Saint Augustine is Key to the Difference between Pete Hegseth and Pope Leo
In the aftermath of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's recent Pentagon prayer and Pope Leo XIV's Palm Sunday homily, much of the public commentary has settled into a familiar framework. A conservative official invoked God in the context of war and a supposedly liberal pope rebuked him. The exchange is then cast as a political disagreement, or at most as an instance of religion being deployed on both sides of a geopolitical conflict.
This account is inadequate. What is unfolding is not a political dispute but a theological one, and its terms are ancient, not modern. In order to understand the public dialogue taking place between Hegseth and Leo, we need to turn to St. Augustine.
To begin, it is essential to note that Hegseth's Pentagon prayer, widely circulated in recent days, is not original — either to him or to the chaplain who he claims sent it to him. It is, instead, a compilation, largely made up of verses from the Hebrew Scripture. Its language borrows most heavily, though without attribution, from what are known as the imprecatory Psalms — prayers that call for divine judgment on enemies, sometimes in violent terms.
The imprecatory Psalms are among the most difficult texts in the Bible, which is why they have, for millenia, been interpreted by Christians through a particular theological hermeneutic. From the first century onward, the Christian tradition has not treated them as straightforward calls for vengeance. In the words of Origen of Alexandria (circa 185-circa 253) in First Principles, "By the history of wars, and of the victors, and the vanquished, certain mysteries are indicated to those who are able to test these statements."
In his Expositions on the Psalms, Augustine confronts the imprecatory Psalms and insists that they cannot be read as endorsements of hatred or cruelty toward other human beings for the simple reason that then they would not be from God.
"Trains our hands for battle and our fingers for war" refers, according to Augustine, to the conquering of our enemies by works of mercy and charity. And calls for God to break the enemy's teeth refer not to physical violence, but to the silencing of evil and destructive words
Within the Christian tradition, the Psalms speak in a spiritual register not a literal one. Calls for violence do not refer to military battles or human enemies, but to the enemies inside the human soul: sin, injustice and the disordered loves that deform our will.
When the psalmist calls for destruction, Augustine reads this as the destruction of vice, not of human beings in battle. His exegesis is therefore not a "softening" of the imprecatory Psalms; it represents a robust interpretation that is grounded in Augustine's most fundamental theological claim — that God is love made visible in Christ.
In On Christian Doctrine, Augustine articulates this claim clearly as it applies to Scripture: "Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought."
The question is not whether Scripture contains violent language. It does. The question is whether that language can be invoked to sanctify and celebrate the destruction of human beings. On that point, the Christian tradition, articulated with particular clarity by Augustine, is unequivocal: Any interpretation that does not build up love of God and neighbor is not simply politically misguided. It is blasphemous.
My commentary
Early Christianity interpreted scripture spiritually not literally. They understand that the Old Testament text had a literal (historical) meaning. That individuals and Israel had real enemies and did invoke God against them. However, the Old Testament had to be interpreted in the light of the New Testament. Everything, (especially the psalms) prefigured Christ and had to be interpreted in the light of his life and teaching. In the Eastern Church tradition, the Old Testament is always read in a darkened church, just as we do at the Easter Vigil. We do not understand it fully until we receive the Light of Christ in baptism. Baptism in the Eastern tradition is called Enlightenment.
The imprecatory verses of the psalms are often omitted in liturgical texts. I think they were omitted in the Latin texts or at least in the approved translations largely because liturgists assumed that people would interpret them literally rather than spiritually.
ReplyDeleteAugustine and other Church Fathers saw the psalms not only as hymns and prayers but also as great models for Christian life. Homilies and commentaries spent a lot of time promoting their correct understanding in the light of Christ and the Church.
This is a very interesting post. I haven't seen Hegseth's prayer, but I suppose it doesn't follow this traditional hermeneutic for Old Testament texts. That seems wrong, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteBtw, I just bought an Augstine reader, called "Augustine in His Own Words". There is a chapter on Augustine's scripture interpretation which I look forward to reading.
ReplyDeleteWhen my husband was in deacon formation, a Benedictine Sister taught the segment on the Divine Office. The NCR article sounds a lot like what she said about the imprecatory Psalms. I have a hard time getting past the text of them, so I mostly don't pray with them. Psalm 149 starts out uplifting and full of praise. And then it goes downhill. So I skip verses 6-9.
ReplyDeleteI think there are only five of the imprecatory Psalms, out of 150 used by the western church. So Hegseth really had to go cherry picking to compose a prayer using the Psalms which fit his agenda. Similar to proof-texting, which uses one's interpretation to shape Scripture, rather than the other way around.
I find the authorship of the Psalms interesting. Apparently David actually did write many of them, though not all. He probably had a scribe write them down, since he would not have been literate, at least not at first. But he had the talent of poetry.
DeleteYes, people do cherry pick scripture including the psalms.
DeleteFor my website I collect sung versions of the psalms. I mostly favor those who do the whole psalm, but many composers and singers do only a part of the psalm.
