Valin Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 The New Jerusalem Substack But now I know that I don't know... Spencer Klavan Mar 4, 2024 Scrooge McDad, As you are well aware, no matter what is happening at any point in spacetime, there is a perfect quote to describe it somewhere in the 1951 movie version of A Christmas Carol. And luckily, since you and I watch it with the family each year, we know every line by heart. (Snip) It's at the end, when Scrooge has woken up from his dream of the three Christmas spirits who taught him to repent of his greed. But was it a dream? Or was it real? Is there a difference? It has cracked his pinched heart so entirely open that it might as well have really happened. And that’s all he can say with certainty: his heart was dead, and now it lives. Beyond that, he can only sing with giddy incomprehension: “I don’t know anything. I never did know anything. But now I know that I don’t know! All on a Christmas morning...” *It is one of the most fleet-footed Socratic profundities in all of literature. And in light of our conversation it has me thinking about all the things that the Bible says we definitively don’t know: when the world will end (Matthew 24:36). Where God’s spirit will go next (John 3:8). Who’s going to heaven (Matthew 13:24-30). Even the people who do get to heaven will be surprised to learn why (Matthew 25:37-8). Basically on all the questions we’d most like to have definitively answered, we’re told: you don’t know. When confronted with a transformative era like ours, there’s this frantic impulse to develop a theory of the case: five rules for telling good brain chips from bad! One test to determine if a new machine is from God or Satan! But maybe that kind of knowledge—that grasping kind of information-system knowledge—just isn’t the kind we should expect to find. (Snip) _________________________________________________________ *For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known Eternity, go ahead and TRY to wrap your head around That. Good Luck. I believe there is a Reason Why The Bible doesn't really say much about Heaven, or Hell. We have no frame of reference. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted March 7 Author Share Posted March 7 Going Through the Glass Darkly Getting Face Time with Eternity Andrew Klavan Mar 7, 2024 Spencer! Pseudo or not, Dionysius the Areopagite has given me an idea. Since this month’s opening essay, our exchanges have been traveling on two tracks. On one track, we’ve been talking about the yearning to know God’s truth, not through a glass darkly, but face to face. “We do not want merely to see beauty,” as C. S. Lewis writes. “We want… to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” On the second track, we’ve been discussing the nature of that sort of knowledge. “Maybe knowledge of the heart,” you wrote on Monday. “Personal knowledge, the kind of knowledge we have of each other, and of a God who comes to us with a human face.” I replied on Tuesday: “You’re talking about making the connection between spirit and spirit. Which is the definition of love.” And on Wednesday you wrote: “That means putting the inside first, rather than the outside. It means judging our outward engagement with matter by our inward knowledge of the soul.” Now, some weeks ago, I was sitting in church, and the Epistle reading was the famous passage on love from 1 Corinthians, the one we keep referring to. We’ve all heard it a million times because they read it at weddings. Which is dopey, I think, because it’s not about erotic love but agape love, the kind of love Jesus talks about when he tells us to love God and our neighbor. As I sat listening to the passage, I was struck with its ferocity. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” Nothing. With all that. That’s strong stuff. (Snip) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valin Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 Letter #35: Experts and Idiots But I Repeat Myself Andrew Klavan Mar 26, 2024 Sponch. Your excellent essay presents us with a question that is central to this onrushing transhuman moment. What is this “body” everyone keeps talking about? I’m always amused when some “expert” says something like, “People who overeat aren’t looking for food, they’re looking for love,” or “Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power,” or “Being a woman isn’t just about the body you’re born with.” I can see why they call these people experts. It’s because none of them is intelligent enough to find a real job. (Snip) But because this happens to be nonsense, true meaning pursues us as fast as we run from it. Though horrific, rape is, in fact, the perfect example. The physical actions of a rapist might conceivably be the exact same actions as those a lover takes with his beloved. Why is it a crime then? Well, obviously, because the rapist has stolen something of infinite value from his victim: her right to bestow herself and her love where she will. That right and that self and that love and that will are all expressed in and through her body. Are they man-made fictions? No one would say so except a fiend. Or an expert. Your cantankerous Dad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now