ATHOL DICKSON

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Should Everybody Vote?

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dirty-jobs-101316
Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe

Some guy named Mike Rowe, who I just learned is a TV star or something*, was recently asked by a fan named Jeremy to “encourage [his] huge following to go out and vote in this election.” All the coolest Hollywood stars are doing it, so apparently it’s a good idea, right?

Mr. Rowe’s answer is remarkable, both for its common sense and for its courage, because in an industry which specializes in spreading propaganda, few have the courage to speak common sense like this:

I’m afraid I can’t encourage millions of people whom I’ve never met to just run out and cast a ballot, simply because they have the right to vote. That would be like encouraging everyone to buy an AR-15, simply because they have the right to bear arms. I would need to know a few things about them before offering that kind of encouragement.

Mr. Rowe’s reply just gets better from there, so head over to his Facebook page to read the whole thing. And by the way, if you want to read the book he recommends at the end, you can get it here.

* I wasn’t sure who Mike Rowe is because I stopped watching cable and network television about many years ago. It was clogging too many arteries in my brain.

What Jesus Didn’t Know

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Actual Photo of Jesus' Feet (or some very like them)
Actual Photo of Jesus’ Feet (or some very like them)

Recently a friend mentioned a controversy in her life caused by a few people who claim Jesus was born with a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures. They probably believe this because syllogistic logic seems to demand it. Christianity teaches that Jesus is “fully God,” and God is omniscient (all-knowing), therefore Jesus must have been omniscient at birth. They also claim Jesus was never tempted to sin. Again, they apparently base this on the syllogism that Jesus is fully God, and God hates sin, therefore Jesus could not have been tempted to sin. My friend told me these people also claim their ideas are “critical theology.” By that, I assume they mean these notions are essential doctrines, or First Things, which everyone must believe or else we’ll go to hell.

I beg to differ.

It’s dangerous to insist that anything other than a childlike faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for a right relationship with God. But that’s a topic for another post. Here, I want to examine this idea that Jesus must have been omniscient, even as a baby, and could not have been tempted by sin. It’s easy to debunk these ideas from the Scriptures, as we will shortly see, but it’s also vitally important to understand why they can’t be true. Far from being necessary for salvation, they tend to obscure who Jesus is, why Jesus came to earth as the child of Joseph and Mary, and why he died on a Roman cross.

First, let’s do away with the alleged omniscience of Jesus with three simple verses…

The Bible says Jesus “learned obedience” (Hebrews 5:8) The word “learned” is manthanó, used 25 times in the NT to mean exactly what “learned” means in English. Because its meaning is so consistent everywhere else, it’s unlikely manthanó means anything different when applied to Jesus by the author of Hebrews. So the Bible teaches us that Jesus learned. Therefore he did not know everything.

Jesus’ limited knowledge is also revealed in his comments about the end times. See Matthew 24:36. Jesus didn’t even know “the day or hour” of his own second coming.

And in Philippians 2:6-7 it says, “Though he [Jesus] was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.” Would a “slave” know the Scriptures perfectly from birth? Would any “human being”?

Moving on to the other notion that Jesus wasn’t really tempted by sin, the Bible could not be more clear: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) So Jesus was definitely tempted exactly “in every way as we are.” There simply is no reasonable way to interpret this verse differently.

Because of scriptures like these, Christianity doesn’t stop at teaching that Jesus was “fully God.” We also know Jesus was “fully man.” This doctrine of “fully God, fully man” is one of the most difficult in the Bible. But paradoxes like this are exactly what we should expect in a book which attempts to teach us about the Creator of the Universe. It isn’t logical to assume that syllogistic logic would apply to the One who created logic in the first place. Such a One exists outside of His Creation; He is not constrained by anything within it.

It isn’t logical to assume that syllogistic logic would apply to the One who created logic in the first place.

Still, we want to understand who Jesus is, and the existence of the Bible proves God wants us to try. So let’s do that.