I include some of the better ones that use only a part or parts of the psalm.
In addition to singing full psalms, and psalms with an antiphon there is also a tradition in the Western Church of singing responsories which are selected verses of scripture. There are a lot of them in the Pre-Vatican II Divine Office, mostly at what was then called Matins, the night office which was the ancestor of the Office of Readings. So, it is an historically legitimate way of singing scripture. Therefore, I include some of these as options for meditating upon the psalms from the Hours.
The Vatican II Mass renamed the Gradual Psalm to be the Responsorial Psalm because it fits the responsorial style of interleaving one verse (usually but not always from a psalm) with other scripture verses (usually but not always from a psalm).
Many evangelicals compose hymns upon the psalms. Often, they cherry pick the psalms to emphasize the "praise the Lord aspects" or the "Savior aspects" rather than the more complex and balanced text of the psalm.
One composition on Psalm 149 in fact really emphasized the last verses of the psalm, repeating them again and again. Obviously written for a community who knew their enemies
While some of my psalms could be used as official text for the Hours, e.g. most of John Michael Talbot, most of them I see as ways of meditating or celebrating the given Psalms for the Hour.
The tradition in the Office has been for a period of meditative prayer after each psalm. In fact, psalm prayers were composed for this purpose although few people use them. I preferred the ad lib tradition and expanded that concept of meditation to include meditation either by vocal or sung prayer.
My website is focused upon making Morning and Evening Prayer as prayers for the first part of the day (up until noon) and last part of the day (afternoon until bedtime) rather than thinking of them as limited to specific times (e.g. sunrise and sunset).
I think of the Office of Readings, Midmorning Prayer, Midday Prayer, Midafternoon Prayer and Compline (Night Prayer) as more suitable to monasteries than parishes and households.
I am sorry that priests are required to pray them. If I were a bishop, I would dispense priests from doing so if they promoted doing Lauds and Vespers by their people anytime anywhere with anyone as my website emphasizes.
I think when priests meet with people either personally or in groups, they should take out their breviary (or iphone) and pray a hymn, psalm or canticle from either Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer to begin and/or end the meeting.
As my website says, we need to liberate the Hours from the breviary of the priests and choirstalls of monks into the daily lives of the people of God.
Thanks, Jack. Very informative for someone like me who is not steeped in biblical interpretation, especially of the OT. I tend to ignore the OT (unlike evangelicals who seem to focus on it, rather than on the gospels or the NT in general) partly because of the images of a harsh, punitive God who takes sides and kills innocents. Perhaps you could refer us to a good reference book for this?.
ReplyDeleteI am skeptical of efforts to soften (whitewash?) difficult or shocking Old Testament content. It can't be denied that God in several cases demands the complete slaughter of specific peoples—for example, the Amalekite men, women, children (1 Samuel 15:3).
ReplyDeleteExcerpt from Psalm 137:8-9
8 Desolate Daughter Babylon, you shall be destroyed,
blessed the one who pays you back
what you have done us!
9 Blessed the one who seizes your children
and smashes them against the rock.
[137:9] Blessed the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock: the children represent the future generations, and so must be destroyed if the enemy is truly to be eradicated.
Well someone demanded it. I question that it was God. I'm not denying the historical reality of what happened in those parts of the OT in the Iron Age. I'm just questioning that I need to use all of those texts in my prayer life. I know I'm cherry picking.
DeleteYears ago when listening to one of Fr Richard Rohr's talks on tape, someone in the audience asked him about the violence and violent God that is described in the Hebrew scriptures. I remember one thing Rohr said then - "the bible is a text in travail" - meaning that it reflected the struggle of ancient peoples to understand how God acts in our human sphere. And it mirrors the times and culture of the writers -a violent time of wars and vengeance. There is a whole series of articles at the Center for Action and Contemplation site that expands on this. It's rooted in the work of Rene Girard. I highly recommend Rohr and the reflections, articles and meditations at the website of the Center. www.cac.org
DeleteRichard has mostly retired now because of age and health, but others are carrying on his work. I once flew to Calif for a week to take an in-person class with him, offered at LMU. Mostly as part of a certificate program for parish ministers and educators. Since there were only about 40 people there it was possible to actually have back and forth discussions of the points he made (which did not include the OT - the talks were on Paul). It was a truly great experience for me. He was probably the biggest influence in my remaining christian instead of becoming an atheist. Bishops Barron and Doyle and a lot of other bishops and priests could learn a lot from Rohr. No matter how many enemies reported him to Rome as a heretic, he was never silenced - even during the Ratzinger/JPII/Benedict years.
"...the Bible is undeniably problematic. Put in the hands of egocentric, unloving, or power-hungry people or those who have never learned how to read spiritually inspired literature, it is almost always a disaster. History has demonstrated this, century after century, so this is not an unwarranted, disrespectful, or biased conclusion. The burning of heretics, the Crusades, slavery, apartheid, homophobia, and the genocide and oppression of native peoples were all justified through the selective use of Scripture quotes.
