Theological Dialogue #14: What we can learn from Genesis 1-3

In the beginning there had to have been something. Understanding this is incredibly important. It is the foundation of all apologetics. Logically, something can not come from nothing. In other words, everything (with one exception) is contingent upon something else for its existence. Since there is now something, there had to have always been something, otherwise, if at any point there was nothing, there would still cease to be anything. Something can not come from nothing. 

Hence the line "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..." (Gen. 1:1). Initially, there was God, and from Him, came everything else. And when he says, "Let there be light." He actually brings into existence so much more than that. The light fills the void, the universe is set into motion, and remarkably, we have the concept of space, and if we have space, we must also have time. From that moment of first creating, Genesis plunges us into chronos (chronological time), wrenching us out of Kairos (God's time). That is why we begin to measure in days, and that is how the narrative is able to move forward. 

On the next day, God performs another act of equal importance. He separates the heavens and the earth. This allows us to understand God in his transcendent nature (outside of space and time) while simultaneously allowing us to understand that we, as His creation, are still bound by these elements. In other words, we are not God(s), nor are we meant to be, and that theme prevails throughout Genesis 1-11, and ultimately, most of the Old Testament. 

With this, the scene is set for the creation of man, and the rules are in place as well. Adam is brought forth, and given the breath of life. The hebrew word used is נֶפֶשׁ (pronounced nephesh) and it means soul, mind, spirit, or life. If we understand this in Aristotelian fashion, this is the moment when Adam received the rational soul. In other words, he was set apart from other humanoid like creatures in that he became self-aware and developed the ability to reason. That is why he can eventually recognize Eve as being like him, while also recognizing that they are not like the others. And there is actually a lot of support for this theory from a scientific perspective as well. If we look at "man" as an evolutionary product, there is a left turn that takes place along the evolutionary path that results in an explosion of culture, the use of advanced tools, the cooking of food, and an assortment of other components that skyrocket homo sapiens beyond other species on our planet. One explanation for this radical advancement is the bequeathing of the rational soul. In a lot of ways, it can best be understood through Michelangelo's visual rendering in the Sistine Chapel:

Adam possesses a vacant gaze that we can only assume represents the animal like nature of his existence. The theory then being that the breath of life wakes him up, brings him into his full humanity. Adam becomes animated and rational. 

And as the narrative continues, we know this is the case. He has dominion over the other animals, but more importantly, he recognizes that he is not like them, and that consequently he is alone, and potentially without purpose. Or at least without a purpose that challenges him. 

The understanding is that Adam then asks God for a job, and God responds by telling him to guide and protect (literally, to shied) and naturally Adam does not understand what he is meant to guide and protect until he sees Eve. She is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, she gives him purpose. 

But this is where the narrative also begins to unravel. We have every reason to believe that, for a time, Adam and Eve live harmoniously in the garden. That is until they encounter the character in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Understanding everything that comes before this moment is crucial if we are to best understand what eventually transpires. God had previously told Adam and Eve to not eat from the tree, but also gave them the free will to act against His commands. Yet, if we return to the second day, and look at it in comparison to the line that is ultimately responsible for tricking Adam and Eve, we can also see that Adam and Eve (and us) were not supposed to be God, we were simply meant to be in relationship with Him. Consequently, it is fair to assume that this would always be something that humanity struggled with, the idea of being gods versus the idea of being in relationship with Him. 

Furthermore, we gain additional insight by understanding the task laid out before Adam: to guide and protect. Without this information, the scene at the tree looks quite a bit different. Eve is talking to the character in the tree, and for a long time, we were lead to believe that Adam was off, surely minding is own business, until Eve sought him out with the fruits of their destruction. This narrative was appealing for a number of reasons, but primarily because it allowed the blame to be placed cleanly on the devil and his compatriot: women. However, we now know that to be wildly inaccurate. Michelangelo's rendition of the fall appropriately exposes the faulty nature of this thinking: 

The key being this: Adam was with her. This changes everything. Adam had a job, to guide and protect, and he failed to do his job. And you can think what you want about Eve's freewill, but we know two things for certain: They were told not to eat from the tree, and Adam was told to guide and protect. He failed. They failed. 

