There is a certain type of observation I need to make in this blog. This type of observation will, I expect, consist of numerous entries. I have chosen a general name for the series of entries: "Things Not Even". (I will explain that particular name later.)
These entries will be about the Bible and its interpretation--specifically about a proper approach to biblical interpretation. The approach is implicit in the blog theme of "roused, readied, reaped," and I hope there will be no great mystery to it. The approach is simple, though two-fold: We are participants in the story told by the Bible, and we are viewpoint-based observers of that story. We are born into it, are shaped by it, and disappear into it.
It might be objected that we do not "disappear" into the story of the Bible because, for good or ill, we (expect to) persist indefinitely, though we understand ourselves as having begun at some point in a progression of time that we imagine regresses backward (in analysis, at least) indefinitely. But can it be said truly that we ever had a time-defined beginning, when our creation is attributed to the same deity that defines time?
We do not know the end-points of the dimensions through which we conceptualize existence, nor can we say with assurance that those dimensions are ultimately verifiable or--even if so--what utility those dimensions supply to the understanding of our belief systems. From moment to moment we think we can understand ultimates, and yet in our more sober moments we realize we cannot understand ultimates, and yet again in our need to believe in the sanity and sobriety of our thoughts we fall back into thinking we can understand ultimates. God always existed, and therefore "always" always existed, or at least if "always" did not always exist, then at least some approximation of "always" must exist (and not nefariously) in our minds and on some terms that seem relatable to "time".
This concern about "ultimates" is confined neither to physical phenomena (either strictly or metaphorically understood) nor to matters purely academic. Ultimates can affect us in quiet visceral ways. An apt example is the question of the nature of the devil. It is often said, and quite truly, that it is unwise to view the drama of the universe as a conflict between God and the devil--as though "the Devil" is to be viewed as a worthy adversary to God. God is the Ultimate, and the devil is his creature, and certain logical conclusions can flow from those assertions.
Yet it is entirely possible for us to fall into presumptions about the universe that conflict with our understanding--such as it might be--of God. We can look at the story of the Temptations in the Wilderness, and note especially the part where the devil invites Jesus to access mastery over "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," by worshipping the devil. The devil asserts, "for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it." The devil seems to be telling the truth, and in exchange for believing that the devil is in that moment telling "the God's truth," many interpreters avail themselves of easy descriptions--applied as though they were ultimately simple and universal--of the universe as being "under the Devil."
The universe, as the Gospels reveal, is not ultimately under the devil, nor is simply the world his, nor was the world his during Jesus' lifetime (and therefore before the devil's possible unseating by the Resurrection). Jesus repeatedly, and not without exasperation, admonished his followers that whatever they needed of Creation's potential was available to them--they need merely ask, and believe. To think the devil truthful, then, when he boasted of mastery of the kingdoms of the world, would be effectively to assert that the believer must ask and believe of the devil.
What went wrong with Christianity's assessment of who is the Lord of Creation? Why has it been possible for Christianity to plunge into centuries of teaching that Man is unregenerate and that Creation is under the devil's thumb, when Jesus taught that the devil might be brushed aside, that the bounties of Creation were available for the asking, and that humans--though "evil"--know how to give good things at proper times? The answer is simple: Christianity has assumed that the devil--that created being--could tell the truth, and handle the truth, as though he was a god.
The devil is a created being, just like us in that regard, and has the limitations of a created being. The devil can no more do anything perfectly or consummately than we can. The devil has a measure of the propensity of any created being to misunderstand--perhaps willfully so. The devil, in the "ultimate" analysis, can ultimately have no more mastery over Creation than can a snake, or a worm. Yet we humans, in wanting to "understand" the things of God--in wanting to rise above the status of "roused, readied, reaped"--will spread simple "understandings" over the vista of the universe's mysteries and imagine we are stating simple wisdom.
It is wrong to see the devil as the adversary of God, as though the fate of the universe hung in the balance of an uncertain battle. This much is easy to understand. It is more difficult for us to understand that the only universe that we can conceptualize responsibly--and with due deference to our Creator--is a universe in which we share (and are willing to share) the capacity of recognizably-similar experience with all other creatures. We know somewhat how the devil thinks because we are all created; we know somewhat how the worm thinks because we are all created.
What we DO NOT know is how we could possibly believe that a perfection of concept or of reliability might be applied to the devil. Think of the devil as a formidable adversary of God, and you think of the devil as a god--that much is plain. But think of some theological point--like the devil's supposed lordship of the fallen world--as reflecting a simple truth in the devil's mouth, and you are also thinking of the devil as a god.
This is the type of point I must try to make. Forgive me, but I must end now with the intimation that I will be describing "things not even" to say.
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