So, what are we supposed to do with the Bible? Today’s meditation will be a bit longer than usual to begin addressing this question. And we’ll spend the rest of the week unpacking what Jesus did with the Hebrew Scriptures—the only Bible he knew.....The Bible is an anthology of many books. It is a record of people’s experience of God’s self-revelation. It is an account of our very human experience of the divine intrusion into history. The book did not fall from heaven in a pretty package. It was written by people trying to listen to God. ....The Bible itself is a “text in travail,” according to René Girard’s fine insight. [1] It mirrors and charts our own human travail. It offers both mature and immature responses to almost everything. In time, you will almost naturally recognize the difference between the text moving forward toward the mercy, humility, and inclusivity of Jesus and when the text is regressing into arrogance, exclusion, and legalism...."
https://cac.org/daily-meditations/what-do-we-do-with-the-bible-2019-01-06/
A comment from St. David's Episcopal Church, Michigan
Jesus appears to ignore most of his own Bible, yet it clearly formed his whole consciousness. That is the paradox. If we look at what he ignores, it includes any passages—of which there are many—that appear to legitimate violence, imperialism, exclusion, purity, and dietary laws. Jesus is a biblically formed non-Bible quoter who gets the deeper stream, the spirit, the trajectory of his Jewish history and never settles for mere surface readings.
---Adapted from Richard Rohr, What Do We Do with the Bible? (CAC Publishing: 2018), 44-46.
Rohr's references to Rene Girard also helped me understand in my personal struggle with the meaning of Jesus's passion, and atonement theology (which I reject).
Delete"The biblical and Christian power of understanding phenomena of victimization comes to light in the modern meaning of certain expressions such as “scapegoat.” A “scapegoat” is initially the victim in the Israelite ritual that was celebrated during a great ceremony of atonement (Lev. 16:21). This ritual must be very ancient, for it is visibly quite alien to the specifically biblical inspiration as defined in chapters 9 and 10.
The ritual consisted of driving into the wilderness a goat on which all the sins of Israel had been laid. The high priest placed his hands on the head of the goat, and this act was supposed to transfer onto the animal everything likely to poison relations between members of the community. The effectiveness of the ritual was the idea that the sins were expelled with the goat and then the community was rid of them."
https://girardianlectionary.net/learn/girard-on-scapegoat/
Did Jesus die to atone for our sins to appease a vengeful and angry God? Or did his willingness to be a scapegoat after speaking truth to power reflect his efforts to teach human beings that sin not only divides us, but to illustrate how we should live, the consequences if we don't live in truth, and that we may be required to be willing to suffer and even die for the truth.
"...the Bible is a text in travail" I think that is a very apt phrase.
DeleteWhen I think of the scapegoat narrative in Leviticus I always think of that Holman Hunt painting of the same name. And it always makes me a little queasy. It's a graphic visual of what it means to make a scapegoat.
Anne, I will have to read Richard Rohr's reflections on the work of Rene Girard.
DeleteAs a Franciscan, Rohr focuses on incarnational theology, not atonement theology. He says that the incarnation was always Plan A - not a backup Plan B to have Jesus atone for human sin.
Delete“ Unfortunately, many Christians believe that the motive for divine incarnation was merely to fix what we humans had messed up—which seems rather self-preoccupied to me. The “substitutionary atonement theory” of salvation treats Christ as a mere Plan B. In this attempt at an explanation for the Incarnation, God did not really enter the scene until God saw that we had screwed up. Creation was not inherently sacred, lovable, or dignified. And, further, God was revealed to be petty and punitive. At least theologians had the honesty to call substitutionary atonement a “theory.” But it has done much more damage than good, and we are still trying to undo this view of God and reality.
By the modern age, which seemed to read everything in mechanistic and transactional terms, most Christians acted as if the only real rationale for the Divine Incarnation was to produce a human body that could die and rise again. This is no exaggeration! It did not matter much what Jesus exemplified, taught, revealed, or loved. Things like simple living, non-violence, inclusivity—which are now proving necessary for the very survival of the species—were ignored. Christians focused instead on the last three days of Jesus’ life and his freely offered quarts of blood. Our narrow focus on this explanation for Jesus’ divine-human existence allowed us to ignore almost all of what he taught. Jesus became a highly contrived problem-solver for our own guilt and fear (a problem that was inevitable if God was not indwelling) instead of the Archetypal Blueprint for what God has been doing all the time and everywhere. Jesus became a mere tribal god instead of the Cosmic Lord and Savior of history itself (Colossians 1:15-20, Ephesians 1:3-14). Christianity ended up just another competing and exclusionary religion instead of “good news for all the people” (Luke 2:10b), which was the very first announcement at Jesus’ birth. We all lost out. Forgive me for stating this with such passion, and perhaps without subtlety, but the core message is at stake.“
Quote from Rohr meditation at
Deletehttps://cac.org/daily-meditations/christ-is-plan-a-2015-05-31/
Just listened to Rohr’s book on the Bible. Very good. At this moment, I can understand the violent vengeance texts in the OT as today coming from Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians and Yemenites directed at Israel and the USA and their abyssal destructive evil.
