July | Philosophy and Religion | Week 27 | 7/9/2023
Deep dive on Christianity
I am a novice of Christianity. Yes, I know the narrative arc, I know the rising actions, the climax and the conclusion. I even know some of the main characters, but admittedly, I lack a critical layer of depth such that my articulation and analysis of the narrative is elementary. Think about when you hear someone intelligent speak on a podcast, on stage or through an article; it becomes immediately clear that your own knowledge of the English language, the language of your native tongue, the only tool you have in your toolbelt to communicate, is severely incomplete. The diction with which you have access to is a fraction compared to an impressive individual and therefore your capacity for expression of complex, nuanced ideas is lacking also. In the same way, despite growing up in the Catholic church, attending Sunday school and being confirmed into the faith, I have come to understand that my religious vocabulary is inadequate and sorely lacking. Since the Judeo-Christian tradition underpins my culture, my history and my hemisphere, therefore my understanding of, and ability to articulate, the infrastructure which underlies my morality, organizes my life and influences my actions is sorely lacking as well. Visa vi I am unable to Temet Nosce. To this end I have begun dedicating myself to the study of the religious, psychological and philosophical detail of the biblical corpus and the Western religious cannon. Far from complete, in what will undoubtedly be a lifelong endeavor (as it perhaps was intended), I have already stumbled upon some interesting discoveries and insights which I will discuss here.
The Holy Trinity, a purposefully ambiguous tenet of the faith, is actually the perfect representation of the religious instinct and our ability to integrate with a higher morality. My interpretation is that the Father represents the mind, the Son represents the body, and the Holy Spirit represents consciousness. One is incomplete without the other two. And therefore Christianity succeeded where other religions fail, because the religious instinct and the ability to align with a philosophical and moral purpose, is not simply a byproduct of our conscious experience, it is not simply enabled by the rational mind and our powers of deduction and information synthesis, and it is not simply located in our ability to act in the world and manifest creation with the physical body. It is only possible with all three. An "If and only If" statement. So, embedded in the Christian faith is a profoundly true, basic premise, that the prerequisite requirement for the understanding of truth can be found in the Holy Trinity - an integration of the religious instinct with the body, the mind, and the soul.
The story of Christianity starts with the part of faith which is Judeo, the Old Testament. The Old Testament details the awakening of consciousness in Genesis, followed by the deepest human instinct for resentment in Cain and Abel, the consequences of the excesses of Sodom and Gomorrah, the corrective cleansing of humanity through The Flood, the hubris of man in the Tower of Babel, the meaning of Israel with the struggle of God and Jacob, and the qualitative identity of religious peoples with the Coat of Many Colors. It represents a synthesis of human nature up to the point it was written. It proceeds with the Exodus narrative, the 10 Commandments and a profound warning of tyranny and worshiping false idols. Reading through the Book of Proverbs or the over 100 chapters of Psalms, a deep truth is contained in that the Old Testament accurately describes the nature of man and the human condition. But for some reason, the Old Testament wasn't sufficient. There must've still been a gap in the relationship of man to God or else the New Testament wouldn't have been necessary. But Jesus appeared, not only to fulfil the role of prophesized messiah from the Old Testament, but because the dictates and commands being adhered to were not powerful enough to evoke a true, inclusive, lasting moral path of man and path to peace on Earth. So what do we learn from Jesus that necessarily goes above and beyond the wisdom of the Old Testament?
The Old Testament informs us of the nature of man, but it fails to fully inform us of the nature of the ideal man, the exemplar man. In my opinion, the critical gap in understanding that Jesus provides goes back to the necessity of the Holy Trinity. We were missing the Son, the body, because without it, we had only the Father and some very limited understanding of The Holy Spirit. The knowledge present in the Old Testament was insufficient for man to act in accordance with higher morality due to a lack of embodiment for mimesis. We needed one man, the man at the limit of that higher morality, the man who'd lived as we should live. Jesus, like God, is not bound by time, and our minds aren't either. Our minds are "travelers" as Novak Djokovic says; they travel back and forth between past, present and future all the time, through recollection, attention and prediction. But just like our minds, which anchor on example, Jesus's life serves that purpose for us. He wasn't bound by the present as He embodied a universal and omnipresent God. But He did have a life, one which we can chronologically follow. And because of the nature of His life and His transcendence, He lives on in the future, in all of us and in our collective memory. In that way, He can be with us in the present. This was the missing element needed for humanity, an example.
There are various verses which describe the role of Jesus for Christians, from John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life..." to Matthew 10:34 "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword," to Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ," to John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son." His life, complete with friendship, betrayal, struggle, success, forgiveness, love, and the moral code which underpinned every action, was an example for us to learn from, to mimic and to remember. But why? Why did he have to die, and in such a brutal and unjust way? John 3:14 sums it up for us; "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." The most brilliant and insightful line in the New Testament in my opinion. We must deeply contemplate and observe that which we are most afraid of, and when we do, we see the light, the truth and the way. His death is a reminder for us that we will all die, but to not be afraid to live. We may all be betrayed, unjustly treated, unfairly punished, but we must choose to act with courage, strength, resolve, moral virtue, and spend our life dedicated to helping others, cherishing friendship, showing love, and attempting to carry the burden of responsibility of truth and goodness. This is the meaning of Christianity to follow, to understand and to embody Christ - the ethos, the logos and the pathos.
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