Now, you will notice something else that is quite interesting about this painting that potentially sheds even more light on how we are to understand these events. As noted, Adam and Eve were told not to eat from the tree. Consequently, it is difficult to understand why Eve is so easily deceived. She is rational, she possesses feminine intuition, everything is in place for her to make the right decision. That is of course unless she is mesmerized, enchanted, or mislead. Any of these could have been the case. It is likely that the character in the tree is Lucifer, the fallen Angel (and also the devil), and we learn throughout scripture that he is masterful when it comes to the art of deception. Eve would have been entranced by his charisma, but also deceived by his appearance. As Michelangelo portrays it, Lucifer appears in his angelic form, the serpent piece of him (symbolizing the deception) is coiled around the tree like a vine. It is far easier to understand the decision of Adam and Eve through this perspective. If the character in the tree appears to be divine, and if he seems to reveal the kinds of truths they want to hear, it all of a sudden becomes a recipe for disaster. The reason we often fail to do the right thing is because we are deceived into believing that our actions are in fact good. We do not rely on what we objectively know, we allow ourselves to be mislead. 

Ultimately, that is why we so often miss the mark. And that is why Adam and Eve engaged in original sin and introduced weakness (concupiscence) and knowledge into the world. The problem is that nothing has changed. The system of sin remains the same. 

How does the narrative then unfold? Well, in short, Adam and Eve feel the shame of their actions, they cover themselves and hide. Remember, they can no longer trust one another. And once their sin is unveiled, they lay blame on what they can and then live with the consequences. 

Genesis reveals this very simple truth: not much has changed. When we sin, what do we do? We feel the guilt of it, we attempt to hide it, when it is uncovered, we make excuses, find justifications, and blame others, and then we too live with the consequences. On account of our weakness, breaking from the cycle feels so difficult.

But Genesis also leaves us with a choice: we can do our jobs, we can engage in a shared responsibility for one another (i.e. screw the lid back on the Odwalla bottle), and when we fall, we can support one another as we climb back toward holiness. Or we can live for ourselves, shirk responsibility, and deal with the loneliness of that choice. One of these options leaves our freedom intact, the other binds us in our own selfishness. 

The beauty of Genesis lies in the fact that it reveals to us that from the moment of HIS life giving breath, we have been made free, and though the battle against our weakness is challenging, we also have the ability to prevail. 

Theological Dialogue #13: The foundational components of Moral Theology (Feat. Robert Frost)

By now you have already read and analyzed the poem "Design" by Robert Frost. If you haven't, here's the link:

https://poets.org/poem/design

Give it a quick look.

Some interpretations of this poem suggest that Robert Frost is making a comment on the cruelness of a creator, and that the perils we face in life are a product of broken world that we have been left to face alone and abandoned. The spider, the flower, and the moth supposedly act as an extended metaphor for evil, the world, and us. In other words, the trap has been set, and we are walking right into it.

However, an interpretation of that nature fails to address much of what Frost has done with this poem, structurally and otherwise. The first thing we have to understand is that this poem is a sonnet, and that he finishes it, in Shakespearian style, with a rhyming couplet. His choice to do so points us to the notion that he is using the rhyming couplet as the key to understand the poem. It gives the hint that unlocks the theme.

So what are we dealing with exactly? Well, there is a white spider roaming about, most likely looking for a meal. He happens to come across a white heal-all, which is incredibly important to the unraveling of this narrative. Why? Well because heal-alls normally look like this:



And if you were to put a big, supple, white spider on this flower, it would stick out like a sore thumb. So ultimately, this spider has found the perfect place to lay a trap for unsuspecting prey. And sure enough, that is what happens. When Frost stumbles upon the carnage, the white spider is on a white heal-all, holding a dead moth. The tragedy lies in the fact that the moth was lured into a death that under different circumstances would not have occurred. It would have seen the spider, it would have avoided the flower, and it would have survived. At least a little longer... And for this reason, Frost begins to ask the question of how this seemingly perfect set of events came together. Was it by design? In other words, was the moth fated to die? Was this some cruel alignment put into place by a cruel creator that enjoys burning ants under the magnifying glass?

Frost then goes on to note that if this is in fact the case, if design is working in the smallest parts of nature, then there is a darkness that persists. Our designer is appalling.