DeleteThe problem I see is that if the Bible is the inspired word of God, then viewing the Old Testament as being incomplete, time bound, and developing means that God couldn't or didn't convey his message except over a long span of time. And of course the ancient Israelites were getting less than they thought, and Jews who believe in the Torah are following outdated and incomplete revelation. (And yet the current, very new Catholic view is that Judaism is God's intended religion for Jews. I was taught in elementary school (1950s) that when the Jews rejected Jesus, Judaism ceased to be the true religion, and Christians became the "Verus Israel." It seems to me that the newly developing theories of today call into question 2000 years of Catholic theology and soteriology.. It's nice for Richard Rohr and others to develop theories that we are more comfortable with. But what about "old time Catholicism" as practiced for centuries prior to today? It took 2000 years for the Catholic Church to abandon antisemitism, and Catholic-Jewish relations are very good today. But what kind of confidence can we put in a church that was in error for two millennia?
DeleteOne of my favorite philosophers Michael Polanyi said “We know more than we can tell”. The idea than a straightforward once-and-for-all verbalization of truth is possible or that understanding of Truth cannot grow while being forever incomplete is something to which I no longer adhere. Looking back at the history of science, it’s been mostly wrong but I don’t doubt it as a method for finding physical truth. I guess God exists beyond time and space but we don’t.
DeleteDavid, it’s my personal view that the Catholic Church has often misinterpreted the Bible throughout most of its history. So it slowly (VERY slowly) changes this, calling it “development of doctrine”. So it corrected itself on Galileo’s heresy, usury, etc. Jesus’s death was initially explained in terms of ransom theology, replaced after a while by atonement theology. Personally I hope aversion of Franciscan incarnational Theology replaces atonement theology someday. Rohr notes that Jesus only knew the Hebrew Scriptures - they were what he was taught. But he seldom directly taught the Hebrew Scriptures. Why not? “— The Bible is an anthology of many books. It is a record of people’s experience of God’s self-revelation. It is an account of our very human experience of the divine intrusion into history. The book did not fall from heaven in a pretty package. It was written by people trying to listen to God. ...”. Repeating a quote in a previous comment —”…In time, you will almost naturally recognize the difference between the (biblical) text moving forward toward the mercy, humility, and inclusivity of Jesus and when the text is regressing into arrogance, exclusion, and legalism...."
DeleteThis notion is advanced also in Marcus Borg’s book, “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time.”
"I see the Bible as a human response to God. Rather than seeing God as Scripture's ultimate author, I see the Bible as the response of these two ancient communities (the Hebrews and the early Christians) to their experience of God."
There is a brief excerpt below of a summary of Borg’s book at
https://sobrief.com/books/reading-the-bible-again-for-the-first-time
“The Bible is best understood as the product of ancient communities responding to their experiences of God, rather than as words directly authored by God. This perspective allows for a more nuanced understanding of scripture, acknowledging its historical and cultural context.
The Bible contains multiple perspectives and sometimes conflicting viewpoints, reflecting the diversity of human experiences and interpretations of the divine. This richness invites readers to engage critically with the text,…”
.. A metaphorical approach to reading the Bible allows for multiple levels of interpretation beyond literal, factual understanding. ..
By moving beyond a strictly literal interpretation, readers can engage with the Bible's profound symbolic and spiritual dimensions. This approach recognizes that religious truth is often best expressed through metaphor, poetry, and story.”
But the discussion here is not about science. It's about religion, and Catholicism in particular. There is no infallible pope in the science and no infallible councils. Science has no divinely inspired literature of which it can be said, "Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation." But "teach without error" implies to me that the process of understanding may continue indefinitely, but truth proceeds from truth, and there should be no revision necessary, only additions.
DeleteApologies for not closing the bold html 😳
DeleteAs I recall, there's a whole story behind the addition of "for the sake of our salvation."
DeleteDavid, unsurprisingly, I do not accept the church’s claim to be infallible. It has backed itself into a corner with that, adopted via a misinterpretation of the gospels. I look to the RCC for the comprehensive current guidance but often find as good or better elsewhere—from theologians and churches who do not claim to be infallible. The Orthodox church’s theology is often more acceptable to me personally than the RCC’s. But many Protestants also provide good insights. So I read many different views and try to understand what the differing views add to my very minimal personal grasp of scriptures. The RCC's claim of infallibility (an interpretation based in the church’s fight to retain authority over kings in the political realm) is at the root of my decision to cease active participation in the church even though I still consider it to have been the most important influence in my lifelong journey of religious formation.
DeleteFrom David's comment above, "The problem I see is that if the Bible is the inspired word of God, then viewing the Old Testament as being incomplete, time bound, and developing means that God couldn't or didn't convey his message except over a long span of time."
DeleteWhy does that necessarily have to be a problem? It makes sense to me that knowledge of God happens slowly, over time. Pretty much all knowledge happens that way. God doesn't have any reason to be in a hurry.