While it helps to remember that God, by definition, can never be fully understood, it also helps to think about the “fully God, fully man” paradox in terms of God’s fundamental nature, rather than in terms of more specific attributes of godliness or manhood. Jesus was fully God in his core way of being, his fundamental nature, but not in his attributes. That is the deeper meaning of the verses I quoted from Philippians, above. Put metaphorically: Jesus had God’s heart (God’s nature), but human hands and feet (human capabilities). This partial limitation may seem inconsistent with the Almighty Master and Creator of the Universe. but in fact, it’s how the Lord has always been.

Consider a couple of the many Biblical examples: In addition to being omniscient, God is eternal and omnipresent, but God is also capable of being in a specific time and place in a way which is different from other times and places. We see this when God descends to the most holy place in the tabernacle. We see it when God places Moses in the cleft and passes back and forth before him. At those particular times God was there, in those places, in a way that He was not elsewhere.

Jesus is a flesh and blood manifestation of that same thing: God constraining certain aspects of himself as He chooses. Jesus has always been that aspect of God which penetrates Creation, the “craftsman at God’s side” “through whom, by whom, and for whom all things were created.” Jesus has always been Jacob’s ladder, which attaches heaven and earth, that aspect of the Lord which connects with Creation. He’s the “man” who appears before Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre, who has feet that need washing, and a belly that needs filling, before continuing down to Sodom to decide if it should be destroyed. He’s the “man” who wrestles with Jacob until daylight by the river, of whom Jacob later says “I have seen God’s face and lived.” When the Bible says Adam was created in God’s likeness and image, it means the human race was originally created in the image of Jesus. So on one level, Jesus has always been “fully man” as well as “fully God.”

But after the Fall, when corruption entered Creation, Jesus came to Israel not as the Craftsman in whose perfect image Adam was created, but instead as Adam was in his post fallen, corruptible body. It was necessary for Jesus to come that way to balance the scales of justice, as the “second Adam” (see 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5) who was the life for Adam’s life, the eye for Adam’s eye, the tooth for Adam’s tooth. Deuteronomy 19:21 gives us that “life for life” definition of justice–God’s definition–and nothing in the Bible retracts it, therefore if justice was to be restored, it had to be that way.

Had Jesus’s mind and body been something more perfect than yours or mine, his sacrifice would not have been truly just. He would have been too much; his sacrifice would have carried too much weight; it would have tipped the scales too far, and that would have added yet more injustice to the universe instead of reestablishing the cosmic balance our world so desperately needs.

 

Whose Fault Is This?

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Americans On Election Day
Americans On Election Day

It’s hard to believe one of our political parties has actually nominated a Presidential candidate who objectifies and denigrates millions of Americans, who lives above the law like a potentate in a banana republic, who clearly has no moral or ethical standards whatsoever except “if it’s good for me it’s good”, who will tell any lie necessary to win, and whose only reason for being a Presidential nominee is the corruption of their own political party. It’s even harder to believe that I just described both of our choices for President in 2016. Yet here we are.

This is such a sorry state of affairs, it’s natural to ask how we got here, and who’s to blame. But maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe we should be asking questions more like these:

Who turned “reality” TV into a runaway hit? Who made “stars” out of people like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton? Who looked the other way when a President turned the Oval Office into a bordello? Who continued to reelect career politicians simply because they promised free stuff? Who rewarded the news media with higher ratings when they replaced journalism with partisan propaganda? Who stood by silently while the nation’s universities banished free speech in favor of brain washing? Who filled the comment sections of websites with vicious attacks on total strangers simply because they disagree?

We did.

We did all of that, and much worse besides. So we’re the ones responsible for choices like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton . They are a perfect reflection of who we have become as a people. And until we begin to live like civilized human beings who value and demand old fashioned things like civility, logic, honor, modesty, integrity, and ethics, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are just what we deserve.