And of course, if this is in fact the case, he is quite right. Did you know that there is a particular type of wasp that, when ready to lay eggs, seeks out an unassuming caterpillar, paralyzes it, deposits its eggs inside, and then waits for them to hatch? And that isn't even the worst part. Her larva systematically eat the caterpillar from the inside out, saving the vital organs for the end in order to keep it alive as long as possible. Then they burst out. They burst out.

And did you know that there is a type of shark that has two uteri and only ever gives birth to twins even though there is reason to believe that she has up to twenty fertilized eggs inside of her after ovulation? Yep, that's right, 20. The eggs are fertilized at slightly different times, and the young baby sharks fight inside the womb, eating one another throughout the duration of their development until there is only one per womb.

Nature is certainly cruel, but there is also no morality associated with it. We aren't going to say "That's a bad wasp", or "That shark probably needs to reevaluate her decision making". And we aren't going to say these things because these animals are not acting rationally, these are not decisions they are making, at least not in the way that we as humans do. In accordance with Aristotle, animals lack the rational soul, and it the rational soul that is the foundation of our moral system. Humans can act against their survival to do what they know is right. They can evaluate each situation and identify the good (that which does no harm to self or others), and then they can decide to act against it or in accordance with it! Their freewill and rational nature, make them accountable. Which provides the foundation for our second principle of moral philosophy.

1. We can not judge people, we can only judge their actions.
2. Morality only applies to humans actions because humans possess a freewill that extends beyond survival and they operate with a rational soul.

Understanding this then allows us to move on to our third principle and fourth principles of moral theology: the debated questions of whether morality is objective or subjective, and why we should behave in a moral manner . However, before we jump into the debate, there are a couple things that we must first establish. One, morality can be objective even if people think that it is subjective and even if they treat it as such. What it is and how it is thought to be are two very different things. Two, if morality is subjective, then the moral quality of an action can change based on the circumstances, situation, culture, people involved, etc. When we understand these two concepts, it changes the nature of this debate completely. The argument is not actually between objective morality and subjective morality, but rather between whether morality is objective or if it exists at all. Let me explain: If morality is subjective, then everyone gets their own definition of what is good, and what is bad. And if a word can be defined in any way that we see fit, than that word actually has no definition whatsoever. If we define good and bad or right and wrong, then in actuality, there is no good and bad or right or wrong. And if we insist on being moral subjectivists, and we insist on coming up with our own definitions of right and wrong, then we must also extend that privilege to everyone. So when we see an image like this:


We do not get to claim that it was wrong if the people who committed the action believed it to be right. And we certainly cannot demand accountability for it. People can not be punished in a subjectively moral system for doing what they believed to be right.

So how do we amend this? After all, we have fought hard for moral subjectivity. It allows us to do what we want. Well, the number one way is that we become subjective objectivists. (I know what you're thinking: That doesn't make any sense. And you're right. But we do it anyway.) In other words, we decide, subjectively, what is right, but then we want it to be objectively applied. But then what do we do with the other subjective objectivists that want the same thing? It is a recipe for disaster.

So here in lies the choice: morality is either objective (good and bad or right and wrong are not influenced by our opinion or our beliefs) or there is no morality at all. And I can not say with certainty which of the options is the right one (and this is the case with a lot of moral issues, but us not knowing what is right does not mean that something isn't still right or wrong) but I do know that we have to operate as if morality is objective otherwise we should be abiding by the laws of evolution and simply governing ourselves by the survival of the fittest. If there is no morality, then we should behave "morally" only so long as it benefits us.

Therefore we are left with a nice tidy equation to getting what we all want at the end of the day.

Morality is defined as the assessment of human behavior as being good or bad/right or wrong (objectively). It applies to humans only because they alone possess the rational soul. They have the ability to reason and act in accordance with it or against it.

Thus, the process looks like this:

1. You are faced with a moral decision, and your freewill is intact.
2. You employ wisdom and prudence (in other words, you think about the action and judge it as right or wrong)
3. You do the good.
4. You are happy.

In other words, according to Aristotle: Morality = Happiness

Moral Principles 3 and 4:
1. Morality is either objective or there is no morality at all.
2. Behaving in a moral manner will make it easier to behave morally, and it will make you happy!

Enjoy!