All I can say is that my epistemology allows for a Church to bear a Truth without that Truth being explicitly definable in N words. Is the definition of my faith in Greek philosophical terms exhaustive and complete and permanent? I guess I’m just not that analytic about anything these days. I know enough about modern physics that logic doesn’t seem to be all that useful. Not as useful as imagination and gestalt. Hier stehe ich.
DeleteDavid--"As I recall, there's a whole story behind the addition of "for the sake of our salvation."
DeleteI looked it up - yes, there was.
Rodney William Stark (July 8, 1934 – July 21, 2022) was an American sociologist of religion who was a longtime professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington. At the time of his death, he was the Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University, co-director of the university's Institute for Studies of Religion, and founding editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.
ReplyDeleteStark who grew up in a Lutheran family has said that he was never an atheist but could have been described for most of his life as an agnostic. He also said that he was personally incapable of religious faith. However, at Baylor he described himself as an independent Christian. But that meant that he always had been a cultural Christian strongly committed to Western Civilization.
The book Discovering God is his treatment of historical and comparative religion. Stark quotes Augustine, Thomas and others to establish his basic organizing principle “one of the most fundamental yet remarkably neglected of all Judeo-Christian premises, that of DIVINE ACCOMODATION which holds that God’s revelations are always limited to the current capacity of humans to comprehend, that in order to communicate with humans, God is forced to accommodate their incomprehension by resorting to the equivalent of baby talk.”
“So, it is at least plausible that many religions are based on authentic revelations as God has communicated within the limits of human comprehension AND as his message has been misunderstood and erroneously communicated.”
“This book can be read either as a study of the evolution of human images of God or as the evolution of the human capacity to comprehend God.”
“Thus, we reach the fundamental question: Does God exist? That is have we discovered God? Or have we invented him?”
Stark’s sociology was based on rational choice theory. He admired people like Augustine, and Saint Thomas who applied rationality to the data of religious experience. He respected Catholicism because of this and was very critical of anti-Catholicism. He respected that other people might have authentic religious experiences although he did not have any himself.
At the end of the book, he says that there is no way scientifically to prove God’s existence, but he thought it was more likely than not.
If God exists, then some form of Divine Accommodation theory seems necessary. If our present understanding of human and cosmological evolution is true, then God would have had a very difficult time communicating those ideas and facts to humans in prior centuries.
DeleteYes, there were some early understandings that the earth might be round, and not the center of the universe but most people did not understand and experience things that way.
There were some philosophers who had more sophisticated ideas about humanity and the universe but most people did not share those ideas.
“ God’s revelations are always limited to the current capacity of humans to comprehend, that in order to communicate with humans, God is forced to accommodate their incomprehension by resorting to the equivalent of baby talk.”
ReplyDeleteYes. That’s pretty much how I understand it. Babies grow and understand more as they do. I’m curious as to what stage humans are in at the time in history—no longer toddlers, but is the human race much evolved beyond the comprehension abilities of pre- schoolers?
Thanks, Jack. I hadn’t heard of the notion of Divine Accommodation but it makes a lot of sense to me.
As I see it, Divine Accommodation Theory is in conflict with Catholic doctrine (or even dogma). The Church teaches that all public revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. From the Catechism:
ReplyDeleteThere will be no further Revelation
66 "The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.
If "God’s revelations are always limited to the current capacity of humans to comprehend," there must be ongoing revelation. It's true there is still private revelation (for example, the alleged appearances of the Virgin Mary), but believers are free to reject private revelation. So the process of ongoing development of doctrine is not revelation by God, but rather the continued result of supposed deeper insight by the Church of revelation given two thousand of years ago.
That's the way it seems to be. But I'm not really sure exactly what "complete revelation" includes. How does the church actually define what has been "revealed"? We know that many teachings have no basis in scriptures whatsoever - these include stories of Mary's conception, stories of her parents, stories of her assumption. The teachings also include bans on abortion and contraception - not mentioned anywhere and yet the church has imposed mortal sin strictures to these practices. It didn't condemtn chattel slavery until well after other christian groups did and, in fact, endorsed enslaving captured non-christians.
DeleteSo what is included in Revelation and what isn't? I've never paid close attention to it, nor have I paid much attention to the Book of Revelation, which seem to me to possibly be the product of a disordered mind. But I did just read an intelligent interpretation of it that is nothing at all like how our evangelical friends (and the Catholic chuch it seems) interpret that strange work.
The church's understanding of human psychology, genetic predispositions, archeological discoveries, cultural evolution, science in general, has to be involved in development of doctrine. So Revelation may be "complete" but understanding it isn't. It is likely that Divine Accomodation to human comprehension abilities implies the notion that God guides human understanding and knowledge throughout the devlopment of the human race over centuries or millinea in order to grasp the full significance.
"it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries".
Agreed.