The Opposite of Art – Excerpt From Chapter 14

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The Opposite of Art, by Athol Dickson
The Opposite of Art, by Athol Dickson

I think The Opposite of Art may be the best of my novels, at least from a “writerly” perspective, by which I mean I tried hard to make the story not only entertaining, but beautiful. The teaser goes like this:

A great artist is cast into the icy Harlem River by a hit-and-run driver. His heart stops, and he sees something that defies description. Presumed dead by all who knew him and obsessed with the desire to paint the inexpressible, he embarks on a pilgrimage to seek help from holy men around the globe. But is it possible to see eternity without becoming lost within it? After a quarter of a century, when the world begins to whisper that he may be alive, two people come looking for the artist: the daughter he never knew existed, and the murderer who hit him on the bridge all those years ago.

Now here’s a little taste for you, in which the protagonist tries to cover the Vatican’s massive perimeter wall with a drawing of something he saw once while he was clinically dead….

As he had beneath the Sistine ceiling, Ridler paced the sidewalk. Back and forth beside the looming ramparts, he paced. All the years swirled through his mind, the cost of jungles, beaches, filthy alleys and bazaars, tortured and exploded, hungry, parched, lonely and alone, and of course Suzanna. Suzanna lost forever. He had surrendered everything to paint the Glory, trying it a thousand times, a thousand ways, miles of paint, gallons of it flowing across canvas by the acre. What were these imposters’ feeble efforts compared to sacrifice like his?

“I’ll show them,” he muttered, dropping to his knees and opening his backpack. “I’ll show them.”

Removing his kit he spilled his pastels out onto the sidewalk. Still muttering, he selected a piece of chalk and began to sketch. His arm swung broadly over the pavement, a giant motion from the shoulder. Line after sweeping, monumental line arched across the slates around him. He was no mere artist. He was an athlete, a zealot and a warrior. He was no propagandist. He was a partisan, a dogmatist in possession of all truth. He alone could show the Glory to the world, and he alone would do it.

Driven by his rage and his disdain, Ridler lost all consciousness of his surroundings. He did not see the crowd gathering about him as his colors rose from the pavement to the ancient ramparts of the Holy See. He did not hear their whispers, nor their gasps and exclamations as the image swelled and spread. He climbed the wall with only fingertips and the narrow edges of his boots, clinging to the bricks stacked earthy and steadfast for generations. Halfway up he released his hold and drifted. Gripping colored chalk in both of his hands, he drew with unerring beauty and precision on his left and right at once, a whirlwind of pristine intention, filling empty voids as if he was a witch conjuring a portal to a future or a past. He almost had it now. This time he would hold it fast. He would draw back the veil. He would reveal the Glory. He would not let it go. He would master everything.

Ridler drew among a cloud of witnesses. No carabinieri stepped forward from that growing crowd to protest on behalf of public property. On the contrary, the police in their white belts and chest straps stood entranced along with bankers and tourists, priests and beggars. Dozens of them turned to hundreds; hundreds turned to thousands. From the street and sidewalk, from the windows, balconies, and rooftops, all of Rome observed in breathless silence.

It never crossed the artist’s mind that he might run out of colors. Again and again he pulled more pastels from his pack, never realizing it had become a cornucopia, endlessly fertile, providing everything required. Nothing was withheld. The sun itself beyond the angry clouds did not betray him. On the contrary, it remained aloft long past the normal hour, granting the suspension of time. Even gravity and space surrendered, all created things in all directions bowing in submission to his genius.

In the end it seemed the only limit was himself, for when he stopped it was his own decision. Hands and arms and clothing choked with color, Ridler sat back on his haunches. At that very moment the sun began to move again above the clouds, but it took a while to regain its usual velocity. And like the fading of the day, Ridler’s own return was gradual, a slow recognition of the image spread out all around him. Shadows gathering, he gazed upon the work.

It covered half a block along the sidewalk. It climbed forty feet up the wall. It was of course his grandest effort, superior to anything that Rome had ever seen. Thousands knelt around the fringes, hands clasped at their chins, palms turned up toward heaven. Their whispered prayers combined and interlaced in midair, flowing hot across his face. Their adoration of the image plucked him to his feet as if he were a puppet pulled by strings. He disappeared into them, staggering with painful joints, fleeing yet another failure, for he was well aware that this was merely one more flawed beginning. As he had so many times before, he had reached the end of Ridler without capturing the Glory.

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