anyone actually believe that it is acceptable for God to be good and also allow suffering? Why would our Western Individualism cause us to feel this discomfort, and how could another philosophical view dispel it? I’ll answer these questions in my next post.

Posted on by Abe Austin

God’s Body: Individualism and Collectivism

To begin this series on God’s Body, I want two consider different world philosophies, and how they might affect our understanding of God’s Body and our relation to it. Today will only be the introduction to these philosophies.

Western Philosophy and Individualism)

The first philosophy is the predominant one in our Western culture, which places particular emphasis on the individual. We tend to think of ourselves autonomously and hold individual rights as more sacred than societal needs. And there are undoubtedly some great benefits to this view. Primarily, it leads to the rejection of oppression and injustice. Since the worth of the individual soul is supreme, there is no justification for putting another person in a state of indignity. I do not think it is a coincidence that modern democracy and the abolition of slavery were ushered in by the West.

But this philosophy also has its drawbacks, particularly when we take it too far. It increases the chances of developing a sense of selfishness and narcissism. It can be used to justify sacrificing the greater good for hedonistic pleasure.

Eastern Philosophy and Collectivism)

Now let us consider Eastern philosophy, which often places a greater emphasis on collectivism. Here one considers oneself as a part of a greater whole. Indeed, a part of multiple greater wholes, including a family, a community, and a society. One is expected to serve the whole, and to make personal sacrifices for the greater good. Benefits of this are a greater sense of cooperation and it can foster a strong sense of belonging.

Drawbacks to this philosophy are opposite the benefits of individualism. If one feels subservient to the whole, one is less likely to question injustice, allowing bad leaders a long leash to oppress as they see fit. Thus, for both philosophies we see that each comes with its own benefits and drawbacks. Undesirable side-effects are to be expected in all philosophies, for all are seen through the lens of imperfect mortality.

Views on God)

But how do these two different philosophies affect our views of God? I have already acknowledged some of their benefits and drawbacks in regard to the individual, but tomorrow I will detail one that is a great stumbling block to accepting God in the West.

Because of our individualism, we struggle to truly see ourselves as a part of God’s Body, and that leads to an improper frustration when God allows us to experience pain. Come back tomorrow where I will explain this point further.

Posted on by Abe Austin

God’s Body: Introduction

I am currently reading through Paul’s letters to the churches in the ancient world with my family. We covered 1 Corinthians 12, where he speaks at length about the Body of Christ, and how we are all a part of it. This subject lingered in my mind, spinning off all manner of different tangents and realizations. I wanted to try and gather all of these separate notions and put them into some order, which is what I will endeavor to do with this series.

There will still be some stream-of-consciousness nature to the following posts, but I hope to progress from one point to another with a logical point of connection in between. I also hope to mostly progress in a linear way without curving back too much on previous topics.

If there is a central theme to this series, it will be the Body of God, and our relation to that body. “Body” is an interesting word, because it simultaneously means something that is specific and individual, such as “the body of a man,” but also something that is abstract, aggregate, and many, such as “the body politic.” I believe that the Body of God can be seen in both these lights, which my posts will explore.

Posted on by Abe Austin

A Blessed Curse

Only those that are most dedicated to evil are destroyed by God. For all the rest of us, even when He curses us, it is a curse designed to teach and even save us. The very tribulation that we think will ruin us, ends up being the vehicle for our salvation. It feels like a death, but it holds the seed of life. Thus, by His grace, even God’s curses are blessings.