Another problem I see is that it strains credulity if God's "baby talk" seems to approve (or commands) something that is morally offensive such as slavery or genocide. It is difficult to imagine God commanding the slaughter of men, women, and innocent children even if he is dealing with a primitive society where such things are taken for granted.
ReplyDeleteI think the whole issue is rooted in how scripture is interpreted. If one accepts that they must be read metaphorically not literally, and put into the context of the eras in which the human authors lived (people wrote them, not God and he didn’t dictate to them) then it seems to me that the human authors didn’t understand God. Even “ divine inspiration” requires human interpretation. Even if God was using baby talk.
DeleteReally, no human being talks with God nor hears God’s voice literally, no matter how sophisticated God’s vocabulary is or isn’t. That’s why both Rohr and Borg focus on non- literal interpretations because they know that the human authors were just trying to make sense of their lives, of the stars and nature and life and death and love and suffering—reflecting back - mirroring- the moral and cultural standards of their times. If I believed that God committed genocide, or killed innocents to help Israel, or demanded that Jesus suffer a horrible death to “redeem” human sin, I would not have any interest at all in the possibility of spending an eternity with such a malevolent power. I learned as a child to dissent from Catholic teaching that made no sense ( starting with infallibility, which was taught to us in 4th grade. I thought it was absurd, but the nun teaching the class made me sit down and “ be quiet”)
. So while I believe that the most likely explanation for the existence of the universe is a Creator whom we call God, I have far less belief in what religions teach about the Creator. I choose to try to follow the teachings of Jesus but have no absolute conviction that Jesus was also God. The authors of the ancient scriptures (including those of non- christian religions) were obviously highly given to deep thought and reflection - observing, wondering, questioning, seeking understanding and a foundation for moral guidance in living as a decent human being. I think Jesus did this the best ( Buddha was pretty good too and nobody calls him God), but I’m not convinced that every word of the gospels attributed to Jesus are absolute truth.
An article for you David
Deletehttps://jsr.shanti.virginia.edu/back-issues/volume-15-number-2-november-2016/for-the-sake-of-our-salvation-interpreting-dei-verbum-art-11-fifty-years-later/
We still have slavery. It’s called capitalism. We still have genocide. It’s called preemptive self defense.
DeleteAnne says: I think the whole issue is rooted in how scripture is interpreted.
ReplyDeleteYes, there was already alive at the time of Jesus, an allegorical tradition of interpretation of Scripture in Judaism which was developed by Origen and Church Fathers such as Augustine. Medieval theology developed this into four levels of interpretation: literal, allegorical (what to believe), moral (how to act), and anagogical (future hope).
Protestants rejected this in favor of a plain sense of Scripture which has led us into Biblical Fundamentalism, the notion that the average person reading the bible should be able to understand it as God intended even in a multitude of foreign languages in a multitude of different cultures.
The literal or historical sense of scripture, i.e. how people in past ages likely understood the Bible is constantly changing as understanding of past civilizations changes due to new discoveries of manuscripts both biblical and nonbiblical, and archeological findings. We are learning that we cannot project our understandings of current societies on ancient societies which were organized very differentially and thought in very different languages.
We might say that Jesus himself often spoke allegorically, i.e. in parables. What he meant by many of those parables is not always clear.
Like Stark I am basically a social scientist who assumes that human thought and culture are constant changing, and that expressions of religious beliefs have to be re-expressed to adapt to those changes. Remaining faithful to the past requires that tradition constantly reinterprets itself to face the changes that are taking place in technology, society and culture.
Christianity is a way of life to be lived, not simply a set of beliefs defined by catechisms. The early church said that it understood what it believed in the form of liturgical prayer. That is abundantly clear to me as someone who has prayed the Hours all his life. Much of the liturgical catechesis of both the East and the West is contained in the Hours. If one wants to understand what it means to be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit and celebrate the Eucharist, that is elaborated on by the Hours, especially the Scripture contained within them. I don't look to find much of the meaning of the being Catholic in the decisions of the Councils, the writing of the Popes or the sermons of bishops, priests and deacons or various catechetical programs. Those come and go. In praying the Hours I am simply doing with Christians in the East and West have been doing since the early days of the Church.
Some modern scripture scholars divide the study of scripture into three forms: the world of the text, the world behind the text (historical) and the world before text (our personal and contemporary experience).
I have found most value in studying scripture as the world of the text. That says that Mark is the best interpreter of Mark, etc. See how Mark uses the same word in different places in Mark. If you want to further understand Mark, understand how the Greek words that he uses were used in the Old Testament, and how the same Greek words were used by other authors in the New Testament.
This literary approach to the Bible resonates very much with my liturgical understanding from the Hours in which biblical texts are constantly being prayed in the context of other biblical texts.
Much the anguish of Christianity is provided by both Protestant and Catholic Fundamentalism where some religious authorities impose themselves on the People of God. Baptism not Holy Orders is the central sacrament of Christianity. We have all been baptized into Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit.
Stanley, I was immersed in international economic issues for years, including third world poverty and development, international trade issues, and oil (during the height of the OPEC years—and gas lines into the streets in the US). Countries have to exploit their comparative advantages - the US has many. The mid-east has oil.
ReplyDeleteI don’t agree that capitalism is slavery. There is a rather big difference (to say the least) for workers between life in a capitalist economic system and life in an economic system based on chattel slavery like the Confederacy. The workers are not bought and sold like cattle for a starter! They are free to leave if they want. There is also a big difference between living in a capitalist system and living under an almost purely Marxist system like Russia before the USSR collapsed - a system that told you where you could go to school, what you could study, where you could live, where you would work, that controlled all wages and all prices, denied religious freedom completely, etc. Capitalism—especially the adoption of a global free trade system—created the “Asian Miracle”, and lifted millions out of terrible poverty. Eventually communist countries had to free their economies to be more capitalist in order to feed their people and survive.
When our son and his family went to Viet Nam two years ago he sent a couple of photos of the statue of Ho Chi Minh in the main square of what was once called Saigon. The sidewalks in the background were lined with stores that are examples of “decadent western capitalist” excess - starting with a Rolls Royce showroom. Then all the jewelry and fashion designers like Tiffany’s, Jimmy Chou, Rolex, etc, My extended family relatives can testify that there is no doubt that the standard of living for the Viet Namese people has risen dramatically since the economy was opened. Many imports to the US once made in China (especially clothing) now come from Viet Nam. That’s why trump threatened them with a tariff of 50%. Between the inflationary push of the tariffs already collected, and the even more inflationary push of the oil situation it will take a while for our economy to recover.
The profit motive works, But it’s regulated by the state in most countries, even in the US, but to a limited extent here, and greed has taken over in too many cases. The focus on profits has almost totally destroyed our healthcare system—maybe the worst example of harm in a sector being based on profit of any in our country. The Western European countries seem to have found the near optimal solution, combining regulated capitalism with social safety nets— a high standard of living and a strong social safety net.
Anne, freedom to leave, I guess. Freedom to stay, zero. Corporations and oligarchs have power of life and death via health coverage and they set the salaries. Not chattel slavery but not freedom. There is no democracy in the American workplace. Chris Hedges says he’s not a Marxist but believes that a highly regulated capitalism might be the best we can do. He says he is in the Calvinist tradition which has a dark view of human nature as an explanation for why he is not a Marxist. Marx was too sanguine about basic human nature. Even with Scandinavian countries, the self-centered will always subvert the common good. The PM of Sweden Olaf Palme was assassinated in the 80’s. For a couple years after the Bolshevik revolution, they had real Marxism for a couple years (worker committee run factories) but Lenin himself killed that with centralized state control. I preferred working for the government when civil servants still had rights. One perk I had was the idea (illusion, delusion?) I was working for the people and not someone’s profit. I felt patriotic duty in doing my job. A dim, distant, melancholy memory now. Hedges has his Calvinism. I have the Doctrine of Original Sin. No matter how good a system is, humans will figure out how to mess it up.
ReplyDeleteRunning out the door. I’m not really familiar with Chris Hedges, but I suspect I might not relate to a Calvinist almost Marxist. 😉
DeleteYes - the self-centered and greedy will always be with us. The world will never be perfect. I don’t worry about that reality too much. But I think the countries of Western Europe come a lot closer than we do in balancing the positives of capitalism with social safety nets. I would not like to have a Marxist system.
One question I have is what might have become of the Communist countries if they hadn’t been set upon so ferociously by the capitalist countries with military and economic warfare. The USSR itself did tge heavy lifting in WWII.
DeleteI am against authoritarism in any of its forms. I think the capitalist nations could have done more to help the USSR transition out of communism back in the Gorbachev days. At its roots communism was a brutal system ( still is in some places). As is fascism in its various incarnations. People don't want to do the work of democracy, but they want freedom. There aren't any short cuts.
DeleteSorry, accidentally hit the button. Were the nascent Marxist countries strangled in their cribs by the already matured capitalist societies? Could they have been good enough without the burden of the capitalist attack? Look at Cuba unrelentingly sanctioned for decades. Are things bad there because of socialism or because of sanctions? If Marxism is so bad, why not just leave them alone to fail in their own? Would their governments have been so authoritarian and oppressive without the external threat provided by the capitalist countries?
DeleteKatherine, maybe under Gorbachev, Russia could have evolved to something Swedish. Economist Jeffrey Sachs asked the Germans to forgive Polish debt. The Germans asked him why they should do it. He replied that we did it for them. So they forgave Poland’s debt. This was not extended to the Russians. I wrote then PA Senator Wofford (D) to extend aid to the Russians to strengthen their democracy. I got a condescending letter back from him that we had to help only our own country. How’d that work out for us?
DeleteI’m not sure exactly how the western democracies attacked the USSR.
DeleteStanley, I think communism in the USSR killed itself after 70 years of failed economic policies. It finally had to open itself up to capitalism to survive, as did China, and Viet Nam. Russia supported Cuba for decades. Would it have thrived without the sanctions? Maybe, but I don’t think so because the Marxist authoritarian government under the Castro family rule became corrupt, just as Russia under Putin has become corrupt after finally throwing off Marxist rule. . The authoritarian rulers and their families and friends became multi- millionaires and strangled all initiative. Orban too - not a communist, but a pro- Putin fascist. After 16 years he and his associates are filthy rich but the country is poorer. Authoritarian rule of any stripe is bad for the people.
At least one has to admit that the USSR blunted the Nazi spear in what could be called a proxy war for the West until D-Day. The aid given to the USSR was not free but was paid in gold, I understand. They paid a great price in blood and loss of infrastructure. You have to give credit where credit is due. And the backbone of the French Resistance was the Communists.
DeleteBut isn’t our economy on the brink? I’m no economist but there seems to be a lot of petrodollar legerdemain involved and Trump is blowing that to hell. They can talk about AI all they want but AI can’t make oil and fertilizer ex nihilo. The Commie Empire crashed in 1989 but I think we’re next. They’re now expecting the biggest El Nino in 140 years with the possibility of 1.75 deg-C over pre-industrial average global temperature. Drought plus nitrate shortage. Oy.
DeleteFor what it's worth, I feel that what the Trump administration is doing to Cuba at present is immoral, because it is costing lives by putting a choke hold on their energy system.
DeleteUnintentionally, Trump may be forcing Cuba and the rest of the world into the 22nd century but it is the maximally painful way to do it. I don’t see the US electorate becoming flexible any time soon. US policy toward Cuba won’t change due to internal politics. Only our ability to project military and economic power will, and that in a downward direction. The US/Israel axis may finally have met its match in Iran. I suspect China wants to neutralize our stealth aircraft advantage and Iran makes a good testing ground for it. I have this picture in my head of China putting 40,000 engineers and scientists on the problem. I.e., Tesla has 100,000 employees, BYD has 100,000 engineers. Iranians already shot down an F-35. That may be the beginning of the end for a 1.4T investment. I’m looking at Iran with strategic curiosity. If the US ever becomes a regular country in the future sans World Control ambitions, we might learn a lot from the Iranians about setting up a real, low expense but effective conventional defense. My hope is that we’re entering an age where medium range missiles and drones make power projection throughout the world impractical for everybody. Not good news for empires, any of them.
DeleteAs long as Rubio is in the cabinet, our posture told Cuba will be actively hostile.
Deletetoward Cuba
DeleteIronically, Rubio’s family fled Cuba during the Battista regime. Cuba is not a threat to the US. I always wonder why we spend so much energy bringing down communist and socialist regimes. If they’re so bad, then leave them alone to reduce the competition. We converted China to capitalism and look how that turned out. If capitalism is so great, we should have kept that secret to ourselves. Reminds me of the US sending Admiral Perry to open Japan in the 19th century. They were an introverted feudal society bothering no one else. Another example of the US generating its future competition. With China, we finally created a competitor we can’t defeat.
DeleteStanley, nobody forces anyone to work for corporations. They are free to leave. My first job out of college was for IBM. I left after 3 years. Then I went to a small consulting firm. I worked all day and drove downtown to Georgetown after work to take classes for my graduate degree at night. Once I completed mt master.s I I worked for the World Bank - a huge institution and extremely progressive, even then. I never felt like a slave that’s for sure. I left when my first child was born. I was supposed to continue at Georgetown for a PhD but déferrée and gave up once child #3 arrived. When #1 was 4, and #2 was 2 1/2 I started my freelance consulting career. I gave up the generous benefits I would have had by returning to the World Bank for the freedom to work mostly from home on my own schedule. It cost me a lot in earnings and valuable benefits obtainable only by working for the federal government or a place like the World Bank—the best benefits around because most employees weren’t American and they were used to top notch benefits in their home countries. So the Bank had to match those benefits and salaries in order to attract them to work there.
DeleteIt’s a choice that individuals make for themselves. They are free to leave if they wish.They can go to work for a small business, or start one themselves. They can start a small farm, or open an art gallery or teach music or work for a non- profit. They can become corporate lawyers or they can be lawyers who do pro bono work. Small businesses employ millions of people. Here is an AI summary
“ There are approximately 36.2 million small businesses in the United States as of 2025-2026, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy. These firms constitute 99.9% of all U.S. businesses and employ 62.3 million people, representing 45.9% of private-sector employees.
Office of Advocacy (.gov)
Key details about U.S. small businesses include:
Definition: The SBA defines a small business as an independent firm with fewer than 500 employees.
Composition: The vast majority (approx. 30.4 million) are nonemployer businesses (no paid employees), while about 5.8 million have employees.
Job Creation: Small businesses drive economic growth, responsible for 88.9% of net employment growth between March 2023 and March 2024.
Top Industries: The top sectors include professional, scientific, and technical services, construction, and real estate.”
Communism isn’t the answer. The balance that European countries have created with a capitalist economy combined with strong social safety nets is the best model around these days IMO.